#i am a writer not a graphic designer

[casualtydept]

i come bearing a very silly announcement

so you may remember a little thing where i spent several months working on skull face fic for all 31 of last year's whumptober prompts. turns out i had so much fun i wanted to do something like that again. but i didn't want to repeat myself, and finding other -tober events with prompts that clicked with me was a struggle.

so i made my own - all derived from quotes, lyrics, mission titles and general ideas/themes from mgsv

like last year the odds of me actually finishing all of these before the end of october are slim but i'm already ahead of last year because i have ideas written down for every single one of them (and i am Very Very excited about each and every one). there's no theme on the overall tone/content so you can expect the usual from me (angst, fluff, silliness, and yes, there will be a little bit of smut). and plenty more guest appearances.

i'm mostly posting this as a silly way to announce what i'm gonna be working on for the next little while and with literally zero expectation of anyone wishing to join me but if any of these prompts do take your fancy (as many or as few, and in any creative medium) i'm certainly not going to complain :3

also psst here's sources for each of the prompts

Nine Years - "i'm afraid it's been... nine years"

Mess - "any mess you made, i was there to clean up"

The Other Side of Your Coin - "i've long been the other side of your coin"

Going Way Back - "your boss and i go way back"

Close - "very close... to you"

Repay the Favour - "i owe him my life. i'm bound to repay the favour... any way i can."

That Agony is Your Triumph - lyric from here's to you

Weapon - self-explanatory but i suppose "a weapon to surpass metal gear" might be the most prominent reference

Throat - self-explanatory (parasite stuff)

Fixation - "as a boy, skull face's life went up in flames... perhaps that is what fuels his fixation with fire"

Mask - self-explanatory

Hellbound - mission 12

Punished - punished "venom" snake

Tossing Problems in the Fire - "they certainly seem to like tossing their problems in the fire"

The Garden - "and now that i know you're no longer interested in the garden..." (this is how he refers to cipher's parasite research facilities)

Hiding the Evidence - "skull face must have found some secret place to create his precious few english parasites, hiding all evidence like a man cheating on his wife"

Means to an End - "let the world fear us all, it's just means to an end" from sins of the father

Can’t Go Home - "you mean i... i can't go home?"

Of Use to You - "you see, my being here's made me realise i can still be of use to you"

Rain - self-explanatory

Hospital - self-explanatory

Out of Sight - "this 'pain' is ours, and no one else's. a secret weapon we wield, out of sight"

Will - self-explanatory/too many mentions to count

Truth - mission 46 (truth: the man who sold the world)

Flesh - "the word became flesh"

Weakness - "that ignorance is a weakness - the downfall of a need-to-know system"

Regret - "my regret... is this misunderstanding between us"

On the Same Page - "my organisation has many arms. it's... just going to take a little longer before we're all on the same page"

Voices - mission 20

Face to Face - "you're face to face with the man who sold the world"

Free - "i've never had the freedom to choose for myself. but you, right now, are free. do as you will"

[syn4k]

[Image ID:

A box with words in it colored in the stripes of the aroace flag. Around it are small hearts colored in arospec and aspec flags. The text inside of the box reads, in all caps, "You say I am incapable of love, but you know not of the love of which you speak". The background is black.

/End ID.]

[put-them-thangs-away]

caved in and watched the happy ending pilot/teaser even tho i always go in blind and this was a MISTAKE DDHJKJUTFGHH I NEED IT NOW NOW NOW obvs i am excited for jeff to get to be unhinged and covered in blood since that seems to be his happy place but i am somehow even more excited about getting to see barcode also be feral yhiiyhjkjbb

[elenaferndale]

And finally the main girl herself, Lilka Everwood! Lilka is a human, in a world where humans are not wanted. Her hair is too brittle, her eyes are too baggy, her body too thin.

Oh, and she has no soul.

[alpinelogy]

lowk wish that i was not in an rpf fandom cause sometimes i see such a fun 'creatives post [insert something creative]' and i wanna participate but all my stuff is rpf/rpf adjacent 🫠. unfortunately i like it here lol

[superhousecat-once-again]

They should create a version of creation that doesn’t feel like turning yourself inside out and scraping it until the vessel is empty

[exeggcute]

just got two cold emails from two different recruiters, at the same staffing agency, for the exact same role... as a graphic designer. and only one of them included a pay range lol

[lily-alphonse]

Hey look

Cool thanks B)

Ive been really getting into graphic design for the promo images for my fics. Unfortunately I got carried away with this one and made it way too cool so I can't use it. Like it doesn't match the vibe of the fic at all and I don't want to falsely advertise it. But I love how it turned out so I wanted someone to see it. So thank you for putting your eyeballs on it.

The fic I made it for is basically a tragic existential romance. This graphic is giving, like, cyberpunk thriller. Like the Enderman is alive and coming for my ass through the screen lol. Which would be sick, but is so not the vibe this time around.

Someone will probably ask anyway so you can read it on AO3 here: Sandy Again, tragic. No cyberpunk thriller here. But I like it a lot.

[voidcat-senket]

[theriverpersonshadow]

Full Book cover... very obviously self-made XD

When I have a lil more cash I will hire someone to make a better one, but for a first attempt I’m happy with it!!!! Made on Canva with entirely free assets.

Also, posting this here to celebrate my second chapter coming out on Kindle vella. I had a write-in with some other people in my writing club tonight and I meant to do some actual writing, but brain said no and I instead ended up formatting and uploading 4 chapters 0w0

I’m updating it every Wednesday and Saturday, thankfully it has a scheduling function so I can go on upload sprees like this lol.

But yeah! If you wanna check it out, here’s the kindle vella link (look I know amazon is evil, but I am a substitute teacher who needs money in general and cannot afford anything else.) The first three are free, so feel free to browse!

[amomohthefairy]

A multi-passionate girl juggling her outlets, haphazardly! 🦄😌

[jennakittykats-blog]

My Linktree, follow me around the web easily.

[thymewayster]

Maybe the content has been crap because of their horrible working conditions, ever think of that?

out of curiosity i wanted to compare this metric to david zaslav's salary, so lets specifically compare it to his earnings last year which was $39 million. if the studios referred to in this article continue to lose this amount consistently week to week, over the course of a whole year it STILL wouldn't total up to $39 million. it would take just shy of another 3 months for them to lose as much as this one man made in one year. that's how grotesquely overinflated his paycheck is and that is precisely why this strike needs to happen.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

2025 book bingo time 📚

want a completely arbitrary set of reading goals for 2025? want to try something new in your literary diet but don't know where to start? just like a challenge for the sake of a challenge? just love a good game of bingo?

boy do I have something for you!

for anyone planning to participate, please know that I LOVE attention and talking about books, so I would be STOKED to be tagged on any and all updates about what you're reading or planning to read. I'm so, so excited to see all the different ways these prompts get filled, especially if and when they bring people away from the kinds of things they normally read. not to mention snag some new reading recs myself, hopefully!

and of course, I want to know whenever somebody gets a bingo - and ESPECIALLY if somebody fills the whole board! I don't have any prizes for you, but I can offer a sense of accomplishment :)

note that this is designed to be played as 1 book = 1 space, so even if you read, say, a fantasy graphic novel published in 1923 from an indie publisher that has a bat on the cover, you'd only cross off one space. I'm not a cop and I'm not in charge of what you read, so if it sparks more joy to check off multiple spaces per book then go nuts, but I am throwing that disclaimer out there.

EDIT: the 2025 book bingo challenge is now also on storygraph, thanks to @obi-wann-cannoli!

wondering what some of these spaces mean? seeking a couple recommendations to get you started? no idea what a zine even is, let alone how to make one? worry not! I have a guide to all 25 prompts, including recommendations + an example of what I'll be reading throughout the year to fulfill each space. read on beneath the cut!

Literary Fiction: I find that a lot of people are reluctant to check out literary fiction, as it’s often written off as not being about anything but adultery and divorce. If this is you, I implore you to take a chance, acknowledge that adultery and divorce are compelling sometimes, and also remember that lit fic has a lot more to offer than that. At Writer’s Digest, Michael Woodson describes literary fiction as “less of a genre than a category,” which “focuses on style, character, and theme over plot.” My recommendations include Raven Leilani’s Luster, Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, and Melissa Broder’s Milk Fed. 

I’ll be reading: Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

2. Short Story Collection: You know, a bunch of short stories together in one book? It doesn’t get much more self-explanatory than that. Could be a collection of stories by a single author or an anthology—it’s up to you! I recommend checking out Mariana Enríquez’s The Dangers of Smoking in Bed (translated by Megan McDowell), Nalo Hopkinson’s Falling in Love With Hominids, and Kim Fu’s Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century. 

I’ll be reading: Your Utopia by Bora Chung and translated by Anton Hur 

3. A Sequel: It could be one that you’ve been meaning to get around to, one that’s not releasing until 2025, or the sequel to something you read to cross off another space on this very bingo sheet!

I’ll be reading: Heavenly Tyrant by Xiran Jay Zhao, sequel to 2021’s Iron Widow 

4. Childhood Favorite: Go back and read a book you loved as a child, tween, or teen! There’s no wrong answer here; anything from a YA novel to a picture book would be just lovely, and I can’t wait to see what people pick for this option! I’m not sure which of my old favorites I’ll be revisiting yet—should I go for the warm and fuzzy Casson Family series, or straight towards the mindfucky sci-fi of Interstellar Piggy? Or maybe I’ll go see how Artemis Fowl holds up...

5. 20th Century Speculative Fiction: For those not familiar with the term, speculative fiction can encapsulate science fiction, fantasy, and anything else that falls into the unreal. You’re spoiled for iconic choices here: the 20th century gave us Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness, Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale, Butler’s Parable of the Sower and Kindred, L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time, the beginning of Pratchett’s Discworld series, Diana Wynne Jones’ Howls’ Moving Castle, and countless others.

I’ll be reading: Dawn by Octavia E. Butler, love of my literary life 💜

6. Fantasy: Fantasy comes in a thousand different shades, from contemporary urban wizards with day jobs at the office to high fantasy spellslingers chasing dragons away from castles. Some examples I’ve adored are N.K. Jemisin’s The Killing Moon, C.L. Polk’s Witchmark, Fonda Lee’s Jade City, and Nghi Vo’s Empress of Salt and Fortune.

I’ll be reading: The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty  

7. Published Before 1950: This one could not be more straightforward if I tried. You have all of human history (or at least, all the parts that have surviving literature), just not the last 75 years. Dig deep! 

I’ll be reading: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, published in 1938 

8. Independent Publisher: Did you guys know that just five publishing companies (Penguin Random House, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan Publishers, Simon & Schuster, and Hachette Book Group) are responsible for 80% of books published in the US each year, and 25% of books globally? Break away from the big five and see what some small presses are putting out! If you need some ideas about where to start, check out this list of nearly 300 independent publishers with notes on what kind of books they put out!

I’ll be reading: Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and translated by Lin King, from Graywolf Press

9. Graphic Novel/Comic Book/Manga: Despite my personal obsession with Batman, the world of comic books is sooo much wider than Gotham City—or anything else that DC and Marvel have to offer. If superheroes aren’t your speed, check out the Southern gothic of Carmen Maria Machado and Dani Strips’ comic The Low, Low Woods, splash around in Kat Leyh’s graphic novel Thirsty Mermaids, or stop waiting for a new season of Dungeon Meshi and go read Ryoko Kui’s manga, translated to English by Taylor Engel. 

I’ll be reading: The Fade, by Aabria Iyengar and Mari Costa

10. Animal on the Cover: Yes, yes, don’t judge a book by its cover—but do go find one with a critter on the cover and give it a read! Absolutely no other requirements here, get silly with it.

I’ll be reading: Shark Heart by Emily Habeck

11. Set in a Country You Have Never Visited: Fiction or nonfiction, doesn’t matter so long as it gives you a little glimpse of a country you’ve never visited in real life. If you’ve somehow visited every country currently recognized in the world, then I guess you get to go read something set in space.

I’ll be reading: A Magical Girl Retires by Park Seolyeon and Kim Sanho, translated by Anton Hur 

12. Science Fiction: A genre just as diverse as fantasy, with a little something for everybody! I recommend Becky Chambers’ Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet for those who want to kiss an alien in the stars and Jessamine Chan’s The School for Good Mothers for those who want a surveillance state dystopia that hits much closer to home.  

I’ll be reading: Womb City by Tlotlo Tsamaase

13. 2025 Debut Author: Read a book by someone who’s releasing their first book in 2025. Fic or nonfic, any genre, no further requirements. Not quite a free space, but pretty close!

I’ll be reading: Liquid: A Love Story by Mariam Rahmani, coming out March 11

14. Memoir: Per Wikipedia, a memoir is “any nonfiction narrative writing based on the author’s personal memories.” Some are funny, some are heartbreaking, some are both! I recommend Carman Maria Machado’s In the Dream House and Roxane Gay’s Hunger, because I tend to lean heartbreaking! 

I’ll be reading: Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner. Again, I like heartbreaking!

15. Read a Zine, Make a Zine: Not familiar with zines? No problem! Check out some of these digital archives for inspiration, and then craft your own zine with this simple guide (or do it your own way, I’m not in charge of you). 

Internet Archives: https://archive.org/details/zines

Gay Zine Archive Project: https://gittings.qzap.org/ 

POC Zine Project: https://poczineproject.tumblr.com/ 

Library of Congress: https://www.loc.gov/collections/zine-web-archive/ 

16. Essay Collection: Like a short story collection, but it’s nonfiction now. Some of my favorites include Samantha Irby’s We Are Never Meeting in Real Life, Elaine Castillo’s How to Read Now, Aimee Nezhukhumatathil’s World of Wonders, and Cathy Park Hong’s Minor Feelings.

I’ll be reading: A Little Devil in America: In Praise of Black Performance by Hanif Abdurraqib 

17. 2024 Award Winner: What award? Any award you like! And boy, there are tons to pick from. Any book that won any award in the year 2024 is free game. If you need some places to start looking, check out some of these:

Lambda Literary Awards, for excellence in LGBT literature: https://lambdaliterary.org/awards__trashed/2024-winners/ 

The Alex Awards, for adult books with crossover appeal for teen readers: https://www.ala.org/yalsa/alex-awards 

Ignyte Awards, celebrating diversity in speculative fiction: https://ignyteawards.fiyahlitmag.com/2024-results/  

Women's Prize for Fiction (self explanatory) https://womensprize.com/prizes/womens-prize-for-fiction/

Others: https://www.bookbrowse.com/awards/ 

I’ll be reading: Biography of X by Catherine Lacey, winner of the 2024 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction

18. Nonfiction: Learn Something New: I know very little about archaeology, anthropology, or any other fields that involve studying ancient cities, but Annalee Newitz’s Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age was some of the most fun I had with nonfiction in 2024, because every page brought a brand new discovery. For 2025, find a nonfiction book about a topic you don’t know ANYTHING about, and learn something new!

I’ll be reading: Cooling the Tropics: Ice, Indigeneity, and Hawaiian Refreshment by Hi’ilei Julia Kawehipuaakahaopulani Hobart

19. Social Justice & Activism: Read a book about a social issue, the history of an activist movement, or brush up on a guiding philosophy or ideology. Arm yourself with knowledge, besties, because I have a feeling we’re going to need it! if you need a good place to start, why not try Angela Davis' Race, Women & Class, Mariame Kaba's We Do This 'Til We Free Us, or Molly Smith and Juno Mac's Revolting Prostitutes?

I’ll be reading: White Feminism: From Suffragettes to Influencers and Who They Leave Behind by Koa Beck

20. Romance Novel: Listen to me. Fucking listen to me. I mean a ROMANCE. NOVEL. Not a novel that incidentally has a romance in it. Romance novel, motherfucker. Go check out the romance section and have some whimsy as two people fall in love through the most contrived series of events ever conceived. If you really need a romance that makes you feel smart (that’s still sexy and messy as hell), try Akwaeke Emezi’s You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty.

I’ll be reading: Go Luck Yourself by Sara Raasche  

21. Read and Make a Recipe: Could be a cookbook, could be a recipe you yoinked from the New York Times, could be something your grandparents lovingly wrote down by hand. Could be as complex or as simple as you like, just make something tasty! Some cookbooks I’ve enjoyed are Sohla El-Waylly’s Start Here, Dan Pashman’s Mission Impastable, and John Wang and Storm Garner’s The World Eats Here.

22. Horror: Slashers, zombies, haunted houses, creeping paranoia, you name it! It’s time to get spooky and scary with all kinds of things going bump in the night. Maybe this is the year to finally keep up with Dracula Daily? Not for me, I'm not doing that, but you could!

I’ll be reading: I Was A Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones

23. Published in the Aughts: A throwback, but not too far back. Read something published between 2000 and 2009. Maybe it’s time to finally get into Twilight? (For legal reasons, that’s a joke.)

I’ll be reading: The Sluts by Dennis Cooper, published in 2004

24. Historical Fiction: You know, fiction that takes place in a bygone era! Please remember, this isn’t just about reading a book that’s old; we have a separate prompt for that! This is about reading something that takes place in the past relative to the time it was written. Pride and Prejudice is historical to us, but was contemporary when Austen wrote it. Think of Brit Bennett's The Vanishing Half, Markus Zusak's The Book Thief, or history + a bit of fantasy in book's like R.F. Kuang's Babel.

I’ll be reading: The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon

Bookseller or Librarian Recommendation: This one is fun, and something I always like to do when I’m travelling and visiting a new bookstore. Ask a bookseller or librarian to recommend something they’ve liked, and check it out! If going in person isn’t feasible, many bookstores and libraries have staff picks on their websites, and the Indie Next List is a monthly list of independent booksellers’ favorite new releases. 

I’ll be reading: The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich, which I bought at Erdrich’s bookstore, Birchbark Books, this summer :)

lastly: tagging people who asked to be tagged to make sure they didn't miss this! @thebisexualwreckoning @perfunctoryperfusions @reallyinkyhands come get your bingo sheet!

[mortalityplays]

You need more free art.

I quit my job yesterday. Well, actually I quit my job eight weeks ago, but they finally released me yesterday for good behaviour. Don't get me wrong, I love what I do - but I do it for the wrong reasons. Working for major charities, you learn very fast that 'I want to make the world a better place' is a phrase you use to ask people for money, not to give them things. I was an ass-backwards fit for that world.

You need more free art. I need more free art. Everyone has felt the shift in our media landscape over the last ten years, away from access and towards nickel-and-diming the human experience. That lack of access is making life and culture worse for all of us, across the board. Paywalled news sites leave us less informed, attacks on the Internet Archive leave us less capable of research. Algorithmic social feeds and streaming walled gardens trap us inside smaller and smaller demographic bubbles, where we are increasingly only likely to encounter ideas that have been curated for us by marketing departments. Hasty efforts to resist AI commodification have only led to more artists locking their work away and calling for even more onerous systems of copyright law. This is not good for us.

We all need more free art.

So what am I going to do about it?

This is a question I have been asking myself for years. It's easy to sit here feeilng frustrated and thinking 'boy I hope SOMEONE does SOMETHING'. It's harder to take action in a world where I still have rent to pay. But hard doesn't mean impossible. Sometimes hard just means time-consuming, frustrating and slow. And sometimes it's worth doing something time-consuming, frustrating and slow because...I want to make the world a better place.

I'm going to do this:

1. From April 1st, I am relaunching as a freelance writer and editor.

This is the one that will (hopefully) help to pay the bills. I am a very good and experienced editor. I've worked on hollywood movies, I'm a member of the Chartered Institute of Editors and Proofreaders, I have clients who have been coming to me exclusively for more than 10 years.

Alongside bigger contract jobs, I am going to refocus on offering my services to small-press creators at a reduced rate. That means you, graphic novelists. That means you, itch and amazon writers. I want to help you develop your work, the same way I help large organisations. You can learn more about what an editor even does and what kind of pricing you can expect here.

2. I'm also going to start giving shit away. Like, constantly.

Next week I'm going to launch a new free shop. If you're unfamiliar, a free shop, giveaway shop, swap shop, etc. is an anarchist tradition of setting up a storefront where anyone can take what they like for no cost. Offline, this often means second-hand clothes, tools, furniture, food etc. Online, I am going to be giving away digital art. Copyright-free, no strings attached. It will (eventually) feature everything from print-res posters to zines, poems, tattoo flash, t-shirt designs and anything else we come up with.

Yes, I said 'we' - while this is a curated collection, it will feature work from a variety of credited and anonymous artists and activists, all of whom have agreed to give their work away to the public domain. Some of it will be practical, some of it will be political, but a lot of it will be decorative or personal. This is, in part, a response to recent difficulty I had finding somewhere that would print a one-off joke poster for a friend that featured the word 'faggot'. Enough. No middlemen - no explaining ourselves. Just print our shit and enjoy it.

I'm very, very excited about this project. I'll have more to say about it closer to the launch, but you can expect it to go live on March 27th.

2.2 I forgot to mention the ACTUAL LAUNCH GIVEAWAY

To celebrate my launch, I am going to be giving away a ton of physical prints. When I went looking for my old stock to see if it was worth setting a new (paid) storefront up, I realised I had way more old work in storage than I thought. This will be announced in its own right on Monday, but this is why I've been hinting you should go follow my Patreon.

On April 1st, I will pick 8 random patrons (from across all tiers including non-paying followers!) and mail them a bundle of assorted prints and postcards. The prize pool includes A3 and A4 posters, packs of A6 postcards, and printed minicomics that I've previously sold for up to £12 each.

You don't have to be a paying subscriber to enter - this is strictly no-purchase necessary. It is purely and entirely a celebration of the concept of GIVING ART AWAY FOR FREE.

3. PORN, YOU PERVERTS

Because I still have to pay to stay alive, I am going to be subsidising all this free art with the introduction of Fuck You Fridays. Starting from March 29th, I will drop a new 18+ short story on the last Friday of every month, over on itch.io (yes I know my page is desolate right now, don't worry I'll get there).

The first edition, Go Fuck Yourself, is about, well - telling your boss where to stick it. Julia has had it with her millionaire man-child manager, and is just about ready to let him know what she really thinks. It's a short and steamy 5k words, with a gorgeous cover illustration by @taylor-titmouse, and you can pick it up for $3 starting from March 29th.

4. ANOTHER BIG SURPRISE

I'm keeping this one under wraps for now, but April 1st will also play host to one more (FREE) launch. If you've been following me for a long time, you might remember the other significance of this date (no not April Fool's day, though that is certainly thematically relevant to this entire effort). That's all I'll say right now. Watch this space.

tl;dr: I'm sick of paywalls and career ladders. I'm literally putting my money where my mouth is. More free art for everyone and I'm not kidding around!!!

[agatharkn3ss]

Thank you again Daniel and Kathryn

I was giggling so much

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From Daniel Selon, the costume designer:

"Here’s an origin story for you: Kathryn brilliantly asked me, “where did Agatha’s clothes come from? If I’ve taken over Ralph Bohner‘s house, whose clothes am I wearing?” So we decided that for the lucid version of the interrogation scene, we should see her wearing something that existed in Ralph’s closet. I thought, he’s definitely a graphic t-shirt kind of dude and I bet there’s an old family reunion t-shirt in his dresser drawer. How about a camping theme? Jac and the writers brainstormed some jokes, my team sketched this graphic and here we are! Privately I wondered, are we really going to squeeze a boner joke into this dark and mysterious show about witches? Is this the best job ever? The answer to both questions was YES!"