#enn's writing

[zrllosyn-art]

You should have been there. What kind of sibling were you, missing your own brother's funeral?

Blease allow me to share this pain with you because this comic made me loose my goddamn mind at 1 AM

bonus doodle under the cut

Technically drew this first but. Yknow. Context.

[physalian]

So you’ve got an idea for a story….

Once again and as always, writing is highly subjective and any writing advice that says you *must* do X or all books *must* include Y or doing Z during your writing process is *wrong* kind of misses the point of the freedom of storytelling and I’m not a fan. This is how I approach writing and one way you could consider doing the same if you’ve got all these ideas and nowhere to put them, not the way you must approach writing.

Cool? Cool.

—

We’ll start with how I write fanfic because that’s a far less intimidating market. I don’t write drabble fics and coffee shop AUs. I grew up writing fix-it fics and in-universe canon divergences. Essentially: Stop the real story right here, now what if this happened instead?

Personally, I just don’t get fulfillment from writing fanfic fluff (though I do love reading it). Even if I’m committing time and effort into something that will never make me money and that people might not even read for fun due to dead fandoms or whatever, I’m still going to use it as writing exercise and give it some substance.

That’s just me, though. I used to write stuff like character studies and deep dives, and the last fic I wrote to date was a “hey what if this villain went to the good side way sooner and it wasn’t just played as a joke on his cowardice?” and its sequel.

So I started that first fic with an idea: What if K joined the good guys earlier? How would that impact the story?

Immediately after that, I was thinking about the ending and what tentpole ideas in the canon I wanted to keep, but the meat of the story I knew I wanted to focus on K’s emotional and existential struggle of switching sides, risking becoming an enemy to both factions, after the inciting incident of his (absolutely canonical) partner’s murder, that, in canon, did not get the justice he deserved. When I wrote my post about beginnings and endings, I said that endings for me are way easier than beginnings—this is why. Before I even start writing, my ending is decided.

Basically: Yes, I’m writing a story using someone else’s fictional characters, as one does when writing fanfic. The story uses cartoon characters, but it’s about one person’s struggle with their identity in the wake of tragedy, and how they take life by the horns to make it out of the story the hero they deserve to be recognized as.

And with that core idea in mind, then I write the story around it. The story, which, outside the canon that I had to keep, I had no plan for. The settings and minutiae of the set pieces weren’t as important as what each scene did for the themes and K’s emotional reaction to them happening. I needed to give him enough alone time with the characters of the hero team to learn something from them, enough time on his own to test his new loyalties, and enough time with his old team so he can juxtapose the two and make sure he’s doing the right thing by deserting.

The last thing on my mind was what tropes I wanted to fulfill. Romantic subplots and the like just kind of happened organically and weren’t planned.

—

For Eternal Night of the Northern Sky the idea I had was this: Most vampire stories are about the drama surrounding vampires that depend on humans to survive. So what if I wrote a story where humans depended on vampires to survive, in the exact same way?

Yes, the story is about vampires and everyone can say what they will about people who write vampire fiction. But it’s really about what it means to be a monster when survival demands some brutal decisions. What does it mean to be a monster if everyone is a monster?

ENNS wasn’t planned, I just started writing and had the first draft done in 31 days and through the entire editing process, the plot didn’t change from draft 1 to draft final, save for a few scenes where I had to fix the surface level problem some characters were facing, but not the reason why they were facing it.

The plot never needed massive rewrites because every scene reflected back on the core themes of the story, and every single scene was necessary to tell it. So even when I had to change the intensity of an argument or flesh out a conversation or change the tone of something here or there, the purpose of whatever was underneath remained.

With that throughline in mind, the rest of the book fell into place around it. My core characters each have a role to answer that thematic question, and side characters around then were created to fill in the world, provide friends, relatives, romances, and the like, each with their own perspectives still on that one big question. My villains, too, all exist to answer that question. Outside of the romances, every single scene is doing at least one thing either for the plot, the protagonist, or the deuteragonist to answer that question. ENNS’ secondary themes were also written into as many scenes as I could (of which I won’t spoil here).

When you write with a theme like this in mind, it gives you these sort of bowling bumper rails to help keep you from straying off into superfluous storylines that bog down the pacing and start to feel messy.

Yes, you’re writing fanfic. But what is it really about? Now maybe it is just a coffee shop AU or 50k words of smut—you do you. Not everything has to be deep and meaningful beyond being entertaining. Themes just provide direction.

For example, I like the idea of slowburn fanfics. The idea. I will happily sit down for a fic that’s half a million words long if the characters and the slowburn are compelling enough. There might not be themes, but the story never forgets its throughline—these two characters eventually coming together.

In practice, though, I see way too many “slowburn” fics out there that are just 90% fluff. The chapters stagnate, trading development for taunting the audience with the will they/won’t they. The plot toddles off to to play around in irrelevant scenes with irrelevant characters. Things that probably wouldn’t bother me if I wasn’t already expecting the romance that was promised, the romance I have to keep waiting for when I could just go read something else that delivers it faster and clearer.

—

Even if your writing process begins with a few scattered sticky notes and a notion of what you kind of want it to be about, you don’t have to hammer out pages of prose to be productive.

If you get stuck halfway through, having your throughline helps you sit back and ask yourself this very important question: What does Character want, how do they get it, and what’s in their way?

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

your favorite of my favorites: A Book Poll

okay, i have now officially seen Just Enough open tags to override my vampiric need to be explicitly invited into things, so! here are my (current) Five Favorite Books for y'all to vote on, in order of Publication Date (and incidentally the order in which i read them)

shout out to @e-b-reads and @beardedbookdragon for the recent open tags! i am inflicting this on paying this forward to @asexualbookbird and @alloreli (who i warned), and to @sixofravens-reads (who i did not).

[tarithenurse]

Mending

Fandom: Fireforce AU. Pairing/starring: Benimaru Shinmon &/x fem!reader. Word count: 1628. Content: Angst, heartbreak, bad mental state, first step to recovering, best friend to lover? A/N: Oh the angst! The pain and hearbreak and breakup and such sad things. Please reblog and comment.

Mending

You haven’t answered calls or texts for almost three days now. You haven’t showered either and barely eaten anything. Why should you? You just want to sleep because when you are awake, you lie and stare on the picture on your phone’s screensaver, knowing that it’d never be like that again. You’ll no longer get to wrap your arms around your boyfriend, kiss his cheek. Well...you shouldn’t even think of him as your boyfriend but old habits die hard for you at least.

You’re half asleep when there’s a knocking on the door but you just roll around with a sigh, tug your phone close to your chest and ignore it.

Or you try to.

The knocking turns into a hammering that eventually grows so loud that it sounds like the door might break. What’s worse though: you can hear your name being yelled too and you recognize that voice. Beni. You haven’t seen him in a long time because whenever you did your boyfriend would act sullen and silent afterwards. But Benimaru was your best friend and you’d made sure to send him a text every now and then when you were at work or on the loo...send and then delete all evidence. You’d hated sneaking about like that but you always ended up doing it again.

Now he’s screaming outside your door: “C’mon! I know you’re in there! I just need to make sure you’re okay then I’ll leave again if that’s what you want! Open!”

You gather the blanket around you as you sit up slowly. Even the little bit of movement makes you dizzy but you manage to get to your feet and shuffle out into the hall, where you unlock the door and peek out past the crack.

“Waddyawant?” you mumble, blinking against the sunlight.

Beni is still standing with a hand lifted to bang on the door with as he takes what little he can see of you in and you become disgustingly self-aware of what a mess you are as he lowers the fist and his mouth fall open.

“Fucking hell you’ve had me freaking out,” he admits. “Can I come in?”

You hadn’t wanted to let him in but now he’s here it feels just a tiny bit less horrible so you shrug and shuffle to the couch.

Beni follows. You can hear him sniffing and he makes a detour to open a window in the kitchen and then the two in the living room.

Then he turns to you. “You’re a fucking mess,” he points out the obvious, arms crossed across his broad chest.

“Thank you. Good to see you too,” you hiss before tipping over onto your side, taking up almost all the space – the couch is not that big.

“C’mon,” he drawls, “y’know what I mean. You send me that text and then you ghost me? I have to come here to find that you’re a ghost, almost?” He comes over, lifting you partially to get a spot to sit before letting your head rest on his thigh. “So...before I make you shower...what happened?”

You don’t want to talk about it but the thing with Beni is that he can be silent and you hate silences so of course you want to fill it with something. Anything. Slowly but surely, the words starts pouring out of you about how you’d find out your boyfriend was cheating on you. With his ex whom he’d always said was just a friend now. Of course he denied it at first when you confronted him. The man was even cocky enough to give you his phone and yeah maybe he didn’t think you were really going to search it but you did and there they were, messages send from her except her number was saved under a different name. Texts full of intimate details and plans. He couldn’t deny it any longer so he blew up in your face, screaming and yelling and telling you how it was because you weren’t good enough. That hurt.

Luck is on your side at least a little bit because the apartment is in your name and your boyfriend – your ex – had very few things he wanted from your shared home. Just his clothes and laptop. Then he left. There are still items all over the place that remind you of him, but you’ve avoided looking at them since he walked out the door. You don’t know where he’s gone to but you suspect you can guess anyways.

“What a dick!” Beni growls when your explanation ends, his hand soft on your cheek. “You’re better off without him.”

It hurts to hear in the same way that picking at a wound hurts: a sweet sting. You can feel how the pain rips in the hollow where your heart used to be, then it clogs your throat and steal your voice so you only can nod. The tears come next, hot and silent, leaving new salty streaks on top of the old tracks.

Benimaru just holds you as you sob. Silently rocking you.

Once you’ve calmed down he disappears into the bathroom and you can hear things clonking before the water starts running.

A moment later he’s back and methodically starts to unwrap you from the blanket despite your protests and you’re all too aware of the pungent smell released from under the comforting layers once he’s got you in your shorts and top...but he doesn’t care. He just picks you up and silently carries you to the bathtub where he sits you on the edge.

“Now...either you take care of this part yourself or I’ll see to it,” he flatly explains. “Get washed. Good long soak. Use one of your hair masks or whatever.”

You nod, still snivelling a bit, but remains seated until he’s out of the steamy bathroom and has closed the door after him. Then you look around: every product that belonged to your ex is gone together with the plastic bag in the bin.

“I can’t hear water splashing!” Beni suddenly yells through the door.

“Okay okay,” you mutter back.

It’s enough to get you moving, though. Slowly you peel the dirty clothes off before stepping briefly into the shower, wanting to get the worst of the dirt off before you crawl into the tub.

The moment you do abandon the shower and step into the scalding water, you have no more tears to give. The ache is still there but it’s dulled somewhat and you slowly entertain yourself with an extensive self-pampering routine while you try to ignore the odd sounds coming from whatever Beni is doing. Sometimes he’ll stop his actions and come to knock gently on the door:

“You okay in there?” he asks.

And every time you’ll hum a yes because you kind of...are? Not great. Not happy. But...at peace?

Eventually the water gets cool and you reluctantly step out of the bath and dry yourself down, making sure to scrub extra hard.

Still wrapped in the towel, you tiptoe across the hall and into the bedroom and stop. You don’t even have to investigate you just know that things are different: the bedding has been changed and if you were to look around you know you wouldn’t find the windows and memorabilia from your time with your ex. It’s all gone.

“Beni?” you call, voice wavering.

It’s too much. It’s almost like your ex was never there.

“I know,” Beni says, entering behind you, “but you need a clean start. Nothing’s tossed. You can look through it later...right now you just need you.”

Turning to see his serious expression, your vision doubles from the tears that are collecting but you’d be damned if you’ll cry more because of that ass-hole. Sniffling, you straighten up. You nod.

“You got this,” Beni promises you.

---

Tall Benimaru has somehow managed to curl up on your couch, refusing to go home for the night and have you be alone again. Still, you feel alone, lying in the big bed where there used to be someone beside you.

Tossing and turning, you eventually give up and tiptoe into the living room. You just want to see him sleep a bit, maybe that can calm you down. But of course you step right on the one single creaking floorboard and he pushes himself up by the elbows.

“You okay?” he asks, voice heavy with sleep.

“I...” You don’t really know what you want except to not be alone. “Come into bed...it’s big enough for us both,” you decide.

“You sure?” he sits up properly now, trying to read your face in the dim light of the street lamps.

“Yeah...don’t want to be alone.”

“Okay.”

He follows you as if he needs to be shown the way, blanket partially draped over a shoulder though it’s not enough to obscure the broad expanse of his naked chest.

In the bedroom, he lets you get settled in first before crawling into bed, close to the edge to allow for enough room between the two of you.

“I don’t bite,” you point out, earning a crooked smile.

“I might.”

“Never.”

Shuffling a bit closer, he eventually comes to rest on his side, facing you. It’s easy to reach out and take his hand, weave you fingers with his without even thinking about it until it’s done. But it feels right and he doesn’t pull his hand away.

“Hold me?” you ask, voice tiny and fragile like the little bloom of something inside your raw chest.

“Always.”

He scoops you into his arms easily, chest to back so you can feel his heartbeat thundering and his breathe slowly levelling out. There, you drift a way. You barely register the soft kiss he places on your temple.

[zrllosyn]

oooooooooo tell us more about BB LEO AU 👀👀👀

[wip game ask]

OH BUDDY. BUDDY.... YOU CHOSE A GOOD ONE I LOVE BB LEO AU (kekkai sensen)

Mayhabs its obvious from the title but its an AU where Leo's a blood breed. Leo's kinda the same though!! He's here in helsalem's lot desperately looking for a way to 'cure' his sister's eyes. Blood breed or not, the 'gods' are beings beyond comprehension.

Story mainly takes place during volume 10 (s2 ep 11 and 12) and just. Leo caught between revealing he's a blood breed, his sister, Libra, and Gamimotz. Events are pretty close to canon but like, the stakes are completely different lmao

I LIKE IT A LOT. I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS. ITS LITERALLY COMPLETELY WRITTEN i just need to edit it. But editing. Hard.

Im gonna stop there before i keep rambling for like. Another 12 paragraphs about leo characterization n stuff in this one HSDJGHJGH

Have!! a pretty long snippet under the cut!

Snippet of intro:

His sister, however, he did care for. His sister was the only one who bothered to really bond with him, care for him. The only one he had truly grown to care.  And it was between him and his sister that space and time tore, the very air itself sparking into prismatic light so bright it seemed to invert the world. It was between him and his sister that Riga appeared.  And curse his luck it had to be him and his sister. And it had to be Riga, the one who could see through everything and anything.  The one that could see what he truly was. The one that knew who he was.  The one that contracted those thrice damned eyes that would see what he was.  "Choose." Riga's voice is flat of inflection, indifferent like he was inquiring about the weather. But Leo heard something else, mixed in with the demanding glisten voice.  "So this is where you were, progenitor of the cursed kin." If Riga's presence wasn't enough to make his blood turn cold, that statement, spoken in elder tongue and overlaying the English definitely did. He felt his cold sweat form on his palms as his entire body grew stiff, terror filling his every fiber.  The higher being sounded amused. That was never a good sign not to mention that Riga's presence meant one thing.  "Which will witness?" "This is most curious." His voice caught in his throat. If he accepted the eyes, Michella would be blind. Chair-bound and blind. If he refused, she would see. See who he was. See that he wasn't her brother, but a monster wearing his skin. And then he would lose her. But at least she would still see-- "If you must take from something, then take it from me." Michella is straight backed and unbowing, not an ounce of fear in her voice as she knowingly sacrifices her vision for him, and his conflicting emotions drain away into horror.  She had no hesitation in protecting him, and yet here he was debating his course of action.  "Michella--!!" "If you must take something, take it from me!!" Her voice is firm, and his body finally responds as he lunges forward, as if grabbing her would negate the contract.  "Understood." The echoing elder tongue sounded amused, and in a moment of startling clarity he sees Riga reaching forward with the glowing eyes and his sister, a faint smile on her face as she looks to him. He knows that look.  She was happy. Happy she protected him.  Happy, that she protected the beast that needed it least, under the guise of her brother.  He feels sick.  The world goes white.

[draganchitsa]

i’ve been trying to think about what it is about leech that made it such a compelling story.

some of it is style: bouncing between hive-mind and into and out of individual narrative was fascinating

some of it was world: watching the world peel back layer after layer, not having it handed to me in clunky exposition but letting me uncover the shit i found compelling.

but mostly i think that it’s like: it was a story about infection and disease that was undoubtedly sold before the pandemic, given when it was released and i really think it was fucking cathartic to read about that in a horror setting? on the one hand, it was nothing like the outbreak of covid, but the creeping fear, the unknown source, the unknown impact, the complete and devastating change to your life—it was fucking cathartic to read that in this scifi-fantasy-horror hybrid. 

i know the publishing industry writ large isn’t going to touch virus/pandemic stories for a while, but i wish it would. i wish it would remember that sometimes, catharsis comes through fiction. that is, indeed, the whole fucking point of fiction.

[parttimecosmichorror]

Grabs you by the shoulders HUMMINGBIRD SALAMANDER BY JEFF VANDERMEER AND Y/N BY ESTHER YI ARE REALLY JUST THE SAME TYPE OF STORY IN DIFFERENT FONTS. THE RECKLESS AND RELENTLESS PURSUIT OF AN IDEAL, OF AN IDEA, OF A FRAGMENT OR A FIGMENT OF A PERSON WHO YOU SO EARNESTLY BELIEVE YOU KNOW. EVEN AS IT DESTROYS YOU. EVEN AS IT TEARS YOUR LIFE APART. AN ALMOST RELIGIOUS ZEAL FOR AN IDOL. THE SUDDEN DISAPPEARANCE OF THAT IDOL LEAVING MANY BROKEN OR OTHERWISE CHANGED IRREVERSIBLY. AN IMAGINATION OF AN IDYLLIC REALITY. UNRELIABILITY OF THOUGHT, OF MEMORY. A WOMAN REALIZING SHE NEVER LOVED THOSE WHO WERE CLOSE TO HER AS SOON AS SHE STARTS TO LOVE A CONCEPT. LOVING THE IDEA OF LOVING AN IDEA. DO YOU UNDERSTAND

[lordcatwich]

[meme voice] Me when the {CHARACTER THAT GETS NIGHTMARES FROM GETTING TRAUMADUMPED ON}

I am so {normal} right now

[zrllosyn-art]

Really Normal Haru Fan anon is here. i just spent the equivalent to 120 bucks on the kaiju no 8 gachapon in my town to get hoshinas fuck ass. i was squatting down praying to get hoshina so bad!!!!!!! anyways i loge your art as always have a wonderful and un nose-blocked life! ❤

oh i am shaking your hand about gacha luck

I tried the rubber keychain gacha at japan and the US when it came here and uh. I got like, 5? renos? He just, kept appearing. I have so many. Literally every single friend i know who even remotely likes kn8 was handed a reno.

(he's real cute but i do not need 5 renos)

ANYWAYS BEST OF LUCK!! with gacha n stuff!! (nd also maybe your nose, from th context of your msg)

[physalian]

Eternal Night of the Northern Sky Chapter 1 (per request)

'Cause why not?

You can check out the rest in ebook or paperback on Amazon!

Three hundred years ago, the vampire covens of the North took the sun from the sky. In the frozen wasteland that remains, clans of the living cling to warmth in a way the vampires never predicted—hunting the undead down for the fire in their veins. When Clan Maewag’s last blood slave takes their own life, Elias joins the hunting party in braving the surface. When the worst happens, Elias finds himself trusting a vampire to save him from the Freeze. Conflict brews between a coven thriving in a glittering utopia of equality and a coven enduring on blood slave servitude, with Elias trapped in the middle. What makes a monster in the sunless, frozen North, where survival demands Elias betray home, his people, and every truth he’s ever known?

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Books of 2024: October Wrap-Up.

Gr8 news: I am no longer very far behind on my NaNo prep reading!! I had to drop JUST LIKE HOME (reread) and HOUSE OF LEAVES, but I got through the rest of my Haunted House and/or Aliens and/or Parasite/Fungus TBR. Here they all are!

Photos and/or reviews linked:

SHRIEK - ★★★★ I think SHRIEK Is my favorite volume of the Ambergris trilogy, taken as a whole--the one-way conversation Duncan was having with Janice was a really neat narrative choice, and then the reveal in the Afterword's Afterword was, in true VanderMeer fashion, mind-blowing.

FINCH - ★★★★ I was actually surprised by how much I liked this one. It helped me figure out a LOT about what kinds of power dynamics I enjoy in borderline-dystopian fiction, and what intrigues me most about limited agency. It wrapped the story up almost too neatly, for a VanderMeer, but I did still have a good time and blitzed through it quickly. Given this one and SHRIEK, I'm counting the Whole Series as a Four-Star read--I'd like to reread it someday, now that I know what's going on.

LEECH - ★★★★★ (reread) STILL ONE OF MY ALL-TIME FAVES, OFFICIALLY!! It's very gothic and heavy and fucked up, but it does FASCINATING things with POV, and worldbuilding, and storytelling frameworks. PLEASE check the content warnings, but if none of those are hard no's for you, definitely pick this one up. I suspect anyone for whom Animorphs was a Formative Influence will adore this (but so far my sample size is really only 1)--please prove me right.

A HOUSE WITH GOOD BONES - ★★★½ This was fun! Not my favorite Kingfisher (that award still goes to HOLLOW PLACES), but I had a good time--I laughed, I squealed over vultures, I blasted through pages to get to the end.

STARLING HOUSE - ★★★★ Alix E. Harrow always manages to write exactly my catnip, somehow. Maybe it's the ADHD, but I'm constantly finding connections to my own writing projects in her work, and STARLING HOUSE was no exception! I liked that this one was more modern, and the sibling dynamic was precious, and I love weird sentient houses where space is more of a suggestion than a hard and fast rule. I'll probably reread this one for Driscoll purposes!

WOODWORM - ★★★½ So much rage in such a tiny volume, and I was Absolutely Here For It. I don't tend to read much lit fic, but I do try to read a lot in translation, and I thought this one did very cool stuff with Spanish--the prose felt natural in English, but I loved the linguistic details the translators left in Spanish and how much depth that added. I feel like this one might be a good fit for Carmen Maria Machado fans, too.

HOW TO SELL A HAUNTED HOUSE - ★★★ Call this a low 3, from me. It was Fine, I guess. I liked what he did with the act structure (labeling parts as stages of grief was very cool), and I liked the family dynamics and history, but a lot of the humor didn't land for me (I got a few sensible chuckles, but a bunch of it wasn't funny), and the "oh this author is A Man, huh" moments made me roll my eyes (seriously: Who thinks about their ~breasts~ when an angry taxidermied squirrel is clawing down your shirt?? No One With Breasts, Mr. Dude). This book did at least teach me that I'm not really interested in gore (it's just boring, unlike body horror, my beloved). I might still pick up HORRORSTOR, but I probably won't look into most of his other stuff, if this one is indicative of his general style. Meh.

THE ART OF EXCESS - No rating (didn't read the whole thing). At the end of ALWAYS COMING HOME, Richard Powers mentioned this book as the reason he finally committed to ALWAYS, so I was curious what this Tom Leclair dude had to say about it back in 1989. I had a heck of a time tracking down a copy (it's very out of print, and my local library had to source it from the Library of Congress for me), but I didn't want to buy it to read just the preface/intro/epilogue, because I haven't read any of the other texts he analyzes. Leclair's style was very readable, and I was intrigued by his framework, but I found some of his conclusions eye-rolly, given his sample size. I posted this one because I think Library of Congress books are fun, but I didn't add it to my Goodreads.

BLACK TIDE - ★★★½ This one had me rolling my eyes in the first couple chapters, and I was afraid I wasn't going to like it, but once Fucked Up Shit Started Happening, the momentum really picked up and didn't stop--I blitzed through it way past my bedtime on a school night. It was fucked up and weird and tense and bloody pull-no-punches horror, but it ALSO made me laugh, and I loved our two fuck-ups surviving the apocalypse together. NOTE: Dogs (and Gulls) Are Not Safe, and the cast is small enough that it matters a lot :( if you can't stomach animal harm/death, skip this.

A HALF-BUILT GARDEN - 81/338 pages read; will report back. Enjoying it so far! Glad I put it on my NaNo prep reading list, though not quite for the reasons I planned--the reflections on motherhood as well as parenting outside the binary have been interesting, so far (and that's relevant for my own haunted house endeavors!). A much gentler ride than BLACK TIDE, and the immersive tech reminds me of Murderbot's world, just Earthbound.

Overall! Fabulous month for reading! Anytime I think "wow I need A Break™ from writing or life," this is the type of reading I mean--where I can spend a couple weeks annihilating books within a day to Refill the Words Reservoir.

Under the Cut: A Note About ~*★Stars★*~

Historically, I have been Very Bad™ about assigning things Star Ratings, because it's so Vibes Heavy for me and therefore Contingent Upon my Whims. I am refining this as I figure out my wrap up posts (epiphany of last month: I don't like that stars are Odd, because that makes three the midpoint and things are rarely so truly mid for me)(I have hacked my way around this with a ½). Here is, generally, how I conceptualize stars:

★ - This was Bad. I would actively recommend that you do NOT read this one, no redeeming qualities whatsoever, not worth the slog. Save Yourself, It's Too Late For Me. Book goes in the garbage (donate bin).

★★ - This was Not Good. I would not recommend it, but it wasn't a total waste or wash--something in here held my interest/kept my attention/sparked some joy. I will not be rereading this ever. Save Yourself (Or Join Me In Suffering, That Seems Like A Cool Bonding Activity).

★★★ - This was Good/Fine/Okay/Meh. I don't care about this enough to recommend it one way or another. Perfectly serviceable book, held my interest, I probably enjoyed myself (or at least didn't actively loathe the reading). I don't have especially strong feelings. You probably don't need to save yourself from this one--if it sounds like your jam, give it a shot! Just didn't resonate with me particularly powerfully. I probably won't reread this unless I'm after something in particular.

★★★½ - I liked this! I'll probably recommend it if I know it matches someone's vibes or specific requests, but I didn't commit to a star rating on Goodreads. More likely to reread, but not guaranteed.

★★★★ - I really enjoyed this!! I would recommend it (sometimes with caveats about content warnings or such--I tend to like weird fucked up funny shit, and I don't have many hard readerly NO's). Not a perfect book for me by any means, but Very Good. This is something I would reread! Join me!!

★★★★★ - I LOVED THE SHIT OUT OF THIS, IT REWIRED MY BRAIN, WILL RECOMMEND TO ANYONE AND EVERYONE AT THE SLIGHTEST PROVOCATION (content warning caveats still apply--see 4-star disclaimer). Excellent book, I'll reread it regularly, I'll buy copies for all my friends, I'll try to convince all of Booklr to read it, PLEASE join me!!

[barbatusart]

i wrote some porno about vea & cam & red LOL

[zrllosyn]

WIP GAME

rules: in a new post, post the names of all the files in your wip folder regardless of how non descriptive or ridiculous. let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet and tell us about it!

Thanks for the tag @scenitroute !! (FROM. ONE MONTH AGO. I AM SO SORRY I FORGOR)

Here's some comics, writing, and to-be rendered pieces. THIS IS BY NO MEANS ALL OF THEM. BUT LIKE. Heres a whole bunch.

15 (ichigo)

And You

Closure - hk

Monstrosity

Playing Human

The golden city (your guilotine)

BB LEO AU

regrets - bloodborne au thing

Titanfall Loops - World Trigger

reed fire

postcard

nahida

opposition

focalors

Fox mask

Profile

breathe

print

the four horsement of the apocalypse

war

UHHH

I feel kinda bad tagging yall after having JUST tagged a bunch of you but, I am tagging yall bcs i am curious LMAO. (as always, no pressure tho 👍✨)

@hideyseek @ajitated @petite-pumpkin @13threbagel @izfaish

[a-blade-disguised-as-a-girl]

Imagine you’re Jonas Maccabees. You get an invitation to two meetings at a nightclub with all the other streetlords in the city, the only stipulations being that you can’t bring weapons or guests. You’re curious, so you go.

Your nemesis is there, showing excessive PDA with the nightclub owner. A new streetlord named Séance is there, and you already know her identity. The Dove Lord is there at the second meeting, and so is the leader of the Orphan Guild and his salesman, because apparently they get to break the rules. (For the first meeting, the Doves’ second had been there instead and the Orphan Guild leader’s girlfriend was there, and you suspect she killed your sister and is impersonating the Dove Lord, so this adds up. The second meeting is more important though.)

Séance suggests a stock market for the gangs and starts threatening the most important, dangerous people in the room to take her seriously. She pulls it off, so she has your respect. Everyone likes the idea except for Ivory—who, again, you think is actually Rebecca and murdered your sister. If this theory is correct, then Bryce is her boyfriend, and yet he goes against what Ivory says (not a smart move in any instance) and pledges to join the stock market.

Ivory is furious, and Harvey starts grinning like an idiot, confirming your theories bc if she was just the leader of the Doves, why would he care? Ivory stands up and walks away, and then Séance (in a real power move) just up and leaves, thanking everyone for their time. The audacity. Your nemesis follows, which, good riddance, he’s a mess.

Leaving you—Jonas Maccabees, Scavenger, the Scar Lord—alone with Bryce Balfour and Harvey Gabbiano, who are filled with simmering resentment and wildly inappropriate happiness, respectively. Two people who are almost certainly colleagues with the woman who murdered your sister. Two people who are absolute disasters and also just fucking ridiculous, and you are now stuck in a meeting room in a nightclub with them because everyone else at this Important Gang Meeting just bailed.

Pour one out for Jonas y’all

[litfever]

working on a fic and making up mond/inazuma annulment laws. my god

[july-19th-club]

not sure if its really the right choice to read when home sick but leech is sooooooo good jesus christ