#and I wrote this while listening to A Thousand Years and now the song has a new meaning

[iwillnotdieamonster]

"This is a beautiful letter from Fiona Apple explaining to her fans why she must postpone a concert date. I am impressed at the way she was instantly able to make the decision to choose love over her career. Indeed, the world needs more of this.

It's 6pm on Friday, and I'm writing to a few thousand friends I have not met yet. I'm writing to ask them to change our plans and meet a little while later.

Here's the thing.

I have a dog, Janet, and she's been ill for about 2 years now, as a tumor has been idling in her chest, growing ever so slowly. She's almost 14 years old now. I got her when she was 4 months old. I was 21 then — an adult, officially — and she was my kid.

She is a pitbull, and was found in Echo Park, with a rope around her neck, and bites all over her ears and face.

She was the one the dogfighters use to puff up the confidence of the contenders.

She's almost 14 and I've never seen her start a fight, or bite, or even growl, so I can understand why they chose her for that awful role. She's a pacifist.

Janet has been the most consistent relationship of my adult life, and that is just a fact. We've lived in numerous houses, and joined a few makeshift families, but it's always really been just the two of us.

She slept in bed with me, her head on the pillow, and she accepted my hysterical, tearful face into her chest, with her paws around me, every time I was heartbroken, or spirit-broken, or just lost, and as years went by, she let me take the role of her child, as I fell asleep, with her chin resting above my head.

She was under the piano when I wrote songs, barked any time I tried to record anything, and she was in the studio with me, all the time we recorded the last album.

The last time I came back from tour, she was spry as ever, and she's used to me being gone for a few weeks, every 6 or 7 years.

She has Addison's Disease, which makes it more dangerous for her to travel, since she needs regular injections of Cortisol, because she reacts to stress and excitement without the physiological tools which keep most of us from literally panicking to death.

Despite all this, she's effortlessly joyful & playful, and only stopped acting like a puppy about 3 years ago. She is my best friend, and my mother, and my daughter, my benefactor, and she's the one who taught me what love is.

I can't come to South America. Not now. When I got back from the last leg of the US tour, there was a big, big difference.

She doesn't even want to go for walks anymore.

I know that she's not sad about aging or dying. Animals have a survival instinct, but a sense of mortality and vanity, they do not. That's why they are so much more present than people.

But I know she is coming close to the time where she will stop being a dog, and start instead to be part of everything. She'll be in the wind, and in the soil, and the snow, and in me, wherever I go.

I just can't leave her now, please understand. If I go away again, I'm afraid she'll die and I won't have the honor of singing her to sleep, of escorting her out.

Sometimes it takes me 20 minutes just to decide what socks to wear to bed.

But this decision is instant.

These are the choices we make, which define us. I will not be the woman who puts her career ahead of love & friendship.

I am the woman who stays home, baking Tilapia for my dearest, oldest friend. And helps her be comfortable & comforted & safe & important.

Many of us these days, we dread the death of a loved one. It is the ugly truth of Life that keeps us feeling terrified & alone. I wish we could also appreciate the time that lies right beside the end of time. I know that I will feel the most overwhelming knowledge of her, and of her life and of my love for her, in the last moments.

I need to do my damnedest, to be there for that.

Because it will be the most beautiful, the most intense, the most enriching experience of life I've ever known.

When she dies.

So I am staying home, and I am listening to her snore and wheeze, and I am revelling in the swampiest, most awful breath that ever emanated from an angel. And I'm asking for your blessing.

I'll be seeing you.

Love,

Fiona"

Credit goes to the respective owners.

[ang3lofdivinity]

🎐⋅˚₊‧𝖫𝗈𝗏𝖾’𝗌 𝖠𝗉𝗉𝖾𝗍𝗂𝗍𝖾‧₊˚⋅🐚

Relationship(s) :: Jinx + Calypso!fem!reader

Genre :: Fluff, hurt/comfort

Format :: Story

Warnings :: More Arcane season 2 act 3 spoilers! Some implications of SH (reader), a bit more trauma, happy ending, the gods kinda suck, HOMOSEXUALS FINALLY GET TOGETHER!!/hj, kinda inspired by Jorge’s cut song from Epic “Appetite” along with “Would You Fall In Love With Me Again”, Reader gets better at the end here, READER IS NOT CALYPSO - more so takes her place, possibly suggestive at the end?

A/N :: AHHHH I cannot believe I wrote THIS much that I had to make a new part entirely. But nonetheless, happy holidays everyone! I hope everyone stays safe this year and gets some good stuff nevertheless of what you’re celebrating! (Side note: ..Should I turn this into a series with more parts? I’m gonna hold a poll for when the time comes — which will be right after I post this). I hope this lives up to your expectations everyone!! + HAPPY NEW YEARS!! (W.C: 10.6k)

Ⅰ - Ⅱ - Ⅲ

Jinx does not remember how long it has been since you’ve left. And you can say the same.

You’ve only been hiding away for as long as you possibly could without the bluette finding you before she left you, just like all the others. See, this is why you shouldn’t allow your emotions to gain control over you! They’ll take the things you love the most as you’re left there to cry and mourn over their loss. And this time? You actually allowed yourself to fall for their tricks!! You’re so STUPID, aren’t you? You should’ve known that this would’ve never been able to last.

She is a lost mortal, and you are an imprisoned goddess.

And the ones pulling the strings?

The gods above. For they hold more power over the both of you than you could possibly know. Or do they?

You lay down, cured up into yourself as you cry against the forest floor, everything around disappearing. (At least it felt like it, as you had begun to focus on the fact that you were crying for so long, your throat going sore and your eyes getting all red and puffy).

It’s pathetic of you really, all of this is pathetic.

You should’ve never allowed yourself to grow attached, you should’ve never allowed yourself to open up to Jinx, you should’ve KNEW that this was doomed to happen one day! Nothing can ever go right for you, can it now?

‘So whats the next course of action’, you ask yourself.

To wallow in your sorrow for a bit longer. To allow yourself to bawl your eyes out as Jinx is taken from you.

.

Time has become useless as Jinx stands at the edge of the beach, breathing heavily, her fists clenching and unclenching as she grits her teeth.

Does she always have to mess things up?

Does she always have to be the Jinx?

In the wake of your disappearance, she feels something staring at her.

Upon turning around however, she sees..

Some kind of ball of pure light??

It’s almost blinding as she stares at it, the luminosity making it almost impossible to define the shape of the object. Covering her eyes with an arm while groaning, she speaks up.

“Hello?”

“You’ve had your fun, mortal.” A voice booms, distant yet close, vibrating through the air. Though it doesn’t exactly feel like one singular voice, it feels more like.. thousands. Thousands of voices as they echo and vibrate. Its presence feels heavy, suffocating. As if she’s being strangled.

And as they speak, she knows what this is.

“Your presence here has disrupted the balance. She was meant to suffer, to repent. Not to cling to you.”

Jinx glares, lowering her arm to stare at the thing.

“Balance? Suffering? You’re the ones screwing her up, not me.”

“This is not your concern. Leave this place and let her fate proceed as it was written.” The tone of the voices grows sharper, as if she was going to listen to them.

“Over my dead body.” Jinx spits the words like venom.

The form twists in agitation, and the faint sound of crackling can be heard.

“You defy orders from the gods?”

“Damn right I do.” She huffs as she narrows her eyes at the form before her, nails now digging into the flesh of her palms.

“She’s not your pawn anymore. And if you try to keep me from her, I’ll blow this paradise of yours sky-high! I’ve got enough bombs to make that little heaven of yours look like rubble.”

There’s an uncomfortable silence that lingers after her words are spoke, but shortly after - the form slowly turns smaller and less bright, making Jinx thankful.

“Very well,” they finally relent, voice hollow.

“But know this, mortal: your bond with her cannot last. You will only bring her more pain.”

“And you cannot deny our orders forever. We have more power than you possibly imagine.”

With that, the light travels off elsewhere, leaving Jinx alone once more on the empty shore.

You don’t know how long you’ve been walking, the forest endlessly stretching all around you, the grass brushing against your feet as you continue to walk. The crashing of waves still manages to fill your ears, but it is still not able to keep drowning out the chaotic storm of your own thoughts.

It hurts. All of this hurts.

It shouldn’t, but it does anyway.

Leaving her was the only way, you tell yourself. If she stayed, she would forever hate you - wouldn’t she? There was no chance for either of you, ever. There never truly was.

She is a mortal meandering around without the knowledge that lies in the powers of those she barely knows of.

You drag yourself further away from her and deeper into the forest. You stop momentarily, your chest rising and falling with labored breaths, the tears on your cheeks now cold from the salty air from moments before.

Your mind races with images of Jinx from those very moments, however: her wild eyes, her expression as she looked up at you, the way she’d yelled after you, that vulnerability of hers for just a moment.

You kneel on the grassy floor, clutching your head, overwhelmed by the sheer amount of emotions crashing through you. Your tears drip into the blades of grass below, disappearing instantly, as if the island itself were swallowing your grief.

You try to focus on your resolve—to forget her, to let her go.

But it feels like trying to breathe underwater: suffocating and unnatural.

You take a moment before allowing yourself to fall on your side on the islands grassy floor, tears falling one after the other. The mist seems to grow denser ahead, swirling in unnatural patterns even as you lay on your side. Eventually, you find yourself squinting, unsure if your mind is playing tricks on you or if something, or someone, is moving within it.

Before you can decide, you hear it: a low hum, resonating in your chest like the strum of a string on a rather angelic instrument. The sound is faint, but it pulls at you, compelling you to rise. Against your better judgment, you lift yourself up by your elbows, staring at the mist as it.. contorts into something.

You should turn back, shouldn’t you?

But you don’t.

A soft, distant voice cuts through the silence surrounding you, faint and trembling, as though carried by the wind. At first, you can’t make out the words, but as you lean closer, they grow clearer:

“She’ll come for you.”

The voice isn’t Jinx’s, but it echoes with the same determination, the same desperation. Your breath catches in your throat as you shake your head with a bitter laugh, trying to push the voice away, but it clings to you like a shadow.

“No,” you whisper to yourself.

“She can’t. She won’t.”

But the voice is unrelenting, whispering again and again until it drowns out your thoughts entirely:

“She’ll come for you. She always will.”

A shiver runs down your spine, and slowly, you find yourself laying back down on your side, fluttering your eyes closed as you try to make yourself think of something else — ANYTHING ELSE besides this.

And suddenly, your mind wanders the meeting you had last night:

The evening air hung heavy with a solemn stillness, the kind that pressed against your chest and made every breath feel like a burden.

Nevertheless, you sat alone on the cliff’s edge, the ocean sprawling endlessly before you, its waves gently lapping at the rocks far below. The twilight sky melted into soft hues of lavender and rose, but the beauty of the scene was lost on you. It did not matter, you know. You… you really are a monster, you didn’t deserve to enjoy such beautiful moments.

Your hands trembled as they clutched your knees. Your thoughts churned endlessly, circling back to Jinx—her words, her defiance, and the way she just STARED at you after she’d slapped you.

And just as you were thinking of the incident, the faintest whisper of wind brushed past you, some sort of.. odd feeling of a being you couldn’t describe. However, you didn’t need to turn to know who it was; the soothing hum of magic and the faint scent of jasmine told you everything.

“Janna,” you murmured, your voice soft and weary.

The goddess finally stepped into view, her ethereal form seeming to shimmer like sunlight caught in the folds of silk. Her translucent blue robes flowed as though stirred by an unseen breeze. She truly did look like a goddess in this form, much better than some of her others.

“Dear goddess,” Janna spoke, her voice a gentle melody carried by the wind.

“I’ve come to speak with you about the mortal.”

Your chest IMMEDIATELY tightened, your fingers curling into the fabric of your clothes.

“You mean Jinx?..” you whispered, barely audible.

Janna’s gaze softened as she stepped closer to you. Even with her calming presence, you still had the worst feeling pooling within your stomach as you continued to avert your gaze from her.

“Her presence here has caused… ripples. The other gods are restless. They believe her defiance threatens the balance of this island, and of you.”

You shook your head, sighing.

“She’s not a threat. She—she cares about me. She’s just…” Your voice faltered as you tried to explain, to defend Jinx, but the weight of your own guilt dragged the words down.

“She is bold and unyielding,” Janna interrupted gently, her tone neither condemning nor approving.

“And that is why the gods have decided she must leave. For the sake of the island. For your sake.”

Your heart dropped at those words.

“No,” you said, almost instinctively, your voice trembling.

“She doesn’t have to leave. I can handle this. I—I can fix this—”

“(____).” Janna’s voice was soft yet firm before she let out a soft sigh. She knelt beside you, placing a light hand on your shoulder.

“This isn’t about blame. It’s about what is best for you. For her.”

Tears welled in your eyes as you looked at Janna, your lips trembling.

“I mean.. she already hates me,” you whispered.

“She’ll never forgive me if I send her away, though.”

Janna’s expression remained calm, her gaze filled with an ancient understanding.

“Perhaps. But she will live. And so will you.”

Your hands fell limp at her sides, your gaze dropping to the ground. The weight of Janna’s words settled over her like a storm cloud brewing at the distance of the horizon. And as you thought of the way her sharp edges had softened just for you. And yet…

And yet, your mind returns to your failures, your mistakes.

“I’ve done terrible things,” You whispered, your voice barely audible once again.

“Hurt people. Hurt her. She deserves better than this.” You swallowed hard, closing your eyes against the flood of emotions threatening to overwhelm her.

“Maybe… maybe the gods are right. Maybe she should leave. It’s for the best.”

Janna’s gaze lingered on you for a moment, as though searching for the truth in your words. Finally, the goddess rose from beside you, hands folded behind her back.

“The choice is yours, Dear Goddess. But know this: love is not something the gods take lightly. What you share with her is rare… precious. Do not cast it aside without understanding the weight of what you will lose.”

With that, Janna turned and began to fade into the soft hues of the twilight, her presence dispersing like mist on the wind.

You remained seated, your shoulders hunched as silent tears traced paths down your cheeks.

Jinx would be better off far from her, far from the island and its burdens, wouldn’t she?

And yet, as the stars began to dot the sky above, a small voice within you whispered that she was breaking something she could never truly repair.

A warm liquid trickles down your cheek.

As you reach up, you realize it's a tear.

Ah, you didn’t even realize it.

You let out a small bitter laugh, falling back down on your side before your shifted, now looking up at the midnight sky above you.

So beautiful..

But beauty cannot erase the pain that all of these actions have caused.

And so, now you find yourself slipping in and out of consciousness - eyes fluttering every once in a while.

It takes you a while, but slumber finally finds you, and you have one of the most terrible nights of rest ever.

Days, or maybe even weeks, pass in silence on the island once more much to Jinx’s displeasure. You’ve both done this so many times, it’s gotten annoying. But she cannot find you anywhere she looks as desperate as she tries, though remains stubbornly on the island, refusing to give up on you. To waste the time, she spends hours tinkering with gadgets or staring out at the ocean, muttering curses at the gods under her breath.

Then one evening, as the sun bleeds crimson into the horizon, you finally return. You’re quiet and pale, all of your happiness dulled, as though the island itself has leeched off of your energy.

And Jinx doesn’t waste a second upon seeing you enter the walk closer to her near the shore.

“Trinket.” She stands up, heart pounding as she approaches cautiously.

You avert your gaze from her, taking a shaky deep breath.

“You should’ve left.”

“Not gonna happen.” Jinx steps closer, her voice softening.

“You’re not alone anymore. I told you I’m not leaving.”

You shake your head, tears already welling in your eyes.

“Why do you keep fighting for me? I’m broken. I’ve ruined everything. Besides, if you stay here.. you’ll never be able to see the outside world again!”

Jinx stops just inches from her and cups your cheek—this time, her touch is gentle, her fingers lingering where they’d once struck you.

“You’re not broken, Angel. You’re just scared. Same as me.”

You look up, startled by the tenderness in Jinx’s voice.

“I said things I didn’t mean. I know messed up.” Jinx’s voice catches, something you might’ve not noticed if you weren’t paying so much attention to each of her words.

“But you’re the only person who’s ever made me feel like I’m not some lost cause, that I'm worth fighting for. So if you think I’m giving that up- giving you up? You’re dumber than you look.”

A tear slips down your cheek as you laugh faintly, a small smile gracing your lips.

“You always have a way with words, Pixie, don’t you?” Jinx grins at the small comment before chuckling herself.

“Yeah, yeah. Just shut up and let me fix this.”

You hesitate for a moment before falling into Jinx’s arms. For the first time in what feels like centuries, you let yourself believe, just a little, that you’re not alone anymore.

Jinx holds you impossibly close, feeling the weight of your trembling shoulders against her own. For a long moment, neither of you speak. The quiet is only broken by the rhythm of the waves against the shore nearby.

The last light of the sun bathes the two of you in hues of gold and crimson, as if the world itself were holding its breath for you both.

Jinx pulls back just enough to meet your gaze. She wipes away the tear on your cheek with her thumb, her hand lingering there for a second longer than necessary.

“You’re not getting rid of me that easily, trinket.” Her voice is quieter now, lacking its usual sharp edges that she spoke so casually with usually.

“You can try to push me away, yell at me, slap me if you want, but I’m staying here. Because I want to. Because you… mean something to me.”

Your lips part as though to say something, but no words come out. Your heart feels as though it’s caught in your throat, something warm pooling within your chest as you stare at her.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Jinx murmurs with a faint, nervous grin.

“Like I’m saying something stupid..”

You shake your head quickly, your hands gripping the front of Jinx’s top, as though afraid to let go - that if you did, she’d disappear.

“You’re not. You’re… you’re really not.” Your voice is barely above a whisper.

Jinx’s grin falters as she leans closer, searching your eyes for any trace of doubt.

“I don’t care what the gods say. I don’t care about whatever twisted plans they have for you. You’re mine, Angel. And I…” She hesitates for the first time, the words heavy on her tongue. She’s scared.

But..

“I love you.”

You freeze, your breath hitching while your eyes widen at the bluette’s words.

Jinx laughs nervously, rubbing the back of her neck.

“There. I said it. Now you can—”

“You love me?” You cut her off, your voice wavering as you say each syllable. Your expression is something more akin to joy.

Genuine and authentic joy.

Something you haven’t allowed yourself to feel in so long.

Jinx smirks faintly at you.

“Yeah, I do. And don’t you dare make me say it again.”

You laugh through your tears, and you quickly cup Jinx’s face with both hands. And this time? Your touch is soft, steady, and filled with the tenderness as the words the woman before you had just spoken.

“You’re not the only one who’s afraid,” you admit, your own voice shaking. But neither of you seem to mind.

“Jinx… I love you too. I think I always have. From the moment you washed ashore, even with how weird that sounds.”

Jinx blinks, her breath catching at the words before her lips curl into a soft, genuine smile.

“Well, would you look at that? Guess we’re both messed up, huh?”

“I guess so.” You take a deep breath, grinning with delight.

Jinx chuckles softly as your hands slide to her shoulders, pulling her closer. Neither of you hesitates this time. And your lips meet in a kiss. It’s soft and tender, something you wish could last forever. The ocean wind seems to still for the moments as you both are too immersed within the kiss, hell— it feels like everything has just stopped entirely, and that it’s just the both of you here.

When you both finally pull back, Jinx grins, her forehead resting against your own.

“Took us long enough, didn’t it?”

“It doesn’t matter how long it took. You’re here now.” You replied, gently booping her nose as you smile wider.

and she gets an.. idea.

“One more, then? I think my appetite has grown for more than just some food tonight.” Jinx smirks, pulling you closer to her by your hips

You find yourself giggling before you nod, capturing her lips in a kiss once more.

The gods watch in silence from their unseen perch, all coalesced together as they stare down at you both.

Who would’ve known that sheer love for one another could foil their plans?

“I think they’re quite cute together!” One exclaims, before quickly being nudged by another god

“Still. She’s meant to suffer, not find LOVE!” The god yelps, hands on their hips.

“What do we even do?” Another asks with a soft tone, fidgeting with their fingers.

Silence overpowers the perch before whispers begin to spread from all around, gods talking amongst themselves of what to do before one raises a hand, causing all of the ones around them immediately silence, listening to what the figure had to say.

“We sit and watch for now. If anything needs to happen, however..” They pause for a mere second before continuing.

“We’ll be sure to take care of it.”

[blue-lollipops-and-ice-clouds]

Sleep Token's "The 100 Songs That Changed Our World" Article.

(Source - photos courtesy the lovely jawsofeden)

Transcript:

100 - Sleep Token

The Summoning

(Take Me Back To Eden, 2023)

The meteoric rise of Sleep Token caught us all by surprise. At the start of 2023, the mysterious masked band were one of the metal underground's buzziest names. Led by enigmatic vocalist Vessel, they were a band to watch, for sure, but firmly attracted the niche passion of a cult following.

Then came the song that would change everything. On consecutive days in early January, the band released two singles from their third album, Take Me Back To Eden: the burning, crashing Chokehold, followed by The Summoning - and it was the latter track that would turn them into an Earth-conquering, expectation-shattering phenomenon.

Veering between depraved tech metal, soulful vocals and shimmering electronics, an enormous, hymnal chorus gave way to an Earth-shifting breakdown and screams. Intricate and groove heavy, The Surmoning was more like three songs seamlessly crafted into one genre-fluid modern masterpiece. And it still had its trump card to play: a bendy, thirst-trap, funk outro that went viral on TikTok, turning the internet intoalusty Take1 puddle. Suddenly, Sleep Token were the most talked-about band on the planet.

"THERE ARE HINTS OF EARLY SLIPKNOT THERE."

COREY TAYLOR

"It took me three listens of [The Sumroning] to realise that when they do that whole psychedelic section at the end, that it's actually the same chorus as it was before, only in a completely different way," Evanescence's Amy Lee told Revolver. "And I love it even more that. I thought they just went a whole new direction and wrote a new part, and then I was like, 'Wait, that's the same...but not at all'."

Sleep Token weren't the most obvious choice for a commercial breakthrough. The success of The Summoning, an unconventional, seven-minute, brutal shapeshifter, bucks just about every music industry trend there is.

"It's going to a lot of different places, and I think there isn't any other band out there right now that's able to do that," Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford said earlier this year.

The Summoning set a chain reaction in motion that was unprecedented in modern metal. In just a few weeks, the band saw their Spotify figures jump from the thousands into the millions. To date, the track has been streamed more than 123 million times on Spotify and 19 million on YouTube. On release, Take Me Back To Eden went straight in at No.3 in the UK and was the most streamed metal album of 2023. When the band announced a show at Wembley Arena, tickets sold out in 10 minutes.

Earlier this year, they left the metal-heavy roster of Spinefarm Records for RCA, the home of mainstream megastars Justin Timberlake and rapper Doja Cat.

"In heavy music, or even in just rock, even in the last decade or 15 years, there's so few stories of bands ever breaking through," says Health bassist and producer, John Famiglietti, who supported the band at Wembley and sees Sleep Token's success as proof metal still can resonate on a massive scale. "This is one of the few times I've seen a band go from a fucking club to an arena in six months. And I don't know the last time that happened."

It's worth pointing out that in the social media era where celebrities and artists are more accessible than ever, Sleep Token have achieved all of this on their own terms. To date, they've barely done any press, while their masked mystique is all part of the allure. Last year, fans reacted with outrage when bassist III's identity and birth certificate were allegedly leaked online, seemingly leading to a decision to wipe the band's Instagram.

"There are hints of early Slipknot there," Knot vocalist Corey Taylor told The Allison Hagendorf Show in 2023, thinking back to the early internet days before Slipknot removed their masks. "At first, we were like, 'Nope. You get nothing. This is what you get, you figure it out. We'll let the music speak for ourselves.

Today, Sleep Token are being mentioned in the same breath as potential future Download headliners Ghost, Gojira, and Architects. The only difference? Sleep Token have managed to ascend to the same level as those bands in a fraction of the time. Metal needs new superstars who will push things forward, innovate and keep the scene relevant - and with Sleep Token we have a band we can believe in. DL

[iheartteamnuke]

Every song from Short Circuits 03 by The Garages and how it relates to Skyblock Kingdoms

Because I'm normal. Some background:

WHAT IS SHORT CIRCUITS 03? - SC3 is an album by the garages that came out in February 2022, parallel to the last short circuit season in blaseball (long story). One of the more cohesive albums that the garages made, it's about time, how fickle everything is, and what you do with what you've got. And also has the funniest disstrack ever made. (Also I'm on it)

WHY SBK? - Because there's something so finite about skyblock due to the void that's under everyone's feet, and also they're dealing with god nonsense too. So it works. And I can do whatever I want so there.

OKAY NOW ONTO THE COMPARISONS

diary entry 7/15-7/28 + fourteen days is not enough for my screams to reach your ears: O.S.S.H.A. Avid + Avoid. The horror of realizing everything can swallow you whole so quickly and being unable to stop it. There's so much you want to say. And do. And you can do none of it. So you just have to sit there. Avoid has been in limbo for 1000 years. There is so much he wants to do. So much he wants to say. He can't, there's no time and all the time in the world (if anyone's out there somewhere between me and earth / or somewhere far out in the dark places / I hope my words have brought you some comfort / for one last time, this is Alice, at the end of everything.)

will: Sapphire. Just. Everything about Sapphire. Her imprisonment in Ruby's body and how they've been there for seemingly eons and need to get out (i know my chances are gone / odds almost one thousand hundred to one / but while there's still one / one shot / im searching for a way out / i'll keep searching for a way out), the relationship between Saph + Nav as well as Ruby + Viking in general and how push and pull it is (free me, take me, see you on the other side, let me go). This is the song that made me start thinking about SBK in connection to this album as a whole because it's SO in parallel

STRIKEOUT: Doovid. I continuously describe Doovid as a webkinz soaked in milk (which he is) but he's also a lot of fun! And this song is sososososo fun but is also about the most loser webkinz soaked in milk guy ever. To be fair Doovid is not a loser, but he has the like. Vibe of someone who walked into a party without knowing anyone due to the fact that he is the only average guy on the server full of people CONSTANTLY going through it (when my horoscope said that "my life would be changed" / i thought it meant that i would get to play college basketball / but i'm here, and i hear them call my name / i guess i should go). This song could also be about Milkman if you squint.

hymn to a non-allergic reaction: my song!!! this can be taken in two/three ways- leon simping for olm (if you wanna be funny) or olm possessing vintage (if you wanna be angsty) or O.S.S.H.A. Avid tubing his friends. Hey what if god showed up and wanted you to join his cult and in order to get you to do so he wrote you the most ineffective ad jingle known to man. But also what if he made not-so-subtle threats towards your friends and alluded to your role during the end of the world (so prep your family, say goodbye [tell all of your friends goodbye] / for the sake of peace they all may die). What if you wanted literally nothing to do with this (there is another god in the sky that calls my name. i do not want to listen to it, for it does not abide by science, but nothing in this world makes sense anymore, so f*ck it all, i guess.) but couldn't get away from it so you just. Gave up. Maybe this is also about Fool but idk much about him so bear with me.

two week world: less lore and more meta- SBK and it's community! This is a small community but it's one full of love and collaboration and we will cherish it for a long time. What the SBKers do here is gonna stick with us (maybe one day our light will guide someone home).

just bad: birch please. thats it thats the whole thing. if there's a line to compare it to. were like the netherlands weather in that just like it were bad. i take no pleasure in announcing the facts.

[bigforeheadbaddie]

Fiona Apple when she has to opt out of performing for personal reasons:

“It's 6pm on Friday, and I'm writing to a few thousand friends I have not met yet.

I am writing to ask them to change our plans and meet a little while later.

Here's the thing.

I have a dog Janet, and she's been ill for almost two years now, as a tumor has been idling in her chest, growing ever so slowly. She's almost 14 years old now.I got her when she was 4 months old. I was 21 then ,an adult officially – and she was my child.

She is a pitbull, and was found in Echo Park, with a rope around her neck, and bites all over her ears and face.

She was the one the dogfighters use to puff up the confidence of the contenders.

She's almost 14 and I've never seen her start a fight ,or bite, or even growl, so I can understand why they chose her for that awful role. She's a pacifist.

Janet has been the most consistent relationship of my adult life, and that is just a fact.

We've lived in numerous houses, and jumped a few make shift families, but it's always really been the two of us.

She slept in bed with me, her head on the pillow, and she accepted my hysterical, tearful face into her chest, with her paws around me, every time I was heartbroken, or spirit-broken, or just lost, and as years went by, she let me take the role of her child, as I fell asleep, with her chin resting above my head.

She was under the piano when I wrote songs, barked any time I tried to record anything, and she was in the studio with me all the time we recorded the last album.

The last time I came back from tour, she was spry as ever, and she's used to me being gone for a few weeks every 6 or 7 years.

She has Addison's Disease, which makes it dangerous for her to travel since she needs regular injections of Cortisol, because she reacts to stress and to excitement without the physiological tools which keep most of us from literally panicking to death.

Despite all of this, she's effortlessly joyful and playful, and only stopped acting like a puppy about 3 years ago.

She's my best friend and my mother and my daughter, my benefactor, and she's the one who taught me what love is.

I can't come to South America. Not now.

When I got back from the last leg of the US tour, there was a big, big difference

She doesn't even want to go for walks anymore.

I know that she's not sad about aging or dying. Animals have a survival instinct, but a sense of mortality and vanity, they do not. That's why they are so much more present than people.

But I know that she is coming close to point where she will stop being a dog, and instead, be part of everything. She'll be in the wind, and in the soil, and the snow, and in me, wherever I go.

I just can't leave her now, please understand.

If I go away again, I'm afraid she'll die and I won't have the honor of singing her to sleep, of escorting her out.

Sometimes it takes me 20 minutes to pick which socks to wear to bed.

But this decision is instant.

These are the choices we make, which define us.

I will not be the woman who puts her career ahead of love and friendship.

I am the woman who stays home and bakes Tilapia for my dearest, oldest friend.

And helps her be comfortable, and comforted, and safe, and important.

Many of us these days, we dread the death of a loved one. It is the ugly truth of Life, that keeps us feeling terrified and alone.

I wish we could also appreciate the time that lies right beside the end of time.

I know that I will feel the most overwhelming knowledge of her, and of her life and of my love for her, in the last moments.

I need to do my damnedest to be there for that.

Because it will be the most beautiful, the most intense, the most enriching experience of life I've ever known.

When she dies.

So I am staying home, and I am listening to her snore and wheeze, and reveling in the swampiest, most awful breath that ever emanated from an angel.

And I am asking for your blessing.I'll be seeing you.

Love, Fiona”

———————————————————————

Chappell Roan when she gets flamed on the internet for claiming to have done her research and then promptly mispronounces the current Vice President’s (very simple) name:

[likeadevils]

For context, Heather said Taylor was always writing lyrics and the one example she used was that one. Sitting next to her/near her on her jet while Taylor was writing down/humming lyrics and those lyrics eventually became part of '...Ready for It?' and she went 'I was there! I was there when she wrote that!' So I think Taylor was exploring the concept of dating in the public eye and then she had an even better focus on the song once she was with Joe and that's when it fully developed.

I do find it interesting. It's relatively early in the doc and when I heard I immediately needed to come to check on your blog lol.

(Harry did sing 'I don’t want to hear about him in these songs you continue to write. I was with you when you wrote that line.' So I don't think it would be crazy to think that songs can have multiple muses.)

oh yeah this makes total sense that she came up with some lyrics in 2015— taylor’s talked about having a ton of lyrics and voice notes that she can go through and pick from once she has a more specific concept for a song in mind. off the top of my head there’s

new york magazine in 2013

These days, Swift is thinking a lot about her next record. While on the Red tour, she’d been writing songs and stockpiling ideas: reams of lyrics, thousands of voice memos in her iPhone.

vogue 73 questions in 2016

(On what song took her the least amount of time to write): "Blank space, cause I'd written a lot of the lines down already in the year preceding the session"

taylor swift now listening party in 2016

(About Shake It Off): "The problem was, I had all these lyrics, and I didnt have, like... writing session was coming up and I'm just like "I'm not getting a melody, I'm dead, I don't know what I'm gonna do."

iheartradio reputation secret session in 2017

(About Dress): “This song was one of those things where like almost every line is something that I came up with like a year before, and then when I was writing the song I just cherry-picked, and I was like, “Like that, like that, like that, like that—”

(About New Year’s day): “There are two lines in this song that I had been saving for a long time for the right moment and I had picked them for this song, and I’m really excited about them. The first one is, ‘Please don’t ever become a stranger whose laugh I could recognize anywhere.’ And the other one is, ‘Hold on to the memories, they will hold on to you.’”

artist on artist in 2020

“I have favorite words, like “elegies” and “epiphany” and “divorcée,” and just words that I think sound beautiful, and I have lists and lists of them.”

[eusuntgratie]

grace for the '24 in review plz 14, 28, & 30 💚

thanks mel!!

14. What were your go-to writing songs?

my most-listened to songs while writing are from the disaster playlist; they dominated my on repeat this year and last year! and i obv listened to lonely dancer on repeat while writing dance with me so we don't cry, but other than that i didn't have specific fic playlists for any of my other fics this year. there's a roswell new mexico playlist on spotify with basically every song from the show in order so i listen to that sometimes while i'm writing or percolating about rnm. and i definitely have certain songs, albums, and playlists that i listen to to get into a specific mindset, but disaster is the last fic i wrote where i really heavily used music as a writing tool. i love using fic playlists because they help my writing process a lot but i'm not very good at making them. @bigassbowlingballhead gets most of the credit for the disaster one, of course <3

28. If this were an awards show, who would you thank?

i would cry and embarass @bigassbowlingballhead real bad if this were an awards show bc our beautiful slutty baby disaster was absolutely a joint effort and i couldn't have done it without him. i wrote the words but he is the brains behind the operation. he's also been a huge support for my writing in general all year whether its encouraging me to try something new, helping out with a beta, or ALWAYS coming in clutch with a great title when my brain blue screens after writing a fic. he had a hand in almost all of my favorite fics i wrote this year <3

a huge thank you to @lostcol my gorgeous grammar queen who answers the same five grammar questions for me six thousand times per year without complaint. she always enables my ideas and encourages my writing and helps me talk through ideas or details until we can make them make sense. she's done some incredible editing for me that has taken good fics to great, and i am so so grateful she's let me drag her into [redacted] new fandoms 😘😘😘

special shout to out @taste-thewaste, @basil-bird & @stratocumulusperlucidus for always hyping me up and answering the weird questions i throw at you.

last but not least, mr. grace gets a special shout out for answering weird questions about having a penis, doing strange research for fics without question, answering my friends' fic questions in his areas of expertise, and always making it happen when i need time to write.

okay i'm gonna go cry now i love y'all <3

30. What would you like to write next year?

OH LORD SO MANY

okay okay. i want to finish sex club malexa (i might get part 2 up in 2024 but there will be at least one more part after that) and mechanic alex (which will hopefully get two more parts).

i'd like to finish and post my other malexa fic about the morning after the threesome.

my vlamburn + aurora fic (i wanna see) compels me and is close to being done.

i think i could finish the first part of the firstprince exes fic if i focus on it and find a shred of self-discipline with regard to starting new wips.

i'd like to finish the tknp hunting guide au

i also think i'd maybe like to finish up shadow (a buddie au) and post the beginning as a one-shot. i'll never finish the whole thing but i think the beginning could be a good stand alone.

i have a few other wips i'm less confident that i'll finish, a LOT of malex, malexa, and vlamburn ideas, and a few other scattered ideas. we'll see where this year takes me!

2024 Year in Review

[spectralstitions]

THERE'S A MAP FINALLY LOL (EXPLODES)

Hey, it's Cas! In my last post about mapmaking, I wrote that the next time I posted about it, I hoped it'd be because my map was finished. Well, guess what? I FINISHED IT! It only took me, like... uh... half a year to get around to it. Well, here it is! Two versions: one plain, one labeled.

It's such a relief to have this finished. Finally, after a thousand years of just thinking about it, I have something resembling a visual resource! Yay! That said, it's not perfect, and definitely more of an approximation than anything. There are touch-ups to be made, many touch-ups, but I might just save that for an end-of-year progress check. For now, it's good enough!

The lack of labels has nothing to do with minimalism and everything to do with the fact that I really hate naming things. V-shaped icons point to major settlements. Dot icons mark settlements that are smaller, but subject to show up often for whatever reason. Those ones in particular I'm sure will get edited or shifted around over time.

Now, to meticulously explore each and every region!

I'll work from top to bottom!

Surprise, I'm starting with the name! I find myself drawn to names that sound simple but have lots of interesting connotations. In this case, I'd been searching for a name that captured the feeling of a far off, enigmatic place, something vast and always just beyond reach. Then, while I was searching, and in a manner not unlike that one Overwatch meme, the word "Hinterlands" played in the Lord Huron song I was listening to and I had my HOLY SHIT moment. There's no way a name this whimsical hasn't already been snagged by some cartoon or something, but I can live with that.

As an aside, if I were to pick just one piece of media that encapsulated what I'm going for with this project, it'd be the album Strange Trails by Lord Huron. Of all my many inspirations, it's the one that's had the most profound impact. So the name also works as a homage!

Starting off spooky with our first region, the Old Waythrough. It's a place most people don't like to talk or even think about, but it's always there, looming just under the surface. It has remarkably little presence even in local folklore, and what little there is has been cut into pieces and scattered about through generations of oral storytelling. That said, there are a couple surviving records of Parthans attempting flyovers, eager to prove their courage. None of them get very far, but interestingly, even across the centuries, their recounts have all been similar, describing endless, desolate lands that are empty save for random objects and footprints in the snow.

One famous story, and the tale behind the region's common name, recounts the miraculous journey of the first partha who made contact with the mainland using the Waythrough as a guide. If true, this partha is the only known creature to have crossed the Waythrough in its entirety—and in doing so, gave the fasa who saw them quite a scare!

Our next region is Parthesa, or the parthan homelands! Yeah, get ready for some confusing naming conventions. I'll try to break it down:

The species itself, singular and plural, is known as "partha". Its descriptive form is "parthan".

Partha born on Parthesa, as well as any outsider accepted into their flocks, are known as "Parthans" with a capital P.

All partha born on Parthesa are also called skyborn, while their mainland cousins are called wildborn.

It's a bit much, but I promise, so are they. Parthesa itself is frequently described as a paradise, mostly for the fact that there seems to be a strange lack of spirit activity on the islands themselves. Is that the full story, though? Who knows — Parthans aren't exactly scrambling to brag about how UNbetter-than-everyone-else they and their homeland are. On that note, did Parthans name themselves after their homeland, or did they name their homelands after themselves? Mysteries upon mysteries...

Famously, the islands are beautiful — flower fields, waterfalls, seaside cliffs, mountains and valleys to dip and dive through, and that wonderful ocean breeze! Plus, as long as you've got parthan feather insulation and love storms, the weather's great! Infamously, getting to Parthesa is incredibly dangerous without a Parthan guide, something that's hard to come by. Without one, travelers don't have a great track record of being seen again.

On the opposite side of the Waythrough, we've got the fasan homelands! This dashing, idyllic little landscape is defined by mountains, rivers, lakes, colorful flower fields, and forests of towering boreal trees. Also, ignore that green mountain I forgot to recolor.

Fasa like to incorporate waterways into their architecture in interesting ways, building settlements that trace the length of rivers. Despite their homeland's cutesy appearance, their deep forests harbor all sorts of dangers. Uniquely, this danger doesn't just concern spirits, but entire swathes of dangerous, predatory animals. Still, as long as you take the proper safety precautions, it's a lovely place to live. Their main city can be found by following the paths of the rivers into the mountains. Their harbor town is much newer but has quickly become prosperous!

Okay, you see this gigantic piece of land with almost zero markers in it? This one's my sandbox. Why does nobody seem to want to live here? Well, they tried. They really tried, judging by all the bizarre artifacts poking out of the ground everywhere. The place is a mass graveyard, with evidence of ancient raswa, fasa, and who knows what else engaged in constant territory spats going back centuries. However, these battles seemed to have stopped very suddenly. It's assumed that the appearance of spirits was the last straw that pushed people back into their homelands, finally convincing them the place was just not worth it, something that countless deaths couldn't accomplish. But it's been thousands of years, and people are making tentative attempts to settle again, this time in unity—and hey, so far so good! The few settlements that exist here are characterized by the diversity of their people.

If you follow the trails, you're sure to come across fellow travelers, traders, and the like, but the vast majority of the land is void of people. You could walk for weeks or longer and not come across a single soul! There's a lot to discover, but it's a bit lonely...

Down south, you'll find the Underbelly! The Underbelly is the common name given to this region of wetland and swamp. It's one of the deadliest—and in many people's opinions, the grossest—places in the Hinterlands. Miraculously, there are a hardy people who've managed to make a living in the deep swamp, their treehouse cities literal lights in the darkness. They trade with and have close relations to raswa!

Nearly done! Now we've come to the raswan homelands. Not to be an edgelord, but this region is one defined by utter darkness. Well, okay, it's supposed to be a little edgy, but that part of it comes second. On the left half sleeps an incredibly dense roofed forest, such that light rarely grazes the forest floor. Mushrooms spawn like wildfire, and only those with the grace of raswa are going to have much luck navigating it. On the other side of the mountains lies the raswan desert, a place where sandblood raswans lead nomadic lifestyles. It's also a place many go to get in touch with their spirituality. Sandblood raswa wander the depths of the desert, traveling by night, when sand in the air lights up like stars. With their unique skin colors and plain dark clothes, raswa disguise themselves as part of the night sky to avoid deadly desert spirits. The spirits are a pain in the forests, too—raswa have devised safe pathways for travelers, but all they can really do is hand you a charm and beg you not to stray. Due to the regions' conditions, the settlements here remain mostly raswa, save for their newer harbor town.

We're onto the last area! This island is in a weird spot, and it's kind of just weird in general, so I saved it for last. It's even weird in the formatting of this blog post! What is wrong with you, fae homelands? This island was created very recently by one of the gods, although they are all credited for it. "Homelands" is a strange word for fae to use, though, because most fae do not come from this land at all. In fact, there are barely any trees here! In any case, This island is what connects all people, encouraging unity in times of despair. From edge to edge, the place is a gigantic market space, full to bursting with different kinds of people, vivid colors, and overwhelming sounds and smells.

And that's that! I'll be real, I had way more fun just writing all that than I did even making the map, so I hope that even 1 person skimmed it and got something out of it. But if not, this'll be a good resource for me, too, so, I guess it's win-win.

I'm not really sure what's next for me! I kinda want to work on more visual development for the fauna, spirits, and gods, but the other, realer, and more boring side of me thinks I should probably figure out the extremely basic information like fasan & raswan government styles first. Cause, you know, the fundamental structure of their society is kind of important...

I've made progress in other areas as well, so I may make a separate post for that! But for now I need a short break. Hope you enjoyed. Yay!

[mintywolf]

A Long Road Home - Page 53 Author Notes

Page 53

It’s time!! :D

I would like to say that the song I had setting the tone for this was something epic and Imogen-coded like "Thousand Eyes" by Of Monster's and Men but alas it was "Firework" by Katy Perry because my Imogen playlist is a wild ride. (Actually I was mostly listening to Midst while working on this and am happy to report that the hype is true, Midst is excellent and you should listen to it!)

And now I have to remember to draw Imogen’s lightning markings again every week after having had to consciously train myself NOT to draw them in this for the past year. In other art I’ve done of her they start at the inside of her wrists and wrap around her arms in spirals so I decided to stick with that.

All of the members of the mob are background Matts we’ve seen before expressing some negative reaction to Imogen or Laudna (or both). On this page we have the orc parents (who lost their child to scarlet fever and are still wearing their funeral attire), Fan-Unfavorite Doughnut Guy, and the young half-elf guy from the fair, and the muttonchops guy and old overalls guy from outside Faramore’s store. (Presumably, there are more offscreen but I was really tired and did not want to draw any more NPCs haha.)

I wrote all of this long before we had any details of The Gelvaan Incident or before we even knew that a Ruidusborn’s powers are awakened by intense emotional distress. The whole thing was extrapolated from two lines of Imogen’s, from

episode 23:

I’ve never flown before. Do you think that came from it? Or do you think it’s just something I have? I mean, before you came to town, I didn’t even know I could . . .

and 34:

Well. Up until yesterday, they kind of felt good. I mean, at first, they were terrible. It let everyone in town know I was different, you know? And then as soon as I realized I could defend, like when I defended Laudna when she came to town, then it was like they were proof that I was stronger than I thought I was.

From that and knowing that her psychic powers already started when she was 18, I came to the conclusion that Imogen’s lightning powers first appeared when she used them to protect Laudna from an incident of mob violence in Gelvaan. (And that the unspoken what she didn’t even know she could do was this.)

Fortunately, in the time it took me to actually GET to this scene (which the entire first chapter has been building up to), that theory hasn’t been debunked. She does say that her lightning markings appeared when her dreams started at 18, but for the purposes of this comic I thought it would be fun to see them appear for the first time onscreen. :)

[rainbowsandwhumperflies]

Do you do all your writing on one doc, or do you have a bunch of different ones?

I Suck at organizing, especially when trying to put a story together, so I am always trying to find (and stick to!) ways to organize my stuff

<3

you've caught me at kind of an awkward time, I'm in the middle of transferring stuff from one app to another with different formatting in each 😭 but I will do my best to explain my process of putting things together! warning this is a ridiculously long explanation

So the current main thing that I organize The Winged Servant into is a google doc, but it isn't the place that has the most of it. My current number of typed words for that story is about 83 thousand, but I actually have a deep hatred for typing and love for pencils and paper. If I were to guess the amount of ws that was written somewhere, I'd say probably about twice as much.

I do have notebooks specifically for writing in. I don't use most of them.

Where I mostly write is actually my yearly planner! I get planners that give me like two pages each week, and my handwriting is very small. So after I use the planner part, there's a lot of leftover space, and I put a lot of things in the empty past space. I also have the ADHD curse of never opening planners, so I put literally every single thing in the past space so I'm forced to open it. It's my writing and my school notes and song lyrics that get stuck in my head and so much other stuff. I don't think I can explain without a visual? So here's a wretched wretched visual.

[ID: I'm so sorry if you rely on image descriptions. This is an image of a piece of paper with like eight different topics scribbled all over it, with editing that is desperately trying to make it seem less chaotic than it is. This editing is doing it by labeling different areas with "this whole green bar is repetitive spanish vocab for memorization" "it''s stats notes the whole way down" "song lyrics that were stuck in my head" "when the math teacher was like 'use scrap paper'" "vampire fanfic if I remember correctly" "things that were written in the planner as plans" and "tiktok audios I wanted to animate to (so that I didn't have to keep listening to it every five seconds)" /end ID]

so yeah that's what my planners look like. I put pretty much everything in there. this is one of the tamer pages. the reason the right side handwriting is so much worse is because I wrote it with my left hand to practice to become ambidextrous!

That's where the majority of The Winged Servant is written. That is where the majority of everything I write is written. I've been getting the same planner for the past three years and doing this every year. I have no organization system within the notebook, I just write whatever sounds appealing that day. And once in a while if I want to write but have no energy, I start typing wherever I left off. Right now I'm a few pages into the second notebook!

Okay enough about the pencil paper writing. Once it gets typed, it does currently go into one google doc. I do love love love the new tab feature of google docs though! It's really convenient to be able to just have multiple google docs inside a google doc. This is what the tabs of ws look like.

[ID: tabs in a google doc, reading: Outline, Preplot Kieran, Arien era, Captivity era, Actual story ?!?! and Ask games etc etc. /end ID]

There used to be two more, which were pre-whump royalty and pre-whump angels. Those are currently inside of the outline tab, because I'm trying to condense all of them into one tab while keeping headings intact so that I can export the document eventually.

The reason I'm exporting is to move to ellipsus ! It doesn't have all the features of google docs that I wish it did but it doesn't scrape original work for ai. It is all around a much more ethical company so I'm moving over there. Also most of the features I want have been requested and the ellipsus team is really nice about listening to feedback so I'm not worried.

Anyway. This is what inside the tabs looks like.

[ID: Inside of the tab reading "Actual story ?!?!" there are subcategories, titles Chapter 1 (Posted), Chapter 2 (Posted), Chapter 3 (Posted), Chapter 4 (Posted), and Chapter 5 (Posted) /end ID]

Each chapter title also has a description (the same descriptions that I use in the masterlist lmao) and I can see them if I hover. Since they're chapters instead of concepts, they are all the same level of subcategory, but in the other tabs they're not chapters and not the same level.

[ID: Inside the tab "Ask games etc etc" there's a subcategory titled "In-character writing asks" . Inside of that, there are more subcategories titled Ryan's asks, Onyx's asks, and Asks for multiple characters /end ID]

so. yeah. that's about it. my organization system is Fuck Around And Find Out. it's a miracle I've ever posted anything coherent and I'm sorry if you were hoping for a genuinely helpful answer. but I hope this answered any questions of yours!

[whateverithinkof]

AO3 Year-End Roundup, 2024

So I happened to see this post by @crackinglamb recently, and I thought that the whole idea of a year-end roundup was amazing. So I decided to do my own! :)

Total words posted (all-time): 148,154

Words written this year: ~136K

Total kudos (all-time): 1,675

Kudos this year: 1,621

Total hits (all-time): 51,209

Hits this year: 48,203

Total user subscriptions (all-time): 32

User subscriptions this year: 32

Total comments (all-time): 472

Comments this year: 470

Total bookmarks (all-time): 581

Bookmarks this year: 554

Total work subscriptions (all-time): 676

Work subscriptions this year: 647

Fandoms I've written for (5): Harry Potter, Yuri On Ice, Hamilton, MCU, Percy Jackson

Fandoms I've read from (36): Percy Jackson, MCU, Harry Potter, DC, Criminal Minds, Teen Wolf, Dear Evan Hansen, Red White & Royal Blue, The Greatest Showman, Sherlock, NCIS, The Mick, Newsies, Nimona, Twisted Wonderland, Twilight, Coco, The Outsiders, Yuri On Ice, Obey Me, Hannibal, Good Omens, Dracula, Mamma Mia, Boy Meets World, Girl Meets World, My Hero Academia, Attack on Titan, Avatar The Last Airbender, Black Butler, Descendants, Haikyuu, Supernatural, BTS, A Biltmore Christmas, Seventeen

Works: 18, 15 of them new

Highest kudos: lookin' up now ('cause i am royalty), at 624. Luke Castellan/Percy Jackson (PJO). Rated T, 16/? chapters, 64,387 words.

Highest hits: lookin' up now ('cause i am royalty), at 24,730. Luke Castellan/Percy Jackson (PJO). Rated T, 16/? chapters, 64,387 words.

Highest kudos one-shot: Miracle, at 181. Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov (YOI). Rated T, 5,601 words.

Highest hit one-shot: Miracle, at 3,868. Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov (YOI). Rated T, 5,601 words.

New things I tried: This is the first year I've really written a lot fanfic-wise, with 2023 being the first year I ever posted a fanfic, so the main new thing I tried this year was writing fanfiction. But other than that, some new things I tried this year were:

Grammarly: I'm not kidding, I got Grammarly like maybe a year ago? A year and a half ago? So while technically in 2023, I only started using it for fanfics in 2024. It feels crazy to think about, as I use Grammarly a lot now, but I'm glad I started using it then because it really does make a difference. (Not sponsored, lol)

My Hero Academia: I wasn't in the fandom before this year, but I've kinda become obsessed. I haven't written anything for it (yet), but the sheer number of like hundred thousand-word-long fics that there are is like heaven for me.

Yuri on Ice: I originally watched Yuri on Ice on YouTube in 2021, and I. Loved. It. I looked for a second season and was so excited to see that there was a movie planned, but, well... we all know how that went. I didn't really read many fanfics back then, but 2024 was the year for Yuri on Ice fanfics for me. (Notedly my YOI one-shot series Next Level, which currently has 6 fics and the 200+ YOI fics I've read over 2024)

Fic I spent the most time on: lookin' up now ('cause i am royalty), Luke Castellan/Percy Jackson (PJO). Rated T, 16/? chapters, 64,387. I know I keep mentioning it, but seriously this WIP is going to be long. I'm so excited to keep writing it, but the chapters take me forever and a day. 😭 I wish they didn't take me as long, but I think it's worth it for the longer chapters. This fic is what I always wanted to read myself, and I'm happy to be the one to give it to many readers who are also just as excited about it!

Fic I spent the least time on: Moonlight Sonata, Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov (YOI). Rated G, 1,482. I was feeling really depressed at the time that I wrote this, and sometimes when I'm feeling really sad I listen to piano and instrumental music. So when this song came on, I got inspired to write. I wrote it in one night, editing, tagging, posting, and all.

Favorite thing I wrote: Moonlight Sonata is honestly my favorite thing I've ever written. It's the type of fic that I don't think many people read, but I loved writing it. It's just a simple story. (lookin' up now ('cause i am royalty) is also one of my favs, but I think that's pretty obvious at this point if you've read all of my previous answers)

Favorite thing I read: This is a tough one... I've read a lot of fics this year, but my top three (that I can think of right now) are:

We Forgot Peter by inkinmyheartandonthepage [Peter Parker & The Avengers (MCU), Rated G, 506,700]: This entire series is just ✨perfection✨. Sometimes angst is just the way to go, and seeing as I love the Avengers and Peter Parker, I just love this.

Leap of Faith by alighterwood and ErinWantsToWrite [Dick Grayson & Peter Parker (MCU & DC), Rated T, 460,010]/A Long Way From Home (And No Way Back) by Vivia_wants_boba [Batfamily Members & Peter Parker (MCU & DC), Rated T, 78,129]: More marvel Peter Parker fics, but this time these two are Peter Parker in Gotham fics. They’re pretty popular (for good reason!), and these two are the ones that I’ve been obsessed with.

The Collector by AwkwaAMO [Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead & Midoriya Izuku (MHA), Not Rated, 136,945]: One of the best MHA fics I’ve read so far, it sort of covers a vigilante Izuku with a villain-ish quirk, which I love reading about. I do want to write an MHA fic at some point, maybe even in 2025.

Something I finished: 😬 Unfortunately I can’t really think of any fics or series I’ve finished this year (other than one-shots), but I think 2025’s the year for me. I might look at this at the end of next year and still be disappointed in myself that I didn’t finish anything, but I’m determined to at least try.

Miscellaneous highlights:

Posted my first Yuri on Ice fic called Unfaithful [Katsuki Yuuri & Yuri Plisetsky & Otabek Altin (YOI), Rated T, 2,375] in May

Started my first two-shot called Lay All Your Love On Me - Mamma Mia [Yuuri Katsuki/Victor Nikiforov (YOI), Rated T, 2,849] in June

I followed the (slightly old) trend of Yuuri doing the first quad axel in my fic aptly named Quad Axel [Katsuki Yuuri/Victor Nikiforov (YOI), Rated G, 1,416] in June as well

Writing goals for 2025: My main writing goal for 2025 is to finish writing some of my WIPs, but I think another important one is to keep on top of updates. I haven’t been the best with updating all my fics in the last half of 2024, so in 2025 I want to make sure I don’t just spend all my time on one fic. It wouldn’t be that big of a problem if I actually finished that fic, but… my first goal is pretty indicative of the problem with that, lol.

Final thoughts: Overall I think 2024 was the first year I really dove head-first into fanfic. It’s been amazing to be able to write down any kind of story I think of and know that I can just upload it so that people who also enjoy the idea can see it. It’s also crazy that I wrote 130,000+ words, like I hope to be able to write even more in 2025, but still. It’s a lot.

This year I also got 32 subscribers to my AO3 profile, which I thought was crazy. I know many people subscribe to stories to keep track of any updates, but wanting to keep track of what I write? It’s amazing to think about. 😅

Thank you to all my amazing readers! 💞 2024 has been crazy, and I hope 2025 brings us many good fics and lots of happiness ❤️

[kiki-de-la-petite-flaque]

Enjoy this beautiful letter from Fiona Apple explaining to her fans why she must postpone a concert date.

It's 6pm on Friday, and I'm writing to a few thousand friends I have not met yet. I'm writing to ask them to change our plans and meet a little while later.

Here's the thing.

I have a dog, Janet, and she's been ill for about 2 years now, as a tumor has been idling in her chest, growing ever so slowly. She's almost 14 years old now. I got her when she was 4 months old. I was 21 then — an adult, officially — and she was my kid.

She is a pitbull, and was found in Echo Park, with a rope around her neck, and bites all over her ears and face.

She was the one the dogfighters used to puff up the confidence of the contenders.

She's almost 14 and I've never seen her start a fight, bite, or even growl, so I can understand why they chose her for that awful role. She's a pacifist.

Janet has been the most consistent relationship of my adult life, and that is just a fact. We've lived in numerous houses and joined a few makeshift families, but it's always really been just the two of us.

She slept in bed with me, her head on the pillow, and she accepted my hysterical, tearful face into her chest, with her paws around me, every time I was heartbroken, or spirit-broken, or just lost, and as years went by, she let me take the role of her child, as I fell asleep, with her chin resting above my head.

She was under the piano when I wrote songs, barked any time I tried to record anything, and she was in the studio with me, all the time we recorded the last album.

The last time I came back from tour, she was spry as ever, and she's used to me being gone for a few weeks, every 6 or 7 years.

She has Addison's Disease, which makes it more dangerous for her to travel since she needs regular injections of Cortisol because she reacts to stress and excitement without the physiological tools that keep most of us from literally panicking to death.

Despite all this, she's effortlessly joyful & playful and only stopped acting like a puppy about 3 years ago. She is my best friend, my mother, my daughter, my benefactor, and she's the one who taught me what love is.

I can't come to South America. Not now. When I got back from the last leg of the US tour, there was a big, big difference.

She doesn't even want to go for walks anymore.

I know that she's not sad about aging or dying. Animals have a survival instinct, but a sense of mortality and vanity, they do not. That's why they are so much more present than people.

But I know she is coming close to the time when she will stop being a dog, and start instead to be part of everything. She'll be in the wind, and in the soil, and the snow, and in me, wherever I go.

I just can't leave her now, please understand. If I go away again, I'm afraid she'll die and I won't have the honor of singing her to sleep, of escorting her out.

Sometimes it takes me 20 minutes just to decide what socks to wear to bed.

But this decision is instant.

These are the choices we make, which define us. I will not be the woman who puts her career ahead of love & friendship.

I am the woman who stays home, baking Tilapia for my dearest, oldest friend. And helps her be comfortable & comforted & safe & important.

Many of us these days, dread the death of a loved one. It is the ugly truth of Life that keeps us feeling terrified & alone. I wish we could also appreciate the time that lies right beside the end of time. I know that I will feel the most overwhelming knowledge of her, of her life, and of my love for her, in the last moments.

I need to do my damnedest, to be there for that.

Because it will be the most beautiful, the most intense, the most enriching experience of life I've ever known.

When she dies.

So I am staying home, and I am listening to her snore and wheeze, and I am reveling in the swampiest, most awful breath that ever emanated from an angel. And I'm asking for your blessing.

I'll be seeing you.

Love,

Fiona

[xumoonhao]

i was tagged by @onedirecton to tag 10 ppl i want to get to know better and make a few questions :3 hehe, thank you sm alice :3

favourite colour: purple, hehe :3 alice i love that we have the same fav colour 💜💜💜 favourite food: ahhhh, i love most things!!! i do have a soft spot for soups and stews tho like they are so so wonderful……… mutuals pls gather round im giving you all a bowl of w/e soup or stew you like rn 🍲 song stuck in my head: babaero by randy santiago!!! its been stuck in my head since i first listened to it like it really is just so good, god… funky city pop music is really everything to me!!!!!!!! absolute best genre of music ever <<<333 i give it one thousand million hearts <- this was my last obsession bc i wrote all these answers down like. a week ago and forgot to post it so now the song stuck in my head is dagundong by alamat :3 its so good btw~! last long i listened to: hala by alamat!!! spotify did the only good thing its ever done by reintroducing me to alamat again like they are So Good oh my god...highly recommend their music!!! the way they work Filipino history into their videos and songs is soooooooo beautiful omg..... dream trip: hhhhhh i want to go to SO many places but my absolute DREAM is japan!!! id love to check out tokyo bc its so not like where i grew up - a bustling metropolis is what i want to live in like literally get me outta my small town this is not the place for meeeeee 😭 - but nara….the deer there……….god i need to go so BAD and i also just want to go to a cherry blossom festival once like pls…pls :( other than tho id LOVE to visit the great bear rainforest!!! like it just looks so so beautiful and its really not too far from me omg……. last tv show/movie: im currently watching the cherry magic anime (it is so good and so cute omg i forgot how much i enjoy the story….) and rewatching kyou kara maoh which is really and truly such a beloved anime To Me like its absolutely ridiculous god i love it sm!!! and i dont remember the last movie i watched?? i Think it was skinamarink but i could be wrong bc i watched that early last year and surely ive seen a movie since then…? but also maybe not bc i truly do only watch like 1 movie a year 😭 <- also update to this bc i watched sweet home a couple days ago!!! it was quite good and i really enjoyed the practical effects in it :3 older horror movies really have such a beloved place in my heart ahhh...also in writing this i remember i watched The Thing after skinamarink...i. only watched horror movies apparently spicy/sweet/savory: SPICY 🌶️🌶️🌶️ i do like all these things but if i had to choose id def go spicy over either of these!!! i do like spicy + sweet tho like omg one time i had spicy chocolate frozen yogurt and it was sooooooo good !!! idk what was used to make it spicy but i Adored it wahhhh~

also!!! in your lil tag game it said to make a few cool questions so i will make some <<<333

If you could be any animal, would you choose to be a domesticated animal or a wild one? Domesticated can extend to a wild animal that has been individually raised in a home, i.e., someone raising a raccoon a pet.

What is your favourite medium of creation? If you don't really engage in making things, pick whatever you're most interested in trying :3 And by medium I mean everything from drawing or making music or writing…anything creative!

What is/are your favourite(s) combination of colours?

Imagine your perfect summer day; what does it look like? Give as much description as you want :3

What is your favourite celestial object?

now, ill tag @grlfriends, @kwonhochi, @vampirebiter, @wonhosgrl, @librapropaganda, @honeydewtual, @heartual, @10281, @taengoo, @morgoth, @bixiaoshi, @ghostfeather, @ashmp3, @lovenee, @earlymay, @anglerfishare1inchto3feetlong, and @huiven!!! only if you want, ofc :3 and i know it said only 10 ppl but you see. i lost count while tagging ......... but thats fine <3

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 2005 - Number 41 - Gracia - "Run & Hide"

Well, this is a pickle.

I don't even know where to begin here, so lets start with Gracia herself. Gracia Baur had been pushing for a music career since the early 2000s. She'd made it to the televised rounds of Popstars, but forgot the words to the song she was singing and got eliminated. In 2003, she did better in Deutschland sucht den Superstar (the German Pop Idol) and managed to get to fifth place. After this, her first album was released. There was also a charity single released with fellow talent show stars.

2004 is where is starts to go wrong. Her boyfriend was the song-writer of this song, David Brandes. He was a long time fixture of the German music scene. He'd worked with many big names, especially EDM acts such as E-Rotic. He'd even worked with Dschinghis Khan. His Discogs profile lists 846 non-performance credits, mostly song-writing, but also over 200 production credits. He wanted Gracia to go to Eurovision, the only problem was that she hadn't been selected by NDR to go onto their national final, Germany 12 Points!

No problem. David was a long time player in the music biz and he immediately started buying up thousands of copies of the single to get it into the top 40 - and it duly made it in. At this point NDR had a scheme where by new acts deemed successful enough in the German music charts could get wild cards into the national final and, possibly with some more encouragement, Gracia made it to the national final.

Where somehow she won.

Nothing untoward has ever been reported regarding the televote for this national final, and maybe it's due to more regular radio play because of its chart appearance earlier in the year that made it more popular, however Gracia scraped into the super-final in second-place of the televote by 3% over third. In that super-final, she overcame the deficit to the winner and won on a 53/47 vote. Gracia was heading to Eurovision.

Then it all came out. Her competitors in the national final, the German media, other prominent figures in the music biz all called for Brandes chart-rigging tactics to be punished and for Gracia to be replaced as Germany's representatives at Eurovision. NDR wasn't listening and they stuck by her. Gracia stuck by David as well - even though his name was now tarred with impropriety.

Run & Hide is a synth drenched blast of pop pomp about a dodgy bloke who's messed around with Gracia once before and is now back for another try. Gracia is having none of it and seem intent in getting medieval on his ass. The lyrics are by longtime Ralph Siegel collaborator John O'Flynn (aka Bernd Meinunger/Gunter Johansen). The instrumental is manic, with a sawing synth waveform suggesting aggression and anger overlying a more relaxed, sorrowful vibe. If it sounds like the Vanilla Ninja entry from this year, that's because David Brandes in collaboration with Jane Tempest (aka Petra Brändle) wrote that too.

What is it with all the pseudonyms in the German music industry? Is it tax related?

Unfortunately Gracia's voice can't quite carry this manic energy with the power necessary and it limps home a little at the end, nevertheless it's still a potent track.

It finished last in the final. Gracia wasn't fussed - someone's got to come last, she said. The scandal surrounding the song's selection was widely-known at this point, but whether that would affect a televote outside German speaking nations I doubt. It's rockier, downbeat vibe may have run a little too contrary to some of the feel-good upbeat, sexier songs it was competing against.

After this ignominious ending to national scandal, Gracia released one more album and largely disappeared. She did release a couple more songs under other names in collaboration with other musicians, but that was it. She did some reality TV for a while, then became an HR manager before training as a nurse. She's still together with David Brandes.

All the songs associated with David Brandes were removed from the German charts for three months, including Vanilla Ninja's Eurovision entry, and several of the acts that he managed or associated with distanced themselves from him - again including Vanilla Ninja. He is far too established in the music industry however, and after a short time waiting for the furore to pass, he's returned to writing and producing.

He hasn't tried to write any more Eurovision songs though.

[intensely-reading]

“Calluses and Grief” - Guizhong/Ping

Had another poll on Twitter! Happy Wednesday! 💜

The pads of her fingers were numbed and raw. She rubbed them together, feeling the roughness of the growing calluses and blistering skin—and sighed.

Inactivity—she always believed—was the bane of every musician.

She had been inactive for thousands of years.

She pressed down on her fingers—a slight sting accompanying the tender skin. It had been a time before Liyue Harbor when her fingers had last felt this sensitive. She had been at the Guqin for hours then, fingers sliding down the strings trying to perfect the last phrase of her swan song for her.

She had never expected to pick up her Guqin again. Such was the conclusion she had made with herself. Once her music became entwined with the happiness, the laughter, the life of another—what was left when they’re gone but the notes on her page?

Her hands hovered over the strings. Gently, she plucked out a chord, sliding her left thumb across the strings, and winced.

Calluses took weeks to develop so long as she was consistent. Until then, she would have to bear the pain—a mark of the time that has passed since she was lost to the world.

“Grandma Ping?”

She looked up. Yaoyao stood in front of her tea table, eyes on the Guqin.

“Yes, child?”

“Are you playing again? Can I listen?”

She chuckled.

“Of course, dear. You’ll have to excuse me though. It has been a while. I’m a bit rusty.”

“But you made it sound so pretty during the Lantern Rite.” Yaoyao scurried over, taking the seat across from her, watching her place her wrinkled hands over the strings again. “You didn’t sound rusty at all!”

“Thank you, child,” she said, smiling. “But my fingers are not as nimble as they used to be.”

“Oh.” Yaoyao blinked. “I’m sure you could get just as good as before, Grandma Ping!”

She hummed, smile widening.

“Just as good as before…” She plucked out the tune she had played during the Lantern Rite, then paused. “Would you be willing to listen to my old hands remember how to play, then?”

“Yes, please!” Yaoyao jumped from her seat, eyes glittering against the sun, before she caught herself and hesitated. “I mean, only if you want to Grandma Ping. Your playing is so pretty. I loved it very much!”

“Thank you, dear,” she murmured. She rubbed her fingers again, soothing the ache—the motion idle. “Would you like to listen to a song I composed?”

Yaoyao gasped. “Yes!”

“It was one of the last things I played. I wrote it for someone very dear to me.”

Yaoyao’s expression immediately sobered, eyes wide and innocently sad.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Are they… are they gone?”

“Yes,” she said, offering a small smile. “But, that does not mean they cannot still live.”

“Huh? How?”

“Through our memories of who they once were.”

The songs she never wrote for her, the notes she never played for her, the words she never said to her—it was all too late for that now.

But that did not mean she could not play them in her name. And perhaps, through her music, she may live on forever.

But before that, she must develop her calluses.

“Please excuse my mistakes, child,” Streetward Rambler said. “It has been a while since my fingers have played these strings.”

[espithewarlock]

Some end-of-2023 asks that didn't get asked but I'm answering them anyways! Some are from AO3 Wrapped and some are from the more general 2023 reblog.

How many works did you publish this year?

20! It's so much more than I thought I would post, let alone write!

What work are you most proud of (regardless of kudos/hits)?

Bittersweet, That Glitter (aka, Dragon!Pierre) by a long shot. I love the fantasy & worldbuilding and it's some of my best stuff. (I also loved dropping it on Sol unexpectedly and having her start shouting at me within a minute of posting it. Seriously, AO3, you chose then to be speedy with email notifications??)

What work of yours has the most hits?

My Pierre/Charles/Max Soulmark AU. Probably because it's one of the few chaptered fics that I have and probably because it's lestappen tagged. Of my oneshots, Omega!Pierre just beats OnlyFans!Charles by a few hits.

What work was the quickest to write?

I started Take, Take Me Over at 6:30am, wrote 1.9k words, edited, and posted it by 8:30am. (Then I went to the gym and found the perfect song inspiration. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

What work took you the longest to write?

Another Deep Dive All The Way Down (aka, the Carlando Coffeeshop AU that's a companion to Mermaid!Charles) probably had the longest time start to finish because I kept procrastinating writing the ending.

What’s your shortest work of the year?

I wrote exactly 1,016 words for the short-fic prompt challenge, Trading Controllers, and I'm impressed at how much story I squeezed into just over a thousand words.

How many kudos in total did you get this year?

I'm sitting at 2,307 while I'm writing this and that is simply insane! I'm done posting Coffeeshop and I'm hoping to get a few more on that one since it's now 100% complete. Honestly, the fact that over two thousand people have liked my stuff enough to say they like my stuff is incredible!

Which work has the most comments?

By sheer number? Soulmark AU at 66 comment threads, but that averages to 3.9 per chapter. Mermaid!Charles has 4.1 per chapter, for comparison. Of my oneshots, Nymph!Pierre has 8 (including an ESSAY that makes me 🥰), Baker!Pierre has 7, and OnlyFans!Charles has 7.

What do you listen to while writing?

I actually usually listen to Twitch streams. The video game music + the commentary/content gives me something to flip back to while I'm thinking over story ideas and doesn't pull me out of the writing flow like listening to distinct songs.

Favorite line/passage you wrote this year?

It's so hard to pick just one! Here's some of my favorites: 1. The 'little squid' bit from Nymph!Pierre 2. The whole meet-cute scene from Baker!Pierre (+ Kimi's "But that did not go well") 3. The line from Dragon!Pierre after he leaves ("Now that he knew the warmth of Charles' hands, of his mouth, on his body, there was no way the sun could compare.") 4. The absolute heartbreak of Pierre saying goodbye to Mermaid!Charles 5. OnlyFans!Charles pointing to himself ("what a coincidence! I also like your shirt.")

Talk about a new friend you made this year

Literally everyone in the Calamar's Club, but especially Logan & Sol. Sol for being the sweetest person ever, letting me be insane about dragons, and inviting me to the server after seeing me shout into the void for friends. Logan for dragging me into the chaos, the constant encouragement of everyone, and for making me melt every time they react to anything I post.

How was your birthday this year?

Excellent! I visited my sister, went to her wedding dress fitting, and we saw the musical Six! It was my first time seeing it and it was AMAZING.

Favorite book(s) you read this year?

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune & The Near Witch by VE Schwab

What are you excited about for next year?

Posting my PWFE fic, meeting up with a local-ish fandom friend, and hopefully planning my first overseas trip!

If you could send a message to yourself back on the first day of the year, what would it be?

Read your fucking comments, Espi! You could have been making new friends and having fun conversations all year and you were too much of a coward to try that until ~September~. Most of them are lovely and you should ignore the ones that aren't!

Did you keep any New Year’s Resolutions?

Yep! I resolved to start lifting at the gym (instead of just doing cardio) and I've made pretty good progress! Going to continue into next year for sure!