#Maybe that should also be one of my writing tags

[rosesradio]

Hey, I've got questions about your stance against ai

In writing, ik you are against Ai "writing your fic"

But are there ways ai can be used in writing fics that you are okay with?

Like obviously saying "Hey chatgpt, write a (insert fandom) fic where (insert plot) happens" then just copy pasting it, is wrong

But what about getting ideas from ai? Like prompts, or titles (like i did with 1 fic) or having ai re-write like a sentence to make it sound better or other stuff

tbh i don’t think it’s good to use AI like that for anything related to the creation of art. the brain is a muscle, and in order to hone your skills, you need to step out of your comfort zone. i for one hate titling my fics, but i’d rather struggle & then come to the satisfaction of finding a title on my own than asking a bot to spit a title back at me. plus, i’ve titled over 50+ fics, so that skill is strengthened with repetition.

(plus i’m pretty sure chatgpt is regenerative, meaning that if you send it your fic to give a title to, it can use your work as data to write other people’s fics :/)

prompts are even worse tbh. fandom thrives from conversation. if you’re looking for something to write, explore certain tags and post in them, i promise a real person will have an idea you’re interested in, and maybe you can make a new friend in fandom by talking about that idea together.

also, using AI for rewriting is probably the worst thing you can do. again with strengthening the muscle of your mind and honing the skill. you need to reread your work, reach out to others & maybe get an editor/beta reader. you can and should find writing blogs written by real people, and read books to find writing that intrigues you. that’s crucial to the human experience.

of course, i don’t mean any offense when i say this. i can’t stop you. but i for one would never turn to something non-human to aid in something i consider very human & vulnerable, and i don’t think you should either.

[ireadwithmyears]

Hi! Would you be able to write something for the clones (any of them) with a reader who has a guide dog. I've been running into a lot of issues with people trying to distract her and borderline harassing us (the president of my university follows us around with his unleashed dog running up to us, someone grabbed her nose when we were on a bus and then screamed at us, I'm a biology/genetics major so we get some subtle discrimination in academic opportunities like research projects, etc). Also I don't currently live somewhere with public transportation so I have to take Uber to get anywhere which is a whole other nightmare (a driver dropped us off at the wrong location and I was stuck in a sketchy part of town for 45 minutes while drivers kept denying us a ride). Maybe something with how the clones would comfort/handle their SO dealing with these things. Obviously you don't have to write about all of these scenarios, just some ideas

You don't have to of course, but I figured it was worth an ask:)

Looking Out for You:Part 1

Pairing: Commander Fox/fem Reader

Visually impaired reader masterlist

Word count: 4.1 K

Tags/warnings: Visually impaired reader, meet cute, grumpy x sunshine vibes, denial of feelings(Fox falls first, he falls hard, and he denies it every single step of the way because he’s Fox), guide dog cuteness, brief mention of ableism(this chapter is pretty tame, but in future installments, I intend to explore these elements more deeply, specifically as they pertain to service dog users. These topics aren’t always the most comfortable to discuss. But I feel they are important to bring awareness to)

Summary: Making the transition from your small, rural homeworld to Coruscant already promises to be tough. But when you’re employed to work at the Senate buildings directly under senator Organa and you’re also a guide dog user, things quickly become more complicated, in a variety of ways. Luckily, you seem to have caught the eye of a certain Marshal commander, who swears up and down that he’s not falling in love with you, but who, regardless, always has your back, and is always looking out for you.

A.k.a. 

The three times Fox makes sure that you get home safely. Plus the one time he ends up following you inside

Authors note: Hii anon. I was so happy to hear from you and received this request. As a fellow guide dog user, I have so many different experiences that I feel are worth sharing, so that more people are aware of the trials we face because as amazing as it is that we have these incredible animals, it isn’t always just a nice walk in the park. Which leads me to my next point. Because of all of these experiences that I want to highlight, this 1shot quickly evolved into a four part series, to give it the proper breathing room that I feel it deserves. I hope that’s okay, and I hope you still like this one. If you’d like to message me privately so that I can make sure you’re tagged in each subsequent update, please do. I’d be happy to do that

The first time it happens, Fox is admittedly running on his default, which is to say in plain terms that he is annoyed.

“Why is this my problem?”

Fox winces upon hearing the barely concealed snarl in his own voice through his helmet speakers. He could have phrased that better. He should have at least taken the courtesy to add ���with all due respect” when leading into that sentence, even if both he and the trooper who has the misfortune of being at the other end of the line are both fully aware that he doesn’t intend to sound respectful in the slightest.

There’s a pause, a hesitation on the other end of the coms, which causes Fox to silently berate himself for his initial sharp tone. He reminds himself, as he does about 500 times daily, that he needs to be more careful with it.

This warning, for some reason, always falls on deaf ears. But still, Fox wagers that he at least keeps trying, and who knows, maybe one of these days, it’ll actually stick. It probably won’t.

“It’s just that the issue is occurring at the entrance closest to your office, sir,” the trooper begins before rushing to add, “but if you’re busy, we can send—”

“Don’t bother,” Fox sighs. “I’m already on my way there.”

Maybe he shouldn’t be on such a high horse, but really, being sent to investigate a loitering complaint is far above what he, as a marshall commander, should be doing. Despite this though, he privately admits that he’s been looking for an excuse to stand up from his desk chair and stretch his legs. Maybe if he’s lucky, he'll manage to shake off the aching twinge in his left shoulder, hunched from filling out a last-minute stack of crime reports that he had been on the scene of, all from the previous night between the hours of 1 to 3 in the morning. So really, he rationalizes, can anyone blame him for being more than a little bit pissed off at the interruption? 

Maybe it’s a sign that he needs a refill on his caf. 

He rounds the corner and, with what is in hindsight probably more force than is necessary, smacks a hand against an access panel. The door slides open, and a cool breeze hits him as he steps outside into the open air.

His eyes scan through the visor of his helmet, and to his annoyance he doesn’t see the suspected loiterer that he had been warned of, at least not at first. 

Sighing, he steps further out and past the awning above the entrance. Though the air is cool, the sun still shines, and the slight glow causes his eyes to catch on the gloss of your hair as you walk past, eyes nervous as they flick around. Sensing his presence, you pause, shoulders stiffening slightly as you turn to face him with trepidation. Fox also takes notice, his eyes widening in momentary surprise when he observes the guide dog harnessed at your left side, looking up at you with big brown eyes, as if silently trying to understand your sudden hesitance.

You, of course, have every reason to be suspicious of any unannounced or unidentified presence in your vicinity, especially now that you’re living on Coruscant. But, if you’re honest, you’re already on edge, and even though it’s still morning, the day has promised to be shit if the beginning of it is any indication.

Senator Organa isn’t in the habit of firing his junior staff for small mistakes like this, you remind yourself. Still, the thought, no matter how many times you’ve repeated it like a mantra at this point, doesn’t manage to calm your growing nerves, because regardless you’re still lost, and you’re still running late. You silently curse the pitfalls of being blind and using a ride-sharing service, and then you have to restrain yourself from cursing aloud when your eyes land on the silhouette parked a few meters in front of you.

You don’t have much vision. But with what you do have, it’s enough to deduce bright, contrasting colors. And the red splotches against white armor has you stopping dead in your tracks, because within the span of two seconds, a cold clarity settles within your stomach, because the red and white armor is distinctly and unmistakably that of a Coruscant Guard member, the visor of his helmet tilted, looking no doubt with suspicion directly at you.

Resisting the urge to bemoan the shortage of orientation and mobility droids designed to assist with transitions like this—which would have ensured that you would have been able to smoothly get yourself out of this situation in the first place—you bring your guide dog to heel before gesturing for her to sit, then slowly and hesitantly raise your eyes to the trooper, already feeling a mix of anxiety and guilt stirring in the pit of your stomach.

There’s a small sound from his helmet, a hesitation as he seems to clear his throat before speaking. 

“Personal Senatorial aides aren’t permitted to use this entrance,” he says, gesturing to the badge on the lanyard that hangs around your neck. 

He speaks as if this is a reminder that he’s given more than once, which you’re sure he has. Still, there’s an underlying sharpness to it that makes you jump despite your efforts not to react. 

“I, I know,” you say, swallowing before rushing to continue. “I didn’t mean to be dropped off here, sir. I took a Speedershare to get here this morning, and I didn’t realize the driver dropped me off at this entrance until I got out, and by that point it was too late, and I should have asked to verify which one he was going to but—”

“Hey, easy. Slow down.”

The trooper steps closer to you, and it’s only then that you register that you’ve been rambling, your anxiety ratcheting up with each word. Now that you’re silent, you can feel the way your heart is pounding. You’ve seen the Guard around, of course, but you’ve never really interacted with any of them. He’s tall, you realize as he stands in front of you and you look up into the visor of his helmet. Tall and broad, and you were already nervous before he showed up. 

But his hands are raised, in supplication or as an offering of peace, you’re not sure. But regardless, he doesn’t seem on the verge of scolding you further for your silly mistake, which is good, because your nerves are still so frayed from getting out of your ride only to realize that you had no idea where you were, and that apart from knowing that you were somewhere at the Senate building, you were effectively lost and alone. A scolding, delivered with just the right amount of displeasure, would probably be enough to make you start crying, which would make this day go from being the worst to certifiably irredeemable.

“Speedershare isn’t always the most reliable service. Your employer is Senator Organa,” he says, eyes once again scanning over your badge. “I’m sure he could arrange an alternate transportation service that is much more consistent and professional for you to use.”

“I don’t want his charity,” you say, and you can’t help the hard edge that creeps into your voice when you speak.

But really, you don’t. You know that he could, and knowing Senator Organa, he would be happy to do so. But it’s unnecessary. You grew up needing extra accommodations and things that, despite your teachers’ constant stream of reassurances, always made you feel singled out. 

You’re an adult now, and you don’t want that. You don’t need his charity, his pity, or to be added to his ever-growing list of things to worry about at the beginning and end of each day—an item to be checked off. 

As far as you’re concerned, the best thing you can do for the both of you is to keep this to yourself, and you’ll figure out how to manage sooner or later.

Fox takes a step back, able to recognize your quick deflection of his suggestion as a sign that he’s slightly overstepped, and he nods, glancing towards the door.

“Well,” he says, forcing his voice to sound lighter. “I suppose I could let you off the hook this once and let you use this entrance.”

“Thank you,” you say, before hesitantly adding, “I, I’m not familiar with the route to get to Senator Organa’s office from where we are. Would you, I mean, you don’t have to if you’re busy, but—”

“I’ll take you there,” he cuts you off, finality in his voice. “Do you, uh, need a guide or anything?”

Fox internally kicks himself for not knowing how to handle a situation like this, but you give your head a small shake, which allows him a moment of relief. 

“The color on your armor is bright,” you respond, and for the first time in this interaction, you smile. He can’t help but admire the way it seems to transform you, your previous nerves and worry disappearing like the sun breaking through the clouds. It’s quite lovely, he observes, and then internally kicks himself just a bit harder as punishment for that traitorous thought. 

Useless, he scolds. Unnecessary. But it’s already been thought, and he can’t take it back. He’s grateful for the helmet concealing his face, hiding the way his lips repeatedly twitch in an effort to turn upward as he hears you, your voice giving a soft, encouraging command, and the slight pitter patter of paws against pavement as your guide dog leads you to follow after him. 

He firmly resolves not to speak unless necessary until he’s taken you to the senator's office.

This resolve lasts for less than two minutes before he feels the slight brush of a wet nose against his hand and hears a small sniffing sound at his hip. Turning his head, he finds your guide dog, who has stopped walking and is sniffing at a pouch around his waist, and you looking sheepish as you stand behind him.

“Mandalore, leave it,” you scold, your voice lower than he’s heard it and with a suddenly authoritative edge that has his eyes widening slightly. You’re so little, he thinks, and all you’ve ever been whilst interacting with him is timid and quiet like a mouse. Seeing that side of you, as if flipped on by a switch, well...he can’t help but be taken by slight surprise. You pull back the harness, giving it a slight shake and the dog, with obvious reluctance, backs off, abandoning its curiosity.

“I’m sorry,” you say quickly, your cheeks heating with a blush. His hand twitches of its own accord, struck with an unexplained urge to reach out and touch, wondering if he would feel the warmth of your cheek beneath his gloved fingers.

Kriff, his internal monologue groans, disgusted. What the fuck is wrong with you today? He refocuses, looking down at you and shaking his head.

“Your dog’s name is Mandalore?” he asks, genuinely curious and unable to hide the amusement in his voice.

You laugh, nodding your head. “The one and only,” you grin. “Certain training schools do things differently. But the one we went to likes to name each litter by theme, and hers happened to be planets.”

You lower your voice, leaning in conspiratorially with a slight twinkle in your eye. 

“You know, for a Mandalore, she doesn’t look very intimidating, does she?” you ask, and he’s surprised, startled even, to hear the snort of laughter that is pulled from him as he nods his head, looking down at the guide dog who’s unaffected, her professional mask barely concealed behind a tail that wags at him and big, pleading eyes that seem to pierce through his soul.

“No, she really doesn’t,” he agrees, and your grin widens.

“I’ve always joked that if a burglar broke into my house, she wouldn’t bark or growl or try to bite at them,” you say, still smiling as you continue to walk. “She would simply flop down on the ground at their feet and roll over to demand a belly rub.”

“Well…” he says, and faintly, in the back of his head, he registers that he’s 

actually smiling. Huh, he thinks, taken slightly off-guard by the strange feeling. He can’t remember the last time that’s happened. It’s almost slightly disturbing. “If she’s not a fighter, she at least has some good distraction tactics.”

You laugh, your previous nerves surrounding getting lost and being late all but forgotten. It’s a nice sound, bright and lively, and Fox, the Maker help him, finds that he wants to hear it again.

“She probably smells the treats I keep in my pouch for Grizzer,” Fox explains, slightly rueful. He rolls his eyes and pretends to dislike it every time Hound brings the massiff to his office, citing that his panting is distracting, and that his drool gets everywhere, which is disgusting. Those things are both true. But Fox also can’t help but appreciate the warm weight of Grizzer’s head against his leg or the large, imploring eyes the massiff gives him when he knows that Fox has food. 

“I figured it would be unprofessional of me to offer one to her,” he continues, and you nod your head, glancing down.

“It would, but...” you begin slowly, calculating as you clock the staircase you’re approaching and turning your head to look up at him as a slow smile pulls at the corners of your lips. “If you give it to me, I could give it to her by proxy if you want.”

He nods, unzipping the small pouch, guiding you to hold out your hand as he places several small treats on the palm of it, which already has the dog vibrating with eagerness. But you don’t give in right away. 

“Forward,” you say, gesturing your head to the small set of stairs. The added incentive makes the dog quick on her feet, and you have to tell her to slow down as she rushes to comply, guiding you towards the stairs, barely able to contain the excited trot in her step. “Okay, Mandalore, show me where the railing is.”

The guide dog turns slightly, changing course to lead you towards the railing on the far right, placing her front paws up on the stairs and pausing, turning her head to look up at you for approval. 

“Yes,” you beam, stroking a hand along her head. “You learn so fast. Good girl.”

Fox watches, a smile on his face as you hold out your hand with the treats, giving it a few taps against the railing before opening your palm, offering it to her. She eagerly gobbles them up without hesitation, her tail never ceasing its happy little wiggles, which makes Fox want to laugh.

“You know,” he says, stepping up beside you and beginning to mount the stairs. “On second thought, maybe she is a fighter. I mean, she looked like she was ready to take off your fingers along with the treats.”

“When it comes to food, she definitely is,” you say with a grin, following after him. “If only all burglars came covered in peanut butter or dog treats, I’d feel much safer about our odds.”

You both snicker, and the rest of the journey up to the senators’ offices passes in a relatively comfortable silence apart from Fox giving you a few quiet directions as you make your way through the halls. You never fail to turn your head and smile at him each time he warns you of a crowd of people incoming so you can maybe take a step to the side, or if you need to turn left or right at this next intersection.

He isn’t sure how to describe it, but his heart does something strange each time you do. 

“I’m sorry for the inconvenience...” you trail off, uncertain of the trooper’s name as you stand outside the doorway to Senator Organa’s office.

“Fox,” he responds, and he’s quickly struck by the strangeness of how he felt compelled to give you his chosen name first instead of his rank. That, he thinks, is definitely odd and out of the ordinary, but he recovers himself quickly. “Commander Fox,” he adds, and your cheeks rapidly heat with a blush.

“Oh, Force,” you groan, covering your cheeks with your hands and closing your eyes, mortified. “I’m sorry, Commander. I didn’t mean to inconvenience so much of your time.”

“Don’t worry,” he says, and the brush of gloved fingers against your arm is barely there, brief and gone in an instant, but it’s enough to startle you out of your embarrassment, your eyes widening as you look up at him. “It wasn’t an inconvenience,” he says, sounding so sincere that you lose any ability to respond to that, falling into a silence in which the both of you simply stand, contemplating each other.

Fox, for his part, is struck by the realization that, for once, he means every word he’s just said. 

“Well,” you say, blinking as you try to shake yourself out of your stupor. “Regardless of the circumstances, it was lovely to meet you, Commander, and if we ever encounter each other again, you may want to introduce yourself by name if we speak. Every trooper shares the same voice, which makes it much harder for me to differentiate between you all, and I’d hate to mistake you for someone else and embarrass the both of us any further. At least, more than I probably already have.”

“Right,” he says, equally as slowly and strangely hesitant for this conversation to end but not knowing what else to add. “Understood.” 

“I should go,” you say, feeling suddenly shy as you give him a small smile and turn to the door. “See you around, Commander,” you murmur, giving him a playful wink.

You step into the office, not waiting for his response. It takes him a full 30 seconds of just standing there out in the hall listening to the sound of dog paws tapping against the floor, growing distant as you move out of his listening range, to realize that you left him—completely and deliberately if the smirk that was pulling at the corners of your lips was any indication—with a blind joke.

He chokes, uncertain of if he’s allowed to laugh—of if it would be completely inappropriate for him to laugh. His cheeks heat with belated awkward embarrassment. He shakes his head, making a note as he forces his feet to move and forces himself to walk away, heading back in the direction of his office.

The next time he sees you—and he can’t help the strange and foreign hope that twinges in his chest at even the thought of seeing you again—he’ll have to ask you.

Until then, he thinks, giving himself a firm shake as he maneuvers himself through the halls of the Senate building. He resolves to keep you—the girl with the pretty smile, the hair that looks like it was made to run fingers through, and the infectious laugh that he still hears clear as a bell even now that you’re gone—far from his thoughts, ordering himself to stop acting like some sort of lovesick puppy and for kriff sake to just get back to work.

*

Fox, to his consternation, is unsuccessful.

The whole day, as he goes about his tasks—filling out reports, sending requisitions to the Senate, doing patrol—he can’t stop thinking about you. 

Your smile as you tilted your head to look up at him, your warm, encouraging demeanor as you worked with your guide dog, the excitable pup looking up at you like you’re her whole galaxy, the way that he had been able to make you genuinely laugh...

Okay, maybe his bar for sharing friendly interactions with natborns was insanely low up to this point. But knowing that he had brought that out of you had felt strangely good, leaving a warm, unfamiliar feeling in his stomach that lingered every time he thought of it.

He’s so unsuccessful at keeping his mind off of you during the workday that it’s still early in the afternoon when he pulls up your file on the database, scrolls through your work schedule, and at the end of the day is standing outside of Senator Organa’s office waiting for your shift to end.

When he sees you come out, Mandalore, sensing his presence before you do, happily begins to waggle her tail, her footsteps quickening as she leads you out of the office. He calls out to you, and you turn, searching for the voice.

“It’s Fox,” he says, removing his helmet and tucking it beneath his arm. “From this morning.”

Is he imagining it, or do your eyes actually light up when you spot him? 

“I just wanted to make sure that your ride picks you up without complication,” he continues. “Not that I don’t think you can do that on your own,” he rushes to add, his cheeks heating slightly. He’s already gotten the sense that you don’t like being underestimated, and he respects that. “I can make sure that you have detailed instructions in the app so that your driver knows exactly which entrance to collect you.”

“That would actually be super helpful!” you exclaim, and there’s no masking the relief in your voice as you pull out your comm, fiddling with it for a second before passing it to him. “I’ve been meaning to ask someone to update them, because I have a vague idea of what each entrance looks like and how to describe them, but honestly, I don’t think it’s enough to be helpful.”

He takes the device from you, and working quickly, types up detailed directions on how to get to the staff entrance along with a description of its surroundings. He pastes a copy into your notes for good measure so that you’re able to keep reusing it at your convenience. He explains all this to you as he passes it back, letting you know your ride is booked.

“You’re an angel, Fox,” you say in a relieved breath, beaming up at him. “Moving here has been so stressful as it is, and getting used to the transit options is just one more thing on top of that.”

You miss the way his cheeks go pink, but you do catch his quiet, breathy chuckle as he awkwardly avoids your gaze. 

“Right, well,” he scratches at the back of his neck, looking down at the ground. “Your ride should be here soon. Want me to come with you and make sure it shows up?”

“I don’t want to hold you up if you have other things to do,” you say uncertainly, biting your lip.

The truth is, you so badly want to say yes. Waiting for a Speedershare on your own can be anxiety inducing. So many things can go wrong. Your driver might not be able to find you, and when they call and ask you for directions, you aren’t able to provide them with much help. They could drive past and cancel altogether once they realize you have a service dog. Or worse, they can turn it into a full out yelling confrontation. In all cases, you’ve learned, your anxiety is significantly lessened if someone else is with you, ready to back you up at a moment's notice.

It’s true, you’ve only met Fox today. But his presence is steady, safe, and you get the sense that he would stay without question and without hesitation. But you also don’t want to become his burden.

“You’re not,” he states, hooking his helmet to his belt. “And I’m not. Come on, let’s go find your ride.”

And that’s exactly what he does. 

He leads you out towards the pick-up point, and when the speeder gets there, he verifies the plates, opens the door, and helps you inside, waiting patiently for your guide dog to tuck in her tail before beginning to let it close. Before it does though, before it drives away and you’re left wondering if and when you’ll ever see him again, he speaks, his voice low and carrying the softest, lightest undertone of teasing.

“See you around, mesh’la.”

It takes you a moment, but as you drive off, the echo of the words you had jokingly thrown over your shoulder at him just this morning flashes through your memory, and before you know it, you’re tipping your head back against the headrest of the seat, quietly laughing to yourself, uncaring of the driver giving you a funny look from the corner of his eye as he picks up speed, driving away from the Senate building.

You’re still smiling as the speeder rounds the corner, and the building, as well as Marshall Commander Fox, disappears from view.

If you like and enjoy this story, please consider dropping a reblog, as you might help someone else find something they enjoy just as much. Thank you :-) and thank you to @strangergraphics-archive for such cute puppy dividers

[thekittyokat]

you ever just have a lot, a LOT of feelings all at once about a character and not even remotely enough words or brainpower to FORM the words to describe everything you're feeling. so it feels like you may explode. yeah

[edenfire]

💗🏥 Shuake Week- Day 6 - Wound Tending 🏥💗

I've always really liked the idea of goro waking up after the engine room with a bullet wound in the chest. he miraculously survives, and akira has to take him in and tend to him, while hiding him from shido's men😳💦

(also yes, goro is wearing akira's pj pants😌💞)

[gen4grl]

you would think after all the yapping i do about these losers i would have a plethora of art uploaded … no… so here is my first kantrio post lol

i did these over the last month while watching the olympic weightlifting and jamming to kpop (stan red velvet and kiss of life BTW!!!)

[hazele-omega]

Hello Tumblr I present to you a redraw of a piece from 2023, feat. Chaos (NMS avatar character) fighting a corrupted sentinel

I really liked the concept of the original piece and figured I should give it another shot now that I have Lighting Skills...

Original/comparison under cut

[redbootsindoriath]

Apparently in my absence this post had its 1000-notes-iversary.

This time we get to see the culprit responsible for ruining our heroes' lives as well.

I've really missed you guys, by the way. I know I've said that already, but I'm serious. Once or twice this year I've been right on the brink of coming back but schedule stuff always keeps me from letting myself commit to that again, and that in turn has kept me from posting anything at all. But I've been in an unexpected drawing mood lately and so if I can get enough stuff to set up a queue we might pretend I'm back for a month or so sometime this year. Maybe. Hopefully. We'll see. No promises though. That's why I'm hiding this paragraph under the cut.

Transcription:

[Beren:] "Uhhh...barkeep...I think he's had enough now..." [Tolkien:] "No, I don't think he has...!"

[dustykneed]

Hello! Random whipper snipper! Share a WIP of your work!

ooh, with pleasure. six the musical araleyn fanart? in the year 2k24? more likely than you think xDD

i realize this looks finished, but technically i'm still deciding whether to add a background or not lol. still, for the sake of sharing a proper WIP, here's a line or two from an araleyn brainworm WIP that i started reworking yesterday (mild tw for religious guilt and period-typical internalized homophobia from aragon's pov):

She remembers sharing her bed with Anne at Henry's behest, remembers the nights of tossing and turning and trying not to think about Anne asleep next to her-- remembers waking up to dark hair spilling across her pillow and the press of blood-warm bosoms against her own, softer than sin, as hot as the Devil, remembers lying still as death, mouthing prayers into the heat of Anne's neck like an act of penance.

[fellamarsh]

another thing i've been trying to do recently is read more self-published stuff. "but fell," you say, "you're a self-published author. surely you've been reading self-published stuff all along" and then i laugh for so long in response we both become uncomfortable.

see, the fear (which has for a long time been killing my mind) that i'll read other self-published stuff and find out that it's so much better than mine that i might as well stop writing forever kept me from doing that basically ever. i have a hard time not unfavorably comparing my work to others and had convinced myself i was being smart by withholding an avenue of de-motivation (reader: i was not being smart). it also doesn't help that i'm pretty low income and have a hard time spending money on books i haven't already read, and that self-published stuff isn't always available at the library---but really a lot of it was just me being a coward. which i'm working on. i could talk about how this particular cowardice is Very Silly, but i think enough has been said about it on writeblr and in the Writing Space in general that i don't feel the need to (though i will if anyone wants me to).

instead, i wanna talk about the self-published things i have read in the past few months and ask about the self-published things you love!

so: what happened was i got real sick, and while i was real sick i (naturally) read over 200,000 words of ace attorney fan fiction in the span of a few days. eventually i got bored of it (and also maybe annoyed at how people were characterizing some of my guys), but i still wanted to read something gay and romantic and nice, something i knew was gonna end happily, which isn't my typical fare.

now you may be saying (having gotten over all the uncomfortable laughter from earlier) "fell, you write gay romance. what do you mean that's not your typical fare?" listen. until a couple months ago i hadn't read a cut and dry romance novel since before i finished college. for context: i graduated in 2015. i know it doesn't make sense. i'm a guy who doesn't make sense.

but in this case it worked to my advantage. not the not making sense thing, but the not having read Published Romance in 1000 years thing. I didn't know where to start. I was very skeptical of everything the library had Available Now in the Gay Fantasy Romance category. what if it was all bad and also not good?

and then i scrolled past the familiar cover of our very own @ashen-crest's A Rival Most Vial.

now this was comfortable territory! this was a novel by a very nice writeblr person whose posts i enjoy! i already loosely knew the plot, i was familiar with the characters, i knew the names of things like rosemond street and the griffin's claw and that ambrose had blue hair and that at the end of it all there would definitely be Boyfriends. i didn't have to worry that this would be bad! i only had to worry that it would be really good!

but i wasn't worried about that, because i was officially Not Writing at the time, and because why the hell hadn't i read this book yet Ash literally emailed me some very kind words last year when my cat died??

Y'all, I devoured ARMV. If you haven't read it yet---especially if cozy fantasy is more your thing than it is mine---you should check it out Immediately. It was fun! It was heartwarming! It was sweet and earnest and confident! I was delighted to find it was occasionally hot! Ambrose and Eli snuggled up into my sick exhausted heart and found a permanent little place there. (Especially Ambrose. I have such a thing for Stiff Guys who Kind of Suck for Tragic Backstory Reasons and are So So Lonely They Don't Even Realize It. gawd)

(And a very small part of my brain spent the whole time wondering why I had been so afraid to really engage with the work my community is doing. The community that I'm in. The one I'm a part of. Why?! Maybe more on that later.)

But from there the curse was broken! I immediately devoured @stjohnstarling's What Manner of Man in a similar sort of frenzy (and hooooly shit guys am I excited for the expanded, finalized version to come out at the end of next month!) and started digging into @lurinatftbn's The Flower that Bloomed Nowhere (which I can already tell is going to be an All Time Favorite).

And now I want to ask you what your favorite self-published books are so that I can read them, too, but I think I will in another post that doesn't dedicate so much space to talking about my various and sundry Issues and isn't Terminally Long

[atotalpitch]

i just got a new emotional support turtle plushie i'm so yippee about it

[rainintheevening]

Hungry to write, not knowing what project to pick and work on.

[swinging-stars-from-satellites]

when I want to write something self indulgent to give me all the angsty and cuddly hurt/comfort feels but I can't because I end up feeling guilty because I'm seeking after feels that I feel in an inappropriate place because my mom told me one time when I was 15 that I shouldn't search that out or it's probably sexual sin but it confuses me because ALL the feels happen that way for me even if it's entirely platonic and nonsexual and so I don't know if it's okay to want to write to that because apparently all pleasure of any sort, even over platonic stories, is sexual or comes with a possibly probably sexual feeling and I also am having a hard time figuring out what's genuine conviction from God and what's just my anxiety/OCD/perfectionism/fear of failure

[grassbreads]

I’d love to know about Yulma and how important it is to representation in shounen manga

This has been sitting in my askbox for a couple months (because I am incapable of punctuality), but anon sent this to me back when I was talking about Yulma over on my vnc blog. For those unaware, Yulma refers to Yu Kanda and Alma Karma from the manga D.Gray-man.

So the thing is, to be honest, I don't know if you can say Yulma is/was important for representation. They don't tend to get brought up as an example of representation (except by diehard d.gray-man fans like me, lol) in shonen, and their whole thing is complicated enough that I feel like the queerness of it all flies over a lot of people's heads.

However! They're very important to me personally, and I do think it's kind of remarkable their story came out in like 2010. Because even though their queerness gets overlooked a lot, it's like. really there no matter how you interpret it.

The short version of their very complicated story is that Kanda and Alma are a couple who were resurrected into new bodies. Alma was a woman when they were originally together in their past lives, but is physically male in the present. Kanda is still very much in love with them by the end of their story, which, depending on the reading, makes Kanda very bi and/or Alma very trans.

This sound like something you want details on? If so, let's talk about how D.Gray-man's fan favorite edgy badass toughguy character briefly became the star of his very own heart-wrenching tragic queer romance.

Here's a brief crash course in Yu Kanda and Dgm for the uninitiated:

D.Gray-man is a manga about a group of exorcists (in the loosest and most anime sense of the term) in the 1890s fighting a holy war against mechanical demons powered by the souls of the dead. There are two things you need to understand about this plot for me to explain Yulma:

The Black Order, the secret branch of the church that exorcists work for, has a long history of committing horrific human experiments to further the war effort.

Due to complications of world building, only a tiny number of people can become exorcists, and tracking down new ones is extremely difficult.

Yu Kanda is one of the exorcists, and though not the actual main character (that's the lad in my icon), he's a very important secondary character. Arguably he's the most important secobdary character, since he's the main guy's biggest foil and the first character to play deuteragonist in a major story arc. He's also a huge fan favorite. The character popularity polls that Jump used to do always had him and the mc going back and forth over who won #1 most popular.

Kanda was also a classic edgy toughguy character. His first two scenes are him almost murdering the main guy because he thinks he's an intruder, then complaining about people grieving for their friend too loudly. He never smiles. He argues with the righteous mc about wasting time/energy protecting civilians. He threatens (and delivers) violence on anyone that annoys him. He looks like this:

TLDR; Kanda was an adored-by-fans mean badass archetype in a 2000s shonen manga. Not generally the guy you peg for starring in a piece of queer romantic storytelling.

And for the entirety of the original anime adaptation's 103 episode run, for the first 188ish chapters of the manga, you do not learn a single thing about his early life. You learn he joined the Black Order very young, and you meet the mentor that took him in at that point, but although there are little hints, a couple cryptic mentions of him searching for a certain person, his early origins remain a complete black box.

Then came the Alma Karma arc.

This is the point where I start getting into spoilers.

To make a very long story short, the Alma Karma arc reveals that Kanda is one of the Black Order's human experiments. The Order ran a secret project 9ish years before the start of the series in which they essentially tried to re-use dying exorcists (since finding new ones is so hard). They took the bodies of dying or recently deceased exorcists and harvested their brains, implanting those brains into new magically grown child bodies.

Key to this project—the second exorcist project—is that these newly grown second exorcists were not supposed to remember anything from their previous lives. Kanda, however, recovered a few hazy memories from his past self. Most importantly, he can recall an unclear image of the woman that his past self was in love with. This memory gradually becomes Kanda's reason to live. He wants desperately to find and meet that person.

Now, aside from Kanda, there was one other successfully revived second exorcist. This was a boy named Alma Karma.

Over the course of their brief shared childhood, Kanda and Alma become extremely close. However, due to a series of horrible events that I'll spare you the details of, Alma is eventually driven to murder-suicide. He wants himself and Kanda to die together to spite the Order, and Kanda almost lets him do it.

The one thing that keeps Kanda from letting Alma kill him, the thing that drives him instead to kill Alma, his most beloved and only friend, is that he can't bear to die without finding that woman again.

Have you figured out the twist yet?

9 years later, in the present, Kanda discovers that he didn't actually quite kill Alma. The Order kept Alma secretly half-alive in order to do more dubious experiments. And, more importantly, when they meet again, Kanda discovers the truth. The woman that he's been searching for his whole life, the woman he's in love with, the woman he tried to kill Alma in order to find, was also killed and made into a second exorcist. And her brain was placed into the body of Alma Karma.

After quite a lot more violence and tragedy, Kanda and Alma end their story arc by running away together on their deathbeds. Alma dies, for real this time, in Kanda's arms, and his last words are to tell Kanda he loves him. These words are presented as something Kanda hears from both the boy and woman versions of Alma's soul.

So! At the end of a very long and complicated story, one thing holds true: Kanda and Alma are in love. As passed down from their past selves, they are specifically in romantic love. They were a couple. And to speak as a fan, the sheer absolute devotion to how Kanda's love for Alma is presented is seriously intense and moving.

Now, given the absolute hell that is Alma's life, gender identity is frankly the last thing they have time to worry about, so it's hard to say how the whole "literally a woman's brain in a male body" thing might have settled for them if given time to think about it. But that is inherently a pretty trans narrative. And given the whole Alma gender situation, there's simply no reading of their whole situation where neither of them is queer.

If you take present day Alma as a guy, which is more or less how he's presented in canon (though again, who knows how he would've felt about that male body in different circumstances), then congratulations! You've got mlm in your shonen manga. They were straight in a different life, but now one of them's a dude, and they are still deeply in love with each other. They've even got not one but two "let's forget it all and run away together" scenes, just as every mlm couple seems to have.

On the other hand, if you go with the angle that Alma's still a woman based on her mind/soul, even in her new body, then Kanda may not be canonically queer, but Alma is inarguably trans. Again, literally a woman's brain in a male body. It may not be how most people end up trans, but that doesn't change the facts of her situation.

You see what I mean about how they're undeniably queer, but also kind of easy to miss? There's so much other insane shit going on in their story that Alma's whole gender situation can get passed over. Plus, you can look online to this day and find people arguing that Kanda's not "technically" explicitly in love with the present day male version of Alma, since he doesn't 100% unambiguously say as much. I love reading comprehension.

Also! As a possible extra reason for why people don't talk about them much, the official English translation of the manga translated Alma's final "I love you" very differently. There's always a lot of nuance and argument when it comes to translating "大好き" into English, but given the full context of their relationship and the scene it's in, Viz's handling really sets off the censorship bells in my head.

Here's the different versions (Japanese then fan then official), if you want to compare:

Nothing more classically queer than censorship by way of questionable translation 🙃.

At the end of the day, Kanda and Alma are in kind of a strange middle ground. They're each in love with the other one, but the whole second exorcist brain transfer situation makes it complicated enough that people argue their feelings aren't explicitly romantic (and thus not gay) in the present. Alma is literally a woman's brain implanted in a male body, but we don't have time to dwell on the gender complications of all that because of the hell that is the rest of their life. They're canon but not canon—queer people whose stories don't have space for them to be queer.

However, given that all this messy, tragic ambiguity was published in a fairly popular shonen manga back in 2010, it still feels kind of remarkable to me. Alma is somewhat an antagonist (it's complicated), and he dies at the end of his arc, but once again, Kanda was/is the fan favorite! And when he re-enters the main story after Alma's death, he's more important than he's ever been, and his history with Alma continues to be a huge part of his character.

Katsura Hoshino took the much-beloved edgy toughguy character from her long-running shonen series and, after keeping his origins secret for such a long time, confirmed that his whole life has revolved around love this entire time. Almost every facet of his character can be traced back to his love for his lost best friend or his yearning for his past life's missing partner. And then she reveals that the best friend and the partner are one and the same.

You can go back and forth about the degree to which they work as representation, but in any case, I think their story is something people ought to know about. It's romantic and it's heart-wrenching and it's fucking wild, especially given the context in which it was published (a Shonen Jump spinoff in 2010). I never see anyone besides the few remaining hardcore dgm fans talk about them, and I think that's a shame.

So anyway, that's tale of one of the most insanity-inducing romances I've ever seen put to paper. I love queer people.

Here's some choice pages if you want to cry with me (the last two are a sequence):

[nerevar-quote-and-star]

Dangerously close to plotting a real Skyrim/Lord of the Rings crossover for after Keeping Count because my secret desire for Leara/Glorfindel has reared its head again

Shhh Don't question it.

[lokh]

me forgetting that their entire sordid tale exists only in my notebook =') a demon kyo sketch. at the end of it all, having remembered everything, they have to convince each other to live

also bonus kyojuro

[nyxofdemons]

this was going to be like a mile long essay but i just realized the most concise way to say it is that "it feels like a retcon that blitz has been so resentful and hostile towards fizz all this time since he was supposed to feel guilty" is simply not a good criticism when we have been shown, time and time again, that blitz's number one defense mechanism when he feels guilty or judged or attacked is to lash out, to deflect and ignore all his responsibility, and to shift the blame to someone else. that's like. his defining character flaw