#and that it makes my posts a bit more comprehensible hahaha

[sukugo]

i have to ask because i adore you and i want to know about your new blorbos- who are they and what are they and why are they always soaked in blood

JDHSJFHJFDDJFFSDFDF, oh man where do i start cassie.

they're from the anime/manga jujutsu kaisen, and they are:

gojo satoru. love of my fucking life. my fucking everything my boy my man, i am so so in LOVE with this man i cant even begin to tell u. he consumes my every waking thought, my life is dedicated to seeing him get fucked. (he's the guy in my header humping his all into the other's arm)

and (ryoumen) sukuna. beautiful sexy evil man.

(can u tell who's my fave)

so in this world, we have jujutsu sorcerers, who are people with special powers that they use to defeat/exorcise curses, which are basically evil spirits born of negative human emotions

gojo is the strongest jujutsu sorcerer alive. he is insanely strong, not a single person can go against him. his powers make it so that u literally physically cannot touch him. he controls "infinity" and can warp space, and he also has pretty special eyes that let him perceive things at a much deeper level than a regular person. those two things combined make him quite literally untouchable. and insanely powerful.

as for sukuna, he used to be a human who lived thousands of years ago, who used to be the strongest sorcerer of his time, and is considered to be the strongest sorcerer in history. he is the King of Curses, no one could ever defeat him, or destroy his soul, which he divided into his 20 preserved fingers so it would survive through time, even after dying.

so itadori yuuji

this lil baby boy (literally the babiest sweetest boy to exist btw) (he's actually the main character haha)

due to some stuff, he ends up eating one of sukuna's mummified fingers and sukuna reincarnates inside him. yuuji becomes a vessel for sukuna, who lives inside yuuji's mind now and sometimes takes over his body (reason why they look the same)

and now, yuuji is sentenced to be executed bc he holds the most evil sorcerer in history inside him, but gojo goes nope! wait a minute, let's not do that. and manages to convince the people in charge to postpone yuuji's execution, saying that they'll get yuuji to find and eat all of sukuna's fingers and then execute him, getting rid of sukuna all in one go.

ok so that's the context (that's actually what the anime's about haha), but as to gojo and sukuna.

THEY ARE IN LOVE

well, they're there. sdkkhfkjdkfdf

ok no, so like they do their things right. gojo is a teacher (tho we never actually see him do any teaching lmao) and sukuna lives inside yuuji and causes trouble sometimes. they don't really ever interact in the story (they literally meet and have a lil confrontation, decide to kill each other and never talk again djshjfdasdadfd) (until they actually have their Fight, more on that later)

BUT!!!!!!!! they may not interact, but they are completely tied together narratively.

as u can see, they're both the strongest from their respective times, so they have a lot of links when it comes to their characters themselves and what they are referred to in the story. specifically that, in being the strongest, they exist in a plane above everyone else, literally untouchable.

now, in the story, this position of strongest is coupled with solitude, being the strongest meaning u're alone and no one else understands you bc of this

and SO they have their fight. bc plot reasons right. this is obv what it was all gonna lead to. fight of the two strongest.

and the fight, consequently, revolves around that idea of solitude, and understanding each other.

which like. ok. yeah we saw that coming. ofc. no big deal.

EXCEPT, to make reference to their relationship and that idea of understanding each other, the term that is used is, and i kid u not, love.

there's a very specific phrase that is used multiple times between them. which is actually used originally with a character who shows romantic feelings towards sukuna.

she challenges sukuna to a fight and sukuna promises to marry her if she wins. her goal in this fight is to share in sukuna's solitude and show him love (read R→L)

but she says this to sukuna and this. this is his reaction.

SUKUNA KNOWS LOVE ALREADY

to which she gets super pissed bc that's not!!! love!!!!!!!

sukuna defeats/kills her. and u know when the next time that exact fucking phrase is used? when sukuna and gojo finally meet again and set up the date to have their Fight, where sukuna remembers her words

which tells us that.

sukuna was.

thinking about gojo when she said that.

*screams into hands*

BUT IT DOESN'T STOP THERE. this phrase is then repeated. multiple times.

1. right after gojo punches the fuck out of sukuna:

2. said in reference to gojo, when he realizes there's a chance of him losing:

3. gojo reminiscing about their fight:

so, as u can see, they were going to teach each other love. their fight is. canonically. about teaching each other love. what the FUCK.

but ENOUGH love talk (or else i'm at risk of going crazy insane)

LET'S TALK ABOUT HOW THEY'RE LOADED WITH SEXUAL TENSION

this was in their first meeting where they fought (for quite literally 10 seconds)

like... why he do dat.... .......... . ....

next day sukuna goes "hey im gonna kill u first <3" and gojo just goes "teehee omg really? *hair twirl* <3"

they also decide to have their final battle on dec 24 which is like a super romantic date in japan (explicitly said so by another character)

and their FIGHT. it is LITERALLY just them flirting and touching each other

LOOK AT THIS SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i fucking lost it. i still haven't recovered. that is the hottest thing i've ever seen in my life. gojo wants that dick so fucking bad

not to mention thigh grabs and hand touchies

and the entirety of the fight is just them having fun 😭😭 they're supposed "enemies" on opposite sides and the fate of the world is at stake here, but they actually don't give a fuck about that.

they're literally smiling and having a great fucking time. this fight for them is just play. their fight is just for them to have fun as the strongest and to connect with each other. they're enemies but they don't hate each other or anything, they only search for that sense of fulfillment in each other OTL

AND ABOUT THAT, oh my GOD

sukuna wins. he defeats gojo. and at the end, this. is what sukuna says to gojo at the end of the fight:

FUCKING. I'LL NEVER FORGET YOU. SCREAAAAM THAT'S ROMANCEEEEEE.

and the soft smile? the fucking petals falling all over them? oh GOD they're trying to kill me

but that's on sukuna's side, what about for gojo? well

HE GENUINELY TRIED TO REACH SUKUNA, GAVE IT HIS ALL TO CONNECT WITH HIM. TO TEACH HIM LOVE AGFKDHSKFHFKJFHDF (BUT HE FAILED HE COULDN'T GIVE SUKUNA WHAT SUKUNA GAVE HIM 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭)

HHRRRRGJFHSJDFHDSJFSDFA KJHDKFJSFKASLDKS ADKJKFHEWRKJEKRKTRELRW

and if i start crying OTL

but alas *deep breaths*

even without all that they're just very fucking sexy. two insane powerful men going at it? come on. how could u NOT want them together. they both hold the same title of the strongest, might as fucking well fuck nasty about it.

and oh god, when i tell u gojo is a fucking brat and he's so strong and untouchable, but then sukuna is capable of putting him down which is. insanely sexy. and i need it. i need gojo obliterated. and i know sukuna won't let me down (AND HE DID NOT. HE OBLITERATED THAT MAN) can he now obliterate his holes too

agdkhfhdkhdhs, anyways.... yeah.. that is the situation.........

im just gonna end this by saying

SUKUGO MY LOVES

[skitskatdacat63]

In true tradition, here are my thoughts on my drawings, because it was in fact: 7 AM

Okay so Fernando I is, as stated, super ostentatious. Why? Because it fits him but also because it's based on the real life guy. In all the paintings I could find of Philip V, in most of them he is wearing at least some kind of armor, and if not, is dressed pretty dramatically imo. And I will not be drawing a full set of armor, but it felt a bit weird to leave it our entirely so. Also historically I do think it's so interesting he was portrayed this way, since he was described as someone who was "only interested in outward decorum and brave only in battle."(again: how fernando coded hahaha)

See! Super dramatic! Also I made this meme that is only comprehensible to me

Seriously, why is he pointing in half of his paintings???? I couldn't find a concrete answer so I will give my personal analysis 😤 I like to think that it's symbolism for how he's always moving forward, like "here's will I go will go next!" ....or the artists just couldn't figure out what to do with his hands, I feel the struggle.

Oh also important to note!! His heels!! I am obsessed with this fashion detail from the time:

Nandopoleon is super important to me, it's why @sweatyflytrap and I became friends in the first place 🥺🥺🥺 so it felt very surreal to draw him because I've been thinking about him for a while. I want to make an actual web weave with quotes lined up with Fernando's career, or stuff comparing their personalities. Or draw him recreating one of the iconic paintings(probably the one with Napeoleon crowning himself emperor, I think it's fitting.) But to draw him in that classic pose, im very happy :)

And as I said already, Hussars are very fun to draw because it is such a general AU. The joy of it is more about figuring out how to incorporate the details of the real life racesuits to the uniform. If I didn't only primarily love to draw Fernando and Seb, i would be like "request a driver for the Hussar AU!" But I don't know how well that would go 😭

Anyways end of post. I think the reason why I've been feeling a lot more creatively driven and passionate is because it's a lot easier to draw so much when you know other people will be interested/want to discuss it with you! I used to have a friend that I would talk a lot about my OCs with, and guess what, back then I drew a lot more of them than I do now. It's not that I need outside validation to draw, I draw plenty for myself, but more that it makes me feel more happy about it, because I know that I'll get to talk about it with other people and see other people's thoughts, rather than just me being the sole participant. As you guys know, I like to talk. A lot. So it's very nice for it not all to be in my head(I am crazy) 😭😭 So thank you to everyone for your continued interest <3 you sustain me 🥺🥺

[pianostarinwonderland]

Chapter 6 Thoughts

Finally finished chapter 6 after a busy weekend 😩 I'm planning to make a more well-thought out post regarding certain aspects of ch6 later, but for now, I want to list down everything I love about this update and probably the whole chapter overall. It also serves to answer a few asks in my inbox all at once HAHAHAHA This post is gonna be very messy, just to let you know, but I’ll write something more comprehensive eventually. 

EN players and JP players who have yet to pass the time gates, I advise you to scroll past this post or read at your own discretion. This contains spoilers for Chapter 6 and alludes to other events not released in the EN version.

Firstly, about the gameplay, I may be in the minority for saying this, but I really like that they limit your cards and leave you without a support for 6-66 and 67. Main story was always easy on the battles, so learning about buddies, stats, etc about the different cards was always seen as a tests/exams thing with the only rewards there being madol/thaumarks and exam coins, so most people didn’t super care about it. As someone who really levels up the cards to get higher scores in the tests, it was really gratifying to see all that hard work finally paying off in main story. Lowkey gave me a power trip on everyone else struggling to bypass the battles 😂 

Ngl at first, I thought we were supposed to clear all the points 😭 so I didn’t care about getting the right box until I clicked a box that cleared the chapter before I cleared the other points. I wish I didn’t know about it because it definitely made clicking on boxes less irritating hfhjhjsghkhjkgsdg

I absolutely love how we get to see character development of the OB boys?? It's something that I was really hoping for in ch6 since the boys are taken to an unfamiliar place.

Regarding that, I do like how NRC boys could just . talk about other things while in dangerous situations HAHAHA it was like this too in Halloween 2 😭 when there's nothing happening, they somehow get into conversations, like,, how LMAO most media would have their characters talk something about the situation or remain quiet. But these boys are really chatty and talk like the world is not about to get reseted or something

Starting with Pomefiore, the revelation about Rook being from Savanaclaw originally was a bomb I didn't expect but wasn't surprised about. I think it was more common to hear about it in 2020, but a lot of people were curious about Rook and Leona's relationship with each other. They mainly noted that Rook pursues Leona and the latter expresses much disdain for him. Then there was also the fact that Rook and Leona (and Ruggie) hailed from the same country. While country doesn't necessarily determine what dorm you'll be sorted in (see: all Shaftlands/Pyroxene boys in three different dorms), it did make people curious back then. So I do like that TWST (unintentionally) answered those speculations

AND LONG HAIRED FIRST YEAR ROOK IS ACTUALLY CANON,,, all long haired Rook artists and lovers rejoice for your headcanons and wishes are now canon. Now we wait for Lilia /hj

I do like though that Rook in his first year was kinda meh about his own appearance mostly because I was the same when I was around 15-16. Like, why do I have to care about the clothes I wear as long as I'm comfy in them? 🤡 Maybe the shirt looks kiddy but I mean, it shouldn't matter so much 😭 But it really is worth beautifying your wardrobe and learning to value your own beauty just as much as you value others. It makes me happy to see a bit of myself in Rook.

Vil seems a lot more expressive now than he was in chapter 5 🥺 I think it might be because he has to keep up the image of being a leader figure in VDC, but he feels much more approachable with how he doesn't seem to care as much about looking professional.

There was one part where Vil and Rook would tell Epel to stand back, and obvs Epel at first took this as “are you saying I’m weak?” But then Vil and Rook said it’s because they trust him to have their backs, and it’s like 😭 FUCK THAT’S SO CUTE,,,, THE WAY THAT THIS SHOWS EPEL’S GROWTH BECAUSE NOW HE CAN BE RELIED ON BY HIS SENIORS........ I think this is also a cute allusion to Dorm Vil’s and Dorm Rook’s buddies, specifically the fact that they both have Epel as a buddy— Dorm Vil has Epel giving him an ATK M boost, while Dorm Rook has Epel giving him a HP M boost. Notice how it’s an M (medium) boost and not an S (small) boost 😭 they really can trust Epel by that much,,,

Now for Leona and Jamil, hooooo boy, I really like this one and do wish to discuss this in depth in another post because Leona essentially humbled Jamil brutally. Jamil was trying to protect Leona because he’s a prince and all, but at some point, he got pissed off at Jamil for getting in the way. I love how Leona pretty much compared Jamil to Riddle and Azul, saying that the latter two are in a much different league than Jamil. Riddle has book smarts and amazing magical power, not to mention a killer UM, and Azul is quick on his feet and works really hard to get to where he is now, but Jamil just goes "if only I could use my full potential" while blaming others for his setbacks. He even points out that Kalim has something that Jamil doesn’t, which is money (much to Jamil’s surprise). Sure, he isn’t the smartest, but he’s generous, and he’s going to inherit a very successful business

Then he points out that Ruggie and Jack know when to listen to him to survive. Ruggie obvs follows Leona because it’s his best chance at surviving in NRC, and Jack, while strong, is young so he knows when to listen to older people such as Leona

I just like that the overall lesson he’s telling Jamil is that he isn’t the strongest person, and he needs to know when he isn’t the strongest, and he shouldn’t blame others for his setbacks. It’s essential for Jamil’s growth, but it also shows Leona’s own growth, considering that what Lilia said to Leona back in ch2 that triggered his overblot was also along the lines of Leona being slothful but blaming others for everything wrong that happens.

While it gets annoying to get the wrong box in 6-66 (and 6-67), I found the boxes where Leona just opens all of a sudden and Jamil going “what the FUCK are you DOING LEONA” really really funny like 😂

Now hoooo boy I LOVE AZUL AND RIDDLE'S INTERACTIONS SO MUCH;;;;;; I'm biased because I tunnel vision for Azul and Riddle is top 2 for me, but the way that both of them were written in this chapter is so chef’s kisses

I really like the way Riddle was written. He still has that sort of “I’m right, so you need to follow me” mindset and I like that because it shows that while he is making the effort to change, his personality at his core is solid enough that it’s not going to change that much. While his lacking knowledge regarding social cues is already a bit obvious when inferring from his upbringing, it’s really emphasized in 6-66, particularly when Azul was angry about being told to ‘stand back’ and said something like “hey I know someone like me who shifts from 2nd to 10th place in rankings can’t be seen as a rival b u t” and he wanted to be seen as equals but Riddle took that literally,, , and then he’s like “oh so you’re trying to compete with me?!” 

Eventually he clarified in 6-67 as to why he doesn’t want Azul to get hurt which,,, IS HONESTLY SO CUTE ?? ?/ LIKE ,, SURE IT’S BECAUSE HE’D END UP PROBABLY BREAKING THE LAW TO GIVE TREATMENT TO AZUL BUT HE STILL CARES 😭 not to mention that Riddle even pointed out that he WOULD break the law to help Azul, like it was out of the question that he’d leave him behind to go ahead, he WOULD make sure Azul is ok 😭 besties it hurts because AzuRido was one of my first Twst ships and it’s still a cute ship till now. But this also really shows that Riddle still needs to learn a lot about social cues + proper communication xD he didn’t think that it could be taken the wrong way

THE PART WHERE AZUL GOT ANGRY AT RIDDLE ,,, bitch that hurt a lot. Like, Riddle going “if you didn’t waste time on Mostro Lounge, helping out other students, etc, you’d have a chance at first”, bestie Riddle I love you but what the fuck? I kinda felt the sting because at the time I was reading that, I was mulling over how I hadn’t been trying hard enough in the things that I do or want to pursue so I end up being the kind of person that I’m not content with. But it also just,, really fucking hurts to be told that your passion is a waste of time, and we all know how much Azul works so hard in everything he does 😭 his insecurities coming out when he got angry really tugged me badly. It was 2am when I read that part and I wanted to cry lmao 

WHEN HE LAUGHED THOUGH . when he laughed .. oaoghuooHOHOFAHOHSGOSAOHAOGHOASH WHEN HE LAUGHED AND SOUNDED SO MIRTHFUL AND AND AND AND  .   .... passes the fuck away

I do love the lore dump about Ariel and transformation potions! Ariel went to the Sunshine Lands, so she set up the mermaid boot camp facility there. Transformation potions also now last from a week to 10 days, and the mermaid boot camp facility provides them,,, for free, ,, , , like shit dude, that’s a big ass steal. 

GOD WHEN AZUL MIMICKED FLOYD’S VOICE THOUGH ,,,, , the fucking DROLL???? God I’m not your strongest soldier I am down on the ground 

Azul started magic at 8 yrs old 👁 Riddle started his studies at 3,,, , yummy yummy yummy 

AND WHEN AZUL FELL ASLEEP ON RIDDLE’S SHOULDER;;;; LIKE BYE I ALWAYS IDNULGED MYSELF WITH THE IDEA OF AZUL SLEEPING ON MY SHOULDER OUT OF EXHAUSTION but fuck,, they made Azul sleeping on someone’s shoulder canon, not caring about who it is,,,,,, God send help 

idk man, this whole part really just made Azul feel more relatable. Ch3 and even ch4 to an extent, he was mostly scheming and smarmy and smirky and that’s hot shit sure but HIM BEING SO,,, LIKE, GETTING ANGRY OVER A REMARK THAT MADE YOU FEEL INSECURE, LAUGHING GENUINELY, SLEEPING ON SOMEONE’S SHOULDER...... besties I feasted so much this chapter, I am so fucking FULL 

I actually really like Idia’s OB design!! He seems to have designed it himself given that he’s willingly doing it, which is really interesting to learn 👁 some people were saying that they don’t like it because he doesn’t look like Hades but .. none of the OBs were meant to look like their villain counterparts?? nKSNKDGKSNG and not to mention that Idia’s face resembled Hades a lot. If we’re talking about outfits, though, again, OB designs would more likely shape themselves according to the person overblotting rather than think about the villain inspiration. If anything, Ortho’s the one wearing Hades’ toga. 

I JUST HAVE TO SAY THIS,,,, IDIA’S UM CHANT IS THE BEST ONE SO FAR ??? “Game, set, match, Gate to Underworld” that is so sexy like ??? the alliteration of game and gate, and there was this musicality to those words, like you’re saying a poem out loud. It sounds so badass too. Like a final boss line (which knowing Idia, he’d definitely do that)

Shoutout to Riddle and Azul for being the funniest duo on earth: “You drive this chariot, I don’t have a license” “BITCH I DON’T HAVE A LICENSE EITHER ????” “I should have enrolled into driving school if I knew this was gonna happen” “IS THIS THE TIME TO THINK ABOUT THAT NOW ??????”

Also “wtf why are you taking the risky option??” “well you know this is the best option anyway” “ok yeah you’re right, if anything happens to us, our seniors are there anyway 🥰”

Anyway I still can’t believe Azul actually drove a chariot (and successfully too)

It was a good thing too that he was driving because Riddle fainted from using all his power and being exposed briefly to the underworld 😔 it’s so funny of Azul to just think “ok this guy’s gonna use all his power, so I’m just gonna hold back a bit because it’s gonna be enough <3″ and it turned out to be a really good decision or we’d be finding two old people 

Riddle with white hair was really cute. It reminded me of the white rabbit, and with how he nearly fell into the underworld (kinda like falling into a hole), the allusion seems stronger. I also saw some tweets on Twitter suggesting that it could symbolize Riddle starting out with a blank slate to become his own person and not just someone following his mom, which is pretty interesting 👁👄👁 kinda matches well with the white rabbit idea since it’s “falling to wonderland” or “heading to an unknown place”

I find it funny how Leona and Jamil just . took the time to analyze why Azul was able to not faint/fall to the underworld from fighting Ortho. but hey it worked for them, they didn’t put too much power into it and they came out well 

I love how Vil was just like “I need Idia to come out alive so that he can close this damn gate and fix everything” and then said that he Will make Idia do all of that NRC style, aka “the weak must obey the strong” 

VIL FINALLY GOT TO BE THE HERO THAT HE WANTED TO BE 😭 GO QUEEN, SLAYYYYYY. You may not have been casted as a hero in a movie, but you saved the world in real time, and I think that’s even better 

I really just like how even in OB, Idia was still talking about the idea of who’s hero and who’s villain while Vil was just like “we’re just classmates fighting and for the record, I’M standing till the end” 

When Vil jumped to pull Idia, Ortho, and Grim out of the underworld, idk, something about that just made me go 👁👄👁 there’s something mesmerizing about someone catching someone else as they fall from a very tall height. Even if it’s to make sure Idia’s alive to close the gate, Vil really just,, that was so noble of him 

IDIA JUMPING TO GO WITH ORTHO THOUGH 😭 like holy fucking fuck, I don’t know what to say... I think that moment speaks for itself. 

Vil being Hercules and Idia being Megara... damn, it kinda makes sense. Vil-Hercules for the hero thing, and Idia-Megara for the reason that they’re trapped by the underworld to an extent

THE FLASHBACK HONESTLY . it was expected, but it did hurt 😭 being a witness to someone’s death was one thing, but being the indirect cause of someone’s death is just,,, Idia was just a child then. That shit would be traumatizing

Whoever voiced child Idia’s cries, good job but also fuck you. When he was showing off AI Ortho and then going from laughter to crying ?? I think that’s where my heart truly broke. That was genuinely so painful to listen to. 

Maybe I’m being delusional, but the way Idia broke down over losing Ortho reminded me of how Azul broke down when his contracts were dusted. There was that plea from them going “give it all back” (give Ortho back; give Azul’s power back). And then they reassure themselves that they could fix their problems. 

I... I really like how the overall problem for Idia and Ortho was that they just wanted to live like everyone else, but because they were born into the Shroud family, they, Idia in particular, had their lives planned out for them at the start. I think Hades in the myths was like that?? 

The part where real Ortho’s soul talks to Idia..... his face being fully revealed, when he said “please continue to live, make our dream of going on an adventure come true”, when Idia was shouting for Ortho’s name at the end........ wow thank goodness that I can’t understand anything or I’d be crying onions 

The way Idia was saying that with all the damages he has to fix, he’d have to drop out possibly, but literally None of them letting him go xDD true NRC students 

When he revived Ortho again,,, and he had a heart this time,,,,,, I really like how he was resurrected and not at the same time. Like real Ortho will be gone no matter what, but his soul will still live on through his robot self. Kokoro was also playing in my head during that scene 😂

OLD MAN VIL “I’M 18″ SCHOENHEIT IS SO FUNNY. Best content is seeing him cry for 3 hours straight about how he wanted to be casted as a middle aged man someday then calming down only to cry again when Jack went “wait who’s this old man”

Vil’s kyaaaa when Malleus managed to turn him back to his 18-year old self was so pure. 😭 I’m so happy for him 

RAMSHACKLE UPGRADE KINDA 💅 we are now material gworls 

I find it funny how they couldn’t upgrade our room bskbdgjsndgksd like it’s still the same even after how much Charon trashed it?? At least Vil was kind enough to give us projection mapping to make it look pretty HAHHAHHA

ORTHO BABY,,,, ORTHO BABY IS NOW A FIRST YEAR !!!!!!! I’M SO HAPPY THAT HE FINALLY GETS TO STUDY IN SCHOOL LSGJSDLGSDKGLSJLSJSK YES ORTHO YOU’RE A REAL BOY ENJOY NRC LIFE UEUEUEUEUEUEUEUEUEUE BABYBABYBABYBABYBABY I CAN FINALLY SAY I HAVE A FAVORITE FIRST YEAR AND IT’S ORTHO 😭

AND HE HAS A NEW UNIFORM CARDDDDD uwehhhhh his lines are so cute, and his story !!! him choosing a club !!!! and and and his profile change!!!! He chose Vil’s club 😭 Vil made that much of an impact in his life. I heard that the story seems to be longer than some SSRs though, which is . well d a m n 

Chapter 7 seems to be really spicy 👁👄👁 from Lilia talking about how people are weak but they intertwine together and create a strong presence in history, Malleus mulling over those words, to Mickey saying that he saw “a mysterious silver-haired boy” on his side of the mirror (not his room, though), which implies that it’s Silver and bringing up the possibility of him traveling to people’s dreams or him being from the same world as we are since Grim can’t see Mickey and vice versa....... oooooonga boonga ch7 is gonna serve us so well 

Overall, I think chapter 6 had the excellent pacing and writing that ch3 and 4 had. They wrote every character so well, and the wait for Idia and Ortho was absolutely worth it. This might be the new fan favorite chapter actually, and it sets the bar very high for Diasomnia. Good job Twst. Thank you for serving us a very good story. 

[candysims4]

And that's why I always message people non-anonymously and love when others do the same, because if people are horrendous enough to send hate - do it at least openly, otherwise it makes you hypocritical wusses.

Good for you that you turned off anonymity, and I highly recommend you to keep it that way. It's not worth your precious health to deal with a bunch of wusses who can't do anything better with their lives.

You are amazing! Your creations are amazing! You are valid! Scream it louder to the crowd and most importantly - to yourself. Always remember that.

I wish you and your family good health and happiness. Take good care of yourselves, and God bless you all.

First of all, sorry for the very very late reply.

My head right now is like a big mess, unfortunately, the medication isn't doing any effect; but no worries, I have an appointment with the doctor tomorrow, and hopefully, they will give me a solution for it.

Well, now there's no more the anon option, even on my site.

Because clearly, not everyone is so comprehensive and worried about me like you and a lot of followers/patrons that I am very glad to have in my life. (I love you all so much!)

As the hate/passive-aggressive messages could not stop I decided to choose to preserve my mental health and remove the feedback form option from my site, that was the last anon option that I have not touched hoping that if I explain how I'm feeling people will understand that I'm a human being too as everyone is, of course, that was a looooot of people who understood, but, there are those who don't understand (or doesn't care) that is pretty hard to be creative and do everything you meant to do when you are having an anxiety crisis or feeling depressed or trying to adapt your body to a medication that has side effects that influences a lot in your day.

I don't know why people become without empathy for others when comes to complain when they have or do not things they want, such as new content or the delay for finish the "hair color updates" if they have the anonymity to hide. I'm trying my best for do everything I need to do, but unfortunately it isn't easy as some people think. After my post about my mental health, I talked with a lot of people who have disorders like mine and they sent me their ways to calm down and it’s helping me a lot. Thank you all for your kind messages!

Of course, I don’t have any problems with people asking me about the updates and when the new content will come out, being a patron or a follower asking for free releases and etc... But when comes to people behind the anon they usually are very aggressive or passive-aggressive, and it can hurt a lot, it hurted me a lot. 

05/08, 11 pm: I’m editing this post for shorten it a bit in you guys’s dashboard, correct the writing that I noticed that I forgot to put or/and past here correctly and also tag advising this post is about mental health and depression.

I use Grammarly *not a sponsor hahaha* for write down everything that I post, in a way to learn English and avoid my dislexia to make me write something wrong or making any sense at all.

So, there’s more text below the cut. 

To see my progress, I'm writing down what happens and how I feel, let me share a bit with all of you:

02/08, was basically me having a very bad crisis and feeling very worse every time I remind myself that I'm not doing what I'm supposed to do. In a huge looping of bad feeling. At the same time, I was wanting to get up and do something I was also wanting to lay down and only cry. I feel horrible at the end of the day, that I basically wasted doing nothing productive.

03/08, I woke up a bit better, have done a nice sketch of swimwear and tried to do it, everything was doing pretty great. I listen to music good part of the day, which makes my day always better. And then my email notifies me of a feedback form, I was on a break from working on the swimwear so I decided to at least read it... After reading everything the bad feeling from the last day is coming back, I started to feel upset again and it's getting hard to not come back crying; in a mix of sadness and disappointment, with me and with the person who sent the form, with me for not having done everything I'm supposed to and with the person, for how they treated me as custom content worth more than my mental health and how I'm handling with all of it. 03/08, 2am... I'm still wake, as now I'm with insomnia. I'm trying to get better slowly, trying to organize my head before the storm that was having another anxiety crisis mixed with depression. But I'll be ok, because I'm not alone.

Thank for your message dear, because it was the first message I read in my inbox after reading the passive-aggressive feedback form and meant a lot for me seeing that there's people on my side and these people doesn't need to hide their identities because they aren't afraid of saying what they're saying and worry about me (also reminds me to worry about myself too).

Also thank you for your good wishes, I wish for you and your family the best too. 💖

This part bellows this text is written in 05th August, as I’ll explain my last days have been busy.

Because the new house doesn’t have the safe installation for the shower, we had to call an electrician, and today he took an entire day for doing it and a lot of repairs to the house's electrical system... So, I got offline all day long watching my son trying to be an electrician helper plus running across the house trying to also not let him hurt himself. 

Also, I thought I have put the reply in the queue list, but clearly, I just saved it. 

And as yesterday (04/08) I got to the psychiatrist I have started to take a new medication, that fits better in what I'm feeling right now, an anti-depressive that I don't know why I find the name funny (I'll put a photo below, don't mind my hand please, and wow, how the photo got big in text posts, sorry about it guys) and I’m really hoping this medication helps me without all those side-effects that was messing my mind totally.

For not having any more problems such as confusion and amnesia with the Clonazepam was decided that I'll no longer take it daily and only when the crisis comes and, in a lot, smaller quantity. This makes me feel very relieved because the Clonazepam was only making my day worse (with the confusion principally) and not helping at all with the anxiety crisis.

But I still taking Clonazepam, removing one drop a day, today will be 5 drops; so, it’s half of the way, as some days ago I was taking 10 drops. I’m still with some side effects, but a lot better. Soon probably it will finally get better.  My body is also better, and now most part of the body pain is from moving house hahaha

[seb-owns-these-tatas]

First Blood

MASTERLIST

Characters: Henry Cavill x Reader (Oneshot)

Summary: Playing games with Henry can be crucial especially when all your teammates were boys because decisions from a gamer girl has always been disregarded resulting in you getting first blood because Henry’s new mouse also wanted to annoy the heck out of you in rank game.

Warnings: FLOOF. Curses. Shy reader who ain’t used to physical intimacy. Also reader having her own issues about it. (Probably trauma but it isn’t said specifically) Making out. Daddy-kink. Reader just doesn’t know how to react with her own kinks. Martin is just a name I’ve come up with as Henry’s friend. The game is in a group of five in this one. A lil’ bit of sexual tension too?

Words: 2.5k

A/N: Y’all don’t know how difficult it is to find a girl who plays MMO games out there. *sits here while I play with my guild full of men where I panic every time I play because I feel judged by them 😭😂 I’M A NOOB, ALRIGHT. 😭😫😂) Also, when I’m left alive they kept telling me what to do and where the heck are the enemies when I don’t see them which doesn’t result to winning for the team HAHAHA 😭😂😂 *tries to control my armpit kink when seeing the GIF LMAO*

Don’t forget to REBLOG, COMMENT OR GIVE FEEDBACK IF YOU DID LOVE THIS ONESHOT! IT’LL MAKE ME SMILE! Sorry for the grammatical errors and such because English isn’t my mother tongue! PLEASE LEAVE FEEDBACK AFTER READING, BB!  

Disclaimer: PNG’s and pictures used in edits are not mine even the GIF’s too. However, the edits and this oneshot is definitely from moi.

MY WORKS ARE NOT NOT NOT NOT NOOOOOOT TO BE POSTED ON ANY OTHER WEBSITES. My official username in Wattpad is “TATATHEPOTATO” and that’s the only other site I have for writing aside from Tumblr. Thank you, Tater tots!

"You were too far from me. I needed back-up. Where were you?"

"I'm sorry---I'm sorry, the new mouse was acting pretty strange for a moment there. Forgive me?"

"Hmmph."

Henry heard an intentional huff from his side, making him glance to see you pulling your own headphones off with a frown. You were clearly upset because it hasn't been two minutes yet and you were dead; not even having a chance to grab onto some weapons before a group of high-ranked team shot you dead as they tried to loot inside the tent where you hid.

They left you alone at the location you've pinned from the map, ignoring your protests of having one team mate with you because Henry accidentally chose the other way because of his mouse problem reasons.

"Nugget, don't be mad at me." your boyfriend lowly and sweetly apologized, his tone slightly begging when he saw you stand up from your game chair, announcing to grab onto some snacks while you be their watcher due to dying early.

You ignored his sweet talk, putting up an act that you were mad.

"---Give me a kiss before you go."

He frowned and silently mumbled in between loudly typing on his keyboard; his pretty blue eyes still focused on his monitor screen. Henry maneuvered his character in the safest position where he couldn't be found before ticking his mic off in the game. He raised a brow, pulling his headset down and around his neck whilst turning his game chair around. You were pulled by your wrist to stop you from leaving and with sassy brows, you answered in a piqued tone that made him look at you with a knowing look from your sudden surly attitude.

"No. I don't want to."

Being the one who wanted to lower his pride, your boyfriend suggestively held a finger up, telling him how many he wanted, wiggling his brows in the process and pursing his mouth. The image of his stache making you stifle a giggle before him as he pursed his lips more, suggesting for a smooch, "Just one kiss,"

"Why are you always touchy?"

"It's how I am, love." Henry was quick to answer, his timbre was soothing and deep. Such pitch that could get your heart humming with profound affection as you felt the heat go to your cheeks, his straightforwardness over asking if he could get a kiss always gets you bashful because you weren't one woman who was used to physical display of affection.

Surprising to say that your boyfriend loved it and would even do everything just to take anything from you. He was an intimate lover and you were most definitely reserved, shy and quiet. Seldom to be the first to reach out for a hug or a kiss.

Henry was being punished for it because he definitely preferred his skin on yours all the time specifically from the moment he knew he was deeply in love with you.

"Would you want me not to be sweet with you then?" the latter frowned, his pretty baby blues glazing with disappointment for a second before it changed into comprehension; grasping about why you were aloof in the world of intimacy and physical display, "---I know you're not used to physical affection at all---but, if you want me to stop because you think I'm being too over the top, needy or clingy then tell me,"

He dropped his hand away from your wrist like you've burnt his skin, realizing what he was asking from you. His fist falling on his clothed knee as he sympathetically stared straight into your eyes. His height and burly body build being much of an advantage over you as he sat eye to eye; standing before him in your full height already.

You've given him a tight smile, hesitantly shaking your head as you stepped a foot closer to Henry, your knee touching his whilst drowning in his oceans and muttering in the softest voice you could muster.

"But, I don't want you to stop at all."

"Then, why are you so timid with me?" Henry's claret colored lips lifted into an adorn beam, his teeth and those adorable fangs sneaking for a peep when he'd felt you grab onto his hand, interlocking and filling the spaces of his fingers with yours, "---I'll help you with that if you want me to," he playfully suggested. Though, you doubt he meant that he'll help you by having sex because he was a gentleman at heart; his eyes hopeful to see the bricks break with your own barricade in that department.

His smile grew wider when you've timidly tuck a strand of hair behind your ears with your free hand, your lover taking it as a sign to lean his face closer, tilting his head and puckering his lips; his focus on your awaiting lips. Henry was practically a strand close to be giving you a sweet peck before he leaned away to examine your blushing face, stopping in the midst of giving you a smooch.

"Is it because of the kingstache? I don't sound too pushy, do I?"

Intently looking into his sea of blues, you've felt you heart racing a marathon as your own boyfriend was unaware of his effect on you; he was always keeping your mind blank with just a simple look from him. Becoming one speechless and disfunctioning lady when he was being too sweet with you.

He was just a sweetheart, always understanding you in terms of the issues you had for yourself.

Taking all the willpower in one go, you've grabbed onto a little bit of your confidence and began to do the first move, leaning over Henry's face before pulling back to see him playfully wiggling his eyebrows in a teasing manner. He nodded enthusiastically, giving approval to do whatever you wanted and it wasn't a second to feel your palms on either side of his face; attacking his lips with a bruising kiss that made him grunt before your chapped lips.

His fingers clasped onto the side of your hip; automatically pushing you closer to him as he'd licked the tip of your vermillion, moisturizing your dry ones. Taking heed that you should probably grab onto some lipbalm when you leave the room. His wet tongue made you gasp; hungry for more as he licked the roof of your mouth.

The game room filling with sounds of passionate kisses, hypnotized by what effects it was giving you; how lightheaded it could make you feel. Henry was still giving your lip a gentle nudge with his, enamored from the sudden assault you've managed to lure him in. Out of the blue, you ceased kissing him. A definite amount of space between you both while deeply staring into his eyes.

"No. I love your kingstache and I likey-like-like this touchy-feely characteristic of yours. It makes me feel loved," with an anxious bite of your lip, you felt his rough, calloused thumb reach out to flick along the bottom of your vermillion; mindlessly telling you to stop with that unhealthy habit of yours whenever you were apprehensive or worried about something.

"---Sorry if I'm complicated to understand, Henry." you quietly murmured to your boyfriend. He was about to open his mouth, catching him off-guard when you've delicately pressed another kiss to his lip. His stache tickling your cupid's bow which made you tenderly giggle against his mouth.

He smiled along your wholesome kiss, puckering back to touch and graze his own with yours in a honeyed buss. The latter had both hands on your hip as he sweetly and deeply spoke.

"I love you, alright? come sit on my lap while I play the game. Then, we'll talk more about this shyness of yours after the round,"

Henry pulled you on his lap; protests slipping past your lips with a loud beating of your heart because it was one of your fantasies to sit on those thick thighs of his, but you never tell nor do you want to treat him as if he was a pleasure toy that you could use. You've respected him just as much as he respected you and your personality.

Your loving boyfriend heard your feigned complaints; never one to know that you were faking it, he'd tutted behind in the midst of turning you to face his monitor. His thick, muscly thighs offering comfort over your restless thoughts and stiff body.

You couldn't help but squint your eyes back at the screen as Henry placed his headset back on his ears, "But, you're already dead?"

Lately realizing he was, Henry made a high-squeak sound of protest that made you laugh out loud.

"For fuck's sake---I am! I am dead!" he ticked the mic on again while holding onto his cursor, his other arm safely surrounding your small body sitting on his lap; his hold tightening when you began wiggling against him, you wanted to chat with his other team mates who they both didn't personally knew at all.

"Hey, mate." his friend lackadaisically spoke on the other line; completely focused on the on-going game. The loud sound of the keyboard being pressed repeatedly in the background of his friend's mic.

You were first-blood because Henry was too far for backup; he'd received a huff and a raise of your brow at that before you decided to leave a while ago which never happened because he decided not to wait until you were cranky enough to ignore him until dinner.

Starting with calling out the other players using Henry's account, you started venting; being stealthy about it as he was busy chatting with a friend of his, also swamped over giving your nape kisses that has got you wiggling more against his hold due to being ticklish over there.

"No backup, brother?"

He suddenly chuckled on mic, watching you lean away from his soft kisses and earning him a quiet mumble of 'stop it' in which his friend heard on the other end of the line.

You continued typing and calling his team mates noobs in capital letters; creating an act as if you were a toxic player without Henry's permission.

Noobmaster69's mic was blinking on the left side of the screen, letting you know he was talking to Henry as you basically continued to smash rude words on the keyboard.

"I've given backup, but I decided to let em' kill you because it seems like you have something to work on your lap,"

His friend snickered behind mic, scoffing after when Henry's gruff voice grumbled, sounding like he was dissappointed by the latter's antics.

"You left me to die. You're a great friend, Martin."

Martin cursed a loud one after shooting one player, earning the kill as the other two players were out in a far distance, minding their own businesses or probably lagging as well as he continued to talk, "Your girlfriend didn't turn off her mic by the way---might want to turn it off after I win this round for everyone because you people are fuckin' around in ranked game," he was loudly tapping the controls on his keyboard as he chattered away; multi-tasking over shooting players and talking to Henry, "---also---Oh, Christ!---try not to moan in the mic while we're in game,"

His friend audibly roared when he'd luckily claimed a headshot, "I don't wanna nut on my keyboard, Hank!"

Henry has cursed him through the mic, chuckling as he watched Martin's gameplay through his monitor. Lately seeing that you had been busy with your hands, ferociously typing at two team mates who were helping through the game.

His baby blues peeked from behind, intently watching your attentive and focused face in amusement. The oceans of his eyes glistening with sheer entertainment to see you grinning on his lap, his peepers casting the monitor screen a look before his smile fell for a hot second to read that you were cursing his team mates out.

"Stop calling them noobs, Nugget." he'd heard one team mate aggressively curse back at him via microphone in a different language---he knew it was a cuss based on how angry his mates were. Henry didn't know if he wanted to laugh over the headset, but he chose to shut his mouth off when Martin died a little later---the two noobs you were calling; became the people who would raise a flag for not having your rank down.

"You're getting me reported. Stop it right now," Henry lowly chuckled, his strong arms tightening around your waist as his stache tickled you on your neck by giving another soft peck.

You giggled and tried wresting out of his hold with thoughts coming from the impulsive part of your brain, shooting him an endearment that got his body going rigid under yours.

"Alright, Daddy."

Your boyfriend blinked repeatedly, his arm loosening once he realized what you've called him; a matter of being clumsy has always made him laugh. However, this accident surely intrigued his curiosity. You never called him that, even wincing and giggling over his video where he was reading thirst tweets from Buzzfeed, hearing you tell him that it was weird for people to call him that when you certainly had your own kinks as well.

Karma shot you on the ass because it eventually became your own kink as well, but he never knew about it.

It was a very good act you've did when you were trying hard to be a shy angel in his eyes, gradually evolving into a small devil when you were around his presence.

"What...did you just say?"

"Henry, I said Henry---I--I called you by your name."

You've felt his hold go limp, taking this as an opportunity to flee and forget your accident when he decided that it was best to keep you within arms reach. So, seeing you stand up and turn around to leave---Henry reached out to grab onto your waist, his thick fingers slipping away to be tugging at the waistband of your shorts, slightly yanking them down to see the smooth cheek of your bum as you wear a black thong.

He successfully pulled your back, earning him a high pitched squeal when you tried wrenching his hold away; never one to show Henry the deepest and secretive part of you which got him more needy over the fact that he was drawing a blank over your body, not knowing what it holds out for him.

Your ass fell flat on his thighs, sitting sideways as Henry used his sinewy arm to guide you from falling, caging you in his juicy arms that you love to caress and ogle at from time to time.

The roughness of Henry's fingers cascaded on your knee, slowly trailing up your thighs as he intently bore his eyes on you, searching for answers as to how such a lewd feeling came with calling him a 'daddy'.

His eyes shifted from staring straight at you to admiring how innocent you try to pretend in his eyes, glancing down your lips as he subtly licked his own.

"That's not what I heard, Love."

General taglist for Henry Cavill: @agniavateira​, @iloveyouyen​, @rahdaleigh​, @silverkitten547​, @henrythickcavill​, @kaatelyyynn​

[e-102]

I've been enabled, here's my top 5 favorite (DC) comics I read this year:

Zatanna (2010)

I love Zatanna as a character wholeheartedly, and this comic of hers was a lot of fun! but it kind of lacks conflict which is why its the least favorite of my favorites. I've seen people criticize this one for lacking pay off but to be honest I never minded, it made me smile. Although I'll admit the latter half of it was better than the former. Milk Wars

I picked up milk wars after reading mother panic (more later lol) and I wanted to know how some characters got from where the were to where they are. What I got was complete insanity, Milk Wars is WEIRD! But the first time I picked it up I was absolutely floored, its clever and strange and its completely crazy.

When I finished reading it I couldn't stop talking about it to my friends, and it made me pick up a lot of the other comics that were featured in this crossover! After doing so I picked it up again and reread it, and its still really good (and still kind of confusing hahaha)

Eternity Girl

Eternity girl is heavy, it hits that sweet spot in comics where they seem to reach out beyond the pages and grab you. I felt connected to Caroline Sharp, and in the beginning I believed in what she wanted, and that was difficult coming to realize that what she wanted was destruction. Eternity girl is extremely competently written but that feels like an understatement. I recommend everyone read this one.

This is a great comic about beginning again.

Mother Panic (all of it)

I love Mother Panic, its another heavy story. It shines light on the parts of Gotham that the bats seem not to inhabit. I picked up Mother Panic because I thought her design looked cool and then the more I found out about Violet Paige made me love her more. Violet is an interesting character, she stumbles into heroism while pursuing a grudge, and she never really embraces it, which is pretty fresh when you mostly read about heroes with good hearts.

When first reading the original comic of this characters conception I found that the quality dropped insanely bad when the artstyle changed, and then got really good again when it returned to the more gritty less cartoony style, and that detracted from my experience a bit. But as much as I felt her part in milk wars was inoffensive I thought the comic Mother Panic Gotham A.D. was great.

Without going on for too long this is probably my favorite among favorites, but it wasn't the best comic I read this year.

Shade The Changing Man (1990)

I picked up Shade the Changing Man after reading Shade the Changing Girl! And as much as I really really enjoyed the latter, I've been floored by the former.

BUT THE THING IS: I still have not finished reading this comic! Sorry for being fake as hell! I'm still making my way through. But for now as of issue #7, my opinion is that there's something special about this one. Its smart, its grounded. Everything about it feels real, which is amazing considering the story is about madness beyond comprehension.

I cant fully describe this one, maybe ill talk about it more some day when I finish it. but for now ill leave the disclaimer that its dark, in the story issues of racism, pedophilia, and many other triggering topics are included. They aren't the focus of the whole story (as of issue 7) but they are elements in individual issues.

As a side note i kept this to five comics to avoid going on for too terribly long, and i narrowed it down to dc comics because thats a majority of what i read. Maybe i’ll post about some other comics i liked, but for now i’ll only torture my followers with these.

[ofcloudsandstars]

I really like your celestial sigils, the one with numerology but it’s very confusing for to me understand, I have a reading comprehension problem, could you possibly simplify it in a blog post, with less words? It’s just overwhelming for me. I would like to use the method. 😅

Ahhhhh that sigil system for me is outdated hahaha instead I use this!

So going back to my previous methods (to simplify the celestial sigils one), I used to map out my sigils based on a letter grid. It looked something like this

Step 1 I would write out the spell or what I wanted to channel. 

Step 2 I would write the numbers relating to each letter in the message

Step 3 I would mark the numbers on the celestial spiral in order of the words and connect lines to them. If I had to go back on a number (meaning it was marked twice) I would add a dot on the side and continue clockwise. Usually I would not run out of space cause the words or phrases were short. If it were same letters next to each other then the dots would become a crescent (two letters), three pointed star, four pointed, etc. 

Step 4 once the spiral was erased it looked something like a constellation so that’s why I called them celestial sigils. 

However I changed my style and my sigils now are a bit of a combination of using the alphabet wheel above (so no more numbers involved) and if the letters overlap I mark it with rings. 

It tends to look something like this:

I combine other shapes in there too, but for now I stopped using numerology if that makes sense. 

(Also I think I primarily prefer my hieroglyphic sigils but sometimes if I haven’t made one yet for something, the letter wheel comes in handy!) 

Hope that helps! 

[pynkhues]

Hey Sophie! I’m just starting it out on ao3 and I still don’t know how to exactly tag my fics. Do you have any tips? Don’t feel obliged to answer this.

Hey! How exciting to hear you’re jumping onto ao3 to post your fics! I can’t wait to check them out. :-) 

And of course! That’s a great question. I know tagging fic was something that I struggled to get my head around when I first started posting stories, so this has been a great opportunity to condense what I’ve learned over my many years in fandom, haha. Hopefully some of it’s useful for you, and, as always, please remember this is just my own opinion. 

The Essentials

I think that there are only two types of essential tags you need for your fics, and I classify these as ‘admin tags’ and ‘content warning tags’. 

Admin Tags are essentially just filing to ensure your story ends up in the right place, and they’re tags you should use both on ao3, and here on tumblr too when you share it. Generally speaking, I think of these as: 

Fandom

Characters

Relationships

So pretty basic, haha. A lot of people often only tag main characters and the central romantic ship, but I generally like to encourage people to tag all characters and all relationships, both romantic and platonic. Especially as the Good Girls fandom has gotten bigger and the there are so many more fics out there, I think this has become more essential. Like, I want to know if there’s background Ruby x Stan, y’know? Or if there’s Mick and Rio friendship! Knowing what other relationships your story’s going to touch on often really helps readers to prioritise what they read when they’re time poor, and makes it easier to search for again if say, I forget to bookmark (classic Sophie move, haha), and want to read it again (and bookmark it this time). 

Content Warnings on the other hand are pretty different and might not even be applicable to your story, but they’re always important to think about before you post. A content warning is basically just a flag for anything that could trigger a traumatic memory or response in the person reading it. These are not just courteous to add, but I also think, as someone who’s written a lot of health and safety documentation in her day job, an act of public safety. There are a lot of content warnings to tag for, but the big ones in fic are typically: 

Dubious consent / non consent (commonly shortened to DubCon and NonCon)

Major Character Death; and

Self Harm and Suicide

There are a lot more though to think about, and The University of Michigan actually has a great resource on this for inclusive teaching and has a list of really comprehensive things to warn for that I find is a great reference point for fic tagging too. 

As for the essentials, I’d say that’s it basically! If you wanted to, you could leave it at that, but adding more tags which help to summarise your story could really help you widen your story’s reach and appeal to more readers! So let’s take a look at that too: 

Optional Tags that Could Widen Your Reach

Settings and Context! I find these are great ones for really flagging what your story’s going to be. Is it one set in canon? If so, tag it as Canon Compliant! Is it canon until, say, 2.11, like my fic ‘verse The Center and Circumference is? Then tag it as Canon Divergent. Does it happen before the series starts? Tag it as Pre-Canon! These particular settings tags can be seen as: 

Pre-Canon

Canon Compliant

Post-Canon

Alternate Universe - Canon Divergent

Alternate Universe

With canon fics, you can even get more specific and tag the episode itself, which is particularly handy! I’d say if what you’ve written is a missing scene fic from a specific episode too, it’s a really good idea. :-)

Once you’ve done that, then think a little deeper about that setting and context! If it’s a highschool au, tag it as a Highschool AU, or a fisherman au, tag it as a Fisherman AU, etc. etc. Setting tags aren’t just for AUs though either – they’re also great for tagging things like:

Established Relationship

Domestic Fluff

Slow Burn

Getting Together

Break Up

Basically, I’d suggest thinking of your setting and context tags as what you’re dropping your reader into. Where are they, when are they, and what are they? This is going to be particularly useful for people who, say, are just in the mood for fic where Beth and Rio are already together, or are wanting fics with Beth, Ruby and Annie growing up. 

It’s a sort of grounding, I think, that’s really useful! And once you’ve tagged that grounding, you can have a bit more fun with tagging for tropes and kinks!

Tropes are basically story conventions, devices and themes that are utilised in the story that you’re telling. They range from broad genres (angst!) to really specific story elements (there was only one bed!) Some tropes are heavily popularised, others less so, but tagging for them is a delightful way to ensure that your story lands in front of the eyeballs of the readers who love that trope. Some more tropes include: 

Hurt/Comfort

Pining

Huddling for warmth

Sick fic

Jealousy

Fake dating

There are a lot more, and fanlore has a pretty handy summary of a lot of them here if you’re unsure, but feel free to create your own too ;-). 

Kinks! Tag your kinks! Particularly if they’re specific, because this fandom loves some specific kinks, hahaha, like: 

Desk sex

Car sex

Hate sex

Make up sex

Oral sex

Annnd, you get the idea. Again, super handy for connecting to interested readers. 

Other tags

Otherwise, you can basically tag whichever way you want. The above are just suggestions, but ones I generally find useful to think about. I know other people like to tag tumblr prompts for instance, or if a fic is unbeta’d, or if it’s freeform, and I think that’s great. 

The only thing I generally urge away from is using train-of-thought tags on ao3 in the way we might use train-of-thought tags on tumblr. Ao3′s tag functionality after all is about categorisation, sharing, and helping people find stories that appeal to them, and train-of-thought tags generally speaking don’t do that. On top of that, unpaid volunteers go through those tags on ao3 to try and keep them organised and functional as a search tool, and I think making their lives easier by tagging specifically is a nice thing to do.

That said, feel empowered to create tags that might be a good new subcategory for the fandom (I just created a ‘Mick and Rio backstory’ tag for my latest fic that I hope people might use because I would like to read fics not written by me of this ilk, haha)

So yes! Those are my tips! I hope they’re useful, anon! I can’t wait to read your stories when they pop up! :-)

[beerecordings]

Poison - Chapter Seven

Part 1 l Part 2 l Part 3 l Part 4 l Part 5 l Part Six

Hi guys! Though this is the last plot-heavy section of the story, there will be an epilogue to tie up loose ends :) Hope you enjoy this final section! It has been a long ride with maximum whump haha. Thank you for reading.

Trigger warnings for hospitalization, needles, death threats, traumatic flashbacks, and mild eye trauma.

I’ll post a last-chapter summary later because I just posted chapter six but be sure to read that before you read this one :)

It was easy, honestly, once the doctor was shaken up.

He didn't have to be Anti or Chase. Anyone could have seen that Henrik was a mess, all trembling hands and reddened eyes and grieving, guilty, heart-broken mouth. Poor little doctor, aww. And he'd been waiting for an opportunity for days.

He considered riling him up more, but Henrik only gets stiff and scared and frozen when too much is going on, so he soothed him instead, pretending to wake up warm and sleepy and whimpering for his big brother, begging to be unrestrained just for a few minutes, please. Desperate for good news and aching for one of his best friends, Henrik quickly abandoned caution in the hopes of comforting Chase.

And he let himself be held for a moment, and Henrik was warm and soft and comforting, and he cannot deny that he liked it for the time he let it last – the smell of coffee and soap, the hot pressure of another body, the familiarity of human skin.

But he had more important things to do than this.

He held Henrik's throat until he passed out and sedated him in an act of vengeance, exchanging clothes and leaving Henrik tied up and unconscious on the bed where he had been trapped for days.

He could have hurt him further. He should have hurt him further. He should have killed him.

But he did not.

Where are we going? He asks himself, trying to keep his wavering legs steady enough to walk without drawing suspicion. What will we do?

I'm not sure. Should we just go?

We could.

But I don't want to.

Why not?

There's – things to stay for?

Don't go getting fucking attached.

He loved me.

We should cut them out.

What do you mean? The magician?

Yes, cut him out, because we keep thinking about it, thinking – oh, he loved me.

If we're cutting him out we should cut all of them out.

We should have killed the doctor.

Yes.

Let's kill the magician at least.

He called me amata.

Shut the fuck up!

But there's a sensation now, one he's hated as long as he can remember, and he must stop to put his hand against the wall and cover his eyes, biting down on a groan. It feels like his blood is trying to separate from his bones.

He loved me...

Be quiet. My brain is turning against me. Where's his room, do you think?

Ask the receptionist.

But we look like his doctor. We ought to know.

Tell her we heard he'd been moved without our permission and we need to check which room he's in.

Good, yes. The accent...

We can do it, but the magician – my brother –

Stop! Just – if we can do the accent, fine, just come on. I need to make this confusion stop, now.

“Clara!” Thank God for her nametag. “Did they move my brother out of his room? Where is he now?”

Haha, you're so bad at it!

He's so bad at it too so it doesn't matter!

Hahaha.

They come back together under the amusement of it and his bones settle.

“Oh, no, Dr. S, looks like he's still in Room 413. Did you change your hair?”

The fake Henrik rushes away before he can be forced to answer, heading toward the elevator. He's up and about, yes, but he's still much too weak from the drugs and the week of rest to take any stairs.

He gets a few weird looks from nurses on the stairs, but that could also just be because he's Schneep.

I don't – I don't think I want to do this.

Be quiet. Be quiet. Be quiet.

I don't think we want to do this!

There's only one of us! Just be quiet!

“Hey, are you alright?” someone asks him.

“Just leave me alone,” he snarls, leaning against the wall of the elevator as his skin threatens to tears away from his muscles and his skull splits down the center. “Just leave me alone.”

They back off and the elevator falls silent.

I'm doing this. I'm doing what I have to do. There's only me and I'm doing what I have to to ease the pull between us. Now hush and get ready. We won't have much time before Jackie comes.

Jackie... he loved me...

Anti grips his head, furious and despairing, and bites on his tongue until blood wells. It’s time to cut these feelings out of their shared chest before they are both destroyed.

---------------------

“So, as you can see here,” explains Dr. Corrin warmly, holding up some pictures of his brain. “It's in the language-producing center of your brain over here, called Broca's area, which is why you're having difficulty with both spoken language and sign. As a bit of good news, aphasia is something patients often recover from even without speech therapy, though there may be some lasting difficulty in finding the right word, and it's possible the aphasia could give you problems for up to a year. You're already speaking again, though, which is excellent news. And you're having no comprehension difficulties?”

Marvin shakes his head slowly, stroking Jameson's hair.

“That's good.” She keeps her voice soft to let his little brother sleep. “I know this must be hard right now, but I have high hopes you'll make a near-full recovery. There is some other minor brain damage around the same area, but as long as you don't notice any significant impacts on your day-to-day life, I think our best option is letting the brain do what it does best and find new pathways to keep you going. Are they any questions you're able to communicate with me just now?”

He hums sleepily. “Ssssshhh,” he manages, his mouth sliding on the word like it's waiting for more to be there. “My? My?”

“Schneeplestein?” She notices him looking at her coat and badge. Marvin smiles, pleased he's managed to get his point across.

“I'll ask him to come see you soon, okay?” she says, smiling back at him, and he nods his head and lets her get up to go.

The room falls quiet again without her, but he doesn't mind. His pain medication is up nice and high again and after the scary part of the night everything became warm and pleasant again.

He's drifting when the door opens.

“Shhh,” he calls again, happy with the sight of his white coat and glasses. “Pi.”

He reaches out for the book, setting it on his lap over his card pack and waiting for his little brother to come over and read to him.

But one step, two – it is not Henrik standing closer to him.

For a moment, Marvin thinks it's Jack.

Then the syringe comes out of his pocket.

Marvin does not quake or shrink in on himself. His eyes fix on the needle. He looks back up at his little brother.

Anti – Chase – his eyes are unreadable, full of something Marvin does not recognize in blue eyes.

But it doesn't scare him.

“Amata,” he whispers, smiling. “Here.”

“Shut up,” he snarls, rounding the bed, and it is only when he approaches Jameson that Marvin begins to feel afraid. “I'm going to kill you.”

Marvin shakes his head and Jamie's shoulder. JJ comes awake with a snuffle, rubbing at his face as he looks up, and then, before his eyes can even widen in alarm, Anti has grabbed him by the throat.

It is, perhaps, a sad fact of Jameson's life that this is not the first time in his life he has woken up with Anti about his throat, but it is the first time he's woken up with Anti about his throat and a brother high on morphine in the hospital bed beside him, and the terror Marvin sees in his eyes is as clear and as deep as the burn of light in the bulb of an angler fish. But if Henrik freezes up and Marvin becomes careful and reasoning, Jameson's reaction to a sudden attack is exactly what Jackie always hoped it would be – fucking fight.

Marvin would like to tell you he helped – that he screamed, that he thought to press the call button, that he threw something, anything. Marvin would like to tell you he even watched. But the truth is that the moment he saw Jameson rear back with a knife drawn from his coat pocket and Anti recoiling to meet him in battle, he was back in chains and convulsions, watching Anti kill Cottonmouth in his little brother's body.

“Darling,” he wails, once, twice, because he cannot even cry his name. “Darling!”

He hides his face and curls in on himself on the hospital bed, holding his shoulders, trying to breathe. Cottonmouth crumples into her own blood in front of him and he pushes his palms hard into his eyes and groans, gritting his teeth.

“Anti,” he whispers. “Chase. Don't.”

But when he hears the thud of a body slamming into the ground, he knows it isn't Anti.

For a moment, there's only Anti's breathing and the shaking of his own heart in his chest. He peers out of his fingers, needing to know if JJ is alive, but all he can see is his little brother's face turned away from him on the tiles of the floor, still.

Anti stalks forward and grabs him.

To his credit, Marvin does not scream or sob even as his flashback near consumes him. He clings furtively to Chase's hands and closes his eyes. The rapid thudding of his heart suddenly stops registering on the heart monitor as Anti manipulates the tech. The nurses won't notice anything wrong.

“What did you wake up in me?” hisses his brother, pushing him down hard against the hospital bed. Needles shift in Marvin's body and he whimpers. “Why are you all making me feel a thousand different things? This is worse than I first melded into this fucking flesh.”

Marvin breathes in, out. Trying to stay steady. Trying to stay steady.

“Look at me,” snarls Anti.

Marvin does not. Marvin does not open his eyes.

“Look at me,” screams Chase.

“Hear you,” warns Marvin in a croak, sliding open his eyes and glaring up at him even as tears run down his cheeks.

“Stop crying,” he answers, his face darkening with frustration. “Stop!”

The needle of a syringe leaps up in his hand and presses into Marvin's throat. He closes his eyes again and lets it sink against the first layer of his flesh, threatening to go deeper.

“Too high to be afraid of me? Huh? Is that it? I'll make you fucking beg.”

Marvin almost laughs. If this isn't terror – if the memory of being hung up in those chains as the poison coursed through him isn't real terror – he doesn't know what is. But Anti's hands reach out to adjust his drug dose and Marvin's heart drops with his morphine levels. Almost immediately, he feels the effects. It's like his skin, his body, his heart has become real again, real in a world much colder than he remembers. He's being recreated. This is what it feels like, isn't it?

Cosmic and mortal at the same time, his atoms are flung into arrangement after long years of drifting, and he is a tree raised from the earth, suddenly standing, suddenly bodied, suddenly aware and alive and staring at the world.

Drifting, confused, scared. Yeah, he remembers. This is what it feels like to be created.

He just doesn't remember it hurting this much.

He doesn't remember anything ever hurting this much, because he's been trying not to think about what happened to him that day on those chains, and oh, oh, oh, it's here with him again now.

The needle presses deeper into his throat. He can hear Anti – no, Chase, his Chase, his Chase in pain – breathing harshly above him, trying to make himself do it.

“Don't feel guilty,” he hears himself sob.

“What?”

He clings to his wrists. He clings, clings, clings to his little brother's wrists. Amata, amata, Chase, the only word left on his mouth, the only thing left that matters, his heart, his heart.

“I love you.”

Aphasia, or the inability to produce language, is not an uncommon result of brain damage. An interesting fact about this condition, however, is that, at times, while it may be impossible for a person to form the sentences or words they'd like to say, it may well be possible for them to recite memorized or familiar phrases. For example, someone might not be able to express their congratulations to a family member on their birthday, but when everyone begins singing “happy birthday,” they are able to join in just as loud and as clearly as anyone else.

There are phrases Marvin knows. There are recitations imprinted on his heart. And if you had told him that a week ago, he would have laughed and made fun of you, because, as he would assure you, that is much too soft for him, but this is not a week ago.

This is now. His kidneys have failed twice. He was tortured for three hours straight. His little brother has been missing for six months and now, here he is.

It is Anti also, or somewhat, or sort of, or something, but Marvin has never known Anti beyond legends and a battle or two, and what he sees – what he feels, what he hears, what he smells – this is Chase, Chase with his sad, lovely eyes, Chase with hair that goes gold in the right light, Chase with this bizarre and ever-present vanilla smell on his tired palms, Chase, Chase, Chase.

Marvin is laughing before he knows why, laughing as Anti tries to put the needle in his neck.

“I love you better than stars and suns,” he recites, his own spells, his own poetry. “I would like to make a constellation of you, stella amata, beloved, my heart. Blue eyes, brother. Amata, I'm here. Amata, I'm here. Come lie down with me. I love you. Chase, do you want to come with me? Just breathe deep. What can I do to help? Are you with me? I know how hard you're trying, I know you're doing your best.”

A litany of remembered things, left over from every time Marvin has comforted him or been comforted by him. A litany of their brotherhood.

“Stop,” he cries.

Marvin begins to quote in earnest. Brothers and songwriters and authors.

“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. Stay with me, my brother. Here I am. I can't lose you. The weather would be just right, requiring a light sweater mornings and evenings, and something short-sleeved midday.”

“You're just babbling,” he howls, pressing him down bodily into that hospital bed, until they are chest-to-chest but for the book on Marvin's chest and the cards beneath it. Marvin's head is clearing again the longer he looks at it. He knows he needs to try and speak on his own again. He knows he needs to try and save him. His brother. His Chase.

“Scared,” he whispers, touching his cheek, and he groans and ducks his head, holding that needle against his throat in a trembling hand. “I know. Scared.”

“No... No, I'm not s-scared...”

Marvin could sing for Chase's stammer. He caresses his beard, dark and unkempt. His free hand traces down his own chest, careful.

“Don't feel guilty,” he murmurs, reaching back to touch his hair, to stroke his head like he had Jamie's only minutes before. “If pain. Me, darling.”

“You should be worrying about yourself, not us!” he shrieks. “We're not going to feel guilty for killing you! I'm not! And I'll, I'll... I'll take the black and white one with me again! Yes! Our baby brother! And he'll quiet all this noise! I won't feel alone anymore!”

“Not feel alone anymore,” whispers Marvin, tears hot and red on his cheeks, from the pain, from the fear, from the love of him. “Not alone.”

“I'll make it stop, I'll make it stop.” He is shaking his head back and forth above him and they both know he does not believe himself. “We have to make it stop, we just want – I just want – ”

“Chase,” whispers Marvin. “Cast him out.”

“I c-can't!”

“Yes, Chase. Yes.”

“No, I can't, I've tried, I've tried! For months, Marvin, for months, I tried so hard, I did. I wanted so badly to come home to all of you.”

Marvin sobs and clings to his face, his free hand finally reaching his card pack.

“I was so scared, I just want this to stop, we both do!”

“Cast him out. Cast him out. You – you are my sunshine, I'm here, stella amata, the weather would be just right... Chase, here, here.”

“Marvin!” cries Chase. “Please, please help me.”

“No, stop,” shouts something else beneath his skin.

“It hurts!” they both shriek, falling slightly away from the bed.

Marvin grabs their hand.

For a moment, Chase and Anti both stare at him, and there is a silence and an ocean between them, and the world is a rocking, moving thing, and they are anchored together in white palms and white fingers and twin tattoos along their right arms, and they see each other.

“Get the fuck out, Anti,” says Marvin, and he pulls out his King of Hearts and finishes the spell he meant to finish in that basement a week ago.

Light burns between the two of them and they scream as they fall back, their flesh singed by the force of the spell, a black heart scalding into their neck. He – they – whoever and whatever this creature is – trips back over Jameson and falls to the ground beside him.

“Marvin!” Screaming down the hall. “Marvin!”

The door opens and slams into the wall. Jackie does not hesitate even to look around, just pounces towards Anti.

“Stay back!” he screams, scrabbling to his feet and bringing Jameson's body with him, the syringe pressed against his throat. “You stay the fuck away from me!”

“No, you get the fuck away from him,” cries Jackie, teeth snarling. “Let him go. Anti, you're bleeding already. Give up.”

He's right. He realizes with a start that blood is tracing its way down his cheek, bleeding from his eye. Or – is it blood? It's dark as ink.

“Big brother,” croaks Marvin. “Careful, careful.”

“I'm here, Marvelous, I'm here. Anti, stop!”

He's maneuvering toward the door. With JJ in his arms, unconscious and pressed against that needle, Jackie doesn't know what to do to stop him. His first instinct is tackling, as it always is, but that might not end well.

“I've got a tracker on JJ,” says Jackie. Well, he's got his location on on his phone, anyway. “If you try to take him or any of my brothers away again, I'll find you.”

Anti bites his teeth at him, standing in the doorway with JJ slumped across his chest. He can hear more people coming. He's sure Jackie brought security.

But those are the least of his problems right now.

The sensation of his bones and his blood separating, of his skin peeling off from his flesh, of his heart pulsing to get out of his chest, of something being wrong inside him, of something needing to escape every cuticle of his flesh –

This is worse than it's ever been.

He turns his head, and, when he is sick, something black is leaking out of his mouth.

What is this? What's happening? He did something to me!

That's... you? Isn't it? The real you. Without me.

He slams Marvin's door shut behind him and drops Jameson in front of it, shoving him against the crack beneath the wood to slow Jackie, turning to sprint down the hall.

No, please, we can't run. I'm so tired...

Stop fucking whining!

His gait stumbles and he falls, crashing hard to the ground and drawing startled gasps all around him before he can get up again, throwing himself into a closing elevator. He shares a tense elevator ride with a terrified-looking twelve-year-old who won't take her gaze off his own bleeding eyes, trying to get his breath back before sprinting back out of the elevator and into the world.

Please, I want to go back to my brothers! I want my brothers to look after me! I think we can get separate again, please!

But he isn't listening to the voice inside his head right now.

His bones are splitting. His nerves are unraveling. Inside his head, neurons don't know which way to go.

He's coming apart. And when it's over, he doesn't think he'll have a body anymore.

He's afraid.

He runs.

---------------------

Jackie knows where to go.

Jameson is bleeding heavy from the shoulder and his neck is blue with bruising. Jackie heaves him up in his arms and deposits his little brother gently in the bed beside Marvin's, checking for the pulse of his heart beneath his injured throat before turning to race after Anti. He hollers something about nurses, security, cops. Doesn't know what. They're safe here. Jameson and Marvin and Henrik will be looked after. They have to be. What matters now is Chase.

And he knows where to go. Jamie showed him.

He sprints down the street, down the pavement, panting hard, his body working like a machine, his feet pounding sturdy and swift against the concrete. People pass to let him go. Perhaps they can see the ferocity in his face.

He lost Chase once. Last week, he lost Marvin. All his life, his family has come and gone, through kidnappings and comas, imprisonment and loss. But today?

Today he brings his brothers home.

He picks up his pace and the wind makes way for him too. Today, he will not be late.

------------------------

His gait slows.

His gaits slows to a snail crawl.

He staggers

He staggers

He staggers away from the building.

Lights burn around him in horrible gold and white, stinging against his aching eyes.

He can hear a low, desperate keening –

“Marvin... Marvin... Marvin...”

Over and over again.

That's not his voice, is it?

He's pretty sure he's the one groaning. He's pretty sure he's the one everyone's staring at, pausing on the pavement to call out in concern and whisper.

He's pretty sure he's covered in somebody else's blood.

His brain has turned to mush as everything inside him tears about and he no longer knows where he's running. Hot tears course down his cheeks. He clutches at his shirt and realizes he's aching for something soft to hold. A hand, a warm body, or maybe just a plush seal toy squished into a stuffie pancake.

“My baby,” he hears that distant, familiar voice whisper. “Hunter... my son...”

He has no child. He has no family. He is what remains and what remains is all that there is.

A sting cuts through his neck again and he screams, staggering against the cold wall of an alleyway. Something is in his blood! He can feel it! Poison, poison!

“What is happening to me?” he screams. “Something's inside of me! Marvin! Marvin! Marvin!”

He wants his big brother. He wants his big brother right now.

There is no big brother, there is no one left that he loves, if Marvin were to show his face to him he'd drive a knife into his heart and put a bullet through his skull just for good measure!

The sting pierces through him. The hot burn of something purer than his tainted blood. He is sobbing, heaving, sinking down beside a garbage can in a dirty alleyway beside a road to towards the hospital, wrapping his arms around himself. When did he get so skinny? When did he forget so much of himself? He can't even remember his name – a C? An H? An A?

Marvin spoke it. Marvin spoke it like it was the only word left that mattered. Marvin loved him.

I won't be thrown out of this flesh now! This body belongs to me! This body is me! I don't... what happens if I'm torn apart?

“A – Anti,” stammers his aching mouth. “Anti.”

“That name no longer means anything.” He is alone. He speaks to himself. They speak to each other. “Do we really have to go back to struggling?”

“I feel like I'm always struggling... I can't remember...”

“We don't need to remember. I have you and you have me. There is nothing left of the man you once were. If we could just settle down again!”

“P-poison... you are a poison... Marvin is sending you out...”

The pain lances through his ribs, spreading out across his body. He wails as the hurt only grows and grows, hyperventilating against the cool metal of the dumpster.

“You stole me from them!” he screams, trying to think. “I was going – I was going to see my child! My children! You stole me away from my children! From my brothers! Marvin! Marvin!”

Quiet. Something hateful and commanding arises in his head for the first time in weeks and he chokes, grabbing at his hair. I spliced you into myself once already. I will do it again. Marvin is gone and his magic was weak. You are alone with me. And if someone is leaving this body, then I will be the one to drive you out, Chase. This could kill me. I need to be separated but what if it kills me? What if I die here?

“You're... scared...”

“Chase!” someone shouts. “Chase!”

And then Jackie is there, Jackie is there, Jackie is holding him.

“Please,” he begs, he sobs, he wails; he writhes against Jackie's arms, struggles with him on the cold cement of the alleyway. “Please, it burns me!”

“Let Anti burn away,” he pants, only holding him tighter, only holding him tighter the harder he struggles. “Let Anti burn away. Come back to me. Come back home. I never meant to let you go. I'm sorry. It's me, it's Jackie. You have to remember who you are.”

Jackie smells like home. Pressed into his sweatshirt, Chase can hear again every word that Marvin spoke to him, can feel the touch of Jameson's forgiving body wrapped around his own, can see Henrik looking after him even though it terrified him.

“You know who you are,” whispers Jackie, sinking down to the pavement with him, holding him, careful with the heart-shaped burn singed into his neck. “Come back to me.”

We discover who we are in many ways. Perhaps most of all, we see ourselves in the love we have for others. In the way we love, in the fierceness with which we do. Chase knows himself, yes, after long months. He can see himself in the way Jackie is holding him and in the way he hugs him back, clinging to his brother's sweatshirt, burying his face against his chest.

Trusting his family to save him.

He is terribly ill for long minutes, sick and convulsing as the poison leaves him. Jackie's shirt soaks with the most horrible black ink. It won't come out in the wash. He doesn't care. Chase is here.

“I've got you,” he says, holding one-fourth of the world in his arms. “I've got you. I won't let him take you away again.”

The black ink runs down the brick of the alleyway where Jameson was standing a few days past with his little tray of hospital food. He knew this place would be important. He knew they would have to come here again.

Chase shudders, cries, stills against his chest.

Jackie looks down and sees the blackness creeping together as though magnetic on the brick, and then it is rising, it is forming, it is standing; it is Anti.

His face is drizzling so much black ink he can hardly keep his simulated body together, slumped and staggering, hollow and dazed. His eyes are dead. Jackie has never seen him stand still for so long.

His head rises, exhausted, and he does not breathe or move or speak a word. He only looks at Jackie. The blackness drips off of him – plink. Plink. Plink.

Jackie holds Chase. Jackie stares at him.

Anti closes his eyes and his mouth, and he lifts his hand to his chin, and then draws it away again in one of the first words of sign language Jackie ever learned.

Thank you.

Jackie should get up and hurt him. Jackie should find a way to hurt him. Jackie should kill him.

He doesn't.

The blackness collapses back into liquid. A rat scatters by. Anti's essence fills the squeaking animal up and, a moment later, they are both slipping away down the drain together, leaving nothing but drips of inky blood on the red brick behind them.

Jackie pulls Chase slightly away from himself to look at his little brother. Dazed and still bleeding sluggishly from the eyes, Chase can only snuffle and blink thick and slow, his eyes half-way closed, clinging to Jackie's shirt.

“I got you, Chaser,” whispers Jackie, slipping his arms beneath him. Chase sighs sleepily and wraps his arms around Jackie's chest as he is lifted into his arms, pressing his face against his brother's warm chest. “I got you. And I won't let you go again.”

------------------

A white

room.

White lights. White bedsheets. White brothers, haha. Marvin grins. He's on morphine again, but he's still crying by the time he comes to, hot wet tears tracing softly down his face.

“Marvin,” someone whispers.

“Jackie,” his mouth manages, and they share a smile there over the whiteness of the bedsheets, holding each other's hands.

Marvin's eyes drift to the rest of the room. His heart warms like grass in the sun. The bed across from his own is, at last, full.

“Okay?” he asks.

“He will be,” answers Jackie softly. “We'll make sure.”

Just like they always do. Just like they promised each other when they were young. We'll look after them. No matter what it takes.

Marvin looks down at himself.

This, he thinks. This is what it took.

“Hey,” he mumbles, pointing at the clock beside his table. It's 9:03. “Survived... night.”

“Survived the night? Oh. Yeah. That last kidney scare was yesterday. You survived the rest of the night and then the day and then this night too.” Jackie smiles at him. “Sleeping beauty.”

Marvin throws his hair in mock pride for his Aurora-levels of beauty and sends Jackie into a mini giggling fit, bent over his hand and squeezing tight.

“So... okay?” he murmurs, pointing at himself.

“There will be some complications,” says Jackie gently. “With your diet and your speech and your... your mental health, too. But everything's going to turn out alright, Marv. You made it. You're a survivor, Marv. And you helped Chase too.”

Marvin smiles up at him. Jackie praises and reassures, massaging at his palm, his eyes full of warmth. He has to keep quiet, though, because it appears they've gotten into a habit of sleeping in this room – Henrik is at Chase's side, crashed beside his brother's legs, snoring into his knees. Jameson is sitting up in the middle of the two beds, quiet and still, his throat bandaged.

“Darling?” asks Marvin. “Okay?”

JJ turns slowly about. His eyes are bright silver.

“Uh-oh,” says Jackie, reaching out his free hand for him. “Got a trance, looks like. Doing okay, buddy? You with us?”

JJ's mouth quirks dazedly and he nods.

“Good,” says Jackie, reassured. “You're getting a better handle on it already.”

Marvin reaches out his hand for him too and Jamie turns to take it, smiling warmly at him.

“See?” signs Marvin, not quite able to find the words for 'what happens now, Jameson?'

The tilt of his mouth blooms into a full smile.

“I see you, and me, and Jackie, and Chase, and Henrik,” he says.

“Is that all?” asks Jackie.

“No,” says JJ. “But that's all that matters.”

Chase shifts in his sleep and his hand finds Henrik's. All five of them are warm in the hospital room. Outside, the snow falls white and glowing in the morning sun.

[surflove808]

On Destiel and endgame hysteria

Sometimes I get fired up about some of the BS I see in this fandom and this is one of those moments.  This post will be a layercake of sentimentality, disappointment, anger and maybe a wee bit (a lot) of profanity.  So, you know. Back on my bullshit.

The show that we love, love to hate or hate to love, for better or worse, will see it's final curtain call at the S15 finale.  You don't need me to tell you how impactful it's been and how much it means to so many people for a variety of reasons that extend well beyond it's entertainment value.  All it takes is one scroll through social media to get a sampling of the reach of this little-show-that-could and by extension (and because of) it's cast, to see that it's beloved by so many.  And it deserves the praise, and the end deserves to be lamented - but like TFW has said over and over, and to paraphrase Frank Sinatra, they're doing it their way.  For that?  I'm happy.

The show has been described as a "juggernaut" and an "institution", and it is.  We all know the themes:  Finding *your* family, struggle, perseverance, dedication, making mistakes and not always learning from them (but trying), acceptance, the beauty in humanity even when all hope seems lost, redemption, and love... to name the big ones. Now about Love.  "Love" is not threatening to burn down houses if your ship isn't made canon.  "Acceptance" isn't threatening the cast, crew, producers and network with lawsuits if your ship isn't made endgame.  I saw a few posts like that today that had a very disappointing number of likes and reblogs and I'm kinda furious, to be honest.  You fucking twits.

As someone who enjoys the show, and respects the determination, sacrifice, hard work, creativity, and yes - Love -  that has been poured into this endeavor, I don't think I'm alone when I say -  JUST. STOP.  You whining, tantrum throwing, self-important, "wouldn't catch a social cue if it had a $100 bill attached to it and was tossed to you from 3 feet away", obnoxious, divisive children.  

Accept what the cast, the writers and Eric Freaking Kripke have told you?  No... can't do that.  Must hop from one lily pad of delusion to the next and have the gall to be self righteous about it.  And then pat yourselves on the back for being alternately clever, threatening and obtuse.  You're like the Donald Trumps of the SPN fandom.  You're not disliked because of your ship.  You're disliked because of your personalities.  Let that sink in.  No one is marginalizing you.  You chose to do this to yourselves AND your beloved ship via your words and actions.  You sunk your own battleship and now you’re pissed.  

I don't affiliate myself with any ship or the other factions of this fandom.... I don't get it.  I'm just a fan.  A fan of the story, the acting, the tragedy, the comedy, the characters and the character of the actors involved.  I don't know what a good "fan" is... don't care.  But I know what a bad one is.  A bad one thinks that they can take ownership of someone else's art just because they've "invested" in it. 

And I apply it to my own life in this way - Here I am doing my thing, putting my creativity out into the world... and what I create matters to me.  Every little bit.  I throw myself into the things I'm passionate about.  And not everyone is going to be thrilled with what I produce.  Some people will never see what I put out there, but word travels fast when you genuinely care about your craft.  I do what I do because it drives me, and always has.  And I do my best to stay true to MY story.  And the thought of someone trying to insert themselves into my story because they think they know my creations better than I do, makes me want to punch throats.  

And the thought of a group of people actually threatening me and the people I collaborate with because I'm not making their fantasy a reality??  Hey - get fucked sideways without lube, and throw some sand in there for extra discomfort.

I want you (and you know who you are) to have some accountability.  Please tell me in what scenario is your behavior warranted or appropriate.  Feel free to DM me.  I won't "out" you, and I'll never be abusive - I just need to know why.  (bullet pointing this because... reading comprehension)

1.  WHY is Destiel is the only representation you'll accept.  

2.  WHY do you think it's funny or "OK" to harass the creatives on this show constantly when you have absolutely no right to their story?  

3.  WHY do you think that pushing something so hard will get you what you want? 

4,   And lastly.... WHY is this so important to you? 

Can you possibly survive if Destiel isn't made canon?  Do you have other hobbies and interests that can fill your time?  Because some of ya'll are acting like this is the Be All End All of your existence and I'm here to tell you - it's really not.  If it DOES happen, it will be at the discretion of the showrunner and creatives, and I promise you it won’t be because they caved to the small, yet omnipresent faction of Destiehellers that have annoyed the ever-living fuck out of everyone attached to this show.  It’ll be on their terms.

The tantrum strategy stops working after age 4, usually....it just seems some of you are late getting the memo.  Thanks to your folks.  Well done.

Try to appreciate the show for what it is and always has been.  If your expectations are unreasonable and are buoyed by years of manips, misquotes and over-analyzation of brief "moments" between ANY characters, and you feel emotional enough about it to behave badly - it's time for a factory reset.  This show has never mislead you - you’ve bought into delusion and over-analysis and straight-up fiction pimped to you by fellow “fans” probably before you even watched your first episode.  It’s the weirdest thing I’ve seen.  And I’ve seen some shit. 

If you’re going to be angry... be angry at your friendly neighborhood Destiel dealer.  They chumped you to get more *buy* for their *supply*.  Them’s the facts.

That being said.... Can We Just Appreciate The Final Moments That This Amazing Cast And Crew Are Going To Give Us (and you know they will), And Let It The Fuck GO?  

You're welcome to block me (you probably should).  But before you do that, could you let this sink in a bit?  And if you see a fellow shipper being an entitled  douche - maybe hold yourself to a higher standard than they do themselves and don't perpetuate it/like/reblog it?  Because this behavior is well and truly a shitty way to treat the legacy of this groundbreaking show, and all those that are responsible for bringing it to life. 

In other words....Behave.  And have some goddamn dignity.

I’m not sure if I’m doing this right, but my response was so long.  Eh...whatever.  @jessiegail   I understand, and please allow me to elaborate. When I was scrolling through the Jensen tags (because the Dean and SPN tags have been overrun by a lot of people with zero respect for the character/show canon, so I stay away anymore.  That in and of itself should tell you something)... I was also sharing in the moment, and the news and wanted to see some SPN love and positivity. What I ran into almost immediately was, and I quote: "If they don't make destiel cannon (sic) for the series finale, I'll set their houses on fire. You've been warned." 87 people agreed with @moosewncstr on this sentiment.  Now... if it was one shitty person and people steered clear of any affiliation with them for threatening arson because they're completely off their fucking rocker.... that would be easy to ignore.  But 87 people??  That’s really, really bad. What I'm seeing and have been seeing, is a hive-mind mentality that doesn't care for acceptance. Doesn't care if it’s abusive. Doesn't care if someone gets their “feelings” hurt. And they absolutely Do Not Care if what they say incites the potential reality of violence, as long as they can force their ship down the throats of as many people as possible and Make It Canon.  

And by hive-mind, I mean - NO ONE in the Destiel camp seems to have the degree of autonomy (AKA:  Balls) required to rein in the bad apples in their bunch.  They either agree or stay silent.  So, because you can’t self-regulate, people like me with no concern or desire for your approval have to come in and tell you to knock your shit off.  You won’t.  But I feel better.  And maybe others will feel more comfortable to express their disapproval when shit like this rears its ugly head. Anyone who would think threats (just a joke...hahaha), are acceptable, and those who are in agreement can suck it. And i will not roll over and sing kumbaya with anyone who thinks this is ok. I'm generally careful with the headers and lead-in paragraphs to posts that are potentially inflammatory. A courtesy that is not extended by your brethren. You had ample warning that this post would not be kind to asshole shippers. I don’t think you are one of those people - but, if you’re defending this behavior, I can’t really empathize with you.  I also don’t want you to feel targeted.  This isn’t about YOU.  This is about endemic behavior that has become so toxic, it pretty much can’t be undone. As for paying anything forward, I do not owe people who act like this the time of day, much less a kind word. I have 2 choices:  I can stand by and pretend I don't see these things and block, block, block so that I can stay in my bubble. Or, I can take my own little stand on my own little blog and address genuinely disturbing behavior using language of my choice. What I will never do is threaten or abuse any individuals who question my logic. Downside is... you'll get a very long winded explanation. Go, be happy. Enjoy your ship. No one is telling you not to. I'm telling you right now, though - I can't and won't tolerate the bad apples. Best to block me if you're sensitive to the way I word my posts, but understand - I'm not promoting hate or abusive behavior - I'm fighting it. And I will continue to do so as long as I'm on this dumpster fire of a website, because I love this show and I believe all of the creative's, crew and fans deserve some fucking respect.

[thefrenchbat]

.

There is a thing with internet... you want to interact ? You want to speak with people, connect with them ? To have a bit of views in it ?

You HAVE to speak english.

Because internet is made for English speakers for the hugely crushingly most part.

For people whom it's the mother tongue ? It looks normal. Natural even to have people speak in English.

But for a lot of us... It's not our original language it's not the one we learned first. We had to make the efforts to manage a completely new language. That isn't an easy thing to do. That takes hours upon hours of works. That take listening and watching stuff that you don't understand fully until you have finally the utter joy to be able to express yourself in a completely new set of words and rules and sentences.

So.

When you are again and again confronted to people that find... So hilarious to see you struggle with a specific word you don't know or even with a specific concept that hasn't any equivalent in your language.... It starts to get really annoying.

"It's just funny." / "They aren't mocking you. You need to learn the way people talk to avoid misunderstanding."

...actually. When the 'fun' comes from someone confusion or frustration. And you actively misread them or make fun of their attempt to understand (Like "it's a word haha" when you ask for the meaning of said word but no clearly you didn't knew it was a word hahaha. Ha.)

It's not "fun" no. It's mocking. Even if it's so natural for the person in front of you "to know" it is mocking. And it's exhausting. Even more so when you know you speak a correct english. That you can keep up with a professional conversation for entire work days without having any comprehension problems. That you can follow books or movies for the most part without trouble outside of the occasional "ha. New word. Better write it down." But no. You're the funny one who doesn't know like a kid haha. That have to ask. Hahahaha.

Make the effort to speak in my language to see how it is if I laugh and play with you not knowing the specifics of my mothertongue.. see how much you like it for a change.

But that won't happen will it ? Because nobody will ask you to speak in French. Or Chinese. Or Russian. Or any other language, because you speak english.

And the internet and any and every talking space on it is made for you; and for us to adapt to your will.

Maybe. If you are an English speaker who read that post. Think about being a bit kind or kinder to people who made the efforts to learn your language to speak with you.

Instead of being entitled for it to be known.

Thank you.

[luthienebonyx]

Author interview

Tagged by: @seaspiritwrites

Name: Luthien. My real name also starts with L. I answer to L as well, so then I don’t have to think about which me I’m meant to be at any given moment.

Fandoms: At the moment, Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire, in the sense that I’m glancing at it sideways while the torrent of words continues. In the past, many others.

Where you post: AO3, these days.

Most popular oneshot: In this fandom, As Sunlight Drinketh Dew, which is probably the most explicit thing I’ve written for this pairing, and was also my first attempt at writing Jaime POV.

Across all the fandoms I’ve written in, and keeping in mind that a good chunk of my fanfic pre-dates the AO3 so this answer is really only in relation to the stories I’ve posted since around 2010, my most popular oneshot is, surprisingly, A Night to Remember. This is a Phryne/Jack Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries fic, which is also on the explicit side. (I think I’m sensing a pattern.) It’s one of those stories that just doesn’t die. I can never pick which ones those are going to be.

Most popular multi-chapter story: In this fandom, More Than a Memory. This was the first story I wrote for this fandom, apart from a couple of drabbles years and years ago, and it just came pouring out of me after the finale aired. I was very surprised that it had any real following at all, because I was a completely unknown writer in this fandom and the story is canon compliant right up to the end of Season 8, with everything that that means for this pairing.

In my fandoms on AO3 overall, the most popular multi-parter is A Fine Romance, which is an unfinished Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them newtina fic. I had to stop writing it for a while because my health crashed in mid-2017, and then the second movie pretty comprehensively jossed my plans for the rest of the story, but I think it captured the fandom vibe at the time it was being posted.

Favorite story you wrote: Right now, it’s probably Beloved, part of my After Everything fix-it universe (written partly to make up for writing More Than a Memory) because it’s a very ‘me’ story, and also because even though I finished it a few days ago, it’s still hanging around in my head. Once I get back to working on my Regency AU, You I Know, that will be the favourite, because that’s the story I’ve wanted to write for YEARS.

So far as past fandoms go, I’m still very fond of my Once Upon a Time rumbelle AU Plain Jane. That’s another one of those ‘me’ stories.

Story you were nervous to post: I feel as if I should say More Than a Memory, because I really honestly expected that hardly anyone would read it, but it was one of those stories that wouldn’t let me NOT write it, so it wasn’t like I had a choice about it. I just threw it out there.

I think probably As Sunlight Drinketh Dew was the one I was actually most nervous about, because it was my first time trying out Jaime POV, and that sort of thing is always nerve-racking.

As for stories from past fandoms... I can’t really remember? Except that I always HATE my stories right before I post them, so in that sense they all make me nervous.

How you choose your titles: On a wing and a prayer? Titles are the bane of my existence. Sometimes, if I’m really lucky, the title will come to me very early on, which is a huge relief. Other times, I’ll have a story finished and edited and ready to go - except that I don’t know what it’s called. Then I get out my big book of quotations, and google lyrics, and just hope to god that something jumps out at me. 

Weirdly, I haven’t had my usual titling trouble for most of the stories I’ve written in this fandom, but that might be more just my attitude. A vaguely appropriate title will cross my mind and I’ll just seize it and decide that “That’ll do!” It’s nice not to have to deal with these little title-related stress-outs.

Do you outline: Hahaha. I’ve TRIED to outline in the past. I just end up with scene drafts instead. 

My usual approach is to have a list of bullet points of the main plot beats, plus any other reminders to myself of details that I’m going to need further down the line. For my longer stories, I think of my list of bullet points as making up the skeleton, and then the flesh and blood of detail happens as I write. But no, I really wouldn’t dignify any of that with the description of ‘outline’. Outlining is something that happens to other people, I’m afraid.

Complete: In this fandom, 23. However, 18 of those complete stories belong to series that are still on-going, so their storylines are not yet complete even though the stories themselves are.

Overall? I have 122 complete works on the AO3, but that doesn’t include every fic I’ve ever written, so the actual answer is... I don’t know?

In-progress: In this fandom, two actual stories and two series. I need to get back to my Regency AU, You I Know, very soon. It’s currently at Chapter 8 of... many. I’m also partway through writing the second and last chapter of the latest Aussie Coffee ‘verse fic, On the first day of Christmas (my true love gave to me). In terms of series, obviously Aussie Coffee is still not finished - I still have another five (hopefully) short instalments to write once the Christmas fic is done - and After Everything still has at least one more story to go (which I’m currently working on).

In other fandoms... I think I’ll just sweep a few stories under the rug and pretend that they don’t exist.

Coming soon/not yet started: Coming soon: A Sansa bystander POV fic from right at the beginning of After Everything, when the ‘after’ bit hasn’t started yet - I’m not writing that series in chronological order. Also, the rest of the Christmas Day fic from Aussie Coffee, and FINALLY a new chapter of the Regency AU.

Not yet started: I have an idea for a musician AU kicking around in the back of my head, but it’s right at the bottom of the priority list, and probably will be for some time.

Do you accept prompts: I do sometimes, if I’m in the mood, or if I don’t have anything more pressing to write. (So yeah, not so much with the prompts right at the moment!) Usually only drabble prompts, though. I have two writing modes: drabbles of exactly 100 words, no more and no less, and “who the hell knows how long this thing will be?” I’d rather not get into anything in the second category by accident.

Upcoming story you are most excited to write: Regency, Regency, Regency!!!! I have SO MUCH planned for this story. I’m going to stuff every last Regency detail and plot point that I can think of into it - and I’ve been reading about and researching this period for decades, so I can think of A LOT. I’ve wanted to write a novel-length Regency AU through several fandoms, but I’ve never been well enough to commit to it before. But now, for some reason, I am well enough to just keep writing most days, and so I’m not losing writing momentum, and things like this are finally possible. AND I AM SO EXCITED ABOUT EVERYTHING ABOUT IT!!!!!

But the rest of the Aussie Coffee ‘verse is also going to be fun to write. The path it’s going to take isn’t the one that might seem most likely right now...

Tagging: @nire-the-mithridatist @woodelf68 @firesign23 @it-may-be-dull-but-im-determined @ladyem-fandom and anyone else who wants to do it.

[mymelancholiesblues]

Just wondering, what your head canon for Leon's family?

Oh my god, I was planning to post this huge compilation of my RE Headcanons soon (starting with what I have for Leon) when I got your ask’s notification. Are you a mind reader? Hahaha. But really, thank you for providing me with a justification to start posting them.

I would like to please invite you to sit because I have plenty – honestly PLENTY – of things to share over this specific matter (Leon’s family). And, of course, to ask you to bear with me through them.

For anyone else whose interest might be picked over this: keep in mind that these are (obviously) my headcanons for Leon’s background and family and in no way is anyone else under the obligation to accept nor fully agree with them.

I wrote them down because I think A LOT about storytelling devices, stories structures, characterization and characters studies, world-building, fiction tropes, etc. and, since I’ve been a Resident Evil fan from age eight to this day, I also tend to spend a lot of time thinking about its characters – and the overall rest of its lore. Furthermore, as a way to help me write them in fanfictions or even in meta-analysis, I’m always thinking of what would make sense within these characters narratives and to their personalities.

Anyway. Back to Leon and his family!

There’s a very solid theory in RE Fandom that Raccoon City is set in Missouri. I really take this into account when I think about RE Characters because it helps me “placing them” before Raccoon, since not all of them were originally born/living there. Leon, for example, according to canon material, only decided to apply to be a police officer in Raccoon because “he was intrigued by the bizarre murders cases in Raccoon City” going in the news. 

Because of this, *my* Leon S. Kennedy:

– Was born in small Galena/Illinois. His parents moved to Chicago/IL when he was around 8;

– So, huge fan of the Chicago Bears (and the Chicago Bulls);

– Leon was lovingly raised by a very Catholic couple, Liliana and Isaac;

– Since Kennedy and Scott are, respectively, an Irish surname and a Scottish name and Leon is not an unusual name in Polish (check out about Polish Americans in Illinois and you’ll have a more proper comprehension of my thought process) and German cultures, I think Isaac would be a man of mixed Irish and Scottish heritage, and Liliana of Polish and German heritage;

– Although, his biological parents were actually Roberto (Italo-American punk) and Abigail, Liliana’s youngest sister;

– Robby was a drunken deadbeat, while Abbie was an airhead obsessively in love. Leon was conceived when they were both very young – his mom had sixteen and his dad eighteen;

– Liliana had three daughters (ages 10, 13 and 15) by then (1977), but she and Isaac always dreamed of having a little boy. They even tried to, but the attempts led to miscarriage after miscarriage, so when Abbie gave birth to Leon, the couple was pretty much devoted to their nephew, always visiting to see him and make sure he was properly being taken care of;

– Robby took note of all that and when Leon was only barely one year old, he packed his and Abbie’s stuff and imposed that he was leaving and that she should go with him, leaving the baby behind, telling her that surely Liliana would raise him as if he were hers;

– Indeed she did, albeit feeling distraught by her sister’s complete negligence;

– Isaac adored the boy, and Leon’s three cousins always treated him as their little brother;

– Also: Liliana decided she wanted to erase Abbie’s true connection to Leon, so she got rid of all the photographies that led to those deductions, leaving only the ones that showed baby Leon alone or the ones with the rest of his relatives, but not with his biological parents. Isaac never agreed with this, though. He believed that once Leon got older, he had the right to know his origins, believing that if their love for the boy was true he’d love them back and recognise their role in his life, so there was no need to lie. Thus, he kept a photo that featured Robby resting a hand in Abbie’s shoulder while she was breast-feeding Leon;

– Isaac was very ill when Leon was nearing his eighteenth birthday, and passed away just five months prior to Leon turning nineteen (Isaac was sixty-three years old by his time of death). Leon found that hidden photo after Isaac’s death since his dad left most of his personal belongings to Leon;

– Leon never confronted his mother on it, putting together two and two and realising his biological parents haven’t thought twice before abandoning him, so he shouldn’t bother with them either as he was raised in a genuinely loving and supportive family;

– As I said, Leon has three older sisters: Lydia (born 1962), Meryl (born 1964) and Olivia (born 1967). Two nephews from Lyds’ side, and a niece from Liv’s;

– Parents personalities: I picture Leon’s dad as a mixture of both Jonathan Kent (DC Comics) and Eddard Stark (ASoIaF). A firm, caring, kind, upfront and sincere man with high moral values, strong ethics and unwavering sense of justice, who valued honesty above all else and always believed in the best of people and in helping others, true to the “love your neighbour as yourself” commandment. Liliana was the more stern parent (especially with Lydia, always wanting and expecting her to set out a good example for her siblings), so I picture her as a fierce, proud and honest woman, passionately protective and supportive of her family, that dedicated herself entirely to whatever she put her mind into (domestic activities, city projects, EVERYTHING); 

– Lydia would be the “Patricia Arquette’s character in Boyhood (2014)” kind of woman. Kind-hearted, hardworking and amazing, but guilty as charged of the serious flaw of always being romantically involved with scumbags. A Geriatric Nurse, divorced twice, mother to Kilian and Luke – both kids from her first marriage;

– By the way, Kilian is a problem-child and Lucas is the emo kid. Leon has trouble dealing with both;

– On top of it, Leon have several difficulties dealing with Lydia. Being the most distant from him in age terms, Lydia always came off as a bit distant to and unnecessarily strict with him;

– Meryl is Leon’s lesbian best buddy. Confidant, a bit arrogant, always open to give advice, prone to bluntly point out faults in her loved ones and to get angry with Lydia. She graduated in architecture and is a state employee, working as an Urban Planner. Has cleaning OCD;

– Olivia is the sister Leon was closest to since it was with her he had the “smallest” age difference. Driven, headstrong, empathetic and an introvert, she’s actually the one who inspired him to join Law Enforcement and is now a detective in Massachusetts. Liv has a long-time relationship with Peter, whom she met during her childhood in school, and they have a daughter, Harriet (any coincidence with Olivia Dunham from Fringe (2008-2013) is on purpose since Olivia would be Leon’s perfect older sister, ok);

– Leon’s sense of humour takes much after his brother-in-law’s one, Peter, considering he spent a lot of time with him as he would be a frequent guest to their house;

– He fell in love for the first time when he was in middle school in his seventh grade with an eighth grade girl, Allison, who was an exceptionally good basketball player and would kick his ass in all the practice games;

– Allie has very evident native-American heritage, skin and eye colour, hair;

– It was Allie the long-time girlfriend who broke up with him right before Raccoon. She felt he was being distant even prior to his decision to be a cop in Raccoon City. In truth, what happened was that Leon feared his future being set stone too early in his life the way things were going. His wishes to have more agency over the shaping of his own destiny started driving him further and further away from Allie as he felt she was expecting their relationship to progress over time to the building of a family etc.;

– Meryl and Olivia both loved Allie and to this day they don’t get over the fact that Leon didn’t marry her;

– Leon unwillingly distanced himself from his sisters, though, only contacting them for birthday calls and holidays alike because of all of that government recruitment stuff and classified shit and also dealing with a heavy emotional load after surviving Raccoon;

– The only reason Hunnigan found out that Leon had living relatives was that Lydia called to give Leon the news of Liliana’s death in 2010 (by seventy-two years of age) on work-time. Leon, of course, was very shaken with the news;

– While Leon only knows what Ada herself lets him about her past, family, childhood and the circumstances that put her precisely where she is now, Ada knows everything there is to know about his past, family, childhood and the circumstances that placed him precisely where he is now because she’s very competent at her job and did her homework as a spy (this will die with her, but for countless times she fantasized about him confiding all of those mundane details of his life and backstory in her);

– I’m very convinced that in one of those nights Ada visited him for some hoochie coochie after like, six to eight months without seeing or talking to him at all, Leon had to break up the news that she came in in a bad time since he already planned for a Thanksgiving dinner with his sisters. Ada accepts the challenge because she’s been REALLY missing him (horny on main). Ah, and he’s quite upset with her because of that “six to eight months with no news at all” “little” issue. So, picture that. Please.

And that is all I have for “Leon’s family” headcanons. For now. As I warned: PLENTY. Hahahahaha, sorry! Hope this can provide some entertainment and delight to you.

[kimminstudying]

Note: I’m pretty sure I made this list last summer and since school finally over I figured I would reflect on these and see how well I did and how I could improve. Linked below is the original post that has all of the goals I will be talking about, but since I write them down here I’m sure you don’t need to read it to understand what I am talking about, but I put it there just in case. This is just a review of my goals from last year, I will create a separate post for my new goals for this summer and next year. 

The Original Post

⊳ Money

Goal #1: Work towards saving more of your paychecks ✓

I did a good job of saving money, but I went back and forth as time went on. During the summer I would spend money at work during my breaks but I was making way more than I am currently during the school year. I would still spend money like I was when I was making more, but when I learned that I got better at budgeting my cash. 

Now that I have a car and have a monthly bill for it as well as gas, I am getting better at saving the money I need for the said bill. 

I plan on moving out within the year so I need to save up as much as I possibly can. I am moving out with two of my best friends, if all goes as planned, we will be splitting rent and bills between the three of us. 

Goal #2: Put half of checking into a savings account on payday ✖ I did this for a while, but then I saw that it wasn’t really helping me as much as I thought it would. I would end up having like $6 in my checking account before payday comes so I didn’t see a point in just transferring $3 when I was going to get more of it, so what I did was estimate how much money I would need for the week and then put the rest in savings. If I knew I was going out or had bills to pay during that week, I would leave that money in the account. This proved to work way better for me than what I had originally planned to do. 

What I ended up doing was creating a separate savings account for my new house/apartment so I had an emergency account and a moving out account. I would only use my emergency account for things like bills, unpredicted expenses, or big purchases such as a new laptop for school and blogging. But I keep it at $500, just in case I needed it. Right now it’s at like $450 since I needed to pay my car bill and I didn’t work much this week, but what I do is I rebuild it as fast as possible and hopefully, I do not need to take more money out of it.

When I am rebuilding my emergency fund, not as much or no money goes into my “moving out” account, so I am more motivated to save money so I can get both accounts back in order. I am going back to my old job this summer, since it is seasonal work, and I know I am going to be working close to 40 hours a week since I will be 18 they would work me as much as possible, which I like since it’s a job I love with wonderful coworkers. Not to mention we get so many gift cards it’s not even funny. We all love free money. 

*Update: My family has encouraged me to stay home while I am studying at a college that I am commuting to. My father said he won’t charge me rent as long as he can afford to keep me at home and even if he does it won’t be more than $100 a month which he and I agreed on for a price. That account is now for saving up for a new car. 

Goal #3: Have a spending limit when going out ✓

This goes along with what I was saying before about leaving money in my checking account if I have plans to spend it. I like planning my week out and so I tell my friends if they want to make plans they need to do it a few days in advance so I can see if I don’t have work or scheduled time to study, since I am the “nerd” if my group, all of my friends respect how I plan things. 

They also respect when I tell them I don’t have money to go out. Sometimes I’d rather save my money than use it on movie tickets, of course with the occasional splurge here and there on a new pair of shoes or a delicious dinner. When times get like that, we all agree to do something else that is either really cheap or free, such as having a sleepover or going to the park. 

Goal #4: Establish an “okay amount” to spend daily on coffee, breakfast, etc. ✖

I also did this for a little while, putting away $15 every check to get coffee in the morning before school. Since saving money is a learning experience, I’m messing up now rather than ten or twenty years from now. Doing this put be at risk for developing bad spending habits, $3-$4 a day adds up way faster than you think, the next thing you know you’re spending over $50 in a month for morning coffee runs. Now I’m not saying I never go to buy food and coffee before or after school, sometimes it’s great to treat yourself by doing so. Typically, I buy creamers and coffee grounds to make at home and sometimes I’ll buy a bundle of bananas to last me the week. I saw that not only did it save me money, it also saved me about a half hour in the morning. Meaning a half hour more of sleep. 

While my coffee brews I walk my dog for a few minutes so she can go to the bathroom before everyone else in the house wakes up, and I start my car so it can run a bit before I leave. This is especially good since where I live the weather is unpredictable and it can frost over my windows at any time. If I catch this early enough I can defrost my windows before I go to school.

For about a month I would do something called “Fuck it Friday” where I bought coffee, snacks, whatever I wanted since I get paid every Friday. I saw that when I did this, I would just end up spending the amount I typically would in a whole week in one day, so I quickly stopped doing that and I plan on going back to making coffee at home. Goal #5: Add spare change to change dispenser in car ✖

I don’t use cash that often, which means I don’t really get change, but when I do have some lying around, it normally goes right into a bank I have in my room. When I have change in my car, I do tend to put it into the dispenser but then I’ll sometimes use it to give to the people asking for spare change or to buy a piece of candy at the store.

⊳ Languages

Goal #1: Take review notes of language material learned over the summer ✓

I did a really good job over the summer with posting a lot here, at least in my opinion, but when the school year started I posted a little less. In my first semester, I had a bit more time to post multiple times a week for multiple blogs, but when the second semester hit I began to prioritize my schooling over languages and blogs. I started to post at least once a week, but I noticed my language learning for Korean and Italian has gone down a lot because of it.

I take French in school so I practice it every day, and there are so many French posts I have drafted I’m in love. During the summer I worked more on Italian and Korean since my French was already way way way better, and I knew I would be taking it as a class during the school year.  Goal #2: Listen to podcasts in the halls instead of music ✖

I really was going to do this, but right as summer ended I lost my apple headphones and I was not going to spend thirty dollars or so to get new ones, so I just didn’t have podcasts. I have my old phone, which is a Samsung, for music so I just used that with regular headphones.

Even when I got apple headphones from my dad’s fiancee, I still didn’t really listen to podcasts. I think it’s because I don’t want to start a new one or a new audio lesson if I am just walking three minutes to my next class. When I go back to my old job, however, that’ll change. It’s part of a program with my school for getting students into the workforce, so there is a bus that provides us with transport. I have a 45-minute ride there and an over 2-hour long ride back. No excuses to not listen to a podcast or two!

Goal #3: Mondly/Duolingo and Lingodeer during breakfast/as a part of your morning routine ✖

I used to be really good at doing these daily, but then I lost motivation. Even before I would never have a long streak, but I would just try to do it as often as possible to make up for it. There was a time where I didn’t even look at these apps for over a month, but I didn’t notice much of a change in my language comprehension. But I want to get back into it since I don’t have a lot of time now to sit down and do a couple of grammar lessons.  Goal #4: Post weekly to studyblr/langblr for Italian and Korean review notes of what you studied over the summer. ✓

Again, I feel like I did a better job with this during the summer and my first semester of this year. I have several vocab lists saved just in case I don’t feel like studying but I need to do my weekly post. There are some times when I’ll be really motivated for no reason and just make like twelve vocab lists and I draft them for future use.

⊳ Health/Lifestyle

Goal # 1: Wake up at 6am ✓

Waking up early does not equal productivity, I learned that the hard way. I wake up that early for school, but during the weekends or on breaks I wake up normally at 8-9am if I don’t have to work that morning, which I rarely do since I work the night shift (typically around 1-12am I work). 

Goal # 2: Go to bed at 10pm - 11pm ✖

If I am not working I go to bed at around 11pm at the latest, but there are some nights I get home at around 11:30 so I don’t sleep until 1-2am. This is usually weekends so I don’t have an issue since in my state it’s illegal to work minors after 10pm on a school night and 11pm on a weekend. 

But now that I’m 18 and it’s summer, I can anticipate a lot of overnight shifts or longer hours! I’m not complaining, I’d rather work at night than in the daytime anyway. 

Goal # 3: 5-minute workouts or 10-minute abs in the morning and evening or after school  ✖ Hahaha, I never did this. I’m never gonna do this.   Goal # 4: Floss more ✖ Not happening either, that’s too much man. It’s not that big in my life to floss, even if my dentist tells me to do it more. I have no cavities, no gum issues, so I’m good. Goal # 5: Take your medicines daily ✓ This I’ll admit, I need to do more. Sometimes I’ll go a few days without my meds, but it’s not important that I take them daily, since they are “as needed” medicines. I should take them at least every other day, but I am getting better at that.  Goal # 6: Morning and Nightly Skin Care Routine ✓ I started off slow by only doing my routine in the morning and then occasionally going a nightly routine. My skin is really sensitive so this worked for me, putting on too much product would either make my skin too dry or too oily. If the weather is affecting my skin, I’ll add on an extra moisturizer if need be. 

Basically, I only do a night time routine when I get home from work or school late and my face feels really gross. Since I shower at night I wash my face with a gentle cleanser in the shower. That’s usually it. 

Goal # 7: Face mask while you study ✓   Doing facemasks too often also negatively affects my skin as well. I normally do one when I’m with my friends or when my skin really needs it. 

Goal # 8: Drink more water ✖

Again, I need to do this way more often than I do. I think this is mainly because the water fountains at my school are utterly disgusting. I don’t know if it’s because our school is under construction, but it’s always been gross if I remember correctly. 

⊳ School

Goal #1: SAT Fee Waiver ✓ 

THIS SAVES LIVES. At my school, if you have free or reduced lunch, you get fee waivers for all sorts of things. AP Exams, Applications, even SAT Exams. You only get two for the SAT so you need to use them wisely. Most students don’t even know that their school offers fee waivers that either cover costs completely or reduce the fee. Make sure you ask, it doesn’t do any harm!

Goal #2: October SAT  ✓

I took the October SAT and got a 1050, which is way over than what the school I wish to go to is asking for. Then I retook the exam in June since I had one more waiver left, and I got a 1080. Now the college I want to go to has a 960 SAT Average and I needed at least a 500 on the Math and English portions to be exempt from the entrance exams.

Goal #3: Research application deadlines ✓ My school was a big help with this, especially since I’m starting at community college for my first two years. I’m accepted as a student and have already selected my classes, but there were some issues with my FASFA that I still need to resolve.  Goal #4: Check scholarship board ✓ My school was also a big help with this as well, they print out all the available scholarships for that month, the criteria, AND the due dates! All I had to do was complete the applications, no fishing for free money. 

Goal #5: Study at least 15 minutes a day ✓

I was strong with this with my first semester classes, since I enjoyed the work and had daily tasks I needed to do for one of the classes. When the second semester came, things changed. Most of my classes are easy, no homework and very little classwork that I got done early. All but AP Calc. 

The way my teacher is, he doesn’t grade the problem sets he assigns. He’ll give us class participation points if we are working in class, but the problems are mainly for our own benefit. I don’t let myself not do the problems just because I won’t get a grade I’m struggling in that class now and I do all that I can to bring my grade up, but it’s not really doing much. If this is the only class I fail, then I’m glad it's AP Calculus AB and not English or something. I don’t need calc to graduate or to still obtain scholarships, it was an extra class I regret taking. 

⊳ Misc.

Goal #1: Watch more Netflix when stressed ✓ I found that I’m not much of a TV or Show person unless it’s a really good show that I get hooked on. I’d much rather destress by having time to myself and browsing social media for hours.  Goal #2: Take your time with everything ✓ This allowed me to get better with time management, taking things slow, thinking carefully, and making myself okay with the idea of rescheduling plans. Goal #3: Think before you speak/act ✓ Doing this made me do things I was glad I did and knew I would never do if I hadn’t thought it out. I became the friend who would do and say the things everyone else was afraid of.  Goal #4: Try listening to others about their day ✓ This kind of went along with the goals #2 and #3 but this also worked out for me and I feel it made me somewhat of a better person??? Yea, just listen to people when they talk to you and ask them questions. Let them know you care about them, you don’t know how much it could raise their spirits.  Goal #5: Attend Coalition meeting (every third Friday) ✖ As much as I wanted to, I could not attend meetings. I didn’t have an adult representative from my school to escort me and possibly other students, therefore I could not attend meetings. 

~brianna

[peachofyourheart]

How To Be A Professional Author And Not Die Screaming And Starving In A Lightless Abyss

Your reading today comes in the form of this Medium article by Heather Demetrios: “How To Lose A Third Of A Million Dollars Without Even Trying.” It’s a good article. I feel deeply for the writer, because this shit we do comes with no real map. No creative map, no story map, no industry map, no money map. “HERE IS A BUNCH OF MONEY,” a sinister shadowy figure says in an alley. “IN SIX MONTHS, WE WILL EXTRACT FROM YOU A BOOK, AND THEN THE DEAL IS COMPLETE.” And then the shadowy figure is gone, and all you’re left with is the crisp smell of burning paper and a mysterious whisper in the well of your ear that says, “deckle edge.”

But, the good news is, there exist answers to a lot of these conundrums, and so I’m going to do some painting-with-shotguns here and try to broad-stroke some thoughts and answers about the challenges this writer faced in her Authorial Journey.

Your Agent Is There To Help You

You need an agent, and a good agent who will explain to you this stuff — an agent who answers questions you don’t know to ask and who also (obviously) answers the questions you do ask. Now, an agent isn’t psychic, and I’m gonna guess a lot of them default to expecting you know some of this stuff, or they’re so brined and pickled in the industry they’re like fish swimming in water who don’t know what “water” even is anymore. Which leads me to highlight the next point:

Definitely Ask Questions

Deeeefiniiiiitely totally utterly absoflogginlutely ask questions. All kinds of questions. No questions are foolish, especially when it regards your career, your finances, your future. Ask your agent. Ask your editor. Ask anybody you know in the industry. Ask other writers! I have found other writers to be a wonderful well of fresh, clean water when it comes to that sort of thing. Certainly I must acknowledge that I feel the SFF genre is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to industry folks willing to share their experiences and offer answers. Oh! Speakawhich, may I recommend Dongwon Song’s PUBLISHING IS HARD newsletter?

Definitely Ask Questions From Multiple Sources

Crowdsource better answers by getting multiple answers. That’s it, that’s the deal. One answer may not be comprehensive. Also, authors are not always right about how things work. Hell, I’m probably wrong about stuff in this very post. Also, if your agent isn’t clear on this stuff, or won’t answer questions, fire that agent out of a cannon, and into the mouth of a great white shark.

Publishing Money Is Fucking Weird

Publishing, particularly big publishing (sorry, Big Publishing, aka Big Book, or The Bibliodeities of Mannahattan) pays advances ahead of your royalties. Smaller advances mean you’re likelier to earn out, but a small advance also does little for you up front. Larger advances mean you’ve got a considerably larger “cost of life” cushion, but are less likely to earn out.

Your contract likely stipulates you get paid a certain amount up front — a third of the contract, let’s say — upon signing, and then you get paid the rest of your advance usually in chunks when you meet certain milestones. Turned in first draft, or final draft, or upon publication. I have found these milestones to be different at different publishers (and I’ve worked with a lotta publishers).

You owe 15% of that to your agent/agency.

Earning out is a theoretically straightforward affair — calculate how much you make per book based on the percentage royalty driven by format. Let’s say 10% per hardcover sale, or 25% of an e-book. But there, we enter into squirmy, less certain territory already. If Amazon discounts your book, do you make the 10% on the cover price, or the sale price? (My understanding here is, it depends on who initiates that sale. Amazon initiates, you get it on full. Publisher initiates, you get on the publisher’s choice of price.) So, every sale of a book is earning you a specific amount of money —

So, if my book Wanderers is a hardcover at $28.99, I theoretically make ~$2.90 per sale of that. And an e-book at $13.99 earns me ~$3.50, so from there I should easily be able to calculate what it would take in this round to “earn out,” but I’ve done that math on other books, and I’ve never found it particularly accurate. Why? Because it actually isn’t that simple. Between audio sales and library sales and less traditional sales channels and then book returns (yes, bookstores return unsold stock sometimes and that can ding you), it starts to become a bit of occult calculus that only sorcerers can understand. You can kinda eyeball it? You can make some educated guesses as to how many books you’ll have to sell to earn out, but even then, how many in what format? Some books sell 75% in e-book. Some sell only 25% in e-book. Wanderers, to my shock, has had a rough split of 33/33/33% across print, e-book, audio. Could I have foretold that? Nope.

If you know how many books you sold, that would help, but —

It’s Hard To Know How Many Books You’ve Sold

Publishers are starting to catch up to the fact that authors want to know how well they’re selling (weird, who knew?) — Penguin Random House has a pretty robust, snap-to-it site that has daily updates to your book’s sales. It’s nice to have, if not necessarily useful at every step. And it’s not always wholly accurate, either, which honestly isn’t their fault — we imagine an age where every strand of every industry is plucked with every sale, neatly and nicely updating the total, but as with every industry, it’s less an elegant web and more a clumsy knot. Retailers are independent and not plugged into one another. Each store is not lightning fast in how they respond to things. Even Amazon on the back-end is, from my understanding, kind of a hot mess.

(It’s funny, I’ve met with Amazon multiple times under the auspices of, “Tell us how to help authors more.” Arguably because they want to help more than publishers do, making friends of authors directly, beyond publisher relationships — which, ennnh, okay. Still, I always tell them one thing: GIVE AUTHORS MORE DATA. Tell us our sales! Tell us our Kindle sales in particular! Tell us when people quit reading our books! And they say OOH YES GOOD POINT and then it never happens and hahaha good times.)

Treat Your Publishing Money Like A Demonic Bargain

You should always be fairly dubious of that money. Not that it’ll disappear — it’s just, it’s wildly inconsistent, as I hope I’ve made clear. It’s inconsistent in its timing, in its amount, in everything. It’s constantly shifting ground, and that unsteadiness of the financial earth should leave you particularly touchy. The ground can crack and fall out at any point, which is why you need to budget. Planning is key for a writer’s life, and that’s hard, because we’re a sack of cats, mentally. But you gotta know how to portion it out, and you have to see down the road to where the money is coming from. (As a sidenote, it’s why it’s vital not to give up too many rights — foreign, film/TV, other licensing opportunities — to the publisher. Those random drops of money, while totally not-count-on-able, can be helpful just the same.)

Oh also ha ha ha the taxes are killer.

You’re gonna pay taxes on that.

And they’re not fun.

Budget, budget, budget. At any meaningful levels of money coming in, GET THEE AN ACCOUNTANT, and possibly even hie thee hence to forming an LLC, which can, at high enough income levels, drop your tax burden a little bit. Others will sell LLCs as also being able to defer liability but most lawyers and accountants I’ve asked about this suggest it’s a bit of a myth.

It’s hard to get a mortgage as a writer, if you’re the only income.

Trust me when I tell you that. Doesn’t matter what you earn, you don’t fit into a box that they can neatly check on the application, so you’re a strange animal to the mortgage broker, like a Zebra who fucked a Dolphin and who is also from the future? We’ll talk more about DAY JORBS in a minute.

Cost Of Living Is A Real Thing

The cost of living is tied to where you live. And so, your Publishing Dollar goes a lot farther in places where the cost of living is lower. In other words, if you’re going to choose to live in The City (that city being NYC, SF, whatever), you are almost certainly fucking yourself in every uncomfortable position.

Now, the opposite of that is, sometimes you get advice that amounts to demanding you live in some unpleasant nowheresville — and that’s fine, if you’re fine with it. I’m not. My publishing money could go much farther if I lived, say, 100 miles to the west, but instead, I live where I live. It’s not a profoundly expensive place, especially compared to, say, NYC, but it’s also not as cheap as, say, Ohio. But (nothing personal) I do not want to live in Ohio, I want to live where I live, because of culture, because of education, because of access to places like NYC or Philly or the Lehigh Valley, and so here I dwell, even if my Publishing Dollar would go farther in Nebraska or even in the middle of my own state. As writers, I find we do thrive a little bit based a little on the place we live — and so, live where you want to live, just be aware that there are concessions to be made if you do, and costs for that choice. But also, probably don’t live in NYC or SF. Live near them, ok. In them, not so much.

Back To Those Pesky Advances

I have been fortunate enough to have a somewhat gentle arc to my career — a nice hill of slowly advancing advances. I started small, with four figures, and have added zeroes as time went on. It’s been a slow boil but I prefer that, because it demonstrates what I hope is an increasing audience and quality of books. The worry is when you jump through the gate and someone hands you a fat sack of six figures and it’s like — boy howdy, you’ve probably got nowhere to go but down. Debuts tend to get an almost weird amount of attention (same as how the first book in a series nearly always gets 1000% more publishing attention than the second or third), but even with that, it’s hard to see how a New Author is going to just Rocket to the Moon on a first, big book. It can happen! It has and will again. But just know that opening big is a trickier gambit. It’s like, you wrote some songs and have a guitar and OOPS now you’re headlining Coachella ha ha good luck I’m sure you’ll be fine.

Wait I Didn’t Even Talk About Bucket, Or Joint, Accounting

Back to the tricky calculus of “earning out” — it gets trickier when you realize that some deals don’t just demand you earn out one book, but rather, all the books in your contract. The advances-per-book are put in a bucket, and so you must out-earn the bucket amount, not the per-book amount, before you start seeing royalties beyond your advances. This can be tricky with a series, let’s say, where the first book does well, and where no subsequent book is likely to do better than that first book — it robs you a chance of earning out with one book even if you don’t on the next two, let’s say.

How Marketing Is Tied To Advance

In general (and nothing is ever universal in this industry), the higher the advance, the more money the publisher has in their budget to support the book, particularly in terms of marketing, advertising, and publicity. On the one hand, this makes sense, right? Your book is an investment, and so they don’t wanna invest a bunch of money and then just have it fail — so they contribute more money and infrastructure toward paying off that investment. But it also means that lower advances can mark you in the “uhhh let’s throw it at the wall and see what sticks!” category, which is tough. It puts a lot of burden on you. And that burden is often unfairly thought of as being high effective buuuuut

You Are Never As Effective As A Publishing Budget

Trust me when I say, you can do a lot as an author to encourage people to read your books. But also trust me when I say, a publisher’s efforts in this realm is multiplicative compared to what you can achieve. Stay in this industry long enough — and so much of this industry is exactly that, just staying in the goddamn game — and you will reliably detect when a publisher is spending money on a book. You can tell because it’ll have buzz, it’ll get media placement, you’ll have appearances, and so on. You can also tell when they haven’t done shit for your book. Even if you yourself have done a lot!

Do you need a website? Probably. Doesn’t need to be fancy, but shouldn’t look like a half-ass botch-job, either. Should work on mobile and all that.

Do you need swag? I’m of a mind that it moves zero needles, and I’ve never seen data that it moves needles, and it just seems to be a thing authors have internalized that they need?

Do you need a tour? I mean, I dunno. At a debut level, I’d say no. As with crowdfunding anything, you need an audience already in place to make that make sense. Better to do cons and conferences, I think, at earlier levels, though other authors may disagree.

This is part of the trick, by the way: advice for a debut author, and for a mid-list author, and for a mid-career author, and for a hugely successful author, are very, very different. It can in fact be as individual as writing process. It’s all broad strokes, so take everything even here with many many grains of salt.

A whole salt lick, even.

Your Day Job? Don’t Quit It

This will be the 1000th time I’ve said this and I’ll say it a million more: don’t quit your day job. When do you quit your day job? When the work is at such a level that you either have to quit writing, or quit the day job. That’s it. When you’re up against the wall and you see, “I can’t write these books and also still go to work every day,” that’s a signal. (And ideally it’s a decision made easily because you’re making enough money at writing that it makes both financial sense and is a financial necessity.)

But otherwise? Hang tight. You’ll have no health care. As I said, mortgages will be harder to get. Everything is a little harder when you’re a ROGUE AUTHOR FREELANCE MERC out there in the PUBLISHING WASTELAND. Bonus: have a spouse who has health care and a steady job.

Note, again, I’m fortunate enough to be the sole income for our household as a writer. And I’m doing okay, and am comfortable. But I also still have these difficulties, and the erratic payment schedules can be brutal. All of it adds up to:

Have Plans On Top Of Plans

It’s like, if you live in the PNW, you probably have an Earthquake Preparedness Kit? You need that as an author. (Er, metaphorically speaking. Authors are not subject to actual earthquakes in particular.) Squirrel away money. Have plans on top of plans. What if your genre collapses? What if your agent quits? What if your next advance is way too low to survive upon? What if the economy shits the bed? Have a plan for next year, for five years, for ten. Envision how you remain in this game. A writing career is, as I’ve noted before, a CLIFF MITIGATION EXERCISE. You are eternally speeding toward the cliff’s edge. You might careen off that edge and into a ravine and crash in a spectacular fashion at the end of every contract. And so you need to imagine how — before it happens! — you’re gonna build a ramp or a bridge or some rocket boosters or shit. You gotta Evel Knievel that cliff somehow — but how? New genre? New age range? Break into comics? Some self-publishing on the side? Have plans inside plans inside plans. Especially if shit goes sideways. My day to day is spent thinking 50% about what stories I want to write and 50% what I’m going to do to keep my career going. Which leaves me little time for like, BASIC LIFE-BRAIN FUNCTIONS, so uhhh oops?

To Add In, And To Sum Up

– Publishing is fucking nuts, and trying to understand it is like trying to win a staring contest with the Eye of Sauron, but you gotta try, or you’ll die

– JESUS CHRIST ask some questions, seriously

– Publishing is not a lottery, and you need to treat it like a serious business venture where you’re given the squalling baby of a writing career and your job is to keep that thing alive and somehow get it to college, and if someone wants to put that writing career baby in college before it’s learned to walk, you should be very very wary of that

– Drink the fancy cocktails when you visit NYC, but don’t live there, for Christ’s sake

– Not every publisher is the same, some are fucking amateur hour karaoke, and some are well-trained machine assassins who never miss their shot

– You don’t control what a publisher does; get me drunk and I’ll tell you STORIES

– You should definitely know when your book is coming out and not via Google Alert, like, just ask, just ask your editor or ask your agent to ask your editor (your agent can be a very good “bad cop” if you need them to be, and they should be eager to fill that position, because a good agent is working for YOU, not for their relationship with the publisher), AHHH ASK QUESTIONS

– Art and Commerce are fiddly, uncomfortable fuck-buddies, they’re always fucking, but they’re always fighting too — but that doesn’t absolve you from cleaving only to the art and failing to learn about the commerce side of things

– You’re never dead in this industry until you stay dead, otherwise, get up, claw your way out of the grave, write the next book, change your name if you have to, change an agent, change genre, whatever; you do it because you love this thing and being undead is cooler than being regular dead

ANYWAY

There is probably shit I’m missing.

Feel free to ask questions — I may not get to them quickly, as I am dealing with lots of LIFE STUFF right now. (I wrote this post in a bit of much-needed down-time.)

If you like this post, and find it helpful, don’t buy me a cup of coffee.

Buy WANDERERS. Or tell your friends. Or leave a review.

Lest I die starving and screaming in a lightless abyss.

[moonraccoon-exe]

(1) Hi, you fluffiest raccoon on planet earth! *snuggles* So Zelda is your favorite game? I haven‘t played a single one of them sadly but my big brother lets me play Breath of the Wild soon on his switch because it really really interests me. I always saw Link in other Games like Smash Bros and all the stuff I saw around the internet made me curious. So I will definitely play Breath of the Wild soon. And about the Witcher. Well, it wouldn‘t hurt if you played the first two games first,

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASPS

PERIDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :DDDDDDDD

*TACKLES AND SNUGGLES*

PERIDOT, MY DEAR FRIEND, IT U!! ZOMG HI HELLO!!! :3

Edit: Ahahahahha, either Tumblr messed up with new settings and buttons or this extension that I added to have the old blue back but added more buttons too and I accidentally posted before answering lol

You come back after the log off protest so you can read it no worries, Peridot!! Because I may finish this but rather late for you so you go to bed, aye? Talk to you in a week! :3

(this may look like a full answer but it’s just in process buddy. Imma tell you above the keep reading when it’s finished. Gods, sorry for wrong posting hahaha!!)

PERIDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

*KEEPS SNUGGLING*

You most WONDERFUL MUFFIN, I’m happy to get to be answering to you again!! How have you been? I hope you’ve been doing better regarding that other issue. It’s not easy or light so you take your time recovering and making your peace with it, aye buddy? I’m still sending you my good vibes and wishes, standing with you even if only from far away. You can do it, buddy. Take your time. *pets you*

And yes, Zelda must be my fave! Sometimes I feel shy saying it because there’s always the idiot that says that if you haven’t played all the games in the franchise you’re not a fan and that’s stupid to me lol. But yeh, I really love all the Zelda universe aksljdfadlkjg :3

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASPS

YOU GET TO PLAY BREATH OF THE WILD?!?!!?

I WOULD INSERT THE GIF OF THE HYSTERICAL BIRD SCREECHING BUT KEEP READING DOESN’T WORK IN MOBILE AND I DON’T WANT TO SPAM OTHER’S DASHBOARDS EVEN MORE I JUST KALSDJ FLKDGJ ALKDJA

*FREAKS OUT* *FLIPS THE DESK* *FLIPS THE WHOLE GALAXY*

*SHRIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK*

YOUR BRO HAS A SWITCH AND HE HAS BREATH OF THE WILD AND YOU GET TO PLAY IT!?!?!? AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH PERIDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT LKASJDFKLGD KLJADJ ADLKGJA KLGJEOIJ DLKGADKLG ADJLKJAF

*DIES AND ASCENDS TO THE HEAVENS*

OH MY GOD PERIDOT, BREATH OF THE WILD IS LIKE A REVOLUTIONARY ZELDA, I HAVEN’T GOTTEN TO PLAY IT BECAUSE THE SWITCH IS SO EXPENSIVE OVER HERE AND MY FAM’S NOT IN CONDITIONS TO GET ONE AND EVER SINCE BOTW HAS BEEN OUT I’VE BEEN A WHINY SQUEAKY MESS BECAUSE HOLY SHIT IT LOOKS FANTASTIC, IT LOOK NUTS, IT LOOKS OTHERWORLD AND IT’S APPARENTLY GOING TO HISTORY AS ONE OF TH EBEST ZELDA (either that or I personally just got too excited lol) AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

YOU GET TO PLAY BOTW AKSLDJFKLADJGKDALJG AZOMYGUFKCINGGOD PERIDOT ENJOY IT WHOLEHEARTEDLY AND IMMENSELY!!!!!!!!!!! ZOMG ZOMG I’M SO EXCITED AND HYPED AND OH MY GAWD YOU GET TO PLAY BOTW KALSJDF GDKLDAJKADLGJ KLA DKLDGJDAG KLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I HOPE YOU GET TO PLAY IT SOON AND THAT YOU HAVE A BLAST AND A PHENOMENAL AND THE MOST FANTASTIC TIME PLAYING IT, PERIDOT, BUDDY!!!!!!!!!!

Link is one of my absolute FAVES and babies and I protecc. I think that you’ll like him and the games. Did you know his name is Link because when they were planning the first games, the creator wanted you to see yourself reflected in the character? So that’s why he has no voice (other than his yelps and yells) and is mostly named ‘Link’, because he’s supposed to be a link between the player and the game, it’s supposed to be someone you channel yourself into even if just slightly. Also explains a bit of his physical looks; they say they wanted Link to look like a girl with boy attributes or like a boy with feminine attributes so anyone could feel related to him :3

BUT ENOUGH OF MY RANT, it’s just my love for this boy and everything of the Zelda universe is MY LOVE KLASDJKLADGJ 

Ooooooh, I see what you mean with the whole thing about the Witcher and whether I need to play the first 2 first. I’m catching that it’s sorta like Dragon Age? Like, there’s a kaload of books and info and the other 2 games that come first, but I’m not missing anything like...I can make sense to it. Still, however, it would be more...rich if I could play the first 2 games. I’d understand the story and the lore better, I’d have a better comprehension of the world and the history, and I’d know characters better and deeper.

Still, playing straight from the 3rd game is fine. I’m just missing things in that sort of way but it’s understandable and fine. That’s how I catch it, at least! :)

Well, if that’s the case, I may give a thought to getting the Witcher 3 one day. I do have heard it’s like a classic or a very dear game to many, many people, so I sure should try it out. Thanks for filling me in on whether it was fine to play the third alone or not!! Imma search for the books, as well. Reading is quite a passion for me and if I can complement reading with gaming...gawds, that sounds like HEAVEN

GASPS

I didn’t know Geralt had a daughter!!!!!!!! :O THAT MAKES THE STORY SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO SO SO SO SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH MORE INTERESTING AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

One of the many reasons I’m so intimate with XV is that it’s got a deep and intimate deal with father-son subjects, which makes me sort of weak. And knowing this about the Witcher makes it even more interesting!! Because it sounds like such a complex character with a complex purpose. One looks at him and it’s easy to think that he’s just a tough guy that, I don’t know, is a mercenary and looks for prizes and fame or something, or like he’s defending his dead wife’s memory and taking revenge, something savage and brutal like a Tough Guy, you know?

But the fact that he’s actually looking for his daughter? FUCK, THIS FUCKS ME UP INT HE BEST WAY POSSIBLE *SHRIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK*

I’m SO in love with storyes that don’t revolve around romance. Like, side romance is FANTASTIC, but when it’s like....the center itself, the core? BORING. But family or friend bonds? Siblings? F A T H E R  A N D  D A U G H T E R???????

SHIT FAM SIGN ME IN WHY THE HELL AM I NOT PLAYING THIS GAME RIGHT NOW AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH AKLJSFGK DL JADKLGJDAKLGAJDH ADKLGJALKHJ FAHKLFAJLKDF ADKLGHJ ADHLKA

*CRIES*

PERFECT. BRILLIANT. There’s no better character arc/construnction than that of a tough guy fighting for the reasons that can come off as “not rough”. Looking for a daughter is SAVAGE AND BRUTAL AF but it’s not that common ya know. It’s usually revenge,t he love of his life, or something like that. But a tough guy looking for his baby girl? YAS. FAHK. I NEED I NEED I NEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED

*THROWS A TANTRUM AND DOES GRABBY HANDS*

Hahaha, don’t worry about ranting to me about the game!! I understand your joy and excitement, and it’s okay to keep talking about it. It DOES sound like a PHENOMENAL game so of course you’d love to talk more and more about it!! :D