#Smallblueandloud

[hazard-and-friends]

good evening! i was wondering if you had any advice on How To Learn How To Own A Dog, or more generally How To Figure Out If I'd Enjoy Having A Dog. i'm starting to daydream about getting a dog in a few years but i've never lived with a dog and i would like to see what it's like before i Commit with a Living Creature. if someone asked me a similar question about cats (i've had cats my whole life) i'd maybe tell them to volunteer at a shelter or try to catsit for a friend, but i know the experience of keeping cats is VASTLY different from dogs. would you have any advice? how does one become a first-time dog owner without Fucking It Up?

You're going to fuck it up

I think this is the first point for any pet, that you're going to screw it up somehow, and if you can accept that and be okay with that, everything is much less stressful.

Would you enjoy having a dog?

There's a huge range in dog lifestyles.

I live with dogs where I do special feedings, take (one of) them for two 30+ minute walks a day, do daily training, prep food in advance, go to sports, go to group classes, plan weekly outings to take them new places, etc. Hazard in particular had me completely adjusting my work schedule to accommodate his needs.

I also have clients who--and their dogs' welfare needs are met--walk their dogs once or twice a week, if that, and the dog exists in the house and yard. Their time investment in the dog is about as extensive as owning a cat.

And if you get the right personality, they're not more needy than cats either--depends on the neediness of your cat.

There's a reason why toy/companion breeds are popular (or should be! should be very popular!!!!), and it's because they should be easy to live with. They want to hang out with you, they want to spend time with you, but (as adults) they're not naturally destructive, aggressive, high energy, etc. They may be higher maintenance because many of them have long or curly coats, but otherwise...they should be comparable to a spunky cat.

Similarly, depending on your region, a retired racing greyhound would be an excellent first dog. They tend to be neurotic in their own special ways, but they're also low maintenance, low energy (as long as you can provide a space for running once a day for 10 minutes or so), and a low need for stimulation/training.

How to trial it? Many shelters do fostering, but--at least in my experience--the dogs they are most desperate to get into foster homes are the ones least suitable to first time owners.

I would find a good friend with dogs and ask to hang with them for a day. Or dogsit for a weekend. Some dogs this is a huge imposition (Hazard has multiple pages of 12 pt font instructions), some dogs this is "feed him twice a day and let him into the backyard and try not to let him get eaten by eagles".

A thought experiment would be "how would you feel about owning a bengal cat?" Dogs aren't terribly extrinsically different from cats, except that they tend to be higher energy and need more novelty/stimulation on a regular basis.

In general biggest differences tend to be that we expect to walk dogs and do deliberate training with dogs. Not that cats don't benefit or need such things, and I've met cats where both were an absolute need. But we expect to walk our dog (and get upset if the dog, for various reasons, cannot be walked) and we expect to invest time/money/effort into training.

How's that for a non answer?

[tanoraqui]

trick or treat!

Really truly nothing in Star Wars delights me so much as the fact that Luke inherited Padmé's more diplomatic nature - though passionate in the face of injustice and unflinching from any righteous fight or insult to their friends! - while Leia inherited Anakin's rage and vengeance, selfishness and selflessness and daring. I think this needs to be background radiation in every characterization of the twins ever.

[wellnoe]

ooh, kitty in 3B?

kitty!! i'm glad you picked this outfit, its a very kitty look to me

[paperairplanesopenwindows]

1-5 and 43 for the (apple replay) spotify wrapped meme!

Hot To Go by Chappell Roan

Satisfied by The Warning

Sharks by The Warning

My Kink is Karma by Chappell Roan

S!CK by The Warning

(You may be sensing a theme)

43. Narcisista by (you guessed it) The Warning

[blackandwhitecircus]

"may she haunt us til the end" sounds BANGER my GOD

THANK YOU FOR SAYING THAT AND ALSO FOR GIVING ME AN EXCUSE TO TALK ABOUT MY STORY

I am actually obsessed with Mirabelle, like I know she is my own OC but also I think she's amazing and I hope I'll actually end up doing her justice.

She's dead, she always has been dead, she always will be dead but also she's gonna be the only one present for pretty much the entire series.

And if she had acess to our current music landscape she'd be a Swiftie who thinks Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince is soooo her.

[anghraine]

🌧 and💧?

First up: 💧! This is Share something romantic/hot from your WIP.

Okay, this is cheating because I did post this excerpt many years ago, but: I've wanted for years to write a Faramir/Éowyn fic which takes as its premise "Faramir's use of his preternatural insight in his dealings with everyone, including Éowyn, could be unsettling in the context of a romantic relationship ....... but what if she is. actually. really into it." I've got a few scraps, but the most, hmmm, specific was this bit I posted in response to an ask:

Sometimes she cannot help but say, look at me, and pulls him away from her throat, her hands tangled in his black hair, her voice a hoarse chanting whisper, look at me, look at me. Heat spirals into her belly as he lifts his eyes to hers; they are more black than grey, his gaze intensely focused on her and yet far away. She can feel the uncanny strangeness in him like lightning under her hands, even as his pupils flare still wider, his careful fingers suddenly digging into her skin. Shuddering, she smiles.

I'll answer the cloud option in a separate post in a few minutes :)

[swsapphics-ao3feed]

by smallblueandloud

“Who are you?” asks Leia.

Sabé says, “Former handmaiden of Naboo.”

“Yes, I got that,” says Leia impatiently. “What do the royal handmaidens of Naboo do? Why did my parents ask Yané to come all the way to Alderaan, just to take care of me?”

(or, Sabé is a member of the Rebel Alliance. Alderaan has just been destroyed. this makes it way harder to avoid Padmé's daughter)

Words: 1843, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Star Wars Original Trilogy

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: F/F, Gen

Characters: Sabé (Star Wars), Leia Organa, Yané (Star Wars)

Relationships: Leia Organa & Sabé, Padmé Amidala/Sabé, Sabé & Yané, Leia Organa & Yané

Additional Tags: Post-Star Wars: A New Hope, Grief/Mourning, Rebel Sabé, meeting your dead partner's kid. trying to be normal about that, feat. the headcanon that a naboo handmaiden nannied a young leia

[walkawaytall]

2, 3, 16 from the year in review asks?

2. How many fics did you work on this year? (They don’t have to be finished or published!)

So, I have posted 30 (though one is still a WIP), and I have two WIPs that will definitely be posted at some point because they are for fan events and one WIP that I really, really want to finish but I have no idea when that’ll happen. And then I have just some…random things I’ve jotted down that I honestly am not entirely sure will form an entire story at this point? Like, I don’t hate them, but I’m not terribly convinced they’ll end up being anything other than cliches, so I don’t know if they’ll see the light of day. Factoring those in, I suppose around 35 or 40 total fics for the whole year?

3 and 16 were answered here!

Buuuut, since 16 is about music and I mentioned that Han/Leia playlist I threw together, I thought I’d include the track list here (I don’t really use Spotify? So I haven’t set up a playlist there.). Fair warning: I like a lot of bummer music and a lot of these choices were made with the intent to touch on their individual issues/angst as well as the angst in their relationship pre-TESB (but not all of it! Toward the end of the list, things get happy. It’s supposed to be loosely chronological.)

(Also, there is more than one Taylor Swift song on here — there are even two in a row because of my whole trying to make things loosely chronological. I’m sorry, non-Swifies; her music catalogue is huge and some things just work, okay?)

Mars - Sleeping At Last

I Wish I Felt Nothing - The Wallflowers

Vulnerable - Sarah Jaffe

Stubborn Love - The Lumineers

Skinny Love - Bon Iver

when the party’s over - Billie Eilish

I Can See You - Taylor Swift

Cosmic Love - Florence + the Machine

Say Something - A Great Big World & Christina Aguilera

Little Lion Man - Mumford and Sons

Haunted - Taylor Swift

Love Love Love - Of Monsters and Men

White Blank Page - Mumford and Sons

Hello My Old Heart - The Oh Hellos

this is me trying - Taylor Swift (this song has just become linked to Han in my head at this point tbh)

Say Don’t Go - Taylor Swift

The Night We Met - Lord Huron

Flee or Fight - Matrimony

The Temptation of Adam - Josh Ritter (okay, this one is gonna seem weird because it is a straight-up narrative, but it has very strong Trip to Bespin vibes and I stand by the choice)

Slow Your Breath Down - Future of Forestry

Fire and the Flood - Vance Joy

Next to Me - Emeli Sandé

Thank you for the questions!

2023 year in review fic writer asks

[nat-20s]

:ooo playlist for lois lane?

HELL YEAH okay here we gooo!!

Bitch- Meredith Brooks

So take me as I am This may mean you'll have to be a stronger man Rest assured that when I start to make you nervous And I'm going to extremes Tomorrow I will change and today won't mean a thing

she is soooo fucking multifaceted and one of those facets IS being a bitch (affectionate) i love her i love her i love her!!!!!

5 out of 6- Dessa

Trying to see my, my descent You're gonna have to play the tape backwards Save that breath for choir practice Got no time for my detractors Standing on my staircase All you are is a fire hazard

I've put my time in now I'm vetted, uncontested See how an honest answer shuts down Motherfuckers asking trick questions I'm out here, arms wide Hiding nothing I've done it all in broad daylight And I left the cameras running

One of the most appealing things to me about Lois is that, to me at least, she doesn't have that much artifice to here. She's gonna tell you who she is right off the bat and YOU have to deal with it if you don't like that and like. Love that for her!!!!

Sidekick- Walk the Moon

We walk out the cinema 'bout to go our seperate ways And I, I almost wave goodbye When you let your hair fall in your face And i often wonder why the thing that i want is so hard to find And i often fail to see the things that I need are right here by my side Something in the air is giving me bad ideas Something in the air is giving me dangerous thoughts tonight Why don't you stay at mine tonight (Why don't you stay at mine tonight) Why don't you stay with me And be my sidekick, sidekick

okay this one is a slightly cheating bc it's more of a clois song than strictly a lois song BUT i love the progression of her being like NO partner personally OR professionally to like...looking at clark and being like well i'll make an exception as he seems very polite. also yes to be clear HE is the sidekick

Dig Dig Dig- The Vincent Black Shadows

I have a feeling You won't believe when I tell you the truth 'Cause the truth isn't easy Why can't you see it? It's like a shadow of you on the wall And it's waiting and its breathing

Dig Dig Dig till my eyes can't see I still slip through and I still don't bleed On this slope there's a hole and I have to get my self inside Telling you that it's the truth I have to do this is my shadow and I see yours too It waits there for you it needs to frame you

im gonna go with "dig" in this context to mean "digging for the TRUTH". she WILL throw herself into getting to the bottom of a story and it WILL be a whole fuckin thing babey!!! I also love "you won't believe when I tell you truth cause the truth isn't easy" cause that's like. a HUGE part of her job!!!

tldr: SHE

[florchis]

💯

Still for the FSK Blindspot AU that, who knows, maybe some day will even be finished!

There is a natural disaster fumbling inside her stomach, a mixture of shame and guilt and rage corroding at the scab of her ever-present wound, the one that is barely closed, let alone healed.

Thank you for caring ❤

Send me  💯 and I will write 100 words in my current project, and share my favorite sentence/section.

[paperairplanesopenwindows]

Not essbie noticing that my video was deanonized before I did <3 <3 <3

GUYS @paperairplanesopenwindows IS SO FUCKING TALENTED HOLY SHIT

i don't think i can be specific about what she showed me cause it's for an exchange but HOLY SHIT SHE IS SO TALENTED!!!!

[tanoraqui]

ooh, the numenor job for wip wednesday?

I wrote some of this before, but the context seems useful.

There was something amiss in Annatar’s– okay, in Ar-Pharazón’s palace. Though it wasn’t Ar-Pharazón who had deftly spread his presence through every grand hall and conspirator’s alcove, so that not a whisper went unnoticed. And it wasn’t Ar-Pharazón who had spent decades carefully cultivating a subtle Discord that set all hearts to restlessness and all nerves on edge. It wasn’t even Ar-Pharazón who had chosen the new drapes in the throne room, though Ar-Pharazón certainly thought it was (but his taste was simply terrible. It was a mercy to everyone that Annatar had stepped in.)

And it certainly wasn’t Ar-Pharazón who was now slipping through the palace in a silence so skilled that Annatar only noticed from how it disturbed the Discord—no, how it eased it. Someone was sneaking around his resplendent palace of the Kings of Númenor whose presence soothed the most ancient stones.

Annatar, too, was skilled in silence. He left his rooms and for hours they played wolf and mouse.

[wellnoe]

hi sorry your newest jean & emma comic has already taken up permanent residence in my brain. i am Thinking So Intently about the idea of scott permanently existing in jean's brain according to that issue vs emma looking through scott's mind in uncanny #504 and noting the very conspicuous absence of jean.

and then the way that your comic is about scott letting emma into jean's mind while #504 is about emma looking through scott's mind and the only thing she can't access is a box that jean taught him to make-- and the way that that's a direct contrast to scott's subconscious telling emma that she's welcome anywhere in his mind--- i am thinking SO INTENTLY.

sorry idk if this is coherent but: very very excellent comic thank you for sharing it. i am going to think about it for a long time

yeah!!

i know less about uncanny 504 than you do, i haven't read it in a while, but the main thing that was interesting to me about the set-up of scott as 'watchman' is the idea that jean has created a psychic replica of scott with such fidelity that the scott in her head holds onto a fondness for people that jean maybe wishes he wouldnt.

uncanny 381 is also an issue post scott 'death', and in my head so are the pages i posted (as seen by emma's death of x costuming). i think that fidelity to the person as jean knew them might be important to her in those circumstances. keeping the traits about them she didn't like is still important to her when the real person is no longer around. jean knows what its like to be mourned as someone completely different from who you actually are.

i ALSO think emma is being a dick here? like she's being deliberately provocative to get a rise out of jean, and that's coloring some of how she presents her relationship to the psychic scott yk. i am like. seriously considering continuing these pages bc i think there's interesting stuff to do w that.

anyway!! thank you for sending your thoughts it is always super interesting to hear the connections people make about my dumb little comics that i post w 0 context. it always makes me think about what im making in a different way.

[paperairplanesopenwindows]

1, 9, 11, and 20 for the end-of-year asks?

Song of the year? According to my Apple Music Replay it was Hot To Go! by Chappell Roan which checks out (my number 2 was Satisfied by The Warning and that also checks out)

Best month for you this year? Oh god essbie this was The Worst Year of My Life so basically by default if it wasn't between March and October of this year it was the best month of the year because it wasn't those. Well, I will say that December so far has been pretty kind to me (not getting my offer accepted AGAIN not withstanding)

Something you want to do again next year? I would be open to another whirlwind 24 hour visit to Boston (actually technically I did two of those this year!)

What’s something you learned this year? I am allowed to take all the time I need to process things and if someone has an emotional reaction to that, that is their own emotional reaction to work through and not put on me. I shouldn't hold in things that have caused me harm because the length of time it takes me to process it is longer than most other people's processing time. <3

[blackandwhitecircus]

hang on. also kade isn't it super late/early for you?? what are you doing awake?

Yeahhhhh I can't sleep.

[anghraine]

@smallblueandloud also sent "🌧️". This is Share something angsty from your WIP.

I had various possibilities for this, lol, but I'm going with the niche option, from a newish Guild Wars 2 fic.

She’d never told Tybalt he was her friend. Gwen had stopped thinking of him as the charr at some point, and found herself trusting him to have her back at another, but couldn’t remember when those had happened, or when she started to regard him and his apples and his contraptions with affection. She kept touching the well-worn cog he had shoved into her hand on Claw Island. There was power in it, somehow or another, but it brought no peace. Nobody believed I had courage. Not even me. And then you came along. Gwen didn't cry. Some part of her desperately wished she could. But there was enough of the bandit Gwen left in her to keep her eyes dry. Don’t show weakness. Not here, not ever. Don’t stop until Zhaitan and his kind are gone, and the world is safe for everyone I love. Even—especially people like Tybalt.