#also this idea basically wrote itself once i was inspired

[sastielsfandom]

Day 8 of Happy Hollandween

Rating: General Audiences Archive Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Fandoms: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies) Categories: Multi Relationships: Michelle Jones/Ned Leeds/Peter Parker Characters: Peter Parker, Tony Stark, Ned Leeds, Michelle Jones Additional Tags: Mischief, Poor Life Choices, Fluff Work Title: The Phone May Ring, But It's Not Being Picked Up Summary: It's not that Peter is avoiding Mr. Stark's phone calls, it's just he's not trying to be lectured for certain things… Like turning off "important" parts of his suit. He knows what he's doing. (To a degree.) Language: English Words: 1,805 Chapters: 1/1

[therealcocoshady]

Marshall Mathers as your husband HC

A/N : wrote this kind of quickly. I was in a fluffy mood. And yeah, it was completely inspired by the vision of him in that suit in the Temporary video. 😅

* Marshall has said it loud and clear in interviews : he is done with marriage. However, he’s come to change his mind when he meets you.

* At the beginning of your relationship, he’s made it clear though : if you’re in search of a husband… well, you better search for someone else because he is not husband material. First of all, he doesn’t want to get married again. Second of all, he doesn’t think of himself as hubby material. He is very much aware of his flaws and trust issues and how that might get in the way. And, third of all, has he mentioned that he really doesn’t want to get married ?

* Anyone who knows him knows that it takes a miracle to change his views on marriage. And as it turns out, that miracle is you.

* You don’t even have to scheme or plan something elaborate in hope that he changes his mind. He is a big man who does it all by himself when he realizes what a privilege it is to have you as a wife.

* Before, he used to think that marriage equals duties. And, while it’s technically true, he soon realizes its full of privileges. And, too bad for him, you’re not giving away husband privileges to someone who only has subscribed to the boyfriend package.

* He thought he didn’t want to live with anyone. Be in a relationship ? Sure. But having to share his space and make arrangements ? Hell no ! At least, that was until he became obsessed with the idea of living with you. Seeing you everyday would not be enough. He wants to share your space, wake up next to you in the morning. He’s practically begging for your skincare products to invade his bathroom.

* When he brings up the possibility of maybe moving out together (because, you know, it’s convenient) and you say you don’t think it makes sense to give up on that independence unless you’re married and building something with someone, he is flabbergasted. Because how dares a lady turn down the opportunity to live with him ? But once his ego calms down, he soon comes to the conclusion that if putting a ring on it is what it takes, he will happily do it.

* And not only does he want husband privileges, you also make him crave husband duties. He is so in love with you that he would consider it an honor to serve, protect and take care of you.

* He knows you’re independent - that’s one of the things he loves about you - and he knows what an honor you’d do him if you consented to giving it up in order to put up with his grumpy ass.

* This man loves you so much he considers himself lucky to breathe the same air as you. So of course he’s doing everything he can to get you to say yes. He starts slow and easy at first. He makes it a priority to make your life easier, be there for you. Basically trying to tell your subconscious he is absolutely husband material.

* And when it comes to the proposal ? He is on another level. The man is capable of making quintuple entendres in his raps. So of course he’s just as meticulous when it comes to asking for your hand.

* Basically, he sees the proposal as the ultimate opportunity to prove himself to you and show you he is worthy of being your husband.

* The proposal itself is not necessarily flashy. He’s not necessarily pulling a Kanye, renting a stadium, an orchestra and doing fireworks. But it is extra thoughtful. He is involved in every little detail and includes little nods to your relationship and the aspects that make it unique.

* When you say yes he is so happy and emotional.

* The wedding is just as meticulously planned. He wants to make sure you have the day you deserve. He is very involved in the preparations but, ultimately, what you say goes.

* Basically, from the moment you agree to marrying him, he becomes a « yes, dear » husband. You mention you can’t pick between two dresses ? He hands you his credit card and tell you to buy everything you want, you can just decide what feels right at the last minute. You insist on having specific flowers, even though they’re not in season ? He will fly them in. Can’t pick a honeymoon destination ? Don’t. He’ll take you in twenty different honeymoons if you want. Honestly, if you wanted Elvis to sing as you walked down the aisle, he’d go and dig that man from his grave.

* He loves you so much he’d agree to not wearing sneakers on your big day.

* He does not cry when you walk down the aisle. He bawls. And we all know he is an ugly crier.

* As soon as he is legally allowed to call you his wife, it becomes his favorite word. Forget your first name, it’s useless now. You’re « Mrs Mathers » or « wifey ».

* He never shuts up about you either.

* The only time he declines an opportunity to talk about you is when the media is involved. You’re the most precious thing to him and he will not do anything to jeopardize that.

* He is honest about his marital status and shares that he got married. But the more he can protect your privacy, he happier he is.

* If you’re spotted in public, the most he will do is hold your hand. Other than that, no PDA.

* In private, though, he is all over you. All. The. Time.

* And don’t you dare use your wifely duties as an excuse not to cuddle with him. You need to take care of the house ? He’ll hire staff. You need to cook ? He’ll hire a chef.

* He doesn’t require you to do anything around the house. He’s grateful for anything you do but your only duty is to live in your shared home.

* You want to keep working ? He’ll support you in your professional endeavors. You want to be a stay at home wife ? You have his full support.

* He is absolutely intent in taking care of you financially. Any money you earn is yours. Do not even think about « contributing » or whatever that is. Providing is his job.

* He’d hate to be with a gold-digger but the thought of having his woman pay for anything hurts his pride. So if you’re married, he is absolutely the provider of the household.

* You can have full custody of his credit card for all he cares. As long as you spend reasonably, he doesn’t care.

* Honestly, being married to Marshall is pretty sweet. He is supportive, loving and caring.

* The only thing he asks for is your respect and support. As long as you respect his work and passions and that you’re supportive, he’s happy.

* The only arguments you have is if he feels you’re not supportive enough. Other than that, he doesn’t even dream of arguing with you. Why bother though ? You’re always right. And if you’re wrong - well he is wrong for thinking you’re not right.

* If he has hurt you or pissed you off in any way, he is quick to apologize and make it up to you.

* You always get your way. You don’t want to go out ? He will help you undress and get a snack while you pick what you want to watch on TV. You don’t like his outfit ? He’ll change. And he’ll never be upset at you.

* He can get fussy about a lot of things and be pissed off by a lot of people. But his wife ? Never.

[orteil42]

enough about cookie clicker, what inspires/inspired you to make NESTED 1 and 2? and also what inspired you to add certain things too like the cat thoughts or pasta butts and so on-

as much as Cookie Clicker draws from various sources i think Nested is probably the "purest" thing i've made! i toyed with the idea of a complex interconnected text-based world during a lunch break once and started coding it once i got home. after i got the basic recursion mechanic working the rest basically wrote itself! (it didn't it took me a while) in the end due to design limitations i didn't have much of the initially planned interconnectedness (ie. finding some person in an office thinking about their spouse and kids, then exploring the rest of the town and coming across said spouse and kids at home) but that would've been a lot of work for something that hardly anyone would notice anyway. in Nested 2 i try to suggest a bit more structure and cohesion ie. each planet procedurally generates its own set of recurring brands, famous authors, popular drinks etc.

each category of animal in Nested has its own set of thoughts based on whatever archetype i thought was funny at the time, ie. horses are very confused, worms go squirm squirm and cetaceans are insufferable. cats, along with some lolcat quotes of the era, quote the Time Cube conspiracy website, to reflect their wise and easy-going personalities.

as these were the far reaches of 2011 i was fairly big on "lolrandum" humor which is why among other things there's a 0.01% chance the game will generate a random kind of pasta inside someone's butt, and 0.2% of some crustacean spawning inside a black hole, for instance. this sort of infantile nonsense is something i still stand by and i will try my best to maintain it for the sequel

[sanctus-ingenium]

I'd looove to hear a little about your worldbuilding process if you don't mind sharing. How do you go about it? I know you have shared in a few posts already but just wanna know moree. Also where did it all begin? What inspired you? (eating it all uppp!!!)

hi!! I know I wrote a big long thing like last year or the year before about the process to making a setting but I cannot be arsed to find it rn so here's some disconnected thoughts

Overall I don't really make Headworlds or Worldbuilding Projects the way a lot of people do (which is why u keep hearing me say 'setting' over and over) because mainly what I make are stories in the order of characters -> plot -> world. those three things have to serve one another in that order of importance, so the world itself bends to serve the narrative. for example, ultimately idgaf where the holy beasts' skeletons come from, that is not important because the beasts are basically just a big plot device to serve the story. i can make some post-hoc justifications for their existence (and i did) but at the end of the day it will not and does not matter how they work or where they come from. the world is full of mysteries that will never be solved because the characters are not in a position to solve them. aside from a single border conflict, the world outside the mezian empire is nebulous and unimportant.

I don't enjoy working in a world -> narrative order because what I want to produce isn't just a series of info posts or artpieces about a setting, but a closed and self-contained story which is the justification for the entire world's existence. Headworlds that are all world and no character don't interest me.

So basically in the process of worldbuilding, I have to serve the story. A while back I made a post about continental history around Inver, all these wars and occupations and schisms and so on. All of those exist solely to provide a particular political climate, justification for Aquitan's theocratic structure, and the spread of the southern church north into Inver. I already had the idea of this church, that it would be integral to the country as a main political faction, so now I have to figure out how it got there and the political ramifications of that. It's all worldbuilding for sure, but it's a support structure underneath the story about how that church eventually changes world history, because i wanted to write a story about a church lol.

I guess if I wanted to explain The Process for a world -> characters setting i'd just be giving you How To Write A Story 101 lol. But basically: I think of a concept which interests me (big mechs yay). Then I think of a conflict that might arise (where does the fuel come from? who controls that supply? what might that do to the concentration of power in this area?). Then I put a character in what I consider to be the most interesting position to observe the effects of this conflict (a knight, an enginesmith, an exile), and honestly the main plot generally writes itself after that. I extrapolate the hook from that.

In terms of characters, I try to avoid calling them 'ocs' because in my mind 'oc' tends to be a very static stand-alone thing. Like I couldn't make a useful ref sheet of my characters because they are all changed by the story. I couldn't say 'he has a carefree personality' because in a few chapters no he fucking won't. in the same way i struggle a LOT to talk about my Siren setting which as close to a specbio 'headworld' as i'm ever gonna get, because I am worldbuilding in vastly different time periods at once in a world which is always changing, i can't make a post about for example a map of Siren because that's just a map from one era, I'd need to make a dozen maps to show how things change, how time affects it all, etc.

Because nothing is ever static and everything is in flux, pretty much the only way I can handle a setting like this is, again, just to focus on a few small stories centered around a cast of characters separated by time (i have... 4 distinct stories in Siren. maybe more). this is actually a frustrating barrier to me sharing any information at all about this place lol i'm the struggler

Where did it all begin? When I was 11 I used to write stories in my copybooks in class. There has never been a time where I was not making stories and where my stories were not the only important thing at all to me, superseding literally everything else. I learned how to draw digitally in 2011 because I wanted to draw my characters.

What inspires me? Everything lol. I actually don't have time to Consume Media much, I struggle watching movies or tv and I mostly hate video games because I would much rather be productive and sitting and watching a screen feels like a waste of my time. but I like reading books because I can take them with me on my phone. I get ideas from all sources but mostly non-media sources, like obviously mythology but also my history with the church and my scientific education. Usually nonfictional sources interest me the most (i was going to write a whole story that was a post-apocalyptic plague plot based on canine transmissible venereal cancer haha and even to this day that's where "the Immortal Hound" title comes from, little easter egg in inver)

[koujcosplay]

Collected some bts/prep info on our billards shoot for our ig and thought why not share them here too in case anyone's interested in the process :)

We'd made plans to visit the OH3 studios with friends long before we even planned this set, just out of curiosity to try working in a photo studio once instead of doing home shoots all the time. Then came Arcane season 2, our love for zaundads, and some nice billards fanart of them. With the bar next to the pool table, this set turned out kinda perfect for young Vander and Silco.

For inspiration, we looked at movie shots, created a deck on shotdeck, and tried to figure out what story to tell.

You can tell that in the beginning while putting references together, we were kinda uninspired …

… and then it escalated quickly:

One turning point was when Jul suggested to look at the La Tortura music video for further inspiration (yes we keep coming back to it bc it's just so fun and silly and hot), because then I was all in, and also I really wanted to not only take photos but also make a video and tell a story about ✨daydreaming✨.

Then we planned how to organize the shoot itself!

We needed to find a good order for the shots to make it easier to film each other, because after all it was a self shoot and we had little to no experience with cosplay videos, so we really wanted to take out all stress we could through planning everything thoroughly. We combined some of the needed shots to film them in one (or more ofc) takes, because we knew we could cut them in post-production anyway and we expected our acting to be better if we could play through a longer sequence. Like, Vander making the drink or Silco opening a button of his shirt, rolling up his sleeves and chalking the cue.

Half of the shots were taken before I put on the muscle suit, because I knew it would kill my own muscles to hold a gimbal with a heavy camera+lens. All shots of us together were done with a tripod, like this one for example:

We mostly navigated the LED background lights of the studio to fit to our shots and added two little LED light panels for more focused lighting. Color-wise we chose teal for Vander and the bar and red for Silco and the pool table.

Back at home, we edited the video in Davinci Resolve which we’d already used for our cosplay documentary. Cutting the clips to the music was mainly my job, but selecting clips and color grading was a glorious cooperation between Jul and me.

The song choice was nearly clear from the beginning, but we had two backup songs in mind (Arabella from Arctic Monkeys & To be alone from Hozier) in case the original idea with Hozier's Moment's Silence wouldn’t work out. It was also important to us to be able to work with the recorded sound of the pool balls. Which worked pretty well with Moment’s Silence (almost wrote Moment’s Silco oopsie).

To make the dream sequences stand out more, we desaturated the colors and edited the black tones. And for the retro look, we applied an analog damage effect.

That's basically it? If you want to know more, shoot us your questions. 🤍

[tylejandro]

I had no idea there was a @totaldramaficrecweek until just now. To anyone who wants more recs, here's what I suggest for days 1 through 4.

Day 1 (15 July): Favourite Canon Divergence

Favorite by AyaWilliams, an Aletyler and Heatherra rewrite of TDI. I loved seeing how these two relationships could've developed in that season and I thought both were handled very well. I also liked Heather and Noah's alliance. Not to spoil anything, but I also loved the 'Mr. Coconut' equivalent AyaWilliams made for the fic and I thought it was very in character.

I also really enjoyed Slippery Slopes by courtney-deserved-better just like a whole lot of other TD fans. I'm happy it inspired many other people to make Alenoah fanworks. I even wrote about it on Fanlore along with the ship itself, both of which were super fun to make. I really liked how the fic explored Noah's family and how that's been carried over to other fics, since canon gives us so little information.

Day 2 (16 July): Favourite Canon Compliant Fic

7 Minutes in Heaven (It Feels Like 70) by elsleaze, a Tyzeke Playa Des Losers 7 Minutes in Heaven AU. Does this count as canon compliant? Probably not, but I wanted to share this one. It was interesting seeing all the eliminated characters up to Sadie interact with one another, and the actual kissing scene with Tyler and Ezekiel felt very natural. It's a very cozy fic with the steamy moments in the 7 Minutes closet, and it got me to like Ezekiel more.

New Beginnings by CerendaRoth, a Nowen AU that takes place from Greece's Pieces until Owen is eliminated during Niagara Brawls. Not exactly canon compliant, again, but I wanted to share this one. I love how Owen's thoughts in a Nowen AU were explored. It has a great sense of soul, and Team-Escope was great!

Day 3 (17 July): Favourite Alternate Universe - No Total Drama

The Perfect Resolution by Brick_bronze165, a High School AU Aletyler fic written for new years 2024. This is my go-to comfort fic. Alejandro and Tyler's relationship develops naturally and I love all the scenes in this fic, each one shows the stage of their relationship very well. They also have good characterizations, though Tyler's is stronger overall.

i don't hate you, i'm just passing the time by jasmine_sea, a High School AU Alenoah fic written for Alenoah Week 2024. This one is genuinely very well written and may be one of my top 10 favorite fics I've ever read. Seriously. Both Alejandro and Noah are characterized very well and I love the side characters. Their relationship develops naturally and it has amazing scenes. It has a great sense of groundedness, if that makes sense, and the world the characters live in is very believable without being boring.

Day 4 (18 July): Favourite Short Fic (Under 2k)

Solace by AyaWilliams, an Alecody fic where Alejandro hides Cody from Sierra when she tried to make him drink that love tea. I liked the imagery of Alejandro basically cuddling Cody under a table.

Ugly Doll by natalynsie, a solid Heather & Leshawna interaction fic that takes place just after Heather's head is shaved by Chef, but it's not all completely off yet. A very good take on both characters, and this fic also has a lot of soul to it. I once shaved my head so I related a little to Heather's pain here, even if I did it completely on my own terms.

[starmapz]

Your writing is amazing. I'm in love with the college! sukuna series you're working on! Can I ask how you got into writing/how your writing process goes? I really wanna get into writing but I struggle with outlining plots and just like to write and make up the story as it comes to my mind 😭🫶🏽

hiiiii love!! this is so sweet thank you sm <33 i'm so glad to hear you're loving college!kuna because i'm loving writing for it 🥹

you are absolutely more than welcome to ask! so i've been writing for about 12 years now but haven't published anything until recently but i've always enjoyed it. i don't think i ever finished any of my pieces until recently either bc i struggled with outlines and completing things.

i think what helped me the most personally to get past that blockade is that i got into writing for jjk specifically around the same time as a close friend got into writing for another fandom so we beta one another's work and bounce ideas past each other as well, bless her

as for my process itself, i think i actually have a fairly messy process tbh? most of my inspiration comes from music but the majority of fleshing out those ideas comes from the fact that i daydream more than the average person probably should LOL. my mind is just constantly writing the next scene.

i also physically can't write scenes in advance bc if i do i won't write the scenes i'm less inspired for that come before what i've already gotten down, so i write in the order that you all are reading it. i do have notes/planning docs with basic outlines of what i'd like in each chapter but it's genuinely just the word vomit i've sent to my beta reader. it's messy and totally not concrete and i don't stick by it if i feel what i've got planned isn't/won't work.

another thing that i find works well for me is that i actually really enjoy the editing process so if i'm not fully happy with a scene but i'm having a bit of a block, i'll move along if it's at least complete enough to call it 'done', then go back during editing once i've had some time to think it over. i know a lot of people don't like editing, so this may not work for everyone, but taking a step back and thinking things over can always be a good strategy.

my best pieces of advice would be these: - just start writing and see what happens, bc honestly even my work from like 8 months ago or so when i first started this blog i sometimes read again and i can see my improvement and it makes me proud of where i've come from. - if you have an idea, even if it's the middle of the night, open your phone and jot down a note. it's saved so many of my ideas from disappearing into nothing. - read lots! i think the fact that i read a lot of fics alongside writing them has helped me improve as well, bc i try to learn new words/styles from other writers. i find my older writing used to be a lot more rigid, like i wasn't willing to use capitals or multiple exclamation marks to signify yelling, but at the end of the day i realized i like when others do that, so why shouldn't i? i enjoy more casual prose as it feels more realistic at times, so i've adapted that into my writing as well. by knowing what you like to read, you can figure out more how you like to write. - lastly, don't overthink things! remember, if you enjoy what you wrote, others will too. write for yourself and do what you love :)

tysm for all the love, i hope this helps even a little bit <33 sorry for the word vomit LOL and i hope you have a great day/night bb!

[twistedtummies2]

Top 10 H.P. Lovecraft Stories

My previous two lists covered my favorite works from my favorite author, one who is synonymous with horror and mystery: Edgar Allan Poe. In truth, very few authors over the decades have had quite the reputation Poe has, in terms of macabre literature…but if there’s one author who is considered classic to the genre and has come close, it’s Howard Phillips Lovecraft.

H.P. Lovecraft was an…unusual individual, to say the least, even in his own time. To paraphrase a video summary of his life, he was not a man with issues, but rather a bundle of issues in the shape of a man. There are MANY things that have made him a controversial figure as a person, but as a writer, one cannot deny the impact his work has had. He has become almost a genre in and of himself, with the phrase “Lovecraftian” and his favorite word, “eldritch,” being used to describe all manner of slimy and unfathomable horrors in years since his passing. Lovecraft’s work hinges on what he considered “the oldest and strongest kind of fear,” that being fear of the unknown. While there are certain aesthetic elements that are a constant throughout his work, and have their own sort of superficial iconography, the real genius behind Lovecraft’s writing is the sense of not really understanding or knowing the things that we are afraid of. He creates a world where humanity is considered small and insignificant, and our universe humble and refined. His work then pits these meager things against cosmic and ancient forces nobody is able to fully comprehend. Combine this idea with graphic descriptions of rot, decay, and body horror (and a big ol’ splash of icthyophobia) and you have the basic idea of what makes Lovecraft’s work iconic.

Since I already talked about Poe, I felt it was time to give Lovecraft some time in the spotlight. So - in continuation with my series of October countdowns - here are My Top 10 Favorite H.P. Lovecraft Stories.

10. Cool Air.

This story is actually kind of funny, when you really think about it, and especially when you realize why Lovecraft even made it. It was literally made…because H.P. Lovecraft was afraid of air conditioning. No, that is not a joke. Refrigerated air was a fairly new technology in Lovecraft’s time, and was becoming more and more in-vogue for home use, especially in more heavily urbanized areas. At the time he wrote this story, Lovecraft was living in Red Hook, Brooklyn (a place and a situation he utterly despised, for lots of reasons), and this story was him effectively venting his frustrations about his living situation, while also being concerned of how the technology and even possible medical uses it could have might be abused. (Yes, because…God forbid AIR CONDITIONING lead to the end of humanity.) Once you know this, this story becomes kind of hilarious, as his absurd paranoia is present in every page. With that said, the story itself isn’t too bad: inspired by Poe’s “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” (and the lesser-known story “The Novel of the White Powder” by Arthur Machen), the plot focuses on a writer living in Red Hook (gee, I wonder who that could be), whose upstairs neighbor is a mysterious physician named Dr. Munoz. The doctor is a kind and generous fellow, but has two noticeable eccentricities: he never leaves his apartment, and he has a HUGE air conditioning machine, which he runs at all hours, cranked up to the max, keeping himself and the room around him cold. When the machine breaks down…well…if you’ve read either of the two stories I already mentioned, you might already have an idea, but let’s just say, it ain’t pretty. While more funny than scary to me (unintentionally so), it’s still a tale I find interesting, and worthy of placement on the ranks.

9. Call of Cthulhu.

If you haven’t actually read much of Lovecraft’s body of work proper, this story being so low on the list might surprise you. And if you HAVE read a lot of Lovecraft’s work…it still may surprise you. “Call of Cthulhu” is arguably the most famous story the man ever wrote. It is widely regarded as the point where the Cthulhu Mythos (as the name of such implies) truly began, and in compilations of famous short horror stories, if there’s a Lovecraft story included anywhere, nine times out of ten it’s this one. Not to mention the title, itself: if you’re a big-time gamer, you’ll definitely recognize it. There’s a few video games, an RPG game, and a card game that ALL bear this title. However, in my opinion, the IMPACT of “Call of Cthulhu” is more noteworthy than the ACTUAL STORY itself. The plot focuses on a man named Francis Wayland Thurston, who - while going through the belongings left behind by a deceased relative - discovers the existence of a bizarre cult, which apparently spans the entire globe, with members secreted away everywhere in civilization. The cultists worship the ancient being known as Cthulhu: one of the Old Ones, the God-like creatures who are at the heart of Lovecraft’s mythos. He later learns of an encounter a group of sailors had with the monster…aaand that’s kind of it. The story doesn’t really have a solid plot, although it does escalate in its own way, which I admit I find admirable. However, that (plus the very, VERY overt racism present in it…which, frankly, is a problem with a LOT of Lovecraft’s work, and infamously so) I think is why I’m not AS into it as a lot of other people are. Still, it’s iconic enough to make the list, if only because of the impact of the titular creation. Cthulhu has arguably become just as iconic and notorious as many of the other great literary horror stars, such as Dracula, Frankenstein and His Creature, the Phantom of the Opera, and so on. There is good reason for this, and if nothing else, that earns this story some praise.

8. The Rats in the Walls.

Our protagonist for the outing is a man simply known as “Delapore,” who moves from America to England to take control of the ancestral estate of his family. He is accompanied only by his pet cats…and his favorite among them has a very awkward name, so I won’t be mentioning it here. Anyway, the spooky old place seems to be feared by the neighbors, but Delapore nevertheless decides to restore the aging manor house to its former glory. Things change when both he and his cat are plagued by the sounds of rats, scratching and burrowing within the walls of the mansion. To make matters worse, Delapore begins to have frightening dreams, in which he sees a demonic swineherd tending to a drove of “flabby beasts.” Deciding to rid himself of the pest problem, and hopefully put an end to his dreams, Delapore - with the help of a family friend and a couple of other associates - goes hunting for the rats, and in the process discovers a hidden passageway, leading deep down into the bowels of the Earth beneath the house. He soon discovers what appears to be the ruins of a hidden city…and a dark and terrible secret that has been in his family for ages. What happens when he learns the secret is shocking, to say the least. The story feels more Gothic in nature than many of Lovecraft’s other tales, while still having this sort of ambiguous grandness that his other works have, and contains subtle references to things that would, in later stories, be made part of the Cthulhu Mythos, which only adds to its unpleasant and unsettling atmosphere. This story is just plain creepy in the best possible way; whenever I hear the sound of mice or rats scurrying about now, I start thinking of this eerie tale.

7. Herbert West - Re-Animator.

If there is a singular CHARACTER that has become legendary in Lovecraft’s work - not a story, not a creature, not a concept, but a CHARACTER - it is undeniably Herbert West. Told in serialized format over the course of six separate short stories, “Re-Animator” relates the misadventures of the titular scientist, as he tries to create a chemical formula that will allow him to bring people back from the dead. The story is told from the perspective of West’s friend and assistant, who becomes increasingly afraid of West as the scientist’s experiments become more dangerous, and as his moral code continues to fray. While the story is morbid and horrific, it’s also very amusing…and this time, unlike with “Cool Air,” it’s MEANT to be amusing. Lovecraft wrote the story at the request of a friend, who wanted to publish it not in a horror or sci-fi magazine, but a comedy pamphlet! So, Lovecraft intentionally wrote the six connected stories as a sort of horror-comedy, mixing gory and gruesome morbidity with wry wit and deliberately over-the-top elements. By his own admission, he drew most heavily from “Frankenstein,” intending this to be a sort of satire of Shelley’s novel; while what West is doing isn’t PRECISELY the same, the parallels are pretty clear. The six-parter is also noteworthy for being one of the first appearances of what might be called stereotypical zombies: West’s experiments turn most of his “patients” into reanimated corpses, still in states of decay and decomposition, which animalistically feed on the flesh of the living. West himself, however, would be the story’s greatest legacy, as the mad doctor has become the subject of many adaptations and derivative works since, the most famous being the 1985 film starring Jeffrey Combs as the character. While there are several Lovecraft pieces I like more, this one still stands out, and is worthy of all the praise it gets and more.

6. The Color Out of Space.

Also called “The Colour Out of Space,” because regional spelling differences. Anyway, this story brings us to the heart of the cosmic-level types of horrors Lovecraft is so well-known for. It all begins in the rural town of Arkham, Massachusetts. (And yes, Batman fans, this is where the Asylum gets its name from.) A surveyor from Boston asks one of the few remaining locals in the run-down area about a wasteland region of Arkham referred to as “the blasted heath,” and why no one goes there. The local proceeds to tell the surveyor all about what happened there: of a mysterious meteorite that fell from the sky and landed on a farmer’s property. Of the strange globule, with a color no one can quite describe, they found inside of it. Of the farmer’s rise to fame and prosperity thanks to the strange event…and of the then rapid, horrifying decline of the farmer’s life, and the lives of all around him, as the cosmic horror begins to overwhelm them all. In a way, you can kind of consider this a horror version of “The Lorax,” of all things: a character wants to know why a mysterious wasteland is the way it is, and we learn that by messing with things that should not have been messed with, and not taking care to have the proper precautions, many lives were led to destruction, leaving nothing but gloom in the wake of the whole mess. Of course, giant space rocks containing mysterious and indescribable organisms don’t really compare to chopping down a few Truffula Trees, but you get the gist.

5. The Whisperer in Darkness.

The next two stories, starting with this one, are among Lovecraft’s most popular, as well as among the longest: they were actually published in serialized chapters before being released as novellas later on, a little bit like the Herbert West stories. “Whisperer in Darkness” begins when our main character, a literature professor named Albert Wilmarth, hears reports of the carcasses of alien lifeforms being discovered in Vermont. Wilmarth scoffs at the idea at first, disparaging the accounts of the creatures (referred to as Mi-Go), but changes his tune when an old acquaintance of his - Henry W. Akeley - begins a correspondence with him. Akeley claims to have seen the creatures, and later claims to have even killed one of them. Eventually, Akeley convinces Wilmarth to visit him, saying he’s made a breakthrough in his discoveries, and wants his friend to know. Wilmarth visits Akeley, whom he discovers apparently chair-ridden with a bizarre disease that affects his voice. Akeley tells Wilmarth that he no longer believes the Mi-Go are dangerous, claiming they actually want to help mankind…but the methods they plan to use are…unorthodox, to say the least. What’s interesting about this story and the horror it unveils is its layers of ambiguity: there’s a LOT of stuff here we don’t know. We don’t know if the aliens are genuinely evil or not; if what they plan to do is meant to be benevolent but ultimately misguided, or if it’s all some sort of horrifying scam. We also don’t know if what we find out has happened to Akeley was an act of cruelty or if he was as willing as claimed. Finally, we also don’t know what really happens to the Mi-Go at the end of the story: if they died, escaped and are still out there on Earth, or have fled back to their home base on Pluto. (Not even trying to be funny, that’s where their nearest outpost is located.) It’s a multi-layered and extremely unnerving story that really exemplifies the idea of “fear of the unknown” that Lovecraft was so hailed for.

4. At the Mountains of Madness.

While “Call of Cthulhu” and “Herbert West - Reanimator” likely have the most recognizable physical figures and titles of any Lovecraft story, I’d argue this was the most influential in terms of the actual story. “At the Mountains of Madness” is actually the inspiration for several other famous horror/sci-fi combos, including Ridley Scott’s “Alien” and John Carpenter’s “The Thing.” It is also what might be considered the ultimate culmination of the Cthulhu mythos, where the threads of various stories connected to the lore of Lovecraft all come together. The story tells of the adventures of a group of explorers in Antarctica, led by our main character, William Dyer. While on a geological expedition near the frigid South Pole, the explorers find what appear to be the ruins of a prehistoric city, and the fossilized remains of creatures referred to as “Elder Things.” Further exploration reveals that nearly all of the Elder Things were apparently wiped out in a race-related war between themselves and other beings known as the Shoggoths…and that somewhere, deep within the city’s bowels, an unspeakable evil that even these ancient monsters feared is still lurking. As the story goes on, it soon becomes clear that this mysterious evil - the true identity of which is never really made clear - is not all that is still alive in this ancient necropolis…and that the war between these prehistoric races may not really be over. It’s surprising that this story has never gotten a cinematic treatment, since it has been the inspiration for other great films…and with all the references contained to Lovecraft’s general body of work, you could basically call a film version of this story “Lovecraft: The Movie.” There have been rumors, over the years, of Guillermo Del Toro - who is a HUGE Lovecraft fan - making a film adaptation of the story…but with Del Toro’s reputation for picking up and dropping projects faster than I do chicken eggs, I don’t think there’s much hope for that anytime soon.

3. The Shadow Over Innsmouth. This is one of Lovecraft’s most famous tales, as well as one of his most exciting, in my opinion. Initially published - as many of his longer works were - in serialized format, the story actually ended up being one of the few novellas by Lovecraft published in proper book form during his lifetime. (In fact, it might have been the only one, but I’m not entirely sure there; feel free to correct me.) The story begins with our resident narrator and protagonist - Robert Olmstead - telling us of how he helped a government purging of the seaport town of Innsmouth, and then goes on to relate why this happened, and why he’s telling us. He explains how, while going on a tour all over New England, he was more or less forced to travel through Innsmouth…despite the fact that virtually no one ever goes there. It doesn’t take long for Robert to figure out why: he learns of how many of the people in the town worship the mysterious creature known as Dagon, and how the ones who live there don’t seem quite right. They look more or less human…at first, but as they get older, they start to develop strange features more akin to giant fish than to human beings. They also don’t like nosy visitors…so, when Olmstead comes a-calling, you can be darn sure they aren’t the most welcoming. It’s a wonderfully haunting read, with some great moments of tension. The twist at the end is also deliciously disturbing, and actually reminds me a lot of another Lovecraft tale…but that’s literally another story.

2. The Dunwich Horror.

Alongside “Shadow Over Innsmouth” and “Mountains of Madness,” I would argue this is one of the most cinema-worthy entries in Lovecraft’s catalogue of creepiness, as well as one of his most interesting. It was one of Lovecraft’s last-published short stories, and is widely regarded as one of his best; if any of his works is published in a compilation that ISN’T “Call of Cthulhu,” it’s nearly always “The Dunwich Horror,” and between the two, I actually prefer this tale. Unlike all the other stories on this list, it doesn’t have a narrator-protagonist figure, but instead is related directly to the reader, so to speak, in third-person format. It tells of a series of dark happenings in the “eldritch town of Dunwich,” a quaint little New England village where lives a kooky old hermit known as “Wizard Whateley.” One night, Whateley’s albino daughter, Lavinia, gives birth to a child they name Wilbur, but no one is sure who the father is. Wilbur turns out to be a peculiar young fellow, to say the least, as he ages exponentially faster than any human being, and has repulsive, almost Satanical features that give him the appearance of a man and a goat combined. As he grows, Wilbur becomes desperate to find a copy of the fabled Necronomicon, for unknown purposes. Wilbur isn’t the only thing to worry about, as people soon become aware of a strange and seemingly invisible…SOMETHING living in the attic of the Whateley home. I won’t give away what’s going on exactly, but the unfolding horror is deliciously disturbing, and - much like the previous two stories I mentioned - it’s also very exciting. While tensions rise, the fear escalates from a looming, ominous foreboding to shocking action and intensity. If you’re only going to read one entry of Lovecraft’s famous Cthulhu-Mythos-involved stories…then you should probably read “Mountains of Madness,” but this one’s a close second there, definitely.

1. The Outsider.

Not EVERYTHING H.P. Lovecraft wrote was related to the now-so-lauded Cthulhu Mythos. He did, especially in the earlier points of his career, write stories that were completely unique and self-contained. It is likely very ironic that my favorite Lovecraft story is exactly such a case. This little story, as far as I can tell, has no connection to the famous lore at all: it’s a complete one-off, and it is a FABULOUS one. The story focuses once again on a narrator-protagonist, this time one who has no name. He tells the reader that he spent a great deal of his life trapped in the dungeon of a decrepit old castle, forever entombed in the dark, with no knowledge of the outside world, and no memory of who he really is or where he comes from. His only comfort are some antique books he’s managed to find. In desperation, eager to see light and meet other people, he creeps his way through the crumbling castle in a perilous escape attempt, till he finally reaches the outside world. His hope and joy intensify when he comes across a bright and vibrant party…but after trying to join the party, his dream-come-true quickly transforms into a nightmare. I do not DARE tell you all what happens, because the twist ending to this story is one of my favorite twists in ANY story. The twist itself is a big part of what makes this story brilliant, but it’s also just a really well-told tale. It’s tragic, it’s exciting, it’s disturbing, and it has just enough ambiguity in it to keep you guessing as to what is REALLY going on and why. On top of that, the story speaks to its own title audience: the outsiders. I think nearly everyone has had this feeling of being an outcast or just not “part of the crowd” at some point in their lives. And while we ideally try to just do our own thing, many of us have wished we could join in the party. It’s a story that is as touching and poignant as it is extremely unsettling, and for that reason, it’s undeniably my absolute favorite of his works. There’s something personal, something unique, and something deceptively simple about “The Outsider” that so many of Lovecraft’s other pieces don’t have…and it’s all done, I should add, without a lot of the things that make his work occasionally hard for others to get into. There’s no racism, no alien words that are hard to pronounce, no complete misunderstandings of math and science…just the story of a lost and lonely soul, trying to find some happiness…and the horror he inadvertently discovers instead. It may not be as famous as “Call of Cthulhu” or “The Dunwich Horror,” but there is no doubt in my mind that “The Outsider” is my favorite H.P. Lovecraft story.

HONORABLE MENTIONS INCLUDE…

Dagon.

From Beyond.

The Terrible Old Man.

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.

[jorisjurgen]

ficwriting yapping

tw: im neurodivergent and too passionate and writing this before sleep lmao

fun fact: flower war is one of the three fics I have that arent named after songs (well, technically)

Flower war: named after flower wars, duh (this fic is halfway edited. read at your risk)

This title is just a reference to the fact that 90% of all misfortune in crepin twins' life was orchestrated by their divine father and their mutual hate of each other is completely meaningless, and basically a drama that their god/genetic donor organized for his amusement, lol.

But I did learn about this from a vocaloid song (which has literally nothing in common with my fic's themes and motifs, but is still a banger)

My other fics NOT titled after songs include Die Toteninsel from kh fandom (NOT EDITED)

(titled after a painting. because the fic literally does take place in afterlife. on an island. and has some signalis-ass mindfucky unrealiy logic. THIS FIC WAS INSPIRED BY SIGNALIS FEELS MEETING KHDAYS FEELS. the games have weirdly similar tones: doom and despair and no happiness.)

and Mutually Assured Destruction from matsu fandom (ill also probably have to re-edit it someday, but i now re-edit fics while publishing them on ao3 to fix any formatting errors, so its not like, ergigious)

this fic redeems itself by having every chapter be named after a song instead (the fic itself is titled after the concept that once someone shoots a nuke everyone is immediately also going to do the same, leading to a chain reaction. its kind of a joke with this fic because yeah,, its a reference to the mutually destructive codependency and deep bonds of trauma running like cracks through the whole family unit,, but also I mean it literally because once ONE matsu engages in incest, at least 3 others are soon to follow out of FOMO. crying laughing emoji)

id love to go in depth on why i titled chapters from MAD with the songs that I chose, but that'd take a LONG time.

(I have a 50+ song playlist for plot ideas and possible chapter song sources because i know this fic will be 20+ chapters long. do not fuck with me)

this is, in my personal opinion, my second most favorite fic I've ever written, after Fragile (btw my fic ranking goes as follows: Fragile, Mutually Assured Destruction, ninth circle and hocus-pocus tied for one place, flower war, die toteninsel. I love them all but its easy for me to rank these fics according to which one i love the most)

(im going to de-anon my kh fics someday when I have the time to edit them and remove the typos. same goes for MAD. ill deanon it someday when its a bit more finished, i guess?)

ANYWAY

all my other fics are titled after music.

ninth circle (also a kingdom hearts fic. ALSO unedited so) is titled after this song. it pretty much describes the plot and themes of the fic perfectly lmao.

It was the second fic I ever wrote, and I wrote it shortly after finishing reading 1984. I was inspired by that book a lot. many people read it for political or meme reasons, but i was genuinely feeling so fucking bad for the characters and the ending made me want to claw my heart out.

So I decided to write something even MORE bleak and hopeless, based on the most bleak and hopeless game ever: kindom hearts 358/2 days.

I was numb by the time I finished writing this. it legitimately put me in a really bad situation mentally, and I couldn't reread it much because reading it again made me feel sick. so i think i accomplished my goals of creating an eldritch artifact that gives anyone who reads it Bad Feelings.

This song isnt JUST the anthem of this fic: its the most Axel-core song in existence. This song is quite literally the musical representation of Axel Kingdomhearts

all i can say about this fic is that axel is a fucked up person, he has been in a cult since he was 15 and watched his best friend be completely broken by it and start abusing him in turn <3 and his deepest desire in life is for his new friend, roxas to 1. give up on being happy and free like he did, because disappointment is even more painful when you have hope. 2. for roxas to be happy and free.

I feel like not enough people who play kh really pay attention to the fact that all the things i just said are literally just canon and the entire plot of khdays if it were told from axel's point of view.

the entire conflict is that he knows that roxas and xion are basically sacrifices for their cult, and not real members. he knows the ending of the game, and their entire friendship, from day one.

he tries not to feel too much about that. tries not to get too attached to the two sacrificial lambs while using him for his own needs, and playing the role of a Friend to control them.

he fails.

hocus pocus sleight of hand is my first ever fic and its titled after this song and youve read it and if you didnt you SHOULD read it. a certified crepinjurgenite classic, and surprisingly the first ever fic in the Joris Jurgen & Kerubim Crepin tag (WHAT THE FUCK???????)

FRAGILE HANDLE WITH CARE is my master piece and i am afraid of never being able to write anything better than it. it actually has multiple songs associated with it!

the song its titled after <3 i think this shows the entirety of the fic in the most objective light of what is really happening.

and the two songs i listened to over and over while writing it which are more representative of joris' objective point of view of what happens in the fic:

I keep wanting to draw art for my fics but i only managed to illustrate this fic so far. I genuinely love this fic with all my heart.

and its the first fic of mine that had any fanart of it made..... (thank you lauren!)

[applejuiceyjuice-art]

PARASOCIALITE MANIFESTO

⚠️massive infodump ahead⚠️

i wrote all that forever ago when i was trying to figure out the dynamic (and after rewatching a stream of the beginner’s guide, feeling incredibly inspired to create a drawing of twitch as a parasocial figure and thought i needed someone on the “other end” so to speak). after writing vol 3, it just sorta fell into place. i was trying not to post too many drawings before it came out 🤭

my original idea was basically the clashing of “someone who doesn’t care about anything” and “someone who cares too much about everything,” which is still true but i really love the added parasocial aspect of it 😁😁😁 and i like opposites attract type of shit i guess

kik wouldn’t even think of twitch as anything more than a basic influencer type until after watching for a good while. at the start, xe was only curious, and still held disdain for twitch’s streaming personality. but xe likes it when twitch gets mad or is cheeky, so somehow xe found himself continuing to watch old streams and new ones.

there’s also a sense of relatability all streamers have, and so for someone like kik, who doesn’t find most people relatable (or tries), it felt even more intense. the fact that twitch is genderfluid, has overlap in their sense of humor, and those random moments where you and the streamer are just… thinking the same thing in the moment, feels like a red strings of fate to kik. donating to get twitch to read her message gives her a major shot of dopamine lol.

things that kik originally disliked in twitch are now reasons why she’s soooooo amazing: workaholic -> talented, trying too hard -> cute. she agonizes over being so attached to someone she once pinned as a normie and over the possibility that she’s being creepy. she gets so jealous over any guests twitch has on stream, and if/when they’re out in public wants her allll to herself.

deep down kik is a social person, and used to talk to people all the time, only thru the window while rarely meeting anyone “irl.” this is because kik makes quick surface level judgements about everyone, even moreso now that they just hate everyone and everything. since amino is the only other person kik cares abt now and they go periods of time isolating itself, welllllll ig kik gets a bit lonely.

from twitch’s perspective, she has been working hard and trying to fit in with the bigger sites as her platform basically became a major trend in recent years. she adores the sleekness and style of celebrity type sites (which is why she thinks yt and insta are attractive) and wants the attention too. just in her own, gamer way.

twitch gets easily swept up in the streamer/audience feedback loop, and doesn’t always set clear boundaries. she could tell right away that kik was a fan by the time they met again. it makes her uncomfortable and annoyed when people idolize her, but at the same time she kinda likes being showered with praise and attention and stuff like that. though she really hates it when kik makes assumptions about her based on their limited perspective, and whenever they say anything self deprecating, or is rude to her friends. so she also uses this as an opportunity to be mean to someone/boss someone around without repercussion.

i specified that this happened during their burnout era because it would be when they make the most irrational decisions and more prone to being mean. before then, they probably didn’t even remember kik’s existence or rejected him. it would take a while for twitch to actually see anything in kik, partially cuz he never talks about himself or his interests, and also cuz he’s just not their type (or so it seems??)

i think that twitch might like kik if she approached her normally, like being bold but not overly obsessive. but then it wouldn’t be very parasocial-ite would it? that would only happen at the very beginning since kik wouldn’t care as much, or the very end after they get past the parasocial aspect of it n are just talking normally.

after the dust is settled, their true dynamic is kik still being mushy/touchy-feely and twitch being awkward about it bc normally she’s kinda adverse to that stuff and would rather it be a joke. especially around other people. kik would bother the fuck out of him in public and likes embarrassing him. this also compounds with kik being the antithesis to the image twitch likes/wants to achieve. but also kik is their girlboytoy and does whatever twitch says 😝

of course at the end of the day they’re just dolls im playing with and i dont necessarily have to stick to any strict timeline or anything lol

dont get me started with the eddsworld polycule thing. theyd all kill each other

[twsthottakes]

Regarding the last ask about Yuu ships sucking...

I feel like people should just be honest if they want to say they like canon x canon ships more or want to see more people making male yuu stuff

Because the medium of the game itself actively encourages people self-inserting through Yuu. These types pf gacha games literally thrive off fanservice (fanservice isnt a necessarily sexual thing btw it can be stuff like characters having a cameo or striking an avengers assemble type pose). It's why its so easy to give them a stand-in in the mangas and novels. They have some mentioned consistent traits like being good at playing wind instruments + being supposedly blunt but that's barely a fully fledged character more like a concept. For the sake of ease of self-inserting that's also why Yuu is sadly barely relevant in the story these days + have super lazy dialogue options now. Their traits barely factor into the story in meaningful ways anymore

A lot of Yuu ships really are just not game yuu but whoever drew/wrote it shipping the character with themselves. So yeah not a surprise that their Yuu ships are flat (sometimes they also specify its just xreader or self-insert in general not Yuu but people will assume it's Yuu at first glance anyway)

So I don't see the point in complaining that "people are ignoring Yuu's personality" when that's more the game's fault than random fans' fault

As for wanting to see more male yuus around... as mentioned Yuu really is intended to be sort of a vessel of projection for fans. And as game in the joisemuke genre its expected most fans will be female, hence the characters they create to represent themselves will also be predominantly female. In the nicest way possible its really just a matter of seeing the player character stuff you want to see yourself, more male yuu or interesting yuu stuff will only exist once other fans finally make them. Yuu content doesn't just randomly generate into existence one day out of thin air

There is also the matter of homophobia in the yume community which sucks and is another factor why most player ships are het. So male yuu representation in the romantic context would matter

^but outside of this shipping purposes I literally never see anyone see Yuu as a girl by default. They're either faceless or a guy in JP fanart (this is when people are trying to draw the most objective game yuu, of course it's different for personal yuu stand-in OCs) This reflects the androcentric view many people have of man as the active protagonist by default while women can only do sappy emotional stuff like romance (also just heteronormative bias)

I've also never really seen a girlboss yuu the way you described it yet I see passive damsel Yuu for the sake of making the romantic fanservice on the dude shine more often

TLDR: Yuu really is meant to be a self-insert and the game is very intentional with the romantic fanservice it drops, and since most fans are women it makes sense that most self-inserts through Yuu are also female characters. These female characters are seemingly dull and personalityless because most fans are not trying to be clever writers, just using that OC as a vehicle to show the canon character of interest in romantic situations. If people want more diversity in existing Yuus they should put their ideas of male and etc. Yuus out there then to also inspire other people making OCs instead of assuming the fandom will generate it on its own like a factory

This got way too long but I basically just wanted to reply on why I think the argument of the previous asker was kind of focusing on the wrong things + ignoring the reasons why things happen through assuming it's just individual people being shallow and stupid for no reason. This is not to say personal yuu fanart or fic can never be criticized or disliked anymore, I think there is a problem of a lot of them being very weird with underage characters. But yeah as mentioned it's kinda just inevitable given the game genre + the creator (who was basically known idol to shotacons) being a huge part of marketing. Ok this is all for real now

Don't have a lot to say here I guess mostly just... My main concern with the male Yuu thing is the predominant nature of Fem!Yuu often leading to harassment towards Male!Yuu makers.

Also the creepy behavior is often something that occurs in the genre, I know, but I do believe it should be called out. Just because something is normalized doesn't mean it's okay, nor does it mean we shouldn't try to change it.

[whetstonefires]

10 and 29 for the ask game?

10. Is there a fic that got a different response than you were expecting?

I try not to have expectations, so I'm sure it's happened a lot and I didn't remark upon it enough to remember.

I do recall that All the Roofs of Uncertainty was originally a one-shot that was much better-liked than I expected, so I wrote into the what-happens-next and changed the original open ending into a whole plotline, that consisted almost entirely of Jason Todd talking to people in a hospital.

29. Share a bit from a fic you’ll never post OR from a scene that was cut from an already posted fic. (If you don’t have either, just share a random fic idea you have that you don’t plan on getting to.)

Oh gosh I have so many fics that lie unfinished because the work necessary to complete them exceeded my interest in the premise. I could do this for weeks and not run out. Let's see.

Okay, the funniest fic that I will never ever finish is the one that was me trying to draw up a plausible background scenario for an AU (which I couldn't decide if it ought to be modern or not) where Su She was dating Wei Wuxian.

(This in turn was inspired by the fact that I kept reading modern AUs where various canon villains were cast as wwx's shitty boyfriend or ex and it was never Su She, aka the bargain bin version of Lan Wangji, who seemed to me to be the least improbable option on offer. Like if you feel the need to lampshade repeatedly within your fic that it's incomprehensible that Wei Wuxian would ever voluntarily date Jin Zixun, maybe that's a sign you should change that bit.)

The plot of the story that Su-She-uses-his-words-and-pulls-wwx embedded itself in would have revolved around Lan Wangji subsequently agreeing to a date with ten-years-younger Mo Xuanyu, presumably in an attempt to move on, and Su She picking up on his hopeless pining when both couples happened to be in the same room, as dates to the same function or something, and then following a characteristically self-destructive course where he got so wrapped up in rubbing it in Lan Wangji's face that he finally had something the Lan scion wanted and couldn't get that he wound up entirely destroying his own relationship.

Wei Wuxian is a very good judge of people who also attracts strong personal loyalty once people get attached to him in the first place, and notably something that simply never happens to him is someone betraying him who he trusted not to do that. (Jiang Cheng does not count; Wei Wuxian maneuvered him into most of it, he wasn't taken by surprise.) So it could be really neat to finesse the character work of him understanding Su She's basic character flaws, but not expecting them to manifest or affect him quite the way they end up doing.

In the same way he mostly gets Lan Wangji as a person from the start but, lacking insight into certain things he's hiding, is unable to reliably reconstruct his perspective. To an increasingly noticeable degree, as lwj acts on that aspect of his motivations more openly.

I am never going to write that though, because I just don't care enough about that kind of story, although concept free to a good home.

I did write out a little of the backstory to how Su She could have wound up in a position of wanting to date Wei Wuxian on his own merits, which was a fun bit of character study because Su She is basically Jin Guangyao's Wen Ning, you know? Evil Wen Ning.

His understanding of Jin Guangyao as someone who respects and values him earned an insane amount of personal loyalty from a basically very selfish guy--like sure, it's clear he got a steady stream of favors out of the bargain, but he also puts himself on the line way in excess of the practical value Jin Guangyao has provided and is likely to provide; the real inducement was the validation.

So, if Wei Wuxian had happened to be carelessly kind and supportive to Su She the way he was to Wen Ning, having met him in a weak moment before Su She had had a chance to make an impression as a petty asshole rather than just a bit of a dumbass (not that he actually in canon managed to make any personal impression even by shooting him in the arm) you could probably arrange for him to glom onto Wei Wuxian instead, as someone like him, who didn't get the respect he deserved because of his birth station.

And Wei Wuxian would be perfectly willing to reciprocate that friendship, even though (as with Wen Ning) if Su She didn't reach out promptly he'd have totally forgotten he existed until prompted lmao. Su She would never forgive that insult.

You can see in the passage here where I still kind of wanted it to be a modern AU so they're texting, but the setup I'd written previously worked as a clean canon divergence because that's my usual preference, and I really wasn't interested enough in a plot that's entirely about romantic relationships to figure that out and write the rest.

But I did enjoy doing this study of how Su She could have gotten stuck on Wei Wuxian, only to later go on to fuck himself over with his Lan Wangji complex.

It was nice to have someone to complain to who got it. When Su Minshan talked about having no family to turn to, about owing everything to the Sect that had raised him when, to the Lan, everything came down to the clan and he would never have a chance to truly distinguish himself— Sometimes I think about just leaving, Su Minshan wrote, because Wei Wuxian wouldn’t scold him for being ungrateful. You can, if you want, Wei Wuxian wrote, as if it was that easy. Only if you came too, Su Minshan had written back, shaken by his own daring. Of course, Wei Wuxian refused. Jiang Cheng would never forgive me if I ran off. Because he’s counting on you to run his Sect for him. He absolutely is not. Jiang Cheng will work himself into the ground before he lets me do his job for him. He didn’t admit that of course the Sect Heir was counting on him, but he didn’t disagree, which was basically the same thing. Wei Wuxian worked very hard and was rewarded for it, but Su Minshan knew that even in Jiang the equal opportunity only went so far—he was the Sect Leader’s pet for personal reasons, not just on merit, and even so he could never rise to be the equal of the blood heir. It was infuriating sometimes how that didn’t bother him. Have more ambition! You’re so lucky, Su Minshan wrote, because he was jealous, he was so so jealous. I am! <3 But let’s see, outside the main family how important can a person get in Lan Sect? You can make a plan. Weeks of effort did not produce any particularly good plans. The most realistic one took forty years to show results. Maybe I should just kill Lan Wangji and use a spell to disguise myself and take his place, Su Minshan joked. Haha! Minshan-xiong, I’m sorry, you couldn’t pull off being Lan Zhan. That hurt, an unexpected cold dagger to the ribs. Wei Wuxian was his friend! Why not! he typed angrily. Was his playing too weak, his swordsmanship, his deportment? Would even Wei Wuxian tell him he was just not good enough? Because you could never resist saying something bitchy when you had the chance, and he keeps all the bitching inside his head. Su Minshan put his head down and laughed until he thought he might cry.

I have the sneaking suspicion I already shared this one for one of these games, because it really is by far the funniest thing I'm definitely never going to finish, so I'll reblog this post later with another offering.

[emiliosandozsequence]

tell me about the novels bestie!

other than nebulous which you can read more about here (i'm putting this all under a cut bc it's going to be LONG

there is SPARROW is a southern gothic story about a fictional town and the wealthy family that is its namesake. the story itself involves family horror with stigmata and the plagues of egypt thrown in. the main character, basically, is a 33 year old priest having to learn to deal with his twin sister, who is already dying from heart disease and that he is in love with, having stigmata while the ten plagues of egypt strike their town and she becomes the second coming of christ. on top of all that, he has to deal with his incredibly abusive father and the disappearance of his mother 20 years earlier

anyway the fc list for these guys are as follows

father cesare michael sparrow: francois arnaud (main character, priest, in love with his sister and a sex addict bc of the abuse his father has put him and his sister through)

loa grace sparrow: olivia hussey [specifically in romeo and juliet] (twin sister of the main character; chronically ill, gets stigmata, and becomes the second coming of christ...in literally all that entails. this book is a tragedy)

cole isaac sparrow: bill skarsgard [specifically in hemlock grove] (the younger brother of cesare and loa by three years; he is a coke addict and goes out partying with his rich friends constantly)

father douglas sparrow: jeffrey dean morgan (the father of the sparrow children and the patriarch of the town)

minnie sparrow: holly hunter (the missing wife of father sparrow and mother to the sparrow children; cesare loved her very much and misses her deeply)

landry marceau: louis garrell (cesare's best friend; he's gay and jewish and works at the male strip club in town (the blue tulip) to help put himself through college to become a physicist)

this book was inspired by the borgias mostly negl as well as this idea i've actually had for a fanfic for a looong time. tbh i always wanted to use this as an original idea for a story instead, i just never knew how i wanted to it until recently

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there is also the HYMNS OF SIASMA which is a fantasy series that i plan to be 8 boks that i actually wrote once the first book of once before when i was 13-14. it was bad tho so i've completely overhauled the story and am redoing it. the main plot that i've got so far tho is an elf girl's mother, along with everyone else, is killed when the queen's army raids her village without explanation. the main character is then taken to the citadel in the capital and trained to be a swordsinger (a gymnastic swordsman basically) against her will. she's also put under a blood pact by the queen, so she cannot leave. she does the queen's dirty work against her will along with the other swordsingers, but, ofc, she eventually discovers she's much more involved in the violence of her world than she originally thought.

i don't have fcs for this book series yet, but these are the main characters in the first book (other characters come in later and there's a TON of other characters i want to develop that will probably also become main characters in this list later on)

ayia ellaster: the main character; kidnapped lowborn elf girl with dark hair and eyes and pale skin; now is a swordsinger; she is determined to avenge her mother and kill the man with orange eyes that slayed her

bretika 'bree' avis griellif: highborn elf lady with dark brown skin, dark eyes and hair, who's family was threatened into having her become a swordsinger to keep her family under control; she has the ability to summon water; her and the role her family plays (especially her younger sister who is a seer) become crucial in later books

diarmuid alexander desterra: a highborn elf leader in the rebellion with dark hair and pale skin and green eyes against the queen before his capture and subsequent forced blood pact; known as 'the flameborn prince' for the powers he possesses

ambet alayah lingeon: the half-elf niece of the queen with black hair, very pale skin, and silver eyes; she's evil and insane because of the trauma she's been through, but you don't know that until book 2-3

cris stelforen: lowborn human swordsinger with chestnut hair and pale skin that has been ambet's best friend since they were small children. he's under the blood pact to control ambet

verkerus espars: lowborn elf that is the commander of all the swordsingers. his family is pledged to the queen's; he has a very strange creepy relationship with ayia (he's a Lot older than her)

darik klaus lingeon: the twin brother of the queen with grey skin, white hair, and silver eyes (he's an arcanist and arcanists appearances are altered by the nature of the use of their powers). he's the father of ambet and is very weird with his twin sister >:)

sur merida lingeon: the usurper queen of siasma with grey skin, white hair and silver eyes (also an arcanist). she killed her father as revenge for him killing her mother after he usurped the throne from the last king. she carries on his legacy out of guilt

desten cordova: i have not developed him much yet, but so far i've got that he is a swordsinger with black hair, golden skin and dark eyes. he's a commander alongside cris and is his friend too

there's going to be a lot more to this, but the inspiration for this series comes from throne of glass (it is always morally correct to steal from sjm), lord of the rings, eragon, the seer and the sword, the healer's keep, the great tree of avalon, the song of the lionness quartet, and basically every book that i read as a kid when i was obsessed with fantasy mwah 💕

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and last but not least there is the ANAMNESIS TRILOGY which is a dystopian series that was originally going to be YA, but i'm making it an adult series now. anyway, it's about a girl who lives in the year 2048 after a nuclear apocalypse. when she was a child, rebels broke into her home and held her family hostage before killing her little brother in front of her. her mother was taken by the government and then put to death because she was once one of the Skilled which were supersoldiers that helped america (no longer the united states) win the war (tho half of the country was destroyed by bombs and nuclear fallout in the process), but after a certain amount of time, the genetic modifications the solidiers went through to become so strong made them lose their minds and become unexplainably violent. after, amber (the main character) was taken to be trained as an assassin to take down threats to the government. unquestionably loyal after watching her brother's murder, she agrees. until, ofc, she finds out the government is lying to her.

i wrote this book once and lost it, but thankfully i still have access to my plans for it. anyway here's the fc list from what i remember

amber latier: ko ah-sung (main character and assassin; has very bad ptsd and is suicidal bc her entire family is dead before the story even begins; this doesn't change. again i write tragedies fdashj)

dante addair: luke pasqualino (the love interest ngl and also an assassin. he's amber's partner in the field)

lia lellvan: juno temple (gets involved in everything by accident basically)

james kyser: garrett hedlund (trainer of all the assassins and personal trainer of amber)

drusian: jason isaacs (personal trainer of dante and arson; cruel and abusive)

arrow: i never found an fc i was happy with for her, but she's supposed to be japanese. anyway she's good with a bow which is the origin of her name and also very quiet, but very talented. isaac is her partner

isaac mechant: aaand he's in love with her. i also never came up with an fc for him, but he's supposed to be white

jem: another assassin who is supposed to be latina, but, again, don't have an fc for her.

arson: alexander ludwig (another assassin, who is the antagonist. he's an asshole to amber and jem is his cronie basically)

marcus shira: the leader of america. basically the king tho. he's dying of a disease that's never specified

these books were heavily inspired by the hunger games and the legend trilogy mostly, but also a bit of divergent too.

feel free to ask questions about any of these too!!

[re-coding]

I make a stupid decision to decide to make a (fic) writing app, cheers

Well now, I know there's like tons of them out there in the market. A lot of them are good! And even free (or have pretty good free versions)! A reddit thread I found have a few very good ones, you guys can check it out! (I'll add my own two cents later :3)

But look, the only thing I want to do, is to have a place when I can throw my ideas into a list (like what I'm did in my notes app) then auto convert it to a document when I feel like I want to write it. None of them (or at least, what I saw/found) have it!

To do that, I set up a Google Form-Google Sheets system so I can just fill in the form when I get some thoughts™. Then when I feel like I want to add another WIP to my ever-growing list of WIPs, I'll just open the associated sheet, see what idea I would like to write, then create a Google Docs and copy/paste the idea there.

Easy, right? Problem solved?

No, not really. For me, there're a few problems with this.

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The Problem(s)™

The process of opening Google Forms takes forever to load (depending on my Internet) and I have a goldfish memory. What are the odds that I forget my ideas by then.

(Just use phone notes app then) But I'm in the mood to type my fic in a computer 😔😔 I don't wanna copy my prompt there to a doc via phone, or worse, retype it out. There's like 4 steps there at least! I'll lose my motivation by then!

Google Sheets has this problem where the text refuses to wrap properly if you add a long text (my ideas are sometimes a few hundred words of rambling y'know). So whenever I decided to grace the sheet with my presence, I'll need to reformat the wrap if I wanna read what I wrote. That's 1 whole extra step.

I'll need to open at least two tabs here, 1. my sheet file, 2. open a new docs file

Look, they're all pretty minor inconveniences imo, but I'm 1. a lazy mf and 2. a tired mf

So, I made a decision any sane person with a job and 0-energy would do - I thought "Hey, why don't I make my own?".

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

And thus begin the brain-storming

Ok, look I'm not that good at UX/UI designing. I figure that should be the first step so I went and watch a few video and stumbled upon Juxtopposed's world's shortest UI/UX design course (it's pretty great, do check it out!). Simple, quick, concise - perfect.

First, I started with designing the user flow. I planned out a general idea of what I want my app to do and how it would flow from there starting from the landing all the way to when users save their work and exit the app.

Boy, I sure hope I did that correctly.

This generally is made up of user actions (except for landing). You may notice how it's mostly AO3 focused because yes, I'm using this just for AO3 - as in I stopped using fanfiction.net, Wattpad and Quotev a long time ago.

I did get some inspirations for some of the features from other existing apps. Like:

Scriever - it's paid, but most people say it's a godsend but personally, I've never tried it. I think it pioneered the scenes idea tho.

Manuskript - Free open-sourced version of Scriever basically! They also have words and phrase frequency analyser and I think that's pretty neat!

MyStory.today - I like the idea that you can edit and view multiple scenes at once but the writing UI itself feels kinda clunky? It feels bothersome to add a new scene below my current one. But free version is enough and that's pretty nice. Oh yeah, not sure if it's just me, or it's kinda laggy

Wavemaker - ok this actually a great one! Everyone should give it a chance! But again, too complicated to just add one simple idea when I just wake up for instance.

Story Plotter - This one is nice. It actually have a idea to story button but, why are there... so many things... to choose before I can start writing the story. Granted, all of them are optional and you can just spam skip... a whole 7 times (unless it's a freeform, in that case, 4 times). But this provides a nice idea to combine more than 1 ideas into one plot tho. Also, not my style

Campfire - Is nice, there's so much things you can customize! But well, the free version can be quite limiting, like what if I need more than 25k words :(

Notion - Ok, here me out, it's not a great idea to write multi-chapters long fics here exactly without some amount of setting up too. BUT I love the markdown system here and I wanted to include it.

Do try some of them out, maybe you'll find your new writing app soulmate, who knows?

So... about the user flow diagram

I'm making this app because of two main features, ok maybe three, that I want to make my life easier and make me happier.

The ideas being converted and directly stored in my writing doc.

Being able to use markdowns to type unlike google docs *squint eyes*

Copying the whole chapter in HTML so I can just throw it in AO3 and click update without worrying about forgetting the formatting OR having to go to those docs to HTML converters.

And a secret fourth thing to maaaaaybe include things like chats, boxes, and other workskin related things

Oh, yes and how could I forgot, syncing progress across multiple devices

So I want to implement auto-save features (well, at least when you're connected to the internet, else it'll save locally first). The database I'm thinking to store these should be the user's own google drive (but that would required the user to sign in to their drive first).

Inversely, I'm thinking if the user did edit the doc in the drive, it should reflect in the app too, so I'll need to think about that. But the idea is that one chapter should be stored in one doc, and then separated by a scene separator symbol (I'll figure this out) to break it into scenes in the actual app. That may be a bit messy to edit in docs though so maybe a traditional folder + docs might suffice but then, there's also a space constraint, where there is too much scenes. That's probably where the web services come in.

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And, oh! another diagram!

Ok look, the user flow made perfect sense to me while I was making it. After looking at it again while writing this... In hindsight, I should also make a screen/page flow diagram, or sitemap, so here it is! So- ta-da~!

So this should be the whole flow of screens for the app. There may be more screens in the future but for now I think this should be it!

The app mainly just consist of -

The home page - which displays ALL your works/books

The ideas page - which is basically my notes app for, well, ideas, word vomit, random shower thoughts about how much you want a fictional character to be xxx

The writing page - which will be the main working space, the rest of the pages like references, characters, places, timeline, chapters and individual scenes can be accessed easily from this page too

The profile page - well, it's your profile! Access your profile settings, change themes, work space settings or what you want to copy in your html here - maybe add friends for collabs and betas in the future? We'll see

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And that's it! ...For now

Oh my god, I'll admit, this post went on longer than I expected haha. That's all that I have to share for now! Next up, I'll get started on the wireframing process (moodboards? hunting down apps? reddit???? ok nevermind, reddit sounds like a bad idea). I know I kept calling it app, but I think I want it to have an app, windows, (macs?) and web version.

Thanks for making it this far and reading it all!

[theprodigypenguin]

I hope you don't mind my asking but I'm genuinely confused and trying to gather as much info as possible. Zines. Created by fans containing fanart and fics yes? How can you morally sell and profit from them? They contain IP you don't own as an individual? I'm a fandom oldie so my view on it might be be skewered by old fandom views that fics and fanart are non profit enjoyments. I'm just curious where this shift came from. I see more and more people putting fics behind commission walls and I just can't wrap my head around it.

I don't know if I'm the right person to answer this, I'm just a dude who yells about Sabo online when I'm not at work. But I'll try??

The way zines are set up, the money that's paid during pre-orders is used for the manufacturing of the physical items: the book itself that contains the writing/art and various merchandise like acrylic charms. So basically, the majority of the money earned is used to make the physical item as well as to fund shipping costs and shipping material like boxes and bubble wrap.

The zine I wrote for recently was non-profit, all extra proceeds not used for manufacturing and shipping costs will be donated to the World Wildlife Fund. I honestly love the idea that a bunch of young people like me can use their passions to help a good cause. I don't make enough at my dayjob to donate to charities all the time, although I would love to. Even a few dollars is hard to give because the cost of living is such a train wreck. But non-profit zines are a really beautiful way to help foundations by using personal passions and hobbies like fanart and fanfic.

"Why not just donate directly to charity instead of buying the physical zine?" I don't think it's evil to want something in return. I don't think it's a bad thing to get a little book in return for donating to something.

Yes there are zines that are for profit, but I don't really see that as a bad thing either to be honest. A lot of the properties that are used as inspiration for these zines are multi-million dollar franchises. I don't think it's robbing for creators to get barely a fraction of that. Even for less popular franchises that make less money. Zines are a fun way to show your love of something and get unique fan-made merchandise that never would have existed otherwise. I don't think that's wrong.

As for the fics being behind a pay wall, I have never seen that. All fanfics that are written for zines are published publicly once the physical items have been shipped out. Everyone will get to enjoy the work put into these zines, but you also get a chance to have them as a carefully composed physical book that you can have forever, which is pretty cool.

Also, the writers I've seen who have taken commission work have always posted the finished fics publicly, so their commissions aren't behind a paywall either. Commissions are simply a way for fans who don't always write, maybe don't have the time to write, to pay for something special and individually focused to their standards. Nothing wrong with that either, I think. It's all just a way to interact with fandom.

If anyone else has thoughts on this then please comment so anon has more information, I only have a few thoughts on this. And thank you for your question, anon. I hope I was able to answer it??

[erisenyo]

🦋/🐬/✨???

🦋 Which character is your favorite to write?

I was writing out a little bit for Sokka (and through his POV, Zuko lol) because I do love writing from his voice and I think his mix of socially aware yet personally blind to his own issues lends itself to really fun stories and scenes.

And then I realized the answer is Azula lol. I don't have reason to write her often, because she definitely can take over the vibe of a story, but she is a blast to write. Just such an interesting view of the world and distinct voice, and so much fun in the way she can be such an unreliable narrator without realizing it when it comes to her own blindspots and areas where she needs to grow.

🦈 Which character is the toughest to write?

Hakoda lol. I'm trying for my current long fic WIP but I'm finding his voice kind of slippery to get a hold of, the mix of sarcasm and jokes but also serious Chiefing and also just not having Sokka 2.0 (Sokka OG?) still isn't something I feel like is coming easy yet.

Of the Gaang, I feel like I can write *about* them all fairly well, but Aang is the hardest POV for me to write. His enthusiasm for life I feel like I can capture, but I tend to also think of his voice as having this underlying well of calm and introspection that takes a lot of active work for me to capture.

✨️ Out of the comments you’ve received on your fics, what are two or three of your favorites?

This is so hard!! @spacecasehobbit left some amazing, thoughtful comments on my fics that led to a whole friendship and just lit this spark to think so deeply (and differently!) about canon and my stories, and I treasure them so much still.

And another individual, MTB, has left some basically literary analyses comments that made me see my own writing in a different light. She really gave me the courage to push myself and try things I thought were technically beyond me until she pointed out the foundation I already had for them in my works, and she's been such a wonderful cheerleader and inspiration for some of my more insane ideas, so those are really special to me as well.

And this is absolutely a cop-out, but I really enjoy writing gift fics and whenever the person I wrote it for comments that it was exactly what they hoped for it truly just makes my entire month and/or year lol. I'm still riding the high of how much @bisexuallsokka liked To Cleave These Roots We've Made :P

(Also there is a very, very sweet anon around these parts who leaves these amazing reviews in my ask box every once in a while and like, truly they are so lovely and kind of wonderful and treasured.)

For this fanfic writer's ask game!