#but i read it a very long time ago

[cellsshapedlikestars]

I love all of your fics and like the general vibe of them. I can't really like articulate the vibe, but mainly I'm thinking of Mongrel Heart, Help Me Out of the Shape I'm In, The Night We Met, and Is There a Ghost. I love these so much. Weird question, but do you have any book recommendations that are like these fics? I don't know if you've read anything that sort of inspired how you write, but if so, I would love to know them!

I just had so much fun going downstairs and combing through my bookcases, thank you anon

I feel like I'm more inspired by music than I am books, and I'll be honest, as I get older, I read less and less (alas). But when I was younger, all I did was read. Nancy Drew & any fantasy book I could get my hands on as a kid. Then I went through my pretentious phase while working at Barnes & Noble, where I would pick out the most obscure looking fiction books while I scanned the section (this was also my nonfiction phase). Then I got really into mysteries. Now I barely have any attention span and mostly read romance, but otherwise I'm always on the lookout for semi-fantasy/fairytale/creepy vibes sort of things. (If anyone has recommendations for me, I'd gladly take them. Especially creepy novellas. Adore those, as you could probably tell from my list)

Under the cut for actual recs because as usual I cannot shut up:

1. This one is the most direct answer, the semi inspiration for Mongrel Heart - cop goes back to hometown, starts remembering Thing In the Woods.

I love Tana French in general. If I had to pick one author I feel like I took the most inspiration from, it would be her. This one I remember not loving the ending of, but clearly the vibes & general plot stuck with me. I'd actually recommend The Likeness (which I've also thought about jonsa-ing) and The Secret Place.

2. Do I normally vibe with Stephen King? Eh. I only tried to read one of his horror books once, The Shining, and I just could not get into it. But pulp Stephen King?? Yes please. I really dug this mystery, as well as The Colorado Kid a whole lot.

I have read a ton more mystery series, but these stuck with me the most. Shoutout to the foreign mysteries I read back when I liked to torture myself with really depressing things (sjowall & wahloo, indridason, mankell...)

3. If you're just looking for some creepy-vibes books:

(Of note, World More Full of Weeping & Light Boxes I read at least a decade ago in my B&N "buy any weird looking pretentious book" phase, but I remember really liking them, especially World More Full of Weeping. Carnality I read recently. I both hated it and couldn't stop thinking about it.)

4. Fairytail-esque but also with creepy vibes:

(I remember really liking Bear and the Nightingale, have thought of jonsa-ing it, but I'd need to reread it. RIP to my copy of Comfort Me with Apples, I think my friend borrowed it?)

5. Non-fiction that gave me those good good vibes

AND BECAUSE I CANT DO MORE THAN TEN IMAGES HERE ON TUMBLR DOT COM

Not pictured non-fiction:

The Monster of Florence - Douglas Preston & Mario Spezi

Just Kids - Patti Smith (although I did read this when I was deathly ill so that might account for the surreal vibes I got reading it?)

[ranna-alga]

"Do the Evolution" - Pearl Jam

[welcometogrouchland]

I've been binging Batman Beyond recently (Terry ily so much) and thought about how- bc of the JLU twist which I think isn't even canon to the comics BB verse but shhh bare with me- he'd technically be Damian's half brother??? Which is just so ridiculously soap opera to me. I need them to interact in a silly time travel adventure so bad you don't even understand (ID in alt)

[she-posts-nerdy-stuff]

Sometimes I think I’m not that weird and then I spend a solid amount of time wondering what kind of contraceptives are available in the Grishaverse and specifically how accessible they are in the Barrel, particularly based on the quote “Getting pregnant isn’t actually a special talent. Ask any luckless girl in the Barrel”. Is unwanted pregnancy more common in the Barrel than elsewhere in Ketterdam because of the lack of social services in the city and especially in its poorest areas? is it because teen pregnancies often lead to kids being kicked out so they end up in the Barrel? is there a higher statistic by product of the pleasure houses and especially if there aren’t safe contraceptives readily available in the pleasure houses? and if so what do the people running the pleasure houses do to the girls because of it? is it because unexpected pregnancies in higher social classes would just lead to rushed marriages so it’s more noticeable in the Barrel? or is the comment based solely on Kaz’s individual experience of the city, ie its slums, in which case whilst it’s telling us about the Barrel it’s not making any particular comparison to the rest of the city? I kind of assume there must be some contraceptives available because the possibility of pregnancies in the pleasure houses is never discussed but I doubt they’re readily available and based on what we know about the resources and development in the worldbuilding and timeline may not be the most reliable, in which case what is happening to indentured girls who end up impregnated? Because, somehow, I just don’t think they’re safe. (Where could I have possibly gotten that idea?) So yeah, I am, in fact, that weird. But I really need to know the answer to this.

[lemonhemlock]

I did not get into Game of thrones when it first started airing. In fact, I waited until it was long past it's heyday (around s6 or 7) to check it out because the marketing and the conversation surrounding it misled me into thinking it was nothing more than "grimdark" bullshit. As one famous YouTuber sarcastically called it "hot fantasy that fucks." So, I avoided Martin's work for literal years due to the impression that I got from online reactors and show-only casuals who did as you and a few others have described as his work being fundamentally misinterpreted.

Fortunately, I overcame my hang-ups, purchased the books (even the supplementary material) and fell down an entire rabbit hole of ASOIAF which led me to recognizing that this world he spent decades creating is far more complex than what had been portrayed onscreen. Regardless of the possibility of the books remaining unfinished (which I am fine with, personally), what George has created is a genuine work of art that I imagine took a tremendous amount of time and energy. So, for so many people online to behave like children and throw tantrums because they feel entitled to him (ew) instead of ushering forth more reasonable conversations and legitimate debates about the nature of his situation frankly makes me look at this fandom with a heavy dose of skepticism.

It is truly baffling to hear even professional critics and see articles describing George as being "ungrateful" or "unprofessional" when it has been well-documented just how often authors get locked out of the adaptation process and left to the wayside as consultants. Look at what happened to Rick Riordan and Christopher Paolini! George R.R. Martin is not the only author to have qualms with how a multimillion dollar studio has mishandled his creative work, and to act like he should remain silent just because he's amassed a certain degree of wealth is quite frankly, ridiculous. He shouldn't have to settle down, be grateful, and stay quiet because the greedy corporate executives and their media drones will get offended by actual criticism that could alter the perception of the adaption being revealed as mediocre for having departed from the source material.

TLDR: authors should be allowed to speak up about their art being sacrificed for commercialization.

Thank you so much for this message, anon! This needs to be talked about more, because I don't think a lot of commentators truly understand the vulgar, late-capitalistic sheen that seems to set in and slowly poison any ASOIAF adaptation. It honestly baffles me how quick some members of this fandom are to rush to the defense of, what is essentially (let's not be kidding ourselves here), a cashgrab by a giant corporation to the detriment of the actual artist and the actual creative foundation behind it.

Why else would "MAX" (if that is even their name) make another (or several other) ASOIAF adaptations? Not to stay true to any philosophical aesthetic vision, as it has become more than apparent with Season 2, but to increase shareholder profits by appealing to the lowest common denominator. Even the basic premise has been shifted in order to address popular trends and satisfy the mindless consumer that doesn't want to engage with anything deeper than their favourite tropes, prettily packaged:

from a story about a doomed ouroborous family superimposed on the pitfalls of feudalism, with villainy and heroism to be found on both sides, it has been simplified and reduced to a narrative that exalts white feminism and disqualifies anyone who opposes its girlboss protagonist. This is Sheryl Sandberg's version of Fire and Blood.

Truly, I think Sara Hess did (unintentionally) outline it the best: "civilians don't matter in Game of Thrones". They don't matter in Game of Thrones, but they matter in A Song of Ice and Fire. The entire heart of the series is contained in Septon Maribald's speech. The writers "kind of", must have forgotten, though.

[darkcreamz95]

🪩 Happy 1 year of getting into Slovenian One Direction~

[they-didnt-last]

anyone interested in talking about the iconic 2000's middle-grade-bordering-on-ya book series gallagher girls??

[cerise-on-top]

Can I request Rudy (maybe AleRudy poly??? You decide lolz) x a female ( you can choose not to write this as I know you write mostly gender neutral) reader who proves The Whole toxic masculinity thing wrong as a strong (physically and mentally) independent woman? Like she is strong and can defend herself and she does things that most men thinks she can’t do? (Like carrying heavy things, etc.)

Thank you!!

Hello! This is more Rodolfo centric, which I hope you don't mind! But Alejandro is there too, of course :>

AleRudy with a Strong!Independent!Fem!S/O

Alejandro would have a field day with you, Rodolfo would still be a little bit concerned. Though, that is not to say he wouldn’t like it. I think you’d be a certain kind of awakening for him, especially if you’re pretty muscular too. Rodolfo would have never thought he’d find a muscular woman this hot, but here we are. Both Alejandro and Rodolfo would sometimes have conversations about you when you’re at work. Alejandro would know just how capable you are and would allow you to do just about anything, even if he would offer you his help. Nothing wrong with helping your lovely girlfriend lift some heavy things as it gets done a bit faster that way. Rodolfo wouldn’t believe you to be weak, not in the slightest. Especially not with your kind of personality and body, but he’d still insist on him doing some of the things at first, such as carrying heavy things or scaring away some sleazebags. He’ll tell you a little bit about how he views the world, how he’s supposed to be the one protecting you, but when you just laugh and tell him that you can handle yourself, he actually gets kind of embarrassed. At some point he’ll realize that yes, indeed you can handle yourself in just about any situation life throws at you, but that doesn’t mean he won’t voice his concerns. Picking him up is actually kind of fun, he’ll go completely quiet and hold onto your shoulders for dear life. At first he’d feel kind of bad, he’s the one who’s supposed to pick you up. But, as mentioned previously, you being this strong actually does things to him. It would take a while, but he’d come to trust you more and more with some things that he thought women shouldn’t really be doing. If you work a men dominated job too, then Rodolfo will just shut up, actually. You’re a mechanic? He doesn’t know jack shit about cars. You’re an IT-technician? Computers hate this man, he always needs help since some error comes up. Once the initial embarrassment is over, he won’t hesitate to come to you for help. It’s for the best you work on this since he has no clue what he’s doing in those fields anyway.

Alejandro is super chill with you being strong and independent. Sure, sometimes he’d love to just watch a scary movie with you and have you cling to him in fear, but you carrying those big tires is also pretty nice. He always thought he’d be more into a shy and timid girl, but you’re actually pretty nice too. He wouldn’t fuss over you as much as Rodolfo, he’d just let you do your thing. If you need help, he’ll help, but he won’t be overbearing. Besides, he could probably learn a lot of things from you. You’re an electrician? Awesome, amor! The GFCI just turned off again, could you do something about it? He’ll sometimes talk to Rodolfo about how he should put more trust into you. Just because you’re a girl doesn’t mean you can’t be a total badass and strong like them. Alejandro will also egg you on to pick Rodolfo up since he wants to see him flustered beyond comparison. He loves you both, but there’s just something so fun about a flustered Rodolfo.

[sun-e-chips]

It’s Christmas morning and your parents actually got you that 7ft tall robot jester you’ve been raving about and now you have to awkwardly unwrap them in front of the rest of your family.

[xxsweetoothxx]

Workin on Redesigning Jackies Colorful version and Im stuck as hell on clorors to pic for their Hair. Tried a billion different ones but These 5 seemed to work best I think

Also also Redesigning Isaac as well as his Sister. The old story I had for them was okay but then I got a better idea that makes Isaac the irredeemable shit I wanted him to be originally!

Also this idea allows me to tie in the whole thing from the cannon creeps comic of everyone seeming to hate LJ. Only in PM I plan on it to be a bit different with Ragz. Mainly that they didn't really do anything but SOMEONE did.

A Hint on why Ragz may be heavily disliked.

[loppiopio]

just some 🥥 related sillies i've made for that fic we all know.

[silverskye13]

For the record! I'm going to apologize now and say it's probably going to be a hot minute before a new RnS chapter comes out [a week, maybe two]. I have encountered some issues that need sorted.

[longelk]

I look back at that one art of Kaycee looking at her tail poking through her clothes and I giggle hee hoooo.

Good body horror ideas of how Kaycee turns into an otter? Clothes no longer fitting, claws and teeth tearing out

Also do you have any Inscryption fiiiiics?

:3c GIGGLE thank u that ones honestly a fav of mine i just love turning her into an oiter its so her. i luv thinking about the Body Horror aspects of transforming and how it must feel, like yea she's turning into an adorable animal but how tf does it feel to have your bones crunching up like that?? vision changing? no longer having vocal chords for human speech?

still i admit otter is more of a cuter-softer less horrifying trans for her LOL, after all if she turns full otter she'll actually end up smaller than a human, no clothes ripped up in the process! 👍 the worst part is being a creature designed to live almost entirely in the water, she'd have to get someone to carry her around if she wants to go on land LOLL

dire (were)wolf kaycee however is where i indulge more in the body horror >:3c liiike i enjoy making her vomit blood from the process of actually turning into a huge BEAST and totally loses her mind in visceral feral agony for 40 mins mininum

also im so sorry. i have no fics!! cant write to save my life. maybe some day :)

[waywardstation]

Almost back home!!! I’ve been away for two weeks and I haven’t had good internet connection. Looking forward to getting back home.

I’ve been quiet cause of it, so how about a shop/merch update!! The products from my shop have already gone through a round of proofs this last week after I placed the order (as some files had gotten mixed up). I’m hoping the products finish their manufacturing and are shipped to me within this next week or so!

I’ve ordered extras of everything to put up in the shop as “in stock” after I send out my preorders, also ordered a few items as samples. They had a higher MOQ (minimum order quantity) so if they turn out well, I’d like to do a giveaway with some of them!

[peridots-pixiwolf]

sketches from @mipexch 's whiteboard a couple days ago!!

also feat. a very small reference to @onlineviolence :]

[lgbtlunaverse]

I think i need to explain why this line makes me go so feral

I think the "fine! I'll kill myself after I kill you" line from nie mingjue in chapter 49 permanently altered my brain chemistry and it has something to do with precisely how i got into the mdzs fandom space in the first place.

I've mentioned it a few times but i started watching the untamed in late 2019 right as it was blowing up everywhere and, likely due to a combination of undiagnosed adhd wrecking my ability to be interested in anything for longer than 4 seconds and me very much not being used to the specific style of acting, especially during fightscenes, i never finished it. The only concrete memory i have of it is seeing wen qing's face and meng ziyi completely short circuiting my little gay brain. I remember more of staring endlessly at pictures of her than I remember of the plot. Press F to pay respects.

Flash forward a few years and a friend recommends me a fic writer for an fma fic (the fic riter in question is metisket) and i like their stlye so much i decide to read other stuf they've written. Here we get to our prime suspect: "the one body problem" a genuinely hilarious fic where jingyi gets posessed by wei wuxian like a year before the plot happens and they become awkward brain buddies. 10/10 i loved it (and still do) even though i remember huasiang showing up in my first reading and I, having fully forgotten his name, had no fucking clue what was going on. (Little did i know...)

Anyway flash forward ANOTHER year and I decide to reread that fic, and then the other untamed fic metisket wrote, a wen qing time travel fix it that's also real fun. And then i'm like. huh. that's fun. wonder if there's anything in their bookmarks.

And then, within 20 days, I had read approximately 350 fics. Many of them 100k+ words. I cannot stress enough how much this CONSUMED my brain's ability to do or think about anything else. I now think back to the early days of getting my adhd diagnosis and insisted that while i had pretty much all other symptoms, I did not get hyperfixations. Lol. Lmao, even.

I am mainly focused on wangxian and the junior quartet becuase they are my baby ducklings and i love them. I do come across some 3zun fics and I think huh... this is interesting. But the 3zun brainrot is LIGHT at this point.

The thing about reading more than 350 fanfics is that at some point you kind of piece the plot of the source material back together backwards. Especially because my favorite genre was time travel fix its, where characters relive the whole plot and like to make allusions to all the ways everything went wrong last time.

Because I'm still squarely in my wangxian + juniors (plus a heavy dosis of yunmeng sibling reconciliation) corner here... the feelings on jin guangyao in my fandom corner are. different from where I'd end up soon after. He is my special little guy though, so I do kind of immediatley develop a fondness for him, and I approach my 3zun and early nieyao thoughts specifcially from the assumption that the widespread opinion is that nie mingjue is a fine good guy and jgy is the evil one (I have not seen the bad nmj takes yet. well... I am seeing DIFFERENT bad nmj takes but they're nice to him. In, like, the wrong way. With no solid undertanding of the inherent tragedy at the heart of him that makes him so blorbo to me. But still.) major reactions to the stairs scene as I see them on twitter are "girlboss! He should've kicked him harder 💅"

And the baby jgy apologist in me goes :/ me no likey. And at this point I am also actively seeking out metas and analysis posts so i'm seeing some better opinions than that and getting a halfway solid graps on the themes. wwx and jgy being foils becomes very obvious to me very quickly. So, with my curent understanding of the plot, I go... you know all you people who are like "god i wish nmj would have killed jgy sooner" it uhh... kinda sounds like he'd have died if he did that. If he'd killed him before meng yao had gone off to spy there is a very big chance they'd have lost the sunshot campaign and most of the main cast would be dead. If he'd killed him at the stairs that's... well that's killing your sworn brother, which by the canon's own admission is a universally reviled crime, and jin guangshan could easily take advantage of this by demanding nmj's head in retribution, since he already wanted to get rid of him anyway. He doesn't give a fuck about a-yao of course but he could pretend well enough that he does. And what leg would nmj have to stand on? The jin clan is canonically both willing and able to slaughter entire clans for the murder or attempted murder of the leader or his family, and nie mingjue is the kinda guy who'd immediately offer himself up if it meant the rest of his clan would be spared.

This combined with jin guangyao specifcally dying for his murder of nie mingjue, with huaisang basically not caring much about everything else he does and wanting to get revenge only for his brother, it gives nieyao a sort of mutual doomed soulmates feel. For either of them, killing the other would spell death for themselves. They either both die or they both live, one cannot live on without the order. That's crunchy. I like it.

The fire palace though? well, on meng yao's part there is a real argument that if he'd let nmj get killed immediatly instead of dragging it out he wouldn't have been able to get wrh alone and distracted enough to assasinate him, so that's one half of the mutual doom coin, and if nmj had killed him during their fight there he's also done for. But after? Right before Xichen intervenes? I had no answer for that yet.

(You know what's coming. I did not)

It is at this point that i realize that if this is gonna keep being A Thing then i need to read the source material before I catch fatal fanon poisoning. Yes, I can piece together the plot and themes from seeing what stays consistent across fics and what are the author's own opinons. But I know just as well that sometimes fanon just agrees on shit that didn't happen and treats it like canon, and I have no way of knowing which is which. So I start reading the novel.

And of course, eventually I get to the empathy sequence. And remember, my "nieyao both live or both die" theory is heavy on my mind at this point, and the only stickler is that nmj could sort of have killed meng yao after the confrontation with wrh, still believing meng yao was actually working for him, and not a spy, and get off... not scott-free, Xichen won't be happy, but it's not gonna cost him his life.

And then I read THIS.

Please Imagine dropping a whole block of pure elemental sodium into water. Except the sodium is this quote and the water is my poor little delicate brain. Not only is my theory right, it is ten times more unhinged than i thought it was.

And considering that Nie Mingjue does not seem like the kind of guy who'd consider something like a life debt to have an expiration date, and because after this he will link himself legally and socially to jin guangyao as family and declare that one among their brotherhood turning against the others is to be met with a painful death, I can no longer read the scene at the stairscase in jinlintai without the impression that he is still planning to die afterwards. Which, if you wanted to make that scene even more painful, this is a very efficient way of losing all your remaining hinges.

I think I'd have gone crazy about this line no matter what context I heard it in, but this one specifically? where I'm already obsessed with idea of nieyao's deaths being connected by the narrative and missing just this one piece and having it confirmed? out loud? from one of the characters himself? It's like giving cocaine to a baby.