#december writing challenge 2021

[deity-prompts]

Creak

Slipping on something wet

Over-eager

“Please don’t give me another book.”

Scripted

“Injured again?”

Catching a cold

Bunny

Shade matching

Synchronising

“I could go on forever.” “Then do.”

“The one thing I asked for was a dress.”

Behind the scenes

Violet

“That’s it? That’s how it ends?”

Two-faced neighbours

Hoop

Blatant

Physical touch

Showered

“I know the way like the back of my hand, okay? Trust me.”

Voyeurism

Poster child

Kleptomania

Fashion show

“It’s subliminal messaging. They’re in your head.”

Mascara tears

“What are you not telling me?”

Stumbling at the finish line

Stomach ache

Blunder

Also see:

2021 December writing challenge

Writing challenge masterlist

Prompts masterlist

[luckykiwiii101]

Hello, I am writing to you as a 22-year-old girl who managed to enter the void on the night of May 17 and changed her whole life.

I started my void  challenge in December 2021. It was very difficult for me both physically and psychologically. Because I had an environment that was abusive and violent. And my conditions were very terrible. I had an exam that I couldn't win for 3 years, an alcoholic father who beat me, and a mother who never let up on it. I have lost a lot of things in my life in 3 years, but I have never given up on emptiness. If there are people who are still struggling with the gap, I hope my success story will be a motivation for you.

One morning when I woke up with failure again, I was feeling extremely unhappy and hopeless. But an incident at home during the day made me say, ‘That's enough, I'm going to fuck everything up tonight and wake up in a void.

When I wasn't feeling very sleepy- or even sleepy at all- I lay down on the bed. Because I'm afraid to fall asleep. In order of;

15 min Holotropic breathwork

20 min Silva method

10 min Alpha State meditation

After lying motionless for about 45 minutes, the brown noise started playing. It is very natural that there is a desire to move, to be overwhelmed,to give up in this part. Please continue for your dreams. When the brown noise was playing, I used a single affirmation. 

‘I'm simply deciding that I'm in a void.’

I can't remember how many times I repeated it. After a while, everything became quiet and I felt so peaceful for the first time in my life. I had a 30-page document and I said that everything in there would be manifested.

A day ago, when I had nothing, I now have a house on the Mediterranean coast, a black bmw ix car, a Harvard math degree, an online job where I earn 25 thousand dollars per month by working only 4 hours a day 4 days a week (Dollars are very valuable in the country where I live, and my salary is multiplied by about 30.), I have a beautiful face, body and skin. I also showed that I can ride horses professionally and draw pictures. I confirmed that the apple products, books, cosmetics and skin products in my wishlist are also in my house. I have also declared the person I will meet about 1 year from now and who will become the man of my dreams.

THIS IS AMAZING!!!! I’m so happy that you’re now living your dream life 💗

This is such a good example of showing people that they can truly do anything. Thank you for taking your time to share this 💗

[1dficfests]

No Deadlines:

🗓 Larried In Vegas Fic & Art Fest @larriedinvegasficfest (ao3)

🗓 1000 Feelings For Which There Are No Names @1000feelingsfics (ao3)

🗓 1D Dick Prints & Grey Sweatpants Fest @1dgreysweatpants (ao3)

🗓 Harry Is Louis’ Baby Fic Fest @harryislouisbabyficfest (ao3)

🗓1D Handkerchief Fest @1dhankyfest​ (ao3)

Coming Soon:

🔔5 + 1 Times 1D Fest @5times1dfest

🔔1D Aro/Ace Fic Fest @1daroaceficfest

Prompt Submissions:

💡1D Jealous Fic Fest @jealous1dficfest (sign-ups: until further notice)

No Sign-Ups Necessary:

⏳

Sign-Ups:

⌛️Qui Pro Quo Fic Fest @quiproquoficfest (stay open, due: January 2025)

⌛Zayn's Albums Fic Fest @zaynsalbumsficfest (stay open, due: 12th January)

⌛️Bottom Harry Fic Fest @bottom-harry-ficfest (stay open, due: 24th January)

⌛️Harry Rare Pair Fest @harryrarepairfest (stay open, due: 9th February)

Writing:  

📝1D Soulmate Fic Fest @1dsoulmatefest (due: 25th January)

📝1D Angst Fest @1dangstfest (due: 31st January)

📝One Direction Big Bang @onedirectionbigbang (due: 30th March)

📝1D Film Fest @1dfilmfest (due: 1st April)

📝Loussy Fic Fest @loussyficfest (due: 22nd May)

Fics:

📚Zayn's Album Fic Fest @zaynsalbumsficfest (ao3)

📚1D Rom-Com Fic Fest @romcom1dficfest​ (ao3)

📚1D Soulmate Fest @1dsoulmatefest​ (ao3)

📚Dirty Thirty Fest @dirtythirtyfest (ao3)

📚1D Song Fic Fest @1dsongfest​ (ao3)

📚Girl Direction Femslash Festuary @girldirectionfest (ao3)

📚Not Just Smut Fic Fest @notjustsmutficfest (ao3)

📚Omega Harry Fest @omegaharryfest (ao3)

📚One Direction Big Bang (ao3)

📚1D Dystopian Fest @1ddystopianfest​ (ao3)

📚​Comfort Fic fest @comfortficfest (ao3)

📚Wankfest @wankersday (ao3)

📚1D Omegaverse Fic Fest @1domegaverseficfest (ao3)

📚1D Mpreg Fic Fest @1dmpregficfest (ao3)

📚1D Astro Fic Fest @1dastroficfest (ao3)

📚1D Aro/Ace Fic Fest @1daroaceficfest (ao3)

📚1D Teamwork Fest @1dteamworkfest ​ (ao3)

📚1D Taylor Swift Fic Fest @1dtaylorswiftficfest (ao3)

📚1D Alpha Louis Fest @1dalphalouisfest (ao3)

📚One Direction Folklore Fest @onedirectionfolklorefest (ao3)

📚1D Wordplay Challenge @wordplayfics (Nest, Tight, Carry, Press, Interference)

📚1D Watersports Fic Fest @1dwatersportsficfest (ao3)

📚1D Flower Fest @1d-flower-fest (ao3)

📚Bottom Louis Fic Fest @bottomlouisficfest (ao3)

📚Top Harry Fic Fest @topharryficfest (ao3)

📚1D I Do Fest @1didofest (ao3)

📚Louis Rare Pair Fest @louisrarepairfest (ao3)

📚Larry After Dark Fic Fest @larryafterdarkfest (ao3)

📚1D Trick Or Treat Fest 2024 @1dtrickortreatfest (ao3)

📚Second Time's A Charm Fest Collection @newsecondtimesacharmfest (ao3)

📚1D Neglected Tags Fest @1dneglectedtagsfest (ao3)

📚Girl Direction Fest @girldirectionfest (ao3)

📚Wanksgiving Fest @wanksgivingfest (ao3)

📚Omega Harry Fic Fest (ao3)

2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017

Last updated: 23rd December 2024

Please let me know if I’m missing something!

[monthly-writing-challenges]

About the Blog!

This blog is an attempt to collate and collect all the monthly writing challenges posted here on tumblr - it is not an attempt to take credit for any of these challenges! Please follow the actual blogs of the challenges you're interested in participating in and check out their individual prompt challenge rules!!

There are many, many more writing challenges out there than these monthly challenges, if you're looking (daily prompts, yearly prompts, fandom specific challenges, etc.). This blog is for monthly challenges only, aka challenges that are run annually during specific months.

If you know of a challenge that hasn't made it to this blog, please let me know, I'm happy to share it.

Monthly prompt blogs for the next three months (Dec. 2024 - Feb. 2025):

December 2024:

@whumpcember! Category: whump. Running since 2022. FAQ. 2024 status: prompts are posted. [Type: prompt-a-day]

@fluff-cember! Category: fluff. Running since 2023. 2024 status: prompts are posted. [Type: prompt-a-day]

@hurtcember! Category: hurt(/comfort). Running since 2023. 2024 status: prompts are posted. [Type: prompt-a-day]

@daddecember! Category: father/child relationships. Running since 2023. 2024 status: prompts are posted. [Type: prompt-a-day]

Comforcember by @monthlywritingchallenges! Category: (hurt/)comfort. First year running! 2024 status: prompts are posted. [Type: prompt-a-day]

@12daysofchristmas! Category: Christmas. Running since 2020. 2024 status: prompts are posted. [Type: 12 prompts (Dec. 13-24)]

January 2025:

January Song Challenge by @monthlywritingchallenges! Category: inspired by songs. First year running! 2025 status: song prompts can be submitted. [Type: prompt-a-day]

@whumpuary! Category: whump. FAQ. Running since 2023. 2025 status: prompts are posted. [Type: prompts every other day]

@genuary-fic-event! Category: gen fic. Running intermittently since 2021. 2025 status: will be returning. [Type: no prompts given (last two weeks of Jan.)]

February 2025:

@febuwhump! Category: whump. FAQ. Running since 2022. 2025 status: voting for prompts ends soon. [Type: prompt-a-day]

@feveruary! Category: sick fics. FAQ. First year running! 2025 status: prompts are posted. [Type: prompt-a-day]

@femslashfeb! Category: romance (specifically F/F romance). Running since 2017. 2025 status: unknown. [Type: prompt-a-day]

@fluffyfebruary! Category: fluff. Running since 2021. 2025 status: prompts are posted. [Type: prompt-a-day]

@fluffruaryprompts! Category: fluff. Running since 2024. 2025 status: unknown. [Type: prompt-a-day]

@fluffbruary! Category: fluff. Running since 2022. 2025 status: prompts will be posted in January. [Type: prompt-a-day]

@februaryficletchallenge! Category: quick ficlets - prompts are released day of. Running since 2019. 2025 status: will be returning. [Type: prompt-a-day]

Check out the active and inactive challenge lists for other months!

[toomanystoriessolittletime]

The Christmas/New Years Masterlist

all my christmas/New Years themed fics in one place 😌

Updated: December 19th 2024

✨ = newest updates

Fic Ratings (read warnings in fic for details):

(G) General Audiences

(M) Mature

(E) Explicit: only suitable for adults

A Christmas Carol - Made in Colombia 

Nothing was the same since Escobar was gone. Javier didn’t want to be back, but he had no other choice. He was there to do a job and a job only. When a stake out went wrong and Javier ends up in a drug induced coma the three ghosts of Christmas show him what he was blind to see. (Mini Series, Javier Peña x fem reader; G)

How I met the King of Mandalore (without knowing it) 

AU: A business meeting after Christmas takes you to the small kingdom of Mandalore where you meet a handsome stranger at your hotel bar who does not only show you the beautiful town but a side of himself that made you fall for him in a matter of hours. What happens when you run into the same man on your mission to return a child you had run into on your tour through the palace the next day? Did you… accidentally sleep with the next King of Mandalore? (One Shot; Din Djarin x fem. reader; E)

Alone (with me) 

Christmas sometimes is a lonely affair. Until you find someone you can be alone with. (One Shot; Frankie Morales x fem. reader, G)

Alone (with you) 

You spend the week between Christmas and New Years getting to know Frankie better. (One Shot; Frankie Morales x fem. reader, G)

A walk in the woods 

Frankie talks you into taking a walk to the local farm to pick out a Christmas tree. (One Shot; Frankie Morales x fem. reader, G)

Roasted Almonds 

Almost getting knocked over by a handsome stranger on a christmas market might be the start of your personal Hallmark Movie experience. (One Shot; Marcus Pike x fem. reader, G)

New Years wishes 

After spending difficult six month without Marcus he surprises you for New Years Eve. (One Shot; Marcus Pike x fem. reader; G)

Lonely Christmas 

A storm that makes it impossible to leave the island, leaves you spend Christmas with your friend and boss Javi. (One Shot; Javi Gutierrez x fem. reader; G)

Cookie Kisses 

Dieter finds you baking cookies in your home after being away to shoot his series for months. (One Shot; Dieter Bravo x fem. reader; G)

Here comes Santa Claus 

After working as Mrs. Claus with Dieter Bravo as your local mall Santa for the last six weeks you finally agree to go out for drinks with him, not knowing how this night would end for you. (One Shot; Dieter Bravo x fem, reader; E; dub con/noncon)

✨ Miller's Christmas Tree Farm ✨

Wanting a fresh start after your husband died, you and your nine year old Step Daughter Ellie move from San Francisco to Noel, a small town in Colorado where you, looking for a job are found by Tommy Miller, who offers you a place to stay and a new job at his family owned Christmas Tree Farm that is in dire need of some fresh ideas to make some money. There is only one problem, his brother Joel Miller, who, judging by the google reviews of the Christmas Tree farm, is an asshole. But you like a challenge. And Joel? Joel can only try to pretend to be grumpy for so long until he finally realises that you might just be what he needed. (Mini Series; Joel Miller x fem. reader; E)

Christmas Writing Challenge 2019

Christmas Writing Challenge 2020

Christmas Writing Challenge 2021

December Writing Challenge 2022 

Winter Writing Challenge 2023

[arianatwycross]

Hi my tumblr name is arianatwycross (this is not my real name but you may call me A or Ari) I'm a pommy that lives in Australia, I have a golden retriever that owns my heart and I'm addicted to cheesy romance novels.

I write mostly Jily but have been known to delve into Romione and am dipping my toe in some wolfstar!

last updated 18.03.24

Jily

Multi-chapters:

The Process of Wanting- University Muggle AU / Jily-microoops March prompts

Headlines - Muggle AU / Popstar James

once upon a dream - WIP Hogwarts AU / Lily has a crush

To send or not to send? - (Two Parts) 2023 April Jily Challenge / Theme: Letters, Notes and Texting

A (not so) bad day - (Two Parts) - Hogwarts idiots in love

We'll be a fine line -WIP a chapter a day for jilytober 2022 / a muggle au

Only for the Summer -WIP Rated E / Muggle Job AU / Friends to Lovers

Beach Reading -  Rated T. July 2022 Jily Challenge / Theme: Summer Prompt: “i really, really need this summer job, so please stop distracting me with your wiles/good looks. you’re going to get me fired”

The Art of Fake Dating - WIP written with @vertraymer / For the Mixed Up Writer Fest 2022 / Prompt: Fake dating AU!

Unlearnable - WIP, Rated M. Muggle AU. Angst.

Strawberry Lipstick State of Mind - Rated E. Canon. Seventh Year.

Just a touch - Rated E

Teenage Kicks - Rated E / Celeb AU with minor wolfstar

you are the sun - Rated M (Three-parts) Muggle AU/Secret Relationship

One Shots:

Skinny Dipping Part 1 - a jilymicrofic

Just the two of us - Hogwarts / Forced proximity, Hurt/Comfort

A Sweet Meet Cute - Muggle AU, small town romance

A romance of their own - Jily Valentine Gift Exchange 2023 / Celeb AU

Wet, Cold & Bothered - Rated M / 2022 Jily Challenge December Christmas challenge; prompt: Snowball fights

Muggle Christmas Traditions - Rated G/ 2022 December Christmas Jily Challenge. Prompt: The night before Christmas

The One Where Remus Has no Filter - Rated G. Jily Challenge December Christmas challenge

a year and 22 days - Rated T. Summer of Jily 2022 / lyric: all that I know is you caught me at the right time —"golden hour" (kacey musgraves) Scenario: late evening with friends in the garden

The One Where Petunia Can't Drive - April JilyChallenge / Meet uglies + prompt "i hit you with my car/broom and was the only one to visit you in the hospital"

two fools - Rated T / Feb 2022 Jily Challenge romance theme + prompt " “It’s not like I've thought about kissing you, or anything…”

Shut up & Kiss me - Rated M / December Jily Challenge, Winter theme. Muggle AU

Crush Phase - Rated T. Muggle AU

A Year Later - Rated M / Jily Challenge August 2021 . Muggle AU

consciously unaware - Rated GA / Jilytober 2021 bingo (5 prompts in one). Canon, friends to lovers.

Say my name - Rated M. Canon.

Romione

Multi-chapters:

Backseat Rider - Rated T / Muggle AU

One Shots:

Willow - Rated GA. Written for M.Windsor for the 2021 HP Romione Discord Secret Santa!

It’s better In the front seat… - Rated M (Backseat Rider One shot)

Confessions - Rated E / Canon

Books & Freckles - Rated T

Nobody Compares - Rated T / Muggle AU, professional football player Ron

Wolfstar

Skinny Dipping Part 2 - a wolfstarmicrofic

Teenage Kicks Spinoff coming soon!

[transformativeworksandcultures]

Fans of Color Prize Winner!

Transformative Works and Cultures is pleased to announce Osarugue Otebele as our inaugural Fans of Color Prize award winner for her article “The (anti)fan is black: Consumption, resistance, and black K-pop fan vigil labor”! Otebele’s article will be published in TWC’s upcoming special issue “Centering Blackness in Fan Studies” on December 15th. 

The Fans of Color Prize had 15 submissions, covering the breadth of TWC’s publications from 2021-2024, while providing an incredible glimpse into the impactful work happening in (and outside of) fan studies. Otebele’s submission stood out because, as one reviewer noted, it was “conceptually ambitious.” 

Otebele, a 4th year PhD candidate in the Department of Film & Media at UC Berkeley who goes by Osa among friends and colleagues, is a K-pop fan! She’s been an Epik-High fan since middle school and is also a fan of UKISS, SISTAR, EXO, BOYFRIEND, and others. As a fan, Otebele’s hope is that the K-pop industry will continue to thrive. 

We sat down with Otebele to discuss what brought her to her research, what she’s working on next, and where she sees the field heading. As a little sneak peek to the upcoming issue on “Centering Blackness in Fan Studies,” we’ve shared some of her remarks below. 

TWC: What brought you to this specific research topic? Otebele: I’ve been a K-pop fan since I was in middle school. When I was a younger fan, I wasn’t as aware of the racial tensions in fandom spaces. It wasn’t until I got to high school that I realized that my lack of involvement was also due to not knowing where to locate other Black K-pop fans. This was partly because it was also in high school when words such as “woke” or “conscious” became part of my vocabulary, so I was always looking for ways to bring attention to my Blackness and, as a  K-pop fan, it was difficult to do that. Both the industry and many non-Black fans wanted to escape from having conversations about race.  TWC: Could you briefly explain the key problem or question your article, “The (anti)fan is black: Consumption, resistance, and black K-pop fan vigil labor,” addresses?  Otebele: My article is interested in the ways Black K-pop fans engage instances of appropriation within the industry (from artists and fans), while also attempting to maintain their status as fans. Some of the key questions of my article were, “what makes an anti-fan?” and “how do Black K-pop fans employ digital media platforms to perform their fannish affect?”  TWC: Were there any unexpected challenges you encountered during your research? Otebele: I would say the biggest challenge was working against my own knowledge and love for the industry to write an article that was quite critical of it. In a way, this challenge is also what my article describes, because I’m really invested in how, for Black fans, the identities fan and anti-fan often require their simultaneous performance.  TWC: Are you planning any follow-up research or new projects based on this article?  Otebele: Yes! I’m currently working on another article focused on narrative coherence in the aesthetic performances in K-pop eras. In that paper, I examine how K-pop engenders a critical addition to the instability of cultural identity while on the other hand, it necessitates and reproduces the fungibility of Blackness, where groups can enter in and out of a performance of Blackness that best fits a particular era. My concerns are with how the narrative coherence of each era (hip-hop era, afro-beat era, Y2K, or house music era) requires a commitment to the performance demanded from these various musical genres.  TWC: Where do you see the field heading in the next few years, and how do you hope your work contributes to that?  Otebele: I think much of K-pop studies is focused on transnational fandoms and cross-cultural exchange, but we should also be having the difficult conversations about cultural extraction, about race, about gender and their relationship to fan labor. The industry is growing even more global with many K-pop idols emerging from the United States, Canada, Japan, and more. We really have to turn our attention to the kind of social ideologies that these idols are bringing from their various cultures and locations and how that changes not only the sound and look of the industry but also its fandom. 

Otebele also emphasized to us that receiving this award as a grad student really gave her work a sense of validity and importance, while also encouraging her to continue working on Black fan experience of K-pop. When asked if she had any advice for early career researchers aiming for impactful publications, Otebele shared: “Revise, revise, revise!” 

We can’t wait for you all to get to read Osa Otebele’s award-winning article, “The (anti)fan is black: Consumption, resistance, and black K-pop fan vigil labor,” which will be published in our upcoming special issue “Centering Blackness in Fan Studies” on December 15. Congratulations again, Osa, from everyone at Transformative Works and Cultures! 

[storyofthenauseouseye]

The Duality of Woman: Anais Nin

Vogue Magazine, Anais Nin talks about being a woman, 15 October 1971

Anais Nin is a woman of duality. It's been a well-known fact for those who know or love her that she is truly a two-sided coin. She said it herself in her book Henry and June,

"I will always be the virgin prostitute, the perverse angel, the two-faced sinister and saintly woman"(bookquoters.com).

From her intense marriages to two different men on opposite sides of the country, to her literary career, to even her personal reflections and essays, Nin was a figure bathed in duality. How does one split the image of Anais Nin ideally in half? You just have to find the seam between diarist and eroticist.

The Diarist

Anais Nin is most well-loved by her adoring fans because of her published diary. As a young girl, Nin wrote her father a letter begging him to return to the family he had abandoned (The Anais Nin Foundation). This was the beginning of Nin's diary, which would be published in seven volumes, with four unexpurgated diaries later appearing after their original publication.

Her diaries were incredibly personal, full of secrets and thoughts she never thought would come to light. The biggest secret within these diaries was that she was married to two different men simultaneously, something she would remove from the diaries upon initial publication. Years later, Nin compiled the removed sections into one volume, the first of her unexpurgated diaries. It was called Henry and June, and detailed the letters and writings the two shared. The duality of Nin stretched throughout every aspect of her life.

These highly intimate journals struck twentieth-century American women directly in their souls. As one journalist famously put it in an article for The Conversation,

Anaïs Nin dreamed, in all senses. She dreamed of lives and possibilities. She dreamed in slumber and allowed her dreams to leak into the day. As I regularly committed the cardinal social sin of recounting my dreams over breakfast, she seemed a soulmate across oceans and generations (Gorman).

These teenage girls and their daydreams were instantly hooked on Nin's likeminded wonder and splendid prose. She became a sensation after the diary publications almost instantly, giving her a decent seat in literary history.

It wouldn't be long until something else gave her another boost of fame.

Ramon Casas, Decadent Young Woman. After the Dance, 1899

The Eroticist

In the late 1970s, Anais Nine published three volumes of erotic short fiction, each containing approximately ten stories. Despite their popularity, the term erotic is a tad inappropriate. Although she wasn't a follower of the transgressive art movement like Georges Bataille, Anais Nin's erotic stories are more disturbing and controversial than actually arousing.

Nin wrote about such topics as sexual abuse, incest, pedophilia, and other forms of sexual violence within her stories. These works would go on to shock and challenge readers even today (Maza).

Lost Lenore Antiques, Anais Nin ~ Little Birds and Delta of Venus ~ 1st Edition Books ~ Vintage Erotica, 27 August 2021

Works Cited

The Anais Nin Foundation. “bio — The Anais Nin Foundation.” The Anais Nin Foundation, https://theanaisninfoundation.org/bio. Accessed 11 December 2023.

Gorman, Alice. “The book that changed me: journeying to the self with Anaïs Nin's sensual, transgressive diaries.” The Conversation, 25 April 2022, https://theconversation.com/the-book-that-changed-me-journeying-to-the-self-with-ana-s-nins-sensual-transgressive-diaries-176135. Accessed 11 December 2023.

Maza, Sarah, and Paul Herron. “Swinging: The Double Life of Anaïs Nin.” Public Books, 19 February 2018, https://www.publicbooks.org/swinging-the-double-life-of-anais-nin/. Accessed 11 December 2023.

Nin, Anaïs. “Quotes from Henry and June: From "A Journal of Love"--The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin by Anaïs Nin.” BookQuoters, https://bookquoters.com/book/henry-and-june-from-a-journal-of-love-the-unexpurgated-diary-of-anais-nin. Accessed 11 December 2023.

Further Reading

[unioncolours]

The 5th Majsasaurus Year

Today is the 22nd of September, 2024. As per tradition, I have written a reflection of the year that has passed since September 22nd 2023, a public diary entry of sorts. Not only is Sept 22nd Shikamaru’s birthday, but also Majsasaurus as a member of the Naruto fandom’s birthday as well. This date marks five years since I posted my first fic in the Naruto fandom. You can read my first reflection from 2020 here, the second from 2021 here, the third from 2022 here, and the fourth from 2023 here.

It's been five years guys! Half a decade of making a fool out of myself online!

I have to be honest, this year has not been the best when it comes to fandom. While not as depressing as the worst year of 2021, it’s been challenging for sure. Before I go into this year and personally reflects all its quirks and events, I’ll start by introducing my nickname that’s been used on me online; Bex.

When I got social in the Shikatema fandom spheres back in late 2019 I asked people to call me a different name, a name I chose. My back then friends said the name I chose was too long and didn’t want to call me that, so they gave me the name Bex. I accepted the nickname without whining, because there I was, new in a server, and I just followed their lead. So I became Bex online. This is important for later, hence why I told this backstory.

And now onto the fifth year of being this persona online. Keep reading if you’re interested in my year.

I finished my last review of my year by announcing to you, my followers and friends, that I was expecting a child, a theme which was very visible in the fic I published 23rd of September 2023, we hold galaxies.

Since I knew that I’d obviously would have to cut down my time spent online very drastically after my baby would be born, I planned to write one more Shikajin fic with the aim of it being around 30k long, hoped to publish it in December and then be on a longer break. However, it’s… not always that easy being pregnant haha! What I didn’t realise then but realised later was that I suffered from brain fog and that made writing challenging.

What did cherish my days was that dear SpicedGold, who I for a longer while have been close to, sent me a giftbox literally from across the globe. In that giftbox she included two homemade plushies, one of Inojin and one of Shikadai and I had never been so surprised in my life. Now two plushies of them is decorating my shelf above my computer by which I write fics! My friend @clumsydragon28sent me from another corner across the globe another gift box to me as a Christmas gift, where I got even more plushies! Those were of Rowlet from Pokémon and Fyodor from BSD and both plushies decorate my living room. The gifts were truly cherished.

However, because I had rather forcefully decided that I WILL write a final pre-motherhood fic and had a deadline if I wanted it published before my baby was born, it meant I stuck with the first idea I had that sounded mediocrely interesting. Yeah, I should not have forced myself at that point, but wanted to go on a break with a bang and wanted to give my readers something to chew on before giving birth.

And I had very strong faith in myself that I could make it.

For months I battled through writing a plotline my heart didn’t love and my due date got closer and closer and all I could see was plot holes and words that refused to form. I realised 30k would not be enough for whatever I was cooking, and I had now strayed very far from my original plan.

I started to procrastinate and, because I had gained 60 user subscribers on AO3 (if you’re one of them, thank you so much), I decided to host a silly bingo with prompts. I received a few prompt-asks and wrote mini fics for them, all around 600-800 words. It was a wonderful way of procrastinating. You can read my mini fics here: Jinchuuriki Temari part one and two, TemaTen modern au, a fluffy Shikatema, and a Witcher AU.

Not even when my maternity leave had begun before the due date had I made any significant dent in my primary fic and I failed my quest to publish it, even if I by then had a good idea of what to do of the story.

After my child was born and when I had healed form the birth the brain fog vanished immediately. With zero sleep and a tired body I once more had a vision for my fic, and I banged through the rest of it like a madwoman. I had inspiration once more!

TERRORISE, the Shikajin fic, was published at the end of March 2024 and ended being 56k long. It is definitely not my best fic by any means, and there are at least two or even three places where I know I could have added a subplot to up the word count to my trustworthy 90-something thousand words to make a deeper and more profound story, but at that season of my life I could not write a better story than what TERRORISE ended up being. The missing subplots were the lie Inojin told, and Chocho and Sarada’s common backstory, which were only mentioned and alluded to, but not explored like they could to have made a better story. The final chapter was published by the beginning of May, and I have not re-read anything of it.

I had already decided before my baby was born that my project when they were here would be to re-edit To go down with the Sun, my first long fic from 2019. I had often thought about re-editing it finally, since before 2019 I had never written something vast that in English before. That meant my fics at the beginning of my career had language errors that I couldn’t see then, but now was aware of. I started re-editing in May, thinking I would change and add to a good amount of scenes, but in the end, I only added a little bit to one scene aside from correcting and re-editing the rest, which honestly surprised me, even if I so boldly stated in my previous official diary post that there would not be anything to correct. That my bold claims were true did surprise me after all.

Beside that I also added more scenes to three chapters from no one cries for unknown soldiers, my Shikatema WWII fic from 2022, just because I could and I had wanted to do it for a longer while, since that fic would have benefited from having a longer editing period than what I allowed it to have two years ago. So I did! It was fun and lovely to dive back into one of my favourite projects of all of my time in fandom.

In the middle of re-editing Sun I was struck by very sudden and intense inspiration to write about Saiino. In my ‘giving birth’-projection fic with Temari I waxed poetics about the wonders (and horrors) of biology when it comes to childbirth and ended the fic on a very powerful and positive note, but now felt inclined to write a fic which featured a mother who did not have a wonderful start of her motherhood and who fell ill to postpartum depression instead of having a lovely baby bubble.

As if possessed I smashed on my keyboard and crunched to get the fic done in time for Mother’s Day 2024. I made it, and the Ino-centric fic to grow a bed of flowers was published late that evening. I even rushed my ending a bit to make it but even with a rushed ending the entire atmosphere of the piece of so bittersweet and lovely! Postpartum depression is also such a hidden or even taboo topic that I think it was very needed in our fandom to have a description of that.

I could then go back to To go down with the Sun, and I had even commissioned the skilled and wonderful @keijidraws to make a poster for the fic, which I felt like that fic deserved. Over these five years that has passed since I wrote the first words of this fic (if my memory isn’t failing me, I think it was 10th of October 2019 I started writing Sun), To go down with the Sun has given me so, so much. My most kudos and hits, many friends, online crushes, *fans* even if I dare to call them that, soulmates, it all, all started from that fic. It deserved getting reborn and loved again. It was a rather easy job banging through published chapters and just edit them. I had finished everything the final week of May and was really proud.

By the beginning of June I was planning to write an InoTema fic, and was musing between two different settings and plots when I learned that the way I was perceived in what was part of my fandom circle was not a positive one and, being my own fault for how I behaved or was, or not, it affected me badly. Being online caused me panic attacks, I got problems with my sleep, and I had nightmares. And because of that I started to hate the person I was online. I hated Bex and I hated Majsasaurus. I hated the way I was that had led to me being perceived that way and if I hadn’t known better and counted down from ten, I would have nuked myself off the internet out of shame and hatred.

I would have deleted this tumblr you are reading this post from. I would even have deleted my discord server I have loved and nurtured since 2021 without the blessings of the other mods, just nuked it, leaving them shocked and detached from the group of friends we had. I would have ruined it all. I would have deleted everything but my fics on AO3. No, deleted wouldn’t have been enough, in my hatred for my own persona, for Bex, this person that was given to me all those years ago, I wanted to kill her.

I constantly planned suicide letters in my head to post here online. Not killing myself in real life of course, but online. And killing Bex would mean to kill my love for Naruto the series and ShikaTema and Shikajin. How does one kill a hyperfixation?

I started working on it, on killing her. I created a new tumblr and a new nickname and logged out of this one. I hid my twitter account. I decided to never write a Naruto fic again. As you can see, it got very bad very fast. Some of you might think I overreacted at words on a screen and that it all was my own damn fault and I should have reacted or gone about it differently, but it just got like this.

The entire month of June and July I spent in darkness when it came to fandom. It felt like Shikajin would be the only thing keeping me tied to Naruto again and in a desperate attempt to cheer myself up I began editing To dance above the Stars, the sequel to To go down with the Sun, and my true favourite out of the trilogy it belongs to. To try to force myself to not give up, I asked my dear friend Soverel6 if she wanted to make me a poster and she happily agreed, without knowing I was one click away from deleting myself away from her.

Then I began editing sometimes in June. I thought the fic sucked when I re-read it this time around and rather than adding, deleted a lot of the content. Most of the content I deleted was unnecessary preaching for a cause I ran in the fic, and I toned down that theme a lot. After 4 chapters I was ready to give up, to just not bother anymore with this fandom crap and leave for good, when Soverel6 surprised me with an almost finished poster. For her sake, I could not give up. I could not fail the trust she had in me, and I kept fighting for my joy within the little world of the fic.

After a month of sulking and feeling awful I managed to once more spew fun ideas for @notquitejiraiya's sequel fic to her masterpiece Grandmaster, which we jokingly call GMJ (the real name is Piano Man haha). SpicedGold also got to know I was feeling bad and to cheer me up started writing the sequel, When Waterlilies Waken, to the fic that originally made us friends, Let Wildflowers Grow Free. I felt so honoured she got around to do this, after me talking (pestering her) about a potential sequel for a long time. During this time I had reached my favourite parts of the fic, To dance above the Stars, I was editing, and thanks to the support I received from friends when talking about it I finally managed to find it fun to work with a fic again. I was still greatly offline from Naruto spheres, and when I sometimes logged into this tumblr just to check I was very careful to never reblog anything and often logged out again with a pending panic attack.

I uploaded the edited chapter of To dance above the Stars onto AO3 when it was finished in August along with Soverel6’s poster and finally dared to show my face on twitter again. Twitter felt safer than tumblr for some reason.

By this time, two months since I began hating being part of this fandom, I finally started feeling hope again. I decided that, before taking the ultimate decision to actually leave, I must write one final long fic of ShikaTema. I mused different prompts, all of them long and angsty and bloody of course per my brand and what I love to write the most. I mused different plots and it was between yet another historical au which would take place during WWI, another historical au which would take place during the 1700s and focus on witch-hunting, or a fantasy au which would be my Witcher AU, which I have mused for a bit and am really fond of.

I decided in the end to attempt at the Witcher AU.

However, I didn’t start writing it, and started writing this text instead already in late August. Then, after knowing I had received so much love on the WWII-au from 2022, one of my best fics to be honest, in the spur of the moment I decided that I will record the entire fic as a podfic. I begged my dear friend Becks to make me a new poster for the fic’s re-launching as a podfic and since she luckily agreed, I promised myself to do it. I, Bex, would try something completely new! And dauting. And tough. Recording wasn’t a problem in itself, I love reading things out loud, but the chapters were longer than I thought when reading out loud, and the software I downloaded for the editing was not as easy to manoeuvre as I predicted.

Then the fatigue hit again. I got stuck. I have not given up and I will finish it, but the deadline is maybe by 2025, haha.

When I got stuck with recording myself, I managed to scrape together a will to finally, after three months of practically deciding to never write any fic ever again, write a one shot. That one shot ended up being a second chapter to we hold galaxies, my projection fic I published exactly a year ago on Shikadai’s birthday 2023. I first thought of making it a one shot, but ultimately decided to add it as a chapter instead, and I was pretty satisfied with how it ended up being.

Now I am facing what to do next. I still had that promise of a long ShikaTema fic, but the Witcher AU didn’t feel as good as it once did. The hype inside me waned at the same time as new ideas spurred. New ideas. Did you hear that, “new ideas”? That is the sound of me almost being healed from the intense hatred I felt towards my Naruto online persona during the summer.

One of the new ideas is for example connected to Inojin’s canon fate in Boruto the manga, during which chapter he ‘died’ I was not feeling good. I was already trying to strangle my love for him and then he DIED on me. I cried. Yeah, no, judge all you want, but I was not exactly mentally stable enough to witness that. Now, however, I am luckily having fun with engaging with canon once more, since Inojin survived, and we got some good food from the chapters. I had fun in my safe space with other people who were engaged with his fate.

I am now brooding an intense and angsty Shikatema canonverse long fic. Canonverse! It’s almost like going back in time to when I thought I only could (and wanted) to write canonverse, back in 2020 and 2021. I also have a wlw idea again, after deciding to trash all the InoTema ideas that were ruined due to my anxiety in June, so it feels… normal again. It feels like I normally feel like in fandom, in a place where my imagination can run free and I can be the antithesis of a dude bro: the silly bean sister.

I find it ironic how I every year say I have learned to deal with fandom grief, but this year proved once more that I will never learn. But I think I will have to learn to accept that I won't learn.

Now we are here again, at the 22nd of September. Five years has passed since I uploaded the first chapter to my first fic, and I have 950 000 words uploaded on AO3. Earlier this year I promised myself to beat the delicious one million word count before 2025, and I know I realistically still can do it if I start writing tomorrow and stick to it.

But I will not retire until I have that sweet one million words on AO3. It would be too much of a failure to do so. So, dear sixty something subscribers, followers and other lurkers, expect at least 50k more of Majsasaurus fic in the future.

And yes, you can call me Bex. I don’t want to kill her anymore. I asked her forgiveness for being so angry, especially when I proudly bought a Temari Funko figurine in September. I don’t think I can kill this hyperfixation just yet. I don’t think I even want to kill it.

I can, with confidence, say, that there will be a 6th Majsasaurus Year in 2025, at least in some capacity.

Thank you to those who stopped me from deleting everything.

Majsasaurus Bex

[time-eatingnoodle]

Hear Hear, RinShi nation!

Announcing a fun little Christmas event I'll be hosting this year: the 12 Days of RinShi! From December 14th to the 25th, it's a two-week long challenge to end the year on a bit of sweet AoEx fluff. It's not the first 12 Days of RinShi to be held, as the first one was back in 2021, so this is to bring back the cheer!

All kinds of medias are accepted! Artworks, writings, crafts, videos, essays, you name it! The point is just to have fun, so don't feel obligated to do all the days as well. Feel free to interpret the prompts as you see fit! It could be Christmas related as it could very well not be, it's up to you to make your own fun with it!

If you participate, make sure to tag it appropriately so I can find it!

Please reblog so as many people can see it!

Thank you, and have a wonderful Holiday season~!

Here are some examples of the previous 12 Days of RinShi I participated in, in case you need some inspiration~

[a-silent-symphony]

Nightwish: “The whole theme of the album is time, history, humanism, mortality. It’s really optimistic”

Tuomas Holopainen gives us the lowdown on everything you need to know about the hopeful new Nightwish album, Yesterwynde…

In the four years since their last album, Finnish symphonic metal titans Nightwish have been through much change, challenge and uncertainty. And that's without the pandemic kicking the legs out from underneath a year's worth of touring plans for 2020's HVMAN. :||: NATVRE a month after it came out.

First, in December of that year, longtime bassist and vocalist Marko Hietala announced that he was leaving the band. In October 2022, singer Floor Jansen revealed that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer, and successfully underwent surgery.

Then last year, they dropped a worrying newsbomb, announcing that upon completion of their then-current touring duties – which had included a mammoth show at Wembley – they weren't going to be booking any more gigs for an unspecified period of time. Including, they confirmed, even when a new album came.

“After the planned shows for June 2023 we will be ‘hanging up our spurs’ for an indeterminate time, as far as live concert performances go, and won’t be touring the next album," they wrote in a statement. “The reasons for this decision are personal, but, we all agree, vital to the wellbeing and future of the band. Be assured that we still love working together, and this decision has nothing to do with Floor’s pregnancy or our other individual projects."

They did, however promise new music. True to their word, they've just announced that in September they'll release their 10th album, Yesterwynde. A record immediately more heavy than its predecessor, it's also one that sounds refreshed, vital, optimistic.

"Yes, that's definitely a word you could use for it," says keyboardist and composer Tuomas Holopainen when we catch up with him in Berlin to get the skinny. "The whole theme of the album is time, history, humanism, mortality. And it has a really optimistic vibe going through it all."

The first track, Perfume Of The Timeless, arrives on May 21. Ahead of all that, we sat down with Tuomas to get the first look at Nightwish's next chapter…

You’ve been working on the album for ages. When did you start, exactly? “I started writing it in January 2021. It was the second year of pandemic. I wasn't supposed to start writing songs for this album yet, but there was nothing else to do because of COVID, so I thought I might as well use the time for it. So I used all of 2021 to do that. Then in early ’22, we did a demo with just me and the engineer, and had a listen to the demo with the whole band for the first time in May ’22, during our American tour. It’s always a really exciting moment to present the new songs to the band. And terrifying, to be honest!

“Then we started recording it last August, and it took a few months to record. And after that, four and a half months of mixing, and a few mastering sessions. And now here we are. And we're still working with the atmos mixes – there's going to be an atmospheric mix of the album and the orchestral version of the album.”

That’s not long after HVMAN. :||: NATVRE came out. Were you doing it with the hard intention of writing a full album, or were you just initially doing something just to pass time? “For some reason, I just felt really inspired. I felt like it was the perfect time to do another Nightwish album. And, like I said, there was nothing else to do. The previous album, HVMAN. :||: NATVRE was released in April 2020, about a month after the COVID lockdowns started, so tough luck there! It was frustrating, but as always, you have to try to look at the bright side of things. I thought, ‘Okay, maybe this album, now people can listen to it in peace. They have nothing else to do, either. Maybe it brings them some hope and comfort during the dark times.’ So you always have to turn things an optimistic way.”

This is a lot more of a metal album than the last one. Was that a conscious thing? “That just happened. We never, ever think about this stuff in advance, like, ‘Let's make a heavier album.’ It's just the stories need to be told in a certain way. And this time, they needed to be told in this way. And it's really interesting that you should say that, because there were two journalists yesterday who said, ‘I was expecting something much more metal. This is a really mellow album.’ Really? Okay, I don't hear it that way. But it's all in the listener’s ear, I guess.”

The first single, Perfume Of The Timeless, is nearly 10 minutes long. Not exactly easing people in, are you? “No! But, when we had the first meeting with Nuclear Blast, talking about the new album and singles, I told them, the first single will be a song called Perfume Of The Timeless, and it's eight-and-a-half minutes long, and the chorus comes in at 3:30. And they were like, ‘Perfect!’ I think that has to do with the fact that we have a long legacy. You know, we can do whatever we want, and I do, but it says something that we can do that, when I heard that for Spotify it’s good to have the vocals start after 15 seconds, or people skip it, they don’t have the attention span anymore.”

What does the title, Yesterwynde, mean? “It’s a made-up word. There's this thing called The Dictionary Of Obscure Sorrows. It gave me the idea that if you don't have an English word to describe a certain emotion, you can just make your own. This particular dictionary is dedicated to that, like, the feeling of longing for a place that you have never been in. What is that feeling? And it was something weird, I can remember. And this album was born from a certain sensation that I felt really strongly, but I couldn't find a word in human language to describe it. So I started to talk with Troy [Donockley, multi-instrumentalist] and said, ‘Should we come up with a new word? Does that make any sense to you?’ And he's like, ‘Yeah, that's a brilliant idea. What did you have in mind?’ It was something like time, memories going black and white, sepia, and I said, ‘something yesterday’. Then he said, ‘How about Yesterwynde?’ That's perfect! But yeah, it's just a made up word to describe what the album is about."

A sense of longing? "Not so much longing as realising what time is all about. Realising that there is such a thing as time and past and history. The internet and YouTube is full of these old black-and-white images, and even video clips, that you first see in black-and-white, and then they have been coloured. Have you seen those? That's the effect that I get at the moment. It's like it's coming from an other dimension, these are black-and-white images, then you colour it, and it's right there, as if it was filmed yesterday. Something happens in my mind when I see those. I thought, 'This has to be put into a song or into an album somehow.' Suddenly, you feel so connected to the past generations, and those people that you see in those images. They've all had their lives, their ups and downs, and they don't exist anymore, except as atoms scattered all over the universe. And we're going to be in that state pretty soon as well. So that should give you something to think about."

Are you just worried about getting older? "Not at all – on the contrary (laughs). But they are the ultimate cliche of: seize the day. That's something that I think about more and more. We're all going to be dead soon. It's just a matter of what you're gonna do before that."

That's a very positive outlook. You can hear that in the record. There's an enthusiasm, rather than a sense of bleakness or defeat… "Yes! Spot on! People often ask, 'Where do you get the inspiration?' Well, just look at this world, look at everything's that happening. Look at the sky, the scientific innovations. History is so full of stories that are just a bottomless pit of inspiration. And also, especially these days, there's a lot of fear mongering going on, like end-of-the-world scenarios, which I find, let's say 'distressing', but also a bit annoying, because humankind has ceased to see the good that we have accomplished as well. There is no denying that the world is going through a horrible stage at the moment. But it's always been like that. If you go back to the Middle Ages, things were much worse. Throughout the human history, it's always been like this. But now because of fear mongering, and the media, and the authorities, whether political or religious, telling us that it's all coming to an end, we have to repent. And a lot of people buy into it, and they live miserable lives. Because of that, they forget the beauty of existence. It's an unbelievable stroke of luck, and a privilege, that we are actually alive. So you might as well enjoy it."

There's a song called The Antikythera Mechanism, which is the name of an ancient Greek device used for astronomy. You don't get many bands writing about that… "Yeah, it's considered today to be the first analogue computer made by mankind. So, imagine that 2,200 years ago, in ancient Greece, they were able to build a computer. It just blew my mind when I read about this machine in a science magazine, and I thought that the world needs to know about this. Well, now everybody knows because of the new Indiana Jones film, because that's also about this particular mechanism. But yeah, it had to be done into a song.

"I was just thinking that humankind was so advanced back in those days that were able to build a machine like this. What happened? What if religions hadn't happened, or the burning of The Library Of Alexandria hadn't happened, where would mankind be today? Maybe we would be living all across the solar system already. Who knows?"

Again, it feels like there's still a very positive outlook there in the music, rather than moaning that it's all gone wrong. "I think it comes down to the word 'imagination', which is the biggest strength that we have as human species, compared to the other lower species. We like to imagine things, imagine things that might be better on the other side of the fence and things we will never have. But also imagination takes us to huge innovations. So it's a really good thing.

"The ancient Greeks did that with their computer. They started to imagine, 'Is there a way to predict those solar eclipses or star constellations moving? I bet there is, let's start building this machine.' So it all started from the imagining. It's similar with creating any art or music. Could there be a way to tell a story through music? I do that a lot. There's a song on the album called The Children Of 'Ata, which is a wonderful story of these kids on a deserted island and surviving there for 15 months. I heard the story and thought, 'There has to be a way to put this into music.'

"It's a crazy story, from not that long ago, 1965. I think some of the kids are still alive. It's important to tell these stories, because it really did happen. And maybe it can change the human perspective of the concept that if you take a bunch of people and put them into an isolated place for a certain period of time, they become savages. But this is proof that that's not the case. So they are a perfect example that humankind has hope."

This is your first album since Century Child in 2002 without Marko Hietala. Did that change your approach to writing? “No, it doesn’t really change anything, except that now we had two voices instead of three, only Floor and Troy. But that's it – it really didn't change much at all. And Jukka [Koskinen], the new bass player, is such a grounding personality that it's so easy to work with him. And his bass playing skills are tremendous, quite different from how Marko played the bass, which also brought a new spice into the music. So nothing but positive things to say about it all.

“There are many bands in the world that don't have a single original member anymore. And I think it comes down to the fact that if the music is good, then that's all that matters, in the end. Maybe for some people, certain bands are so holy that they can stand if they don't have certain members in it, even though the music would be good, but I don't really think like that. I just listen to the music, not the personnel behind it. That's all that matters to me.”

Similarly, does it feel weird to be talking about an album that, for the first time, you won’t be going out to tour? “No, it doesn't feel weird. It just feels right. But people shouldn't get worried. It's not the end of the band. We just signed a multi-record deal with Nuclear Blast, so there will be more music coming, definitely. But as far as shows, we're just gonna have a long breather now and see what happens. That's all I can say at the moment. We got our fair share in 2022 and 2023 when we did a lot of shows. So that helped.”

Yesterwynde will be released on September 20 via Nuclear Blast

[black-arcana]

JINJER Releases New Song 'Someone's Daughter'

Ukrainian modern progressive metal icons JINJER have released a brand-new, blistering single, "Someone's Daughter". The song arrives with a thrilling music video, and is now available on all streaming services worldwide.

JINJER singer Tatiana Shmayluk comments: "'Someone's Daughter' is an artistic attempt to cast the light on the inner world of women, who in various scenarios and circumstances have had to choose a path that was historically made by men.

"In a world where women are often underestimated and overlooked, they are still powerful heroes who navigate hardship with strength and resilience, unapologetically becoming themselves and breaking barriers in the face of the challenges that face them.

"'Someone's Daughter' celebrates transition from naivety into wisdom, weakness into force, unwavering determination and fearlessness as our mothers, sisters, daughters and wives walk through adversity and fight for better change. These women are often forgotten but they have earned respect. They've earned mine, that's for sure!"

JINJER recently completed recording the follow-up to the 2021 album "Wallflowers".

During an appearance on a recent episode of Knotfest's "She's With The Band", Shmailyuk spoke about the progress of the songwriting sessions for JINJER's new LP. Tatiana said: "My purpose is just to write lyrics and sing them. I'm so behind right now with the writing lyrics. And I warned my guys. We were at least to get a really rough draft, rough sketch or a demo of one song, like maybe first single from the new album, at least get this, but nope. [Stress and creativity don't] work with me. Well, but when the deadline's coming, and everybody knows that — I've been talking, like, every single time we release a new album, I say that, I say this — deadlines push me. So I just have to write, so I get this stream of consciousness, basically. I write down whatever the bullshit is in my head. And then you build it. At least you have to have bricks to build a poem or whatever it is, just lyrics."

Regarding the musical direction of the new JINJER material, Tatiana said: "It's gonna be different, first of all, because I feel that the music differs a lot. And to my mind, the whole — I won't say how many songs are there; I guess 12 or even 15; let's say 13; I don't remember — but they all have… not all of them, but half of them, at least, they have a similarity in them. They're similar to each other or they remind me. They have this concept within — without any lyrics, they still sound like they belong to one box. They are a set of songs. And I already think about all the… I'm not even thinking about like the lyrics — I think about the topics and stuff, but I think about the booklet or the cover or even the music videos and what I'm gonna wear there. And it has a certain flavor to me that… I feel like it has this flavor of 19th century. It's very romanticism from the 19th century. If you listen to it, you will think, 'Oh.' You know, when you listen to MUSE, you feel he was inspired by a lot of classical composers — obviously. So our new music has this flavor. And I'm so excited."

JINJER will embark on a North American tour in the fall. Support on the trek will come from fast-rising Japanese metalcore unit HANABIE and progressive metalcore mainstays BORN OF OSIRIS.

JINJER released its first official live DVD/Blu-ray, "Live In Los Angeles", on May 17 via Napalm Records. Recorded and filmed on December 22, 2022 at The Wiltern in Los Angeles, this offering is intended to celebrate not only getting through the last few years in one piece, but also the band's 15-year career.

"Live In Los Angeles" was a spontaneous decision by the band, recorded as raw as possible, to emphasize the passion that can come from a live show. This release is an explosive mixture of JINJER's discography — featuring fan favorites like "Sit Stay Roll Over", "Home Back" and the game-changing "Pisces". The live album contains 16 songs in various audio formats, with some strictly limited: the deluxe digipack features not only a DVD, but also two more songs, "Wallflower" and "Disclosure!", recorded in Paris in 2023.

JINJER is:

Tatiana Shmayluk - Vocals Roman Ibramkhalilov - Guitars Eugene Abdukhanov - Bass Vlad Ulasevich - Drums

Photo credit: Lina Glasir

[who-is-page]

Fall 2024: Achievements, Goals, and Thoughts

[Crossposted from my Patreon]

The fall equinox is just around the corner, heralding the arrival of one of my favorite times of year (although our arthritis and its poor relationship with the cold certainly begs to differ). With a new season on the horizon, I wanted to get my bearings on where we're at, where we're going, and our thoughts about all of it.

Achievements. 💡

We were volunteer staff and lecturers at this year's OtherCon! We co-lectured the Alterhumans & Relationships panel with our husband Thomas, which involved going over some of the data gleaned in our Alterhumans & Relationships Survey. We also assisted with the data collection and visualization for our partner Orion Scribner's massive survey, boasting over 1,200 respondents, which was used in their OtherCon lecture Phantom Limbs and Phantom Sensations, Human and Otherwise.

The Alterhuman Archive has reached over 1,400 entries. This is not something that would have been possible without the incredible help of the other archivists and curators working on the project--our friend Nova, our partner system House of Chimeras, and our partner Orion just to name a few--but it's an absolutely phenomenal and unbelievable milestone to reach.

This year's first Centaurus Festival was a massive hit, with 150 people registering and a peak attendance of 134 people. There were 11 panels in total, not including movie showings. Once again not a project I could have wrangled on my own without the incredible support of my friends and the staff team.

Goals. ✒️

Inky Paws #3 has been put on the back burner for a significant part of this year while college and my job took precedence, but I'm set and determined to once again have it published by or before December 31st.

Retail Werewolf is a comedy-fantasy solo RPG about being--you guessed it!--a werewolf stuck in a awful and fantastical retail job, where you're just trying to get through your shift without mauling someone. It's something that I've had in the works for a few weeks now. It's around half-way to completion, and I hope to have it done in time for Black Friday.

The Centaurus Festival website, Discord, and Tumblr need to be updated in preparation for next year. I've already touched base with the staff team on this, and I'd theoretically like to have at least the website updated before the equinox. (With that said, I'm working 55 hours this week, have at least 15 hours of college work left to push through, and will be celebrating my four-year anniversary with House of Chimeras, so we'll see if that timetable holds.)

Thoughts. 💭

We were extremely disappointed to see NaNoWriMo's stance in favor of generative AI earlier this year. If you don't know what debacle we're referring to, I made a short post on my Dreamwidth about it, and several news organizations have written deep-dive articles discussing and dissecting the matter such as Slate's Inside the Heated Controversy That’s Tearing a Writing Community Apart. We grew up writing with NaNoWriMo, and we even won the challenge in 2013 with a cheesy horror story that will never see the light of day and again in 2021 with The Sol System’s Alterhuman Writing Project, where we wrote an alterhuman-themed piece for each day in November. But with that said, the enormous outpouring of support for archiving and creation that we've seen at both OtherCon and the Centaurus Festival and our own past success with NaNo for writing about alterhuman topics make us wonder if it might not be time to reclaim November, which also conveniently happens to be the month in which Therianthropy Day is celebrated, and create an alterhuman writing event or group for it. Let us know your thoughts on this idea, or if you're feeling like you want to take a whack at it yourself!

And on that note, we really want to see people rally and support some of the major community projects out there more-- things like the Otherkin Wiki, AnOtherWiki, Otherkin News, Radiant Obscurities, and similar! We also want people to feel more assured in their own capabilities to create projects themselves, either collaboratively or alone. Seeing Nova's plans for HowlCon next year is incredibly exciting.

In sadder thoughts and news on projects, we must all bid a sad farewell to Project Shift and the Werelibrary, which are currently no longer being maintained. These resources were some of my favorite when I was a high school otherkin over a decade ago, and were also a major inspiration for my creation of the Alterhuman Archive. Although some of the works hosted on them may have been dated, these sites will be sorely missed.

[chaotic-nick]

Eren Yeager x reader x slight! Reiner Braun

High school friendships dwindle and no one cared what you study after a year in uni. Atleast that's what Eren thought. Wallowing in self-pity, he's become different from the Eren everyone knew.

Meanwhile, your final years of university push you back to Paradis. Home. Where your heart was broken.

Chapter count: 4 - word count:

Warnings: Hurt/ no comfort, reader is slightly manipulative, multiple flashbacks, nsfw [to be tagged as I write more]

Please comment/interact to be tagged

— 1: 'Look at us'

A small get together with your mutual friends brings yours and Eren's paths in the same room. Suddenly he feels stupid ... strangely remembering the first time you met.

Warnings: car sex, unprotected sex,

— 2: 'I dunno, really'

Where Eren's confused, angry and he feels so small. Reassuring him that you weren't hurt leads to too many things.

One of them being Reiner's couch.

Warnings: accidental I love you from Eren

— 3: 'Do I deserve this?"

He remembers making you feel so stupid in high school. Eren swears he'll be a better boyfriend.

First, he needs to talk to you. Properly.

Warnings: couch sex, cunnilingus, nipple play, overstimulation, size difference

— 4: 'I wish we never met'

This time, you two broke each other's heart.

+ this fic started as a draft from December of 2021, and I finally started it on November of last year.

++ I'm challenging myself to finish the middle parts on my ten hour flight 😌

Special thank you to:

@stigandr-the-cat for helping me decide on yhe banner for this fic ❤️💖

[toomanystoriessolittletime]

Winter/ Christmas themed fics

A list of all my Winter/ Christmas themed fics

Javier Peña

A Christmas Carol - Made in Colombia (Mini Series) (G)

Nothing was the same since Escobar was gone. Javier didn’t want to be back, but he had no other choice. He was there to do a job and a job only. When a stake out went wrong and Javier ends up in a drug induced coma the three ghosts of Christmas show him what he was blind to see.

Marcus Pike

Winter Wonderland (E)

Running into Marcus Pike after making your peace with staying alone for the rest of your life might be faith trying to tell you that there is someone out there for everyone.

Roasted Almonds (G)

Almost getting knocked over by a handsome stranger on a christmas market might be the start of your personal Hallmark Movie experience.

New Years Wishes (G)

After spending difficult six month without Marcus he surprises you for New Years Eve.

Frankie Morales

A Walk in the woods (G)

Frankie talks you into taking a walk to the local farm to pick out a Christmas tree.

Alone (with me) (G)

Christmas sometimes is a lonely affair. Until you find someone you can be alone with.

Alone (with you) (G)

You spend the week between Christmas and New Years getting to know Frankie better.

Din Djarin

How I met the King of Mandalore (without knowing it) (E)

AU: A business meeting after Christmas takes you to the small kingdom of Mandalore where you meet a handsome stranger at your hotel bar who does not only show you the beautiful town but a side of himself that made you fall for him in a matter of hours. What happens when you run into the same man on your mission to return a child you had run into on your tour through the palace the next day? Did you… accidentally sleep with the next King of Mandalore?

Joel Miller

Sweaty (E)

Things.... escalate after Joel caught you watching him chopping some wood outside in the snow.

Dieter Bravo

Cookie Kisses (T)

Dieter finds you baking cookies in your home after being away to shoot his series for months.

Javi Gutierrez

Lonely Christmas (G)

A storm that makes it impossible to leave the island, leaves you spend Christmas with your friend and boss Javi.

Syverson

Happy Christmas (E)

A snow day in with Sy ends in more than just reading a good book and watching some crappy tv

Donaka Mark

All I want for Christmas is you (M)

Donaka could ask for what he wants. Because he would get it. But sometimes breaking someone to get what he wants, is so much more fun.

CHRISTMAS WRITING CHALLENGE 2019

CHRISTMAS WRITING CHALLENGE 2020

CHRISTMAS WRITING CHALLENGE 2021

DECEMBER WRITING CHALLENGE 2022 

WINTER WRITING CHALLENGE 2023

[hexfloog]

2021 - 2022 - 2023 - 2024

Can you believe there's barely 10 days left to the year?? Because I can't! Time to lay my feelings bare again!!!

So I definitely slowed down quite a bit compared to 2022, but I still made enough to fill the template and, in spite of everything else, lots of life development things happened these last 365 days that I think makes 2023 one of my best years in recent memory :)

I have less to say about the art this time. The drop in quantity checks out when I stop to reflect on just how much time I spent on each one. I definitely don't have as many sketchy works to show off this time either (probably in no small part due to the fact that I've also slowed down on Detco) - and that's probably owed to having spent most of my art effort this year drawing for other people, be it commissions or fan projects, and I already know that I'm more inclined to take risks when I have just myself to please. It's not a bad thing, that's just how it is.

I suppose my one observation of this year's body of work is that the vast majority of it is quite ambitious. Real pushing-my-comfort-zone stuff, but it's more of a polished brand of risk rather than the kind you get sketching ideas on the spot. Some examples:

February - both a collab and a thing that became a fan cel intended as an autograph piece at a con

April - simultaneously a gift and a very personal piece

June - silly comic (anything humorous is automatically out of my comfort zone)

August - community project + comic page redraw that really tested my ability to find a new style to play with

September - made to become tangible merch (it did)

October - redraw of my very first digital piece

November* - character design from text description only and formal reference sheet commission (my first ever)

December* - digital watercolor + fake children's paperback cover

*active WIP, not yet complete

It's not that much (really, it's average output for me) but I will take my wins where I can get them, especially since this is pretty much the scope of my art projects this year. Didn't really have much time or energy to write, or make more models, or scan more cards, because... ya girl was too busy getting a promotion/raise, moving out, enjoying the best con experience of her life (so far), volunteering, meeting lots of new people, dating again, having general fun, eating good food, trying new things, finishing a monthly art challenge for once, playing creative romhacks, waking up to new career opportunities, etc. etc. etc! It feels like so much happened this year!!

I tend to be harsh on myself and often feel like my life is not going anywhere, but this year really made me feel like I'm finally gaining some momentum again. And like... I don't expect (or want) to live life in the fast lane or anything, but stagnating isn't good, either, and with every passing year I have to ask myself with a little more sincerity what my future looks like.

So all that said, thanks very much for sticking around and suffering me another year <333 Who knows what 2024 will bring!! But for the first time in a while, I think I am looking to it with more than just a resigned "meh" and I hope the same for anyone reading this, too.