#also the deadline is literally in 2 days so I don’t think I’m making it

[mobbothetrue]

houghrgrhrgghrgh the agonies <- wants to make money

[crossbackpoke-check]

inspired by @colap1nto <3 and posting here to hold myself accountable: writevember! attempting to write something every day no matter how much and what it is

i am however inventing stipulations for myself so i cannot weasel my way out of it, which includes a valid definition of “write”:

actively put words into a document in the form of a proper fic!!! too many wip not enough hands!!

poems (actually laughed at me coming up with this but maybe i will go back to my roots)

research/meta/primers

tag stories are permissible IF i actually compile and edit them into a readable document that day

editing to post to ao3 (the optimism) is also valid. it takes me so long

i do have concrete arbitrary deadlines for one and a half fics that i would LOVE to finish and post in november (dewey^2 and [redacted :)]) so i’m hoping this helps!! also, this is secretly just a sticker chart where i get to put down emojis for each fic i worked on and check off boxes but a win is a win

day 1: 🪻🐈‍⬛

day 2: 😇🤭 (🕒 -> 🕜)

day 3: 🫃2️⃣

day 4: 🍎

day 5: 🫃2️⃣

day 6: 📑, 💌

day 7: 🫃2️⃣ AND ☁️💧. who is she

day 8: 🪻🐈‍⬛

day 9: 🫃2️⃣

day 10:🫃2️⃣

day 11: 🫃2️⃣ we are on a STREAK and also a countdown 🫡

day 12: 🫃2️⃣

[ericsprincess]

feel my breath on your neck

nc-17, smut, vampire!Hyunjae, cunnilingus, period sex

~~~

You get your period while fighting with your vampire boyfriend.

~~~

“For fucks sake, Hyunjae, how many times do I have to remind you to pick up your dirty clothes! I’m not your mom!”

“Y/N, I really don’t want to watch another reality tv, can we watch something else, for once? Ugh.”

“Could you, please, put your dirty bloody cups into the dishwasher? This must be a biohazard, you slob.”

“There is literally no space in the bathroom with all your cosmetics shit, it’s a bit too excessive, don’t you think? Who even needs so much? Jesus..”

And this was just the last 2 days. You hate to admit that, but these past few days were not easy on either of you, both separately and together. You are drowning in work deadlines, your coworkers are incompetent and your boss keeps adding you more responsibilities. You’re slacking off your workouts and that’s not only making you feel upset, but also the lack of physical activity is definitely having a detrimental effect on your mood. Which is already in gutters, because you’re definitely PMSing and in a shitty and snappy mood all the time. 

Hyunjae, on the other hand, while having it breezy in his job, has different problems. Not only are there some dumb political fights in his coven that he has to navigate, but what’s worse, his favorite fancy blood bag brand has an outage and so he had to delegate to cheaper, less tasty ones. Which for him, a picky eater par excellence, is pretty much the same as an actual torture, as he had been drinking this “iron-flavoured mud” for weeks at this point. \

And on top of that, your apartment looks like a pigsty because neither of you is feeling like cleaning. And also, there is barely any food. For you, that is. You are acutely aware that just your existence is like flaunting a prime steak in front of Hyunjae and telling him that he can’t have any of it. He can only sip on his great value blood bags, while looking at you, walking around like nothing is happening. Like he can’t sense your blood running through your body even from another room. 

You know you could offer him to drink from you, but since he’s been pissing you off, he can suffer. It’s not like it will harm him and if he were that desperate, he could always ask. And he’s not asking. Just staring really intensely. 

So both of you are hitting low, and it shows. You haven’t even had sex in a week and while you could really use some comfort and intimacy, as well as the release, you are not quite desperate enough to initiate, not when you’re somewhat in a fighting mood. You know this will pass, it always does, and one or both of you will cave and you will make up, but you’re not quite there yet. Today, Hyunjae can go to hell, for all it matters. 

And boy, are you going through it today. It’s already late evening when you finally came home, flinged your bag somewhere in the hallway and kicked off your shoes. You took a shower mostly with closed eyes and now you’re chilling on the couch with some makeshift dinner you made out of whatever you could find in the fridge, watching some dumb action movie. The lights in the living room are off, only the TV being a source of light and you’re swaddled in the blanket like a baby. Finally some rest. Your eyes are tired, your feet hurt and you’re already getting cramps, so you’re really glad you can rest for a bit. You have no idea where Hyunjae is, and frankly, you don’t care. 

You’re almost falling asleep when an explosion from the TV resonates through the room and wakes you up from dozing off. You sit up and look for the remote to turn the volume down when the bedroom door opens. 

“Could you please turn that shit down? I’m trying to take a nap here,” Well, here he is.

“I was already doing that, calm down,” you roll your eyes.  

“I would really appreciate it, if you were more considerate regarding the fact that you don’t live alone, Y/N,” Hyunjae grumbles. He looks like he wants to argue, but you are not in the mood to have a passive aggressive fight right now so you get up and try to pass through him to get to the bedroom. 

You’re just about to get past him when he suddenly grabs you by your arms. 

“You…” he whispers. 

“What? Let me go, I’m going to sleep,” you try to shake him off but he’s holding you in straight up iron grip. 

“Can’t you…can’t you feel it?” he presses, his whole demeanor a complete change from just a minute ago. His eyes are huge like saucers, and his voice is almost shaking. He’s still grabbing your arm, but how it feels more like he’s holding onto you.

“Feel what? I don’t get it, what’s going on? Hyunjae, you’re scaring me,” you ask with concern, not getting his sudden change in behavior. 

“The blood. You’re bleeding.” he replies impatiently, as if you were too slow to catch up on something that’s been obvious the whole time. 

“Am I?” you ask incredulously. Why is he so weird? You’re not injured or anything, except… You shift your weight. There is a dampness in your panties that haven’t been there a while ago. Oh.

“Oh,” you whisper. “Yeah, I guess I am…”

“You guess? I can smell it, Y/N,” he whines. “Can I..can I have it please?” he asks with a small voice. 

“Have it?” you ask, feigning a surprise, but you know what he wants. It’s not the first time he expressed a desire like that, but he has never been so desperate to ask for it so insistently. But you’re not the one to give up so easily. You could use an orgasm to help you with the cramps though.

“Don’t make me say it,” he pleads, looking borderline desperate. And that’s something you really like seeing on him.

“Oh you’re going to say it. If you won’t, you’re not getting anything,” you smirk. 

“Y/N..can I please eat you out? Please, I haven’t had a drop of normal blood in weeks and you smell so good… Please, don’t let it go to waste,” he begs, falling on his knees. He hugs you around your hips and looks like he’s fighting with himself to not rub his face all over your crotch to get more of the scent. 

“2 weeks of washing dishes and I get to choose what we watch, and it’s all yours,” you spit out. You’re not going to let the opportunity to get something out of it slide like that. 

“Deal,” he breathes out and lifts you just like that. He takes a few strides across the room and almost throws you on the bed with how in hurry he is. You reach to take off your sweatpants and underwear, but he’s already there, ripping it off you as if it personally offended him. 

It takes him just a few seconds before he’s straight up latched onto your pussy. His tongue licking all around, gathering all the blood that already leaked out of you, licking you clean. It’s hot and wet and his warm breath on you is arousing, as well as looking at how enthusiastic he is about this whole thing. You briefly think about how this should feel disgusting but it’s hard to think about it that way when he is so into it. And blood is a normal, daily encounter for him. 

He’s also not forgetting about your pleasure. It’s not like he’s just doing it for himself, but he’s really trying to get you off too, flattening his tongue to lick over your clit in broad strokes, until he slowly builds up the tempo so he can just flick over it. 

It feels really good and you’re getting there, but then, to your displeasure, he moves his tongue to your hole, pushing it as far as he can, chasing the blood and its taste. You whine and you’re considering grabbing him by his hair and moving him back to sucking your clit, but you decide it’s only fair. He can get the blood you promised. Especially since you can see him moving one hand down and taking out his cock, hard and leaking, so that he can jerk it off as he eats you out. 

“Y/N, this tastes so good,” his voice is muffled, since his face is pressed against your pussy. “This is the best thing I’ve ever tasted…Y/N, I’m gonna cum,”  Oh no. 

Now you really yank him off by his hair. He blinks at you, and oh what a sight - his pretty doll face, pale, with eyes glossed over and pupils dilated. His mouth and chin are both red and glistening with your blood and pussy juices. 

“Me first.” you growl at him, and he just nods, too dazed to protest and leans back down. He’s not playing anymore, licking over your clit as best and fast as he can, doing his best to get you off quickly.

You can feel it coming and you don’t want to prolong the wait either, so you let him make you come, your thighs squeezing his head hard, so he couldn’t breath even if he still had to. He continues until he can feel your orgasm fade, and then immediately moves back to tonguing at your hole, trying to get the most of the new blood and slick that gushed out of you when you came. 

You hear the sound of him frantically jerking off and you can even tell when he’s coming, as he’s almost sobbing with pleasure. He slumps down on the bed, completely tired and fucked out. 

“This was really great, thank you,” he wheezes, still catching his breath. “I could do this every day, it’s worth all the dishwashing duty you would bargain out of me.”

You poke his shoulder with a toe. Now that’s an idea. 

“Play your cards right and you can have a whole week of this.”

[kathrinesadventures]

Update!

Man, this week was aweful. Not too bad that it’ll make me have to increase the deadline, but enough that it makes me consider it XD dw though I pulled through. The Patreon will still be updated on the 5th. DM me if you wanna play test it first <3 (Yes, this is me asking for beta testers lmao)

Alright, so let’s start with update.

A lot of bugs and errors were fixed. I’m leaving a few options as “To be written” since itgot too much. Chapter 2 part 2 was 39K long. I deleted 5K+ words (like whole options.) and wrote new ones and now it’s 45K long… (Fml.) I’m leaving a quarter of chapter 2 part 4 alone for now, mostly cause I wanted to focus on the juicy bits with Blaine.

(Behold! Something that I spent 3 Effin days on. It’s not great but it’s good enough for me currently XD) This is the route in which the MC’s shy.) (Spoilers: Blaine will seek out John to be more dominant in the relationship if you go down that path. Which is cute cause you can literally flip em as easily as flipping a burger lmao

Going to go through the playthrough for the last few days to check if everything’s alright.

This update was… tiring as shite but it was also nice. I’m glad that I was able to do it. and I’m REALLY glad that ya’ll voted to continue on chapter 4 XD I don’t think I could go through another re-read. Thanks again you all, and I hope you have a wonderful day~ ♥♥

[mugiwara-lucy]

Okay after hearing this, I just need to comment…

So Trump will be “our daddy”?? 😂 I’m pretty sure we’d all get emancipated rather than Nathan Scott! 🤣

Yeah….with 11 days until the election, it’s imperative I remind people like always that while I am VERY happy with our voter turnout that the fight is NOT over yet!! ALL GAS NO BRAKES until November 6th!!!!! THEN we can celebrate!!

Here is the link to register to vote along with the deadlines varying by state! Also, your own vote isn’t enough! Get as many people as you can to vote for Kamala be it your friends, cousins, parents, grandparents, old friends from high school and college, coworkers, boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, wives, stepchildren (if they’re 18 and over) and the list goes on and on but every vote counts! ALSO PLEASE check your registration DAILY because MAGA WILL purge your voter registration!!

And early voting has started! And if you don’t wanna vote on November 5th, Early Voting is another option! Like I said get as many people as you know and try early voting that way you can avoid MAGA fuckery on November 5th! Here’s the link down below listing the dates by state:

Mail in Ballots are ANOTHER option I highly recommend!! And like I said get as many people as you can to take advantage of this option! BUT if you decide to go with Mail In/Absentee Ballots; PLEASE mail your ballots at the ACTUAL USPS office!! That way MAGAts won't fuck with it.

And lastly voting abroad is something I’ve seen people take advantage of and i HIGHLY recommend it!! Here’s the link!!

And I’ll end with this. Do you guys like the lives you have now?

Do you guys like your video games? No matter how violent they are? Because Trump has talked about BANNING VIDEO GAMES.

Do you guys enjoy Recreational Sex? Well a part of Trump’s project 2025 is to basically get rid of sex until marriage because apparently they think we wanna go back to some Ronald Reagan conservative bullshit. Like who waits until marriage anymore??

Do you guys like having IVF, Contraception and Birth Control? Yeah Trump and his camp want to get rid of all that. Why?? I don’t freaking know.

Do you guys want your abortion rights back? Because Trump’s dog Vance WILL pass a nationwide abortion ban with NO exceptions. Thankfully blue states still have that right but given Trump? I wouldn’t trust him.

Do you guys like Planned Parenthood? Vance wants to defend that? So cancer screenings and women’s health at cheaper prices than regular doctors? Kiss it goodbye and in return Trump plans to place RFK JR in charge of women’s health 🤢

Do you guys Hurricane Relief and Weather broadcasts? Trump’s camp will get rid of ALL of that so people in hurricanes will really be left on their own and without weather broadcasts? No words needed.

Do you guys like porn? Because Project 2025 wants to BAN porn. Ironic because one of Trump’s cheerleaders is that Amber Rose lady.

Do you guys like the military handling civilian affairs? Because Trump has said he will use the military against people who oppose him.

Do you guys like your rights being in the hands of state legislatures? They’re doing it with abortions (and failing MISERABLY). I GUARANTEE you if that old fool Trump gets back into office; say goodbye to interracial marriages, gay and trans rights.

Do you guys like having the freedom to worship whatever religion you want to or not? Trump and his camp LITERALLY want to force Christianity on everyone. Go look at Oklahoma and Louisiana.

Do you guys like having fresh food and clean water? Trump and his camp want to gut what we have now and put RFK JR in charge of that?? Gross much?? Especially with his history of killing animals.

If you want to enjoy your lives that you have now or make them better, PLEASE DO NOT GET COMPLACENT!!!

Yes we’re doing well but UNTIL we have news that Kamala won, there is STILL WORK that needs to be gone!

Knock on doors, send emails/post cards and texts, make phone calls and most of all V-O-T-E!! And get as many people as you can to vote too!!

In 11 days, we can be DONE with Trump and his bullshit ONCE AND FOR ALL!!!

[akehoshimystar]

Chapter 2

As Kise-san said, the new special service started shortly after.

A few days have passed since the commencement. As part of my preparations, I have been doing a certain "daily routine" that I was instructed to do.

The small personal gym on the outskirts of Shibuya may not be Aporia's property, but seems like there is flexibility for its usage. And of course, the event which occurred in the facility that is reserved for private use is….

Soyogu: It's getting shallow now, lower your hips. Sink this far and keep it like that.

Gnghhh!

Ito: Ah, wait... This might be bad.

Shinobu: Hang in there! You got this, you got this.

Ito: K-kuhh... Nghhnnnn...!

Shinobu: Nice! Good job!

Soyogu: Alright. Let's resume in 5 minutes, make sure you drink enough water.

Ito: Yes…..

(Just this muscle training is enough exercise for the last 6 months. Literally.)

I collapsed on the floor, feeling the comfort of its coldness as I savored the momentary break with all my being. I don't know how many times this has happened…. Behind my closed eyelids, the conversation from a few days ago began to come back to me like a flashing lantern...

Shinobu: .....We've been talking on Chattas, so I guess it feels weird to say "Nice to meet you."

Shinobu: But this is the first time we've met face-to-face! I'm Aizawa Shinobu from the Watchdog Dept.

And this person is Shinkai Soyogu-kun.

Soyogu: Hello.

A friendly and carefree smile, and a strong smile that highlights the willpower in his eyes with a slightly raised corner of his mouth. Aizawa-kun and Shinkai-san give off completely different impression. But strangely enough, I felt like there’s something similar about them.

Ito: (The composure of a strong person or something like that.…. They seem to be incredibly strong both mentally and physically, not to mention, I can feel a great sense of stability.)

(Are these two really the same age as me? Seriously?)

Once again, nice to meet you.

Shinobu: Same here~

Our leader is Fushimi Shizuka-san, he's like the commander of the Watchdog Dept.

He does a lot of work other than the special service, so he’s quite busy.

And there's one more person, Mika-nee... Mikado-san, including him, the four of us make the Watchdog Dept.

Neither of them was able to make it today, so I’m sorry that it's just us you got to meet.

Ito: Ah, both of them already greeted me politely on Chattas...

Please convey my best regards to them.

Shinobu: Oh, I see! That's good to hear. I'll be sure to tell them.

Regarding the job this time, I think Gucchi and I will be the ones who will be directly involved with Yashiro-san the most from today onwards.

Ito: Gucchi?

Shinobu: Shinkai Soyogucchi. Gucchi for short.

Ito: Ah... I see.

Soyogu: Almost no one calls me that, so you can just forget about it.

Shinobu: That’s not so trendy of you, Gucchi.

Soyogu: Say something like that again and I'll break you.

Shinobu: Oh, what are you gonna break?

Soyogu: Anything I can.

Ito: (So he has the strength to break anything...)

Shinobu: I mean, if you behave like that from the first time we met Yashiro-san, she will be scared, won’t she? …..Ah, I guess not. In Gucchi’s case, this is the second time.

Ito: (!? No way, this isn’t our first meeting?)

Soyogu: I think you are mistaken.

Shinobu: Eh? Didn’t you delivery something to the shared house last week?

Soyogu: I went home right away so I didn't see anyone other than Sei-san.

If I had barged in when he’s busy fighting a deadline, it would have just been a nuisance.

Ito: (Ah…)

Ito: So, you have an assistant?

Sei: Yes. He's also a staff member at Aporia. He's in the Watchdog Department, so I don’t think you have met him yet.

Ito: Don’t tell me Sei-san’s assistant is…..

Shinobu: Oh, you’ve just realized that?

Ito: I heard you are affiliated with Aporia, but I didn't ask for your name... Sorry.

Soyogu: It’s not something you have to be sorry for. It's ruder to suddenly say "it's you" when you don't even know the face or name.

Ito: ...Thank you.

Soyogu: It feels weird to be thanked for something like this.

Ito: (Ah. I was a little intimidated by the power he exuded from his tone and impressive physique.)

(His way of speaking is on the other hand not scary at all. Plus, he doesn't act more humble than necessary, and speaks in a level manner.)

(Maybe that's why I can speak to him without being nervous... Not to mention his calm composure that left me in disbelief that he's the same age as me.)

Shinobu: No matter how you look at it, he doesn't look like a translator's assistant at all. But this Gucchi right here is a highly educated intellectual boy.

Well, as you can see, he's also a super muscular monster.

Soyogu: Stop blabbering nonsense and get down to business now that we've finished our greetings. We’re not exactly vacant either.

Shinobu: Oh yeah, roger that. Pleased to work with you.

Soyogu: So. How much have you heard?

Ito: A basic explanation of how Watchdog Dept. works and... I've looked at some of the reports on recent requests.

Watchdog Department. In charge of the case that requires strength. A team that takes coercive measures such as retaliating, rescuing, and capturing only when the target is at fault, such as stalking, molestation, theft, etc. They also accompany other departments as guards to deal with interpersonal problems when they arise.

Ito: There are some other jobs that you can flexibly handle, but it's basically one of those two.

This time I will be participating in the former. I have heard that this is a request that requires strength.

Soyogu: If you understand that much, there's no need for any further preface.

The request this time is "rescue". As for our target….. It’s a dog.

Ito: …...A dog?

Shinobu: Woof ♪

Chapter 3

[mama-mystery]

Hello my lovely Librarians! I realize it got pretty quiet for no reason around here and I’ve honestly been trying to figure out how to write this update, because it’s a pretty heavy life update. But, I want to be transparent with all of you, because getting to write my weird fiction around here and hang out with all of you is deeply meaningful to me. This community, the one here at the Unrequited Library, and the broader kink community, is near and dear to my heart.

If you’re not into the heavy life updates, also feel free to skip this one. We’re going to hit some CW content in it, including death, infertility, politics, transgender issues… the works, really.

Where we last left off…

I got very excited for Mayternity this year and laid out an exciting plan of events, including stories, streams, and a World of Horror mod. However, as I’m sure folks noticed, about 2 weeks into the schedule I got off-track. 3 weeks into the schedule, and I was very far behind.

What I wasn’t saying out loud was that a close family friend had very unexpectedly passed away and my uncle was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer in the same week. I had also, at the literal same time, got a new job to replace the one I had lost at Threshold Games.

The new job was very exciting and needed; my partner and I wanted to move into our own place and attempt to set down roots again. We have been staying with friends for the last year and while we are very, very, very, very thankful for their help, we also did not wish to continue to stick ourselves in their home.

A very large amount had suddenly shifted in my life, both bad and good, but all of it very much sucked my attention away from here and anything I was doing creatively. I tried to look up and be hopeful while all of this was going on, but I’ll be honest, the sudden whiplash of change was hard to go through. There were days where I felt like I was just trodding slowly through mud. Missing story deadlines just made me feel worse.

It’s been a long year

For many reasons, the last year has been very hard for me to go through. I keep counting my blessings that I am supported by a wonderful partner and caring, patient friends, because I do not think I could do any of what I do without them in my life.

Leaving Texas, as I’ve said before, was a very important thing for me and my partner to do. As the Governor and Congress of that state has continued to make it a priority to pass laws against people like me, things slowly became more dangerous. Only a few months before we moved, a transgender woman was assaulted at the Target where my partner and I bought our groceries. That’s just a taste of what things were getting like.

Leaving the state, however, came with some pretty severe stipulations which I don’t think I’ve explained out loud before. While my partner and I were very successful in saving money and you Librarians were very kind in helping us out via DeviantArt and Twitch, the other half of the moving funds were what little savings I had left after COVID. We bought as big of a shipping container as we could, we loaded it up with what we could fit, and we left 75% of our stuff behind. No way we could take everything.

We fled. And while we were on the road up from the south, we noticed we were not the only cars driving northward with LGBTQIA+ or transgender stickers and a trunk full of stuff. Apparently we weren’t the only ones with this idea. Thinking of that is still heartbreaking to me.

Losing the rest of my savings meant we’ve been starting from scratch since last year. Again, I cannot thank my friends enough for letting us stay with them during this time; without their assistance, my partner and I could not have afforded our own place. Losing my job was, as you could guess, a significant blow. We were already running on an empty tank, and losing our source of stability was tough. My partner is disabled and can’t work, so everything rides on me maintaining my job in an industry that’s notoriously unstable.

Grief is wicked, and heavy

Losing my savings also meant something else that I’ve been quiet about until right now: I don’t know if I can have the chance to start my own family anymore. It may now be financially impossible.

For a long time, I tried to keep an open mind about starting a family. I wanted to see how I felt, and if I could push myself up to the task. I didn’t want to say no to having kids, but I also didn’t want to say yes. I wanted to make sure I could provide a great life for a kid if I had one, after all. I wanted to be able to set down roots, save up funds for adoption, find a nice community, get a house… you know, basic life goals.

When we fled from Texas, all of that went out the door. None of those things are possible in a community that is actively antagonistic against myself and my partner. I would never, ever want a child of mine to be a target for hate.

I have been grieving the potential loss of my dreams. I have to face the fact that I’m older, my time is starting to get shorter to do things like this, and I don’t know if I have the runway left. I want to try and I will try, but I know that it will be nothing short of an uphill battle. It may not end with the ending I desire. I may never be an actual mom… I’ll just play one on the internet.

All of this together with the recent death and caretaking has made writing pregnancy/belly content extremely hard. It’s something I normally love to write and create, but it just feels like all of my energy has been stolen. That I’m writing a dream I’ll never be able to have. There’s a name for all this, of course: Infertility grief.

I can definitely confirm it sucks. Especially when one of your pieces of happiness is being a broodmother of a kitsune. I know my eagerness to do this stuff will return, but it’s going to take some time.

But it’s not all bad

I can’t end this update on gloom though. While this year and particularly May and June were hard, July has been getting a little easier. My partner and I recently moved into our own place - a small townhouse in Connecticut - and we picked up our dog from her foster parents. (More thanks to our friends who watched our dog for the last year when we couldn’t have her!) We’re starting to set down our roots again.

I’m no longer living with many other roommates too, which means I have privacy again. I haven’t been doing as many photos or visual content for the last year because I wanted to respect the other people around me, but having our own place means I have more freedom to create kink.

I’ve also been working closely with a specifically trained therapist over the past few months too, and am going to continue doing that. She’s been helping me work through all of this, as hard as it has been, and I’m thankful I have access to great healthcare up here in Connecticut. It’s much, much better than what I was finding in Texas. Having that level of support in this period of time is so very, very important.

Finally… the big update that my partner is really excited about… I was approved to get breast augmentation this year and my insurance covers it. 😈 IT IS TIME!!!!! I’ll definitely have more updates to share on that in the future, and I’m gonna talk about how the process works, but I am so very excited!

Annnndddd double finally… because I somehow went this entire update without mentioning SizeCon… the SizeCon staff’s still been doing things in the background. A TON of things. COMPLICATED THINGS, even. I didn’t exactly STOP working on any of that stuff during all of this, and they’ve definitely been busting their butts.

Yes, there will be an announcement coming from SizeCon soon. Yes, you should be excited. It’s quite… big? Big’s a good way to put it.

So what about Mayternity and Unrequited Library Season 2? What about my subscription?

With all of that now said, let’s get down to the important stuff: the content. What am I gonna do about the content?

While we’re off schedule, half of Season 2 is written and the World of Horror mod is mostly done, it just needs two final art adjustments and some additional QA time that I haven’t gotten to do yet. There’s no way I’m going to leave this stuff on the floor.

But, here’s the thing, I can’t guarantee a good publishing schedule for a subscription going forward, at least for a bit. If that changes how you want to support the Library, I completely understand and I encourage you to change your subscription plan.

I’m going to slowly wheel out the Mayternity and Season 2 content as I can, under our normal Library Rules: Subscribers will have first access to the story for two weeks. After that, it goes into the public folder and on Swell Tales.

When the Season wraps up, the stories will be available for a period of time to everyone before being thrown back into the Restricted Section and given to subscribers.

Again, thank you for all of your patience during the last few months, and I apologize for the silence. I’m going to continue to work on myself and better myself, so you can have the best possible broodmother back in the Library, ready to go on an adventure at the drop of a switch. <3

~Mystery

[gregorygerwitz]

you know i had to order catering at work for a staff meeting yesterday, and i didn't know until it came that they just used a doordash delivery person for catering, not their own dedicated catering delivery. so this poor guy showed up carrying 4 big boxes of catering, stacked up past his head, all by himself. i felt terrible and wish i had tipped him even more! (but i didn't have any cash and he also literally ran away lol, because he was double parked)

anyway your poll and last ask got me thinking, do they tell you the size of the order with doordash. like did this guy know what was waiting for him when he picked up the order?

(sorry i have a couple friends who work uber but no doordash so you are my source 😊)

No problem at all!

I actually like explaining things like this, especially because so few people know how this works if they aren’t actively delivering for these services. And they’re all different! I used to drive for Postmates, before Uber bought them, and their formula for pay was GARBAGE - I regularly made ~$5 per order INCLUDING TIP back then.

DoorDash is so much better, in that respect. I actually took screenshots of a stack I did this morning (no personal information/map/anything is included, I cropped them), to give a better demonstration of what, exactly, we see.

Firstly, in the context of what all is in the order - no, we don’t see it beforehand. That’s how I ended up getting a catering order last Wednesday, actually! I get in the habit of taking ANY order offered to me, because money is money and I need every penny right now. And I delivered 5 bags + drinks to a call center for someone who bought lunch for their entire floor - and it was a lot but that’s the order I ran into a friend from elementary school during, and they left a good tip.

We get this - where the pickup(s) is/are, an appropriate distance we’ll drive and time it will take, as well as the delivery deadline for the last drop off. That’s it. We get a map that shows where things are relative to the pickups, but that’s hard to really look at in the 30 seconds we have to accept the delivery.

Then we don’t get told how much we get paid, or how much people tip, until after we finish the delivery/stack.

This screen breaks down how much I’m getting paid, and from where. So, if this rate was consistent, I’d be making ~$21/hr, but that math only checks out if I consistently have orders or stacks, and if people tip.

That $10.76 is only a fraction of the $65 I’ve made so far today (and this is a Good Day), but even those little $2 tips really add up!

[zimshan]

august braindump: on the state of tv and heartstopper

the last year has been such a strange time for me and tv. i honestly cannot remember a time i watched less new tv shows. it’s not for lack of trying but every show/season i started, i was just dragging my heels to finish. some of that is because they’re older shows that aren’t as good as their earlier seasons. stranger things s4 took me an entire year to finish. the pacing was just wildly off to me, and that’s disappointing after the incredible structure of s1. some of that is because of subject matter. i haven’t been able to work myself up to watch outlander after the s5 finale because i just don’t have the mental bandwidth for a sexual trauma storyline. babylon berlin i stopped watching because they were threatening to kill another kid. i’ve noped out of so many shows because of the ratcheting stakes, something that i'm so so tired of seeing done just for the hell of it.

of all the shows, i probably watched the great s2 quickest because it was just so off the wall and the tone of s1 still fascinates me. but even that dragged and was partly guilt tripping to justify my hulu subscription, and i could never let my guard down because it was always going for the most outrageous grotesque thing. i’m stalled on s3 now that they’re killing off characters left and right.

i watched shadow and bone s2 like 15-20 minutes at a time in july because i just found it a snoozefest compared to s1. i legit just wanted to finish it to cross it off my list. how terrible is that? the moment i finished, i started the fame game, a bollywood show, literally because of one gifset on my dash. and watched that 4x faster than anything else i’ve seen all year. cementing my idea that the best of netflix is their international shows. but that shit was pretty dark too.

so beginning of august, i opened up netflix sleep deprived and looking for something to get my mind off my impossible deadline and fuel some writing inspiration. someone on my dash was recently talking about Heartstopper, and it reminded me i missed watching it last year when everyone was talking about it. so seeing it pop up on my netflix screen, i absentmindedly thought, "what the hell let’s see what the fuss is about" and started the first episode. and you know it did the impossible. it grabbed me from the first few frames, and i looked up 2 hours later like oh right sleep. and now i just want to analyze it like a bug. what the hell makes it work where others have failed?

the binging culture inherent to streaming tv is fascinating to me because i almost never do it. if there is one anti-binger out there, she is me. i miss the era of one episode a week on a certain night every day for years. my patience maxes out at 45 minutes every time. i think it’s terrible that shows need to be so bingeable millions of people have to watch an entire season in a weekend to get renewed. because even the best shows i can't commit to doing that for. where does anyone find the time or brainspace, idek.

i know most of the coverage and reaction to the show seem to be about representation and i agree. but there’s something about the elements of Heartstopper that just work where other tv shows lately have faltered and i want to break it down for parts. because on paper it does seem so simple. some of it really is just basic storytelling in tv. those first three episodes are key and the pacing is excellent, every second counts and the acting, editing, and music really drive the show and keep it compelling. on rewatch, i can see how the addictive quality is very much in the editing, in the music, to keep it punchy so that you never think to stop watching. but it’s also in the white space, the moments they give to the lead actors to let a moment breathe. i've been beating this drum for decades now but this show gave so many good examples of it.

several 5-minute sequences caught me thinking god that so compelling why how. the one that stood out on rewatch is the texting sequence in 102 after nick’s interception of the assault scene. there’s zero dialogue but the editing, acting, and music work together to feel the weight of the moment and then lift up from there.

all these essentials combine with something unique like the animations as visual representations of emotions and attraction and create some kind of magical alchemy. it’s been a long time since i’ve thought about it but “lightning in a bottle” describes the best seasons of tv i’ve seen: where it feels like everyone on set, all the actors, every one of the crew, writers, directors, care about the story and are working on all cylinders to do their best job. in the age of streaming, this seems to be more rare than ever and learning about mini writing rooms during the WGA strike has helped to understand why. so has seeing those checks to send home the overall state of residuals in the streaming era. to do the best job people need to be paid fairly. full stop.

so i started Heartstopper and watched 4 episodes in the blink of an eye. the next day, 6; the last day 4. then i did a thing i almost never do anymore: i looked up the soundtrack. music has always been a driver for me, a tv show that nails a score or soundtrack is always gonna get under my skin more than one that doesn’t. it’s part of the necessary ingredients for a good show for me. all my forever tv loves, music plays a central role, music that defines and sets the tone for the show and then becomes forever married to it. you can create a list of the songs and play it back and see the show unfurl again in your mind. its my favorite way of revisiting a show without actually watching it, after a good vid that is. but it works best when the music is a dead lock for the scene or character and typically this is sound driven more than lyrically driven. this show uses a 2012 era style sound i already have a strong affinity for, i have multiple work playlists from the last decade to drive me through a deadline with Foster The People, Fitz and the Tantrums, et al.

but it also did a thing i haven't seen in a long while: the lyrics were used as an extension of the script for internal character POV. in the first episode alone you have the following lyrical-visual pairs: -i'll go anywhere you want to go on charlie getting ben's text to meet -i wanna get lovesick with you on nick watching charlie run and asking him to join the team -right before i'm swallowed by my mind and cursing at the sky on charlie out of place on the rugby field before nick pulls him in to the group -what's the point of looking at the view? cause every time i do i just see you on elle and tao missing each other -the world ends it's you and me/in my head if we can be together/maybe we'll live forever on nick tackling charlie and the leaves animations around them -i see the signs of a lifetime on nick getting charlie's thank you x text paired with the flowing bird animations roll to the credits

this is vidding happening here.

so i spent a good two days listening to the soundtrack and related albums as i got through my deadline. and then i started getting some more questions about the timeline on the story (the soundtrack is of a style popular circa 2012 that i associate with 8tracks playlists even though the actual songs are a bit later, 2015 onwards) and looked up the books the show was based on. i started Solitaire after seeing it was the author’s first book and wanting to read tori’s POV after the glimpses in the show got me thinking about her elder daughter role.

then i looked up the comics when i realized the timeline of Solitaire was a year later and wanted to fill in the gaps. and wow, i’m in awe of how much of the show was already here, how much detail went into the show to match certain frames. the comics are basically acting as storyboards for the show. i used to do the most basic storyboarding for vidding a lifetime ago. i’ve recently gotten the storyboarding itch again the last few months after watching some BTS docs on TCM about storyboard artists and remembering how fascinating and underappreciated the skill actually is. there's some beautiful storyboarding out there, but it doesn't have to be beautiful, it's just got to be functional. at its heart, it's about the frame, the shot, the visual that tells the story. and a lot of that is already done in the comics and translated straight to screen.

i’m inspired learning about alice oseman’s story as a young author, how she started and finished Solitaire before graduating high school, writing the story she wished she saw on the shelves. then how she was taken with her two secondary characters and started teaching herself how to draw to visualize and bring to life their own journeys. it’s such a great example of how storytelling takes on a life of its own and how you are not defined by only your current skillset. there are no boundaries on creativity and curiosity but the ones we self-impose on ourselves.

the last few years, i’ve been thinking a lot about why some works fail to resonate while others succeed, especially in regard to book to screen adaptation. it probably started with the absolute fail that was GOT S8 and rereading THG next to the films and grown from there with my TCM pandemic focus. obviously it’s a gamechanger when the author is the showrunner and that alone is rare. the whole nature of Heartstopper as a webcomic first and driven by subscribers and kickstarter donations is unique as well. alice has built up a passionate audience to create for that helped promote the show and that makes a lot of difference.

but the streaming element is an added issue. by the time i finished season 2, my one overriding thought was wow, imagine society if this had aired 20 years ago. i couldn't help but think of the kids this show could have helped, seeing such an sincere example of queer community on screen. but interrogating that further, i know it’s a silly thought. it wouldn’t have gotten made at all. in 2000, dawson's creek kicked up hate over one gay kiss that amounted to almost nothing. my best friend at 15 came out as gay and felt like he had to pirate QaF asap as the only piece of queer rep around but something far outside of our age group. this story is age appropriate for the age that needs it. in 2023, homophobic parents are waging wars on the school board and libraries in our area for carrying books with queer representation including those of oseman's. no network would greenlight 22 episodes of a queer tumblr webcomic. netflix gave the show 4 hours for its first season in the middle of the pandemic. it only gets made in the streaming era. it is a product of the times, even if the story originates 10 years earlier.

[]

the picture of queer community and lifting up and supporting others is essential for the age this is targeting. i know i'm 20 years older than that target and am mindful of that. this show is not for me. but it's been a while since i've watched a teen series, probably skam, which is a big outliner in teen shows. i think from my dash i assumed the show was going to be pure teen fluff but instead was surprised how much texture it has. the love story is the focus of the gifsets, but it does sell the show short imo. the world doesn’t ignore the dark parts---homophobic bullies, abusive partners and clueless parents, trauma and its long tail, anxiety and eating disorders, the ways love and community can uplift and support but not cure. reading Solitaire i can see where it’s coming from, a dark story that starts the verse. the darkness is there not ignored but part of the journey. its presence makes the light more powerful. but its best virtue is that despite its dark parts, it’s at heart a comforting story. and i think this is an overarching reason why it succeeds as a show. the comic does right by each character and in turn cares for the reader. so everyone working on it saw the story as a comfort themselves and did right by the story. that care shows on screen.

the way Solitaire ends is a thesis statement of sorts for the osemanverse: support and lift each other up, you’re not alone and stronger as a community. it matches skam's thesis, and heartstopper continues it. that reminder is a balm to these times. it's the ethos of organizing but it got lost in isolation of the last few years. its simplicity is part of its power. part of lightning in a bottle is timing. i know some people have lived with this story for years, but after 4 long plague years, its sincerity speaks to me. i can’t think of a reminder i needed more than this story at this time. sometimes you really do stumble on the right story right when you need it.

anyway, this verse has gotten in my brain now so fair warning. heartstopper/osemanverse posting ahead.

[imstillafuckinglibra]

"Get to Know Me" Tag Meme

I’m just gonna copy, paste and pretend I know what I’m doing, story of my liiife. Also, we’re talking TMNT??? Have you…have you seen that one hentai comic about Leonardo & Raphael…it’s called Black & Blue…Mikey’s cool though 10/10 but Donny needs some loving poor dude. Annnnyway. (It’s available online for free go read it cough)

Three Ships: I mean I guess it’s pretty obvious I only reblog Adore Delano shit bc I’m lazy and they’re hot so anything Adore Delano. Mainly I write Adore Delano/Bianca Del Rio though. SWAN-FUCKING-QUEEN. Nough said, Emma Swan & Regina Mills. Always. Idk who my 3rd is tbh, rn I’m low key into anything with Raja or Courtney ? Idky. *looks at currently reading* Although I could write absolutely fucking ESSAYS about the throuple that is Wolverine, Jean Grey and Scott Summers. Honestly.

First Ever Ship: I honestly don’t know, probably Monica & Chandler. Super cliche I know. Yukari & Koizumi from Paradise Kiss also did a pretty fucking good number on me like I still weep. SQ was the first BIG, BIG ship though. Talho & Holland from Eureka Seven maybe even? I shipped myself with characters all the damn time though Trunks from DBZ, Tommy from Power Rangers…Mokuba from YuGiOh…I was like 7 okay.

Last Song: That I listened to? Summertime Sadness by Planleft

Can’t stand the original but this shit 😚👌🏻 chef’s kiss.

Currently Reading: Oof so. Undone by @veronicasanders & 4theloveofdrag. Just finished catching up with Single Gay Dad’s Club by Dartmouth420, which I didn’t think I’d enjoy bc ew kids but it was pretty cute I liked it a lot. Both Immortal X-Men & Night Club are my favorite ongoing comics right now but Dark Knights of Steel & Might Morphin Power Rangers/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 are CLOSE second.

Currently Watching: Yikes again. I’m currently through my 6th Golden Girls & Murder She Wrote rewatch, but I’m also flip flopping between the new & old episodes of the Simpsons bc it makes good background noise. Literally right this second though I’m watching Mrs Grant Takes Richmond bc I do in fact love Lucy.

Currently Consuming: My 6th cup of coffee for the day and a slice of cheese. I’m super health conscious. Closely watch my macros and whatnot obviously.

Currently Craving: Low key a day off and a beer, might try to finish my deadline a little sooner today and indulge a little.

Tag people you want to get to know better!

@glittertrail @saiphl @dakotagorgeousworld

That’s the only people I know so go for it lol.

[inkofamethyst]

November 25, 2022

Nothing of what I’m about to say is actually important!  But I’ve had a chill past couple of days, and I’m thankful for that (*my December 1 deadlines glare at me from a separate tab*).

First off, went to see Black Panther 2.  Overall, I did enjoy it, I’d say.  I don’t think it was as good as the first one, but I also recognize that, for me, at least, a lot of the movie’s shortcomings were rooted in the way that the script felt like it was stretched too thin.  This isn’t even about length.  I think the movie was stretched between being a tribute to Chadwick Boseman, telling its own story, and connecting itself to the broader MCU.  [spoilers ahead!]  Now, there were a lot of things about this movie that I liked.  I liked the tributes (they were both solemn and celebratory, bittersweet, a solid balance), I liked the way they handled losing T’Challa’s presence, I liked the Latine representation (though, honestly, I really wish we could have seen more of the underwater city), I liked the girl power, I liked Riri’s character (though that actress looks like a whole twenty-six year old,,, ain’t nobody in that theater thought she was nineteen, she just tiny (but she did a great job bringing that youthful energy)), I liked the political stuff, I liked the music, I liked the costuming.  Nowadays I like the tiktok jokes about how Namor was literally making fanart about the girl he was most definitely into right after she whooped up on him.  There’s a lot to like if you pull the components apart.  The story just suffered a little, I think.

I think the standout MCU movies/shows tend to be the ones that don’t try so hard to connect to the broader universe.  Moon Knight, the first Black Panther... that isn’t to say that universe connection is automatically negative, it’s just that it can feel forced, sometimes.  Overall, I would recommend BP2.  It’s not one of my top-ten must-see Marvel movies, maybe even not top fifteen, but it’s not one to skip either.  I think sometimes internal/unconscious biases can influence how harshly I judge something, and that’s something to keep in mind too.

Second, onto discussing the event that has entertained me throughout the break: the dabloon trend on tiktok.  Now, I joined the trend about two days after its inception, but dabloons are basically a fake currency on a small side of tiktok which can be used to purchase goods, they can be taxed, they can be stolen... I have had so much fun over the past few days collecting dabloons, travelling the world, meeting cats along the way (key note: the denizens of this dabloon world are almost all cats).  I’ve enrolled in two universities dablooniversities, I’ve got half a dozen dragons, a pirate ship, more swords than I could ever dream of using, a house, a reformed robber-cat as a companion, and more.  The trend runs entirely on the honor system with people keeping track of their accounts and items in their notes app, and it’s basically a giant dungeons and dragons game, a massive hallucination.  

Lots of people have done analyses on the trend itself, but before I talk about those, it’s also pertinent to note that there’s sort of two sides to dabloontok: the fantasy traveler side (which I prefer, naturally), and the capitalist hellscape side (which I have little contact with).  Both of these generally follow certain rules, but a little while after the trend started, some people noted that its increasing popularity was resulting in inflation.  Some of those people splintered off, formed a full government (IRS, FBI, police, military, DASA (dabloon nasa), president, news channels (including a Fox News parody), etc), held an election, instituted a purge, formed mafias, formed revolutions against a government which would permit a purge (which like, yes to that)... Now, plenty of people have bemoaned the fact that part of such a wholesome fantasy trend which encouraged giving, travel, and trust turned into a copy of what we live through daily (one barista was literally offered a job as a tavern waitress... she was offered to pretend to have her real job), and others have theorized that by starting a system off with currency, it was inevitable that we would end up with late-stage capitalism.  Still others have suggested that the problem was not currency, but rather a lack of imagination, as there is a difference between mercantilism and capitalism, and some people are so caught up in the real world that even in play it is difficult for them to do something else.  It is worth it to note that plenty of people still exclusively engage with the fantasy components, but there tends to be an excess of shops and taverns with few original quests, and I think that’s what’s driving the trend to become stale.

Just to recount some of the fun adventures I’ve had:

I’m getting a dabplooma in earth magic (which I selected before receiving a pirate ship, otherwise air or water magic might’ve been more useful)

I almost had one of my organs harvested, but I used one of my hidden daggers to fight my way out

I cannot tell you how many cats have invited me into their homes for a warm meal and bed for free

I am currently carrying drug crystals for a Walter White-cat in one of my bags of holding?  (I’ve never seen Breaking Bad)

I temporarily traveled with a posh Victorian cat who wanted to leave their life behind and see the world

A cat from the mafia gave me a gun but no ammo.  That’s okay because I have two bows and multiple quivers of arrows, but still?  Am I supposed to throw the gun??

I volunteered for the revolution to bring down the dablourgeoisie and liberate cat-kind from their market manipulation, but I have to assume that the government took the organization down from the inside because I never received contact from them again (never showed back up on my fyp).  That was my first and last active interaction with capitalist dabloontok

I received +50 dabloons from Ikea.  So.  (listen.  I know we’re anti-advertising, I know, I know brands aren’t people, I know, but it was shocking and funny, so I let it slide)

I bought lemonade which was poisoned and I blacked out and was transported to Dabloonia where I bought potions n stuff.  Briefly considered murder for being transported without my consent, but they promised never to do it again.

Offered to help an injured horse which shapeshifted into a monster and stole a few of my dabloons, but I was thankfully saved before I needed to use one of my protective items (protective potions, spells, weaponry, and pets are all one-time use in-game, but you can hoard them so).

I’ve given away so many of my dabloons!  Like, sure I was saving up for a house to store my things (which I eventually got for a steal (and later I also purchased a mage’s tower bc why not)), but I had a bag of holding and wasn’t over-encumbered, and so many people get robbed or go into debt and could use a few!

I’m just in awe of how quickly such a fun trend emerged after another fun trend, the Koopa one.  The Koopa trend had the same punchline every time, but the setup was what made it funny.  In every video, a person would act as though they were in a harrowing situation (fighting for custody in court, giving birth, being birthed, holding onto a cliff edge, etc), and in the middle, they’d swing their arms like a Koopa in Super Mario to the beat.  Here’s a compilation, it’s a good time.  But the dabloons trend is an improv trend, like the Woodchuck Revolution or the Furry/Gamer War, but it’s magical in the way that it doesn’t require you to make content to participate.  Lurkers (commenters) are also active participants in the game, arguably the most active participants, and we can engage with one another, and it’s just... it’s fantastic.

I know Thanksgiving is meant to be really serious or whatever, but I’ve gotta say that I’m really seriously thankful for all of the fun I’ve been having over on dabloontok.  I know, I know, tiktok rots your brain, but it’s filling that itch for dnd which I didn’t even know I still needed to scratch.  I thought Critical Role was enough, but apparently not.  I’m also thankful for all of the people who are totally indulging in this amazing thing with me.  Maybe it is a little cringey, but it’s special and fun, and it’s rarely ever bad to spend time on fun.

[caffeinated-beveraged]

Since I’m posting here again, I thought might as well post my old art. And by post, I mean roast because this whole thing is rawer than a freshly butchered chicken 💀 Roast under cut

Context: this comic was for a culminating art project. The theme for the culminating was mythology. I spent a majority of time given floundering around between options before settling on the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. No reason for choosing them in particular, they were just the first myth I thought of when thinking of classic Greek myths. Also I just reworded the myth from some random site, so I have no idea if my comic has inaccuracies.

The only real hurdle I had to face for this project was drawing humans. I had little experience with humans prior to this project. All the other projects we did for that art class were mainly still lifes and drawing buildings with respect to perspective. For projects that were more open in terms of the subject matter, I tried my hardest to avoid drawing a person. So with this project I was starting from square 1. Now, a person with a modicum of common sense would logically start this project a week before the deadline so they don’t submit the equivalent of a stick figure. Unfortunately I am not one with common sense. Instead I decided to start the project the Sunday evening before the due date 💀 Completely avoidable pain and torture that could had been averted had it not been my inability to keep a consistent schedule.

Anyways, let’s analyze the panels themselves. Here we have panel 1. Right off the bat, literally none of the words in the caption match what’s being depicted. What do you mean conscious objects??? There is literally nothing there!!! Just an ugly ass rainbow (with no colours I might add) in the background with Orpheus playing a few notes. This guy has nothing: no colour, no mystical beings, no conscious objects, no neck. This is just the consequence of running out of time. The only real improvement I’d make here is add more to the background. Not just with characters but also colour. Now not everything has to be in colour to look good. I think a majority of the panels are fine without colour as it is consistently used for the most part. But I did add some colour to the emotionally intensive scenes so it just makes this panel (which should be showing Orpheus’ extraordinary talent) look odd and out of place.

Oh boy panel 2. We get introduced to Eurydice and my god does she look awful. That hair just looks weird, it looks like I just scratched a few lines and called it a day. Also that typo is killing me…

Skipping the 3rd panel as I don’t have much to say. Anyways panel 4, Aristaeus being murder happy. Fun fact: I actually used a reference for Aristaeus so it doesn’t look too shabby. I honestly forget to use references for poses, not because I think I’m better than them, I often have a specific pose in mind and have a tough time finding a pose online that matches what I have in mind. For this one, I used a reference of myself which turned out nicely.

Eurydice cringefail moment. Imagine dying to a snakebite couldn’t be me. I like the aforementioned use of colour, just wish it was more saturated. I also like the blood stains. That’s all I have to say for these panels. … ok fine let’s address the elephant in the room. Eurydice has four toes. For some reason during this time period I could only draw rubberhouse style hands with 4 fingers. Which looks fine on a cartoony style but looks strange on the semi-realistic style I was going for. I guess that translated in the toes as well. Phalange are phalange I guess.

I’m just gathering all 3 of these panels and putting my thoughts on them together since this post is getting quite long. The 1st panel looks kind of bland, hardly any emphasis on Orpheus’ loss. Just some rain and a flat rectangle which is supposed to be the gravestone I guess. 2nd panel honestly looks pretty great, with out of doubt my favourite panel. The scratchy cross-hatching with the pen looks great. I also like Orpheus’ lyre attached to back (have no idea how it’s attached) And finally the 3rd panel! Oh lord… It kind of speaks for itself. I think the weirdly defined knuckles just make the hands look short and sausage-y. Also Hades hand’s actually have five fingers on them 🎉🎉 The pinkie is shoved awkwardly to the side but it’s still there so I take it as a victory

Skipped the weird chibi looking panel for post length sake. Consistency has utterly left the room this time. I was literally finishing this comic in the last ten minutes of art class 💀 also we do not talk about what’s going on with Orpheus’ and Eurydice’s hands

95% of the budget (and my pen ink) went into drawing Orpheus’ curls. Would ancient Greeks even have this hair phenotype I have no clue I am losing my mind. Also where did Orpheus’ lyre go. Consistency is my arch nemesis apparently. Honestly these panels are not too bad. Orpheus is looking a bit cross eyes in that 1st panel but otherwise it looks fine

Overall this comic is fine, nothing to write home about though. For a first real go at drawing humans it’s great. But the real thing that brings this comic down is just the lack of consistency and overall messiness. You can see on some of the panels I forgot to erase the pencil underneath. Mainly this is due to my lack of forward planning. I mean I got a passing grade and got the credit for this course so it’s a win I guess. I’m really interested in revamping this comic for fun one day, just to see how I’ve improved. Definitely on digital though. Stay tuned in for that in the unforeseen future👀

[syeunko]

A sobering realization

There’s a lot of things I think am and also a lot of things I think I am not. Sometimes they are contradictory, but in my head this still makes sense, both can be true. I am not moody. I am, though. I am detail oriented. I am emotional. I am not emotional. I like attention. I hate attention. I am unfocused. I get hyper-fixated. I’m realistic, and literal, but also…fantastical?

Three weeks ago, I turned 28. I always thought I liked attention because of how much I love my birthday. But only this year have I started to accept I am uncomfortable with attention. I don’t know though. Everyone likes attention, to some degree. What is the line? 

These past 2 weeks, I have been working on systematic literature review data extraction, which is the bane of my existence. It is like it sounds - extraction - nitpicking and extricating the minutest of information into a huge rectangular spreadsheet made up of even more countless, smaller cells. If I ever thought I was detail oriented, I have been proven wrong by data extraction. Is observational period the same thing as follow-up time? What if a study has two potential study designs? How to read a Kaplan-Meier curve? 

As I was meandering along at a turtle pace, I finally got that aha moment where everything started making sense. Unfortunately, it came two days before the deadline, which prompted me into two late nights of working at a manic pace. If I get it now, though, am I detail oriented? 

A couple days ago, I saw a promotional interview clip of Kim Jiwon for her new drama. One of the comments read, “You can see the stars in her eyes.” It reminded me of all the book-isms I read growing up, with an abundance of characters having “a twinkle in their eye,” or kisses that felt like “exploding fireworks.” I don’t know if I expected beams of light radiating out of people’s eyes or heart palpitations so strong it felt like fireworks going off inside, but I didn’t get it. My first kiss was just a kiss (I blame books for expecting anything more) and only after looking at the dead, empty eyes in mugshots of serial killers do I see what twinkle-full and twinkle-less eyes are like. Other times, however, I'm over-romanticizing everything. I swear my powder blue alpaca knit sweater cardigan is magical and will transform me into a mystical lady that lives in a cottage on the moors of Finland. And then I look in the mirror and think it makes me look frumpy. I still cannot decide.

A while back, Junwon showed me this new game Frase, where you solve an anagram. Theoretically, I should’ve loved this game from the get go. The first time I played it though, it was really hard. I felt defeated. (How come Junwon got it faster than me? I should be better than him.) So I quit. In Boston, I started playing with him again and coincidentally got the answer faster one of the days. I’ve been playing since (lol). Last night, I got the puzzle right in 21 seconds, got a subsequent adrenaline rush, and felt on top of the world. Then I felt slightly perturbed. How come I’m so back and forth, up and down, am and am not, yes and no with everything?

Flighty. The word is flighty. I am just flighty :(

[dilesxpressions]

Welton Czhang

1. Name, Year, Major, and Hometown

My name is Welton Czhang, I’m an Animal Science major, and my hometown is San Gabriel!

2. What’s your roman empire?

My roman empire is thinking about cats and how complete my life would be if I had pets, how I can constantly adapt and improve my boxing stances and punches, and finally how frequently I can plan hangouts with people around my schedule while also leaving to study. 

3. What is the best compliment you have ever received?

The best compliments I have ever received are from my friends stating how I do the most for other people, and give away so much love.

4. If your life was a movie what genre would it be (comedy, horror, drama, etc.) and what actor would play you?

If life was a movie the genre for mine would be a dramedy! David Tennant would play me and absolutely crush my role.

5. What is something on your college bucket list?

Something on my college bucket list is to bike all around Davis from night until morning with myself, a friend, or a group of friends, and to not check our phones for the entire duration of that time. Only until morning would we check where we’ve been, and track the amount of miles we’ve biked, and then bike back home! 

6. What’s your guilty pleasure? (song, movie, food etc.)

My guilty pleasure is spending a LOT of screen time on Instagram sending silly reels or memes to my friends. 

7. What are your bad habits?

I do not make my bed every morning, I sometimes do not wake up on my first, second, third, fourth, or fifth alarm because I am a heavy sleeper, and I enjoy my long showers. (~40 mins) 

8. What are your favorite song lyrics?

One of my favorite song lyrics is from Last Kiss, “I love how you walk with your hands in your pockets, How you’d kiss me when I was in the middle of saying something, There’s not a day I don’t miss those rude interruptions. And I’ll go, sit on the floor wearing your clothes, all that I know is I don’t know, how to be something you miss. “ I love how Taylor can tell stories in a song, maybe it’s romantic, maybe it’s bittersweet, but the way the lyrics rhyme and be catchy as well as paint a picture in your head is why I love Last Kiss, as well the rest of her music!

9. Defend your unpopular opinion/ hot take

In n Out is mid, the bread tastes like sandpaper, McDonald’s is better in literally everything, Cane’s is also mid, it tastes so plain, if it wasn’t for Cane’s sauce, they would be nothing. KFC is the best fast-food place for chicken because I grew up with it, and the oil, skin, and chicken they make has the best 1:1:1 ratio. Drake only knows how to make catchy, popular songs but is not a good artist. I like some of his songs but he is not good. 

10. Describe a time where you had to step up and be a leader?

One high challenge situation that really put me in a leadership position was the time that I was placed into a group project where we had to create a song about DNA, and I was a freshman who had just recently transferred into high school. In my group were sophomores and juniors who were uninterested in cooperating with me in completing the project, rather, they much preferred each other’s company. They spent most of their time joking and chatting with each other, and initially it was so hard to get anything serious and project-related done. They also ignored me or glossed over what I, a freshman, had to say. With a deadline a couple weeks away, I spent a good chunk of my time first setting aside my own differences from the group so that I could bond with each one of them personally before bringing them all together so we could achieve the task that loomed ahead of us. If they wanted to have fun, we had fun, we just made the project fun in our way! It wasn’t easy, the communication aspect and team-bonding part was already not a part of the assignment, taking up so much time for effective planning. Regardless, our final product was something that we all collectively put our heads together for, and we ended up really happy with the outcome. When it came our turn to present our song, my teacher loved it, and the class cheered us on afterwards with a standing ovation.

[garetlomodag]

February 2023: Too fast, too curious

What a month!

I’m surprised I still found time to craft this. Well, I’m doing something new. Instead of just doing it in one go, I decided I will do it in tranches. I will just keep on building on it until I finish the whole thing.

So, waddup February?! If you read my Jan post, you would know how I dread this month. 😂 but going into the whole month, wow did it escalate on a different level lol haha

It’s a month where I got reminded of the things that truly matter to me, and things that are all just fleeting and meaningless.

Don’t get me wrong, I know what matters already. I just wanted to wander and push limits again 🤣, as a stubborn, (feeling) willful person.

I had a lot of mishaps this month actually. From getting wasted (with only a little over a week in!) ➡️ series of catcalls while running (which reminds me, I need to report them) ➡️ crazy, messed up schedules (talk about overlapping appointments for work and personal) ➡️ unfortunate wardrobe malfunctions (good thing it happened discreetly) ➡️ almost ran out of gas #NeverAgain 🥲 ➡️ almost cut people off (bec yikes 🤢🤮)

Didn’t think they’d all lump together this month HAH! But hey, I still had some great stuff this month too! Got to catch up with long time friends ➡️ took a break from unnecessary activities ➡️ fambam time ➡️ took a break from (select) people hehe that did not last long lol ➡️ went on a quick vacay

But in a nutshell I got reminded of/learned these things:

1. Life is fleeting. It’s not about going YOLO, but it’s about living for what truly matters. Cry for the right things. Give more headspace for eternal things. Throw away 🤮🤢

2. People will disappoint — so don’t put them on a pedestal. gaaahhh I always need to be reminded of this. I’m always all-in, so if I trust you, I trust you. But sometimes I forget that we are just humans. And people can change, people can choose to live/think differently. And it’s okay. You can still choose to love them the same.

3. I like clear intentions (in all things, at all times). I only realized now that it matters to me so much. Thanks to running for my aha moment. Now it makes more sense why I always use this line: “simple lang naman ako. Just be upfront with me so I can make informed and sound decisions.” So now that I am more aware, I hope I will choose to veer from anything unclear. Cos honestly, anything puzzling sucks the life out of me.

4. I am not (yet?) ready. This is #TMI, but I got asked several times this month (by some interested, and some random people): “are you ready to get married this year?” My reaction? I got scared..like my heart was about to burst. I didn’t know how to respond and honestly I still don’t know. Hindi ba pwedeng hinay hinay lang? This year agad?! So now, if I get asked again, my next default answer will be: “I will cross the bridge when I get there.”

5. Choosing discipline is hard. It’s not always fun and will-based. Like when I run, sometimes I really need an extra push (literally and figuratively) to get myself off the bed and run like a horse with blinkers.

Some big stuff, February! 28 days felt so jampacked and character-stretching.

Although I must say I am also excited for a few things this March:

1. Even though I feel like I’m lacking time, I am going to push for my 1st run deadline by the end of March. Accckkk so help me God

2. Rebuilding old accountability groups from church and personal circle, but also developing new ones :) Oh so grateful that from season to season, God surrounds me with good and wise counsel. 🙏🏼

3. Once I finish March, I am shifting to another training set for my next 15/21km target. (Lord, pls help me)

Grabe, it’s just month #2 and 2023’s stepping up its game already. 😂🙄 I remember the Death Crawl scene in Facing the Giants movie. I take inspiration from this line: “You’re gonna give me your best.” Aye aye! 10 more! Let’s go!

Watch the scene here: https://youtu.be/SpdLC4RdJTg

[imagine-knowing-a-name]

Shark Ambassador

Summary: Jeff’s fame takes him to new heights: educating people on his shark brethren

Pairing: Natasha Romanoff x Reader

Word Count: 3659

Warnings: I don’t think there are any but lmk if I should add something :)

A/N: I’M SORRY EVERYONE I DIPPED FOR LIKE, A MONTH. I really said I would be back and get the next parts out soon and then did that. But my university decided to put all my super long assignment deadlines right in succession of each other so I literally did nothing else :’) Also the last part is not edited, I just wrote it and now I want to go to sleep. But enjoy :)

Part of The Jeff Fictional Universe

[Jeff gets Instagram - Part 3]  [ Part 1 -> Part-time Avenger] [Part 2 -> Full-time Land Shark]

—————————————————

—————————————————

“This is going to be epic Jeff, trust me”. You smiled, looking up over the worktable to where the land shark sat patiently on the floor.

He approved with a ‘mrrr’ and approached when you picked up the mechanism, letting you strap it onto his back. He tried to watch as best he could while you secured it, tilting his head at funny angles, to the point where you eventually had to stop him with a laugh, telling him to sit still.

Once he stopped squirming it actually only took a few seconds to buckle it up. Which were a few too many seconds for Jeff to have to sit still; he was bouncing with energy, sprinting outside to the pool as soon as he was released. 

A small tilt of his head backwards checked that you were ready to record before he dove into the pool, circling it happily.

“What is that!?” you fake exclaimed. That was Jeff’s cue to leap out of the water, firing a beam directly into the air.

“A shark! With frickin’ laser beams!”

These were the things you and Jeff got up to when Natasha left you home alone. She’d left for a month-long mission in Italy, doing simple reconnaissance work, whilst you were tasked with staying in New York to work at the compound. Since it wasn’t too high stakes, Natasha was allowed to call whenever she had the time. And she did, resulting in almost nightly long-distance movie nights to make it feel like you weren’t so far apart. They helped to reassure Jeff too, as on the nights where Natasha couldn’t call, Jeff would spend the night whining, and usually end up curled up tightly on her side of the bed.

One such movie night had led to you all watching Austin Powers since, despite your girlfriend’s spy status and love of James Bond, she had never seen it. She also didn’t see the look you and Jeff shared at the mere mention of a shark, completely oblivious to how much was hidden when she wasn’t physically present.

By the next day you were already in the workshop, immediately designing and building a laser beam contraption to fit onto Jeff. You let him help out, so it was more of a bonding activity than anything.

You recorded Jeff splashing around for another few minutes, then he propelled himself back towards you and clambered out. He sent a charming grin to the camera, his tongue hanging lopsidedly out of his mouth as he beamed. Then, once you finished filming, he came and climbed onto your lap to watch it back.

He looked up at you and nodded his approval, before sprinting off and returning with his phone a minute later. The phone had been adjusted slightly by you and Tony, but it still had difficulty registering his land shark hands, especially when he had just been in the water. Jeff never appreciated your comments on his struggles to unlock his phone, never accepting help; he took after Nat in that regard. So for this, you stayed silent, smiling only when you caught sight of yourself as Jeff’s lock screen. Natasha had taken the picture a few days after Jeff had been rescued; you were smiling up at her, while Jeff slept on top of you for the first time.

“Hey Jeff, say cheese” you decided suddenly. He jolted his head up, baring his teeth back into a smile as he ‘mrrr’d.

“Thanks buddy.” Your lock screen had been Natasha for almost as long as you’d been dating, but if Jeff had you, then it was only fair that you should have him. Though you did wonder if Natasha also had you as her lock screen, she certainly had when you first got together, but that had been years ago, you hadn’t checked whether she’d changed it since.

Either way, the thought quickly slipped from your mind when Jeff pushed his phone into your lap, Instagram now opened. “You want to post the video?”

If Natasha found out that you had given Jeff lasers while she was away, the both of you would certainly be in trouble. But Jeff’s eyes were pleading, and with the eagerness of his nod, you couldn’t deny him. Plus Natasha wasn’t technically supposed to be on any social media until she got back, her own account framed to make it look like she was still at home. So there was no chance she would scroll through a month’s worth of posts to find it, not when all the Avengers posted several times a day. With a hum, you sent the video over to Jeff. You uploaded it for him, but handed it back to let him caption it himself; ‘mrrr!’… as usual.

You called Natasha daily for the rest of her mission and she never brought it up. You weren’t necessarily in the clear, she was a spy after all, but the attention the video garnered lessened every day, and it was practically gone from Instagram by the time she returned.

She had about enough time to clean up and get changed after her month away before Jeff approached you both, a DVD case in his mouth. You met Natasha’s eyes from across the room and both broke into a smile, you’d missed her presence and her live reactions to Jeff’s antics. Since neither of you gave Jeff direct attention, he took matters into his own hands, huffing and choosing to present his film choice to Natasha. He trotted over and let her crouch down and take it from him.

Her eyes flit back up to you once she saw the film choice, holding up the cover so you could see.

“Jaws? I’m not sure that’s appropriate, Jeff” she said, but he insisted.

“It’s a bit violent” 

Natasha’s warnings meant nothing to Jeff, he was too enthralled that a film would have a shark on the cover. He pleaded with her, until eventually you both relented. Nobody could resist his demands for long.

—————————————————

Jeff wished he’d listened to Natasha by the end of it, to say the least.

There were tears, there were screams, and you decided that you really should have put more effort into stopping Jeff watching the movie. As soon as the credits began, he walked out in silence, a worrying change from the near constant whimpers of the past 2 hours. He left you and Natasha unsure of which steps to take, whether he wanted to be alone of whether he would need comfort.

Three rounds of rock, paper, scissors later and it was you knocking on your own bedroom door, Jeff having shut it on his way in. He replied, giving you permission to come in, though the sight once you did was certainly not what you had been expecting. Rather than a repeat of the Yelena incident, there was no whimpering or crying. Instead, he’d made himself comfortable on the bed, furiously typing into his phone. He barely even looked up at your entry.

“What, uh, what’re you doing Jeff? How are you doing?”

“Mrrr”

“Yeah, I can see you’re writing, but what?”

He tilted his screen towards you, showing you what he’d written so far. It was at this point that you remembered Jeff had never actually been taught to read or write, and the majority of the words were a mess of letters in the wrong places. Every e also seemed to have been replaced by a 3 for some reason. You really should teach him the alphabet someday.

“Mrrr?” he asked, looking for your approval

“It looks really good Jeff!” you bluffed, “how about you recite it to me though and I’ll type it up, we’ll get it done faster that way.”

Again, he wasn’t one to willingly accept help, but this seemed to be something he was passionate about, so anything to make it better he would accept. He nodded and waited for you to get your laptop ready before working with you to create a speech against the portrayal of sharks in the media. You threw in suggestions here and there, helping him find the best words, but the final draft was still very much Jeff’s stance. He tried to read the edit, but eventually had to concede that he couldn’t read and asked you to narrate it for him.

At his approval, you slid the phone back to him, giving him the satisfaction of hitting the post button.

But for once he asked for your help in typing a caption, reciting a further comment on his distaste of how the shark was treated in Jaws, and how unlikely it was for a shark to act like the one in the film.

He looked up at you after the upload, smiling. “You happy with it? Because I am, I’m proud of you Jeff.”

“Mrrr”

“Yeah we won’t watch it again”. You still felt bad for letting him watch Jaws, but if it was the catalyst for his work educating the public on sharks, you had to respect the trajectory. “Now come on bud, Nat’s probably worried about us. We can all go out and get you gummy sharks for your good work.

—————————————————

That moment set Jeff on a far greater path than you’d realised. Of course his post gained traction, as all of them do, which brought a lot of attention towards the unfair representation of sharks.

You were curled up on the sofa with Nat a day after it was posted, your head resting on her shoulder, half-heartedly watching the David Attenborough documentary the assassin had put on. She’d asked to watch something that could just be in the background to let you spend some time just talking to each other again. You were both on your phones, so that plan hadn’t gone well, but you were still able to relax and appreciate having her familiar presence back in the house.

Taking your eyes off of the screen, you tilted your head to look up at her, catching sight of her phone as you went. “Aww, you do have me as your lock screen!”. The words came out before you even thought about it.

“Yeah, of course I-, wait, do you not have me?”

“Uhhh”

“Y/N, what’s your lock screen?”

Jeff had been napping on his shark bed in the corner, but he looked up at Natasha’s dangerously low tone. His eyes met yours next, displaying smugness as soon as he realised what was happening. When he turned his head you followed the path of his gaze, landing directly on your phone, the one you had left on the other side of the room and had been too comfortable to retrieve.

He locked eyes with you again, understanding your silent pleas for him not to do what you knew he was ready to do. Not that he listened to you. Withing a millisecond he was out of bed, snatching your phone before you could even spring up and parading it around you. He strolled leisurely to Natasha, sprinting and jumping only to avoid your blockade attempts.

With a proud hum, he dropped the phone onto Natasha’s lap, looking back at you now stood on the other side of the sofa due to his dodging. Natasha looked up at you too, a raised eyebrow asking for your permission to look; you nodded.

“You replaced me with Jeff?”

The land shark looked between you smugly, clearly proud that he was there instead of Nat. You would happily switch it back at this point.

“What is he wearing? Are those Tony’s lasers?”

“Um-”

Jeff nodded and Nat turned on you. “It was Jeff’s idea!”

“MRRR!” he huffed indignantly, pointing back at you.

“What? no, you chose to make the video”

“Mrrr.”

“There’s a video?”

“On Jeff’s Instagram” you told Natasha quickly, before going back to arguing with the shark.

“Jeff, what is this?” she questioned after a second. You cringed in anticipation for the reaction, but a ‘mrrr’ from Jeff made you turn your head.

Natasha held up a new post from Jeff, one you hadn’t seen yet, that he had posted in collaboration with the Discovery Instagram account. “Uh, that reply didn’t even mean anything,” you translated for your girlfriend, “he literally just said ‘mrrr’.”

He began to explain after a bit more prompting, fetching his phone and handing it to you, displaying an open conversation with the Discovery Instagram account.

“Mrrr”

“He says he meant to tell us but he forgot”

You and Natasha exchanged a look again, before focusing on what Jeff was showing you.

‘Hi Jeff,’ the message read, ‘we love your account and all the attention you bring to sharks. In advance of shark week, would you be interested in recording a special episode and promoting it on Instagram? It would be really beneficial in raising awareness that sharks are not the danger that the media portrays them as.’

Natasha finished reading it faster than you, and her eyes shone with pride when she looked up. “You got yourself a TV contract Jeff?”

“Mrrr!”

“And you’ve already said you’re doing it?”

“Mrrr”. He nodded again

—————————————————

And that was how you ended up where you were now. In a conference room with the Discovery channel marketing team, acting as a seat and translator for the little suit-wearing land shark on your lap (he’d wanted to make a good first impression). Sure you were a famous Avenger in your own right, but Jeff was the main star in this building.

You helped them and Jeff come to a decision on what Jeff would be doing and the logistics of the whole situation. A team of writers had already gathered facts and figures to support the case for sharks, asking Jeff to read it out and then they would subtitle over it.

“Mrrr.” He insisted on this case that you would also be there to the side, translating his speech in real time to ensure he could edit the script slightly and still have his words translated exactly. You beamed as you narrated it back to the team, happy to know he trusted you to make his case. They agreed happily.

In addition to just presenting, Jeff was also asked to star in the series, having a shark who understood English made it easy for them to gather authentic clips of sharks swimming in their natural habitat.

Overall, the talks went smoothly, the team practically agreeing to Jeff’s (admittedly few) requests instantly, and you were returning home to Natasha in no time. You still hadn’t had time to talk about your laser shark activities, and since she stayed up and followed you after Jeff had gone to bed, you knew she wanted to discuss it. You braced yourself for a lecture, probably some things about ‘endangering your son’, or ‘setting a bad example’, but instead you got neither.

“I’m not mad about the laser shark” she clarified instantly, going through her nightly routine as you went through yours.

“You’re not?”

“No. I watched the video and it was funny, and I can’t say I didn’t have the same thought when we watched the movie”

“You DID?!”

She snickered slightly at your reaction, throwing the pyjamas you were looking for across the room before continuing. “My main concern is that you decided to replace me, your girlfriend, with a shark”

“He’s a land shark” you corrected

Natasha took a deep breath, imitating annoyance, but the corners of her mouth tipped up; her way of letting you know she didn’t mean it. You were ready for bed at this point, and she slipped in right beside you.

“I’m just saying, you replaced me with a land shark, when you could have used a photo of both of us”

Your mouth opened, ready to state your own defence, of which you had none. “Come with us to set tomorrow, I’m sure Jeff would love your support and then I can get a good photo of the two of you. I’ll set it as my lock screen, promise.”

The two of you were facing each other in bed, and she seemed to contemplate it for a while, before breaking into a soft laugh. “Jeff already asked me earlier” she clarified, “I’ll be there”.

—————————————————

The set up was on the beach, beginning with Jeff’s mini lectures, then moving onto getting footage of Jeff swimming in the sea.

While you went over the final technicalities with the director, Jeff got to work drawing on the blackboard that had been set up, aided by Natasha lifting him where he needed to be to draw. By the looks of things, you would have to get one for the house, the land shark fascinated by the chalk and taking great amusement from his drawings. Natasha was smiling too, watching what he did. You took a photo of them in that moment, the first of many that day.

When filming began, Jeff looked into the camera with confidence, his drawings from earlier still on the board. He grabbed a pointer and aimed it at the shark; he’d drawn a Great White, and put a smiley face on it to really make his point. He happily explained the role of sharks to the ecosystem; how necessary they were for the marine food chain to be maintained, and how few people sharks killed compared to the number of sharks that were killed. Meanwhile you stood to the side, translating his ‘mrrr’s for the general audience.

Then he moved on to the dolphins. They did not receive such a glowing review; made especially obvious by the fact he had drawn little devil horns and an angry face on his diagram. You kept translating, reciting the facts he was spewing about how dolphins attacked sharks, often using their snouts to ram sharks’ gills in attempts to injure or kill Jeff’s brethren.

Finally, he spun the board around, revealing a stick figure drawing of a person. Jeff made the point that, as much as he loved living among people, humans were the greatest predators to sharks and dolphins alike, and even he got negative reactions every time he went swimming in public. The filming on the beach was solely to illustrate that point, and it was the next step in the documentary. Jeff dove into the waves, splashing about in the shallows with Natasha. She had volunteered to swim with the land shark, just to make sure nobody would try to attack him, just in case. You took another photo then, Natasha in a swimsuit, smiling widely at Jeff, whilst the land shark leapt up playfully, aiming to douse her in as much salty water as he could manage. There was no competition, that was the one for your lock screen.

At last, they focused, the camera crew getting into place both on the beach and in the water, and Jeff swam deeper, until just his fin was visible. He made his way to the more crowded area of the beach, and screams began as soon as he was spotted, anyone in the sea hurriedly evacuated, taking shelter on the beach. That was until Jeff re-emerged from the water and everyone saw who it was. The mood changed in an instant, rather than running from him, crowds formed to run towards him, taking photos and petting the willing celebrity. It was exactly the footage needed for the documentary, so once the crowds had died down and each civilian caught on camera had agreed to either be shown on the film or have their face blurred, Jeff was done, and you and Nat could take your leave.

Rather than go home immediately, Natasha had planned a surprise for Jeff. Jeff was a unique animal, but with his passion for defending sharks, you wondered whether he was missing out on opportunities to socialise with his fellow sharks by living with you, so the three of you took a boat out, going just off the coast, to where a Smooth Dogfish shark had recently been spotted. As luck would have it, you managed to spot it, pointing it out to Jeff.

He jumped into the ocean immediately, you and Nat just about able to see his form retreating towards the animal. The two were motionless for a second, then both sprang to life, spinning and weaving and chasing each other around the depths below the boat, just like dogs in a park.

It kept Jeff entertained for an hour, you and Natasha using the time to catch up, just lying together in the boat until it was time to go home.

Jeff deflated when you called him back up, having to say goodbye to his newfound friend. So you promised he could come back the next week, not only to make him feel better, but it was nice to see him so happy and able to play with a similar species. He babbled excitedly about the shark to you and to Instagram all the way back home, only stopping when he spotted a package by your front door.

He rushed ahead as soon as the car door opened, nudging and sniffing the package, then gently opening his jaw and grabbing the whole box. You chuckled, helping him by unlocking the door, and he proudly carried the delivery inside, depositing it on the coffee table.

“Who’s it for, Jeff?” Natasha asked, and the land shark studied the label very carefully, concluding with a ‘mrrr’

“He can’t read” you translated, going to inspect it yourself, and seeing Jeff’s name on the label. “But it’s yours, buddy, go ahead and open it”

He used his teeth like a knife, slicing through the tape so that the box could flap open, then he buried his head inside, pulling out a small bronze coloured triangular prism.

Jeff ‘mrrr’d proudly at you and Natasha, drawing your attention to what he held, a small name plaque : ‘Jeff – Shark Ambassador’

—————————————————