#he appreciates the thought though

[egophiliac]

redesigning my headcanon for Sebek's parents, based on important new information (SCALES)

(you can't see it but they're both wearing crocs)

[c-tepx]

i only noticed it on the second read but marcille really just randomly decided to DIY tiny felted izutsumi.. from izutsumi hair

basically.

[myfairstarlight]

Alright, let's talk about Colin's entrapment line and why Penelope offering an annulment was significant, shall we? Arguably the most controversial part of this season, isn't it?

I'm not going to delve too long on the entrapment line again actually, but to summarise, Colin has been traumatised by a similar situation before, and right now, he's hurt. And the thing about being angry with your best friend is that you know what to say to hurt them the most. We see it in Eloise's and Penelope's fight, as they threw each other's insecurities in the other's faces. Colin, two episodes ago, was defending Penelope against Portia, who was accusing her of entrapping him, so yes, his mind will jump to that first. But also note that the whole time he refuses to look at her, because he knows his words are cutting and will hurt and he knows his resolve would break if he looked at her, which is contrasted by Penelope directly looking at him to tell him she loves him and did not mean for this to happen like this. He does not look because he knows she loves him, this is not Marina's situation exactly who only wanted a way out and did not see him as much else than a means to an end, and that's why it's so much more difficult to deal with for him. Penelope loves him.

And he's already almost lost her once, as angry and hurt as he is, he cannot fathom the idea of letting her go, when he remembers how empty he felt without her letters, or at the idea of her with Debling. So he's still here, determined to marry her.

So now we get to e8. The marriage was not technically consummated, and the Lady Whistledown business is finally settled. So Penelope offers the annulment, to set him, and his family, free from her mess.

They never directly address Colin's entrapment comment again, but with Penelope offering the annulment, it is now implied she's been thinking about this the whole time. It is a very real possibility that by that point, Penelope already knew she was pregnant, and it's been speculated if she told Colin in that scene after Francesca's wedding or not (I personally don't think she did, to not add to his guilt at that moment, and perhaps to not influence his decision, knowing she would be offering the annulment soon) and it parallels Marina's situation again, except in this case, Penelope does not wish to trap Colin with a baby, even if it is his. She knows how much Marina impacted Colin, and does not wish to do the same thing she had prevented Marina to do. The best part about this though? Colin is stunned (Edit: I changed the adjective here as someone rightfully pointed out I was exaggerating by saying "flabbergasted" when his reaction is more on the subtle side the English language is the bane of my existence). Frankly, he probably forgot he even said that, the same way he forgot about his "I would never dream of courting Penelope Featherington" comment - those were words said in the heat of the moment he never actually believed. Not once has Colin thought of either breaking the engagement, or get an annulment even after the betrayal.

He could have still eloped with Marina even after learning the truth, but he didn't because she was not honest with him from the start. He learns Penelope has been living a double life this whole time, and yet he stays.

It is significant that Penelope listened and acknowledged Colin's point of view, the same way she asked him to simply stand by her side and support her. Also note that she never says "our family", she says "you or your family".

Despite already being married, this whole time, it did not feel like they were, and she knew that as long as there was still this barrier between them, she could never truly be part of that family, but it's alright, she could live with that, she has mended things with her own after all, and she can support herself. Whatever the outcome, she'll be alright, she believes.

Fortunately for her, she does not get to find out what that future would entail because Colin absolutely hates the idea of letting her go.

Because after all, she's a mess, but she's his mess.

[idanit]

oh, to be a fly on the wall in the mind of the artist who drew the illustration for the front cover of the first edition of "Carry on, Jeeves"

[moeblob]

I love Chris so much you guys.

[kacievvbbbb]

Honestly despite my feelings about how the last arc of MHA went down I really love Deku and his story.

I just feel like a lot of the time we get these protagonists whose whole philosophy is it doesn’t matter what you were born as everyone can achieve greatness. But then the series goes on and it turns out that actually it DOES matter because the protagonist has this really great lineage and these really great powers you can only have through birth they were actually born born, predestined if you will, to do this.

But MHA actually sticks to its guns. Midoriya wasn’t revealed to have some great connection to all might that the universe had put in place. He wasn’t defended from some great lineage that makes him uniquely suited to this. Hell All for one didn’t even turn out to be his father, there was no hidden powerful quirk he was always meant to have. He was just Midoriya Izuku a boy who was in the right place at the right time and simply decided to act while the world did nothing. And that’s what really made him a hero.

I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but I believe him a bit more when he goes anybody can be a hero if you just decide to act

[devotion-disorder]

was in like a department store today and got stopped by a clerk trying to get me to open a credit card. when i turned around, he hesitated and had to ask if i was a high schooler or a college student (💀) then not even five minutes later the exact same happens AGAIN (by another clerk) like word for word. im.

[daily-yin]

Day 39

[canecone]

Hello creatures of the night 😍😍 I have come back to fix the planetlord design

I need to stop pushing myself so far to the point the quality is the worst when I get long periods of inspiration 😔

[good-beans]

this is so stupid but i always have fun imagining the milgram characters watching their own/others mvs and seeing their reactions, especially for MeMe

That’s not stupid at all, thank you so much for the ask!! It’s sooo interesting to think about! I planned on just posting this drabble, but the more I thought about it, the more I started jotting down headcanons for everyone 👀 Of course there’s the initial disbelief and shock that Milgram can really do what it claims, but once they accept that, they’d have a lot of interesting reactions…

Es gets to watch the video first, then the prisoners are free to watch their own in the privacy of the courtroom/extraction room/wherever. Other prisoners can watch them only with explicit permission from the video’s singer. No one is allowed to watch Undercover except for Es. At first they spend hours looking at those final frames of themself flinching from the camera, hoping to jog any sort of memories, but eventually they give up on it. While actually watching it, they don’t mind the murder silhouettes. While sleeping, however, it has triggered more than one nightmare.

Haruka: He thinks Weakness is very pretty – he’s amazed seeing himself on the screen and hearing his voice, knowing he’s not that good of a singer. Even before his innocent verdict, it gives him a huge surge of confidence. Once he gets to know the others better, he gives them mv permissions, then stares intently at their faces to see their reactions as they watch it. AKAA scares him a bit, seeing his own intense emotions on screen, and he only gives Muu permission to see it. When he’s alone, Haruka pauses the shots of his mother, just to stare for a while.

Yuno: Laughs at the symbolism her mind used in Umbilical. She’s never shied away from sexual words/thoughts, so it's funny the video was as tame as it was. She thinks the song is fun, and isn’t afraid to show the others and sing snippets of it around the prison. Some days it’s too emotional for her to get into it, but most of the time she tries to display a confident attitude about it. After Tear Drop, she’s satisfied with her anger and more overtly sexual images. If anything, she feels too exposed by the shots of herself looking more vulnerable/sad. 

Fuuta: He experiences a solid mix of embarrassment at the gaming theme in Bring it On and feeling a surge of pride that he looks badass in the knight’s armor. He’s worried the warden won’t take him seriously with the video game obsession, but he absolutely loves the song and thinks it portrays his toughness and ideals well. He’s less thrilled with Backdraft, everything about it unsettles and embarasses him. He’s thrown by the shot of crossing out his own silhouette – he’d had self-harming thoughts, but wasn’t quite ready to confront them so blatantly yet. Like Haruka, he can be caught pausing the arcade shot just for a moment before turning the whole thing off and storming away.

Muu: She has mixed emotions towards After Pain. She hates seeing herself look so weak and pathetic, but it gives her a lot of hope that her story will be understood. She misses her friends, and seeing them again is bittersweet. She closes her eyes at the moment of the stabbing – she’s only gotten the courage to watch it through her fingers once. She watches INMF once, then refuses to look at it again from shame/horror. Despite Haruka’s begging, she doesn’t let him watch it, either. 

Shidou: He asks Es what they saw in Throw Down. Upon finding out his family wasn’t in it, he chooses not to watch it. He believes he already knows all about his emotions and crime, so there’s no need to go through that pain again. He’s tempted to watch it when he’s confused about Es’ verdict, but still holds off. He does watch Triage when informed his family is in it. He spends hours in front of the screen by himself. Only after seeing that one does he watch Throw Down, though he’s still left confused about Es’ decisions.

Mahiru: Absolutely loves TIHTBILWY. She thinks it perfectly describes her situation, and that the song is very cute. She lets others watch it, and unlike Yuno, feels like singing it 24/7. It reminds her of her bf, and she thinks that’s very romantic. Similar to Shidou, she spends a lot of time watching I Love You just to look at her boyfriend. She shows it to everyone, just to show him off and talk about him, even if she does skip over the beginning and end each time.

Kazui: He is very similar to Shidou; he refuses to watch his videos until T2, assuming it would be too painful to watch something he already knows and wishes to avoid. Unlike Shidou, seeing Hinako is far too painful, and he regrets watching it and seeing her so happy on their wedding day. Though maybe he’s still waiting, and hasn’t seen any of the videos yet…

Amane: Magic makes her worry more than anything. She fears she’s poisoned by unnecessary vainness since so much of her video involves cute things, colors, outfits, animals, and is set up like a tv show. She’s also worried that Es and the others will really see her as a child because of how cute the whole thing is. She prevents herself from watching it too many times, but buried under all her fears, it gives her a surge of pride seeing herself so talented and pretty and the star of the show. Purge March only reaffirms her confidence in her crime – the video brings up some awful memories, but it shows her as a leader, a warrior, a hero! It brings her comfort and confidence more than anything.

Mikoto/John: The videos are distressing to both of them, and they spend all their time studying the others’ screentime. Mikoto watches in horror as John does things that line up with his spotty memories, and John panics seeing that his actions distress Mikoto more than they’ve reassured/saved him. John does end up watching his own scenes a few times – it feels incredibly good to appear in a way that Mikoto may finally notice him. He feels seen. Now, logically I think that MeMe would be the final tipping point in which Mikoto finally accepts the situation and his DID, but if I must stick to his canon denial, then I’d say he goes on a whole rant about movie magic andt the crazy things you can do with editing nowadays. He doesn’t have a good explanation on how Milgram found his home and knew so much about him, but he explains everything away as cgi or camera effects. Double manages to sway him a bit more, as he hears John speak so plainly to him. Just as the audience had some debate on who was apologizing at the end of Double, Mikoto and John wonder who is apologizing to whom. Though they both come to the conclusion it’s their own apology, they decide that if it was the others’, they’d accept it and forgive them.

Kotoko: She’s very pleased with Harrow, and is unashamed to show it to the others. Though she’d been able to watch a few of the previous prisoners’ videos, it still shakes her a bit when she realizes that Milgram really does have the tech to look deep inside her. She watches it just a few times – not obsessing over it, but not afraid either. Deep Cover, however, is a once-and-done sort of deal. She claims she’s not letting the others watch it because “they couldn’t handle such harsh but true criticisms about themselves,” but she doesn’t end up watching it anymore herself, either.

[enginator2000]

daily infinites 61-70. top 10 goobie woobies: number ten we got infinite. hes hella funny. then we got infinite. what a goat. then we got infinite; hes a menace, dont let his appearance fool you. then we got infinite, what a beast! then we got infinite, love him. no list is complete without infinite. uhhh then we got infinite. aww, its infinite! i love infinite. then we got infinite. aaaand this guy (infinite again)

part 1 part 6

[sassyandclassy94]

Just some random appreciation for my two favorite boys in the Husky Clipper🥵

[starheirxero]

Can I see a better ref of Servant Sun? Or some sketches of him?

(no reason at all, just wanna see the lil guy better)

YES OFC !!!! I ONLY HAVE SKETCHES RN SO HERE'S SOME STUFF I'VE THROWN AROUND 🙏🙏🙏

Tbh I feel like his outfit is subject to change at any moment BUT these 4 details are FOR SURE always gunna be there.

Did you know everytime he truly doubts his lord, he adds something eclipse themed to his body? Just thought I'd mention it......

[not-poignant]

Hi Pia

Feel free to ignore if this is unwelcome, but have you ever thought about publishing traditionally to sublimate your income and draw in new readers? I know you've self published two books already and that you didn't feel like they did very well, but maybe the experience would be different if someone else was in charge of marketing and all the other business stuff?

Obviously everyone's experience is different but as an author myself who's published both trad and self, traditional publishing has been a completely different experience and has allowed me to focus more on writing because I'm not the one responsible for advertising/marketing/financing anymore.

There are a ton of literary agents nowadays that want to represent diverse and lgbtqia+ fiction, some of them even in Australia.

Websites like Reedsy, AgentQuery and Jerichowriters have extensive directories to find literary agents.

(This is lengthy folks so I'm putting the other two parts (and my response) under a read more! Also putting it under a read more so the anon can skip my response since it's very 'here's all the reasons I can't do this' and they just might not want to read that, lmao)

(continued -> )

Trad publishing houses have better resources for marketing and helping authors get more attention than any self publishing website could.

Obviously most authors, unless they're really prolific, don't get a huge advance (the average is between $1000 - $5000) but getting your foot in the door or on the traditional publishing "ladder' so to speak can have a huge benefit for your serials. Because it gives you more exposure. Plus it's in the agent's best interest to find a publishing house that accepts stories that contain darker themes and negotiate the best deal for you.

For some reason places like Amazon and the like accept and keep up more "dark" books that are traditionally published than they do with self pub ones. Maybe because they have more respect or leniency for publishing houses? I have no idea. But you could use this to your advantage. I think I remember you mentioning that writing novels felt quite isolating to you? But you already have 2 completed novels (3 if you count the fae one) that you could potentially revisit or rewrite to your liking and get them represented by agents.

You already have a loyal readership and that's very attractive to trad pub houses and agents.

As well as trad publishing, you could also make s simple website that doesn't require much maintenance. It could be just a landing page that says something about you and then has links to your tumblr and patreon where you're more active. That way you increase the chances of getting your serials found by additional readers and also come across looking more "professional". Not that you're not professional now. You are and I admire you greatly, but the unfortunate reality is a lot of people still judge by appearances and some will be more drawn to an author's website than a tumblr page, at least at first. So I think having a simple landing page would open up another door for you to benefit from.

Trad publishing is work but definitely not as much as self publishing, and you can continue on with your serials. Getting an agent can be time consuming but I personally believe the pros outweigh the cons and I also believe that your stories would be a huge treasure to the growing lgbtqia+ market. Seriously there needs to be more!

These are just suggestions and thoughts and like I said before, feel free to ignore. But I know you've mentioned wanting to grow your career in the past and I genuinely believe you can do so with some of these pathways.

~

Okay, my response. Posting this because firstly I think the suggestions could work very well for other authors reading this! And I hope they take the advice to note, and secondly because I haven't talked about this for a hot minute so let's talk about it again.

So the TL;DR is yes I have considered traditional publishing. I have actually been traditionally published in short stories, poetry, and also had my art published on covers and re: interior illustrations. But my Fae Tales works got soundly rejected when I sent them to publishing houses that were doing open calls for that sort of material. I've never heard back from an agent and I never expect to, heh.

~

Now for a bit more detail

I have been traditionally published before (it's how I got my writing out there long before I ever wrote serials), and yes, I have approached publishers with my writing since then. In fact Tradewinds was written for the traditional publishing market, and it got soundly rejected, and then shelved. The reasons it was rejected ran the gamut from 'I don't like that these fae eat humans no one is going to relate to these people' (while the editor then went on to publish vampire books idk) to 'There's too much worldbuilding you can't expect readers to keep up with this' to 'Your stories are too long, no one wants to read characters talking all the time.'

Meanwhile in my online serials I was getting feedback like 'my favourite chapters are the ones where the characters just sit in a room and talk' lol.

The traditional publishing world is also not quite as utopian for most authors as you make it seem. I'm friends with a lot of authors who are traditionally published because that's the world I came from, and unless they're solely in KU and doing generic rapid release formula romances, none of them are making that much money. Certainly not enough to live off. It may have been that you were very fortunate, anon, but I know hundreds more traditionally published authors that left trad pub to make money, and I know about 5 in trad pub personally who are making enough to live off of.

Only one of those is really writing what she truly loves to write, and even then, publishing houses have refused to commit to her entire fantasy series (and she's regularly in 'Top 10/20 Women Fantasy Authors in the World' lists) and forced her to finish the series prematurely. Something I never ever have to worry about in self pub.

The reality is that in trad pub these days, you're still in charge of most of your marketing unless you're one of the big earners for the publishing house. In fact I'd be expected to keep even more of a social media and marketing presence than I do now. I don't do almost any of the things you're supposed to do as an author in marketing to be appealing. I don't have a Facebook author account. I don't have an Instagram author account. I don't maintain or regularly send out newsletters (which automatically puts me in the like 0.05% of authors who make money doing this lmao).

I don't know if you ever have looked that closely into what m/m publishing houses expect from most of their authors, but the newsletter swaps, cover releases, review circuits, interview circuits and more are fucking grueling. We're expected to be responsible for our advertising and our marketing to a fairly massive degree. Some traditionally published in m/m still have to pay for their release blitzes out of pocket. These publishing houses, by and large, do not offer advances. You say most authors don't get large advances. I don't think most authors in this arena get offered advances at all unless they're somehow miraculously acquired by a Big 4.

We're expected to have an already established social media presence because of that (that's why it's so appealing to publishers that we have social media presences already, anon, so we can market, they can save money, and we still see only a minimal cut from the royalties).

And you still have to focus on your finances, because publishing houses like Dreamspinner straight up didn't pay a whole bunch of authors for so long they destroyed careers. They still haven't paid some of their authors. And they're still running a business and people still buy their books.

Trad publishing houses have better resources for marketing and helping authors get more attention than any self publishing website could.

This is true if a) they're a big publishing house and not an indie publisher of which most LGBTQIA+ publishing houses are and b) they're willing to use them on you.

The authors that make the most money get the most resources. If they believe you're going to earn back your advance and move thousands or tens of thousands of units per book, then yes, you will get those resources.

I have been told so many times now - even from friends who run publishing houses, including one who works at HarperCollins - that my work will never be mainstream enough to have broad appeal. They literally told me not to keep trying re: trad pub, because that was my dream for a long time. These folks have given me rock solid advice in the past, it's one of the reasons I'm doing so well now via Patreon + Ream. But they were like (paraphrasing) 'you don't write 60-80k romances and you don't want to and that's not your strength anyway, you're multi-genre which makes you hard to market, you write psychological and literary trauma recovery which is hard to market, you write character studies which are hard to market, publishing houses often don't commit to series anymore if the first two don't move units and if they pulled the plug you'd be contractually obliged to never finish that series until your contract was up.' I could go on, but it was like yeah...actually. Fair.

For some reason places like Amazon and the like accept and keep up more "dark" books that are traditionally published than they do with self pub ones. Maybe because they have more respect or leniency for publishing houses?

They do, but most publishing houses want very formulaic dark romance which is not what I write.

I have a 300k omegaverse slowburn that still hasn't had any penetrative sex in it, anon. Publishing houses don't want that. They don't expect anyone will wait 4 full length novels to get to literally a single penetrative sex scene.

But you already have 2 completed novels (3 if you count the fae one) that you could potentially revisit or rewrite to your liking and get them represented by agents.

If I rewrote them to my liking, trad pub wouldn't want them. They'd be too long! I think agents etc. take one look at me and go 'oh god, no thank you!' I'm not an easy sell, by any means.

Plus I'm very e.e about all of that with the knowledge that they then give me only about 10-15% of the royalties on the sales, vs. self-pub where I get around 70%, or subscription where I around 80% of it. When someone subscribes to me, they don't have to worry about 85-90% of their subscription fee going to a publishing house. I don't have to think about how many thousands and thousands of books I'd have to sell to make the same amount that I do now via subscription.

As well as trad publishing, you could also make s simple website that doesn't require much maintenance.

If it was that simple, I'd be doing it. I don't mean this in a facetious way, I mean it in a: I've made a lot of websites, in fact I run one at the moment not connected to my writing (I've been running it for so long it's now in its 20s and can probably has a driver's license). I find it so tedious that I barely remember to check in on it. But forgetting about it means there's always maintenance to keep up with when I get back to it.

Running websites is simpler than it used to be, but it's still not simple. There's hosting and hosting costs, there's server changes, there's back-end maintenance etc. I'm considering it for down the track, but there's a reason I decided to go the route of Patreon over my own site. There are authors (like Christopher Hopper) who actually do subscription through their own domain, but it's a lot of work.

Even placeholder sites are still work. They need updating, details change, story titles changing etc. Maintaining my Patreon + Ream About pages is enough, they're always both a little out of date, lol.

Not that you're not professional now.

Oh no, I mean from a 'traditional publisher looking at me to see what kind of candidate I am' I'm really not though. Like I said, I don't have the newsletter (100 subscribers who get one newsletter a year is not really a newsletter), I don't have the Facebook/Tiktok/Insta/Twitter/Bluesky/Threads accounts, etc. I write multi-genre across multiple steam levels, and I'm allergic to writing serials shorter than 150k. One of my best performing original serials was an 800k contemporary story with no sex in it but a lot of BDSM. It can't be marketed as clean or sweet, it's not high steam, an entire chapter is 'boy saves snail from rain.' Also he was cruel to animals, so not exactly what I'd call a sympathetic main.

And yet that story did so well for me via Patreon + Ream, because people want the kinds of stories that publishing houses generally don't want and I happen to be writing them.

Trad publishing is work but definitely not as much as self publishing, and you can continue on with your serials. Getting an agent can be time consuming but I personally believe the pros outweigh the cons and I also believe that your stories would be a huge treasure to the growing lgbtqia+ market. Seriously there needs to be more!

Anon I just literally do not believe an agent would want to represent me. I have 0% belief in that. Not from a self-deprecating angle but from a 'I am not a good bet for the trad market' perspective. From a 'I have so many friends who are trad pubbed authors who stare at me like I'm insane for writing serials as long as I do' perspective. From a 'professionals in the industry have told me it's amazing I'm doing so well in serials because there's no way they'd take a risk on what I'm doing' perspective. From a 'just because it's queer and diverse doesn't mean it hits literally any other thing a trad pub is looking for' perspective. I've been doing this for 10 years. There are agents who represent work similar to mine who know what I'm doing and wouldn't touch me with a ten foot pole. They're not missing out on a trick, they know I'm not broad appeal, and they're right.

Also the only way I'd have the energy to manage trad pub is by quitting serials. And honestly, I never found trad pub all that much fun while I was doing it for non-novel stuff. It was fine, and it is nice to have my stuff out there, but it was a ton of admin and a lot of going back and forth between people who really only care about marketing a product, and that's great and what they excel at! But I'm too disabled to turn this job into something crushing just to potentially make more money, I'd rather just quit and go back onto a full Disability Pension. I can't see any way I still get to write the stories I want to write, in the way that I write them, and be remotely appealing to a single reputable trad pub or agent.

Also *gestures to everything in this article*

[velvet-games]

I've been researching locs for like the last hour and um. I still understand nothing. but I thought alastor would look cute with them?

[10underoot2]

I cannot stress enough how strongly episode 14 starts. I loved so much of it.

- Haein's beautiful monologue at the start. I love how it contrasts the Church conversation because he does remember and he's willing to still stay true to his promise of being by her side.

"We put emphasis on our happy moments but we dont know what the future hold for us. So we make promises we can't keep and laugh as if these happy moments will last forever. However, there is a dark side behind those radiant moments. When the magical moments dissapeared and hardships made me want to give up, a thought crossed mind. 'Sure, I've experienced many misfortunes, but I still have you.' And that helped me endure."

- The beautiful, beautiful way she tells Hyunwoo why she cannot get surgery if it means losing her memory. Notice how she draws him in a game of remember when. It's their memories that they're talking about and reminiscing. If she got the surgery the strength, the field, him, the memories they all cease. I can't imagine the pain of her knowing that all these memories and experiences would then be only his.

Honeymoon. Field. Trivial info - there was a pub. We drank and argued - intimate detail. Smile - ah I remember you saying that. Passed the field again - a beautiful moon.

"I still remember the smell, the moon and the wind of that day. That's what memories are. Being alive means I cherish those memories and drive strength from them. So those memories define me and my life. And I'll be losing them. This place will just become an ordinary field for me. And you will become a stranger. I'll no longer be myself. That's why I'm not getting the surgery. I've lived as myself and I'll die as such."