#don't mind me I always wanted to explore this idea and maybe someday

[chibichibisha]

Listen, I have a thought that has been killing me for years. I really, really, really would have love the plot key of "awakened darkspawns are individuals with personal thoughts" to be furthered in the Dragon Age series because it'd be SO interesting to create a new "race" with them.

It would be an extension of the tolkiense concept of "orcs are twisted elves" from clearly the darkspawns take inspiration form, yeah, but by making them their own race on Thedas? It would be so good. They would create a dissonance between those awakened darkspawns creating clans, still raiding the other races and transmiting the taint maybe, or those aiding Grey Wardens against regular darkspawns, and those who are still trapped by The Song, mindless. You know, like, what Awakening was implying and introducing to?

Like what happened with the Geths in Mass Effect, but more nuanced, even more complicated with their inner wars and rivalities and differences. They could even had a connection with the void, since it was kind of hinted that maybe the Blight was originated there. Born from corruption but granted humanhood by a disciple of the Gods (the Arquitect as an old Tevinter Magister), it even screams a new religion for them.

Ugh, I don't know, it feels such a wasted oportunity. So many posibilities, so many ideas for a new culture in Thedas (the way they named themselves was so interesting???) The political implications with how nations deal with those clans in their lands. The moral questions about them!!! Do they deserve to live? Is it better that they are exterminated since they spread the taint? But some of them are sentient creatures now! And they express opinions. What do we do with them??

Awakening was peak in Dragon Age if you ask me, and I will die on this hill.

[zippidi-dooda]

Dunno if this exists yet, but someone needs to write stories of twst clubs x reader, where members slowly become more attached and possessive of Y/N, could be mild or bordering on yandere actions, platonic or romantic. Includes all clubs, even the single member ones. They can also be set in the current NRC timeline or in the future or as a whole different AU.

Here's some examples and ideas to fuel you to start,

"Basketball Club × Reader" - Be ready to go pro with this ambitious group, Jamil, Ace, and Floyd. An unexpected turn of events is sure to ensue if the time is right, or wrong rather, but rest assured that you'll soon be set back on track by the level headed of the members. You say you don't like the spontaneity? Don't worry, me neither. But if I can, then I'm sure you could also find it in your heart to forgive and just go along with it, yes? Oh dear, don't you seem out of it today. Here, let us help. Just follow my every instruction ... yes, just like that ... it's good to know you're the most cooperative of us ...

"Pop Music Club x Reader" - Have fun jammin' out and sharing crazy stories with this energetic trio, Lilia, Cater, and Kalim. You'll always feel welcomed and noticed here whether you know how to hum a tune or have never touched an instrument in your life. Just enjoy the tea and spill your darkest secrets whenever you'd like, this group is patient and remembers every last detail, you'll never want to leave. Though, if the thought does cross your mind, you'll need to announce your upcoming absence so we can throw a goodbye party. But, maybe you shouldn't. We'll just remind you of all the good times you'll miss. For one last time, we'll laugh and joke about how horrible and destroyed your life would be without us. We know everything about you, even the diabolical. Why, if your secrets were to be spread through magicam like wildfire, it'd close so many doors for you, no one would ever look at you the same. You don't want that, right? It'd be best to just stay here with us where your peace of mind is secured, right? You're free to go, but please don't forget us. And don't forget that all it takes is one push of a button to push your life downhill ...

"Spelldrive Club x Reader" - Soar through the skies as you chase your victory alongside this competitive bunch, Leona, Ruggie, and Epel. You train hard everyday, but there's still time to get together during breaks, the chipper of your group bonding over your mutual desire to crush the competition as your captain snoozes. Other, bigger, teams want to recruit you which is a great opportunity. You're honored. And you should be, but don't you know you're the most valuable member of the team? We couldn't make it without you. Not to mention, we'd be heartbroken to see you leave. These guys are too proud to say it, but deep down you know it's true. Those other guys may be better against teams we haven't been able to beat, but they'll never support you as much we do. You wouldn't want to lose the people who love you most, would you? No? Ah, I'm glad. Don't worry, we're sure to win someday, just stick with us and you'll never have to worry about disappointing anyone again ...

"Equestrian Club x Reader" - Gallop through endless fields alongside your law-abiding yet tender companions, Sebek, Silver, and Riddle. Rest assured that with these three you'll have bushels of fun, but more importantly, you'll always be safe. Always. Perhaps a bit too safe ... but there's no such thing, right? Just follow our instructions quickly and obediently, quietly, and you'll never have to worry about the risks of riding through the wilderness again. We promise not to let you get hurt. If it takes being restricted to only the land visible to us, so be it ... hm? Oh, my apologies, I am simply running my mouth. Pay it no mind. Ah, hey, not that way. Why? Well, we haven't quite explored there yet and we'd rather not risk endangering you or the poor horses. Perhaps we can take a look at it tomorrow and see if it's fit for a trot, yes? I agree, now why don't we head back, I can guide your horse for you if you'd like. Just sit back and relax, you're safe with us taking the reins, I promise. The most safe you'll ever be ...

"Track & Field Club x Reader" - Live life fast and furious with this driven pair, Deuce and Jack. You'll always be encouraged to push your limits with their helpful hollers. You won't be upset long with their optimistic cheering. But make sure you show up for every meet, if not, they'll worry about you. They'll go looking for you. And they will find you. Hey, we haven't seen you around lately, is everything okay? Is now a bad time? I'm sorry, but we really missed you yesterday and just wanted to know nothing bad happened. Why don't you come join us for lunch tomorrow, we don't have to practice. We'll get you whatever you want, promise. Wait! You ... weren't planning on leaving me behind again, were you? Good. Ya had me worried for a second, haha. So, we'll meet up at 2:30? Great. Afterwards we can just hangout. And if you want to go for a quick jog again we'd be more than happy to. We've always been faster than you, though, remember? But, don't worry, we'll go easy on you if you ask. Just don't bolt when we're not looking so we don't have to worry and chase after you ... again ...

"Film Research Club x Reader" - Get ready to make strides in the acting business as you perform and work behind the scenes with model and tech genius, Vil and Ortho. Just make sure you aren't so distracted by the applause and spotlights that you forget to read the fine print of your contract. You wish to quit? I'm sorry, My Dear, but I'm afraid you've agreed to work with only us for xxxx amount of years and we need you to play this next lead in order to ensure our film trumps Neige's. Don't worry, we know all the right tips and tricks to secure perfection, just read the script as directed. Exactly. As directed ...

"Science Club x Reader" - Slip those safety goggles on and hold your breath as you run experiments with this curious pair, Trey and Rook. There's nothing better than getting your hands on new and exciting material. Not exactly sure why you're here? No worries! Not all of us are either, but we have fun here. Any experiments you've heard of you'd like to try? Only illegal ones? No problem we can get our hands on the items needed just tell us what they are ... a funny joke? No. I'm dead serious ... we've done plenty before ... ahaha! You look so frightened, lighten up, no one's died ... yet ... hey wait don't give that look. Sorry if that was too much. We're careful enough to keep things safe ... unnoticed ... what's that liquid? Oh just some juice for a friend using the fruits in here, would you like to try it? Here, have a sip ... what's that? It burns? Ah, I see let's write that down. What else are you feeling? What? Using you? No way, we'd never do something so cruel ... you're simply helping us learn as our lab partner ... oh stop that, no one else is here ... now tell me before things escalate ... what other sensations are you feeling ... fascinating ... it's different compared to last time ... too bad you forget after you wake up ... it's why we have to keep doing this ... over ... and over again

"Board Game Club x Reader" - Roll up thise sleeves and bring your a-game as you play with these competitive gamers, Azul and Idia. Have fun and forget the days worries as you make you way across the mat, never will these two give you a boring game. Though that doesn't mean we can't take things up a notch ... What say you we have a little wager? We beat you xx amount of times and you do us a little favor in return? I promise there'll be no foul play. You could ask a favor of us too if you win. In fact we can sweeten the deal even more if you're game ... no? Oh, don't tell me you're scared you'll lose ... you're not? Good. Then there's no issue making a harmless bet, yes? How lovely ... now, why don't we all sign this paper to ensure no one chickens out when they lose ... oh don't worry it's nothing serious, just a sheet of rules, standard club ware yes? Yes ... now right on the line ... good job. You agreed to sign this freely remember? Right. So don't go back on you word later ... nothing good comes of cheaters ... trust me ... I take care of all of them ...

"Gargoyle Studies Club x Reader" - Prepare to learn each and every random tidbit about each little stone as you explore the ruins with this wise companion, Malleus. Everything may go in one ear and out the other but this voice just so dreamy that you don't mind the rambles, right? But please do make an effort, no one likes a dimwit who can't tell the difference between a grotesque and a gargoyle. But, oh dear, it looks like you really are getting tired. Don't worry, I know how to care for my own, you can slumber for the next century safe at my side. I promise to be here when I let you wake up. At least then we won't need worry about those pesky mortals who wrestle your time from me. Hm, what was that ... you feel disoriented ...? Oh you needn't worry, that's a standard effect ... you won't feel a thing in a moment ... trust me ... your dearest friend ... I'll always be watching over you ...

"Mountain Lovers Club x Reader" - Embark on cozy and informative hikes through the mountains with your knowledgable partner Jade. But beware the trained smiles and pre-packed lunches, you may end up a little further out than planned. Oh, don't worry, the place I had in mind is just a little further along, I promise. You trust me, don't you? Good, then everything should go smoothly. Hm? You're not feeling well? Ah, perhaps you ate something you shouldn't have ... I do hope you were taking note of those wilderness survival tips I gave you ... though, they may not be of much help to you underwater ... hm? Oh, I wasn't saying anything of importance, don't mind me. You did say you trust me, yes? I'd like to find out just how much ...

Honestly, I had a lot of fun writing these ideas, even though I did forget about them for a while.

[longing4yesterday]

give me mcharrison thoughts ☕

ohhhhhh man. i could honestly go on FOREVER about those two.

WARNING; i ramble on forever below the cut, so be warned!!

truthfully, i think their dynamic is just as interesting as mclennon's. however, it's a bit under-explored by the greater fandom and i'm a bit sad about that personally. they were childhood friends that met with a mutual interest in music, connected and decided to learn guitar chords together!! they did typical kid things like getting up to pranks and hanging out at each other's houses. then john came into their lives and everything shifted, both for the better and worse. those two had each other's attention for ages until the formation of the beatles kinda started splitting it between different responsibilities and relationships. but, at this core, george had always loved paul. yet, as they grew older, that bitterness for being shoved out grew more to the forefront and he struggled with it heavily. of course, there's other aspects too i'm not saying that being pushed to the side in terms of importance was the ONLY thing that bothered george at that time, but it is a factor. then it all cracked when the band fell apart in 1969/70. he refused to speak to or see paul, aligning himself with other members like ringo or john, only finally seeming to somewhat amend and remain cordial when they worked together on anthology and john's tapes up until his death in 2001.

there was a push and pull with those two. of course, i'm speculating and i truly don't know if george ever really had queer feelings for anyone, let alone any member of the beatles, so don't mind me as i put on my tinfoil hat for a second. i read george's feelings toward paul as less of an older sibling-figure kind of friendship and more of a one sided affection. he probably figured that paul had his eye on john from the moment they all met, so he kept his own feelings to himself (that + the way society viewed queerness in that time is the perfect recipe for remaining in the closet with a quiet yearning harbored in your heart). things like the impulsive trip to paris early on probably tipped him off initially and it spiraled from there. was george jealous of the gravitational pull john held over paul? maybe! i don't know! his admiration of john in the beginning did die down in later years as he grew to know him and his patterns of behavior better. yet, he kept his mouth shut about liking paul, his best friend, and took a begrudging step back to let those two have their time in the spotlight. though, if he had it his way he'd have swooped up paul faster, kept a tighter grip on him. even when he was older and more detached from everyone, there's still a little part of him that's a little boy, yearning for his friend to love him like he always wanted. i've never seen get back but i think of that scene where george's watching john and paul mirroring each other, playing to each other face to face, and he looks like he's about to cry. it's upsetting and it breaks my soul every time i see it.

george loved paul, even when tensions were high. they created a tight bond with one another during their youth and never really shook the connection. i know i said this before but i'll reiterate it again; they hated each other, they loved each other, they wanted to kill each other, they obsessed over their opinions over each other. it was an obsessive spiral that harmed rather than nurtured. and that's all george wanted, to love paul without being corrected or judged. to hold his attention for just one minute without the fear it'll be snatched up by john again. yet, he never got that. paul did not reciprocate, his affection for george was that of a little brother. which couldn't have felt good.

they're so tragic GOD. i love writing about them so much and i kinda hate that mclennon eclipses them. we need more mcharrison enjoyers out there making art!! pleaseeeeee

anyways, here's some little things i wanna write someday about these two/ideas i like in general to lighten the mood a little bit;

it's been reported that if you ended up sleeping next to george you'd wake up tangled in his limbs. so i thought it was a cute idea that whenever george and paul would have sleepovers paul would wake up to a tiny little george cuddling him. instead of shoving him off, he lets him sleep in longer cause he thinks it's cute

an alternate ending to "sweetly tender is the flesh" where instead of john and paul running off to fuck, it's george and paul instead (much to john's anger and jealousy)

anything that happened in hamburg. i do not believe for a SECOND nothing queer happened over there. i already wrote a tidbit about that but like---i wanna explore it more tbh

older george and paul reconciling after john's passing :( i need it for my soul

paul being possessive of george………that is all

the tenerife vacation lives in my head rent free. i know i also wrote a tidbit about that buuuuuuuut. less angsty mcharrison fling in tenerife cause i ALSO don't believe nothing queer happened on that trip

KEY WEST. see other points above. or like---when they're all drunk telling each other they love one another, george internalizes it and almost admits that it's more than platonic but holds his tongue because he sees how much paul is clinging to john.

and i think that's all i got for now! hopefully that all made sense ^^;

send me a topic + ☕️ emoji and i'll share my honest opinion

[icypenguin]

genshin men Xiao, Neuvillette, Alhaitham, Wriothesley, (sperate) x y/n??

How about them meeting a teen (14 -16) y/n who is like Kairi from kingdom hearts and always saw how they always kept a diary with them full of writing and some small doodles??

(this is platonic ofc I RLLY wanted to see their interactions with Kairi from kingdom hearts also I would search her personality because I don't know how to describe it sorry!! 😭😭)

★~ Words and doodles!

HELLO ANON, OFCOURSEE I’LL BE HAPPY TO!!!!! I HOPE I GOT KAIRI’S PERSONALITY RIGHT… but anyway i hope you’ll like it so please enjoyyyyy!

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

★~ Xiao: you accidentally bumped on him while rushing to get the new limited edition sticker collection! he’ll be quite grumpy but he doesn’t really care about it anyway (mehhh). “oh! sorry sir, here you could have this doodle i did earlier! byebye!” you gave him a sticker as an apologize. he only stood there, not knowing what to say. the second time you met eachother is when he was strolling around at a park and you were doodling and writing in your diary. he noticed you but he pays no mind. but ofcourse, you noticed him and walked to him. you were very sorry for that incident so why not offer him a doodle? “hey, sir! i’m really sorry for our past events. as an apology… let me doodle you!” “uh.. i- um.. sure?” he was quite confused ofcourse. but after 5 minutes he was happy to see your doodle of him smiling and not have a grumpy face.

★~ Neuvillette: he was you wondering through fontaine a couple of times always holding that precious diary of yours. he was going to work, he stumbled upon a familiar diary. as he thought of it again, he remembered you. he bet you were looking all over fontaine for your diary. he took it and took a great peek inside. he saw your variations of doodles and writings. he was amazed by your style, well he’s never seen something like this on the newspaper. as he continued walking, he saw you asking everyone in the street about your missing diary. then, it was his turn to be asked “hello, chief of justice! have you seen a diary that i always carry around? please tell me you’ve seen it!”. your worried expression faded as he pulled out your diary. “i believe this is what you’re talking about?” he handed you the diary. “yes! thankyou sir! thankyou thankyou! how can i repay you?” you took the notebook and hold it close. “well.. i took a peek of your diary and your writing amazed me. perhaps you could write a biography of me?” “ofcourse! i’d be happy to”. you wrote him a biography and made some doodles of him. he was delighted to see the results. he’ll be sure to hire you as his assistant someday.

★~ Alhaitham: he’ll be.. i guess pretty interested in a girl always bringing around her diary? well, he does like books and writing. as you were exploring sumeru city, a page from your diary fell. al-haitham was the first one to notice. he took it and read the page about your day with a doodle of a spinocrocodile. he tought, perhaps you could be a journalist. he catched up to you and gave you the missing page of your diary. you thanked him and he told you to maybe publish a story in a diary-a-like style about your day that someone will enjoy (if you don’t understand, search up marcy’s journal from amphibia). you thought of the idea and perhaps you should. “well, if you need any help, just find me” he said before he walked away. some weeks later, you passed by him again and took the chance to ask something “h-hey! uh- sir al-haitham, could i ask you something?” “go ahead, i guess it’s about the diary book?” “yes! yes it is”. he invited you for lunch at a café and you asked him multiple questions that he was happy to answer. as time pass, you finished your book with his help and published it. the citizens loved it ofcourse! now, he’s like your mentor. he helped you in any problem you had.

★~ Wriothesley: he would catch you writing in your diary and scribbling doodles with sigewinne every thurday afternoon. sigewinne told him about you too, how you both like to write down what happened in your day and doodle some random things. he was glad that sigewinne was having fun with a friend, it catched his interest. the next time he saw you with sigewinne, he decided to join in. “hey! having a lovely afternoon?” “oh! hello, duke! are you sigewinne’s friend? she told me about you”. he chuckled at your sunny and cheerful personality “yes that is correct, what are you both writing?”. “oh we’re writing how our day went..” sigewinne decided to join in the conversation. he looked to the doodles and writing you both made- and certainly he approved that it is adorable. “hey y/n we should make stickers for the duke!” “oh? you’ll let me do that? awesome!” you and sigewinne started to doodle for the stickers. oh well, i guess wriothesley will have 2x more stickers around his office or in random places.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

THANKYOU FOR READING! ANON, IM SO SORRY IF THIS IS NOT WHAT YOU EXPECTED… BUT I HOPE YOU’RE SATISFIED WITH IT 😞😞😞 ANYWAY THANKYOU FOR THE 300 LIKES ON MY PREVIOUS FANFIC BTW EHHEHEHEHEB HAVE A NICE DAYYYY! ADVICES ARE ACCEPTED, THANKYOUUU!

[mask131]

Can you someday do a post about a very important question that always deeply fascinated me: How technologically advanced is Oz?

Wicked as a stage show puzzles me because it implies Oz has electricity, a broadcast radio system, and trains.

How much tech is present in Oz in the books?

Oh boy that's one COMPLICATED question... Now, before I start saying anything, I will point out that I am not an Oz expert by any means. I have not read all of the Oz books. However I do know an Oz expert that tackled the subject! He is here on Tumblr somewhere, but I know his Oz analysis and lore-exploration by his blogs. He started doing them more than a dozen year ago on vovat.livejournal.com ; and then he continued his Oz posts to vovatia.wordpress.com ; I know they have very, VERY helpful when it comes to my own knowledge of Oz, and he tackled several times the topic of technology in Oz and Baum's work, with quite fascinating analyses! So go check out these blogs, you might find some interesting info!

That being said, what can I tell you?

Since I haven't read all the Oz books I will stick to Baum's novels only - but before doing that I want to point out something... It is something I said in my previous Oz post (So you want to know about Oz 5), but the Wicked stage musical is part of a pretty big wave of 2000s-onward Oz adaptations that decided Oz was a steampunk world. I know you entertained yourself a pretty similar project of a Gilded Age Oz, if I recall correctly? And when you look at Oz adaptations, you have this wave of SyFy's Tin Man, and the Amazon series "Lost in Oz", and the graphic novel/animated movie "The Steam Engines of Oz", and more recently the show "Emerald City". Even "Dorothy and the Witches of Oz" had a steampunk-vibe to their Oz. It is kind of the modern direction to go.

Now back to traditional Baum's Oz... Does it have electricity? I don't think so. The Oz created by Baum is... it is something between a fantasy version of the late 19th century American countryside, and your archetypal fantasy land. The Land of Oz is mostly a huge countryside to be honest. Its lots of forests with woodsmen and wild animals ; it is lot of fields and orchards because most of Oz's economy relies apparently on farming ; the only other big industry seems to be metal-working (Winkies, the guy who made the Tin Man) and stone/gem-working (due to the huge presence of precious stones, though no mine or miner is ever descrbed in the Oz books) ; it is a lot of small villages scattered around the one big city that is Emerald City (or around big castles like the Tin Man/Wicked Witch castle) ; this all gives it a very medieval/feudal feel in structure... Though Baum really tried to give Oz originally a "fairytale feel" and thus you have the same historical madness typical fairytales have. For example, just like your typical Renaissance fairytales (a la Charles Perrault), you have mirrors and candies and porcelaine in Oz ; and yet, just like your also typical 19th century fairytales (a la brothers Grimm) you also have guns in Oz! Mind you the guns are rare and rarely used, they seem mostly to belong to the military cast (they are always wielded by soldiers or royalty bodyguards), and they are usually useless against the monsters and magical threats... But they do exist! But Oz seems to lack things like electricity of petrol or even steam machinery. At least in the beginning!

(In fact I had a chat with @artmakerproductions recently about fireworks in Oz. He wondered if the Oz The Great and Powerful idea of using fireworks as something non-existent in Oz could work with Baum's canon, and indeed, while the presence of guns implies gunpowder is a thing in Oz, there are to my memory no mention of fireworks anywhere in Oz... Maybe they appear at one of Ozma's birthday parties, but I couldn't find which one. Fireworks are evoked in his non-Oz/Oz-crossovered work "The Magical Monarch of Mo" but only as a comparison to how lightning appears in this country...)

Is there radio in Oz? Actually there is! In the opening of book 7, to get out of how he had written his way out of Oz in book 6, Baum explained his return to the series by "Oh yeah, Ozians got hold of the radio and now they send me radio messages about what is going on in Oz". So Oz DOES have some sort of radio equivalent. How, since there's no electricity or batteries in Oz? That's beyond me, but here's why it is difficult to say for certain what Oz's technology level is: Baum, as I said, started not giving a fuck anymore about continuity. As I explained the first two-three books are kind of solid in terms of continuity because they were designed as their own closed novels, but book 4 onward Baum just gave up any concrete effort at "solid" worldbuilding and went the "Fuck it, I'll add whatever I want" road. As such, don't expect any serious effort at making a cohesive technological system - Baum isn't Tolkien. He's the anti-Tolkien. That being said, another very interesting point when it comes to Baum's work is that, as you go through his fourteen Oz books, you realize how modern technology slowly creeps onto Oz. Baum was writing Oz book between 1900 and 1920 - and the technological evolution of these two decades quite influenced Baum. The addition of the radio element was one case of Oz "evolving"; in later Oz books there are also magical equivalents of television popping up. But if you want to see a concrete comparison, you can compare the first Oz book, "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz", with the last Oz book Baum wrote, "Glinda of Oz". The first shows an Oz so technology-lacking people are easily fooled by stage tricks ; while the last book is heavy on technology, with for example evocations of submarines, but it is a technology presented as a form of magic. Which leads me to my last point...

Does Oz have trains? Not by the time Baum wrote them ; though modern day adaptations and authors did add a handful of them to the Oz world (and you can also find things such as ray guns or time-travelling machines in modern Oz books so you know, it evolves with its time). But Baum did wrote about a carriage that did the entire tour of Oz for touristic purpose: that's one of the subplots of "The Emerald City of Oz", and how Dorothy shows her aunt and uncle all about the fantasy land. It is not a train, but you have already here the idea/potential for a train-like system here (even though it is rather a carriage/wagon drawn by a wooden horse that can never tire and doesn't eat). And here's my point: the reason technology is so weird in Oz, and why it is also lacking in many way, is due to Oz being filled with magic.

Most Ozian equivalent to our world's technology is, in Baum, powered by magic. There is no camera or surveillance system, but there are the Magic Picture or Glinda's big magical "spy on everyone" book. There are no lie detectors, but there is Glinda's pearl. The magic eye of the Wicked Witch of the West was explicitely compared to a telescope. Etc etc. Magic replaces most advanced technology around the Land. Advanced technology and mechanism do exist, and Baum was very fond of the idea of the... "magical mechanic" if I can say so. What he does is basically take an actual real-world technology, but take it to fantasy extremes - which notably is why the Oz books are considered early sci-fi. There's how the Tin Man came to be: Baum took the workings of actual real-life prosthetics for missing limbs, but pushed it to the extremes by making a "vintage android". There is how the Woggle-Bug came to be: a great scholar used a machine to project an enlarged image of a small bug on the wall. Quite ordinary right? But turns out the machine literaly enlarged the bug to a greater size - which is a very common sci-fi tropes (all those rays that shrink or enlarge things or objects). And while it is not an Oz example per say, Baum gave us the most blatant example of "magical technology" with the realm of Ev, where lived Smith and Tinker, the inventors of many fantastical automatons, first of which being Tik-Tok, a sentient automat that is considered one of the first robots of modern literature!

So... On one side, Baum tried to show a land that would not advance technologically because magic was there and much more powerful. It is the line by the Good Witch of the North, about how Oz still has magic because it is not "civilized", and one of the traits of "civilization" is advanced technology. Take how guns are treated in Oz: they exist but they are not made a big deal out of, and in fact prove quite useless among the many magical items and beings. And yet, on the other side, Baum's Oz is the literal proof of the law "Any advanced technology is magic" ; or rather a whacky incarnation of this principle, because indeed, the most advanced form of technology in Ozian lands work by fantasy and extravagant sci-fi rules (Tin Man, Tik-Tok), while most of the great spells and magic items of Oz are fantasy equivalents to our real-world technology (the Magic Picture, or even the Gump which works as a fantasy equivalent of flying machines).

[iasmelaion]

I wanted to write something for the, dear god, ten?? how?? anyway, ten-year anniversary of CATWS, but despite rotating the idea in my mind off and on all weekend, I haven't been able to come up with anything that a) hasn't already been written before in a way that satisfied me enough that I am uninterested in/bored with attempting another take; or b) is unhinged enough. Because let's be real, I need an at least mildly unhinged starting concept, or a weird and lolzy "wouldn't it be funny if..." starting point, and nothing is coming to mind.

(also, preferably it would be something I could knock out in 10k or less.)

hmm. let's consult the fic ideas notes file.

Sam/Bucky undercover on a cruise remains a great idea, but not really one I'd want to explore in an immediately post-CATWS context. Same for the Buckynat. Obviously the Yinsen lives AU has nothing to do with CATWS, nor does the Erik lives one. (that latter one is a prompt from an exchange that I've been meaning to write for literal years and keep putting off because I don't feel like researching rhinos lol)

there are a bunch of ideas for other fandoms and then:

ah, Capwolf. someday! someday I'll write it! maybe! but that's more a CATFA idea. and let's be real, the OT4 Old Guard AU is more ambitious than I'm willing to commit to at this time. or possibly any time. the rest of these are more post-FATWS ideas. (also a surprise zagreus/thanatos pwp i never got around to writing)

oh lol, i forgot about these. maybe now that dracula season is coming up again I'll actually write one of these! anyway, not catws relevant

three of these are already in progress and are not related to CATWS (though the Sam/Nat fic is stalled because I'm not feeling it. It either needs more plot or less plot and I'm not excited about either option.) the rest are not related to CATWS. ugh.

I think it's obvious that FATWS was a great boon to my fic writing creativity, lol. but surely there's got to be SOMETHING i can write for CATWS!

the best I can think of is a funny take on Sam and Bucky actually secretly meeting up/hooking up during that time Sam was looking for him, but eeehhh. there's not enough THERE there.

anyway, if anyone has any unhinged/weird/funny post-CATWS fics they've always wanted, now is the time to throw those ideas at me to see if they stick, lol.

[musical-chick-13]

I'm sure everyone is tired of me complaining about this phenomenon, but. NSFW discussion below the cut.

MINORS DO NOT INTERACT WITH THIS POST, I MEAN IT

This is probably a really nit-picky thing to get frustrated over, but I actually really hate that post that's along the lines of, "This just doesn't have enough accurate character exploration to get me off," or whatever it says.

Like, I get the gist of what it's trying to say, in the sense of "Just writing about the act of sex isn't enough" and, more broadly, "It's more sexy when you see how what's going on interacts with the characters' personalities and psychologies" but I just...question why the assumption is always that a sex scene is written for titillation? (Yes, this post specified porn, but that's...actually a very hard category to define writing-wise, especially since the op seemed to be very clearly talking about fanfiction.)

There is nothing wrong with writing something solely for the purpose of other people (including yourself) getting off to it. Seriously. At all. This is more just...aggravation over the idea that everything needs to be sexually appealing. If someone finds c2g Sexy™ and jerks off to it, great for them! (<-Meant completely seriously.) If they want to leave a comment saying "this is hot" or "this is sexy" or "I Need A Moment Alone," then go for it! But in this particular case, that is simply a bonus. This story was never written with that in mind. There are a lot of complicated personal reasons that led to me writing this, that I actually do not ever have to explain to anyone, because I don't owe anyone that information.

And this really isn't me trying to say, "MY explicit writing is Elevated™ and Artistique™ with a Point™ unlike the rest of you degenerate plebeians." For one, I don't and will never have the "moral high ground" in regard to creative projects, and for another, there is no "moral high ground" here, because sex and writing (about anything) are inherently morally neutral actions. They simply exist. Whether they're good or positive depends on how people approach them and treat any other people involved. I just see this constant pressure for everyone and everything to be as "conventionally" sexy as possible, and I am quite honestly just exhausted. It feels like an extension of performing your sexuality and curating your appearance to gain some measure of general acceptance, and I really cannot deal with that anymore. That threshold was obliterated long ago.

Maybe someday I WILL write something that is meant to be Sexy™ to the audience and nothing else, I don't know. But if someone reads a smut fic*...you don't actually know why the person writing it decided to create it. If you can't get off to something, then it's possible the purpose wasn't ever for anyone to get off in the first place.

*I am specifically talking about fanfiction/transformative works here. Published erotica or filmed sex are a completely different conversation.

[potatoesandsunshine]

HI ANNA<3 here i am with more asks. 1 again :), 5, 12, 18, 22, 30 ?

HI ABBY <3 :D thank you for the questions!!

the last sentence you wrote

Instead she purchases two hundred gold pieces worth of ruby dust, still the apprentice she has always, always been.

this is actually from a little story about my wizard jane :) she's in this thing right now where her dead mentor is alive again (kinda) and is communicating with her/puppeting her in her sleep through that eye she stole. has she figured out that that eye maybe needs to come out? well, if that happened, she could someday be alone, so no.

5. first sentence of the fifth paragraph of an unpublished WIP (sifting through 1000000000000 WIPs)

The radio crackles, promising favorites of yesterday and today, and Pike knows that fucking guitar intro—of all the songs—I love you like organ failure / It’s never, ever gonna get better.

this document is called 'yeah screw it pike pov' because maybe nobody cared about the last au but god damn i had a great time with it so there will be more

12. a trope you’re really into right now

i've been nonstop every night for the last week reading 'reborn as a villainess' stories. so you could say i'm into it. it may have taken over my life a bit - i kinda wish it was more of a thing in the fic spaces i'm in! i like 'OC/Self-Insert dropped into the world' a lot but i think it would be very fun to do this 'ooooooh what if fate has already doomed me' that all of these stories explore

18. if you keep them, share a deleted sentence or paragraph from a published fic

i don't usually keep them! i know it's something a lot of people do, and i'm sure i have a few in a paper notebook somewhere, but if something in a fic isn't working i just say goodbye and delete it

22. do you ever worry about public reaction to what you’re writing? how do you get past that?

oh constantly. not in a 'will this be popular' way (i write my own ideas and i never think they're going to gain a lot of traction, since i tend to write for things that are a few years old/have really established Big Fics already) but i do have that little voice in my head that says 'if you get one single detail wrong... someone will comment about it and you will Die.' but that has happened before - the one that comes to mind is d20 fans talking about me mixing up the names of the side schools - and guess what? i did not die. the more old and established something is, the less afraid of this i actually am (star wars is old enough that so much stupid shit has happened in it who cares if i let them use paper. i'm not taking your fucking star wars vocab quiz i'm writing about these people wanting to fuck so bad it makes the galaxy look stupid) but in the past it has lead to me talking myself out of writing things, which is pretty sad!

i just try to remind myself that this is For Fun, and that i have never actually been exploded for getting details wrong in a fanfiction that, again, i do for free in my spare time that maybe forty people will read. it's a mixed bag.

30. share a fic you’re especially proud of

you may think i'm going to talk about small jobs for the millionth time because it is my beloved my shining star my castle in the air but in this case! i would like to give a little extra love to and stand by with the champagne which is. undeniably. about barbie princess and the pauper. it's fun!! it was UNBELIEVABLY fun to write. it's silly and a little bit emotional and references the songs of a movie i played until the vhs wore out, i wrote it on a whim last summer, and i hold it in my heart <3

[ushioliddell-blog]

Gonna do it in French, for the sentences part. Be prepared !

more fic writer asks!

reblog & your followers can send asks with the questions they’d like you to answer!

the last sentence you wrote

"Comme s’il n’y avait jamais eu le moindre mensonge, comme s’il s’agissait d’une visite de plus, parmi toutes celles qu’il lui avait fait, comme si rien n’avait changé et qu’il ne portait absolument pas encore il y a peu, un masque immaculé qui reposait encore entre ses mains."

Took the most intereting one. Otherwise, it would have been : "Il ne devait pas…." But these two were the last i wrote recently. Will probably write more this night XD

a character whose POV you’re currently exploring

Q!Aypierre. Again. But i'm in a QSMP fanfiction Arc, so....

how you feel about your current WIP

Proud and frustrated at the same time because i don't progress as mauch as i want XD

a story idea you haven’t written yet

One of the list ? Okay.... "When the time come.. " A what if, where Q!Max was about to break with Q!Aypierre, thinking he doesn't need him really but couldn't because realizing he was not well,thinking he will break with him later when he got better but.....He began to see sides of him he doesn't know and fall XDDDD But i have so many, you have no ideas XDDDD Some ghost fics, some soulamte fics, some more casual......

first sentence of the fifth paragraph of an unpublished WIP

"Mais tout cela allait prendre fin dans quelques minutes, n’est-ce pas ?". Comes from an OS about the ending of Purgatory, from Q!Guill point of view.

the word that appears the most in your current draft (wordcounter.net can tell you)

"De " XD Disappointed of the result i must admit XD

your preferred writing fonts

Times New Roman. Not original XDDDD

if you had to write a sequel to a fic, you’d write one for…

One for a fic i wrote before which was a mix between Alice in Wonderland and D gray Man, based on Alice through the looking glass.

start to finish, how long did it take you to write the last fic you posted?

....... I never finished a fanfiction. XDDDD Not because i don't like them, but i m always full of new ideas and some of them must be written down immediately, otherwise, i will loose the words that came XD

what is the longest amount of time you’ve let a draft rest before you finished it?

Months. Maybe, even years XDDD

a WIP you’d like to finish someday

"Les Marques du soleil. " A fic about how a RPZ character (Lenny Johnson ) obtain each one of his tatoos. A spin off of an other fanfiction about him and Kenneth.

a trope you’re really into right now

The clown who hides what he really think behind his smiles and jokes XD

a fandom you’re thinking about writing for

Red Queen. A prequel with Carmadon and Davidson.

where do you get your inspiration?

Absolutely everything around me. XDDDD Can be looking at something and.... Tada XD

favorite weather for writing

Don't really mind XDDD

favorite place to write

On my bed. XDDDD But i wrote in many places before XD

talk about your writing and editing process

Depends. I write often on the impulse,seeing the scenes before write them, immerge myself in the scenes,until i need to go to sleep, when i m in a writing session. Let the words and sometimes how the characters want to act. Sometimes I have ideas which turn out differently as if the characters guide my hands XDDDD I read myself a lot of time for be sure to make less faults XD Sometimes i write my chapters like Verne did (i learned this technic in a litteracy course : writing chapters by ideas you will use in this chapter ). But i use this when i have a good idea and i m afraid to loose how i want to build my chapter XDDD Sometimes i write the feelings the characters feel, to be able to immerge myself in when i take back the writing XDDDD

if you keep them, share a deleted sentence or paragraph from a published fic

I write mostly on the PC. I may have notes (when i was at university, i wrote on paper and write later on the PC at home) but i m too lazy to go upstairs and search XDDD

the most interesting topic you’ve researched for a fic

Was not for fics, but RP. China in the 19 th century with the occidental world and...... poisons XD

in what year did you publish your first fic ?

It was a song fic and it was published in 2012 XD

when did you publish your most recent fic?

In 2023.

do you ever worry about public reaction to what you’re writing? how do you get past that?

Yeah, but most of the time, i have so few person who like and comment about my works, that what i'm anxious about is, is there people who read about my works or/ and don't they comment because they don't like my works ? XD

pick three keywords that describe your writing

Feelings - Hurt and comfort - Slowburn . (you will not see me on silly ideas without plot ).

how do you recharge when you’re not feeling creative?

I play videos games, or i read. I do other things and don't try to force myself, even if sometimes i feel guilty XD

besides writing, what are your other hobbies?

Reading, playing videos games, diamond painting, paintings by numbers.

are you able to write with other people around?

Yes. but if not too noisy and if nobody talk to me XDDDDDD

your favorite part of the writing process

When letting the words come to me, and let the flow of the story guide me and change what i have in mind before.

your least favorite part of the writing process

When it's the 425857515124141 time i read mylsef again and i still find mistakes XDDDD

how easy is it for you to come up with titles?

Most of the time, easy but sometimes really difficult for me. Always in english, though. Easier for me.

share a fic you’re especially proud of

"Des châteaux dans le sable ". Which i will finish one day. A story about a child and an adult who try to save their souls in a war context, in D Gray Man context. Or "Les Marques du soleil".

[areseebee]

5, 10, and 19 for ao3 wrapped! (If you’re still doing that)

hello my friend!!

5. What work of yours got more feedback than you expected?

hmm i guess i was really surprised at the (relative to the teeny tiny derry girls fandom) big kudos bump making moves got once it was finished. to me, i feel like i write to a very small but dedicated audience, so it's always interesting to observe times when it's like, oh no wait, this is reaching way more people than i expected it to at this point in time. of course i'm glad for bumps like this, especially because it means more people find my work in the future, but it makes me feel like there was a big anonymous audience just waiting for it to be finished before even taking a crack at reading it. which - bummer! that's kind of a bummer thought. so this is my friendly "read WIPs" PSA.

and, sort of related as i think about my feelings on the idea of a big anonymous audience - i really love connecting with people through comments and DMs and asks (even if i haven't always answered every ask). so this is also a "i love to hear from people, you're never a bother" PSA. i'll talk writing and anything derry girls any day.

10. What work was the quickest to write?

i think i wrote in their thirties front to back in about a week which is pretty fast for me.

19. What’s one pairing you want to explore next year?

oooo this is a fun question to consider, but i'm honestly not sure right now! i think much in part because i'm focused on finishing someday and writing dual POV james and erin is, to me, tough and time consuming. so any time i think about writing another pairing, it's always followed by "when i finish someday." if i wrote for another derry girls pairing next year, i think it would be clare or michelle with the OCs they are with in the maybe someday universe. maybe i'll also write for different source material next year, but i don't have anything already in mind. unfortunately bridgerton is coming back soon, so maybe that particular hyperfixation will be reborn from the ashes.

ao3 wrapped [writer's edition]

[ohmyoverland]

Fic Writer Questions

Thanks for the tag @anything-thats-rock-and-roll :D

1. How many fics do you have on AO3? 26

2. What’s your total AO3 word count? 25, 570

3. What fandoms do you write for? Except for a few one-offs and my 3 Anne With An E fics, I write Lockwood & Co. 💚⚔

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

After Chameleon, an unbetad Miraculous Ladybug salt fic written before the actual episode had come out. It accidentally blew up asldkfjhjkl

On My Mind, a Detroit: Become Human rk1k ficlet where Connor can read minds.

All the Words I Don't Have, pure grade A Locklyle fluff

are we out of touch, are we out of time? AWAE Season 3 speculative fic that is actually an expanded version of a tumblr post I wrote after the penultimate episode of the series premiered.

wavering, my cot3 pining + character study fic. I'm really proud of it and I promise chapter 3 is coming eventually lmao

5. Do you respond to comments? I don't 😭 I want to but I never know what to say and before I know it, the comment is 2 years old oops. I reread comments all the time ❤

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? That's tough to say for sure but I think every lessons forms a new scar ending with an off-screen character death is probably the most angst I've ended with so far.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? That would have to be All the Words I Don't Have again. Everything is beautiful and nothing hurts. And Lockwood writes some really bad poetry.

8. Do you get hate on fics? Not so far.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? I do sometimes, and it's not published yet.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? Another Change of Plans is the most tumblr WIP I have lol. It dares to start asking the question, "What if the Old Guard adopted Adam Young, the antichrist from Good Omens?"

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I know of.

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Sort of? There was one collab fic I wrote a scene for but it never got finished. Someday I might post my part, because ngl I'm pretty proud of the Skull/Lucy banter in it.

13. What’s your all time favorite ship? How could I ever choose??? By bookmark stats, it would be Marinette and Adrien from Miraculous Ladybug. But cot3 (Lockwood & Co) and Superbat (DC) are up there too.

14. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? A better question is what isn't a WIP I'll never finish??? I have dozens 😭 Though one that stands out is an old Frozen fic I outlined in I think 2018(?). The premise is a canon divergence where Anna's death is faked when they're children and she's raised in the village instead of in the castle. There are two full acts that are just set up for a The Prince And Me/Princess Diaries-esque rom-com between suddenly-a-princess Anna and just-a-normal-guy Kristoff.

The outline on its own is about 8k words, and frankly I've considered editing and posting the outline itself before because it's detailed enough. This fic is actually a drabble I wrote to take place within my AU, but it reads canon compliant enough of its own so I posted it.

15. What are your writing strengths? Ideas. I am always getting new plot bunnies, always getting excited about the next great idea, always thinking about new aspects of these worlds and characters I want to explore.

16. What are your writing weaknesses? Dialogue and volume. That's why I write so many descriptive, very short fics XD

17. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? I'd only do it in a language I've studied for a couple years, and even then I would want a native speaker to read over it for me. But it hasn't come up yet?

I do really like Superbat or Star Trek fics where the author sparingly includes Kryptonian / Klingon / Vulcan with a translation at the end.

18. First fandom you wrote for? My Little Pony, or maybe Percy Jackson?? I'm too scared to check my old accounts to see which came first, if I ever even posted the fics I remember writing then at all.

19. Favorite fic you’ve written? building glass castles for sure!!! I love the atmosphere in it, and the monologue from Skull. That monologue came to me in the middle of the night once, so I had to type it up immediately and build the fic around it later.

No pressure tags @sabetha @synestheticwanderings @abumperprize @lenacarstairspotterstewart @woahpip @flythesail @shizuoi

[acacia-may]

Hiya Acacia!!

I'm happy to see you around again! Can I get 1,10,16, and 41 please? ^^

Hi Laura! Thank you for the ask! I'd be happy to answer these for you! 🥰 It got kind of long so I've put the answers below the cut.

Questions from this Fic Writers' Ask Game

1. What fic of yours would you recommend to someone who had never read any of your work? (In other words, what do you think is the best introduction to your fics?)

This is kind of a hard question honestly. I think it kind of depends on what someone likes and what they're looking for in a fanfiction (and also which fandom since I've written for a lot of different ones). For Black Clover, I think the Wine Therapy (AO3) would be my go-to suggestion for characterization. It's from Langris' POV and is about how he and Vanessa became friends (it also introduces the idea of Charmy & Vanessa's restaurant which is one of my favorite headcanons). I've been told by several friends that it's their favorite piece I've ever written (at least for Black Clover), and I think it says a lot about how I see Langris and Vanessa as characters and also speaks to the kinds of themes I like to write about: unlikely, platonic friendship, sibling relationships, healing from past trauma ect.

Another worth mentioning is It's A Future Problem. It's Black Bulls family fluff and shenanigans and was the start/introduction of some of my next gen AU so that's also a good place to start with my Black Clover stories.

10. How do you decide what to write?

Truthfully, I have a lot of story ideas that never actually get written. 😅🙈 I just don't have the time or energy to write everything, unfortunately. The ones that do get written are either ideas that wouldn't leave me alone or get out of my head until they were written down or they are ones that I write for some practical reason (i.e. a prompt from someone or for a fandom event/week). Another big motivation for me as a writer is to explain how I see a certain character, relationship, or situation. I actually started writing Black Clover fanfiction because my friend (irl) and I would watch some of the series together and discuss it, and we had very different views on some of the characters and their relationships. It made for some great discussion, but I found I had a lot of trouble expressing "this is how I see that" or "this is why I think that" through just discussing it so I finally said basically, "let me show you how I see this or that by writing this story. I want you to see what Langris is like in my mind or what Finral and Vanessa's platonic friendship is like in my mind ect." 😅 Most of my early work in the fandom exists because of that and all of those stories kind of relate back to a specific discussion or conversation I had with my friend so it's kind of interesting in that way. I do the same thing with my sisters or with other friends sometimes so I have a lot of stories that stem from that.

16. What’s an AU you would love to read (or have read and loved)?

For Black Clover, I've always been really interested in the idea of an AU where Vanessa never left the Forest of Witches and never joined up with the Black Bulls. I think it would be a really interesting opportunity to explore different aspects of her character and how different she would have been if she hadn't had that freedom or the chance to grow into the person that she is when we meet her in the canon. I've never read one, and I've never written one either (at least not that I've completed). Maybe someday. I certainly have a lot of different ideas for several AUs under this umbrella.

41. Link a fic that made you think, “Wow, I want to write like that.”

This is a hard questions because there are a lot of really amazing and talented writers in all the fandoms I've been a part of, and I am thankful to all of them for sharing their work and inspiring me to become a better writer myself. I want to give a shout out and kudos to all of these wonderful creators! 💖

As for a specific fic, it's not a Black Clover fanfiction, but I had to go with my heart on this one because this fanfiction immediately came to mind when I read this question. Here's a shout out to one of my favorite fanfictions of all time: Nettle by MadiYasha on AO3. It is gorgeously written, completely and forever changed the way I saw the point-of-view character, and was the first time I had ever read a really good fanfiction about a platonic relationship. I know it sounds kind of silly, but back in the day, a much younger me didn't realize you could do that. 😅 Fanfiction, as I understood it, was kind of this romantic/shipping related thing, and while I was writing a lot of it, I didn't ever post it because I wasn't usually into shipping all that much and preferred to write about platonic relationships and thought it would just be out of place. However, getting to read this story that was so beautiful and compelling about a character's journey and a platonic friendship really inspired me that there is a place for platonic fanfictions too. It is a story that has stuck with me for years and that I actually go back to reread. It is my hope that someday I will write something half as good and half as compelling--something that really makes a reader think and reevaluate how they see a character and a story. I really don't have enough thanks for MadiYasha on AO3. I hope you are still out there writing somewhere, and thank you so, so much for writing something so beautiful. There are really not enough kudos in the world for that work or words to express the impact it has had on me as a Pokémon fan and as a fic writer.

[blackbird-brewster]

3 5 and 18 for the fic asks!! :)

Thanks for the ask! [Send me author asks]

3. What’s your favourite fic that you’ve written?

Oh god, what a difficult question!!! I've written nearly 140 fics in the years I've been active. I'm cheating and gonna list a a couple that I adore with all my heart (and I'm very proud of!)

Criminal Minds, JJ/Tara/Emily, SERIES

I'm never going to stop banging my pots and pans together to hype this fic series. A queer rom-com AU that explores coming out, neurodivergence, found family, and of course, healthy polyamory. What more could you want in a fic?!

Criminal Minds, JJ/Tara, WC: 72,523

Even if you don't ship JJ/Tara, this fic is SOOOOO good. I went a bit experimental and used flashbacks as narrative in each chapter and it just weaves such an incredible story. Anytime I re-read this fic I say, "Holy shit?!?! I wrote this?!" Honestly, even if it's not your ship, read it because it's a masterpiece.

5. What’s a fic idea you’ve had that you will never write?

[Answered Here] But of course I have more than one idea that will probably never actually get written! I have always toyed with the idea of writing a 'Sliding Doors' type of fic. Where the two main characters (probably JJ/Emily) come to a point where they have an important choice to make (Maybe it's Emily deciding whether or not to got o London) and the fic splits off from there. One half of the fic is her going to London, the other is her staying. It's an ambitious idea that would require meticulous planning, but I would LOVE to write it someday

18. What’s one of your favourite lines you’ve written in a fic?

I have to say, my use of metaphors is top-tier. Sometimes I write the most gut-wrenching lines and look at them like 'Who the fuck wrote this!?'. Here are five lines/paragraphs that have always stuck with me:

From [Between You & Me]:

"She and JJ kissed once, just once, when they were drunk and lost in the moment, but in that one chaste kiss, Emily felt the incredible amount of emotion that was cresting in tidal waves behind her lips, just waiting for her to lose enough self-restraint that it would be impossible for her to prevent all the 'I love yous', that had been trapped in her throat, from breaking free from their silent confinement to come spilling out until they drowned her in the process. This feeling, this stark understanding of what would happen if they ever let it go any further than one kiss was what made Emily pull away at the time, even though she often wondered if JJ would have let her keep going if she hadn’t."

From [i can't be wrong (to be craving you)]:

"If hope is a thing with feathers that perches in the soul, it suddenly feels like the immensity of her fear is ready to pluck hope bare, strip it back, press a boot to its raw and naked form and spit on the entire idea of it, and she knows it would be so incredibly effortless for her to let go, to just give into that desolate feeling."

From [Mercy]:

“You’re parts!” JJ yelled from behind, as she approached Emily.

Emily spun around when she heard JJ’s voice, she was exhausted and really just wanted to get home. She shook her head at JJ,  “What?”

JJ had closed the distance now, she came to rest just a foot way from Emily. “You’re right. You’re right that there are parts of this job I can’t take home. You’re parts. You have always been the part of my job that I couldn’t take home, Emily. Or rather, you have always been the part of my job that I was too afraid to take home.”

From [Fooled Around (and Fell in Love) - Part 1]:

Penelope poked their head out of their office when they heard the commotion, “What’s happening out here?”

“Derek pulled all of his muscles because, from what I can deduce, he probably underestimated this Emily person since she’s a woman and she seemed to have torn him asunder,” Tara reported as she sipped her coffee.

From [Fooled Around (and Fell in Love) - Part 2]:

JJ stepped so she was only a foot from Tara. She stared up at the taller woman. “I said… YOU are being a Piglet right now.”

“What does that even mean?” Tara huffed.

“Chapter five, Piglet goes to check the heffalump trap. And he hears the sad sounds of Pooh, but he doesn’t know it’s Pooh, and Piglet gets scared then runs away. Piglet convinced himself the awful noise had to be a Heffalump because he just didn’t stop long enough to look. He had built up this horrifying idea of what Heffalumps looked and sounded like, so Piglet convinced himself a Heffalump was the only explanation for what he briefly saw. He ran away without pausing to really look. But if he HAD looked closely, he would have see that the monster in the trap was actually his good friend Pooh, with a pot on his head. He would have seen it was his friend that needed his help. Piglet ran away because his own self-deception told him he had caught a Heffalump!" JJ stepped closer so they were very nearly pressed into each other. “I’m saying don’t convince yourself something is a Heffalump before you even take time to examine it. Maybe, the big scary Heffalump you’ve concocted in your head is actually your good friend, who cares for you deeply. Your good friend who needs you. Your good friend who wants you. Your good friend who desires nothing more than for you to stop running.”

[eurofox]

I am once again looking for horror recommendations, preferably indie. Here's a few I tried recently.

Just finished the Brazilian made FOBIA-st dinfa hotel and the ending was a let down. A big one. Idk if they are planning to do a sequel but it felt like they explained very little and raised more questions than answers. Felt like a waste of time even if the gameplay was ok (a poor man's first person resi with some clever puzzles). It also had an obligatory invincible chase monster and that was just annoying, thankfully he was rare to encounter. The world altering camera was cool idea but they just didn't do enough with it. Main character was very bland and forgettable. Hotel looked good and the monsters were genuinely creepy but there's very few types of them. Also they seemed to take a totally random number of bullets. Bosses are bullet sponges and if you run out of bullets there's no melee so you're fucked. It also had save points which in this day and age get on my nerves, I don't have time to repeat lengthy sections.

Someday you'll return is another I played recently and it was very good imo, despite middling reviews and it was mysterious even at the end but at least I had a decent idea of what was going on. They clearly really liked silent hill but it felt unique enough and you could tell the Czech developers were keen to show off their local forests and folklore. Very good visuals for a two man team. I genuinely felt uneasy in some sections which is so rare for me these days and it's refreshing to have a horror story set mainly in daylight. The main character was a total unlikeable cunt but it worked for the story. Again, an invincible chase monster but he's rare and scripted.

Broken pieces was more of a supernatural mystery game than a horror one, maybe some very light horror elements. You play as a 30 something woman in an empty french village in Brittany following a strange anomaly, looking for a way to escape the time loop she's in. The dialogue felt like something out of twin peaks but I'm not sure if it's intentional or quirky translating. I warmed to her pretty fast and she's probably my fave main character in a long time. She's always saying something to keep sane in the isolation and you can listen to her walkman as you explore. Combat sucked but it's rare and you can tone down the difficulty if you just want to play the story. It's the most french game ever and again, takes place in daylight. Looks great. I may be biased though as Brittany is one of my favourite places. Unfortunately it was made with a sequel in mind which may never happen so the ending felt lackluster. Real shame. The VA for Connor in Detroit become human makes a cameo here.

So two out the three I've played have been good. There seems to be a lot of unique looking games out there but then the reviews are pretty meh. Hard to decide

[risingshards]

OK, connected to my last post. I have a bit more for the "Why would you even try this" about my mythical (and it's pretty much mythical for how nowhere it always goes) tradpub project.

I imagine it being a fantasy series, one that has a big and epic feeling, but also is a popcorn movie type romp with a driving, steady rhythm. Something a bit darker than my usual stuff, but not too bad. I like the idea of tinkering with a fantasy project on the side of all my other stuff. The idea of putting together a huge fantasy world and exploring it with maybe more archetypal characters in maybe more of a mechanical way is interesting to me. It's fun to daydream about! Maybe more so than actually writing it...

There is a general story outline I've been kicking around forever that I'm cool with sharing because the story isn't really in it, just the mood for each entry. I imagine it being a trilogy.

The first entry would be a fun romp, good guys vs. bad guys, evil rules and hope seems lost but good finds a way to carry on. Maybe a cliffhanger but generally a more "crowd pleasing vibe."

In the second, I want something completely off the wall. Something that catches everyone off guard, breaks everything, and then leaves everything on a massive cliffhanger that makes people wonder how the story can even continue. Something that if just the big story beats of it leaked, jaws would drop. Like if LOST was written by Uchikoshi, that level of WTF-ery. This one is maybe the most exciting to think about.

In the third and final, the cliffhanger gets resolved somehow, the broken down story puts itself back together and the themes show themselves and guide the way to a happy but maybe bittersweet finish. Maybe not as mind blowing as the second one, but some big overall twists would be in this too.

I try to write projects with that vague outline in mind and go "YES THIS IS IT" at chapter 1, then "oh no I don't like it :(" a few chapters later. Maybe someday I'll climb this mountain, but I'm good following my current path of self publishing web novels too.

[keamyeon]

state of mind at 110723 0:20

getting anonymously acknowledged while staring into space during online classes for an essay i wrote weeks ago triggered my ego a bit. these days, i had been thinking that i had good potential of being a writer, despite my poor vocabulary skills. having billions of thoughts about my own life and being able to put them down into words gives me a sense of satisfaction, being well-aware that what i just said is self-explanatory and 'normal-human-being' understandable. i do not have sentiments over the course subject nor the professor at all, but i only liked the ideas of personal essays. it asks you questions that nobody actually asks but you'd love to talk about. you want me to know my ideal marriage and family? i'd gladly tell you. i could write a 100-page essay if you required me to (don't though, please). anyway, the moment made me dive into another essay i made talking about my vocational path story, and my november 7th self just finds my previous self's mind so genius.

so what should a girl do?

create a blog to post the essay alongside many others soon, where you have the full permission to be completely serious without feeling the need to insert humorous side comments to lighten the tone in case an irl reads it and thinks, "wow, this is so different from how she expresses herself in reality".

given my self-proclaimed smooth introduction to this blog, i will now be leaving the oh-so-relatable essay... because i wrote it myself.

Ever since I was a child, I was always fascinated seeing people older than me find their passion or calling in life. Whatever path they took, I found them cool and wondered how I would eventually find my own someday. I didn’t think much about it, brushed it off, and thought that it was my older self’s problem to worry about. As I got older, I was only living and enjoying life with what was given in front of me. During my early teenage years, I found it difficult to join school clubs because I really didn’t know what I wanted to do and ended up joining wherever my friends went – so at least I wasn’t alone. When it was time to choose a strand for senior high school, I chose to go for the strand that was aligned to the path that my late father took, initially wanting to honor him in that way. Then came the period where we had to apply to universities and colleges with our decided course. As I didn’t grow up wanting to become something or even be part of a certain school, I was confused and lost. While pondering over this, I thought about the path that I told myself I would take to honor my father – which was becoming a programmer. I hesitated to take it – I thought that I wouldn’t truly enjoy doing it. I looked at my friends in that same path and I saw that even though they would complain about the hard work, it was still something they stood by for and never gave up on – because of passion, perhaps. I felt different, and so I was made to look back at my past and question myself if there was something I really loved or was interested in – something that I thought I had potential in, with hopes of finding what would be worth taking. It was then when I remembered that during my childhood, I always loved playing with pictures, graphics, and videos. I enjoyed editing for fun – since I was just a little kid who stayed at home, always stuck with their family computer as a way of passing time. I really enjoyed doing that and explored multimedia arts. Realizing how interesting it was, I thought that maybe if this is what I took, it would be something worthwhile. As I am now writing an essay under this course as a student in this college, you may now predict what happened next. However, I chose to make that decision roughly three years ago. Being seventeen and twenty is totally different – especially when you get exposed to such talented, skilled, and hardworking art students. I knew from the start that I lacked the artistic skills – making this decision was all based on a phase that I had from my childhood, and never chose to pursue or develop during my high school years. Today, I will admit that I have doubts about this path I took. While this course is so much fun, and most of the time the hard work is worth it, given my progress and skills, I don’t know if this is something that would help me last long and sustain myself in the future. Nonetheless, there are things still clear to me. First of all, it is given that I have a trait of being indecisive, but as much as a human can do, I can only do so much. Secondly, I may not have a practical dream as people around me have, but I do have a dream of what type of life I want to live.

I dream to be one of the cool adults that my childhood self looked up to – independent, passionate, and hardworking. I want to enjoy whatever I decide to do from now on – whether I will focus on a path in multimedia arts, or even if I deviate from this. With much more importance, I just also want to choose the path where God directs me to be. Surely, that way will lead me in fulfilling the purpose ultimately designed for me and help me become what I wish and need to be.