#but this is millions of years in the future

[novantinuum]

Reformation ref sheet for an AU Steven (named "Astra") who's been invading my brain since like,, April. It's VERY wide, apologies. There's a lot going on here because this man is incredibly old and has poofed way too many times for varying reasons. (See This post for how I headcanon that Steven can poof and still be considered a hybrid being.)

While I will not talk in huge length about certain aspects of his AU on this blog due to some of it involving strong NSFW themes, there is a ridiculous amount of other lore I've developed over time for Astra, and I love him to death. He is my sad, lonely mans who I metaphorically hurl against the wall like a sticky hand when I need to feel something.

This version of Steven will likely never have any kind of full ass fic or comic made about him. Despite that, I do enjoy sharing some art and fun character lore for him from time to time. So, I might as well finally give followers like... literally ANY context for him. I've had this ref sheet for a while and just have never gotten around to throwing it on here, LOL.

Ridiculously long dump about my guy under the cut.

Subnote, this was supposed to be a quick post but I can't help myself and wrote you a fucking BOOK under the cut because I love my guy so much UWU

(Content warning I guess for like, extremely vague mentions of Steven/Steven later on.)

-

The huge tl;dr of Astra is as follows: he's a version of Steven who exists for SO long that he basically transforms into something of an ancient, lonely god.

He's outlived every single person he once knew as a child, and so as a result is starved for affection. At the same time, being vulnerable is the absolute scariest thing for him and he's really shit at navigating relationships, F.

The guy is THE most powerful living creature in his entire universe by the end, and yet remains a soft-spoken, (generally) benevolent soul. He dedicates himself to acting as caretaker for the vast, populous world he exists within, and to maintain the continuing legacy of Gemkind. A big discovery that occurs in this AU is that Gems are in fact susceptible to entropy over the span of millions of years and will eventually fall "inert," (but not him because of weird hybrid biology stuff he honestly sees as more of a curse than a blessing) so a huge plotline early on in Astra's lifespan is trying to either find a "cure" for this issue or to develop a means by which new generations of Gems can be created without the reinstatement of Kindergartens so Gemkind doesn't overtly go extinct.

-

But, to start... this Steven diverges off a point in canon- this is the timeline where he actually takes up the Diamonds on their offer of the throne in the movie, believing he may have a better chance of heralding true societal change working from the INSIDE rather than stepping away. Because he pours himself so thoroughly into his role on Homeworld and his mind is continuously occupied by this purpose, he never experiences the events SU: Future, nor does he develop his "pink mode" (yet...) or corrupt at all.

However, he's also so engrossed in his work that he's... kind of a shit boyfriend to Connie as years go on. (In that he's not terribly attentive... always super busy... their visits are often cut short, or few and far between.) Their relationship never really goes anywhere as a result, though Connie wants it to. To be fair so does Steven, but he's so scared that everything he's worked so hard to organize and set up in this new era will fall apart if he steps aside from his role for even a moment that he can't allow himself to follow that want.

At some point here he learns he can poof through a complete freak accident, and that's where things really begin to change in this timeline.

It takes a good few months for him to reform, but once he does he's back at it with all his work on Homeworld pretty quick.

The thing is... he doesn't have an innate physical need to eat or drink or sleep anymore, because he now consists of entirely hard light. It mimics human biology to an insane degree, so he COULD do all those things, but he doesn't need them to persist. So... he kinda takes this as an excuse to cut those activities out of his schedule entirely so he can spend more time focused on his duties as a diamond.

Connie is NOT a fan of this, and this leads to some debate and tension within their relationship. That being said, they remain an item...

Up until out of nowhere, Connie dies in an accident on Earth while Steven is off planet in a place where he doesn't have any contact with them for a few days. By the time the Gems are able to get in touch with him, it's far too late to resurrect her.

The kicker? In the autopsy it's discovered that she was a few weeks pregnant when she died.

Steven is emotionally gutted by this... and the thought of what could have been... and poofs.

The guy is understandably destroyed when he comes back in his next form, and his form reflects that- his gem flips as a sort of metaphorical severing from his own humanity.

He spends a long while in a deep depression at the loss of his childhood sweetheart... at the loss of any potential for (as far as he sees) a "normal" human life. There's a part of him that resents the choices he's made to end up in this present, but like, there's still work to be done.

And as the years move on, a LOT of that work is mitigating the growing relations (for better or for worse) between Gems and humans as humanity stretches their legs and reaches out into the stars. Humans kinda get... really aggressive in their expansion though, and quite territorial, and it leads towards some inevitable conflict between them and Gemkind. This time, with them more at fault. Things get so spicy that some groups of humans and Gems go to war.

Steven tries to mitigate one of these situations at the front lines- and gets poofed by a disgruntled Gem, speared straight through the back because she (kinda wrongly) assumed he would take the humans' side due to his ancestral ties to them.

When he reforms this time, he is glowing a perpetual pink. The Gems don't really know what to make of this, but he seems to be in perfectly fine health otherwise, so they assume it's just a normal aspect of this new neutral form.

And while this isn't something Steven has context to figure out until like... billions of years later, what's actually happened is that he's entered a permanent pink mode, pretty much. Guy's just got that much bottled up, unaddressed trauma.

He spends a long time in this form, and over all these thousands of years oversees the slow return to peace between Gems and humans... their marriage as a space age federation... and their deeper exploration of the galaxy. Beyond their home solar systems exist a bounty of alien species they've yet to meet... some friendly, some less so. There's definitely some conflict that crops up amidst the local galactic neighborhood when Gems and humans show up on the playing field here, lol.

But all-in-all, Steven develops a fairly peaceful and predictable routine during this reformation- living more like a Gem than ever before. He's still got the Crystal Gems at his side through all of this, and they are some of his greatest confidants.

And then... without any warning... Gems begin to go inert. Amethyst is among them.

Some of them simply stop reforming after they poof... especially those who were older Gems, or who have been cracked before. Steven and the other Diamonds using their powers together are able to "fix" this at first and "jumpstart" their reformation, but it's just a bandaid of a fix- these Gems will fall inert again pretty soon. And the longer they persist without poofing from alternate causes, the more unstable their form, power, and memory becomes. (Think of this as Gem dementia at its late stages,,, oof.)

The bottom line? Just like organics, Gems aren't immune to the forces of entropy. Sooner or later, their gemstones will decay from the inside out. Stubborn to find a way to save the ones he loves as he watches them slowly deteriorate all around him, Steven dedicates himself to trying to find a cure. But deep down, a part of him recognizes the futility of this. What he believes Gemkind actually needs to do is to develop a means of rebooting Gem incubation that doesn't destroy planets, so they can rebuild their quickly dwindling population and keep their legacy alive.

The big problem with this is that Gems take a SHIT load of energy and resources to properly incubate, so that puzzle will take a long ass time to sort out. There's kinda a lot of chaos that happens during this time. The reality of their own blunt mortality freaks out a bunch of Gems, and Steven has to do damage control with the heads of state for a lot of other alien species.

In the interim, all the Crystal Gems and some of the Diamonds (White is still in the picture, though) end up falling inert. Pearl is the last of the CGs to do so.

Steven is understandably SUPER gutted about this, and poofs yet again. (Lol notice a theme? Poor mans keeps poofing from friggin' anguish. Help him.)

After reforming with barely any changes, it's right back to work for this guy. He and the rest of his team of researchers are unable to find any cure for Gems decaying and falling inert, but they do end up making huge leaps and bounds in other kinds of tech. One of these advances allows Steven to finally deep-scan his own gemstone down to the atomic level to check for decay- this was previously a process that was very invasive, and came at the risk of irreparably damaging a Gem, but not anymore.

He expects to find evidence of the same micro decay that's been slowly eating away at the rest of Gemkind within his OWN diamond, but the thing is...

He just... ISN'T decaying at all? Even though the sheer age of this gemstone itself should suggest otherwise? As it turns out though, his existence as a hybridized being makes him kind of... an anomaly. When he first reformed all those thousands of years ago, all the data within his gem- data that would otherwise be susceptible to decay- was translated into genetic material. DNA that's woven entirely out of hard-light... but, DNA that has also been constantly regenerating itself thanks to a combination of all the intricate biochemistry surrounding the human telomere and his healing powers.

In other words, he is incapable of falling inert from natural causes, like micro decay. He's functionally immortal. Unless someone shatters him (or... heaven forbid... he shatters himself) he simply can't die.

Which, all of a sudden, makes his race to save Gemkind from their quickly approaching extinction all the more personal. Because if he FAILS- then he'll be the very last of Gemkind. There will be no one else left in this world who is even remotely like him. (Humanity has mixed and mingled with the galactic locals so much by now that they're very much unrecognizable from what they once were.)

His spirit is very nearly broken by this discovery, and he is severely tempted to throw all his own principles out the window and just sanction the construction of new Kindergartens again, if only to keep the dwindling Gem populations up and birth new generations. Perhaps surprisingly, it's White Diamond- the last Gem left who Steven actually knew since the very beginning- who urges him to reconsider. To not give up on his own morality, to not revert all the miraculous changes he's worked for these long few million years.

The big shift in the tides is when he discovers the means to jump to alternate timelines, and thus the existence of the greater multiverse. This allows him to gather intel and ideas from a far greater spectrum of sources.

And eventually... it's with the aid of many alt versions of himself from other lines across the multiverse that leads to him finding a suitable, eco-friendly solution to his Gem incubation problem. (This is the aspect of this AU I cannot discuss in length for discretion's sake. Use your imagination. Or don't, I don't care.)

The following two sections, I'll be talking more about the broad thematics than anything else. At this point, know that there are now new batches of Gems being created all the time. Gemkind is no longer at risk of any extinction, but now- like any stable organic species- new Gems are made at the same rate that they fall inert.

So, the BIGGEST thing here with this reformation is that this is overtly where this guy picks up the name "Astra." Why a name change? Well, after White finally went inert, leaving him the last Diamond in existence within this line, it basically just felt... upsetting to him, to continue to go by a name that every person he ever loved used for him. Thus, the new name is overtly a means to distance himself from that past, and from that pain. (It's also a name he chooses while thinking back to a meaningful conversation he had with White, back before she went inert, oOF. I'll probably yell about that at some point in another post.)

So, too, is the lack of any tangible facial features. He HAS a face, but others just can't see it. He subconsciously obscures it from almost everyone's sight as a means of avoiding vulnerability. One might also have noticed by now that this guy's proportions have gotten like, really strange and sorta "stretched out" over time the larger he becomes... and this is intentional, as it's yet another way he's just becoming more inhuman in form, yet another way he's internally separating himself from those humble human origins of his.

But here's the thing, though.

Deep, deep down, to be human and to live a simple human life is basically all he's ever craved. It's everything he feels he's lost forever, with the death of his Connie. And instead, he's kinda stuck in a hellish sunk cost fallacy of his own making, acting as eternal caretaker for this world that- no matter what he does to try and make it a better place- will never quite be PERFECT. Thus, in his mind, even though he's literally fixed Gemkind's BIGGEST problem, he can't Stop. He can't Rest. He simply can't allow himself himself to lay down and Sink Away into the unknown.

And even if he could allow himself to do so, he is so, so scared of walking that path alone.

If he's going to die... he wants that end to be at a lover's side.

How, though, is someone who's basically a god supposed to find anyone in this multiverse with experiences they can remotely relate to?

Well... ultimately, Astra finds that it's far, far easier to build up a close relationship with varying versions of himself than anyone else. He's... kinda trash at it, though. This guy has so much bottled up Gunk in his head and is so starved for any form of affection that he has a habit of throwing WAY too much of himself into the relationships he engages in, and expecting that same level of commitment in return. There's one relationship with an alt Steven he's in for a while that ends up pretty unhealthily co-dependent before it fizzles out, and then another where he assumes the individual is committing to this partnership for the long run, but then no... actually Astra was always pouring more into this dynamic than he was receiving in return.

This second relationship, when it ends, is pretty devastating to him- since it was one that lasted for like, a LONG ass time. Unimaginably long. We're talking billions of years, here.

Uh-oh! And now he's even more distanced from other people. Folks can't even parse his actual chosen name at this point- except he isn't really consciously aware of this for a while?? It's yet another silent cry for help, yet another internal defense mechanism specially intended to keep others from truly getting to know him. Because every time he does... stars. No matter what he does, he keeps getting hurt. Almost everyone he knows and loves is torn from his life eventually... if not by death, then by some form of tragedy... and he's just so, so tired.

He wants literally ANYTHING to change in his life. He craves some new form of purpose. He craves the attention of someone who might love him as passionately as he loves them.

For a while, he almost believes he's found that- in yet another close relationship he forges with an alt version of himself- but while this other Steven does care for him immensely, it's only as a friend. Which kinda kills Astra, because he's like, lost in the sauce levels of In Love with this guy. There's a LOOOOOOT of story I have here with this, oh my god. If I am thinking about this AU I am usually thinking about this Old Man Yaoi. The great bulk of it is very NSFW themed though, so y'all getting the cliff notes.

The MOST important thing to know though, is that Astra both makes intense leaps and strides in once again allowing himself to be vulnerable with this man, and ALSO kinda intensely fucks their whole mutually agreed situationship up. It's messy. I am crying and wailing at these two old dumbasses. Jesus fucking christ.

But then, it's in the aftermath of this whole deal that an individual named Orion comes into the picture.

Orion quite literally falls into Astra's world by complete accident, but it's a very lucky accident- because she is a diamond hybrid version of Connie from another universe who- beyond a few differences- has a strikingly similar history to his. The big difference, though? She never found a means to create new Gems without Kindergartens, so she was the last of just a few thousand Gems who existed in her entire line. Part of a deeply endangered species.

This version of Connie arrives in some very deep mental turmoil, and so Astra does his best to give them a stable home and a place to heal. And while a past version of him might've been tempted to throw way too much of himself into the slow building rapport they have, he's blessedly Learned a thing or two from the past few major relationship experiences he's had... and chooses to like, ease up. Just offer himself as a friend first and foremost, should they care for one. Man learns restraint, lol.

And it's a damn GOOD thing that he does, because out of the genuine friendship they foster, Orion is the one who ultimately falls in love with him first. The relationship that's established here is one that's balanced, a true partnership where they simply make each other better people. It's through Orion's encouragement that Astra eventually reconnects and makes up with that last person he had an intense relationship with, even.

In time, Astra truly grows to thrive with Orion in his life. He becomes a far more open, vulnerable person, someone who feels safe to truly exist as who he is, to bare every complicated, battered facet of his past to those he trusts. While he may have taken the LONG road to get here, he too heals. And as a result...

One day, Astra simply stops glowing entirely. Shrinks down to more reasonable proportions. He stops hovering around on automatic, stops subconsciously scrubbing the memory of his face or name from people's minds. He stops denying his truest, deepest self- the reality that he was born an organic being, and raised as a human.

The burred reality that all he's ever truly wanted since the day his first lover died is to be a father.

To live a quiet, simple life with the people he loves.

For so long it was a mirage of a future he thought he'd never chase down, but for how much he made all the wrong choices the first time around, now he has a second chance.

And so in my brain, that's exactly what happens. Astra and Orion start a family together and continue to act as guardians over this universe for many years to come, until- after they are satisfied with the long life they've lived together, and their children have moved on to start forging their own paths- they eventually pass Beyond at their own will in each other's arms, ending their impossibly long godhood at peace.

I really don't know how to end this post lmafo, so I will simply say: if you somehow read all of this, holy shit you are so brave. Thank you for engaging with my insane ramblings. Have a nice day LOL FUIHSNUFSJG

This man haunts my brain so much I missed two off ramp turns on the highway the other day while thinking about him. Help me.

[louisupdates]

WORLDMUSICAWARD: Happy 33rd birthday to the gorgeous, hugely talented Singer, Songwriter, Producer & Global Icon, #LouisTomlinson, who rose to fame as a member of #OneDirection, one of the best-selling Boy Bands of all time, and became a chart-topping, history-making, award-winning Superstar in his own right! 👏🎂🎉🌟🐐👑❤️

Louis has contributed more in songwriting to One Direction than any other band member, with credits on most of the tracks of 'Midnight Memories', 'Four', and 'Made in the A.M.' and on 38 songs across the band's discography, and was the main guy in shifting 1D's music towards a more mature sound...

Louis is an amazing Solo Artist and has so far released 2 studio albums, 1 live album, 11 singles, 1 promotional single and 11 MVs! Louis debuted at #1 in the UK with his 2nd studio album 'Faith In The Future' in 2022 which also reached #5 on the Billboard 200, and spawned the hit singles singles "Bigger Than Me", "Out of My System" and "Silver Tongues"! His debut studio album 'Walls' (2020) debuted at #4 in the UK & #9 on the Billboard 200, becoming the 1st new album for Arista Records in almost 9 years to hit the US top 10! Louis' debut single "Just Hold On" with #SteveAoki reached #2 in the UK, and was certified platinum! In 2017 Louis released "Just Like You", "Miss You" & "Back to You" with #BebeRexha, which was certified platinum in the US and UK! In 2019, he released "Two of Us", a Tribute to his mother, followed by the hits "Kill My Mind", "We Made It", "Don't Let It Break Your Heart" and "Walls" in January 2020!

Louis has embarked on 2 world tours! His 'Faith in the Future World tour' began in North America in May 2023. In the context of the tour, Louis performed in North America and Europe in 2023 and Asia, Australia and Latin America in 2024. In November 2023, after a sold-out concert at the O2 Arena, Louis was nominated for the Live Act Award at the Rolling Stone UK Awards. During the Latin America leg of his 2nd World tour, Louis made history, becoming the 1st male Solo Artist to headline Mexico City's Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez! He held a charity livestream of the event titled 'For Every Question Why', donating the proceeds to War Child UK. This year, Louis toured a summer 2024 festival circuit, including the Main Square Festival, Pinkpop, Ruisrock, Santander Music, Untold Festival, Sziget Festival, Frequency Festival, Victorious Festival, and Lollapalooza Berlin!

Louis has received numerous accolades including an MTV Europe Award for Best UK Act (2017), an iHeartRadio Music Award for Best Solo Breakout (2028), 3 Teen choice Awards for Choice Music Collaboration for "Just Hold On" (2017), Choice Male Artist (2018) & Choice single Male Artist (2020), a TDY award for Album of the Year (2020) for 'Walls' and most recently a Northern Music Award (2024) for Artist of the Year!

Louis is also a successful Producer and in 2015, he created his own record label, Triple Strings Ltd. In 2021, Louis founded and curated the indie music festival 'Away From Home' and in 2023, he officially launched his 28 streetwear-inspired unisex clothing line!

Louis is an active philanthropist and personally donated £2 million to Believe in Magic, which supports terminally ill children! He's also a Patron of the Bluebell Wood Children's Hospice. In April 2016, he joined the Soccer Aid 2016 star line-up, a biennial fundraiser for UNICEF. Louis actively supported the Black Lives Matter movement in May and June 2020, and attended the George Floyd protests in London.

[chroniclingworlds]

(I haven’t been working on this project much recently, but I have been developing the lore of this universe some and adding new species to the Galactic Accord, so I may shift to posting more of that in the future. Here’s some guys I’ve been working on!)

Niquins (above) and Pyrobians (below)

Niquins

Home Planet: Anatheria

Joined the Accord: 2,000 years ago

These strange organisms have no eyes, instead relying on advanced echolocation to visualize their surroundings. The large sail-like structure on their head is essentially a giant and highly sensitive ear, and directly below it is a fatty melon similar to a whale, used to broadcast high-frequency clicks and gain a mental picture of their surroundings. Their oral tentacles are highly sensitive and act both as taste receptors and hands.

Anatheria has an incredibly thick atmosphere, similar to Venus, which casts the planet in almost perpetual darkness. As such, the lifeforms here never evolved vision and rely solely on other senses.

With no eyesight, the Niquins were unaware of the universe above them for much of their history. However, this certainly did not prevent them from becoming a very technologically advanced species, developing technology at least equivalent to 21st-century Earth. But, with the invention of more advanced radio listening devices, they picked up the noise of stars and planets around them and deduced their existence. Utilizing a similar sonar technology as their other vehicles, they created spaceships that can navigate even vast open stretches of empty space with incredible accuracy.

Due to the high atmospheric pressure and heat of their home planet, coupled with their lack of pigment, they prefer to wear weighted, insulated clothing over much of their body, which they are rendered without in the above picture.

Pyrobians

Home Planet: Ixion

Joined the Accord: 5 million years ago

The Pyrobians are one of the oldest species in the Galactic Accord, and have a strong presence established across the galaxy with dozens of outposts on uninhabited planets and even more space stations. They are a cyborg species, dependent on their robotic suits to survive.

Early in their history, they were free-living creatures which built an advanced civilization. But six million years ago, a catastrophic supervolcano eruption resulted in a mass extinction and the planet becoming nearly uninhabitable. Although the Pyrobians survived in bunkers, they could no longer live on the surface of the planet unaided, so they built protective suits to venture out into this post-apocalyptic world. Over millennia, they became ever more dependent on their technology until they integrated with it fully. Although their planet has now largely recovered from this disaster, the Pyrobians are unable to return to the free-living state they once enjoyed.

However, this interdependence with their technology has allowed them to move to other worlds that would be difficult for a fully organic species to adapt to. These resilient cyborgs can continue to operate in extreme heat, extreme cold, a variety of different atmospheric conditions, adapt to various levels of gravity, and even survive in the void of space, making them true space-farers.

All members of the Pyrobians are technically female, reproducing via parthenogenesis.

[burins]

I read a LOT of books this year, which is always exciting. I also neglected to do much in the way of write ups during the year proper, so here are little opinions about all 84(!) book-books I read. I love to yap about what I read and I would love to talk about any and all of these. (Graphic novels and comics are gonna be their own post because there are also too many of those.) Bold are my top faves, headphones are things I read as audiobooks.

JAN

Less - Andrew Sean Greer

Shockingly funny book on a writer’s midlife gay crisis. I was a little mid on the end but the prose here was fantastic.

The Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the Future - Ryder Carroll

Beyond Bullets: Creative Journaling Ideas to Customize Your Personal Productivity System - Megan Rutell

Read about a million of these for a program; this was the only one worth recommending if you want to try journaling. (The official guide is Fine but it throws a lot at you at once.)

The 365 Bullet Guide: Organize Your Life Creatively, One Day at a Time - Zennor Compton

Lettering for Planners: A Step- - -Step Guide to Hand Lettering and Modern Calligraphy for Bullet Journals and Beyond - Jordan Truster and Jillian Reece

This should not have been a book.

Afterparties: Stories - Anthony Veasna So

I’ve been meaning to read this for years and years-- So was a friend of a friend-- and it was as excellent as I expected, and also made me tremendously sad that we won’t get more writing from him. 

Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space - Amanda Leduc 🎧

This is theory for a general audience but I still wished it was more robust-- Leduc’s arguments had about the academic rigor of a tumblr post, which is a shame.

Aftermath: Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich, 1945–1955 - Harald Jähner 🎧

Nation-making and identity formation in the aftermath of fascism. There has been a lot of writing about the German project of the post-Nazi era, but this was a very solid read.

Water and Salt - Lena Khalaf Tuffaha

I came across Tuffaha’s gut-punch of a poem, “Running Orders,” online, and while the rest of the collection doesn’t always hit as hard, it’s still fantastic.

Bring Up the Bodies - Hilary Mantel 🎧

Reading this and The Mirror and the Light at the beginning of the year really ruined me for all other prose for the entirety of 2024, tbh. Nobody does it like Mantel.

Bandits, Misfits, and Superheroes: Whiteness and Its Borderlands in American Comics and Graphic Novels - Josef Benson and Doug Singsen

After reading Birds of Prey in October-December I really wanted to read some writing on whiteness in comics. This didn’t touch on what I was most interested in exploring and I did come away from the book thinking damn. None of that book was nearly as good as Tony Wei Ling’s fantastic piece on Crumb and alt-comics’ self-hagiography in SOLRAD.

Mending with Boro - Harumi Horiuchi

Make and Mend: Sashiko-Inspired Embroidery Projects to Customize and Repair Textiles and Decorate Your Home - Jessica Marquez

Mend!: A Refashioning Manual and Manifesto - Kate Sekules

Mending with Love: Creative Repairs for Your Favorite Things - Noriko Misumi

Mend It, Wear It, Love It!: Stitch Your Way to a Sustainable Wardrobe - Zoe Edwards

Can you tell I taught a visible mending class in February? Honestly any one of these are a good pick if you’re wanting to get into visible mending. This is the best for giving you a whole menu of techniques to choose from and having very accessible instructions.

Modern Mending - Erin Lewis-Fitzgerald

Mending Matters: Stitch, Patch, and Repair Your Favorite Denim & More - Katrina Rodabaugh

Creative Mending: Beautiful Darning, Patching and Stitching Techniques - Hikaru Noguchi

This is the best one for getting into the ethos of visible mending. It’s a deeply kind book.

Joyful Mending: Visible Repairs for the Perfectly Imperfect Things We Love! - Noriko Misumi

Visible Mending: A Modern Guide to Darning, Stitching and Patching the Clothes You Love - Arounna Khounnoraj

The Mirror and the Light - Hilary Mantel 🎧

Once again. Nobody is doing it like Hilary Mantel.

FEB

Finna - Nino Cipri 🎧

Anticapitalist multiverse Ikea relationship drama should have been my entire jam but this book was simply quite bad.

Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy - Cathy O’Neil 🎧

Are you ready to get depressed about data? This is a great book for your liberal mom. I could wish it were more anticarceral but for what it’s actually covering it does a great job.

Vegetables Love Flowers: Companion Planting for Beauty and Bounty - Lisa Mason Ziegler

Garden planning :) 

Flux - Jinwoo Chong 🎧

If you liked Severance (the show) or have ever projected some identity feelings onto a not-very-good TV show, this is a book for you. Imperfect pacing but still gripping, and I’m excited to see what Chong does next-- this is his first book.

Ocean’s Echo - Everina Maxwell

The premise of this book is simply so sexy. And overall the book is too!

The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles - Malka Older

Yayyyy Mossa and Pleiti return! I love this series and I loved this book.

A Land with a People: Palestinians and Jews Confront Zionism edited - Rosalind Pollack Petchesky, Esther Farmer, & Sarah Sills

I don't really have a write up for this. It's powerful and well written and I would recommend it.

Black Paper: Writing in a Dark Time - Teju Cole

Best book I read all year, frankly. Teju Cole writes about art and culture and being alive when the world is falling apart like nobody else.

MAR

The Deepest South of All: True Stories from Natchez, Mississippi - Richard Grant 🎧

Oh you hate to see a British guy get sucked in by white Southern niceness. (Richard Grant, in this case, is the British guy.) A lot of the stories in this were excellent but Grant gives way too much credit to folks clinging to the tattered remnants of the Old South.

Ottoman Brothers: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Early Twentieth-Century Palestine - Michelle U. Campos

Excellent historical antidote to the idea of perpetual struggle in Palestine. Also interesting read just for looking at how citizens of Jerusalem were using national and imperial identities for their political agendas at the time.

An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us - Ed Yong 🎧

Lovely book that resists anthropomorphism and rendered me a font of “hey babe can I tell you a cool snake fact?” for about three weeks. 

The Barbizon: The Hotel That Set Women Free - Paulina Bren 🎧

You know I should have expected a book like this to be exactly what it was and yet. In addition to the sort of milquetoast stabs at feminism the structure is bad-- it devolves into Sylvia Plath’s life story and doesn’t really recover. I don’t mind reading a book about Sylvia Plath but I would like to plan to do that going in. 

The Hunter - Tana French

Only Tana can manage to write a book that is mostly just pretty normal conversations for 75% of its runtime and yet made me unbelievably stressed the whole time I was reading. Creeping dread! We love it.

Shades of Grey - Jasper Fforde

I last read this in high school when I was so excited to see that the sequel would be coming out any day now. Over a decade later, any day at last arrived! So it was time for a reread. The sexual politics of this book are insane, which I didn’t pick up on in 10th grade, but it is still an extremely clever and enjoyable book.

Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus - Bill Wasik 🎧

I learned a lot of fun facts in this book but it was rambling and also I do wish books like this would stop trying to overstate the importance of their topic. Rabies can’t be the source of vampire legends AND zombie legends AND werewolves. (Zombies in particular. We know where those come from and it ain’t rabies!)

The Transcriptionist - Amy Rowland 🎧

As a former transcriptionist the idea of a mystery that revolves around the intrinsic weirdness of being the fly on the wall was very appealing to me! This wasn’t quite the book I thought it was but I still enjoyed it. 

City Editor - Stanley Walker

If you can ignore the amount of name-dropping of people who were certainly famous in 1934 newsrooms but I have certainly never heard of, there are definitely some amusing anecdotes. Walker writes with a dynamism and bombast I would love to see in any kind of writing nowadays. However it is also a book written - a newspaperman in 1934 so it does hit every single -ism like it’s trying to get a pinball high score.

The Times: How the Newspaper of Record Survived Scandal, Scorn, and the Transformation of Journalism - Adam Nagourney 🎧

This book is exceedingly kind to the NYT and it was wild to read this the month that the Hamas mass rape story very publicly fell apart. However reading it did give me a very clear picture of how that story, and stories like it, happened in the first place. 

Chasing History: A Kid in the Newsroom - Carl Bernstein 🎧

Of all the “how do newspapers work?” books I read in March-April to prep for a fic I didn’t end up being able to write, this was my favorite. Bernstein is an engaging narrator and this answered my questions about how a story actually happens (particularly pre-internet.)

APR

Beacons in the Darkness: Hope and Transformation Among America's Community Newspapers - Dave Hoekstra

This ping-pongs between case studies in a way that would be totally fine in a feature story and is unforgivable in a book. But the case studies are interesting!

Newsroom Confidential: Lessons (and Worries) from an Ink-Stained Life - Margaret Sullivan

This is more memoir than NYT hagiography, and thus I enjoyed it much more.

Ocean’s Godori - Elaine Cho

I’ve got to stop reading SFF that came out this year. Unfortunately, it is part of my job to be aware of SFF that comes out this year. The pacing on this was UNBELIEVABLY sick-- the inciting plot incident only occurred halfway through the book, and the first 60 pages were us being fairly clumsily introduced to too many characters. The author’s end notes effusively thanked her editor and I think she should not have done that because a really solid editing job could have made this into something I really enjoyed. (People who work in publishing I’m sorry about publishing.)

Bombshell - Sarah MacLean

If your whole plot is going to hinge on a Deep Dark Secret, it better be deep and dark. 

Time's Echo: The Second World War, the Holocaust, and the Music of Remembrance - Jeremy Eichler 🎧

I got this for my grandma for Christmas and that was a mistake because this book is so depressing. If I had thought for two seconds I would have known this! However. I did like it! 

MAY

JUN

Desegregating Comics: Debating Blackness in the Golden Age of American Comics - Qiana Whitted

Really loved this one. 

Super Bodies: Comic Book Illustration, Artistic Styles, and Narrative Impact - Jeffrey A. Brown

This book would have been fantastic if the author had a) had any art historical or visual analysis training and b) done research about manga and the ways its styles have been used in the west. As neither of those were true this book mostly made me wish it was another, better book. Good comics recs though. 

Red Side Story - Jasper Fforde

Long-awaited sequel! This is an entirely solid book, though I wish I could have read it when I was a teen because it would have rocked my shit then. 

JULY

The Ladies Rewrite the Rules - Suzanne Allain

Really the only thing you need to know about this Regency #girlboss book is that at the very end of the book, which made almost no pretenses to historical accuracy wrt attitudes about gender roles, the main narrative tension is the love interest’s plans to go off with the East India Company to make his fortune. The other characters have no moral qualms about this; it’s proposed with the same air that a modern book would talk about someone going to college across the country. It made me feel completely insane. 

Escape Velocity - Victor Manibo

You know when you read a book and you say wow, I can’t wait to watch this as a Netflix special, but boy was it not very good as a book? That. Also I really wish we had spent more than about two scenes with the servants on the space hotel, so that I could care about them as people and not as plot devices!

Making Our Future: Visionary Folklore and Everyday Culture in Appalachia - Emily Hilliard

Engaging stories of modern West Virginia.

Belonging: A Culture of Place - bell hooks

The writing on exile in this did make me cry while I was eating lunch.

AUG

Appalachia on the Table: Representing Mountain Food and People - Erica Adams Locklear

More historical than I expected but solid writing on how perception of food affects perception of people.

What You Are Looking For is in the Library - Michiko Aoyama

I really didn’t expect this to get me but I am not immune to lovely, small-scale stories of people being kind to one another in community. Teared up on desk. 

SEPT

Watercolor Is for Everyone: Simple Lessons to Make Your Creative Practice a Daily Habit - Kateri Ewing

This was for a class and everyone liked the class! 

Hot Summer - Elle Everhart

I am so hit or miss on contemporary romance. This was a messy, delightful reality show romp. Light on drama, but the robust character relationships are the star of the show.

Loving Mountains, Loving Men - Jeff Mann

The poems here are generally better than the prose, which gets a bit repetitive at times. The poems are also generally very good, and a few of them made me cry. 

Second Night Stand - Karelia and Fay Stetz-Waters

I wish I had known going in that the authors were a married couple looking to tell “a story about a healthy queer romance.” All love to them, but I am simply not very interested in reading a story that bills itself that way! And as you might imagine there was a lot of therapy speak and very little narrative tension. Sex scenes were great, though, and if you want a very queer comfort read you might enjoy this. 

You Should Be So Lucky - Cat Sebastian

Very chewy character relationships. Sebastian manages to tell a story that feels of its time (1950s sports/journalism) while not being deeply bleak, which is a balance that many many queer historical romances completely bomb.

Lady Eve's Last Con - Rebecca Fraimow

Delightful lesbian screwball comedy. In space! 

OCT

Slippery Creatures - KJ Charles

The Sugared Game - KJ Charles

Subtle Blood - KJ Charles

Imagine if Lord Peter Wimsey had a passionate love affair with a gruff and tortured soldier recently back from WWI. That’s basically these books and I inhaled them. Shout out to detectorist for the rec!

The No-Show - Beth O’Leary 🎧

About 60% of the way through this book, I said, oh man, I hope that the twist to this book isn’t [redacted]. That would make me so mad. Well, it was, and it did! 

Drunk on All Your Strange New Words - Eddie Robson 🎧

Scratched the itch for sci-fi mystery, and the premise is fantastic. The narrator does a mostly excellent job but her American accents are distractingly bad, so if that will bother you read the book.

Deviant Hollers: Queering Appalachian Ecologies for a Sustainable Future edited - Zane McNeill and Rebecca Scott

Most of the essays in this are great! Every so often I get in my head about whether I can claim an Appalachian or Southern identity and whether I should do any writing on the subject. And then I read an essay that makes a lot of claims about “I centralize queer, trans, rural southern voices” and then does not proceed to actually demonstrate how they are doing any of that work, and go oh wait I’m actually fine. 

NOV

Better the Blood - Michael Bennett 🎧

A pretty solid thriller elevated by a very solid conceit: a Maori detective is investigating modern-day killings connected to a 19th century execution of a Maori chief by a group of British soldiers. This suffered a little from being written by a screenwriter who very clearly had certain shots in mind while writing (sometimes that works in prose, sometimes it doesn’t) and also from periodic intercut scenes from the killer’s POV (also a convention that works better in TV) which did undercut whodunit tension. Also the main character is a cop. But I ended up finding her sympathetic, which is a HUGE ask given the subject matter. 

The Stars Too Fondly - Emily Hamilton 🎧

Hated this. I tried to be measured in my initial review but every single part of this book was simply so bad. I wish I had those 11 hours of my life back. If this author is your friend I apologize, and also I hope she didn’t base a character on you, because every character in this book acts like a 15yo.  

Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy edited by Meredith McCarroll & Anthony Harkins

I worked my way through my own booklist this fall and this was one of the best books on it. I kept trying to put it on display at the library but our copy was checked out the entire time. Give this to your uncle who won’t shut up about Ohio. 

The Pairing - Casey McQuiston 🎧

First half of this was way more compelling than I expected it to be, and then McQuiston makes the WILD choice to switch POVs entirely and permanently halfway through the book. And I found the second character pretentious and given to fits of purple prose (he describes the first character as a “superbloom” at one point and also won’t shut up about the most art history 101 pieces of art) so I did not particularly enjoy the book as a whole. I will give it points though for having a pretty non-cringey “hi i’m actually nonbinary” conversation, which is astonishingly rare.

Jonny Appleseed - Joshua Whitehead

This was initially a book club pick for a meeting that didn’t end up happening, which is a bummer because I would like to talk about this book with more people! A lot of lines in this are going to stick with me-- Whitehead shifts through time and place with deftness and grace. If you like K-Ming Chang’s Bestiary I think you will enjoy this-- Whitehead revels in the body in a similar way.  

I Heard Her Call My Name: A Memoir of Transition - Lucy Sante 🎧

If you’re not already a little familiar with the NYC art scene in the 70s and 80s you may not enjoy this, because Sante name-drops a lot. I am, and I loved it-- it’s a lovely meditation on growing old and hitting your breaking point. Sante is also a fantastic writer, and this is an excellent counterbalance to the particular type of trans writing that is very very common online. (Nothing wrong with that writing, but you need a balanced diet.)

The Village Library Demon-Hunting Society - CM Waggoner

I loved Waggoner’s previous books and I did end up enjoying this one a lot! It’s an enjoyable send-up of the cozy mystery genre.

Regarding the Pain of Others - Susan Sontag

A reread for my yaoi zine piece! Not only does this still hit but I think it’s a particularly apt piece of writing to be reading right now, when we are daily surrounded - images of suffering. Sontag, as ever, does not have any neat answers for us, but she does make you think more deeply about the world that surrounds you.

DEC

How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom - Johanna Hedva 🎧

I loved parts of this, and I hated other parts, which for me is a good sign about a book of theory. I have more thoughts about disability activism and being online that don’t fit into a quick write-up for a book. 

Ramp Hollow: The Ordeal of Appalachia - Stephen Stoll

This took me six months to read, but mostly because I was reading it occasionally on desk and I kept having to return the ebook. It demands a little bit more sustained attention than I was giving it! It’s an excellent overview of the history of land use in Appalachia through the 1930s and it gave me a lot of good context for the mountains I grew up under. 

The Forbidden Book - Sacha Lamb 🎧

Unfortunately, I think I would have liked this a lot more if I hadn’t read When The Angels Left the Old Country first! It’s a perfectly nice YA story-- but it definitely feels YA, and I don’t tend to enjoy reading a lot of YA.

Come Fly the World: The Jet-Age Story of the Women of Pan Am - Julia Cooke 🎧

I still don’t really know how I feel about this book. It does avoid some of the pitfalls of #girlboss nonfiction, but also it falls right into others. Mostly I wish it had engaged really at all with the people these women met on their travels, or like. Literally anyone Vietnamese. 

Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation - Eli Clare

Oof ouch my bones!!! This hits on a lot and does it with incredible grace.

To Say Nothing of the Dog - Connie Willis🎧

I wish my grandma was still alive so I could recommend this to her, because she would have adored it. Delightful time travel Victoriana. 

The Message - Ta-Nehisi Coates 🎧

I really admire the move of making the entire second half of your highly anticipated book about the injustices you saw in Palestine, and I hope it pays off and every NPR listener who loved Between the World and Me picks this up and reads to the end. 

Everyone in this Room Will Someday Be Dead by Emily Austin

This book reads like a 200-page panic attack, which is not a diss! Really revels in the situational hilarity of anxiety/OCD/something unspecified.

Rules for Ghosting by Shelly Jay Shore

Okay I had to add this one in because I finished it after making my post. This book (contemporary queer Jewish romance with a bit of the supernatural) was so lovely and deeply felt and often laugh out loud funny. The family relationships are the real star although the romance is also very sweet.

[cvnticon]

DRIFTING PART 2

bsf!matt x fem!reader

contains/ fluff and angst!

summary:: Years after drifting apart, you and Matt, now a YouTube star, reconnect at an awards show. Both successful but nostalgic for your past, you agree to try again despite hectic lives. Through heartfelt conversations and shared moments, your bond deepens, leading to a renewed love and hope for the future.

requested by this ask!

word count/ 1.8k

sorry i got a lil carried away…

The years that passed after graduation had transformed both you and Matt into versions of yourselves that neither could have predicted. He and his brothers, the Sturniolo Triplets, skyrocketed to internet fame, amassing millions of subscribers on their YouTube channel. Their chaotic energy and relatable antics made them household names, and every time their faces popped up on your social media feed, it felt like a reminder of the life you’d left behind.

You weren’t the same Y/N he’d known, either. The bookstore job turned into a part-time gig while you chased your dreams in music. What started as singing at open mics and uploading covers online had exploded into something far greater. Somewhere along the way, a label took notice, and soon you were writing songs that resonated with millions. Now, you were preparing for your first headlining tour—a milestone you could hardly believe was real.

But no matter how far you’d come, the ache of what you and Matt had lost still lingered.

It wasn’t until the week before your tour began that your worlds collided again.

You were backstage at an awards show, nervously pacing while your team fussed over your outfit and makeup. The roar of the crowd beyond the curtain was deafening, and even after all your success, the pre-performance jitters hadn’t gone away.

“Y/N,” your manager called. “Five minutes.”

You nodded, taking a deep breath and letting your gaze wander over the bustling backstage area. That’s when you saw them—Matt, Chris, and Nick, standing with a camera crew near the side of the stage. Your heart stopped.

The years hadn’t dulled the sharpness of Matt’s features. He was taller now, his frame broader, and his once-boyish grin had matured into something more self-assured. Yet, when his eyes met yours, the familiarity of them hit you like a tidal wave.

For a moment, neither of you moved. Then, slowly, he started toward you, his brothers hanging back to give him space.

“Y/N,” he said when he reached you, his voice a mix of surprise and something softer—something almost reverent.

“Matt,” you managed, your voice barely above a whisper. “Hi.”

The air between you crackled with unspoken words, the weight of your shared history pressing down on both of you. You wanted to say so much, but where could you even begin?

“You’re… you’re a big deal now,” he said, his lips curving into a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“You too,” you replied, gesturing toward his brothers. “Seven million subscribers. That’s huge.”

He chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah, it’s wild. But look at you. About to go on tour. That’s insane.”

You nodded, but the conversation felt stilted, awkward. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. You weren’t supposed to feel like strangers.

“I’ve missed you,” he blurted, and the raw honesty in his tone made your chest tighten.

“I’ve missed you too,” you admitted. “More than you know.”

For a second, it felt like the years melted away, like you were just Matt and Y/N again, sitting under the stars and talking about your dreams. But reality snapped back into focus when your manager called your name again.

“I have to go,” you said, regret lacing your words.

“Wait,” Matt said, grabbing your arm gently. “Can we… talk? After your performance?”

You hesitated, but the hopeful look in his eyes made it impossible to say no. “Yeah. I’d like that.”

His smile this time was genuine, and it stayed with you as you stepped onto the stage. The lights were blinding, the cheers deafening, but all you could think about was the boy three doors down who had once promised you forever.

Later that night, after the show and the endless stream of congratulations, you found yourself sitting in a quiet corner of the venue with Matt. The noise of the world faded as you faced each other, the tension between you palpable.

“I’m sorry,” he said, breaking the silence. “For how things ended. For walking away. I should have tried harder to—”

“No,” you interrupted, shaking your head. “I should’ve been honest with you. I should’ve told you… everything.”

His brows furrowed. “Everything?”

You took a deep breath, your heart pounding. “I loved you, Matt. I mean, I still do, in a way. But back then, it was more than just friendship. And I didn’t know how to handle it. So I pushed you away.”

He stared at you, his expression unreadable. Then, after what felt like an eternity, he said, “Y/N, I—”

“Hey, Matt, we gotta wrap it up!” Chris’s voice interrupted from across the room, pulling both of you out of the moment.

Matt exhaled sharply, running a hand through his hair. “I have to go. But this… isn’t over. Okay?”

“Okay,” you said, your voice trembling.

He stood, hesitating for a moment before leaning down and pressing a soft kiss to your forehead. “I’ll see you soon.”

And just like that, he was gone, leaving you with a heart full of hope and a promise of something more.

The next few weeks flew by in a whirlwind. You were thrown into tour rehearsals, late-night interviews, and endless planning. The excitement of headlining your first tour should have consumed you, but your thoughts kept drifting back to Matt.

Every time your phone buzzed, you hoped it was him. And when it wasn’t, you’d bury the pang of disappointment and tell yourself you’d see him soon. That was the promise, right? He’d see you soon.

It wasn’t until two nights before your first show that he finally reached out.

The text came late, just as you were finishing soundcheck.

Matt: Hey, I know you’re busy, but are you free tonight?

Your heart skipped a beat as you read the message. Without hesitation, you typed back.

You: Yeah. Where should I meet you?

He responded almost immediately, sending the address of a small café tucked away from the city’s chaos. It was quiet, private—perfect for a conversation that felt years overdue.

When you arrived, Matt was already there, sitting in a corner booth with his hands wrapped around a steaming mug. He looked up as you walked in, his eyes lighting up when they met yours.

“Hey,” he said, standing as you approached.

“Hey,” you replied, slipping into the seat across from him.

For a moment, neither of you spoke. The hum of soft music and the faint chatter of other patrons filled the silence.

“You look good,” he said finally, his voice low.

“So do you,” you said, though “good” didn’t feel like enough. He looked incredible—comfortable in his skin, confident in a way that made your stomach flip.

He cleared his throat, his fingers drumming lightly against the table. “I’ve been thinking about what you said. Back at the awards show.”

You tensed, your heart pounding. “Oh?”

“Yeah.” He leaned forward, his gaze fixed on yours. “You said you loved me. Back then. But I need to know—was it just back then? Or… do you still feel that way?”

The question hung in the air between you, heavy and unrelenting.

“Matt…” You hesitated, your throat dry. “I don’t know. I mean, yes, I did love you. I still care about you. But so much has changed. We’ve changed.”

He nodded slowly, his expression unreadable. “We have. But that doesn’t mean it’s too late to figure things out.”

“What do you mean?” you asked, your voice barely above a whisper.

“I mean…” He paused, searching for the right words. “I’ve been thinking about us—what we had, what we could’ve had if things had been different. And I don’t want to keep wondering what if. I want to know if we still have a chance.”

Your breath hitched. This was everything you’d dreamed of hearing, yet fear gripped you.

“Matt, I’m about to go on tour. I’ll be gone for months. How would this even work?”

“We’ll figure it out,” he said firmly. “If you’re willing to try, I am too.”

You looked at him, the sincerity in his eyes almost overwhelming. Part of you wanted to say yes, to take the leap and see where it could lead. But another part of you was terrified.

“What if it doesn’t work?” you asked, your voice trembling. “What if we ruin what little we have left?”

His hand reached across the table, covering yours. The warmth of his touch steadied you.

“Then at least we’ll know we tried,” he said softly.

For a long moment, you stared at him, your heart warring with your head. And then, before you could overthink it, you nodded.

“Okay,” you said. “Let’s try.”

His smile was immediate, lighting up his face in a way that made your chest ache.

“You won’t regret this,” he promised.

“I hope not,” you said, a small smile tugging at your lips.

As the night went on, the conversation shifted to lighter topics—his brothers, your upcoming tour, and the memories you shared. By the time you left the café, it felt like a weight had been lifted.

For the first time in years, you felt like you and Matt were on the same page.

The first few weeks of your tour were a blur of performances, meet-and-greets, and sleepless nights on the tour bus. But through it all, Matt was there—whether it was through late-night phone calls, supportive texts before shows, or goofy voice notes that made you laugh when you needed it most.

He was busy too, juggling his YouTube career and projects with his brothers, but he made time for you. And slowly, the fear you’d carried began to fade.

The turning point came halfway through your tour, when Matt surprised you by flying out to see one of your shows.

You spotted him in the crowd as you sang the last notes of your set, his face beaming with pride. It was a moment you’d never forget, one that solidified everything you’d been feeling.

After the show, he pulled you into a tight hug backstage, his lips brushing your ear.

“You were amazing,” he murmured.

“So were you,” you said with a laugh.

“Me?” he asked, pulling back to look at you.

“Yeah,” you said, smiling. “For showing up. For being here. For… everything.”

His gaze softened, and before you could say anything else, he leaned in and kissed you.

It was slow, gentle, and full of everything you hadn’t been able to put into words. When he pulled away, his forehead rested against yours.

“I’m all in, Y/N,” he whispered. “No matter how crazy our lives get, I’m here.”

Tears pricked your eyes as you nodded. “I’m all in too.”

In that moment, surrounded by the chaos of your world, you knew you’d made the right choice. For the first time in a long time, everything felt right.

[five-oh-thirst]

🌈 Rainbow Baby 🌈

Some time in the future of their story 💙💙

Commission from the ever-talented @anstarwar! Thank you so much 🫶🏻

A bit of (nsfw-ish) context below the cut:

This takes place probably about one year after the events of "Mine." After Kix got pregnant again by not-so-accident means, both him and Jesse were elated. They kept it to themselves, mostly. The only other person who knew was Coric, and he wasn't paid enough to be a rat, so once again, Rex was left out of the loop (poor decision, really).

When it got to the point that it could no longer be hidden, Rex had a lot to say about the subterfuge and the fact that they could all get decommissioned if it ever got out of the ranks. Rex gave Kix an ultimatum, with Kix opting for the less harsh one and taking a transfer to a medical base on Coruscant, much to the great displeasure of Jesse who couldn't be transferred along with him.

So, that's how we ended up here. Kix giving birth to their rainbow baby, a girl, while on the medical base, and Jesse comming in from wherever he was in the galaxy. They named her Cassy. Although not everything is as joyful as it would seem, because while the pair get their sweet private moment, Captain Skip, an alpha, is off to the side in the shadows, plotting his daring thievery of the newborn. You see, Skip's mate, Sparks, is under a serious depression right now.

The clones were created with a fail-safe to keep them from impregnating omega clones and being impregnated by alpha clones. The genes in the sperms and eggs would recognize each other and explode on contact, rendering conception impossible. However, for the omegas, whose inherent purpose is to be bred and have babies, this poses a significant risk to their psychological well-being and physical needs.

In a last ditch effort to bring his mate back from the brink of despair, Skip hatched the plan to steal Kix's baby and give it to his mate, Sparks. After all, if this was Kix's second baby, he could just have another one, right? The first one was a fluke, but a second? That must mean that either Kix or Jesse can bypass the genetic fail-safe. So, what's the harm? How could he leave his mate in such a despondent way without at least trying? So he does the unthinkable.

You could call this piece "Moments Before Disaster," and it'd still fit very well. While Kix is locked in the room, enjoying his lovely postpartum life, his baby is off being taken care of by another omega. Kix is heartbroken, obviously, but there's not much he can do about it. Eventually, Kix is able to get an SOS out to Jesse, and, just as usual, Jesse comes barreling in to save the day instincts first, brain later.

On the other side of this, poor Sparks has no idea that Skip stole the baby from another clone. Was it a strange happenstance? Yes. However, Skip's good at telling a yarn and with how depressed Sparks was, he really didn't think much past the words "the mom died in childbirth, here, you can have it." So, then comes Jesse, and formidable alpha, trying to "steal" Spark's baby, and yeah, it's a whole mess of misunderstanding.

Anyway, after it all comes out, Kix has to stop Jesse from ripping Skip into a million pieces because once he gets a good look at Sparks, the omega and medic in him totally melted. Sparks willingly hands the baby back to Kix after finding out the truth and desperately begs for Jesse not to kill his mate, who's already been beaten half to death. Kix convinces Jesse to let it go, reminding him that their baby is safe and he's safe as well.

And then Jesse leaves for Mandalore...

The end.

[blacjaq1]

[ricksanchezbignaturals]

haha uhhhhhhh meme redraws of my favorite cartoon guys anyone?

so things are pretty dire, there's this dread squeezing around my torso that's gave me this tense feeling like i just got done doing sit ups all day. but the need for a distraction pushed me to draw a bit. everyone please stay safe and keep living your life as best you can.

[thymeisasocialconstruct]

You guys remember that this is the 10 year anniversary of his girlfriend’s death right.

[itspileofgoodthings]

one big thing I’ve learned by 29 is that the Plan, the God’s Plan of it all I mean, is bigger than me and not just bigger than me but also bigger than my understanding of narrative threads and their limitations. And it’s bigger even than just a simple paradox, turning-on-their-head thing way of being bigger. It’s just so vast. And there is so much room for surprise and possibility and hope in that reality.

[pepperpixel]

More powerpunk girls!!! This time ft some art figuring out brutes design. And a big group picture!! That I’m rlly proud of!

[avocado62524]

[gnomeonamelon]

Hello! Part 2 of my designs: Thalia Grace and Nico di Angelo!

In honor of reading (/listening to) The Demigod Files for the first time, I decided to do the other Little 3: Greek Edition) next! For the sake of reference, Thalia is 27 chronologically/ 17 physically and Nico is 19 (I'll explain).

The rules I set myself to for these redesigns were explained in Part 1 where I did The Trio.

Notes Below (and a poll please I need help):

Thalia:

The ears probably need the most explanation here: I like the idea that becoming a hunter changes you more than simply immortality. They are made up of humans (demigod and mortal) and nymphs, so I threw traits in the blender- the humans become more nymph like, and the nymphs become more human like (always including their bond to a specific place/ thing in nature being broken).

The only other thing of significance I did that wasn't just design flavor was change her hair color from black to brown. I just thought the color worked well with her complexion and differentiated her from the others more.

I keep bouncing around with who should get Aegis after she becomes a hunter (I'm almost positive she never uses it again after TTC)

Nico:

When I was working through the seven total children of the Big 3 and their ages, I realized that I wanted to make it conceivable that any of them could've been the child of prophecy (or seen that way) at some point. I was able to do this fairly easily for everyone else but had to get more creative for Nico. Currently, I'm working with the idea that Nico and Percy are the same age, they have the same birthday.

Once Nico is introduced and Bianca joins the hunters/dies, no one knows who's going to fulfill the prophecy. This adds more tension as he is seemingly evil, and no one knows where he is most of the time. This would probably make everyone but especially Annabeth really suspicious. It would go back and forth for a while before eventually turning out to be Percy.

Ok! On to the actual design: I wanted to go with something different for Nico's outfit as he has a couple early in the series. My personal favorite of these alternates is the black trench coat, so I went with that. Combined with the heeled boots, curved, almost cutlass looking kopis, and cross the body sash for the sheath, he looks very piratey to me with his more formal shirt and pants all being 1940s inspired.

He also has a lot of elements that I at least always forget about. He has a chain belt in BotL that I have never seen in fanart before, so I wanted to include it. I also wanted him to wear his (now skeleton themed) armor since the poor boy needs armor if he's going to go to Tartarus.

It's hard to see at a distance, but there is a key embedded in Nico's sword. Given that the Underworld is described with prison/ door motifs (ex: The Doors of Death), I like the idea that underworld gods have different keys.

When fighting Melinoe, Nico finds (steals) a key that allows him to summon ghosts without the ritual (its criminal that the Ghost King didn't come back in this story).

[meringuehearts]

HELP THEYRE FALLING HELP SOMEBODY SAVE THEM

(wip + lineart under the cut)

<3

[sualne]

was checking my emails before going to bed only to find out my endocrinologist casually scheduled an appointment at long fucking last

[mochasucculent]

I love you alive girl