#guess who's caught THE FUCK UP

[novakiart]

Teach me how to be fascinating

[fellamarsh]

another thing i've been trying to do recently is read more self-published stuff. "but fell," you say, "you're a self-published author. surely you've been reading self-published stuff all along" and then i laugh for so long in response we both become uncomfortable.

see, the fear (which has for a long time been killing my mind) that i'll read other self-published stuff and find out that it's so much better than mine that i might as well stop writing forever kept me from doing that basically ever. i have a hard time not unfavorably comparing my work to others and had convinced myself i was being smart by withholding an avenue of de-motivation (reader: i was not being smart). it also doesn't help that i'm pretty low income and have a hard time spending money on books i haven't already read, and that self-published stuff isn't always available at the library---but really a lot of it was just me being a coward. which i'm working on. i could talk about how this particular cowardice is Very Silly, but i think enough has been said about it on writeblr and in the Writing Space in general that i don't feel the need to (though i will if anyone wants me to).

instead, i wanna talk about the self-published things i have read in the past few months and ask about the self-published things you love!

so: what happened was i got real sick, and while i was real sick i (naturally) read over 200,000 words of ace attorney fan fiction in the span of a few days. eventually i got bored of it (and also maybe annoyed at how people were characterizing some of my guys), but i still wanted to read something gay and romantic and nice, something i knew was gonna end happily, which isn't my typical fare.

now you may be saying (having gotten over all the uncomfortable laughter from earlier) "fell, you write gay romance. what do you mean that's not your typical fare?" listen. until a couple months ago i hadn't read a cut and dry romance novel since before i finished college. for context: i graduated in 2015. i know it doesn't make sense. i'm a guy who doesn't make sense.

but in this case it worked to my advantage. not the not making sense thing, but the not having read Published Romance in 1000 years thing. I didn't know where to start. I was very skeptical of everything the library had Available Now in the Gay Fantasy Romance category. what if it was all bad and also not good?

and then i scrolled past the familiar cover of our very own @ashen-crest's A Rival Most Vial.

now this was comfortable territory! this was a novel by a very nice writeblr person whose posts i enjoy! i already loosely knew the plot, i was familiar with the characters, i knew the names of things like rosemond street and the griffin's claw and that ambrose had blue hair and that at the end of it all there would definitely be Boyfriends. i didn't have to worry that this would be bad! i only had to worry that it would be really good!

but i wasn't worried about that, because i was officially Not Writing at the time, and because why the hell hadn't i read this book yet Ash literally emailed me some very kind words last year when my cat died??

Y'all, I devoured ARMV. If you haven't read it yet---especially if cozy fantasy is more your thing than it is mine---you should check it out Immediately. It was fun! It was heartwarming! It was sweet and earnest and confident! I was delighted to find it was occasionally hot! Ambrose and Eli snuggled up into my sick exhausted heart and found a permanent little place there. (Especially Ambrose. I have such a thing for Stiff Guys who Kind of Suck for Tragic Backstory Reasons and are So So Lonely They Don't Even Realize It. gawd)

(And a very small part of my brain spent the whole time wondering why I had been so afraid to really engage with the work my community is doing. The community that I'm in. The one I'm a part of. Why?! Maybe more on that later.)

But from there the curse was broken! I immediately devoured @stjohnstarling's What Manner of Man in a similar sort of frenzy (and hooooly shit guys am I excited for the expanded, finalized version to come out at the end of next month!) and started digging into @lurinatftbn's The Flower that Bloomed Nowhere (which I can already tell is going to be an All Time Favorite).

And now I want to ask you what your favorite self-published books are so that I can read them, too, but I think I will in another post that doesn't dedicate so much space to talking about my various and sundry Issues and isn't Terminally Long

[salt-baby]

I just don't understand people who don't do a COVID test when they get sick

[missmisnomer]

i’ll not ever let anything hurt any of you, ever again.

Who's the real monster haunting the narrative? Find out for yourself: read The Lemonade Leak on AO3.

I believe this delightful little child belongs to you, @turtleinsoup?? 💙

[paging-possum]

hm. might fuck around and draw some other peoples ocs just for funsies when I have time its a nice change of pace from what I usually do

[xamaxenta]

Spite is an incredibly powerful motivator and i wish it drove me more

[hauntingblue]

Oden's prophecy of young pirates coming to save wano becoming yamato's hope for his freedom.... and him becoming oden because of it.... it's just so good... on the other side luffy taking ace's spot for liberating yamato... I think I hauve covid

[bylertruther]

society if the duffers had gone through with their original plan to have mike go to the upside down in s1 to find will

[wellthatschaotic]

neurotypicals are so frustrating,, i keep forgetting that "can you do x" means "go do x"

[crimeronan]

VAL SILT VERSES. BLORBO MATERIAL.

[tittyinfinity]

No seroquel means no sleep for me I guess. I've been trying for hours

[bumblingbabooshka]

Dark Frontier should have had an ending scene where after Seven returned to the ship and she's self-conscious about having 'betrayed' Voyager and whether or not the crew trust her (they retrieved her on Janeway's orders but her orders don't always match the feelings of the crew itself), thinking of Tom's comment, thinking of what she was a part of, she stumbles upon B'Elanna. They're both working well past the time to do so. Seven tenses up because B'Elanna looks irritated but she just goes into business as usual about mistakes in Seven's work (probably because she needs to regenerate!) and how much time and energy it took to find her and Seven apologizes for the inconvenience (sarcastically) and B'Elanna accepts her apology then she smirks, staring at Seven. Seven looks unsure about what this means. B'Elanna reaches up and clasps her shoulder. "Good to have you back, Seven." she says. Upon Seven's nod of acknowledgement, she leaves, calling over her shoulder "Get some rest!" threatening that she'll be back in the morning with more corrections if she doesn't. Seven stares after her for a moment. She continues to work. She pauses. She turns around and gets onto her alcove, beginning to regenerate.

[mxwhore]

mutuals. i am getting caught in my own bitterness again...

[biblicalhorror]

Thinking about one of the loser men I dated directly post-college who, after I showed them Dirty Computer [the emotion picture] by Janelle Monae, said they "prefer rap that has something to say"

[courfeyracs-swordcane]

I’ve Got a Dark Alley and a Bad Idea That Says You Should Shut Your Mouth. By Fall Out Boy.

Leg of bicuriosity pose reference by @orange-artist!

[starlooove]

And on another note despite what I’m focusing on I do think it’s abhorrent to assume everyone who voted for or supported Harris is chill with genocide like yeah that’s like. What blew up online that tori maya shit was stupid as fuck but due to the disorganization and lateness of this campaign there was REAL misinformation being spread especially to our elders by ppl misconstruing info and a large number of ppl genuinely RIGHT NOW believe she’s pro Palestine called for a ceasefire etc. Like that’s a big chunk of the issue happening rn - where ppl literally made up policies for her or suddenly fell for “neutral” talking points bc it’s on someone they like and spread that. Like idk I feel like until everyone can be honest and humble nobody’s getting anywhere