#because i get so bogged down on if my story is good enough for other people and if others would like it

[charbroiledchicken]

if it's good enough for you, then it deserves to be made. don't let anyone else decide if your story is worth it or not.

[venusloverblue]

Toy

Being someone's favorite toy is a fun reality. You are always present in their life, they always take you into account. You become useful. You even come to believe that your life will be this way: so simple, so delicate, so loving. You are wrong, a new toy arrives, one in better condition, one that surpasses you on all sides. You stop being the favorite, you become disposable.

Now your world is a nightmare; what you thought distant became your reality. You regret having become a toy. You want to escape the plastic, you want to be yourself again. You can't, no one can. That someone turns you into their nostalgia toy; you are only used when they miss the past. You want to cry, you want to laugh, you want to dance, you want to escape. You don't want this ending.

Time passes, dust becomes your protective layer from the outside world; this has become monotonous. It no longer looks for you, it no longer remembers you. You have become an accumulator of cobwebs; they are good friends. Your tears stopped falling long ago, but the sadness has not dissipated. Screaming to the sky for help is your last option, you don't want the plastic around you. Breathing the fresh air sounds like a better idea; maybe up there they'll listen to you and take pity on you, but for now you'll remain a toy.

- luisi (me)

[towersofviolet]

surprised to see multiple instances of people saying they struggle with asimov's prose or find it off-putting to the point of putting down the books... and i didn't get that at all? in fact my experience was the complete opposite. i read the last question and liked his style so much i sought out i robot, and then caves of steel after that. i even remarked on the readability to someone. so not sure why my experience was so different?

[alexandraisyes]

What would happen if you were a writer for TSAMS?

I mean we'll never know unless we try, however-

God the temptation to make jokes about shipping ajfsdkg;ljfasd;l

In all seriousness I'm good at finding and fixing plot holes and writing consistent storylines. I've been writing solo for years, and recently I've been co-writing fics for this fandom. And stars I'll say it now, obviously I wouldn't drag fan ships into the canon lore, that would be stupid considering most of them just wouldn't work with canon.

If I had the chance to write for TSAMS I would definitely try to influence the way certain things (specifically things like mental disorders) are portrayed, because I understand being part of the audience and the frustration of only seeing part of the story and missing an entire important perspective. I personally find so much enjoyment in that because I get to tear everything apart, dissect it, and put it back together so the fandom can understand what the story is portraying, but the fact that someone is required to tear it apart to get what should have been an obvious message most of the time is an issue, in my opinion.

A consistent problem I've noticed with TSAMS is that it's overly omnipotent on some things while being too closed about others. This is a narrative problem that stems from not having enough time to figure out the best approach for new situations they want to incorporate. This is because the writers/VAs are so bogged down by personal projects, stream schedules, their servers, life, etc that they just don't have time to figure these things out. Especially when the company is pushing for more content/lore episodes and they're just a team of four. Four very very busy individuals that have to write AND voice act the entire cast of characters. I feel like having someone who is just a writer would help with a lot of the inconsistency and unresolved plot holes.

There's a lot of strong potential for things that would stem back as far as two years that would be so interesting to see incorporated, but they just don't have the time to work through those and it's easier to keep jumping on new boats and abandoning the ones they have to sink because of unresolved tears in the plot letting more inconsistencies trickle in like so much water. So I would absolutely work to correct those and clean up the holes and resolve unanswered questions.

I'd also push for more consistent characterization, or rather better worded, deeper characterization. Not that they don't have good characterization now, overall I think they do a decent job, but there are just some things that I wish they'd touch on more. Likes, dislikes, disorders, complications, relationships, etc. What really makes up these characters; I'd probably end up with a complicated character web for the main cast at the very least to help with consistent storytelling. I do this with my own AUs to keep characters consistent, including quirks (For example Solar Flare always refers to people by their full name in my writing). It would also be interesting to dig deeper into what makes the characters them. Their personalities, beliefs, interests, morality/standards (for those without morals), and what they did and didn't find traumatic (as well as what level of trauma).

God even just the thought of how I could potentially fix the dumpster fire (/affectionate /positive) of TSAMS and co is a little exciting because there's just so much potential lying around untampered with that I would happily dig my grubby little claws into.

[dynamic-swap-au-archive]

I'd like to offer gorillaz fans (and Potential gorillaz fans) another resource that I've spent over a year creating and perfecting.

The Gorillaz !

This playlist is, to the best of my ability, Every Single piece of gorillaz content that can be found on youtube in story order.

all of the music videos, all of the indents, all of the interviews, animations, radio shows, news specials, podcasts, audio books, tiktoks, Everything.

on top of that ! I made the decision to include select fan content! because Frankly the gorillaz fandom is unimaginably talented and creative. this includes Fully animating several music videos that were cancelled, but given to us in animatic form, original animations, animatics, and storyboards, fan visualizers and recreations of live visuals, even voice fan dubs for written material like the interviews and novels.

and more than that, with the (incredible) fan content that was available I've Also been able to flesh out the stories of each phase! a decision I made due to the plastic beach, the third album, never getting to finish the story officially (leading to the band breaking up and coming back 7 years later).

I'm so proud of what I've been able to do with it ! and even happier to share the picture I've been able to make as a whole :>

below the cut I'm going to include several other playlists that are based on this one, but made to be more digestible and less intimidating for newcomers ! as well as many other resources to fill in the gaps that this playlist can't ! (namely the written material)

thank you ! and I hope I can share something I love with all of you !

First is the simplest ! all of the music videos in order ! (plus a Few indents, because I can't help myself): [Link]

this obviously means that you lose out on quite a bit of context, as much of who the characters are as People and their relationships together are in the extra material (especially the shorts and interviews). BUT

this is the most Accessible, and also really convenient if you just want to vibe to the music. if you're not sure if you want to commit this kind of time to a cartoon band, consider checking this out! you may find yourself interested enough to learn more, or you may just have a good time and feel satisfied with what you've seen ! either way I'd be honored to have helped :>

Second, the Midpoint between these two extremes !: Phase 1-3 [Link] Phase 4-7 [Link]

these Include extra material like the shorts and animation, but Cuts Out some of the longer content like the podcasts and interviews! you can still get a pretty good idea about what happens in the story of each phase watching this, but it's not bogged down by videos that are hours long.

it'll give you a clearer picture of what's going on, include fun side content, while being less intimidating than the Full playlist. this is what I use to show my friends gorillaz !

alright, so you've got just the music videos and just the short stuff, now lets try just the Long stuff. all of the interviews, radio shows, podcasts, Etc: [Link]

maybe you've used my last playlists and now you'd like to listen to some of those long form videos you missed out on. maybe you just want to listen to these characters talk because it's Nice. either way, it's all here :> (I know, because I had to upload some of them myself)

Pirate Radio: [Link]

it's all here with One technical exception. pirate radio was the serial radio show for plastic beach/phase 3, that gave us insight into murdoc's frame of mind as a character. it Also used copywriten music. the reuploads on youtube cut the music out (likely because they wouldn't be available otherwise), while this google drive has the full unedited audio files if anyone would be interested!

this one may seem redundant, but I promise it isn't. All of the gorillaz albums in order: [Link]

this playlist (for the most part) doesn't Have any visuals, it's Only the music.

likewise, all of the music in the previous playlists are only those songs that Have visuals (official or fan made), which means not all of gorillaz's music is present! which is exactly what this is for :>

you have every album in order, filling in the gaps of what's been missed, As Well As special albums that are Associated with gorillaz, and gorillaz' guest appearances in other people's music !

now we're out of my playlists and into other resources :>

Lobotomy Pop: [Link]

this is a website that's worked for years to preserve and organize Every Single written interview gorillaz has ever done ! it's an invaluable resource and really just very cool.

it also categorizes several other things ! such as listing out all of the personal playlists the gorillaz members have put out over the years, or every profile that's ever been written for the characters ! it's very much so worth checking out as a fan.

Gorillaz Art Archive: [Link]

exactly what is says on the tin ! this is a google drive that's attempting to archive Every Single piece of official gorillaz art that was released from phase 1 in 2001, to phase 5 in 2018. it is Massive and it's such a joy to have access to

The Kong Files: [Link]

if you were wondering why the art archive stopped at 2018, this would be why ! the kong files has much the same goal, but instead picking up at phase 6 and continuing on Theoretically forever ! or at least it's kept up with all of phase 7

that said ! the kong files is attempting to document Everything relating to those phases. so all of the social media, all of the music videos, all of the written text, Everything !

I wouldn't try to Only use this for watching phase 6 and 7, but it's an Excellent resource for everything that could fall between the cracks

Rise of the Ogre on Archive dot Com: [Link]

rise of the ogre was an official novel released at the end of demon days (the second album/phase 2), that covered the entire history of the band up until that point! their backstories, how they met each other, what they'd gotten up to in the 10 years they'd known each other, and the shocking event that happened at the very end of the phase and the band's reaction to it. all leading in to plastic beach, (arguably) the Most story heavy phase of them all.

as I understand it, this novel has been out of print for a very long time and is quite expensive to buy second hand. so ! it's been scanned and uploaded here to the archive! there's actually several more scans available in the gorillaz art archive, but this is the most recent (having been uploaded just earlier this year).

Dawn of the Ogre: [Link]

dawn of the ogre is the fanmade sequel to rise of the ogre, attempting to fill in the gaps of what happened at the end of phase 3, the 7 year gap, and up to the (then) newest point of canon.

this is, of course, unofficial. so this is essentially fancy fanfiction. But it's extremely well done fanfiction that happens to be novel length, attempting to emulate the style of the original novel, and is fully illustrated. along with being available completely for free!

I'd definitely give it a shot, if you're the type of person who's already read rise of the ogre

the gorillaz wiki !: [Link]

I have no clue what the fandom thinks about it, but it was absolutely invaluable both in making my playlist, and becoming a fan at all. with all the work I've done my hope is that people won't need to go digging for themselves, but the Option is certainly always nice !

I'd Especially like to highlight this page [Link] which has transcriptions for all of the pirate radio show episodes !

I feel like there's a lot to find here :>

and of course, my own dynamic swap au archive! [Link]

if you've fallen in love with gorillaz and are desperate for more to sink your teeth into, then I couldn't recommend this enough !

keep in mind that these resources will continue updating ! as new music is created and new fan content is made! I'm keeping my eyes out on a fan project for a fully animated mv right now that I'm sure will make it to my playlists one day :>

[mooifyourecows]

Feel free to completely ignore this if you've already answered it or something but!! I was wondering what your process is for developing AUs? Specifically for something like Bad Masters where you have this compelling world building and then fold into it complex relationships and dynamics and tropes etc etc I just loveeeee it and wanna pick your brain. thank you have a good day

i'm so glad you enjoy my AUs so much! honestly, I have a lot of experience writing original stories, so writing AUs feels very natural to me. when it comes to fanfic, i treat the characters like lab rats that i'm plopping into a new environment just to observe how they respond to said new environment.

i really like the planning stage of writing. i love going on my little dog walks, listening to the story playlists I've made, and thinking my little thoughts. it's so satisfying when an idea comes together in my head and inspires me to the point that i want to start writing RIGHT AWAY (which is probably why i have so many ongoing fics... new ideas steal my attention, rip)

i'm also not above admitting that i get tons of inspiration from other forms of media. i watch a LOT of movies and tv shows, play videogames, and read things that get my creative juices bubbling. hell, i watched a movie TRAILER that got me thinking new AU thoughts. I read the first chapter of a book, liked the setting, and immediately wrote 40k words of a fic set in a similar setting with a plot that's completely unrelated to the book that inspired me. (i think? i never continued reading after that first chapter so who knows what it's actually about lol i read 5 pages about a snowy mountain lodge and ran away with it)

For Bad Masters specifically, I think i was in the middle of a Futurama rewatch while writing, so i decided to make it futuristic. Bender and his robo puppy in Fry's dead dog episode probably inspired Amaya, though I def took her a complete different direction than my initial plans.

since my stories are more character focused, i try not to get too bogged down with the setting. i don't want to get stuck over explaining everything that makes the setting different from regular reality. and i know readers don't want to waste time READING a long explanation about the world. i also hate writing description, which limits me when it comes to establishing a unique setting. so i try to instead naturally include enough small details to give the reader an impression of what the world is like in a very normal, natural way, as if there's nothing strange and different about it.

instead of flat out explaining the state of things, i just plop some stuff in there every once in a while for readers to either care about or not. the People's Revolution of 2036 is mentioned but not gone into detail about because it's not important to the story. it's a thing that happened a few hundred years ago, no biggie. sure, it catapulted the world into what it is now, with the death of billionaires (at least domestically) and definitive action FINALLY taken to reverse climate change, but it's not important to Daichi and Suga falling in love, so we're not dwelling on that.

i didn't want the future setting to be TOO much, requiring way more effort to describe and explain things. so yeah, a lot is the same. they've got AI service animals, a light pollution curfew, safety fields around balconies, machines that give users the ability to feel things remotely, and street cleaning robots to sweep up all the extra pollen from new green corridors created to protect against climate change. but they also still use personal cell phones, the fashion cycle has come full circle and brought things we wear today back into fashion (though i do believe hoodies and sweatpants will never truly go out of fashion), and people have to deal with targeted advertisements, just now using more advanced emotion detection AI to better sell you shit you don't need.

It's not a utopia, but it's not dystopian either. there's good and bad, just like in our time right now. it makes it easier for me to write, but also easier to read and absorb.

and i feel like simplicity is really important when establishing an AU. you can't overwhelm the reader. i remember once trying to read a book back when i was a teenager and the first few pages were nothing but description of the setting. to the tiniest details like the types of plants that grow in the area and how they're used to make salves/etc. Despite being a voracious reader, finishing a book every few days, those few pages felt like hundreds. it was too much. i was so bored. i never finished the book.

there's this urge to explain EVERYTHING when you start an AU with what you feel is a super interesting setting/scenario. and as someone who has a problem over explaining already, it's like pulling off my fingernails trying to keep it casual and subtle. but it's super vital to learn patience and the art of revealing things gradually, as the story progresses. and the strength to eliminate excess information that just doesn't fit. like, i have a whole backstory thought up about Daichi's ancestor, Sawamura Kanae, who took control of Japan during the People's Revolution of 2036, but it probably won't make it into the story itself because it's not important, and would feel totally unnecessary and random to just stuff in there.

When it comes to writing AUs, know and understand your AU more than you actually intend to share. that way you can write little throwaway lines or references in ways that make the setting feel fleshed out without wasting time explaining every little unimportant detail. it's okay for your reader to wonder about stuff. it's okay if they don't know everything. if they come to your inbox and ask, hey, you got some fun little bonus information for them, but didn't have to sacrifice the flow of the story to give it.

remind the reader about the universe through small details. for Bad Masters, when things start to feel too mundane, I toss in mention of a robot or some other futuristic technology. it's simple. low effort. readers are smart, and they have their own imaginations that will fill in the blanks far better than your excessive description ever could.

i may not be very good at cutting out unnecessary dialogue, but i AM a master at leaving out unnecessary description. sometimes to my detriment, lmao

in the end though, have fun with it! i have so much fun coming up with AUs. I love fleshing out a world and coming up with rules. if you ain't havin fun, you aint doin it right!

ok idk if this is actually helpful, but there you go! don't worry about doing it well, just do it and have a blast while you do. writing is fun, from the planning to the sharing stage and don't ever forget it! if it stops being fun, you need to take a break. don't suffer for your art. make art to ease your suffering 😉🖤🌈

[times-new-scrotum]

cw// discussion of CSA, sexual assault, predatory behaviour and the unmasked ghouls

hi, I want to give my two cents on what's been going on with Jutty Taylor and his behaviour towards young fans.

The initial allegations that were brought forward are MORE THAN substantiated at this point, the young person who brought these accusations forward provided more than was necessary.

It is no one's job to be microanalysing their story. You are not a detective, you are not the police. They have provided a photo and text messages. They have come out with their real name. That is more than enough, especially for a 15 year old.

Jutty Taylor eventually gave a proper apology but maintained that this was inadvertent; he didn't mean for it to happen. In his response, he said that he was hoping it would reach them and that he wanted to resolve this. As much as I've been thoroughly disgusted and disappointed by all of this, if he's serious about this, I am willing to wait and see if he actually follows through.

It is the victim's job to determine whether or not he is being truthful here. Not you. Let them come to that conclusion.

EDIT: this equally applies to people who are adamant he is telling the truth and those who are adamant he is lying.

You weren't there so you can't make that assessment, and while we all should be BELIEVING THE VICTIMS when they say what happened, there is no way you can parasocially analyse what is or was going on in his head.

Let's leave this up to the victims please, since a lot of these discussions tend to get bogged down in "he'd never do this" or "I think he's telling the truth" or "I think he's being performative here" or "I think he's lying" like, no, no you don't know any of that actually.

Jutty also responded to other allegations that had been brought forward - about inappropriate interactions in DMs with a 19 year old. He provided some context to a screenshot that was circulating, where it looked like he was encouraging underage drinking.

My thoughts about this are that going forward, he needs to be drawing some hard lines in the sand about how he interacts with his fans. It was inappropriate because he is an artist and they are his fan, and there is a significant age gap there. I think there is a concerning pattern of behaviour here.

Please, let's not throw around words like "p*dophile". This has a very specific definition, and watering it down is extremely unhelpful and does more harm than good. You can refer to his actions as predatory, and call him a creep, but please, let's not use this word when there are no victims who are prepubescent children.

Feel free to disagree with me, by the way. I think it's important for us to discuss these things.

[imonthemoonitsmadeofcheese]

Burrito

Wherein Eris and the Drifter drink some water in the dark.

Link to Ao3 if you prefer to read it there

*** Content Warning: Mature/sexual topics, nudity, post-coital bliss, after-sex logistics. ***

(While this story is not explicit, it contains post-sex softness, snuggles, and emotional vunlerability. No actual sex depicted but the characters are not wearing clothes and various aspects of sex are discussed. Please choose to read or not depending upon your own preferences.)

Eris' body shuddered again and she made a soft, almost kitten-like, sound. “Can't stop shaking.”

The Drifter chuckled from beneath her. “Those are some damn fine aftershocks,” he whispered into her skin. “I’m just gonna hold on and ride these out with ya, ok?”

She cooed and stroked his hair, the glow of her three eyes the only light in the room.

“I don't know if we'll ever get our timing that good again but we absolutely should try to do that again because that was really, really good." He spoke in reverently, holding her close in a tangle of naked limbs.

She pulled him into a soft kiss.

"There…” He stared out into the dark of the room, dazed. “...there really ain’t no high like love,” he whispered. “We really are something else together.”

He looked back at her and ran a finger along her cheek to make a swirl in the paracausal tears from her eyes.

Her entire body trembled again.

He held her close, drunk on delight at each of her shudders.

“Mmmm… hard to t-talk.”

“Yeah I expect so. We done fucked your brains right out ‘o your head.”

Eris put her fingertips against her forehead between her three eyes and made an exploding motion with her hand.

"Poof!" she whispered before shivering against him again.

He watched her with a mixture of awe and pride.

“You are so beautiful when you're a hot sweaty just-fucked mess it blows my mind.”

She put her fingertips against his forehead and repeated the motion. "Poof!"

They giggled together under the blanket and shifted, her head resting just under his, her lips mumbling incoherently against his collar bone, his hands clasped around her waist.

“Know what I bet you'd like right about now?”

“You.” Her voice was half whisper, half sigh.

“Ya already have me, this is somethin’ you don’t currently have, but you could.”

“Just you.”

“Yeah but what if you had me… and a glass of cold water.”

“Oooo… Mmmhmm.”

“But there's a problem.”

“Hmmm?”

“To get you the water I'd have to leave the bed.”

“Nooooooooooo.” She cooed softly and clung to him, pinning him down.

“I know, I know but, at the same time, water.”

“Water.”

“So” He got up on one elbow, and started to slide her off to the side, keeping her under the covers. “I'll be right back.”

“Do not go.” She commanded him in a whisper and pulled him back under the covers with her.

“Can’t get you the water without leaving the bed, lover.” He kissed her lips. “You want the water, right?” He kissed her again.

A disappointed moan escaped from her into his mouth.

“Let me go get you water, Moondust, I won't be long.” He kissed her nose. “Trust.”

“Very well.” She mumbled from the covers, releasing him.

“Ooo floor's cold. Where's my boots?”

Eris’ arm rose up from the blankets and she twitched her fingers. Her Ahamkara bone floated in through the doorway to her hand. She gestured to a corner of the room and the glowing orb floated over to hover over top of, and illuminate, a boot.

“Well that's one of 'em. Wait, I see the other one. How in hell did they get on opposite sides of the room?”

"Poof!" Eris said softly from the bed.

She flicked her fingers and the glowing ball of soulfire floated back out of the room.

“All right you beautiful mess,” He reached out and pulled her fingertips to his lips. “Be back before you know it.”

She squeezed his hand and then released it, pulling her arm back into the blankets like a bog slug in the Athenaeum disappearing into the mud. The light from her three eyes provided him enough of a glow to see her blowing him a kiss.

He stopped a moment, his brain temporarily short-circuiting, a half smile on his face. Then he blinked and blew her a kiss back before backing out the room.

. . .

The Drifter paused every few feet along the corridor, picking up another article of clothing one of them had removed from the other and left on the floor. He couldn't have stopped smiling even if he wanted to, and he did not want to.

The red light from his ghost greeted him.

“Hey,” Drifter said softly, picking up the last of their clothes and putting the pile on the galley table.

His ghost followed and floated above the table as he began to fold their things into separate neat piles.

“We’re going camping tomorrow. I have a favour to ask you.”

The ghost emitted its single tone in acknowledgement.

“Go figure out where the fuck all the camping shit is in this heap so you can lead me to it in the morning. Fuck if I know where I put it. Tent, sleeping bags, fishing shit, the card table and folding chairs, wherever the hell that got to, and the cast iron kettle. The one with the hook that goes on the fire. That one is for her so it’s a priority, although if you can’t find it we can just boil water in a pot and that’ll be fine. She’d like it though. It’s for her tea. Can you… can you try and do that? Please?”

The ghost glowed brighter, unused to him talking like this, asking please. It made the only noise it was capable of to acknowledge it had heard him, but it also tilted sideways and opened its shell slightly in what could only be surprise.

“I’m gonna ask her if I can move her to the other room. If she says yes, you stay outta my room. I’ll clean up there myself later. That’s personal. You got that?”

The red light from the ghost moved up and down in a nod.

“And wake me up an hour early, ok? Just me. Let her sleep.”

The ghost emitted its single tone once more and lowered itself back down onto what was now a neatly folded pile of Eris' clothes.

“Yeah, I know, you like her. I like her too… a lot… more than I ever liked anything ever.” He paused, his eyes unfocusing for a moment before returning to his ghost. “Listen... She ever tell you to do something, you do it… got that? I don’t care what it is or if it goes against something I told you. She says do it, you do it, alright?”

The ghost emitted its tone and wriggled deeper into Eris’s clothes.

. . .

He returned to her with two glasses of water.

“Ok beautiful, let's sit you up and get you hydrated.”

“Mmmm…” She drank the water hungrily and held out an arm to wrap him with her in the blanket. He snuggled in.

“Now there's another problem we're going to have to troubleshoot, oh three-eyed woman of my dreams.”

“Mmmm?” She slid her legs on top of his and pulled him in closer with her heels.

“Contrary to what might be popularly believed, I do not actually entertain company in my bed very often and, as you have seen, it is not particularly large. We can fix that in future but, if we go to sleep now, one or probably both of us is ending up in… the wet spot.”

Eris wrinkled her nose.

“But I do have a solution. I was gonna surprise you with this later on but it is a practical solution to a problem we currently have.”

“Oh?”

“On the other side of this ship is a bed in a room I cleared out so you could have a space on here that’d be just for you.”

The glow from her eyes illuminated the confusion in her face.

“Its got a couple desks in it, and some shelves for books, and a box for you to keep shit in if you so desire. So when we go off doing whatever wacky field trip shit you end up decidin’ we’re doing, whether it’s burnin’ egregore or diggin’ up bog slugs or whatever… or in case you were ever unexpectedly spending the night or tired or sick of my shit or just I dunno, wanted to lie down… I didn’t want you to feel pressured to be in my bed unless you wanted to be… so I set you up with one of your own, in a room for just you to do… whatever hive shit or Hidden shit or any other shit you might ever want to do by yourself when you’re here.”

His words sped up as he talked. She reached out a hand and placed it on his chest, feeling his heart beat faster with anxiety at this confession.

“You… made a room for me… on your ship?”

Heartbeat increasing.

“Derelict’s a long haul freighter. I got lotsa rooms.”

Deflecting. Minimizing.

“But yeah, that one’s yours. I was… I was hoping you might spend more time over now that all that other shit is done… and I figured giving you a space would make that easier… give you an excuse to stay longer sometimes.”

She reached out and placed her water glass on the table beside the bed. "I did not expect this.”

“I hope that’s not me assuming too much. And, like I said, I wasn’t gonna tell you about it yet, but that bed does happen to be delightfully dry right now with clean sheets that aren't all sweaty, and we could relocate there for the rest of the night.”

Pulse increasing. Anxiety. Words tumbling out.

“You made a room for me on your ship.”

“Yeah.” He swallowed more water and put the glass down on the floor. “Way too soon for that I know but...”

She pulled him into a long slow kiss, reassuring him with her lips until his heartbeat slowed and she felt him relax.

“You fear the intensity of the love you feel for me,” she whispered, their faces less than an inch apart. “You fear it is too much, too soon, the ache of your need for me, too deep.”

He blinked, his mouth half open, trying to form words, his eyes wet.

“Do not be afraid,” she whispered, “Your affection is accepted as it is, without alteration. Your trust is cherished. You are loved.”

He shuddered, buried his face in her neck, and began to sob.

Eris ran her fingertips in circles along his scalp. Gentle. Soothing. Calmly accepting his tears. Feeling them slip against her skin, trickle in amongst her scars.

“I’m sorry.” He mumbled into her skin.

“No.”

“No?”

“Do not attempt to take back the gift of your tears. They are precious to me. Especially these. These ones are happy.”

“Yeah, yeah they are.” His ragged breathing was hot against her tears-wet skin. She held him close. Gradually his breath became more even, punctuated with soft kisses along her shoulder.

“So.”

“So?”

“If we do decide to relocate to your room, we have another problem.”

“And what is that?”

“To get there we'd have to go through the ship, which is a bit cold.”

Eris made a disappointed sound and pulled them both deeper into the blankets.

“But I got a solution for that too, if you're willing.”

Three glowing green eyes watched him, listening in the dark.

“Do tell.”

“It involves me wrapping you up in the blanket to turn you into a Moondust burrito and then carrying you to the other bed.”

She gave a small laugh.

“You game for that, lover?”

She picked up the glass from the table and took another sip of water. “I am unused to being carried anywhere.”

“I know, and I expect that if I was ever ever foolish enough to try to carry you without first askin’ your permission, you would probably break my fingers.”

“You’re not wrong.”

“But, in this instance, I’m guessing your legs are probably marshmallows right now. And while you are a one hundred percent fully certified badass perfectly capable of walkin’ on wobbly legs, you are on vacation right now and you don’t have to. If you let me carry you, you can stay warm, in those there covers, and then we could cuddle in your room and sleep there till morning… up to you though.”

“Hmmm… I’ve never been a burrito, never mind carried as one.”

“Is that a yes?”

“I suppose it is. May we bring the water?”

“You’re in charge of carrying the water. I’m in charge of carrying you. Deal?”

“Deal.”

[octoberautumnbox]

Lets playy another this or that Smut edition

Pick one

Hiatus because your phsyical health OR Hiatus because your mental health

Help a legend writer who just comeback by editing or Help a very first writer with proof reading

Put your knowledge into the story (ie your major or experiences) OR Research for your story

Your family irl know youre a smut writer OR your partner (bf/gf) know youre a smut writer

Trying something new for your story because commision (ie new kinks) OR reject the commision

Establish relationship (already a friend, already a couple) OR Stranger to lover/sex

Realism setting (Idol as idol, you as manager) OR Semi realism (idol as barista/other jobs) OR fantasical settings (idol as elves/magic cratures)

Write a story based a challenge from other writer OR based a good anon ask

Write on Google docs OR MS. Word

hi anon! i love these :gibheart:

a hiatus is a hiatus no matter what causes it, but i will say ive had more mental health hiatuses than physical :nise:

oh i love helping out new writers! granted only one has ever reached out (my fellow glassy @howslemon's debut fic is something i treasure for more than just my contribution to it :DDDD) but id love to see more writers trying their hand around here!

hmm thats a tough one. im not really much for researching though i do make it a point to be realistic if the fic calls for it (my recent fic here for reference (remind me to edit this with a link when it comes out)) but this one comes from my own intimate knowledge of the university i went to which was equally yet distinctly fun to write too

my partner knows! they beta'd belle :luvv: also my sister knows, she beta'd aiah sorta

i dont think ill do commissions for a good while, but trying things out has always been something i loved doing. idek if i can call it an experimental phase when the whole time ive been writing it was always to try and push my own limits in ways that made sense to me :DDDD

strangers to lovers and friends to lovers/already lovers are both very cool flavors to add to fics for different reasons, but the connection you make in the fic itself, whether looking back or forging anew is something that shows the writer's skill and something u should definitely look out for when reading our other very lovely writers :nise:

i think we pave our own way was one of the funnest fics for me, and the word count limit really forced me to get creative with how i set the world up. fantastical settings need a lot in the background to work, but for how 우린 길을 만들어 came out i love it even if im the only one :sitt:

the crux here is just to flesh out someone else's ideas with my own personal twist, and more often than not anons will have a more concrete or specific vision (not that i would know. i dont get requests anymore lol) than say the prompts our very lovely writers challenge each other with every once in a while. when we do prompts usually a lot of writers like def mint raf and i go and post them but theres really so many more that other writers keep in the master doc when it comes out! also thanks @woollypoison for hosting hdskfjghdsjkgh sorry we got weird this time around i think

never really tried writing with word. left gdocs a while ago for @ellipsus-writes but as it stands now it's a bit lackluster (small image sizes and lack of a mobile app are bogging it down for me ngl) and im trying out notion for a little bit. ultimately it doesnt matter how fancy your guitar is, just that it has enough for you to be comfortable playing it is good enough :DDDD

thanks for the cool ask anon!! see u arnd :asaerombeatbox:

[zydrateacademy]

Review - Star Wars: The Old Republic

As with any 14 year old game, especially of the MMO genre, one can expect that it’s gone through a few changes. I cannot speak for its current viability, as I’ve heard from some players that they’ve been a bit lax with any major expansion update for some years now, in the same timeframe as the COVID pandemic which may have affected their workflow. So getting into this game really depends on what you want out of a game or MMO.

The usual MMO trappings reveal themselves in short order; between not being able to equip purple “epic” gear, only being able to hold a certain amount of credits, and the fact that your level cap will be 60, locking you out of four or so major content updates. A single month purchase will unlock the rest of it permanently. I was lucky enough to have a friend to sponsor a couple of months in my era of unemployment, but I won’t lie to you: The hard cap and content lockout was annoying, but unfortunately not entirely unheard of for MMO operations.

In my recent ~140 hours I’ve only done the multiplayer Flashpoints (the 4-person dungeons through a group finder queue). I highly recommend turning General chat off in the Fleets. 

I’m here to tell you that as a free player, playing this game like an extended KOTOR-3 is an entirely viable way to go about it.

Everyone has their own opinions and tier list of various class stories. Having done up to Chapter 2 throughout most of them and finished only two or three, it really is a subjective preference. I found the Sith Warrior to be highly engaging, while the Jedi Consular bored me to a point where I’ve lost the thread and I’m not really sure what was going on at all after a certain point. I’m told the Jedi Knight is basically the unofficial KOTOR3 on its own, but the shadow of Revan is around regardless of who you play as. 

Ultimately every origin story has their own power struggles that run mostly concurrently with each other with the occasional and rare overlap, until the various expansions where your singular PC morphs into a singular character with vague mentions of all the origin characters being in the wind, dead or missing. This runs the risk of what the original content excelled at, each origin feels very unique and (most of) their stories are engaging. But in doing so they had more or less written themselves in a corner and their way out of it was making the dialog more generalized, my Sith Warrior main barely makes any mention of being Sith but in the rare moments and most of their jerk dialog just amounts to “I will destroy you” rather than “The Sith will return”, because they had to account for all the other characters at once.

I am currently playing through the “Fallen Empire” arc and while I am highly engaged, I do feel like it takes place in a different universe but in a somewhat good way. The aesthetics of the Eternal Empire feel at odds with the aesthetics of the franchise. I have my Sith Warrior dressed in the usual black and red Darth-y stuff, and I look like a cartoon character as I traverse a corridor with more realistically designed Netflix-show-esque outfits.

Gameplay? It’s an MMO. Third person, WASD movement, action bars. Unfortunately the game doesn’t have an Addon/Mod system but it has an ingame interface editor which is fairly easy to use and you can scale the UI to your preferences. 

Frankly I got a lot of WoW flashbacks as I played it after eight or so years away. The Operative/Assassin/Shadow classes effectively operate like a rogue, with stealth and single-target stun abilities. In that way it can feel a bit dated, but makes up for it with the story flow and doesn’t bog you down too heavily with a hundred skills and spells.

At a certain point the whole game feels like a Mass Effect game with a Star Wars skin painted over it, because once you’re in your 60’s you have most of your class’s kit and once you figure out a skill priority and order your action bars around it’s unlikely you’ll need to rearrange it much after that, and then it just feels like a Mass Effect ability bar. So it’s just a matter of running around the story, but there’s a scaling issue where you’re constantly over-leveled for the area so to make sure you’re not one-tapping bosses, you’ll be scaled down to the content for the entire duration of the game, until whatever the endgame loop zone at 80 is. This is unlike a Bioware game where, even if you play on a set difficulty, their games become progressively easier as you upgrade. Sadly here in SWTOR, my Darth is struggling against basic droids. Where it originally excelled at the power fantasy of a lightsaber wielding Jedi, over time you just become some random with a sword.

The game isn’t difficult, just time consuming. But the experience is very much comparable to a distant KOTOR sequel and if that’s the vibe you’re going for, there’s a lot of bang for little buck here. The initial game is free and you can get a couple of hundred hours on it easily. Even when I was stuck at a lower level cap it still took me 40-60 hours getting through one story, but I was doing a little bit of side-faff like Flashpoints and Roleplay. So maybe every class story could potentially be accurately summed up as 20-40 hours of gameplay… and there’s eight origins to play through, each with eight subclasses to experience. There’s a lot of game here, and it’s hard to argue with free.

[magpies-gold]

I got really bogged down this weekend on my writing. This is always the thing that wrecked me about NaNoWriMo: 50k words is juuust enough so that I hit the self-doubt super hard.

It’s where I have enough of the world and the characters down so that I can see them clearly enough to recognize where they’re held together with chewing gum and hope. It’s where I can see the road ahead but also I’m on the edge of the first really big gaps that I just have to put 2x4’s over as a makeshift bridge and fill them in correctly later. The piece I need for that is stashed somewhere near the end of the book. It’s when I find spots in the story where the wiring isn’t hooked up yet and the lights are out so I kinda know three or four ways to get from point A to point B and I can’t see which one’s correct so I just have to kinda write them all (the correct answer has a chance at being a Frankenstein’s monster mishmash of all of them!)

It’s nice that my mom’s been reading the mess as I work on it because it means that I have someone to call and say “It’s trash but it’s still trash with potential, yeah?” and talk my way back to having the confidence to continue. Thanks, mom.

So.

Reminder to Self.

First drafts are The Stupidest Version. The characters get spontaneous amnesia. They know things that they shouldn’t. They try to ad lib instead of sticking to the script. The equipment you ordered for the set months ago isn’t here yet so you’re making do with an old fridge and some cardboard as a stand in but it’s really obviously just a fridge that says “warp core” on it in Sharpie. No one can keep a straight face around it. This is all going to get rewritten from scratch in a few months.

It’s the vomit draft. Sometimes (often) you get caught yammering for three hours about one of the character’s childhood and the camera was running the whole time. The characters can’t quite remember their lines or motivations so they repeat themselves five times in five different ways over five different scenes before someone yells “We got it already! Shut up!” You all explore the basement and the sub-basement before realizing that you don’t even need the -house- that you’re in, but you found a key down there that’ll help elsewhere and so it was worth the detour. Two characters don’t jive naturally yet so you either take them out for coffee or hand them nerf bats and engage with -that- for 2k words, coming out the other side all the wiser but with 2k words that will not make the cut. That’s fine. It still needs doing.

And it’s a sketch. I did a drawing earlier today where I drew, erased, and redrew a creature in the background no less than twenty times (at one point just covering the canvas in question marks out of frustration) before I finally figured out what I was doing. Same diff, but writing takes longer. It’s going to have construction lines and eraser marks all over the place, but later I can pick out the good lines and go from there.

Anyone who suggests that writing is anything but barely controlled chaos is, in my opinion, slightly bonkers. It’s herding cats that can phase through walls and travel in time, and in the meanwhile, all you have is a butterfly net with a hole in it.

And sometimes you just need a good pep talk to remind you that yes, it’s supposed to look this janky. Keep going.

[ukelicious]

been thinking about "as far as i'm concerned all robots are transgender" for a couple days because when am i not thinking about robots. but also i don't want to write an essay on someone else's post so i'm doing it myself. i think there's a simple explanation for this one: there's an additional axis that you have to consider when you're considering the gender expression of non-human entities and that's how human or non-human they can and want to appear and be recognized as. i call it the humanity axis. 

("humanity" is an oversimplification - a lot of the times when you're discussing robots you're talking about them in the context of a sci-fi story which some of the time can have robots living in largely non-human societies (for an easy silly example off the top of my head think BMO who lives with exactly one human for most of his life) but even then we're contending with the gender dynamics of the organic beings around them that make up the society they're based in. not to mention that we ourselves as humans view and create everything from a human-centric point of view that's kind of inescapable imo. for the sake of getting through this with any kind of coherency i'm going to use the term "humanity")

the closest thing that i can imagine to be what i would consider a “cisgender robot” would be a robot that was created by robots in a world where humans don’t have an influence. this can’t really be the case – robots being inorganic have to be created by some outside being and therefore will always be formed in the image of the societal opinions of their makers. you’re working with a blank slate here; you don’t have to be bogged down by what evolution might just decide on its own. sure, they can in turn create their own robots that may be influenced by other factors and get further and further removed from their original designs, but that begs the question of whether it’s possible to dilute the original influence far enough to where it’s no longer a factor. personally, i don’t think so? 

so, we can agree: every robot has the influences of humanity in them but is still distinctly different, creating the humanity axis. there’s a place that they each physically on there depending on how they were constructed; there’s also a choice each of them must make as to how much they want to adhere to their assigned spot. to fully be human is not an option, as they would have to not know they’re a robot, and to be fully robot isn’t an option either, as they were made by humans. i suppose you could be happy with your assigned place on the humanity axis but you could never truly be viewed by the organic society around you as anything but “other” unless you tried to fully pass as human. then we can bring in characters who never had to consider the humanity axis until, well, circumstances changed (things like cyborgs or mind backups or a good ol’ brain in a jar) and now they have to learn that they actually experienced a kind of privilege that they weren’t even really aware of until they had to question their relationship to their humanity. they don’t even have to view it as a bad thing – it’s not a bad thing. you can be very confident and happy with who you are and your status outside the traditional human framing of whatever society you’re in. being othered isn’t always a bad thing and some can take solace in the fact that they’re able to dictate who they are without having to technically abide by whatever norms biology has been divided into. it lends itself easily to exploring beyond what’s been set out for you from the start. not always, not every robot wants that or cares to explore it, but it can. 

a robot can be a girl and inhuman; they can have no relationship to human gender and identify very closely with humanity. it's about the interactions with those that made you. it's about having to dictate who you are for yourself. tl;dr: yeah every robot is transgender

[8bitsupervillain]

Higurashi When They Cry Hou Ch. 8 Matsuribayashi pt. 36

Somewhere along the way with the fragments I started to get filled with a small sense of dread that the story will at some point, more or less just slam on the brakes and drag it to a crawl. I also started to become apprehensive that there will be some unanswered questions on my part. Maybe not necessarily large ones, but ones that I personally would’ve been more intrigued by a potential answer. Not for the first time the thought occurred that I just might have to look at the console arcs to see if I might get some of the answers I desire. Whether you view the console arcs as canonical or not.

A red capsule

I’m starting to think that the intro to the fragments section might have been full of it gang. Except for the first fragment the explanatory meeting, none of these seem to be from Hanyuu’s perspective at all. Perhaps it was said to act as a sort of framing device for jumping around from narrator to narrator?

For a small amount of time I thought this was a Tatarigoroshi ending era Keiichi. I have no good justification for why I didn’t immediately figure this was Rena.

I know this is meant to be residual amounts of Hinamizawa Syndrome talking, but I do think Rena is being too hard on herself for not immediately picking up on her mother’s infidelity, and Akihito’s duplicity as a small child. I know I mentioned it quite a few times before in Tsumihoroboshi, but I cannot for the life of me remember what they had diagnosed her condition as in Onikakushi. I sort of want to go back and find that out because I think it’s an interesting notion that her already pre-existing mental disorder is also remarkably similar to Hinamizawa Syndrome. What are the odds? Do you think that if Irie or Takano had access to Rena’s medical records from the time she smashed up her classmates they would’ve gotten any sort of boost to their research? Is that how Takano was able to so efficiently manipulate Rena in Tsumihoroboshi?

Eh? EHHHHH? Think about it.

I guess it’s only because Rena’s the one character we really see at these heightened levels, but it’s interesting to me how different her symptoms of the syndrome seem to be. You never see any of the other infected people exhibit this penchant for self-harm/mutilation. Well except for the most fatal stages of the syndrome I suppose, then you see them just tear into themselves. I guess this means that Rena is already at L5?

Initially when I read this it didn’t really affect me that much, but reading it again it grossed me out pretty severely and made me physically recoil while reading about her pulling the blood vessels open. Narrative narrative, I just wonder how Hanyuu became aware of Rena’s suffering to the point that she was able to sense she was going to kill herself because of the syndrome? It’s established later on that there is fundamentally an infinite number of fragments and permutations of events through the series that exist. So it stands to reason that in at least a few of these Rena did die from the syndrome. In the very first version of all the timelines that all the fragments sprung from did Rena just so happen to resist the symptoms long enough to get back to Hinamizawa? Or is it more likely that by some random fluke of fate she survived, became friends with Rika and the rest, and then Hanyuu realized she was a pivotal character to Rika’s survival? With the earlier revelation that there’s nigh infinite amounts of fragments Higurashi really is rather friendly to fanfiction isn’t it?

Once more I’m just sort of letting my mind get temporarily bogged down in hyper specific details that don’t really matter. How long, for lack of a better term, is Hanyuu’s range? I’ve seen/read too many things that has a gods’ divinity or powers tied to the people who believe in them, so I think I’m trying in vain to tie that idea and Hanyuu together. Not that it particularly matters, but it’s just something I’m curious about. I doubt that Hanyuu has been keeping an eye on Rena the entire time she’s been away from Hinamizawa, but I don’t doubt she showed up in the vision that stopped Rena from killing herself. Whether or not that was actually her or just a figment of Rena’s mind I don’t know. It is entirely possible that Hanyuu never even really knew that Rena existed until 1982. It is possible that I am giving Hanyuu far too much credit.

Without wishing to get into an argument about antidepressants I admit that I find it interesting that for all of Irie and Takano’s research you can apparently completely suppress the symptoms of Hinamizawa Syndrome with prescription medicine like that. I assume this is a form of antidepressant she’s on, I’m not exactly well-versed in psychiatric medicine. To be fair, I don’t think Ryukishi07 is either.

There was the implication that Tsumihoroboshi was the result of Rena not taking her medication. At least before the parasite/alien invasion ideas got thrown around, so this kind of makes me wonder if she’s on her meds for this chapter? For whatever it’s worth when she shows up she doesn’t act particularly more aggressive than she does in any of the other chapters she shows up in as a non-antagonistic entity. Not that this particularly matters in the grand scheme of things. Just a random stray thought.

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

There’s now a trilogy of books that I’ve listened to, on audiobook, in the last three years. They’ve been released about a year apart, and I’ve listened to them all in the week they came out. This is The Trilogy of Combined Memoir/Psychological Information Book About Neurodivergence, By A Comedian Who Wrote That Book Soon After Getting an Adult Diagnosis of Neurodivergence. They are Strong Female Character By Fern Brady (2023), Why Can’t I Just Enjoy Things by Pierre Novellie (2024), and Normally Weird and Weirdly Normal by Robin Ince (2025).

Of course I appreciate the pattern of getting a new book in that category every year, who do we think will add one in 2026? I’ve got my fingers crossed for John Robins, of course. I know he’s a comedian who doesn’t need an autism diagnosis, because he has lots of other emotionally weighty subjects to mine for stand-up and book deals. But in the unlikely event that John Robins ever sorts out all his other life problems, he could always go get that autism diagnosis to avoid running out of material.

Anyway. Those last couple of paragraphs were an unnecessarily long way of saying I listened to Robin Ince’s new book this week, and I loved it. It just came out, and the whole audiobook is nine hours long, which made me think it would take a while to get through it. But it didn’t. I was immediately so absorbed that once I started it, I didn’t want to listen to anything else until I was done.

Robin Ince writes in such a compelling way that even a book this long doesn’t drag, doesn’t feel like filler. This book, like his stand-up shows, feels like he had millions of things he was just bursting to say, and was scrambling to cram them into his allotted time, rather than trying to pad anything out. This books gives him a lot more allotted time than a stand-up hour, of course, and it was very entertaining.

It was also genuinely informative, and I say that as someone who’s already pretty informed about neurodiversity stuff. I’ve obviously got my own personal experience with it (got that autism diagnosis at 14, and now at 34, I have good enough health benefits in my job where I work with autistic kids, so I can afford to get an adult assessment as well, which I’m doing next week, because apparently one autism diagnosis isn’t enough, I need two), I’ve got a university degree in psychology and a college diploma in autism studies, and I’ve worked all over the field of disability support, where obviously I run into a lot of different types of neurodivergence. And, you know, I hang out on Tumblr a lot. So I wasn’t expecting to learn anything from Robin Ince’s book that I didn’t already know about how that stuff works. I just wanted to hear his perspective on it, and his own experiences.

And yet, I did learn things. Particularly about the ADHD mind, which Ince has and I do not, but in the school where I work right now, one of the most difficult kids to figure out has extreme ADHD. As I listened to Robin Ince’s book, when he described in detail the inner workings of an ADHD brain, I could map it directly to this kid I work with, and could see logic in some of his words and actions that I’d missed before.

On Friday, I was sitting with this kid and trying to get him to do some math work, which he normally never does. I thought of the stuff in Robin Ince’s book about how the ADHD brain loses focus when things happen too slowly, because they’ve mentally worked it all out before the instructions are finished and they can’t keep thinking about this thing while everyone else catches up. So I tried going fast with the kid. I asked him the first question, he told me the answer and then tried to launch into a story about his video games, and rather than asking him how he got that answer or saying that now we have to write it down or work out something new, I just said “Yep, you’re right” (which he was) and I wrote the number he’d said (because he hates writing and I didn’t want to get bogged down in that) and read out the next equation to him. He answered right away again, and I kept hitting them rapid fire until he’d done the whole sheet, getting nearly all of them right. His teacher was amazed, as it’s so rare for him to finish anything.

It’s not just the stuff that’s specific to ADHD – Robin Ince wrote this book after being diagnosed with ADHD, but there’s a lot in this book that applies to autism and ADHD, and some things specific to autism, because he took contributions from a whole lot of other people with a whole range of neurodivergent experiences. On a practical level, I think this book is the most useful explanation I’ve read of the specifics of how neurodivergent brains work.

In the trilogy, the Fern Brady book was mostly a personal memoir, with a bit of further information about what she’d learned about autism/the autistic community since getting diagnosed. Pierre Novellie’s books was like an academic text in some ways (I mean that in a positive way about the depth of the book’s research, not in a negative way about it being dry, as it was also very funny), presenting a whole lot of information about what autism is and how it works within society, in addition to chronicling how it’s affected his own life.

Robin Ince’s book was more Information About Neurodiversity than Memoir About Robin Ince, but he took a lot of his information from people he’d met online in the neurodiversity community, and not as much from academic research sources. There was still some Memoir About Robin Ince, of course through the lens of how his experiences have shaped his ADHD, and his ADHD has shaped his experiences. It feels like a very complete book.

I think I'm going to send this book to a couple of people who work with me in the school; I think all professionals who work with neurodivergent people should read it. I also think all the people on Tumblr should read it. It's called Normally Weird and Weirdly Normal, and it's out now as a physical book and audiobook, and everyone should read it.

[prolix-yuy]

20 questions for fic writers

Thank you for the tag @oonajaeadira! Funny enough I saw this go around a couple months ago and meant to do it, then life got crazy. This seems like a great time to jump on in!

How many works do you have on ao3?

48! Wowza! That's not counting fics I only post here (like my Writers Iron Chefs and the Bangathon)

2. What's your total ao3 word count?

338,089. That's kind of crazy, I'm not gonna lie. And some of those words aren't filthy :P

3. What fandoms do you write for?

The Pedro Pascal Cinematic Universe!

4. Top 5 fics by kudos

Something New, One Very Good Night, Both Sides of the Door, A Sweet Response to Tragedy, and Good Company. 4 out of 5 of these are from I Think of You, which does warm my little heart. I did laugh that their popularity is completely out of order from the series.

5. Do you respond to comments?

Yes yes yes! Every single one I get! I'll even yank your tags out and comment on them when they make me especially happy. It's the best part of sharing my stories.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

TECHNICALLY One Very Good Night had the angstiest ending before I continued the series. Same with Cognitive Dissonance! Apparently I get to an angsty end then just write a part 2.

7. What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I think that's tied with the real ending to my Whiskey & Westworld series, and all the gooey soft fun of my Javi G series. Both make my heart glow in different ways.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Knock on wood, nothing so far. I've gotten a couple of interpretations of my fics that have made me cock my head because I just don't think the person read the story, or if they did they skimmed over the character development part. But otherwise I've had a very nice time with everyone here <3

9. Do you write smut?

If you don't know by now, I'm not sure what you've been reading...

10. Craziest crossover?

100% Whiskey & Westworld. Golden Circle meets android theme park? Lusting over cowboys and having existential crises? It fit better than I ever thought it would and I still love the crap out of it.

(though as a side note, having Javi P be the person who helped Santi find his girls in the SW!Frankie AU is another fav)

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I hope not? Yeesh.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, but that would be pretty neat!

13. Have you co-written a fic before?

No, but I have had the distinct pleasure of @psychedelic-ink writing a fic in the SW!Frankie AU that made my whole life.

14. All time favorite ship?

HELP I'M TORN. It's a tie between Din and my Reader in I Think of You and Dieter and Murch in Best Laid Plans. I think about both of them so so so much.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you will

I have a handful of small WIPs in a folder that who knows if they'll come to fruition. I think the greatest contender is probably the Post-Apocalyptic Frankie I tossed around because The Last of Us came out and it might just meld into a Joel story instead.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I'm good at pacing and giving enough description to keep a reader engaged but not bogged down with details. People connect with my reader characters in a way that makes me super happy. And I write damn good smut.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I can't write outlines or my brain says "it's done :)" and I never write the story. I can't write out of order. I struggle with making characters have meaningful fights and arguments because I'm non-confrontational IRL and it makes me anxious.

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language

Flavor! I love reading it! I tend to shy away from writing it because as someone who knows another language, it never feels natural to me to throw it in. Pet names are a nice way to use it, and I'll allude to speaking other languages in descriptions, but it's difficult so I tend to not add it much in my stories.

19. First fandom you wrote for

Gundam Wing when I was about eight or nine. Part of my username is in homage to that! My friends and I would write our fanfics and then read them all out loud at sleepovers together. Pre-internet, this was my Tumblr lol.

20. Favorite fic you've written

You know, I love all of my fics a whole damn lot, and my top ones are still hard favs. But I think for a story that came out of my heart in a really nice way and that I hold a little closer than the others, The Plan might just top them a tiny bit.

NP tags: @iamskyereads @psychedelic-ink @julesonrecord @wannab-urs @ezrasbirdie and anyone who wants to play!

[bookaddict24-7]

REVIEWS OF THE WEEK!

Every week I will post various reviews I've written so far in 2024. You can check out my Goodreads for more up-to-date reviews HERE.

___

241. The Discovery by Katherine Applegate--⭐️⭐️⭐️

That poor snake.

I feel torn about this one because while in theory, it was a good addition to the series, something about how the characters were at the end of the book when they had to make a big decision sat wrong with me. Maybe it's because I've been spoiled by their easy decision making, or their teamwork when it comes to important decisions.

BUT then again, I know that these are just kids and they've been thrown into a deadly and near-impossible situation.

I do think it's a very convenient storyline to push through the next couple of books and to teach our Animorphs team a very important lesson about trust and the dangers of war.

In a way, THE DISCOVERY is a sad one. Yes, the poor snake, but it's sad to see the beginning of the end of a type of trust for these kids. And the levels that some people will go in order to survive or deal with their grief.

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242. Sing Anyway by Anita Kelly--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Okay, this was adorable AF.

I wasn't expecting to love this novella so much, but yes! It was adorable and the tension between the two MCs was palpable. I love that this takes place, for the most part, during one night of bravery since the one MC is incredibly shy and socially anxious.

I loved that even though this is a novella, we had a beautifully fleshed out story of two strangers letting down their insecurities for one night in order to connect. Even though we get hints of said insecurities, they both know the importance of letting themselves love every moment of their night.

My only iffy moment was the main conflict and how easy it could have been to avoid it, but I also understand the fear of something new, especially when you have presented yourself in a certain way instead of who you regularly are. But the ending was cute af and I like that the one character did the work and the other was pleasantly surprised. It was all so satisfying.

If you're looking for a seriously cute and sexy Queer novella, then I think you should 100% add this to your TBR.

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243. The 7-10 Split by Karmen Lee--⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was cute, but something about it didn't have me hooked enough to keep me from putting it down often. I did love the rep and was intrigued by the bowling!

I picked this up for a twenty-four hour readathon and while I was hoping it would be a quick read since it's not exactly long, but every time I picked it up it felt like I was swimming uphill. The story itself was fun and cute, with a really unique concept--the bowling was something I haven't seen in a romance novel before--but something about the writing made it feel so bogged down. If it wasn't for me wanting to finish this for a challenge, I might have taken longer reading this or even abandoned it.

I did like the second chance trope and the fact that the one MC essentially had to win back the trust of the other MC. The tension between the two of them was pretty good and it got pretty steamy in some instances. I liked the side characters and how they interacted with the MCs. I do wish we had gotten some poetic justice against the principal. What a dick.

Anyway, this isn't the first teacher sapphic romance I've read, but it IS the first one that just didn't immediately grab me. Oh well, at least the story was still fun?

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244. Pumpkin by Julie Murphy--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Immediately HOOKED!

Okay, I had forgotten how freaking cute these books were, or how well written they were! I loved Pumpkin and his personality. One of the things, I think, that's important when reading this book is to remember that the MC is a teenager. There are high emotions in here, as well as a journey to discovering who the MC is, even if it means being angry with his twin sister.

Also, please, I knew who the love interest would be from the very beginning because it would have been a crime otherwise. These two work so well together, especially because it teaches the MC to not judge others by his prejudices.

The process of how the MC finds what he likes was great and eye-opening. Drag has always been this concept that feels so much bigger than life and I think Murphy wrote a great story of a teen boy finding something that makes him feel whole and happy.

PUMPKIN also tackles that difficult concept of change--especially for teenagers because change can feel like the end of the world for some. Sometimes change can be difficult, but PUMPKIN shows that it's often necessary for growth, even if it makes a person uncomfortable or upset. AND with that concept of "change", comes the other concept of "figuring out what the hell you want to do with your life". It's okay to follow your own path, even if it doesn't look like everyone else's.

Being different is okay and being yourself is beautiful!

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245. Princess Academy by Shannon Hale--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

This was cute, but I definitely liked THE GOOSE GIRL more!

PRINCESS ACADEMY had that similar way of writing that THE GOOSE GIRL had and that made me really excited. Something about Hale's fantasy writing feels so easy, but in the best way. Her stories flow so well and have a way of capturing my attention. Maybe it's the straightforward way of writing the situations, or if it's the personable MCs, but I love these fantasy stories.

I liked the MC in this one because she was pretty dimensional. She wasn't just a girl who was fighting for the attention of a prince, she was someone who acknowledged that she had a past before going to the academy. She was also kind and empathetic, but also rebellious in her own way. I loved her connection to her small village and the magic that can be found in that connection.

I also loved how Hale handled the prince situation and the ending. I kind of saw it coming, but it also still surprised me. Also, the level of trust and friendship that grows between the girls throughout the book was great. I think it's a great thing for younger readers to read so they know that even in the most difficult of situations, you can still make unexpected friendships.

I'd recommend this for anyone who loves the classics like A LITTLE PRINCESS, since this has that magical feeling of friendship, family, and an MC who refuses to let go of her caring personality.

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246. Shut Up You're Pretty by Téa Mutonji--⭐️⭐️⭐️

When I first finished SHUT UP YOU'RE PRETTY, I was in a haze trying to come to terms with what I had read. On one hand, there were some pretty powerful moments where the MC realizes her worth and who she is as a person. On the other hand, however, this book just made me so incredibly uncomfortable. And as I finally write this review, I'm left with that icky feeling of discomfort.

I do, however, think it's important to acknowledge the great representation of that toxic friendship that verges on one's own sexual discovery. We never see into the best friend's mind during these sexually explicit times in their childhoods (ugh), but in their actions together we see two girls who are both seemingly escaping from either abusive lives and or that feeling of inequality that comes from being the "ugly" friend of a duo. That part hit me extra hard since my teen years and a good chunk of my twenties was full of me repressing my sexuality and being best friends with the "prettier white girl". It was a cycle that was hard to break and seeing the MC being pulled back in a few times until we never hear about the best friend again was lowkey triggering.

And we see how this lingers with the MC as she goes through an eating-disorder, body-issues, and a lack of self-appreciation in some of her relationships. The title is apt because this girl was verbally abused about her looks from a young age and despite her "physical change" as an adult, that young girl who was told she was ugly still lingers with her throughout her adulthood.

The lower rating was for the incredibly creepy things these two best friends did when they were younger and how it was described. The rest of the short stories were pretty powerful and a great exploration of how childhood trauma and grief can really change the trajectory of a life and how a person ends up seeing themselves and their worth for the rest of their lives.

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247. Land of No Regrets by Sadi Muktadir--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I love stories like LAND OF NO REGRETS because it explores the coming-of-age side of boyhood. The silly pranks, the moments of self-discovery, the naive perceptions of the world around them, and that hope that there has to be more/an escape from their current lives.

Muktadir's book was, of course, a harder to read version of that coming-of-age trope because these boys dealt with some serious abuse in this school. It showed the extremity of some branches of religion and how some parents will do anything to ensure that their children end up the way they want them to (without considering the fact that these children have their own autonomies). As a result, this was a great and tragic fable of a childhood stolen by parents' inability to understand that children are not extensions of themselves (among other things).

I really enjoyed the way LAND OF NO REGRETS was presented. It felt episodic and like we were being shown the most important points leading to that hell of a conclusion. We have the misadventures and the different people the characters meet. We see alliances form, and identities be challenged. They weren't short stories, but they were like snippets of a young life lived in a toxic and abusive environment.

And while religion is definitely an important topic in this book, I think this was more about the extremist side of religion and we hella know that all religions have their extreme nature. I liked that the MC still found his voice and questioned all that he could.

LAND OF NO REGRETS was poignant, powerful, and a bittersweet exploration of boyhood and the consequences of over-the-top expectations and what could happen when control becomes a weapon and self-expression/moral freedom is put into question.

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248. Napkins & Other Distractions by M.A. Wardell--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

Honestly, this author never misses. Wardell knows what he's doing and in this one, he doesn't hold anything back.

NAPKINS & OTHER DISTRACTIONS was such a sweet addition to this series. I think these characters are the oldest I've read in romance and it was great seeing them get their happy ever afters! This also introduced a sexual concept to me that I didn't even know existed, so that was eye-opening.

I loved the character dynamics and how they were each others' safe place, even when they felt those moments of insecurity. The representation of OCD was interesting and I feel like I learned a lot about the topic (I didn't know a lot more than the stereotypical information beforehand). I found the older MC so sweet in his treatment of his love interest. Let's not even forget to mention the level of respect between these two characters!

AND OF COURSE, that SPICE. Holy crap, this was a spicy one. I loved it, but it had even me blushing a bit. These two have a very healthy and active sexual connection and PHEW. Please. Excuse me, I need to get a glass of water.

My one negative might be the conflict and how it was handled (even if it was brief), but I DID love how it was resolved. I just think that for a couple that communicates so well, a part of the conflict was a bit of communication.

Other than that, I loved this book like I did the other two in this series! I am craving a re-read, but I don't know when it will happen because it's almost that time of the year when all I want to read are horror books…

Anyway, LOVED and highly recommend this series to everyone who loves beautiful relationships, spicy chemistry, and the cutest couples around.

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249. Delinquent Daddy & Sweet Teacher Vol. 4 by Tama Mizuki--⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Devoured, as always.

I love this series so much and I'm so happy we got a new volume! In this one explores insecurities that can sometimes come up in relationships we think we don't deserve. I liked how these two characters worked through that and communicated, while also moving forward in their relationship.

There isn't much I can't say because of spoilers and it's further into the series, but this was just as cute as before. Even as things start to change and get a bit more serious when their secret relationship moves that forward step into maybe not being as secret.

I'm excited to see what's next for this couple! I'm loving their growth, not just as a couple but their independent growth as characters.

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Have you read any of these books? What were your thoughts?

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Happy reading!