#WE LITERALLY JUST WROTE ABOUT THIS ON DISCORD

[viivenn]

OH MY GODS ITS THEM THE WIVES <333333

Commission for the lovely @agathaandgwenslesbian of her OC Artemisia and Brienne!!! Had so much fun with this <33

[lurafita]

Going Commando

Izzy: "Ugh! This is so frustrating!"

Alec: "What?"

Izzy: "I'm want to know why not wearing underwear is called 'going commando', but the internet has about 8 different origins for it and none of them have a definitive verification."

Clary: "… Maybe it's more comfortable? For soldiers? I mean, it does stem from military usage, right?"

Izzy, turning to the guys: "So? Is it more comfortable, or does it just swing around down there and chafe more?"

Alec, Jace and Simon, red in the face and stuttering: "Y-y-you can't just ask stuff like that!"

Magnus: "Barring any strenuous activity, you don't really notice the swinging. It depends on what you are wearing, mostly. Tracksuits and other softer material pants are fine. Jeans can get a little chafy. And then there are some pants where you just don't want to have any underwear lines showing through. Like silk pants."

Alec: "… You are wearing silk pants right now."

Magnus, smirking: "I am."

[dhmis-autism]

SORRY. JUST REALIZED I ORIGINALLY SKETCHED THE STUFF FROM THAT LAST WIP POST IN. MARCH.

GODDDD...

[tenrose]

I gave up, the website is too shitty, literally nothing functions. Idk if the payment really failed or if those suckers are just not able to properly write 'it's sold out'

Now that I'm slightly annoyed...

I'm gonna rant.

First of all theaters can go fuck themselves if they are not able to provide proper services. The cinema I'm talking about in particular is not indie by the way, it's one of the biggest chains here (fuck you UGC) so the bare minimum they could do is provide with actual functional website so people can actually use it and make reservations. Don't even get me started on the price. 11,60€ for me to fucking go out and see people???? And we know seats aren't as good as they used to be in the past. Don't know about the snack prices, I bet it costs two kidneys.

That being said...

FUCK STREAMING PLATFORMS TOO OR EVEN ESPECIALLY

obviously I ain't paying for any. I won't pay for 10 different platforms, and especially not Amazon they can literally rot in hell. Don't even get me started on netflix. I used to pay sometimes back then. Honestly they had something. They used to do an actual effort and trying to show different stuff. They let creative direction to their writers. We wouldn't never have sense8 with today mentality tbh. Everything is just a reboot, a book adaptation emptied from its substance, a reboot, and book adaptation a reboot, a book a- you see the thing. I mean I shouldn't be bitching as pretty much never watch anything new for years so what do I know? I mean I would like to, but every time I watch a trailer, I'm tired just by watching it. Latest exemple I'm thinking about is the three body problem... Like having read the book just watching the trailer you could see the Americanism all over it... For a chinese book. And it's the problem with everything. I mean American TV shows have always be like this, maybe being younger I wasn't aware back then idk. But it feels so empty, so soulless? They can give me all the diversity they want, that doesn't change that it's still empty. And for TV shows (actually I'm talking more specifically about TV shows cause I'm not a big cinephile so I don't have the legitimacy to criticise) I know it's because of that stupid ass 8 episodes format. I've already talked about it. But it's literally draining the whole industry imo. Also writers clearly having little creative freedom since they have to make stuff that sells. But yeah, TV shows lasted physically and in memories because we were watching them slowly instead of this boulimie stuff we have now. Everything is like consume, forget, consume forget and pay shit ton of money.

And I'm thinking I am actually not built for this shit. I felt so burn out not being able to enjoy anything. So now I don't even try. I don't try new shows cause it's not worth it even when there's an actual good one. Because it's gonna be cancelled anyway. Who wants to emotionally invest in shows that get cancelled (I did so many time).

But when I do.

Be sure I will pirate the shit out of it. None of these industries deserve our money.

To finish on a positive note, if there's one thing I'm really happy for in the end. It's books. Sure the book industry is oversaturated too and there's ton of shit to criticise too (but I won't here). But it's so vast there are books everywhere for everyone, and even if tomorrow not a single book would be published (which I don't believe in), there are enough books for my entire life anyway. But yes books, even if formatted too (looking at us french snobs with our novel format), are like the only place writers can still let go of their creativity. Plus you can have cheap books (I'm starting to get there) and obviously free books thanks to libraries, and also you can pirate books too. Yes I pirate books too but tbh it doesn't even compensate how much I spend buying books so I'm not feeling guilty and I either pirate popular books or old books (if they are really old it's free anyway). But yes if you go out unlike me go buy books if you have money, to your local bookstore, or if you can't library is your way.

Reading is my anchor ⚓

[fushitoru]

finish her! a toji fushiguro oneshot

pairing ⸺ wrestler!toji x reader

summary ⸺ you will have to face one of the most formidable wrestlers in history in your next match: toji fushiguro. but don't be confused, this isn't normal wrestling⸺no, it's nude wrestling. and winner gets the spoils of the other's body! (extended ver of my toji drabble here) creds to @/reynisxxsimart on twitter for art!

warnings ⸺ nasty, NASTY smut, VERY public sex, WWE but pornhub edition, you’re a wrestler fighting toji, so some violence but nothing graphic, fem!reader, HUMILIATION, degradation, you're literally fucked in an arena of people, p in v sex, unprotected sex, spanking, oral sex (f! recieving), boobplay, very inaccurate depiction of wrestling/WWE, not edited we die like toji

a/n im going to sit in the corner and think about what i just wrote

kinktober masterlist | general masterlist

the muffled sounds of the crowd’s deafening roar seem to swirl in the space around you, each cheer vibrating through your chest like distant thunder. you take a long, cool sip of water, a welcome contrast to the warm air backstage. lounging back, you let the chair support your weight, your muscles still humming with the residual tension of anticipation. utahime’s fingers work into your shoulders, and her voice filters through the buzzing atmosphere, calm and steady as she gives you a rundown of the night ahead, though her words seem to blur slightly at the edges—just background noise to the constant hum of adrenaline.

“in front of a crowd—do you understand? and the rules are no fucking, unless all clothes are off first.”

“right,” you affirm, albeit hesitantly. you’re feeling a bit jitterish in anticipation of what’s to happen, despite having trained months to hone your ability as a wrestler. look, wwe itself can get really suggestive at times, with people giving wedgies, removing certain articles of clothing, or even letting the crowd cop a feel of the defeated to serve as humiliation. not only does it improve publicity, but it also increases viewership of all the horny bastards on the internet to circle the televised clip around in their subreddits or discord servers.

but what you were going to do today—that was a bit…extreme. it was like bridging the gap between soft core and hard core, with the humiliation turned up to a hundred. because today, you were going to wrestle the man that all female–and male–wrestlers could even dream of having their hands on, even if for a slight moment.

toji fushiguro.

a man of impressive build—entering a ring with him only meant defeat. he’s had numerous career wins, far exceeding any other. hell, you shouldn’t even be matched to wrestle with him today; he outweighs and outranks you by far. the only thing you really have running for you is the sheer amount of fans you have, ready to tune in to your fights and edit your moves and time spent in the fighting ring to songs like “chun li” and “maneater.” so, sure, you don’t exactly anticipate a win today in that stadium that’s waiting for you, but you’re no less of a wrestler in your own right. you won’t go down without a fight.

however, today was no normal fight. the wwe had suddenly decided that their viewership was too low, that extreme measures needed to be taken to boost. so, ironically enough they had decided to change the rules just before your momentous match:

all wrestlers must consent to having all and any articles of clothing removed from their person, particularly for sexual intercourse as a reward for the winner.

so, WWE (Pornhub’s Version) (In The Vault). 

and your luck dictated that this paradigm shift for the organization occur just before your most anticipated match with toji. again, you knew that no amount of training could prevent you from getting utterly humiliated, but it was almost like the gods were laughing down on you, eager to rub in your impending defeat once more. because you were going to get your shit fucked up—-literally.

“it’s going to be fine,” utahime assures you, and you snap back to the present from your thoughts at the sound of her voice. “just think about the publicity this’ll get you! not that you don’t have any fans of yourself, but there are going to be a lot of people tuned in because of fushiguro.”

you take an inhale in and nod. “yea, that’s true. i just want to get it over with.”

as if answering your prayers, gojo satoru, the mc, burst into your dressing room. “it’s your time to shine, buttercup!” he grins, ushering you out the door. albeit a bit nervously, you stand up and make your way into the hallway that leads directly into the middle of the arena. “you’re going to do great!”

as soon as you walk closer and closer to the arena, the screams get louder and louder, the music booming and causing the floor under you to vibrate. the sounds of people surround all your senses, wrapping you up and causing your heartbeat to go faster and faster. 

reaching the end of the hallway, the arena is filled with light, and you have to blink to get a hold of your sight. surrounding the center boxing ring are stands upon stands of people, hustling and bustling. at the sight of you, cameramen stationed around in various spots through the arena furiously angle their cameras towards you. not only are journalists and the media snapping pictures, blinding you with the flash, but you see yourself displayed on the big screens visible to everyone in the arena. you smile and wave, causing your fans to scream as they register that you have walked in. 

then, a realization washes over you. these are the same screens that are going to be projected whatever's going to happen during the fight and when you lose.

oh god.

you walk forward, trying to keep up your smile and wave to all of your fans that outstretched their hands, trying to cop a feel and/or get a high five. most of your fans are male (to no one's surprise), and you can feel their eyes roving over you appreciatively, taking in your outfit. it was simple and tight; shorts that just barely covered your ass and was snug around your hips, and a low cut top that couldn't even be called a top. your cleavage was on full display, and the top stopped just below your waist. typically, this is your wrestling attire you wear to a normal match, but you couldn't help but wryly notice that today, your neckline was cut lower than usual. the wwe was really trying to milk this, huh?

you stood just below the boxing ring, eyes anxiously scanning the arena, unconsciously searching for the man you were set to fight. but no matter how hard you looked, you couldn't spot his tall, muscular figure either in the ring or in the seat he was supposed to occupy with his manager.

a light tap on your shoulder startled you, and you turned to find utahime behind you, a concerned look on her face. "everything alright?"

"yeah," you said, waving her off with a forced smile. "but where is he?"

utahime pointed toward the boxing ring, and then you saw it—a glimpse of black hair.

"alright," you said, swallowing nervously. "i'm heading into the ring. wish me luck."

"wait!" utahime called out, but you were already too far to hear her. gripping the ropes at the edge of the ring, you hauled yourself up and strode toward the center, determined to get a better view. and there, just on the far side of the ring, hidden from your previous angle, was toji fushiguro.

he was lounging back, relaxed, his posture almost lazy as he faced his manager, shiu kong. you couldn’t see toji's face from this angle, but his body language indicated that he was the epitome of ease. shiu was saying something to him, and from your best attempt at lip reading, you could just make out the words, "don't break the rules today."

toji, on the other hand, didn't seem to be looking at him (giving 0 fucks, something so classically toji), focusing now towards the big screens everyone else saw in the arena. you turned your gaze towards them as well, only to be taken aback when it was you, a compilation of your best moments in the ring, narrated by gojo.

“and today, fellas, we’re going to see the bombshell y/n—the maneater, as coined by her fans—-competing! while her opponent is fushiguro, don’t be fooled—she can pack a mean punch. look at this fight with mei mei; she sweeped the floor with her face!” 

satisfied, you looked around, the arena bustling with people getting drinks, being enraptured with your fight on the screen, or pointing at you or toji. toji, on the other hand, was chuckling and shaking his head at your fight, observing as you gave the bitch mei mei a wedgie. which kind of made you flustered, because you had developed a crush on the guy observing him from afar or in passing, so you just focused on shaking out your legs and arms in nervousness.

gojo similarly announced toji’s fights and compilation, gassing him up for the crowd and it was then that toji finally turned around, uninterested in whatever was going on, and caught your eye. you stared back, breath held involuntarily. 

his eyes had a predatory glint to them, and he smiled, charmingly in a way that showed off his scar, and they scanned up and down your figure, taking in what you were wearing—or rather, letting his imagination run. nervously, your heart sped up as you clenched your thighs up in anticipation or anxiety, you couldn’t choose which, as your mind began running at the speed of light thinking about what was going to happen today.

today, you weren’t only going to wrestle toji fushiguro. you were going to fuck him.

but you’re jolted out of your thoughts as gojo’s obnoxious voice blares through the speakers. “give it up for thee wwe goat, toji fushiguro!”

screams reach an all time high as his smirk is broadcasted to the audience, biceps bulging and flexing as he heaves his way up on the ring, joining you. he waves lazily, roars at an all time high as he stalks his way to you, and you squeeze your nails into your palm out of nervousness.

when gojo announces your name, the male screams rise up in volume, causing you to giggle and fushiguro to roll his eyes from what you can see in the corner of your eye. you give a dainty wave, choosing to wink and blow a kiss to the camera in front of you, causing your fans to scream even louder.

“you sure got a lotta fanboys, darling.” you jump as toji has now bent down to whisper in your ear, literally sending shivers down your spine.

you force out a laugh. “and you're at no shortage of fangirls yourself, fushiguro.”

he gives you a nonchalant hum, assuming his original position. as gojo continued to yap about the stakes of the round today, the recent rule change, a referee walked over to you both, coming in closer so that you would be able to hear him over the chaos of the arena.

“so, you’re both aware of the rules, right?” he both looked at you, to which you nodded and toji’s smirk widens. “you gotta get the other’s clothes completely off, and the first one to do that wins.”

you gulp, eyeing what toji was wearing today. it was his signature garb, the one he wore to almost every match without fail: grey pants with various sponsorships sewed on, and a black compression shirt. it was definitely very minimal compared to what a lot of the other wrestlers wore, but it was iconic, giving him a lazy, laid back aura that no other wrestler could truly emanate.

it wasn’t anything hard to take off in particular.

both of you affirmed your consent to the referee, who then took a step back after wishing you both good luck.  you turned, facing toji face on, who had his hand on his hip. “try to last long, okay?” he smirks, patting your shoulder with his other hand. “i’ll try to drag this out as much as i can, but it’s gonna be fuckin hard if that ass is grinding against me.”

you glare, but there isn’t much intensity to it because you know he’s much stronger than you. there isn’t much to get angry about. “yea, yea,” you huff. “for all i know, you’ll be my personal dildo today.”

he barks out a laugh and looks at the referee, who has one hand raised, the other one poised on his whistle, ready to blow and start the round. it’s starting soon. then, he looks back to you and smiles. “let the games begin.”

the referee blows the whistle.

at once, you launch yourself towards toji, trying to jump on him to get him off his feet with your weight. instead, he dodges easily and leaves you hurtling towards the floor, making you poise yourself on your hands and feet upon impact. you roll over just as toji tries to tackle you and pin you against your original position on the floor and quickly get up.

however, as you’re steadying yourself on your feet, toji grabs your ankle, causing you to lose your balance and giving him the advantage to pin himself on top of you, his mouth breathing heavily next to your ear, whispering so it was just the two of you that could hear his words. “what do you think i should take off first?” he laughs deeply, the vibration causing you to shiver and try to squirm to get out of his hold, to no avail. “should it be these?” he snakes his hands down to grope your tits, giving them a firm squeeze, much to the arena’s pleasure. “or should i take these off of you?” he slaps your ass, making you blush furiously.

“fuck you,” you hiss as his hands catch on the edge of your shorts.

he gives you a sweet, small kiss on your temple. “don’t worry, baby,” he smiles. “you’ll be doing that anyways.” and with that, he pulls at your shorts until the waistband’s elastic rips, leaving your shorts in tatters until he throws the remains of it away, baring your panty-covered ass to the crowd, which immediately grows wild.

you crane your neck to look at the screen, which is currently focused on toji’s hands feeling up your ass, dipping inside your underwear to knead the flesh. your heart is pounding, the thought i need to get the upper hand flashing continuously across your mind. it’s almost as if you’re drowning, the noises of the crowd blurring together until it was only you and toji’s weight on you. you barely heard the announcer exclaim, “toji is currently in the lead!” as you focused on calculating your next move.

it was time to pull out all the stops. 

turning your head until you were making eye contact with him, you bit your lip, momentarily distracted him with the 180 turn of your actions, now nonchalant rather than the flailing you were doing earlier. then, you raised your hips, meeting your backside with his crotch in an effort to catch him off guard and to make him lose balance. then, you maneuvered yourself so your thighs surround toji’s waist and hump your hips against his bulge. this momentarily distracted and weakened toji, and you take full advantage of it by overtaking him and now straddling him. you quickly take off his shirt, salivating at the muscles you see. the whole stadium, in fact, can see his abs and pecs glistening with sweat.

smirking while peering down at him, you slowly grind your hips as if you were riding a mechanical bull, making a show of spinning around his shirt with your hand to mock him. toji’s eyes darken, but a mirthless smile flashes across his face anyways. “damn, take me out to dinner first.”

you flash him one of your own humorless smirks, happy that you got at least one thing against him. “i don’t fuck anyone before the first day, honey. this is just another cheap fuck.” with that, you yank his head back with his hair roughly, making a show of motorboating his pecs, as if to mock him.

instead of getting angry, he chuckles darkly. “you’re going to regret that. i was going to drag this out, princess, but i gotta fuck the brat out of you.” with that, he spins you around just as quickly—if not quicker—pinning you against the ground with your hands held above your head in one hand in a vice grip, the other groping its way down your body. he buries his face in your neck, salaciously licking the length of it. with his free hand—now stationed around your tits—he grabs at the hem of your top, pulling it up so everyone could see your lace bra. mockingly, he plants his face in the middle of your tits, moving his head side by side to motorboat you just as you had done to him, the soft plush of your tits encompassing his face.

the crowd cheers, even more so than they had when you had ripped his shirt off, as toji completely rips the top off as you squirm, making the removal even easier for him. you can feel all eyes on you as toji reaches for the clip of your bra, unhooking it and making your tits pop out. helplessly, you look at the screen, your writhing making them move in a jiggling motion, sweat shining and giving you the “oiled-up” look. he takes a moment to grope them, your whines ignored as he pinches your nipples. “what a sensitive girl,” he coos. “too bad she was too weak. now she’s going to have to take my cock.”

with that, he teasingly closes the distance between the waistband of your panties and his teeth, mouth snagging on the elastic. slowly, he drags them down, unveiling your glistening pussy for all eyes to see, and the crowd goes wild, chanting random requests at toji to do the most heinous things to you. as soon as you’re completely naked, he grabs you by the waist, propping you up against one of the corner posts. you’re now standing up, tearfully facing the arena as the wrestler kneels behind you, burying his face and nosing his way until your pussy, lapping up your wetness.

at the unexpected feeling of his tongue, you yelp, and toji slaps your ass. “stay still.” acquiescing, he licks up long stripes and shakes his head to grind his nose into your cunt, pleasuring you while humiliating you in front of everyone, forcing you to succumb to the pleasure he’s making you feel. while licking you, he groans. “fuck, this pussy is so sweet. i’ve run out of patience, fuck the performance part.”

with that, toji flips you over so you’re on your hands and knees on the floor and pulls down his pants. you don’t even look back at the monster that’s about to enter you for the sake of your mental health, but your legs are shaking in anticipation of his cock, slick dripping down your thighs. 

he drags his cock teasingly through your folds, and then brings it out to slap it against your ass, humming appreciatively at the recoil. then, as if he’s lost patience, he’s slowly entering you, pushing against your pussy’s resistance as he penetrates you in front of the whole arena. “fuck!” he groans, getting a better grip on you as he pushes your head down on the mat and fully goes to pound town.  

the humiliating plap! plap! plap! of his hips against the flesh of your ass echoing multiple strangers watch your pussy get wrecked. “the fuck this pussy’s so tight for? thought you were a slut?”

you’re tearing up, the feeling of his dick hitting your g-spot straight on making you clench hard, overwhelmed by the feeling of him pummeling you and his hands on your body, feeling you up. clearly, he knew how to pleasure a woman, and it made you all the more annoyed. you were fucked out, but not fucked out enough to prevent you from snarkily replying, “you’re not turning me on, small dick.”

he did not like that very much.

toji drills his hips into yours faster and slaps your ass multiple times consecutively. “yea, so why is she clenching so fucking much? why is she dripping, you whore?” as if to demonstrate his point, he brings his fingers to rub at your clit furiously, collecting the wetness that had dripped down from your hole then shoving his fingers into your mouth. “suck.” when you did just that, suckling at his fingers while hollowing your hot, wet heat around the appendages. 

at that, he groaned. “what a little cockwhore. shoulda made you suck my dick instead.”

in retaliation, you bite his fingers, hard, and then spit them out. “i would’ve bit your micro off.”

toji hisses, grabbing the hair at your scalp and pulling on it until your face was up, his mouth at your ear. “just for that, i’m going to come inside of your slutty pussy.” he speeds up, moving his hips faster and fast. the hand that wasn’t at your hair is now sneaking his way down your back, until you gasp.

because he’s inserted his thumb inside your ass.

“oh, ho ho,” he laughs mockingly. “you liked that, didn’t you?” you offer him no response, choosing instead to focus on the feeling of the sheer amount of pressure you were feeling down there, being doubly stuffed. by now, your orgasm has been steadily building because of the sheer power of toji’s stroke game, but as soon as he hits your spot one last time, your eyes roll back, causing you to arch your back and writhe due to the intensity of your orgasm.

you’re breathing heavily, toji fucking you roughly through it. once you’ve gotten a hold of your sense, you come back to reality as you realize that the crowd has adopted a rhythm to their chants, your fans and his screaming the same thing.

cum! cum! cum!

and toji only chortles as he continues your thirst, looking at you once again, and you can tell that he’s staving his orgasm back just after experiencing your clenches with the way he’s biting his lips, sweat running down from his temple to his abs. “what do you say, baby? wanna give the crowd what they’re asking for?” 

all it takes is a whimpered please, and toji just does what the crowd asks of him. ropes of his cum fill you, and you drop down in exhaustion to hear toji declared as winner. 

as you exhaustedly lift your head up, you see that cameras are out all around you, focused on the screen. you’re flustered when you realize the billboard is displaying toji’s cum seeping out of you.

A hand on your shoulder. “you good?” toji’s looking at you, eyes twinkling.

you let out a breath. “yea,” you laugh, out of breath. “good round.”

and he’s huffing, giving you a hand to get on your back. you can only lie on the ground as he barks for clothes to be put on you and for some water. then he turns to look at you once more, eyes twinkling. “wanna go for more in my hotel?”

kinktober masterlist | general masterlist

a/n i was going to have him carry u up near to the stands where your fans could grab at ur titties but this is alr depraved as it is. now im going to take a breather from tumblr for the rest of this week becasue WHEW ch5 gojo yesterday and finished this today i am ON A ROLL. see you guys for next week's kinktober fic (comment if you want to be tagged)! much love<3

reblog and comments are much appreciated!!!!!

taglist:

@sugoroo @ryutotsukai0824 @sharkubi @lisvanrouge @mxlktae

@samisfunky @achbbys000 @xd3pr3ss3dx @jottositto @cheescakebroom

@r0ckst4rjk

[drchucktingle]

Chuck, how do you deal with people who are rude about you and your work? I write queer romance and I want to put my writing out there for people to read, but I'm a very sensitive person and I know it will be hard not to take insults personally and let them affect me. I don't want to let that stop me from expressing myself and sharing my art, but I'm scared!

very good question buckaroo. i am a good example of this as pretty much EVERYONE was rude about my work for many years calling it 'so bad its good' (it is just good) and 'terrible photoshop' (i think it has a great and instantly recognizable style) and 'intentionally stupid premises' (i dont think there is anything stupid about sex being fun and whimsical and playful). even these days the reaction of the VAST majority of buckaroos who discover chuck have this reaction AT FIRST, and then learn to appreciate the tingleverse in a more sincere way over time.

all that is to say BEING DOUBTED HAS WORKED OUT VERY WELL FOR ME. art that changes meaning over time can be very powerful, so if someones initial reaction to my trot is one thing and then it evolves into another thing, well that is just good art. while it can feel bad to get a bad review, i would say a bad review just means you have entered a realm of tension and change and discord and WE ARE TALKIN ABOUT ART BUD so that, in itself, is very exciting.

i think of what i do as 'punk writing', and a big part of that means pushing against preconceived sensibilities. not many other authors will proudly say 'there SHOULD be some spelling errors in my erotic shorts because i wrote it in a day and edited it once. that is the FEELING i want to create', but that is my way. by creating what is in my soul i KNOW i am going to bother some buckaroos and that is okay.

now i am NOT assuming you are also doing punk writing (that is okay of course we all have our own styles. what i am doing with tinglers is pretty rare), but it still stands to remember that there are 7.8 billion people on the planet of this dang timeline and some of them are bound to be bothered by your creations. that is not a problem, that is just part of baring your authentic self.

the other thing to remember is theres no REAL right or wrong in art. it can be analyzed in different ways and i tend to look at it in a way of comparing intention to result, but even THAT is not strictly correct. therefore any bad review of something you make is not actually BAD it is just someones information and feedback for you to take or leave. a one star review is just another opinion, it is no more right or wrong than your own opinion, and that is wonderful. it is freeing.

if i see a bad review of my own book, lets just say CAMP DAMASCUS for instance, i do not get upset because i know this: that reviewer is not wrong. camp damascus is five stars for me, but it is one star for someone else AND THAT IS OK. THAT IS THE WAY IT SHOULD BE. THAT IS GREAT ART. also MAYBE THEY KNOW BETTER THAN I DO. just because i wrote the book does not mean i am the authority on it, and the conversation and tension between those that enjoy something and those that despise it is a creative act. the audience engaging with your work is just your art emerging from its cocoon and saying 'here i am. lets see where i flutter off to now'

do not fear the river of this timeline sweeping away your creations and carrying them where it will. this is inevitable, but it is also beautiful and freeing. you cannot swim against it and that is okay bud, because YOU HAVE ALREADY WON. you have already created something and given a piece of yourself back to this timeline and that is a great honor and privilege. it is literally all there is

by creating ANYTHING you are proving love is real, and that is something to be proud of

[lunacornfan2k24]

I know that this is a rant post but do you have any ideas on how the fandom could be more welcoming to lesbians

i miss posting and making and engaging with ieytd content but I will be honest sometimes it feels alienating. as a lesbian.

[blacknedsoul-blog]

An unnecessarily detailed analysis of the (re)encounter between Annabel and "Leo" (part II)

Evil tongues say I've had this shit in the oven for several weeks because I bought the fast pass on episode 105 and smoked the whole season one afternoon when I was bored as a fucking oyster about to climb the walls. Don't listen to them, they're telling the truth.

So, yeah, people. We had a flashback. One that comes right after the last one we had. Aside from the fact that we finally know a little more about Theo, I want to focus on the direct sequel to a review I did a while back. So let's get started.

I'm still trying to decide if Annabel is complaining just because she had to get off her ass or because "Leo's" room being so far away from hers is, ahem, inconvenient. Another detail that someone mentioned on the discord, is that Annabel does this thing where she grabs her dress when she is trying to maintain the performance.

(later edit: someone commented to me that actually their rooms are ridiculously close to each other. So allow me to insert ridiculous jokes about how the first thing Ira will do when these two are engaged is take his precious daughter who is not to be touched before marriage somewhere else).

...Ah, they put... they put Annabel in Lenore's old room. Yeah, that must have been uncomfortable as shit. 

Okay. This is something I kind of suspected in her first stolen moment at the Arboreum, but I think this confirms it for me: yes, Lenore teasing Annabel is a way of expressing annoyance without being directly hurtful. 

Raise your hand if you enjoy seeing "Miss Proper Lady" lose her fucking temper. Bonus points if she deserves it. 

Lenore, I don't know if taking your clothes off is the best way to get Annabel to stay on topic. I do want to emphasize her face in that moment, though, like she knows Annabel cares about her, but she's still angry at her, and pressuring her to drop the mask is literally the only way she has to express it. I like it because it's consistent with her stolen moment in the Arboreum. 

"Admire this magnificent door made of door. Yes, an excellent door. Wonderful door. Eyes on the door, Annabel, eyes on the door and not on your crush taking off his jacket in front of you. Also, don't think too much about the fact that if anyone sees this, everything that is important to you will fall apart".  

Pause. Where did we see Annabel say that? Ah, yes. Well, if we had any doubts about posh besties, this confirms it. 

I want to linger on the faces of both of them in this scene because, for the love of Nyarlathotep, they are painful to watch knowing that this will end with both dead. 

Yes, Annabel, this "perhabs" was very VERY serious. 

I'm sure this is the second time in Annabel's life that someone has asked her if she wants something. And it's the same person. Ouch.

Does anyone else in the squad find it disturbing that ANNABEL is concerned about moral issues? 

That's not how Kabedons are made, missy. 

LENORE, LOOK AT THE FUCKING FACE SHE'S LOOKING AT YOU WITH, SHE WOULDN'T BE "PRETENDING TO BE IN LOVE WITH YOU", SHE'S EATING OUT OF YOUR FUCKING HAND RIGHT NOW. IF SHE WASN'T AFRAID OF JAIL AND WASN'T SO VICTORIAN, SHE'D BE ASKING IF SHE COULD GET IN YOUR PANTS.   

Okey, I need to know how this went from "pff, it's not a real marriage, we're both women!" to "I'm gonna fuckin' whore myself with Nyarlathotep Tumblrsexymen to come get you, baby. Shit, if these two die without having this conversation, I'm going to shoot myself in the mouth with a medieval arquebus. 

I like this moment because it tells you two interesting things: one is that Annabel must have a complicated relationship with her father, she cares for him and maybe feels he loves her in his own way, but at the same time Ira is her jailer, the main culprit of the golden cage she's trapped in. Another thing: we know Lenore used to care about her father, but come on, after everything that happened, I doubt she gives the man a second thought. 

...I wrote practically the exact same dialog in a fanfic. Actually, in the first Nevermore fanfic I ever wrote, when the fuck did my bullshit ever come true? 

I was racking my brain for a while about why Annabel keeps doing this. Like, look at this shit, even Ada or Morella would be able to see that this is bullshit. And I think I have an idea why. 

I think Annabel started to figure out how to make this work even before she came in. Maybe she's not all in, but at least the idea is tempting. The thing is, she's putting a lot on the line here: her life, her relationship with her father (the only family member we know of), what little freedom she has.

And that means she has to put her chips on the right person. She knows how the social game works, she knows how to manipulate the stakes of her hand, maybe she even thinks she knows how to get around those pesky legal snags when they come up. 

But she's not cunning, she's not quick-thinking, she lacks determination, and she's definitely not brave. Lenore can wrap herself in big dreams and beautiful words all she wants, but if she can't make up for Annabel's weaknesses, it's a losing bet from the start. On top of that, she has to be able to read her: in Victorian engagements, even your pet was into that shit, so sneaking away to plan things would be more of a rare privilege than a constant, her playmate has to be able to understand her perfectly, because they can't waste valuable time explaining minutiae. They have to be on the same page to the millimeter. 

Annabel is a player. And as such, she knows that in games where you have a partner, the key to winning isn't playing your own cards or chips well, it's being able to synchronize with your partner to give each other better plays until one of you manages to win. 

And if I had to bet, I think that is the Lenore that Annabel wants back: the Lenore who can read her, the Lenore who can get under her skin and know her true intentions even when Annabel is wearing the most perfect mask. The Lenore who can smile boldly and tell her that everything will be all right. 

Of course, Lenore passed the test. With a more than perfect score. 

The chapter ends with Lenore giving Annabel the final decision: if she sees no reason to stay, she won't, and she can assure her that she'll be fine. But if she's in, she'll do everything in her power to make it work. 

This was the moment that tore me up inside because it made me drop the shingle of sad, sad shit. 

Conclusions

And here's why I decided to post this analysis after the season.  

One thing this episode told me was that I was wrong about one thing: the relationship between these two isn't exactly what it used to be. What this episode also told me was that, despite everything, the two of them seemed to be able to communicate and find common ground, to make deals, to give each other choices. Shit we don't see anymore in their time in Nevermore. 

And with good reason.

In Nevermore Annabel and Lenore are adrift. No memories, no identity, no bonds. As if that weren't enough, both are terrified: Annabel has built all her means of survival around a context that she masters perfectly, and in Nevermore she doesn't know what's going on; on the other hand, Lenore's bravery and cunning are qualities that turn from virtues to flaws in a context where every single one of her decisions has repercussions for the people around her; she's willing to take anything, but not what happens to the people she loves. 

These two idiots know only one thing: that they love each other. And for Annabel and Lenore, loving means protecting. They have to try to protect each other because they really love each other. They love each other so much that they can't.

Because the only way for Annabel to protect Lenore is to be the queen of the board, to be the piece that everyone wants to get out of the way because her presence is too much of an inconvenience, because if she's good at anything,  it's dazzling so hard that no one is able to really see her. On the other hand, the only place Lenore can protect Annabel is by her side, she won't have a Spectre, but she's willing to do what it takes to take care of her if she stays where she can fight for her. 

But that won't happen because of the irreconcilable conflict caused by the memory (false or not, in practice it doesn't matter) that the Deans showed Annabel. She can't tell her that, she won't tell her that, how could she? It would tear Lenore apart and at worst alter her memories. But on the other hand, Lenore obviously wants to know, because she sees that Annabel is suffering, she wants to be there, she wants her to let her comfort her, to be by her side to help her sort this out, and all her pleas fall on deaf ears for reasons she can't even fathom.

But without realizing it, in all this devotion and accompanying fear, Annabel and Lenore are repeating the same controlling patterns of those who tried to save the other in life. 

Annabel is doing the same thing Thaddeus did when he got Lenore a fiancé, the same thing the doctors did when they kept her drugged 24/7 as a treatment even though she was sick, dare I say the same thing Theo did: assuming she knows better than she does what's good for her. "Protecting" her, even when that happens to be the agency Lenore is desperately trying to have over her life after being deprived of her freedom.

And on the other hand...this.

By taking full responsibility for what happened, Lenore is doing the same thing as Ira and all the people we meet in Annabel's life: denying her agency as an individual. Annabel is not a naive brat who was seduced by sweet words, she is a grown woman who was very, very clear about what the risks were. That they both ended up dead is partly her fault, but by turning this affair into "if I hadn't gone looking for you," Lenore completely invalidates Annabel's feelings, desires, and choices. 

A relationship that was once built on respect for choice and shared decision-making has now become a power game that neither can win, because one of the most important foundations of their relationship is that they are both equals. 

I'd like to end this on a more positive note, but...uh...well, the thing is, I don't. Like, that they're going to reconcile, they're going to reconcile, you know? But for that to happen, somebody's got to give them a massive punch like, something that tears them apart so they realize how fucking bad they are do-

You know what? Yeah, that might do it.

[who-is-page]

The Sol System's Alterhuman Writing Challenge

In November 2021, we challenged ourselves to write an alterhuman-oriented piece every day until the end of November, ideally building up to 50,000 words written overall. We wanted to take this challenge up for several reasons—to help strengthen our writing habits, to set up routines during a time we normally struggle to do anything due to our seasonal depression, to finally learn to put our first drafts out there fearlessly instead of being ornery perfectionists, and to just generally get better at handling mixed reviews with our rejection sensitive dysphoria.

All in all, it was a huge success and a ton of fun-- we wrote about topics we might not have otherwise touched on, made a TTRPG, and just had a grand time overall with all the responses we got from the community. And because of that, we want to offer it to any of y'all folks who might be interested in tackling the challenge yourselves (even if it's a few days late, but who's counting?)

Here are the rules we bound ourselves by:

You must finish and publish at least one piece of writing a day, on your platform of choice—DreamWidth, Tumblr, Mastodon, PillowFort, DeviantArt, Twitter, Discord, Neocities, anywhere. It has to be publicly accessible and (if possible) tagged appropriately.

That piece of writing must either be about or in connection to alterhumanity (in general or your own), the alterhuman community, a community typically classified underneath the alterhuman umbrella, an experience related to or connected to alterhumanity, or otherwise be something inspired by alterhumanity/alterhumans/alterhuman experiences/etc. This category is meant to be as broad as possible, while still sticking to theme. Use prompts or go off the cuff, whichever works best.

Other than that, go nuts! Fiction, nonfiction, games, NSFW, do whatever you want. There is literally no limit on what type of thing you write, just that you write. You can also start a piece at any given time—for a couple of our pieces, we started them one day, after we’d already published something, and then finished them and posted them a day later. I also personally recommend dedicating one unique tag to it on your blog to help keep track, but it's your writing and your rules all the way down other than what I've listed out here.

And if you do decide to take up the challenge, consider tagging us in it! We'd love to see whatever you write!

[hotcheetohatredwastaken]

July LU Write-a-Thon: 351,092 Words in One Day!

On July 1, we hosted our second monthly LU Write-a-thon (organized by @not-freyja and @hotcheetohatredwastaken and joined by their new mods @noorahqar, @a-manicured-lawn, and @winterfen). The purpose of this event was to write as many productive words—words that furthered yourself, the LU writing community at large, or your own stories—within 24 hours as humanly possible. 

We had a whopping 90+ participants as opposed to our previous 16 - none of us expected such a large turnout, and were suitably unprepared 😅 We’ll definitely be making a lot of changes to accommodate that many people during the next Write-a-Thon, occurring August 1st. Thank you all for your patience!

But, until next month, here’s the awards and titles earned by each participant, as voted upon by the Discord server through an anonymous survey. The mods read through all your hundreds of submissions (thank you guys so much!) and picked either the highest voted title or the funniest custom submission for each person, as we found appropriate. First up is the winner’s circle, then the clubs, and then everybody else in alphabetical order right below this readmore!

The Winner’s Circle (5 Most Wordiest)

20,037 “Writer of All Time” and “Most Likely to Make 1K become 100K” (As can be seen in all its glory in your Aspects AU) @tashacee: You took advantage of Freyja and Cheeto’s beefing about who would be first and snapped up the win right from under their noses. Well played! 

20,011 “Writer of Some of the Time” and “Pen and Paper (Scritch... Scratchy?)” @hotcheetohatredwastaken: Missed the mark by juuust a bit, for the second time in a row. Cheeto, you suck. (:3 –Cheeto) (Qar wrote this, for reference!). Also wrote for most of the marathon on pen and paper!

17,491 “Writer of Last Time” (for winning last month and then failing to defend their title) and “The FourShadow-er of all Time” (for the unholy amount of Chekov’s Guns they leave lying around loaded in their docs) @not-freyja: you are the most autistic about Legend. Nerd.

13,203 “Will Make You Cry” and “Captain of the Twilight Angst Tag on Ao3” @somer-writes: Boosting the Twilight economy, and we’re all happy about it. Also the second-funniest person in the server, with the second-most stars!

13,000 “AU Collector” and “Four Enjoyer” @zarvasace: Whether they're heroes with disabilities, space rangers, or vampires, if Mina wrote it, the boys will be written well.

Clubs

Now while everyone’s accomplishments as individuals were nothing to sneeze at, teamwork does in fact make the dream work. A few lovely people made a couple of equally lovely groups, either by their own choice or as assigned by peer review.

Aimed for the Funny Numbers Club

“Literally Satan” @allwayswildchild: with exactly 6666 words, you deserve every bit of this cursed title. 

“Lawn Blart Mall Cop” and “Qar's Mom in a Moment of Weakness Apparently (And Then Qar’s Sister in a Moment of Un-Weakness)” @a-manicured-lawn: The latter explains itself. Apparently, the vision of Lawn segwaying around is amusing. [Some people just can’t appreciate the beauty of a white shirt, tie, and glorious moped… ~Lawn]

“The Reincarnated” @defenestration13: Hadn't written in six months but then reappeared to write multiple thousand words. Good job.

“Multimedia Powerhouse” @passerinesoncaffeine: The art, the writing, Raven's got it all! Painting, analyzing music, commenting, whatever you touch it turns to gold.

“Dark Miette” goes to @rebornofstars: An inside joke that I don’t understand. Also thought you should know that you got [insert bee pun].

“The Memer” and “Literally Wind” @savimatteo2810: These are related.

“The Quoter” @whatvioletdoes-blog: For spending the event harvesting quotable quotes for their chat-fic.

(freyja overshot all potential funny numbers, but is a member at heart)

Most Likely to Get Fangirled (Gender Neutral) Over Club

“Literally Hyrule” @across-violet-skies: Also called the Spunky Sidekick and a calming jasmine tea type person. Hopefully your ghost pepper recovery goes well. 

“The Snippeter” @imperialkatwala: For sharing so many snippets to us hungry folk. Thank you kindly.

“Friend Shaped” @polynomialpandemic: A friend to all. Also a “Snippeter” - thank you for feeding the masses!

“Four Tormentor” @undertheopensky: For really obvious reasons. Also managed to make Freyja scream for 10 minutes with your mere presence alone!

Other Friend Groups

“Sad Wet Cat Club” @cinis0 and @lunaopus, you two seem to have nominated one another, so you get this club all to yourselves! However, I would love to know what the talk of forgetting that the Queen died was about…. (Qar has requested to be an honorary member of this club)

@awildsilver and @four-eyed-nerd, you two get to come together as “Four-Eyed-Nerd’s Rat” and “AWildSilver’s Cat,” which is I think our favorite group of all in this month’s running. I do have some additional questions for you two, however, about a mention of the bee movie as an original work (allowed as long as it’s not copy pasted and also hilarious) for you Wild and the title “Honey I shrunk the Links” for you, Four. 

The Community Support Team

“The Commentator of All Time” @1-renegade: To directly quote, “Ain't NOBODY give better feedback and comments than lawlessland.” 

“Will Make You Cry” @artsyanonymity: Anonymity is the sweetest and kindest commenter in existence! SHE. WILL. MAKE. YOU. CRy. Writes the nicest comments and they make me (and apparently several others) cry

“The Encouragement Itself” @cat-at-a-writing-desk: For encouraging others to reach their goals. We appreciate you!

“Drill Sergeant” @gintrinsic-writing: Made Qar get 5k and scared everyone else into writing. (You did it! I got 5k! The fear (with funny intonation) dragged me over the finish line -Qar)

“Drawer of A Thousand Words” @la-sera: Ruler of the Legend and Hyrule brotherhood, inspirer of writers, and the spreader of so much love with your art this Fan Joy July with the art you spent the marathon working on. Can’t wait to see it all as the month goes on.

“The Reader of all Time” @life-in-winter: Or as you all probably know her, passerine44, the writer of the best ao3 comments of all time. Thea, you walk into a digital room and every writer there makes heart eyes at you. Cannot wait to read the writing you’ve been working on (and leave a comment) to return the favor.

“The Respondent of All Time” @silvrash-797: Silvrash had over four months of unanswered ao3 comments that she caught up with, congrats!

“Lives up to the Screen Name” @sunny-porridge: To quote: “Sunny is 100% a ray of sunshine and anyone who says otherwise can FIGHT ME” and I think we all agree.

“The Wildest Supporter.” @twilightangel83: Supported people and sent a lot of Wild emojis, so much so that we started picturing you as Wild!

“Poet” and “Master of the Shrimp Check” @winterfen: Writes good poetry, and also made sure that everyone was appropriately fed, hydrated, and rested for this event. 

Transfer Students

“I don’t work here, Lady” goes to bArk who neither has a tumblr nor writes for this fandom, but showed up and had fun anyways. Thanks for joining us!

“He Who Finished His Book” goes to jr_for_potus44 (not on Tumblr). Congrats!

“Split Screen” goes to @straight-outta-hobbiton for writing two fics on two screens at the same time, neither of which were LU. Frightening.

The Silent Ones

@pelicanpig, @mmelete, @wayfayrr, @raeofsky, @summaryscar @sunkissedkales: You guys came, you wrote, you did not elaborate. How mysterious your aura is (positive, deeply positive.)

"The Almost Silent One" @the-au-collector: Talked before and after, but not during the event. Probably too busy writing, or busy in general - good job either way!

Everybody else!

“Frequent Flier (WPM)” @anime-obsessed: For participating in so many sprints. Also earned “vocaloid enjoyer.”

“Keyboard Warrior” @august-the-friend: You fought autocorrect and lost 3-0, but it was a valiant fight nonetheless. You did great.

“Artist turned Writer” @aurora-boreas-borealis: Took a break from streaming to write—a huge shout out for all your hard work and your help with colors! (~the actual pigments, not the Links ~Lawn) 

“Literally Sun” @beesandhoney1219: Warmer than sunlight, sweeter than sugar, and absolutely obsessed with Sky’s girlfriend.

“Most Likely to Include Raccoons in their Fic” @bittirsweeteer: They Who Has Given Legend Espresso (thank you for your service).

“Last Minute Vidow” @deleetrix: Something that should always be encouraged. Thank you for feeding us.

“Stargiver” @emberlylion: For starring in a lot of posts, especially cat pics. Thank you for your service.

Move over Time, @estelian-01 “Will Fight Majora and Win” and then go back to studying.

“Studious Student Who (has not) Studied” @gerudoevernight: Self nominated for “Studious Student who Studied” for hitting their goal while in school. The mod team disagreed with the accuracy of that title and affectionately chose this one instead. Good job hitting your goal!

“The Outliner” @gia-d: Accidentally wrote a first draft. Also think it should be noted that everyone is convinced you either could kill a god or that you carry one around in your pocket.

“Onomatopoeia Outrage” @haloburns: Who debated the word “ow” so hard they inflicted it on the people around them.

“The Scholar” @irenkaferalkitty: For her extensive collection of well-researched data, presented in charts, documents and yes, excel sheets. We appreciate you.

“Most Improved” @labyrinthdancer: Their writing has improved a lot since they started posting! also they write really dark twilight & the chain fics. Being a new writer is scary, but they kept at it and are doing so well!

“Writer of Most Cursed Victorian Child” aka their take on Ravio, is @lele5429 with their first ever fic, which is as gorgeous in words as your art is in ink.

“The Hype Man (gender neutral)/Moral Support” @lemoncatssss: For all the encouragement that you gave others. Also the cat photos. Especially the cat photos.

“The accidental friend acquirer” @lennsart: For somehow befriending literally every single person you talk to.

“Severe Case of Clacking” @lerikwrites: You know why. Pennies in a washing machine my friend.

“Hyrule Hurter” goes to @linkiscool333: We all have the blorbo we love to put in the blender, but no one blends Rulie like you do.

“Marcus Actually Writes!?” @marcusdoodlesalot: For a second month in a row, some of us are still befuddled that Marcus is actually a writer, and not just an artist. Hard to believe that someone can have that much talent in both fields.

“Soup Soup Soup Soup Soup (Soup Soup Soup Soup Soup)” @marsnoodlesoup: I... do not know what this means. Congrats, it seems you’re soup.

“The Veteran” @musical-chan: For sharing stories of the early days of fandom. Back in my day but the most positive way possible

“Artist Turned Writer” @mysticstars105: Came out and wrote a whopping 400 words, which is so many words especially when you’re new. Gold Star!

“Art Fight Pre-Gaming” @nebulapaws: For their talk of Art Fight. Hope you have fun participating this month!

“Resident Audiophile” @needfantasticstories: Not just for writing with speech-to-text all day, but for your constant enthusiastic screaming about Epic the musical.

“Most likely to fight God and Win” and “The Modderrrrrr” @noorahqar: Who is actually Sky. Not with the sleepy part though. She actually wrote so much about Sky that he stole all her sleepy. Number one on the starboard, with the proud title of MVM (Most Valuable Mod) for sticking the landing as midnight hit. Also the one with “The Most Sigmas to Grindset” whatever… whatever that means. (Please help what does that mean?) 

“Picture Perfect Exhaustion” @nyastri: Their PFP (Four Doubled Over, hands on knees) combined with the announcement they'd reached their writing goal at the end of the marathon really just sold the picture for me. Well done.

“The Sleepy One” @ocha-blue: who justifiably went to bed as soon as they finished. (Hope you're recovered by now.)

“First Time Fic Writer” @peepthatbish: for breaking into the fic scene and boosting morale for our mod team, especially Lawn. We appreciate you!

“Slow And Steady (WPM)” @pokegeek151: Who was chugging away all day long.

“Doomed by the Narrative” @ra-archives: Google docs acting up, cat sitting on lap, and yet you persisted. Good job.

“My Little Friend Who I Love (This Is Qar Btw) (This Is Part Of The Title)” and “Wordsmith” @rosehipandroots: This is a direct copy paste from your submissions, Rose. Hope you enjoy it. But your amazing descriptions really make you a wordsmith. “The SkyBoy Enjoyer of All Time” @sapphicseasapphire: for your lovely art and writing of the boy!

“Task Succeeded Successfully” @screaming-but-i-have-four-swords: was an artist turned writer that tried to write words, and did! Good job.

“Artist Turned… More Artist” @seaotter-17: We were told you write descriptions like a poet, but in this event, you were most recognizable by your drawings of Nina the cat. Thank you for sharing. 

The “Person with a Passion for Pudding” (which is definitely an inside joke I do not understand, so I hope it makes you laugh) @somanyfanficssolittletime: Thanks for participating!

“The Fic Reccer of all Time” @staring-at-a-blank-page: For recommending so many fics, their own and others, up to read. Thank you!

“The Drabbler” @tenderleavesbob: For their lovely drabbles, of which they wrote around 10k of. The title is appropriate - it seems your drabbles have taken Tumblr (and the participants in this survey) by storm!

“100% Bunny Accurate Fiction”  @toyouhellohowareyou: writer of the most rabbit-fact-checked fics of all time by our own Bunny Lord [Beloved Pet and Bunny Boy (Legend) Himself]

“The Podficcer of All Time” @unexpectedstormy: For podfic making, promoting, and educating. And if that wasn’t enough fae is also our very own “Dragon Tamer” who spent the event working on their HTTYD WIP!

“The Dashshunder” @vivalaplutothedachshund: For sharing your lovely menace of a dog Pluto with us all. We also appreciate you both in the chats and in our rampage to give PolynomialPandemic 109 hugs. 

“Mod Emotional Support. We love you” @wanderlustmagician: You know what you did, and Cheeto’s firstborn deservedly belongs to you.

“Word Weaver” and “Fanfiction Foul---was writing at work instead of working” @weavingstarlight: Your words sparkle as bright as you do, glitter jar.

“Literally First (also shared cat pics)” @witchdoctor39 : Even Hylia can’t hold a candle to how much you love that poor poor man!

Thank all of you for participating, we appreciate each and every one of you so so so much! Please note that we had 90+ participants, and as such, there is probably guaranteed to be some mistakes on the list above. If you find any typos or pronoun goofs or anyone that was put on the list twice or missing or under the wrong name or put under the wrong name or any error that comes with having different discord and tumblr names or if you were left off the list in error or if you want to request a different name than the one you received or you want to be put into or removed from one club or another or anything else that could have gone wrong—please feel free to contact @hotcheetohatredwastaken or @not-freyja with your concerns here on tumblr!

Again, a big thank you to everyone for coming to the event from all of us on the mod team! Can’t wait to see you guys next month! And stay tuned---there will be another post with more information about the next event within the next couple of weeks!

[sicksadgames]

As the Sun Forever Sets - Terror in the time of the Telegraph

It’s nuts I’ve been working on this game for over 4 years at this point. As the Sun Forever Sets is for sure my biggest and most capital G Game. It even has a publisher and everything. It’s also my first game! Wow! It's been tough, though. We'll get into it!

Britain, 1899

As the Sun Forever Sets is a survival horror sandbox based on the War of the Worlds, utilises the Forged in the Dark ruleset, and is about ordinary people surviving a Martian invasion of Victorian era Britain. We play to find out how they rise to meet the storm of destruction, the ways in which it shapes them, and if they survive to see a new world emerge, or die amidst the rubble of the old.

In the last years of Queen Victoria’s reign, the British Empire stretches across a quarter of the globe, and under the guise of genteel progress and civilisation, it commits theft and murder on a global scale. Britain itself is on the verge of the modern era, the Second Industrial Revolution pushing people into the cities to drive the factories and forges owned by the greedy industrialist class. But beyond the common causes of humanity and unbeknownst to the men who impose their rule over it, vast wheels have begun their inexorable turning. Across 40 million miles of void, the Martian invasion hurtles Earthward. Screaming across the stars, instruments of annihilation unlike anything believed possible lie ready for assembly, alongside the Martians themselves. They are truly inscrutable beings, but their intent is as clear as it is terrible – they will suck the literal and figurative blood from the Earth, and nothing less than the complete and utter subjugation of humanity will be enough.

If this sounds cool to you... well, you gotta wait, it’s not done yet. Sorry! But you can come and hang out in the Sick Sad Games discord, where I post excerpts and occasionally organise playtests.

The Hard Times of (Old) England

Be warned, this is a long one - over 4000 words (if you don't have a Tumblr account, you won't get to the end before it starts bugging you to register one, so go read this on Medium instead.) It turns out when you work on a game for a long time, you have a lot to say about it. Strap in, grab your gin and laudanum, and let’s destroy an evil empire just by existing.

Thanks to the wonderful @hendrik-ten-napel for taking a look over my disorganised thoughts.

(Potential) Spoilers for: The Bear, The War of the Worlds, The Last of Us, Children of Men, Threads, When the Wind Blows, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, The Thing.

Roleplay in the Pre-Post-Apocalypse

TTRPGs love a good post apocalypse. It's understandable - gas up and ride glorious on the legally distinct fury road, run a commune of like minded weirdos in the ashes of the old world, go digging through retro-futuristic ruins to find retro-futuristic treasures. Who wouldn't want to do any of these? But As the Sun Forever Sets is about an apocalypse as it begins, not after it’s over. 

There's a lot of crossover, of course. There’s a focus on similar things - disaster and spectacle, relationships and trust, scavenging and survival. But the bonus of the world not yet being over, is that we get to roleplay out dealing with that terrible, inexorable reality.

HG Wells wrote a book about blowing up all the places he used to live, and it's a banger. I was surprised to find there wasn't a TTRPG based on the War of the Worlds, being the tantalisingly public domain ur-alien invasion story it is. As the Sun Forever Sets is very explicitly an adaption of it, to the point that before I came up with the name it almost got released as The War of the Worlds: The Roleplaying Game (lol). I'm glad I didn't, doing my own thing has meant both me and the people playing are way more free to fuck around without the expectation that it must adhere to a canon.

The book is good, strikingly modern feeling in parts, and obviously massively influential - so much science fiction can be traced back to our nameless Narrators tormentuous trek across the south of England. But Wells’ prose is typical Victorian - overly wordy and florid (any book that contains the word “ejaculating” meaning “to shout” might be difficult for readers who aren’t used to the style), so when it comes to recommending an actual adaptation, there’s only one true king. Whenever I bring up Jeff Wayne’s The War of the Worlds, the usual reaction from anyone outside of the UK is to say "... they made a what?"

My mom was very keen to get me into musicals, but nothing really stuck until she tried this, the secret best War of the Worlds adaption (sorry Steven Spielberg, but you were doomed from the start.) It's the bombast and drama you'd expect from a disaster film, the horror and pathos of Wells’ classic, all expressed through vivid narration and sick nasty prog rock - wailing guitar and crunchy 70's synths operating at full effect. It's not completely faithful to the book, it doesn't matter. It’s the best.

Ah yes, the film bro's favourite mid 2000's film. Did you see that sick oner? That’s six minutes without a cut, that means the film’s good right? Children of Men is a slow burn apocalypse, dressed up like a world that’s already ended. Plenty has been written about all the little ways the film is prescient about the state of the UK - the slow belly-crawl into facism and nationalist fervour, the particularly British decay and class divide exacerbated by the desperate times, even the willful ignorance and the explicit sense that everyone’s just given up, it’s all here.

All that thematic stuff seems like it’d be really relevant to As the Sun Forever Sets, right?

Unfortunately, we are in fact here to talk about the long takes. The unbroken moment-to-moment action scenes evoke The War of the Worlds to a tee. Theo navigates danger with the same fraught tactical tension as War of the World's Narrator - dashing between doorways, groping for an axe handle in the darkness, desperately trying to start a car as assailants sprint towards him. What’s the best way out of this situation? How do I get from here to where I need to be? He lives his life in rolling, fleeting 5 second intervals, because he’s forgotten what it means to think in the long term - about the future, and what it might hold.

I was always fascinated and terrified by the idea of nuclear war. I guess it comes from watching a lot of 90’s disaster movies, but those are often ultimately fun romps where the day gets saved at the end, or at least the main characters find themselves alive and well at the end of the saga of destruction. Instead, As the Sun Forever Sets asks you to reflect on the horror and sadness present at the end of the world. Things are going to change forever, and change is always hard.

There’s not many clips of Threads and When the Wind Blows online, so it’s a little hard to demonstrate their particular nuclear inflected pitch black darkness. They’re grim - Grave of the Fireflies grim - differing in focus but united in their horrible impact.

When the Wind Blows is a story of an elderly couple living in rural England when the bombs drop, based on the comic by Raymond Briggs. Yes, The Snowman’s Raymond Briggs made a film about 2 lovely grandparents dying of acute radiation poisoning. Jim and Hilda are completely unprepared for what’s to come, their only reference is the Blitz - terrible in its own way, but not a patch on the scale of death they’re about to experience.

They survive the blast and wait for the good old British Government to arrive to save them, as it did in the 40’s. Slowly liquifying in the nuclear fallout, they hold onto each other and keep their spirits up, eventually making the decision to clamber into the paper sacks they mistakenly believed might protect them from the blast. Clutching their medical cards and birth certificates (for the ambulance, sure to be along any minute now), Jim mumbles painfully through a final prayer that morphs into a misremembered Charge of the Light Brigade, and they slip into a perpetual slumber together.

The most tragic part is Jim and Hilda’s unshakeable faith that their government is there for them - ready to catch them when they fall - borne out of Britain’s post WW2 renewal but absent in the 1980’s of the film’s plot, and the Britain of today. It’s a masterful film, shockingly sad, but the shock is the point.

Instead of aiming for your heart, Threads aims for the head. It’s a drama that aims to be as accurate as possible to government research into what a nuclear war might look like, plainly and forensically setting it out without any thought of softening these hard facts for its audience. Rather than focusing on a personal story, Threads flits around several groups of characters - minor government figures and ordinary families. Like Jim and Hilda, they too are woefully unprepared for the end of the world, and those in charge know there’s no way the UK could ever be ready for such a thing.

As mundane life is quietly intruded upon by news updates detailing far off geopolitics and the subsequent escalation that leads to war, the tension rises subtly then suddenly, like a spacecraft on the launchpad. People we’ve seen pottering about their normal lives are maimed and evaporated in the subsequent shocking nuclear exchange, whilst stark statistics flash on the screen - the hundreds of thousands instantly killed, how long the millions more fatally irradiated have left to live, the woefully inadequate tonnage of stockpiled food to feed those who survive. Each zero hits like a gutpunch.

And when you think the film must nearly be over, it keeps going. 1 week later. 1 year later. Threads grinds to an excruciating halt 13 years after the bombs fall, after year upon year of failed harvests from a destroyed earth barely able to support a population level equivalent to medieval Britain. At one point, mute children watch a warped and scratchy VHS of classic kids educational programme Words and Pictures on a TV powered by a steam generator.

The friendly presenter spells out the word “cat” through the thick veil of static, accompanied by a picture of one - an animal the children watching will likely never see. As they watch with blank, emotionless faces, the image of the cat fades to one of its skeletal form. “A cat’s skeleton” the presenter enthusiastically intones. The unrelenting bleakness might feel like a punishment, but Threads doesn’t mean it to be. This is just what would happen, after all.

Love in the time of the Heat-ray

In fact, someone in a Reddit thread said As the Sun Forever Sets “wasn’t just endless misery” and I’m glad that comes across. I wanted there to be moments of tenderness, quiet joy, anger, frustration, love and loss to punctuate the action and the horror.

People are messy and complicated even at the best of times. Under pressure, this is amplified a thousandfold - a little crush becomes a whirlwind romance, small disagreements become full blown fights, and not fully understanding someone might transform them into an enemy in your head.

The little town Bill conspires to be left alone in ends up comparatively untouched by the horrors going on elsewhere, as untouched as anywhere can be in The Last of Us. He hated the world anyways - so he isolates himself as he prepares for it to end, and it makes sense that his life only really begins as the show does. When Frank arrives, Bill is forced not to just engage with the broader world outside of his little enclave, but in the act of truly living in it.

There’s no prepper’s guide to romance. A human heart can’t be field stripped for maintenance. By choosing to exist as a vulnerable, emotional being, Bill opens himself up to a different kind of apocalypse. Frank becomes the flowering vines that slowly crack the flat concrete wall of a world that Bill created, and when those vines die, the wall can only crumble. It’s so fraught and lovely, delicately yet absolutely gut wrenching. At least their apocalypse was one they decided to have together.

“I’m old. I’m satisfied. And you… were my purpose.” - "Long Long Time”, The Last of Us

While several of my TTRPG writing friends were gushing about how great The Bear is, Em Acosta, author of the wonderfully inspirational Exile pointed out something super interesting - a lot of the show is about how you deal with people you’ve found yourself stuck with. No matter how much they piss you off, or whatever they do wrong, there’s something that means you can’t ever let them truly exit your life. They’re there, like it or not, until the bitter end.

Turns out this is very similar to how As the Sun Forever Sets handles Player Character relationships. In both it and The Bear, nothing’s ever truly resolved between characters - every relationship is like a cooking pot perpetually simmering. You might’ve apologised, made a truce, or just ignored your issues for so long that they seem to disappear, but no matter what, you’ve got to keep your eye on that pot.

Because suddenly a crisis will hit, and someone says something, or a diceroll comes up bad and all of a sudden the pot boils over and things are once again fucked. You storm out, start screaming, throw a fork. Even in the worst case scenario where a Character leaves because they’re absolutely sick of the rest of the group, they might show up at the end of the game for one last scene. Who knows how you’ll all feel at the end - nothing is ever truly fixed, and only the dead are truly broken. 

“I quit, chef, is what’s going on. You are an excellent chef. You are also a piece of shit. This isn’t on me. Goodbye." - “The Review”, The Bear

I’ve talked about The Thing a little before, John Carpenters sweaty, paranoid antarctic masterpiece. Along with the incredible effects and the (mostly) restrained use of action and bombast, the thing that makes... The Thing work is that the staff of the stricken research base lack any and all emotional intelligence.

It’s sort of the ultimate reverse Dudes Rock movie. Nobody knows anything about each other, so when their bodies and minds are colonised by the titular chameleon from outer space, they’re just another stranger to the rest of the crew. I’d ask you a question only you would know the answer to, but uh.. I don’t know anything about you. Whoops!

Over the course of the film, the whole operation falls apart as they try their best to work together to deal with the alien interloper, but their complete lack of ability to trust or relate to each other - present even before the crisis they find themselves in - is their ultimate downfall.

That final excellent shot of MacReady and Childs sat in the snow at the end of the film as their compound burns around them is the subject of a lot of unnecessary theorycrafting youtube videos, which kind of misses the point. Each suspects the other, but ultimately it doesn’t matter if one of them’s a Thing. One stranger is the same as another. Why bother getting to know each other now?

“Well...What do we do?” “Why don't we just... wait here for a little while? See what happens.” - Childs and Macready, The Thing

Science Fiction Revenge Fantasy

I’m not a historian, but the parallels between 1899 and now are pretty plain to see. Increasing class disparity, a lack of political will to help those in need, rampant cronyism and profiteering. As long as you’re in the place for it, roleplaying in a fictionalised version of the past to air out the issues of the present can be super fun and cathartic. You’re not expected to get a degree in British history to make it work, either.

The title is a play on the phrase “The Sun Never Set on the British Empire”, and it’s plainly stated in the book that Britains Empire acted as a mechanism of genocidal oppression, and that the Martians are here to end it - intentionally or not. It’s appealing as a premise on the face of it, but it goes a little deeper. Memories of Empire echo across time in Britain like the ringing of a malevolent bell, a cause celebre for braying Tories and fascistic right wing cunts (two very close circles in the venn diagram.)

We used to be a great country before this woke nonsense. Things were better back in the old days. The DEI contingent is trying to destroy our noble past. Yada yada yada, fuck offff. I’m sure someone somewhere will accuse me of “wokewashing” the past for including explicitly trans and queer characters as part of the book, along with the historical facts around how we fit into the oppressive Victorian conception of sex and gender. Unfortunately for them, we’ve always been here.

To be a little pretentious about it, every game of As the Sun Forever Sets reaches back into the past and cuts the myth of a glorious and benevolent Empire, and the good old days enjoyed within it off at the neck, purely in the act of beginning one. That sparks a little joy for me. Destroying a racists dream is fun, even if it’s only in the abstract.

A horror game about the most literalist Victorian industrialist imaginable hearing the phrase “Eat the rich” and getting right on that. I’ve not played Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs despite fond (??) memories of playing The Dark Descent in a room full of jumpy friends, and seeing Dear Esther played live on stage, with a live orchestra and narrator - an exquisite way to experience that game.

The mechanical chops of Frictional Games mixed with the narrative verve of The Chinese Room, how could this game be anything less than incredible?

After The Dark Descent I fell off’ve the “scary guy chases you around” genre of game until Alien: Isolation revitalised it, and the reviews of A Machine for Pigs were mixed - kind of boring, middling gameplay, too dark - so I never went back. I was planning on writing a little about its vibe - dark, gothic Victoriana that rhymes nicely with As the Sun Forever Sets - but after a bit of research, Mandus’ quest for his missing sons strikes an unexpectedly resonant and terrible chord.

The writing and voice acting is phenomenal, Mandus’ split consciousness - the self you play and the other half of him that’s seen the horrors of the forthcoming 20th Century and is compelled to act, imbued into the myopic machine he built - is extremely compelling. He feels compassion for the poor and wants to save them, but they fill him with fear and disgust. He knows the industrialist class is killing the world, but feels a deep shame in the fact that he counts himself amongst them. So his machine grinds the rich into meat for the poor, who it distorts into grotesque pig homunculi and forces them to operate the machine’s inscrutable workings.

It’s Mandus’ twisted way of saving the world - kill the rich for their crimes, enslave the poor for their own good, all hail the new machine/god/manager of the 20th century. It’s a neat reflection of the way modern politicians contort themselves to the whims of big business and AI snake oil salesmen to avoid doing the simple and obvious things that’d better the world. It’s a nightmarish refutation of Victorian Liberalism, that only the upper class know how to fix the problems of the lower class. It’s brilliant, and we should play it. 

"Do you hear me Mandus? This is what you planned! This world is a machine! A Machine for Pigs! Fit only for the slaughtering of pigs! Whores, beggars, orphans, filthy degenerates. Pigs all. But I will purify the streets, cleanse this city, set the great industry free. I will clean the world, make it pure." - The Machine, A Machine for Pigs

Song of the Year, of the Century

Not long after I came out as trans, I was asked what (in an ideal world) would make transition easier. I replied - never having to leave the house. One day I'd shut the front door as a man and another day, months or years later, I'd open it again as a woman, neatly sidestepping the terror of being perceived in a notoriously transphobic Britain.

In 2020 I shut that door and didn't open it for 4 months. At work, I remember calling the nearby shelter to donate our excess hand sanitizer and toilet roll, figuring out at the last second how support workers could take calls from their already isolated clients via their mobile phones, and fixating on the steady stream of scared coworkers leaving early. Tearfully, I felt the urge to hug those that remained as we locked up, before we remembered we probably shouldn't.

I've never been more aware of the minutia of moving through a space on the way home - How many people had their hands on this handrail? Have I touched my mouth or eyes without realising? Is anyone in the office already sick? Or on this train? How many more people are going to die? - My heart was in my chest, I heard the blood whoosh through my head to the beat of my steps on the pavement. At home, I realised my boyfriend had to go into work the next day. After he went to sleep, terrified he might die, I cried.

"I remember I felt an extraordinary persuasion that I was being played with, that presently, when I was upon the very verge of safety, this mysterious death—as swift as the passage of light—would leap after me from the pit about the cylinder, and strike me down." - "The Heat Ray", The War of the Worlds

Writing As the Sun Forever Sets was my way of coping with the disconnect with the world I felt, the fear of both Covid and the rising transphobia kept me inside even as the lockdowns eased. That feeling of throbbing death creeping at the window took a long time to wrestle under control, and getting deeply obsessed with a big project became part of that process. It seems incredibly maudlin to make a TTRPG dealing with darkness and death during a pandemic that killed (and continues to kill) millions of people, but I suppose I’m kind of a maudlin person.

“I haven't written a song in a month, So I'm playing the same chords again. I know I need to get lost in the moment, But I get lost before it begins. Fingers stretching out into space. Reaching as a thought slips away.”

It also burnt me the fuck out. After years of constant work and testing (beginning long before Evil Hat picked up the game), I ran out of steam. I spent the months after Evil Hat’s public playtest ended not really able to write anything ATSFS related at all. The game kind of froze - I knew what I wanted to change or fix or add, but the moment the google doc opened I couldn’t make myself start typing. It was incredibly frustrating to have the switch flip from endless obsessive writing to constant nothing, and I don’t think I truly recognised the burnout I was feeling until recently. It turns out spending years staying up past midnight writing is bad, who know!

A lot of Forged in the Dark games don’t get finished (or more accurately, get stuck in perpetual development), something that the excellent and dearly missed +1 Forward podcast recognised in their episode collecting their thoughts on the FITD games they looked at back in 2021. I think that’s because, at least to me, writing a Forged in the Dark game is like trying to hold a plate of spaghetti without the plate. It’s deceptively simple at its heart, but the system squirms when you poke at it - write one thing and it affects 3 other things. Tug one piece of pasta out and you lose a meatball without realising it.

When I listened to that episode, I took it as a challenge. Part of me now wonders if it was a curse. I'm being hyperbolic, of course. But a little part of me did think it might be better to give the game up.

That’s not going to be As the Sun Forever Sets' fate, thankfully. Evil Hat has been there to support me when I’ve felt guilty about shifting another deadline or replying to a check-in email with another late “Not much progress this month, sorry!” The frozen writers block is thawing, and I’m so tantalisingly close to finishing the final text. This blog is part of that process, another chip in the icy dam.

The wheels of dread Martian terror turn once again, and it feels good. Part of that is down to not beating myself up about a lack of progress. The more important part came when I realised I felt able to return to the world again - living in it, not hiding from it. Staying connected to it, even when there's times I'm not able to inhabit it physically. Covid, Britains particular brand of transphobic brainworms, and the shadow of Empire all continue to exist, and so do I - a weird maudlin transsexual woman - in spite of them all.

“The day seemed, by contrast with my recent confinement, dazzlingly bright, the sky a glowing blue. A gentle breeze kept the red weed that covered every scrap of unoccupied ground gently swaying. And oh! the sweetness of the air!” - “The Stillness”, The War of the Worlds

You made it!

Thanks for sticking with my messy thoughts. If what I talked about here sounds cool to you, please stop by the Discord, we'd love to have you. Look forward to seeing As the Sun Forever Sets come to a crowdfunding platform of Evil Hat's choice (I assume backerkit) at some point in the future ♥.

[genericpuff]

hey gen p! i was reading a post of yours where you mentioned LO's age rating and briefly mentioned that minthe was verbally abusive during sex which surprised me bc i didnt really remember her being accused of doing so outside of the slap/havent come across any other accusation since, so i've been defending her against abuse allegations, maybe mistakenly, bc i stopped reading the comic at some point. is it too much to ask for some instances where she *was* abusive so i can correct my outlook?? thx! :3

oh so it's really just one scene and it's waaay back in Episode 8-

like i'm gonna assume this isn't a consensual kink play thing LOL but also like. I wanna make it clear also that people don't necessarily defend Minthe as not being abusive, many people who defend her are well aware that she's done abusive shit. They defend Minthe because 1.) she has a lot more potential for well-written character development than Hades and Persephone (as she's actually genuinely flawed as per the narrative vs. Hades and Persephone who are flawed but we're still expected to believe they're perfect, so unlike H x P Minthe actually has potential to do better and grow like characters should!) and 2.) a lot of Minthe's abuse towards Hades isn't necessarily justified but is a lot more understandable when you really analyze Hades and realize that he is, in fact, a piece of shit LOL

like don't get me wrong, I don't think Minthe was in the right by treating Hades like shit and escalating it to the slap, there are FAR better things she should have done... but I and many others defend her on the basis that she doesn't have the self-respect or resources necessary to look out for herself in a more productive way, much of which was facilitated by Hades trapping her in a financially abusive relationship. When you're worried not only about losing your partner, but also your house and your job with it, that's gonna turn into some unhealthy coping mechanisms and responses like physical and verbal abuse as we see in Minthe. She's someone who's not in control of her situation but is trying to maintain her control through unhealthy means.

Hades, on the flipside, has no excuse when he assaults people or acts like an asshole - he's just able to get away with it through the narrative, its characters, and the readers, because he's the rich and powerful main protagonist.

Minthe is an incredibly flawed person who was self-aware enough to understand what she was doing wasn't right but not equipped enough to do better. She's lower class (according to Rachel, all the nymphs are considered lower class compared to the gods) and was originally written as someone with untreated BPD, which Rachel later retconned (note: the episode where Minthe slaps Hades is literally called Splitting, which is a symptom of BPD, like it's not some assumption or misinterpretation, Rachel literally wrote BPD into the script and then tried to quietly backpedal on it later through Discord.) Hades is an incredibly flawed person who is self-aware of what he's doing, but doesn't see it as wrong and therefore doesn't see any reason to do better. But we're expected to root against the former as an irredeemable villain who can't do better and root for the latter who is an actual monster whose actions are justified and excused by the narrative and its creator.

So yeah, that's why a lot of us defend Minthe. She's not perfect, she's done abusive shit, but unlike Hades and Persephone, she has the capacity to grow and change for the better.

[lunar-wandering]

was in discord contemplating how they're gonna bench Wukong next season, thought about it having to do with Wukong holding back (which has been brought up three times and brushed off every time), and accidentally unlocked my angst abilities at full power

(transcription of discord screenshots under the cut)

another way of going about it* (*Wukong being benched) instead of Wukong holding back more, is that the effects of chaos magic make it harder for him to hold back- aka he starts isolating himself again because he can't control his abilities and he doesn't want to hurt them-

it'd be kinda similar to how i wrote sick Wukong that one time- with him accidentally breaking things, while trying to claim that everything's fine, while staying far away from everyone as possible and avoidign physical contact

MK tries to like. tackle him because he's acting sus and he wants to know what's going on. and Wukong dodges out of the way- but accidentally both leaves a crater in the ground from his movement and shatters any nearby glass objects cause of the amount of energy he accidentally used

tries to lock himself in his house. the door breaks off while he's trying to lock it. he puts a barrier over top of the house- effectively trapping himself inside a barrier of his own creation instead

if it's like a theme of the season theres a whole chance MK is dealing with being unable to keep his powers under control too- the difference is that while he's scared of hurting his friends, the others are definitely one hundred percent capable of reassuring him that everythign's going to be fine and that they can handle it they can't do that with Wukong because he has experienced literally THE worst case scenario from lack of holding back-

OH AND ALSO. IF MACAQUE IS CORRUPTED BY CHAOS MAGIC AND IS BEING A VILLAIN AT THE SAME TIME. THIS SITUATION BECOMES SO MUCH WORSE HELLOOOO MK and the others banging on the barrier trying to get Wukong to come out, we can deal with this together Monkey King- MK: you're not dangerous, Monkey King- Corrupted!Macaque, emerging from the shadows: Ohoho, but he is. Tell me, surely you've wondered why your mentor was so keen on holding himself back? and like. starts going into this whole speech as Wukong is hunched over inside the barrier, clutching at that arm- Corrupted!Macaque: he's not the great hero you think he is, bud, and neither are you- Wukong: enough! full out shatters the barrier, leaps out, pins Macaque to the wall- PARALLEL TO THAT SCENE IN S3EP10- and suddenly Macaque glitches out a bit, and he looks scared, and Wukong hesitates, and it's like- Macaque: Wukong, please! I can't contro- and then glitches again and- Corrupted!Macaque: Haha! So, the great Monkey King is going to kill his friend again, huh? and Wukong fully recoils, and just, the others reactions cause they didn't know about this- and Corrupted!Macaque using that to his advantage like- Corrupted!Macaque: look at their faces. they're afraid of you. as they should be, you demon-

Wukong being caught off guard and getting hit by a blast of chaos energy and just slamming into a wall and then onto the ground- rocks fall down and cover him up, and Corrupted!Macaque starts slowly walking towards him (parallel to how Macaque walked in s3ep9 before he grabbed Mei) and then MK is there, staff also crackling with chaos magic as he slams it into Macaque's side, knocking him away. full out "Don't touch him!" level anger from him. and we get like. this little standoff. and then Corrupted!Macaque does this pained-looking bow and fades into the shadows again. MK turns away and runs over to where the others are shifting rocks off of Wukong, who eventually slowly shifts, pulling himself up a little so that he's on his hands and knees instead of laying down. MK asking him the typical stuff, if he's okay and all that, and then, hesitantly… "…He was… lying, right? Just- saying things to get under our skin?" Silence. MK: …Monkey King? Wukong, quietly: …….I've done a lot of things that I regret, kid. and then, ignoring the others yells for him to sit down- he's injured- hold on, wait a moment- Wukong pushes himself into a standing position- and then gets on his cloud and leaves. (another s3 parallel).

[actualori]

wrote a little fanfic based off a headcanon discussed in the flower husbands discord

summary: scott and jimmy have known each other for years but have never seen each others faces. they both had been mandated to wear veils to cover them, up until today

content warnings: low self esteem and highly negative view on self image, slight panic attacks, and a lot of spiralling

Jimmy’s heart was about to pound right out of his chest. Today’s the day. He’s been waiting for this ever since he’d started dating Scott. The day that’s been carefully planned out by so many different people, none of which being him. The day that’ll determine the course of their relationship forever.

They could finally take their veils off.

Veils were significant in both their cultures. For Jimmy, it was a symbol of honesty. Lovers wore veils throughout their whole relationship to ensure their partner would fall in love with them for who they are, and not how they look. For Scott, it was a symbol of purity. Elves are highly religious, and most forms of intimacy early in a relationship are strictly forbidden. Ancient priests had mandated veils to try and prevent it. Much to their dismay, the procedure was ineffective and as a result, the veils became optional, save for royalty.

(Rumour has it that their beauty is so unreal it’s terrifying. Scott had just laughed when Jimmy brought that up.)

So here Jimmy was, sitting anxiously on a chair waiting for his lover, having no idea what to expect. Scott had tried and failed to describe his face to Jimmy countless times before, every painting he’d seen of the elf looked different than the last, and all witnesses of his beauty could only claim his beauty was extraordinary and unmatched.

Jimmy shot up at the knock from the door. He adjusted his veil, strode over to the door, and swung it open. Scott stood on the other side, anxiously wringing his hands together. At least Jimmy wasn’t the only one nervous.

“Are you ready?” Scott asked after what felt like years of awkward silence.

Jimmy nodded and stepped back, allowing Scott to enter the room.

“Where do you want to be?” Scott asked.

Not trusting his voice to be steady when he spoke, Jimmy pointed to his bed. They settled on Jimmy’s bed, with Scott kneeling at the end and Jimmy squished into the pillows. He ran his fingers along the smooth sheets to ground himself and took a deep breath.

“We don’t have to do this,” Scott whispered, sensing Jimmy’s anxiety.

Yes, they do. They have to do this today. Jimmy wishes they didn’t- the thought of showing anyone his face makes him want to vomit. But he can’t say no, he’s not allowed to refuse. And even then, Scott’s been looking forward to this day for their entire relationship. Jimmy couldn’t rob him of this.

And there’s some small part of him that aches for this, just as much as Scott.

“No no,” Jimmy lied, shaking his head. “I want to. I’m just nervous.”

“Do you want me to go first?” Scott asked slowly, taking Jimmy’s hand and rubbing his thumb along his scales.

“Please,” Jimmy whispered, barely audible.

After taking a deep breath of his own, Scott let go of Jimmy’s hand and brought it up to his veil.

Jimmy watched, entranced as Scott’s perfectly manicured hands unpinned the veil from his clothes. His breath hitched as the fingers disappeared under the white cloth. And in what felt like slow motion, the veil slipped off Scott’s face.

Scott is beautiful. Gorgeous. The rumors were correct. This was a type of beauty no painting could ever translate and no words could describe. Ice blue eyes gazed into Jimmy’s brown and plump pink lips turned up in a nervous smile. Pale skin and rosy cheeks matched his delicate hands, that clutched the discarded veil. Jimmy knew he was gawking but he couldn’t tear his eyes away from his lover's face.

A cold realization flooded Jimmy’s body. How on earth could Jimmy compare to that? Scott was a literal goddess on Earth and Jimmy was, well, a fish. Cod weren’t known for many things, and beauty definitely wasn’t one. Even then, Jimmy looked a lot more fish-like than the other Cod, something he’d always been insecure about, and wearing a veil effectively hid it away.

His eyes were wide and far apart with a small smooth nose between them. His lips were thin and his mouth was wide. Hundreds of green and brown scales covered his cheeks and forehead, save for the small space reserved for his gills.

Nothing about that anybody had seen as beautiful.

“Are you okay?” Scott murmured, reaching over to hold Jimmy’s hand again.

“You’re beautiful,” Was all Jimmy could muster for a response.

Scott laughed softly. “That’s what I’ve been told. Are you okay with taking off yours now?”

Jimmy squeezed his eyes shut and tried to calm his racing heart. After a minute of shallow breaths, he nodded his head.

It felt so surreal watching his free hand lift up to his face. He felt detached from his body as his fingers unclasped the veil. There was no chance Scott would love him after this. He deserved someone much better. Glancing up, Jimmy saw Scott’s soft and understanding smile.

Well, it's better to get dumped now than later.

Mustering up all the strength he could, Jimmy ripped the veil off his face. A surprised gasp was heard from across the bed. Jimmy stared hard at the intricate blankets, convinced this was the last he’d see them. This was probably the last time he’d see any of this room, palace, or any of Rivendell.

Hot tears slipped down his cheeks. It was over. A whole year, the best year of his life, gone. The constant love and affection he’d received, now surely about to be taken away.

“Jimmy? What’s wrong?” Scott asked worried, his voice barely reaching Jimmy’s ears.

He is ugly. He is so ugly. He’s hideous and Scott is gorgeous and doesn’t deserve someone so atrocious.

The tears escalated into sobs. Jimmy’s hands ripped out of Scott's, earning a cry of concern. Shudders wracked through his whole body and he curled into a ball. This was a bad idea. Why did he think he could do this? Why did he think this would ever work?

Cold hands reached into his cocoon of despair and were immediately swatted away. Scott’s panicked shouts sounded from a million miles away.

It was over it was over it was-

Comforting arms wrapped around him. Jimmy’s sobs paused as his body was pulled into his lover's lap, kept in a secure embrace.

“Jimmy,” Scott whispered into Jimmy’s hair “Why are you crying?”

Scott’s voice was gentle and sympathetic. Shouldn’t he be yelling at Jimmy? Shouldn’t he be insulting and berating him? This didn’t make any sense.

Jimmy dared to look up and was met with a face full of worry and fear.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m ugly,” Was all Jimmy could say.

Concern morphed into confusion as Scott glanced over Jimmy’s face.

“Ugly?”

Jimmy nodded. “You’re so pretty and I’m not and now you’re going to leave me forever.”

To Jimmy’s surprise, a soft laugh sounded from his lover.

“Petal,” Scott smiled “My beauty is rotten compared to yours.”

What?

Jimmy shifted in Scott’s lap and faced him properly.

“You really think so?” He whispered in disbelief.

“I know so,” Scott replied, pressing his forehead against Jimmy’s. “You’re the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen. Why would I ever think otherwise?”

“Because… I look… weird?” Jimmy guessed

Giggles erupted from Scott. “So? I would never leave you for looking weird.”

Embarrassment crept through Jimmy, turning his face red. He groaned and flopped his head on Scott’s shoulder.

“I feel silly now,” Jimmy said, muffled in the fabric.

Scott hummed, reaching up to card his fingers through Jimmy’s hair. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I’m sorry,” Jimmy whispered, shifting his head to face Scott. “I was scared to take off my veil because I thought that you were going to hate me for being ugly. I overreacted a lot and you didn’t deserve that.”

“Thank you for the apology,” Scott cupped Jimmy’s face in his hands. “I promise I will never hate you for how you look. And I’m sorry for pressuring you to do this with me.”

“I’m glad you did,” Jimmy sniffled, “I feel a lot better about myself now.”

“That’s wonderful to hear,” Scott murmured as he pressed a soft kiss to Jimmy’s head. “Do you want to put your veil back on?”

“No. I’m okay now.”

“If you change your mind I promise I won’t judge you.”

Jimmy wiped his eyes and sighed. “I love you petal.”

“I love you too.”

[animentality]

still looking for beta readers

hey guys!

wrote a dark little romcom fantasy novel with horror elements.

94k words, centered around a bloodbending nonbinary protagonist.

still need beta readers! would appreciate feedback by the end of October.

also still doing beta swaps, so if you need a beta reader on anything, like a novel of your own, a fanfic, a webcomic, even an outline, reach out, and we can get something going.

but if you're just interesting in reading it...

reply, send me a dm (they're still on...for now), or send me an ask!

here are the warnings first: graphic violence, child death (death of an infant), self-harm (because their powers are blood-based, and they need to self harm in order to use them), implied sexual assault/incest (not graphic), animal death (a lot of it), and oh yeah, sex scenes. this is an adult romantasy. adult.

and now here's the summary:

In a world ravaged by war between the old gods and the new, demigods sow chaos and discord wherever they go, destined to be either legendary heroes or fearsome villains. But Marrow is not like other demigods. They are the child of the god of blood and slaughter, born with only one purpose: to kill in their savage father’s name, and bleed the entire world dry. The one problem? 

The only living creature they want to kill is their father.

But Marrow has been imprisoned within their temple for their entire life, unable to realize that dream…until now. A deal with a devil allows them to escape, making their way into a hostile world they know little about- and matters are not helped by the fact that their father can use their eyes to see what they're seeing at any time. To keep him from seeing their location, Marrow must remained blindfolded. But Marrow, an eternal optimist, won’t let their lack of vision stop them from fulfilling their lifelong dream. 

The demigod hunter might, however. Arlo Ren is a member of the Razor Watch, a religious order dedicated to the goddess of the hunt. He is clever, but impulsive, eager to prove himself to his goddess by capturing powerful prey. Soon after meeting Marrow by chance, and discovering what they are, he sees his opportunity and refuses to let it go. Literally. The demigod hunter handcuffs the demigod to his side, and swears to sacrifice them in his god’s name. Luckily for him, Marrow is an inexperienced, blind pacifist, who needs him to guide them through a dangerous, unknown world. They fully intend to escape him eventually. But perhaps a demigod and a demigod hunter have more in common than they might think. Perhaps they might even need each other...but they will, at the very least, need to learn how to live, work, and fight together as they are relentlessly chased by Marrow’s powerful demigod siblings, all hoping to kill their youngest sibling and please the god they abandoned. 

and that's all folks.

dm or reply and i'll dm, and we can hash out some details. thanks, all.

[wonysugar]

hate rodrigo (literally) | aeri uchinaga

a/n: this is not even a fic this is a tiny little one shot that i wrote yesterday night AT LIKE TWO AM due to thoughts we had in a discord server ahem anyways I FELL ASLEEP THO. soo have this now!!

genre : really bad crack smut like i genuinely have no idea how to describe this

word count : like 600 something?

tags : one shot, smut (obvs), crack, ptv mention, falling in reverse mention, olivia Rodrigo mention, mcr mention, taylor swift mention (sorry @pupyuj)

pairing : angsty!giselle x whitegirlmusic!femreader (I HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO LABEL THISSFJEKF)

your music taste wasn’t something you particularly shared with people, but you didn’t hide it, either. to you, it was music, nothing more, nothing less.

however, one of your friends, aeri, took music very, very seriously, and it really showed. she had a certain aesthetic, she wore certain things and god, did she listen to certain music.

“no like i genuinely can’t grasp the fact that you unironically listen to olivia rodrigo?” she laughed, leaning back on her bed as you stared at her in disbelief.

“god aeri, some of her songs are good, you just haven’t tried them.” you snapped back, wearing a convinced smile as you proceed to jokingly hit her arm.

“okay, sure, whatever. but just imagine getting to know someone, going on dates with them, all the sha-bang. then, when it’s time to get down and freaky, they turn on their sex playlist and motherfucking driver’s license starts playing??”

she was basically cackling at that point and you couldn’t do anything to stop it. defending your cause seemed like it would’ve been difficult, with how far up her own ass she was.

“yeah, because that isn’t a sex song? olivia rodrigo doesn’t make fucking sex music?? try putting a falling in reverse song while you get naked, see how that works out for you.” you fight back.

“oh i don’t know about you, but i’d be soaked for sure. plus, anything would be better than hearing young adult women sing about their previous relationship like it was a war they fought in.” she kid, crossing her arms in victory, as if she even won the argument in the first place.

“i’m gonna make you swallow those words right back up, uchinaga.”

“try me, l/n.”

-

“f-fuck y/n, go- mmh- slower..”

so, it wasn’t supposed to happen this way!

it originally was just the both of you, taking turns and putting different songs on the bluetooth speaker and rating them based on ‘how wet it got you’.

turns out, while that was a theory stage, there seemed to be a practice one too, and you’ve been in it for the past 10 minutes now.

thrusting your fake cock in and out of her, paying no mind to the very loud, very obnoxious pierce the veil song that was playing in the background, you pinned her hands above her head. your pace increased with time, and the decibels of her voice increased with the pace.

“oh my god y/n pleasepleasepleasepleasee i’m s-so sorry i- fuck me- i didn’t mean-“ she cried, poor thing probably didn’t even realize that her black eyeliner was running all over her cheeks. her arms and legs wrapped around you,

“shut your fucking mouth and take it, you emo fucking cumslut.” you slammed your strap into her as she yelled out your name. while she was pleading and begging for something, you were on top of her perfect laying-in-mcr-bedsheets body.

she, herself, wasn’t aware of what she was begging for, her mind was completely blank. all she could think about was how good her pussy felt when you pounded it so violently, when you were being so aggressive with her that you just used her body however you wanted.

you thought that whole thing would be a one-time occurrence, but no, it happened a second time, when she said that taylor swift had mid music. was she doing it on purpose or something?

anyways,

yes, you fucked her with the 1989 album playing.