#i have 3 dimes irl at least

[lempphire]

Heyo guys, I'm a full time college student now and am unable to bust out art as much as I used to, which i know, a bummer

But I do have this rock I drew, and despite my full schedule for now I will be opening commissions :3 cashapp only (sadly) if you're interested please do indicate that!(I will draw anything except smut)((im not good enough at poses for smut))((((I'll draw furries though ;3))))

[loveislandthegame]

thoughts on today's volume! first off, let me say i really, realllllly hope that the next season doesn't have horrible couples acting like children at the finale 😭 hazel & hari were ruining the vibe . i gave FB props for not making her a villain, but i'm rescinding that now because they made both her and hari look absolutely ridiculous. it's astounding how much they manage to ruin their own characters. now let's get into the rest of it

FB you better be joking ! i've lost count of how many times they've used this box. at this point the feather is crusty, the silk is shattering, the massage lotion got bacteria in it, the whipped cream can is squirting out straight up nitrous oxide, etc.

i don't know what's more horrendous , the glitched massage oil overlay or this dress . what in the penny, nickel, dime is this ??

when i picked castle ruins for the final date i was envisioning like, a cute grassy hill with rocks scattered around, overlooking the sea . cute romantic vibes ... only for that shit to end up being a brick wall 😭 it's still a cute background though, and the date was nice

FB, where's my damn suit ! (i know i'm probably the only person that wants one but like, even the queen herself, s2 MC, had a suit option at prom) i ended up going with the black dress, which was a good shout because it actually looks really good with claudia . we're giving sun and moon 🌚🌞 <3

of course we won, but with the way this season's been going i wouldn't have been surprised if we somehow had a tie with sienna (i know it's not possible though because she gets dumped if you aren't wlw. if you're wondering about the ranking it was 4th: hazel/hari 3rd: sienna/kyle 2nd: bea/theo)

before going outside MC had a conversation with claudia's mother, and i loved this. minus the land part, this is the kinda shit i'd want as gifts IRL

when i tell you i groaned out loud when i saw who the VIP guest was. also, during the recap of our villa journey i have no clue why he was acting like i chose to be with jin in the recoupling prior the final one, did FB forget it was boy's choice ? (the AI is AI-ing girl...)

spin the block...? You can’t be talking like that White Baby

FB really screwed over the people who were romancing finn, i'm actually gagged . granted i think you're a bit delulu if you picked love instead of money with anybody besides lulu , but finn actually was an LI option. this is worse than hamish getting with ivy, i genuinely wanna know wtf were they thinking

the diamond scene with finn was the least robotic conversation this whole season, perhaps the misogynistic creeps that wrote season 5 came back to write that pile of bullshit. don't bother buying it. if you really wanna know: finn got back with kat, they tried to have an open relationship and it flopped

is he an option to run away with or what? i don't know because i slammed the tf out of the "i'm in a relationship" option 👹

love or money time, and i picked love of course ! i would say we walked off into the sunset but it's already night time

next week's volume is gonna be a reunion and ... ugh 😐 respectfully, they should've just pulled the plug here . at this point the only other islanders i care about are bea & theo, but after the final recoupling they pretty much became nonexistent (and knowing FB, this reunion is probably gonna be dedicated to helping one of these wack ass couples fix their relationship drama ...)

[crookedkryptonitebeliever]

Yandere Hitman (No, not the game franchise.)

You know that trope where big quiet scary Hitman man who is known for being so skilled and heartless that you need him to at least tolerate you first before placing a hit. Or else he would just straight up kill you when he thinks you're mildly impolite.

Yeah that AND you, the reader, as the only soft spot for BQSHMM (Big Quiet Scary Hitman Man).

No don't give me flak about how this is just a bootleg of [Insert similar character here] because you are wrong, this is inspired by every Stoic and Brooding Contract Killer Character Ever and Batman even though I have never watched any movies or read any comics about him.

All I know that he :

Rich

An orphan

Can punch

Quiet

Does parkour

Hot buff nerd with all 20/20 vision

Acted by Christian Bale at least once

Have a family of other bat millennials and bat gen z's

Hates clowns

Wear smudged eyeliner

fast car

Cool belt

I get my sources from tumblr, occasional memes and snippets of batman conversation I happen to be in. I don't know if they are canon or not.

And also actually heavily inspired by the Korean movie Door Lock (2018) , except in this fic you're the ONLY victim <3

And this fic is just something to make your pussy or bussy or nonbinarussy throb, nothing too serious. Goes without saying, don't do this shit irl.

Enjoy.

Tw: AFAB reader, yandereness, violence, sex things, non con, somno oral, basically smut

(pt 1 out of 2)

You don't know squat about the underworld. Naive, innocent little you, still thinking that the black market is like a farmer's market except the vendors are selling not-so-legal-or-Farmer-y stuff such as... Oh, I don't know, like... Unpasteurized Milk?

You never once dabbled anything remotely legally dark, not even jaywalking. You are a law abiding citizen, following all the rules to a "T".

Oh, the Irony. You caught the eye of a person who kills people for a living. And that is highly illegal. Probably more illegal than Jaywalking.

He is lean and muscular with a large frame. Yet, so stealthy like a fucking cat that can squeeze through a dime sized hole with no noise and no complaint. Face, hands and basically vulnerable parts of his body like the neck are scarred from previous missions.

Stare into his eyes and you will see a void. All humanity has been scraped clean, who gives a shit if granny falls to her death in front of him? He doesn't see her as human or animal, simply something invaluable. At most, he's going to be slightly irritated that her blood got onto his coat and he is running out of peroxide.

No one catcalls you anymore. They're all dead or silenced in his own, crazy, silly way. Like getting their tongues cut off, or getting lobotomized (and miraculously surviving) to get the point across to everyone in the overworld and the underworld.

He is like what Santa is to kids in the 60's, he watches you 24/7. Knows if you've been good or bad. He could be watching you from a roof, using his rifle scope . And using his sniper rifle if he sees a threat.

Fresh syndicate criminals sees you as meat, a leverage to control the world's more notorious assassin. Seasoned ones know to stay the fuck away from you. Veterans know to not even think about or look at you. Your Hitman stalker is like a bloodhound for things that threatens your safety, as soon as anyone looks at you wrongly, it's bedtime forever.

It doesn't even take a look. He just knows if you're thinking about it. Actually, he takes no chances, everyone he doesn't trust is dead. That includes just about everyone he meets. Really puts the fear in the hearts of huge crime rings when he managed to leave the decapitated heads of their best men on the doorstep of their supposedly 'unknown' and 'unidentified' and 'anonymous' leaders.

From there, no matter how many of their members he kills off or WHO he kills off...gangs, mafias, crime syndicates and corporations knew not to go after him OR you. It's just not worth it, they're better off just cutting their losses and advising their members to steer clear at all costs.

This one man band is so scary that he gains protection somehow. Why?

Well, imagine this:

A rookie hitman decided to execute the most foolish task and try killing him.

So the rookie gets captured as expected and gets tortured.

Rookie says Mafia X sent him.

The entirety of Mafia X is going to disappear in a week unless someone can give Big Scary Gary Stu Hitman OC an explanation, saying Mafia Y framed them.

Then Mafia Y will be in deep shit. Provided Mafia X managed to convince them or else BOTH X and Y will get fucking nuked to bits.

But hey, business is good on his side. He's everyone's default hitman to go to (if you have the money), because it's almost always a 300% success rate.

Why 300%? It's because he's going to kill the intended target (and their entire family), the one who paid him and a person who is at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Hmm. Maybe the guaranteed death of the customer isn't good for business. As long as you follow the rule of thumb:

Don't be a dick.

Then you should have a pretty good success rate. Maybe.

You really can't tell.

Make a comment about his only joy in this world, which is you, the reader, and you're (not the reader) is getting instant death. It's like saying Voldemort's name.

He is the monster under your bed. Literally, he lives under your bed, sliding out at night to sniff your hair. That seems to keep him content.

For now.

Maybe you've noticed that your fridge is a little emptier than you remembered. Sometimes you don't remember buying a jar of pickles and opening them. There seem to be always something to eat these days, you're not one to shop responsibly. Then why are there actual healthy foods like fresh produce and meats instead of frozen, TV dinners?

Maybe the spirit of New Year's Resolution came and possessed you during the weekends. Maybe. Definitely not because you have an unknown roommate around.

You're not complaining, you get to eat delicious and healthy "fresh leftovers" in the fridge even though you have no memory twisting the gas knob of your stove.

You swore you just replenished your body wash, why did it decrease so much?

At times, you're sure that your toothpaste is about to run out, only to see a slightly used, plump tube on the sink shelf. Did you replace them while you're drunk? Why did you not have any recollection of it? Why is your toothbrush already wet?

The toilet paper holder never seem to run out of toilet paper too. Usually, once a month, you would have to awkwardly waddle out of the bathroom, pants around your ankle just to get a fresh roll. You stopped doing that now.

Yeah, these stuff leaves you weary and pretty much on edge. But you're already dead inside from working 12 hour shifts at minimum wage in customer service. Having a little spice in your life would give you that kick to keep you going once in a while.

Plus, free food and toiletries. The stuff you get back is way more than you can ever afford. Which you're grateful for and would even turn a blind eye to the fact that it's very clear someone is living with you without your consent or knowledge. And your place is much more cleaner and neater. A win for you.

Or you're just that fucking oblivious and airheaded that you don't think anything is out of place, I don't personally know everyone who reads this.

For the sake of plot, you will be the latter. It's easier to write for.

So you think all is sunshine and rainbows, you're fed, your chores are done and the trash took out itself. Yay!

You sleep better, like, much better. Too better. Too quickly as well, you missed the dip in your mattress.

You shouldn't have drank that mysterious cup of your favorite drink that mysteriously appeared in your fridge and has some white residue at the bottom!

You don't even wake up when he drapes his arm over you, cuddling you until the sun shows itself over the horizon. Sometimes the hugging can make your eyes open a bit, but you shut them back cause you thought it's just your sleep paralysis demon feeling a little loving towards you.

Having fingers gently running through your hair while you're off to dreamland is... Nice. Having a pair of lips tenderly kissing your face is... Nice.

Having that same pair of lips trailing kisses from your jaw down to your chest is... Questionable. But somewhat nice.

Having that same pair of lips trailing kisses down from your chest to your already exposed, vulnerable pussy is... Well. Up to your intepretation.

Hey, it's not like you're awake to stop him from spreading your legs, pumping your hole with his fingers and lapping you up, right? Who is going to stop him? Not you, definitely. You're just egging him on by cumming on his tongue as he tongue-fucks you like he's dehydrated and you're his only source of water.

No worries, your bedsheet won't be drenched when you wake up. He is sure to catch every single drop of your sweet, sweet, love nectar. What a thirsty menace, he is. Pleasuring you with his mouth in your sleep for hours and hours on end.

Actually, one hour and a half on average. He has other things to do, unfortunately. Like, putting a bullet in one of his target's cerebrum? He has a job too, you know.

The room would be silent save for his slurping, smooching, smacking and the stirring of Mac n' cheese. Gulping too, he swallows everything you give.

Once he has his fill, he would press one last kiss on your sex and a few more against your inner thighs as thanks before wiping his chin and lips with his thumb. He isn't going to let any of it go to waste, he's licking the left overs from his drenched digits. Eating you out seems to satisfy him.

For now.

He smiles as he slowly puts your underwear and sweatpants back on.

Hygiene is important. That is why, after every meal, he would brush his teeth.

With your toothbrush of course.

He would stare at himself in the mirror as he scrub his molars clean, already missing the taste of you. He tries not to put too much focus onto his own reflection as he dislikes staring into the deep, dark, depressing abyss. He is indifferent about himself, so apathetic that it's... Hollow. Empty.

He gives no shits about the world. They could burn for all he cares. Only you made him feel something, made him feel pure bliss, only you mattered to him, only you can make a tent in his pants. Only you, only you.

God, you were his only will to live. If you go, he goes. Period. You are irreplaceable, special and extremely important, his life, his happiness depends on yours.

You are perfection, no one can compete. Anyone who says otherwise is wrong and deserves to be waterboarded before getting impaled on a stick like shish kebab. You are his escape to his bleak reality, a drug, an addiction. A severe, addiction. He is too far deep, you can't pry him away from you, crowbar or by otherwise.

He lives for you. No, I don't think you understand the intensity of his love for you. He LIVES for you, if it wasn't for your existence, he would have taken his own life long ago.

I'll say it again, only YOU can get his dick up by looking in his general direction. Only YOU can get away with so many fucking things others had died for doing.

If the world is going to have this... Mega wipeout and he is given a chance to save 1000 people, he would only save you. No one else-- and also himself. The 998 empty slots would be wasted.

Only YOU... Could make him smile.

He gargled and spat into the sink, washing your toothbrush before replacing them in their original spot.

He sniffed your face towel deeply before using it to pat his face.

Your self proclaimed boyfriend went on to take a nice, hot shower. Steam fogs up the mirror and shower screen, he scrubs himself clean with your body shampoo. Stripping any smell, grime and blood off him.

He makes sure to remove the hair clogging the drain.

Again, he took a deep whiff of your shower towel before using it as intended.

He dries his hair with the towel as he gets out of the bathroom, wearing a fresh set of his pyjamas. His eyes softened as he sees your sleeping form on your bed, he mumbled a:

"I'll join you in bed in a minute, honey."

Under his breath. It's not like you're conscious to know what the fuck is going on.

He pecks your forehead and brushes the hair away from your face.

"I love you." He whispers. He receives zero (0) responses.

It's always like that. You go to sleep, he gives you the best head in your life, but you're to asleep to realize, he then brushes his teeth, he showers, he fix himself something to eat, he brushes his teeth again because... Smells. And finally, he goes to bed with you.

He likes pickles. It's salty, sour, briny and helps replenish his electrolytes. Anchovies too, its... Fishy, salty, oily. Lemon sorbets are also nice, it's sweet, sour and refreshing. Natto is great for his brain, he also likes the slimy texture of it and he doesn't mind the bitterness.

Okay, he just likes the taste of pussy. Specifically, your pussy. It should taste kinda salty, kinda sour, kinda sweet and kinda bitter.

Whatever.

But usually, he would just fix up a ham and egg wrap for himself. It's quick to prepare, not too smell offensive, not too noise offensive.

He would munch on it as he goes back to your bedroom. There is a TV in front of your bed, so he would turn it on and put the volume on zero. Your self proclaimed boyfriend would pull you to his chest, making you use him as a pillow as he enjoys his simple dinner and watch whatever is on TV.

One hand holding his meal, the other rhythmically patting your rear.

Sometimes, he pats a little too hard, the screen is a little too bright, the wrap is a little too tasty, you would wake up. But not fully.

You would slur and stir. Eyelids heavy, it's a struggle to even pry them apart.

He would remedy this by bringing his wrap to your lips, which you would, without fail, get a nibble. That's enough to send you back to sleep, subconsciously chewing and swallowing that micro bite.

You always thought your sleep paralysis demon has the sexiest chuckle and the softest kisses.

The next day rolls by and you're alone on your bed. The thing between your legs feels funny and you have a faint taste of ham and eggs in your mouth.

You yawn and swung your legs over the edge. Letting your feet touch the ground, giving him full view of your ankles from under the bed.

It's your off day today and he knows you would usually spend these doing nothing. Just lazily laying around, rot your brain with social media, cry about your mediocrity, then go back on social media, binge eat, cry about your mediocrity again, social media, binge eat and finally sleep until the next day.

These are the days where he so badly wishes to fuck your brains out, to fuck the tears away. To give you orgasm after orgasm to forget whatever is making you sad, to make you prefer him thrusting into you instead of seeing suspiciously successful lives on the internet, to overstimulate you so you think about nothing but pleasure.

Let the room reek of sex, let the moans and wet slapping bounce off the thin walls, let the taste of you coat every square inch of his mouth. Let his hands roam all over your body and let him worship you as this deity having a gorilla grip on his life.

These are the days where... It's best for him to leave your apartment to carry out a hit. As he might simply just lose control and take you as soon as he hears your sniffling. Stuff you full of cock and tongue, kissing your sorrows away.

The aftercare stuff excites him too, he would want to see you relax in his hold, letting him work his masseur magic. Allowing him to feed you proper, warm meals after a pleasant, sensual shower.

He may be obsessive and unhinged. But not delusional. At least, not THAT delusional to think you'll see and accept him as your boyfriend if he jumps out of his hiding place now. You're going to have a panic attack and possibly throw up and die.

So he has no choice but to suppress it. He will have to strike when an opening comes. Maybe, enact a cliche romantic meeting and work up from there? Perhaps, that sounds like a good idea.

He is satisfied with what the bottle of sleeping pills hidden in his pocket can do.

For now.

[brigadeleadxr]

———  BASICS  !

(PEN)NAME:   kingsleigh / but you say it kingsley it’s just the not-crazy spelling is usually taken online

PRONOUNS: she/her

ZODIAC SIGN: leo

TAKEN  OR  SINGLE:  this gem??? this dime???? snapped up.

———  THREE  FACTS  !

i voice act a lil’ on the side! you can catch me in some indie games and podcasts. but tiny tiny roles. 

i like baking cute pastries! sadly the cuter the pastry, usually the weirder the taste

i dyed my hair pink and then...my school announced convocations would be in person this year....so now i guess i’ll graduate with pink hair rip

———  EXPERIENCE  !

PLATFORMS USED: literally started on gaiaonline of all places. And then it’s just been tumblr and tiny bit on discord but I didn’t like it so much there.

i went on tumblr when OUAT was big. And also i thought it was a good show back then. so. think about that. 

———  MUSE  PREFERENCE  !

GENDER:   I’ve only had 3 muses on tumblr, 2 of them girls, 1 boy. all fun good times. i gotta say though, shipping gets way more aggressive/popular when you’re writing a boy so it was a little more stressful.  

LEAST FAVOURITE FACE(S): i don’t pay too much attention?  I guess just when the actor/public figure has said they’re uncomfortable with it, or if they’re a particularly despicable person in real life, but in the animated realm it’s the wild west, go off kings.  

MULTI OR SINGLE: I don’t write enough/frequently enough to make a multi worth it. also i love making the themes to match a character’s aesthetic. It’s like building the house in sims, that’s 70% the fun in setting up the blog 

———  FLUFF  /  ANGST  /  SMUT  !  ♡    

FLUFF: we need fluff in our lives. good palate cleansers. some nice chill wholesome threads. the goofy stuff. the quiet moments. it just comes easy to you, and they make you laugh. 

ANGST:  everyone on this entire website just wants to maximize suffering you can put your characters through. me included of course. Of course the biggest character developments and plots tend to fall under angst, and i love seeing the growth the muse experience changes how you write them as time passes. I gotta be in the right mood to sit down and write it though. When I’m really into it, sometimes I find it can bleed into my mood irl, which is why it’s important to have some smaller goofier threads to balance it out. 

SMUT:  i’m ♠  AND my muse is a minor.  i’m already engulfed in a sex supersaturated world on the daily you sex maniacs. (*kidding)  But real, for my previous muses, I didn’t have an aversion or anything, but I just didn’t really go looking for opportunities. I could try reading some now and then!

PLOT  /  MEMES:  TO THIS DAY, i’m not even sure how plotting should go. how much detail is getting planned out ahead of time? Are you just figuring out a premise and then launching off from there? I wish i could watch an instance of it and just take notes. I like how plotting allows for the more complicated events and arcs to take place. But I also like how memes tend to pair up unlikely muses and unlikely scenarios. Makes for crazy goofs, and sometimes REALLY character defining moments??  so?? both??

tagged by: @sadamenai​

tagging: U WANTED IT? YOU WENT FOR IT? NOW BABY YOU GOT IT.

[lilydalexf]

Old School X is a project interviewing X-Files fanfic authors who were posting fic during the original run of the show. New interviews are posted every Tuesday.

Interview with Sarah Ellen Parsons

Sarah Ellen Parsons has 18 X-Files stories at Gossamer and 19 at AO3. If you want high quality fic with interesting characters, go read her stories. Some of my favorites of her fics are The Crouching Thing and My Constant Touchstone Who Makes Me A Whole Person (which are two very different stories!). Big thanks to Sarah Ellen for doing this interview.

Does it surprise you that people are still interested in reading your X-Files fanfics and others that were posted during the original run of the show (1993-2002)?

With today's binge-watching culture, I'm not at all surprised. You can watch a bunch of eps and then seek out fic that is where you are in the series.

What do you think of when you think about your X-Files fandom experience? What did you take away from it?

I took away a writer's group Yes, Virginia, that is still together.  Mostly as friends, but whenever I write something, or someone else writes something, it's the first place we all run for machete beta. I have betad SO MANY novels.

We have a number of folks who are published writers since then and our time in X-Files fic brought us lifelong friendships IRL and made us all better at our craft. The majority of those folks were better writers than I am. And I make my living as a writer in my day-job.

Social media didn't really exist during the show's original run. How were you most involved with the X-Files online (atxc, message board, email mailing list, etc.)?

I belonged to a couple of the largest lists and posted there and bitched about the show on usenet with everyone else.  We had our own Yahoo group for beta.  We all had crappy GeoCities websites that we programmed the HTML for ourselves and hooked through various fandom link circles to get traffic to our stories.  But the main method of distribution was the lists.

Fun fact, I found a free page counter thing that I used at work one time through fandom. So fandom pays off in skillz.

Even without social media, we managed to get our stories in front of readers who would enjoy them. Where there's a will, there's always someone ready to step up and find a way.

What did you take away from your experience with X-Files fic or with the fandom in general?

Again, I have lifelong friends IRL that I got solely from fanfiction. That's the best takeaway.

Fandom disappointed me because it, like everything else, is ruined by people's egos, backstabbing, and petty people who get in positions of power and then use those positions to punch down or dictate. I was young when I was writing X-Files and I still had hope that people would rise to their better natures, so I got involved in various futile efforts to try to make people behave the way I wanted them to behave, I guess. I did a lot of public bitching that didn't serve me or my friends well. I now put that effort into politics, where it does actual good.

What was it that got you hooked on the X-Files as a show?

X-files was made for me. It combined science fiction, mystery, horror.  I love all of those genres. Plus there was Scully. No matter how sexist that writer's room was, Scully was awesome. But you kept seeing bad writing. Even in the heyday seasons, like Season 3, there were really terrible eps that made you want to fix things.

I'm a lifelong speculative fiction fan and a published feminist science fiction author. I actually was published before I fell down the fic hole. I got involved in fanfic due to getting my fantasy novel turned down from every major publisher for being "too dark". And I needed to get readers to see my stuff to prove to myself that I wasn't terrible at writing. I got a ton of feedback and it was like market research to see what people wanted to read.

My time in fanfiction made me 100% a better writer than I was.

What got you involved with X-Files fanfic?

I went to the X-Files Expo to see if I could make contact with someone from Harper Collins because the tie-in novels sucked so hard.  I got rejected with my pitch as I didn't have a literary agent.

Around that time, a pal who I watched X-Files with IRL was looking for a free X-files wallpaper for her work computer when she found the website where fans in Pennsylvania had fic archived. She read some and wrote to me - "you need to see this, and you can do better."  So I started reading and was.... I probably CAN do better. So I wrote The Batman Plot. And made two friends I'm still friends with with that one story.

What is your relationship like now to X-Files fandom?

Nonexistent.  I couldn't even watch the latest season and I saw only 2 of season one of whatever that was before I gave up. I have never watched the second movie.

X-files is my first fandom bad ex-husband. I loved it SO MUCH, but it betrayed me.

Were you involved with any fandoms after the X-Files? If so, what was it like compared to X-Files?

I was deep into Harry Potter for a while, but I didn't end up publishing anything in it. All my stories were novel-length and I was writing so much for work, I never completed anything. I called Snape/Lily when Prisoner of Azkaban was published and got Jossed by Rowling in one of my big ideas. (This is bad fandom ex-husband 2. JKR will never get a dime of money from me again because of her hateful stance on transfolk. I have RL friends who are trans and NO.)

I wrote fic in Supernatural. It was the obvious next thing after X-Files. However, the misogyny and bringing in all the Angel/Devil Christofascist stuff lost me. The ep where they declared all other religions other than Christianity as invalid and killed a Hindu god made me stop watching for good. I know enough Christofascists IRL that I can't tolerate it in my fiction. (Bad fandom ex-husband 3)

Who are some of your favorite fictional characters? Why?

This list is far too long to actually make.  But characters I spent time writing about include: Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Co. (I wrote three unpublished Star Trek novels before I found online fandom). King Arthur and Morgan Le Fay, Sherlock Holmes (I wrote a Sherlock Holmes play after seeing "Crucifer of Blood" and entered it in a national competition, where I got very nice comments back.), Mulder, Scully and Krycek, Rowling's Hermione and Snape (like him or not, its masterful characterization), Dean and Sam Winchester, John Winchester and Bobby Singer.  I wrote one comedy story starring Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  A couple of Roswell stories under a different name. Catwoman and Batman. I have some unpublished Avengers fanfic lying around as I'm an OG Marvel fan with a massive comic collection.

Do you ever still watch The X-Files or think about Mulder and Scully?

I was on a business trip a few years ago and FX had a marathon and I watched part of it when I was in my hotel room. Early seasons are comforting, but I don't go back there now.

Do you ever still read X-Files fic? Fic in another fandom?

I don't read X-Files fic anymore. I read a tiny bit of Star Wars after the second movie because Rian Johnson had it right. Now I don't care. I love Mandalorian, but am content to watch.

Do you have any favorite X-Files fanfic stories or authors?

Too many to count.  All of YV. Which reminds me, I need to go update our entry at Fanlore. I promised Punk I'd do it a while back.  I need to at least get everyone linked.  Right now it's only Punk and Sab.

But it was a ton of us.  Marasmus, Maria Nicole, Cofax, CazQ, M. Sebasky, Livia Balaban, Kelly Keil, Wen, Ropobop, Jess Mabe, JET, fialka, and a bunch of others that I can't remember their fic names any more, just their real names because I know them all IRL. I need to go back and look up their fic names and link them up there.

In addition to my little group of pals, I loved reading Mustang Sally and Rivka T, Rachel Anton - I keep trying to find her to encourage her to write romance if she's not doing it already, but no dice, Dasha K., Anjou, there were so many great ones, but their names have slipped my mind in the past 20 years.

What is your favorite of your own fics, X-Files and/or otherwise?

I'm most known for Prone, and I'm proud of that story for all kinds of reasons, but I think my very best is The Crouching Thing.

I mostly didn't publish anything I didn't think was good and hadn't been machete betaed within an inch of its life, but I'm not sure much of the angsty romance stuff holds up as well. I think it worked when the show was still ON and we were all in that emotional headspace, but probably not now.

Do you think you'll ever write another X-Files story? Or dust off and post an oldie that for whatever reason never made it online?

Funny you ask. I am currently reworking a plot idea I had for an X-Files fic into a contemporary M/M novel, which I will publish under a different pen-name. The plot is the idea I had for X-Files, the characters are very, very different other than one is uptight and the other more easy-going. But no more Mulder and Scully.

Do you still write fic now? Or other creative work?

I have been making my living as a writer for 25 years. I write the word count equivalent of 5 Tolkein novels a year, just for my day-job.  I am turning back to original fiction, which is where I was before X-Files.  I'm working on the M/M thing, a high fantasy thing, a low fantasy historical thing and a bunch of M/F Regency romances as I get time and energy.  I publish Fantasy and SF under my real name. Romance has pen names as you don't want that getting back to your workplace, either.

SEP is fic only and here she will stay.

Where do you get ideas for stories?

I have too many ideas to count.  I try to write them down when they come, so I won't forget. At least the outline of the idea. Often a scene. I've been like this my entire life. I started writing novels seriously at 15. I wrote a 500 plus page one about Morgan Le Fay during breaks in high school because "Mists of Avalon" pissed me off so bad as I'd read the original source material and that was a Wicca recruitment polemic.

What's the story behind your pen name?

Sarah Ellen was my great-grandma, Parsons was her grandma's last name.

Do your friends and family know about your fic and, if so, what have been their reactions?

Half my friends ARE fic friends. Most of my friends know as does my brother, who thinks writing for free is dumb. This is universally agreed on by non-fic friends who know. My mother still doesn't know about the fic. Just the "real" writing.  I write under a pen name to keep it away from my job and my published work.

Is there a place online (tumblr, twitter, AO3, etc.) where people can find you and/or your stories now?

My X-files stuff is up on Gossamer mostly. I'm trying to get the stories all moved to AO3 for all the genres. I'm working on this now.  SEP is really not a living thing anymore, but there was a time when she was more me than me.

If you want to find my "real" non-fic writing, write to me at se_parsons at yahoo dot com and I will point you at it.

And PLEASE someone, hunt down Rachel Anton and get her writing something we all can BUY.  Where are my old Krycek bitches at?  Do any of you know where she is? [Lilydale note: I’ve tried contacting Rachel Anton for this Old School X project but have not had luck. I would love to find her too!]

Is there anything else you'd like to share with fans of X-Files fic?

The community I loved has mostly moved on, but I think we left a legacy of solid work crafted out of our love for the show.  Find a living community you love for a show you love.  There are great people out there creating and get involved.  It will be worth it.

(Posted by Lilydale on December 15, 2020)

[vividdreamsblog]

Day 1, September 16th, 2021:

Start dream

Drove around in a bus that was labelled Cardio Like Mario in the deep dark woods, hazy, and dark with no alive trees, driving aimlessly to get to some destination. It was a camp trip with people that I knew irl and needed to proceed further in the forest to arrive at the campsite.

Somehow Pablo (5”10’ long haired male) and I got lost and needed to borrow some cash so we borrowed some cash from a Pug Person (literally a human sized pug standing upright, wearing jeans and a shirt, no shoes). We return to the cabin with the rest of our friends. Reid (6”3’ short haired male) was also in my cabin and trying to go to sleep. All of a sudden, the entire camp loses power. As we all stir awake in the haze of the forest, we look outside to find help / answers to why power may have left everyone in darkness.

Scream

Everyone in the cabin jumps. The scream itself was horrifying. Reid suggests someone is playing around and messing with people since we have no power. Reid then checks outside of the cabin and gasps. “What the f— is that?”

It is a Pug Person of massive proportions (12” tall at least). On the right shoulder of the Pug Person is an owl cooing. The Pug Person walks slowly into the cabin, menacingly staring at the inhabitants of the log house.

The owl perches off of the shoulder of the Pug Person and starts stating “You are f—ed, you are f—ed.” The Pug Person picks up Pablo and starts massacring him in front of the rest of the inhabitants of the cabin. I shit my pants (in the dream).

The Pug Person drops Pablo on the ground and says that “One of my Pug People let you money. Which one of you borrowed his money?” Everyone, including myself, is silent. He responds, “We better have it in a minutes time or else you all will be laid to dust.” He leaves with the owl and stands in front of the cabin entrance. Pablo and I round up all the quarters, dimes and nickels that we can and out them on the table in the middle of the room.

The rest of the cabin starts playing video games on a VCR Television. As I drop and organize the last pile of coins, I see a very large spider with the leg-span of one feet on the table. It stares at me as I drop the coins. It bares its fangs and spits a web to my right foot. I scream as it launches itself to my foot and starts biting down on flesh multiple times. I suddenly lose the feeling of my foot when —

End dream

[ahiddenpath]

My Current Thoughts on Writing Fanfics

I’m so glad I’ve had this bloggity since 2012, because I can see how much my approach to writing has changed!  I wanted to touch base on where I am now, plus answer the most common questions I receive about writing fanfics beneath the cut.

Obligatory disclaimer: I’m a hobbyist writer, this is meant to be taken as opinion/reflection, not advice, different approaches work for different people, annnnd also check out my digimon fanfics (FFN and AO3).

How do I develop a regular writing habit?

I’d start by setting aside 15 minutes a day to write.  Don’t focus on word count- writing x number of words can be intimidating, but most people can sit for 15 minutes and get something down.  If you’re writing on a computer, turn off the internet and place your phone out of reach

Gradually increase the session length.

Never worry about the quality of your writing while you’re drafting.  That’s what editing and subsequent drafts are for.  I have a post on utilizing successive drafts to combat writing paralysis here, but the tl;dr is that the pressure to write a perfect story in the first draft often turns writing into an agonizing trial instead of creative play.

Your first draft is bad, period, at least compared to what it will be.  In the kindest way possible, get over it.  Your value as a writer- or as a human!- isn’t tied into your questionable first draft.  Please explore your story in the earliest stages with enthusiasm, not criticism!  You’re going to make it so much better by the time you’re finished!

How do you write so much?

See, here’s one of the biggest changes in my mindset compared to my early days as ahiddenpath.  I used to think that doing all of this writing was like... extra credit, like a stretch goal I pushed myself to achieve.  

I learned in therapy starting in 2018 that the reason I keep writing is because I have to.  I have general anxiety disorder, and my brain...  Have you seen an old-timey cartoon with a boiler?  They are drawn swollen, metal distorting with steam pressure, rivets groaning and popping free.  That’s how I feel if I don’t write.  Don’t ask me why or how, but writing is like turning a valve to release the pressure.

(Quick PSA- my therapist calls creative outlets “coping skills.”  If you feel like you have boiler brain, make time for your hobbies, no matter how tired you are.)

For me, writing is challenging play.  Although I’m often conveying messages that matter to me or exploring ideas I want to work through, and I try to make the best product I can...  I don’t take it seriously, and I don’t sweat over it.  I’m here to wander, play, and take care of myself.

So basically, I think the recipe for producing lots of writing is: regularity/habit (do it every day, even for just a little while), minimizing distractions, separating the processes of drafting and editing, turning off criticism in the early stages of drafting, and writing for yourself and your own needs.

 Do you feel embarrassed about writing fanfic?

Nope.  I write for my mental health/because it’s fun, period.  However, I also don’t tell people IRL that I write fanfic!  But I’m a private person (I don’t tell people IRL that I’m asexual, for example, and I only tell them I have anxiety if I freeze up in front of them).

Do you feel embarrassed about writing OCs/fakemon?

Hahahaha!  Look, I know there are lots of people who won’t read OCs and fakemon.  I know there are probably people who wish I would stick to more canon stuff (both in terms of OCs and my strong preference for AUs).

But I’m here to write what I want, and while it makes me happy when people read and enjoy my work...  It’s no skin off my back if they don’t.  I already fulfilled my goal of taking care of myself.

Don’t you want to get published and make money for your writing?

No, not at this time.  For everyone who has said that I have the writing skill to be published, thank you so very much.  That’s so kind, and I truly appreciate it!

But...  The United States has the enormous capitalistic attitude problem that endeavors are only worthwhile if they generate capital.  I can’t even begin to tell you how damaging this concept is- literally, I’m not equipped with the sociopolitical educational background.  

Sometimes I think I’d like to become a published novelist?  But sometimes I recall that I have a dope research gig, and I wanna play around with writing in my free time.

To be clear, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t pursue your creative career dreams!!!  And, who knows, maybe some day I’ll get tired of research and want to try swapping to the hobby/skill I’ve spent so much time refining.  Just...  Never stop doing something fun and harmless you enjoy because “it doesn’t make money.”  

I’m not gonna sit here acting like I know what the purpose of life is, but I think having fun and meeting your needs is pivotal.

Okay, so how can I support my favorite fandom content creators?

Bless you, f’real.  The easiest way is to comment on their stuff.  For meta writers, leave comments, engage, ask questions.  For fanfiction writers, leave reviews.  I have so many lovely folks who chat with me over Tumblr or discord after reading my stuff, which is so great.  But it’s hard to find those sweet messages later.  I can always click on reviews any time I need a little positive reinforcement/boost.  So, even if you’re going to talk to the writer later...  Leave that review!

If the content producer uses social media, reblog their stuff to give them more exposure.  Likes are for you, so you can find a post later.  Reblogs are for the creators, so other people can see their work.

Things like fanart, fanfic of fanfic, cosplays, and other... fan content of fan content make our year, I promise!  We love that so stinkin’ much!

Some fan content producers have a ko-fi and/or a patreon, so sometimes there are monetary ways to show appreciation.

If you’re intimated by a content producer, please remember that we are all massive dorkasauruses.  I absolutely guarantee it.

How do you have so many ideas?!

Ah, I have a Future Projects page on my blog- I don’t think pages work on mobile.

But here’s the secret: ideas are the easy part.  They are literally a dime a dozen.  Heck, there are AU generators!  Just pick characters out of a hat and use an AU generator and bam, you’re off!  And even then, you don’t need a real idea to start writing!  I launched Four Years on the thought of, “hahaha, wouldn’t it be a mess if the Chosen went to college together?!”

We’re writing fanfic; we’re here to play.  There’s no need to crush yourself with the expectation that you must write the next hit thriller plot.

In my opinion, the much better question is: how do you manage your projects such that you complete them?

So, uh, how do you manage your projects?

I’ve established that I write fanfic to play and to take care of myself, but I do want to grow as a writer along the way.  And the best way to learn how to craft narratives is to practice completing them.  If you launch stories over and over and only write roughly 1/4 to 1/3 of the way through the story...  All you’re practicing is how to start a story.

When I first started writing as ahiddenpath, I did exactly zero planning (see the Four Years reference above).  I ended up with longfics stretching as long as 400K+ words- that’s over six novels (based on the average adult fiction novel length)!!!!!  It is so daunting to work on longfics, because you feel like the ending is nowhere to be seen.

SO most of my pointers circle around always writing towards your ending, even before you start!

-Decide what you want to say with your story before you start writing.

First, “what you want to say” doesn’t have to be a big, grand theme.  It can be as big as “how the trauma of their adventures impacted them after” or as small as “I think these dorks would have a good time at laser tag.” 

I’m not talking about a detailed outline (in fact, I personally hate outlines).  Just know what your story is about and make sure what you write points to it.  If you can make the structure of your story mimic your theme, even better!  But no worries if that doesn’t work out, it’s not always possible.

-Write linearly

The best way to keep moving along in your story is just to... keep writing it in order.  This helps achieve regular updates, and prevents you from potentially “losing” material if you change your mind about the plot before reaching the bit you wrote already.  This happened to me so frequently that I stopped writing ahead of myself.  If I have an idea, I write it down, but I don’t draft future scenes.  In my experience, they often never see the light of day.

I’m told people often write the bit of the story they most want to write first?  If you have a single scene that you’re really longing to write, but you don’t know how to get there/don’t want to write the rest...  May I suggest that you... don’t write the rest?  If your scene works as a oneshot, write that oneshot!  Don’t torture yourself with a lot of writing you don’t want to do.  Most often, people end up forcing their way through 1-4 chapters, then stalling before ever reaching the Good Bit. 

A moment of silence for all of the unwritten Good Bits out there.  Now, some Enya.

If you can’t reduce Good Bit setup to a oneshot, reduce as much as possible.  I think that sometimes, people underestimate the incredible advantages of writing fanfiction?  Everyone knows your characters already, and maybe even the setting, if you keep it canon.  You can cut out the setup and dive right into what you want to do with the characters! 

-Think about the structure of your story before you start

Considering the structure of your story is a fantastic way to estimate how long it will be/ensure that there is an ending in sight from the start.  For example, in Voices, I covered a single school year in Japan, writing a diary entry for a different Chosen every day, so I knew that I would write the story for roughly a year.  After August had one chapter per Chosen, so each child could help Taichi deal with his post Adventure trauma in their own way, plus an opening and closing chapter.  My Tri story, Tri: Integrity Lens, is written and posted in installments covering each Tri movie.

It’s fine if no particular structure strikes you.  I could see forced structure turning into a gimmick, you know?  But if it naturally works out, it’s a great way to have a solid idea of how much story is ahead of you before you start, and where the story will end.  And being cognizant of how and when a story ends from chapter one yields a tighter, shorter fic, one that you’re more likely to complete.

-Consider writing in batches/sections before posting

So lately, I’ve been experimenting with how I deliver fanfic updates.  I mentioned that my Tri fic follows the Tri movies.  Each movie is covered with a few 3,000-6,000 word updates that I post every other week.  I cover an entire movie before posting any of it, and then I plan to take a break in between movies to work on either the next movie or a different fic.

AND THIS IS SO GREAT!  Having large chunks of my story written is such a fantastic way to do things!  I keep thinking of little details I can add/things I should mention and noticing inconsistencies I can fix before posting.  Giving myself a larger picture and time to mull over it by spreading out updates is making a huge difference for me.

Plus, giving yourself little breaks between installments can help keep you fresh and motivated, while leaving your audience waiting at a nice, natural stopping point.  Plus, this way they know that you haven’t just... up an vanished or dropped a story.  You’re just taking an announced break.

How do you plan stories?

I believe I mentioned hating outlines.  I personally respond best to “structured freedom.”  I focus on things like: what are my themes/what do I want to say, how will the characters grow or regress, how is this story structured or formatted, what is the overall tone and mood.  Other than that, I keep things fluid...  Which is why it’s so important for me to enforce some kind of ending point before I begin.

Basically, for me, too much planning = a boring slog where I can’t inject the moods and ideas of the day into my work without derailing meticulous plans.  Too little planning = longfic hell.  I’m guessing that everyone has to decide for themselves where they land on this continuum!  Exploration is vital.

Okay, I am out of steam for today.  If you have any other writing/fanfic questions you’d like answered, please let me know!  Here are some other resources I’ve made.

-Combating writing paralysis with successive drafts

-Dishing with an artist

-Tips for Fanfic Authors

-More Tips for Fanfic Authors

-Tips for Winning Nanowrimo

-Resources/Advice for Digimon Adventure Fanfic Writers

[norcumii]

Reblogged from the prior tumbl, originally posted 02/04/2016. Question submitted by @makiruz. Slightly reformatted to avoid a readmore cut and whatnot.

In Full of Sith, they always ask new guests how they got into Star Wars. And you know? That's a good question, how did you got into Star Wars?

HEH. Oooh, that’s a bit of a loaded question. So I’ll give you the short answer, which I suspect would fit the thing you mentioned what I haven’t heard of; and then because I’m a wordy bastard what overshares, the long answer which is more accurate and has content warnings for self harm and suicide.

SHORT ANSWER

It was the 80’s. I was young, in single digits, though I couldn’t tell you exactly what age. I was already dealing with an irregular sleep cycle, though all I knew was I had a flashlight, a pile of books near/on my bed, and a thick pound puppies duvet to read under.

I don’t know if I was in my room or on my way to/from the bathroom, but I could hear my parents watching something downstairs. Swooshy noises, a shrill screee, and some thwoom bzzts.

Of course I went downstairs.

I don’t know if it was episode 5 or 6. I’ve a fondness for 6, but carbonite left a HUGE fucking impression on me, and my parents have always approved of muppets, so Yoda.

I knew I loved it. I didn’t have any toys, though I think somewhere there was a print edition of A New Hope running around. I do recall multiple sleepovers at my grandmother’s place – a tiny house on acres and acres of woods – and she’d sometimes pull out Return of the Jedi and we’d watch it together on her tiny TV. Later on I’d be in bed, staring out at woods and trees that I knew, but seemed huge to a little kid, and I’d dream of Ewoks.

RotJ was Gram’s favorite, and for many years mine, too.

I like Ewoks.

VERY LONG ANSWER

TW: mental illness, depression, self harm, suicide, abuse

In late elementary, early middle school, my brother and I were basically reading ANYTHING we could get our hands on. He sometimes dove into books that didn’t interest me, so I’d read the first of something and then be bored and he’d keep going.

Star Wars EU was one of those. It was too grim for me. I think I didn’t run into any of the really good writers. It was all Han and Luke and Leia on the covers, so take that for what you will. There also was no Wookiepeia, so I was depending heavily on the writers’ abilities to convey things to someone very visual, yet pretty impatient with descriptions, so it never took.

I was in high school when The Phantom Menace came out. Mine honorable brother was off at college, so it was with great excitement on my part, and bemused tolerance on my parents’, that they and I went off to the theater.

On the one hand, I was dazzled.

On the other, there was Jar Jar. There was the fact that I hadn’t been impressed with the re-release of the OT – Han shot first. FITE ME. There was the fact that TPM didn’t feel like Star Wars, which was darker and grittier and…simpler to me.

So I wrote it off. Packed Star Wars away as “one of those things” that I’d been into, but felt like I was moving past. I was obsessed with Gargoyles, I was looking at going to college, and I would keep m’damn ewoks without needing to try to extend that vision with gungans.

College sucked. I went in, not sure if I wanted to go into English, for writing, or Psych, because I had always been what I’d now call The Mom Friend. I met a nice guy who tried, but things never really clicked between us, and there was an interesting bit that he was mad about Star Wars and insisted that I read the Rogue Squadron books.

That was a Good Decision. Dating him, not so much.

I had a huge assortment of Life Issues. Got into an abusive relationship that would end up lasting 14 years. Transferred schools. Got the fucking Psych degree, though literally only by the grace of a professor who didn’t want to see the kid not graduate just ‘cause she couldn’t numbers and I did go in and try. Talked to him and still couldn’t with the maths but the effort was there to bump me a few points above failing.

I was burnt out. I was depressed. I tried killing myself a few times – not very good at it, as you can see. Took up self-harm as a coping mechanism. Failed in the still never successful search for a decent therapist in Pittsburgh. Got a job slinging food, because needed some kind of income, and people without pressure was nice. The keeping on a schedule thing failed, leading to an average of 4 hours sleep a night. Losing contact with family and friends because I couldn’t stand the pressure of “how are you?” and “what’s going on in your life?” Clinging to Warcraft because repetitively farming was better than clawing open my back or neck again, and the people there were ok with some rando dropping out of sight on a dime, and only a persistent few had the grace and spirit to make it past some serious defensive issues of mine.

I stopped writing. Stopped caring about Gargoyles, stopped being able to see into that AU I’d made for myself of a crazy clan and the weird human who survived cancer with them.

Stopped going on IM, for the same reasons I stopped talking to people.

I still kept track of some folks via LiveJournal. A handful of the Gargoyles folks who were determined, gods know why and thank you, since I know several are here on the tumbles and I genuinely love you to bits.

I quit my job after five years, because enough was enough between the fact that it had all the hallmarks of an abusive relationship and I was fucking tired of being a manager without any actual authority, and the endless hamster wheel of hiring and people quitting because it was a nice, but highly dysfunctional place.

I missed the customers, though. Several of them are here too, and it’s kinda funny ‘cause I know in at least one case I talked to them about Star Wars. I still hope they’re not too shellshocked that I kinda went down the rabbit hole pretty deep.

Started getting more sleep. Not less anxiety, not less depressed. Tried out a few depression medications, with very mixed results.

Then one day @dogmatix came into the LJ area I still hung out in. Enthusiastically recommending to all and sundry that if there is even a shred of interest in Star Wars, THERE IS THIS THING YOU SHOULD READ.

She drew a Wookiee. That was a character?

I’d always liked Wookiees.

And I needed something to read.

Star Wars was one of those things, from back in the day before things went to shit. Low investment, since if I didn’t like it or didn’t care, then eh. Whatevs.  Dogmatix was one of the Gargs holdouts still in my circle (or whatever it is that I was hovering at the edges of), and in the past I’d liked her recommendations more often than I disliked them.

I’m also endlessly weak to her art.

Wookiee.

So I did that thing. That so many of us here have done. It took me about 2 weeks to get through Re-Entry. It had trouble taking root in the depression, but Obi-Wan going crackers was something I could empathize with and appreciate.

There was the hope that had been missing from the EU novels I’d tried reading back in the day.

There was Wookieepedia, which meant I could stop and see what a Nautolan was. I had tabs open for DAYS so when someone named Adi or Gallia who were apparently the same person? I could see who that was. I got stupidly distressed that Abella didn’t have an entry, until I twigged and checked for a Chitanook, and holy shit I could never tell what character was going to crop up as canon, obscure EU character, or home brewed.

I honestly expected to set it aside, get updates as they happened, and gradually step away because that’s how things were going at the time.

But I still needed something to read, to stave off empty hours when my brain was too full of screaming.

On Ebon Wings. I’d loved The Crow when I’d seen it back in high school, and that story tapped into the powerful visuals and the lovely message I’d adored and in ways I still don’t quite understand it somehow validated that I could be mad and still be ok. Maybe. Maybe not now, but someday.

Maybe.

So I gave in and got a Tumbl. I’d been a stubborn holdout, regularly checking the same half dozen feeds daily because dammit, I don’t wanna go through the trouble and I was close to giving up on LJ and another journaly thing? That was stupid. But I wanted to follow Flamethrower and Dogmatix, and it made it infinitely easier to follow several blogs (and oh GODS one of those is a mutual and holy fuck I swear I screamed the day that happened and it’s still a high to realize).

Dogmatix wrote Möbius and Accidental Timeshare, wherein Venge goes universe hopping. That’s also a weakness of mine.

I’d been kvetching IRL about the treadmill and wanting something to watch, and someone mentioned in Dogmatix’s feed The Clone Wars – which conveniently was on Netflix. So I figured what the hell. I was disinclined to like clones – ‘cause yeesh, they’re the reason the Jedi all died, and yeah, ok, the Order was SERIOUSLY FUCKED UP, but.

I still had never seen Episodes 2 or 3.

I turned on the Clone Wars movie, and within ten minutes I nearly fell off the back of the treadmill due to crying.

THIS was the Star Wars of my youth. THIS was what I remembered. A little grim. Lots of quips.

That sound. Lightsabers igniting. A-wings rumbling overhead. Blasterfire, and that music.

I had to stop and calm down and for the first time in ages WRITE [, because I just had to ramble about how it all hit me in the feels]. I had no idea I’d missed this.

By the end of the movie I’d decided ok, I wanted more. Wasn’t sold on these clone fellas, and damned if I could tell one set of armor from another (this is ALSO due to the treadmill screen being calibrated to be a compromise of a very short person – me – and a very tall person, which means neither person gets a decent view but that’s not what the treadmill tv is for).

I’d been told there was an order to the episodes, but I didn’t care. Continuity is for those who think about the future, and I was still regularly suicidal.

So the first episode I watched was Yoda romping around a planet, playing with droids while three clone troopers tried to babysit his mad little ass.

They had me, all in one episode. I loved these guys. They had individuality, I could tell them apart by the voices (which is sometimes just as important to me as visuals) even if I couldn’t name them, and the personalities –

They were loyal. Their primary concern was old batty Yoda which I had adored as a child because MUPPETS. They were willing to die to keep him safe and there was this lovely reciprocity in taking care of each other and all of them, clones and Jedi alike were doomed to extinction and I don’t think I knew yet HOW the clones were except they weren’t in the OT so there was shit going down.

Tragic figures, loyal found family, incredible voice acting, Batty Old Yoda who OH YEAH FUCKING KICKED SO MUCH ASS I COULD NEVER GET ENOUGH.

I wanted to keep those three clones. I was willing to keep them all.

Final blow, that knocked me into the fandom so hard I’ll be surprised if I ever leave?

THIS.

The origins of Balance. This is the post that started a simple notion, to try to write something when I’d gone….anywhere from 7 to 10 years of not writing A SINGLE. DAMNED. THING of substance – and that was after thinking I might try to get a degree related to it.

Darth Wraith was a tentative idea. I was scared @deadcatwithaflamethrower would be irked I wanted to play in her sandbox (oh my gods I was inserting myself into a conversation with her this amazing person who wrote blindingly well and so damn much and how the FUCK was I daring to speak up about a silly half DREAM I’d had because once again I couldn’t sleep).

Then, because I was trying to break out of the depression, the cycles of mental ill health, and if I was on this tumbls thing, fuck it, I’d try the IM thing again.

I’d been gone long enough that pretty much no one on my contact list was still there. That…was ok. There wasn’t the pressure.

And Dogmatix popped on, asking if I wanted to share details about this Sith Qui-Gon thing.

I had A SCENE. ONE. SCENE. And she was spinning it off into this EPIC, which at first I was gleeful because she had neat ideas and I couldn’t wait to see what she would do with it and then wait, she’s not talking about writing it herself, this is more about something WE could work on.

Thank gods it was IM, because I had a little panic about commitment to a project when I regularly was sure I wasn’t going to see tomorrow and if I didn’t wake up one morning that’d be MORE than ok.

Still. There was that itch. The visuals in my brain. The characters I’d started to like in Flamethrower’s universe, which had formed my mental voices for them.

The only sound in my head for so long was just screaming.

Writing down that scene in Knock On Effect, where Venge meets Wraith – that felt good. It never changed much from the first draft to what was posted. The rest grew, and quickly. It was clear if we were doing this, then there were multiple stories, spanning in universe years.

And then there were spinoffs. Wonderful ideas and plots spiraling away from this one notion, and gods I wanted to write about those glorious clones.

How’d I get into Star Wars?

Chance. One strange little step at a time, and a bunch of miracles and horrors that kept me bleeding but not dying. Damn good fic. The kindness of friends. The generosity of strangers.

The tragedy of a once great order of space monks, and their allies-forced-to-be-betrayers clones.

One little picture, of Qui-Gon Jinn with Sith eyes.

[pluck-my-life]

In today’s episode of Snark’s failed (but productive) naps: getting into Chuck’s mindset!

My fellow character&ship analysis nerd @loverofthebirbs may wanna read this. But I gotta warn everyone: this text is full of junk and stray associations. 

Long post ahoy!ヽ(◕ヮ<)ﾉ

Some of you might already know what I look like (I’m not encouraging you going to my Facebook for pics, having seen me irl may get in the way of you perceiving this semi-RP blog as I intend it to be, but curiosity is the right of all sentient beings so it’s up to you) and it’s even surprising why I relate so much to Red and not Chuck (it really is because I’m introverted and world-weary and take too much upon myself, but this all is for later ‘cos for a limited time those qualities have flocked off into the back of my brain and I wanna enjoy being less self-conscious while I can). It’s annoying though to deal with a bunch of thoughts buzzing around my head like a bunch of flies and having to catch them to lay ‘em down on the page. And having fidgety fingers when they’re not typing (and having to retype the parts my brain found a better wording for right after I’ve typed ‘em down). But this state of mind is important to document for later references, because my brain isn’t always so generous, so I’ll leave all this mess as is, minus the typos (my keyboard is comfy but kinda old so the keys are not as pliable as they used to be). Oh bling, I’ve got SO off topic. 

The point is, when you perform so many actions without slowing down to consider them, you become desensitized to your own actions. Being everywhere all at once mashes the experiences into one big jumble and it’s just... kinda there. You’d have to unravel it afterwards when you have a contemplative mood. (Uh, the keyboard annoys me so much more than usual, it’s the digital analog of trying to say a lot of things that are on your mind, they might even be aligned into the perfect sequence, but that clumsy meat tentacle in your mouth a.k.a. the tongue just can’t keep up). When you admire someone very much and you’re sooo full of feelings you just wanna touch ‘em everywhere at once, because they’ve got so many features worth of attention, and it isn’t enough to just look (like, would you be content to just look at a cake? It may be a work of culinary art, but that’s not what cakes are for, you get the meaning?) but imagine if you actually do it: the receiving party would feel as if they’ve been poked all over with a finger, like I do sometimes to my friend who likes touches but I’m in the mood for silly things so I just poke their chest with a finger, probably also sticking my tongue out ‘cos I’m like that, maybe it’s a new and innovative way of gesturing, I often do that after a joke or a sarcastic remark to show that I’m not serious (subconsciously, I don’t try to control everything I do when I’m in a comfortable environment, that’d be an extra waste of my already precious energy). 

Anyways. My friend knows that I’m like that, but a new person I’ve just met - doesn’t. So all the things I do jokingly-affectionately to my friend would annoy that person and make ‘em think I’m really weird. But it’s a matter of habit too, excitement makes people lose their grip on themselves and (in my case) get very loud and intense without even noticing it - or, in Chuck’s case, get too carried away touching that new bird he really likes and showing off his cool moves (perfectly natural for a male bird, I’ve read people even use this behavior to determine the sex of some non-dimorphic birds: you put a bird in a cage by itself and after a while get another bird in there, if the first bird starts to show off to the newcomer it’s male, even though the newcomer can be male as well). Aaand... I lost my thread of thought. It feels exhausting to have this many buzzing thoughts, and I wouldn’t even be thinking in words and sentences if I didn’t need to type them out. Back when I was trying to take a nap the thoughts were like multiple background voices, and the ones I focused on sounded louder than the rest of ‘em. All the things that could be visually imagined were pictures and movements. Uuhh my brain is so tired. 

Last important notice: when they touch you, at their own initiative, it feels much more meaningful than a hundred of your own touches. You’ve devalued your own actions, at least in your own perception, they’re a dime a dozen. They’ve probably zoned you out at this point, voice and gestures and all (who? the girl reading this lmao, the person whose attention you want). Because they operate on another time scale (at least their brain does) or they’re always in that chill sniffing-flowers mode, or they’re so introverted they gotta recharge after any interaction with you ‘cos you’re so disproportionally intense they need a breather after every dang story you tell (especially if you swerve a lot because your brain brings up so many associations, like I’m doing constantly in this post). So you’re annoying to them, but you still wanna earn their attention and you ain’t very patient, so you do even more ridiculous loud things and get stuck in this vicious circle of getting zoned out, further and further, it may even become a habit for the person you’re annoying (but at least that introverted birdie is getting used to touches, so that’s getting somewhere, sadly at the expense of your chances to earn appreciation, which is what you’ve wanted in the first place).

Got off road again. Let’s say they’ve had time to analyze your behavior and their own reactions and now they’re making a conscious effort to accept you. Say, you’ve invaded their personal space for a hundredth time and... they wrap their arm around you. Time stops. You can hear galaxies spin ‘round each other, yadda yadda, all the bombastic tropes to show how meaningful it is. You don’t even wanna move. Your perception turns to their breathing, their heart beating, that look you’ve never seen in their eyes - or never stopped to notice, too caught up in a mix of your own stupid shenanigans and lamenting how cruel your fate is, how inconsiderate they are not noticing your efforts... well now they have, and you gotta make sure this moment's as pleasant for them as it is for you, so they'd want more of it and more often. Make use of each other’s basic pleasure-seeking instincts to reinforce this behavior (ain’t we all just animals with too many complications?) Relationships take effort on both sides, especially trying to see things from another’s perspective. Now I’ve done it and I’m so worn out my unfinished nap is gonna take me :3

P.S. pardon any typos, I’m really not in the mood to edit, and it would ruin the integrity of this state of mind (yeah I’m justifying my laziness, so what, how many people are gonna read this magnum opus anyway?)

[princessnijireiki]

like continuing off of that post… xavier's a multibillionaire, right? this is canon. and he runs the institute as a charity, presumably like a 501(c)(3) non-profit, in all likelihood, which helps him avoid taxes & stuff; and has his own in-house top researchers (and v. likely materials acquisition ppl, or at least proxy companies) to do things like build stealth jets, buy stealth jet fuel, etc.

snipped bc I wrote an essay about it with my goddamn thumbs, ho ho ho, merry christmas

like when I googled, apparently in "new x-men" #129 a char. called fantomex cites the xavier institute's worth at being about $3.5bn, which means xavier has to have MUCH more than that at bare minimum in the semi-annual repairs & rebuilding of that goddamn building— not including the jet, security measures, food & utilities, maintenance costs at an institution that doesn't take donations or charge tuition for at least a decade (even if you don't want to go with a canon of irl-accurate in-verse-improbable school longevity). like when you consider that… yeah, tony stark's a multibillionaire— but he makes & sells a tangible product and var. technologies— forbes thinking tony stark's net worth is ~$12.5bn in comparison while xavier has no known income at all is nothing to sneeze at.

so it beggars the question as to how he can be considered philan-fucking-thropic when magneto, the auschwitz survivor whose apparent assets comes up to like $500mil total in gold he stole from nazis he personally murdered (hard- and well-earned money, if true!), is not only more up-front than xavier about making a team that is a personal army… he doesn't demand respectability & obedience in the face of human oppression… AND he runs (ran? idk which genosha we're on rn, it keeps getting attacked/destroyed) a whole island meant as a safe haven for any and all mutants, regardless of what they look like— and entirely separate from his vigilante/activist work with the brotherhood— free of goddamn charge.

or, yk, it's also really interesting when you also remember how charles xavier has never thrown the morlocks a dime, and they all, adults & children alike, are mutants who live in the fucking sewers in nyc because they are too "ugly," too "dangerous," can't, or don't want to survive aboveground with humans. some were abandoned. some were on the run. some are fucking preschoolers. there's been multiple canon occasions in the comics and cartoons showing how the morlocks starve or go without medicine unless they steal it… because there's no jobs for them, or when there are, no businesses that want to take their money and allow them to buy a goddamn loaf of bread. there but for the grace of god go several of charles's x-men themselves, and they all know it… but still, not a red cent to show for it from the pockets of professor x.

there is literally a christmas special episode of x-men: tas— it came out in 1995— where it falls to storm & jubilee (the only woc on the team, one of whom is a child) to advocate for one dying morlock child who was turned away from the hospital… against wolverine's vocal protests, natch… while the professor is oh-so-happy to have helped (by providing what… transportation? wow™️) well after the fact, without addressing either the direct issues at hand: why didn't you address the suffering of this morlock child before now, when you could pinpoint a single mutant & then fly to africa to recruit storm all those years ago? why don't you pay for the damages caused by these morlocks searching for medicine? why don't you just buy them some fucking medicine & beds & winter coats?— or the systemic ones.

he claims to be a paragon of virtue & a good example for mutantkind, but it makes you wonder why dr. cecilia reyes*, a human passing darkskinned dreadlocked nuyorican mutant from the bronx with psionic plasma powers and an MD, quit the x-men to run an underground mutant clinic out of her apartment instead, bc that was doing more good in her eyes— helping all the kids who slipped through the cracks while xavier had the means to find them & help them, even if not to give them new homes, but chose not to— than continuing on as a member of his shiny super heroic team of Good Mutie posterboys. it makes you wonder how fucked up it is that she's right.

* (cecilia reyes is about to be portrayed in the new x-men asylum au movie as what looks like an evil psychiatrist by alice braga, so… that's special. thanks for that, 20th century fox… lol but I digress.)

when it is within the power of charles xavier to "lead by example" less with posturing & waging mutant vs. mutant battles and more with mutant welfare & rights, you gotta wonder why the fuck he's chosen the "You Thuggish Bad Mutants Hold the Movement Baaaack" hill for other folks to die on over public philanthropic works for the benefit of his fellow mutants & as, like, concrete examples to cite while arguing in court against mutant registration & discrimination laws, rather than, "but mr. president: I'm not like Those Mutants! I'm one of the Good Ones!"

and yeah, there's a good amount of fighting genocide robots in there, and a solid dash of saving the world, including humans. but there's also been like a dozen different future timelines the x-men have had to avert with time travel antics, where that uncle tom uncle remus fictionalized cheerful negro bullshit didn't work at all, even a little bit, and mutants were tattooed or branded or hauled off to death or labor camps or live as an underground resistance force against those things… and then they go right back to beefing with mystique. with callisto. with magneto. with emma frost.

maybe halfway because they're villains doing ~bad things… but halfway because you can tell we're supposed to think they're so much worse than fucking catwoman or the mandarin or the vulture for doing the same things (or, ofc, the REAL "I'm not racist!" racist's zinger: as bad as or worse than hydra, the red skull, and real life hitler)— because they were oppressed "the wrong way" (militant! angry! not cooperating with police!); and because they had to audacity to ~make life harder~ for xavier and his boy scouts, not ACTUALLY by making mutants "look bad," but by existing & getting in the way of xavier's illusion that if you kiss enough ass and ignore enough "undesirables" within your community, maybe the people crushing you underfoot will grow a sense of pity… and if they don't, it must be some bad mutant's fault.

because people would rather believe in the as-yet-unseen virtue and repentance of fascists and bigots who sieg heil and proudly proclaim they want you dead to be a real thing, attainable through patient suffering, even while those fascists aim the gun they made especially for killing "your kind" at your hearts & in your homes, than to ever believe that hurt & oppressed & marginalized people didn't, don't, and never will do anything to "deserve" or "earn" their oppression.

bolivar trask wants magneto dead the exact same way he wants kitty pryde & scott summers dead, and charles xavier investing billions into saying, "don't shoot! I'm on the neighborhood watch, too! we aren't all scary, mr. zimmermann! let me prove it to you!" vs. "just don't fucking shoot, I literally don't need to give you any more reasons than that or argue my worthiness of remaining alive, because you do not have the fucking right to shoot me nor are you entitled to my silent complacence on the matter" is some toothless, self-serving, clearly white-authored nonsense.

and I know xavier vs. magneto is meant to be this piss-poor civil rights allegory (and somehow a horribly mangled ahistorical one, at that, considering the x-men debuted in the '60s) positioning the two as analogues for mlk & malcolm x, respectively; of course, to the fictionalized version of dr. king's benefit, despite the pop cultural "schism" between those two men largely being manufactured by the same folks invested in keeping both men's mouths shut or bth men dead to begin with.

but if you gave martin luther king three and a half billion dollars before he was assassinated, even adjusting for inflation, I would bet all the money I have now that it would've been spent more on voter empowerment, school breakfasts, job placement services, and bail money for arrested activists & demonstrators than he would ever spend on a fucking mansion, private jet, or appeals to those who would silence the unheard while stepping over the less-visible oppressed ~beneath his notice & ignoring the "macedonian call for aid."

and so it's not just bad writing, but it also manages to insult the memory and legacy of civil rights work for black americans and other communities as well to position this character in this position of informed-virtue supremacy by borrowing the language & evoking the imagery of an assassinated radical activist to specifically tear down other oppressed peoples/their fictional analogues for not being pure enough and not being willing enough to lick the right boot heels while taking enough kicks to the face to "earn" the equality & respect their [dangerous/criminal/monstrous/violent] [behaviors/cultures/upbringing/looks] are holding them back from being graciously given by the people holding the knife.

[thelonesomequeen]

Asks: Cevans and His TB comment

These are the asks regarding the same subject and we wanted to publish them to make sure our followers had a chance to voice their opinions. Please note that these are from our anons and may not necessarily reflect the opinions of us here at the blog. Have a nice day ❤️ Queen

The interview is on Elle's website, he talks more about his love for Tom Brady; "This whole year has had so many tricky ups and downs. But the Brady-Trump connection is the one part of it that I truly have been unable to process in any capacity. My brain just cannot reconcile that. I truly chose to stick my head in the ground and pretend that doesn't happen. I can't afford to lose my love of Tom Brady."

Oh God, it's even worse in video -.- ugh.... I love how he's like 'those with differing political views are not my enemies not at all' then remembers himself and throws out there oh yeah I'm white and privileged maybe I'm not right here, and then just goes back on track of putting his foot in his mouth lol. I'm overreacting but I wanted to believe he was really passionate about this whole thing, but I can just see him brushing it aside IRL and only saving it for his armchair activism on Twitter

I've always sort of rolled my eyes at Chris' utter obsession with Tom Brady, but this is a new level of naseum.. Chris needs a good smack across the face.

I do not know why they bother so much !! We know that his Crush is TB and even if they do not have the same political thoughts he is still their Crush !! Chris will never go to Trump he has his opinion about Trump and TB has his !!

most of these fan girls that "canceling" are going to be all over him once he starts shooting Avengers infinity war 😒😒😒 he ain't canceled he just suspended at the moment 😂😂😂-DeanNewWife

It's okay to disagree with someone or have a difference of opinion, that is life. But I don't think that anyone should ever get a free pass no matter what things they've done in the past (for the record I don't think tom has done anything wrong, he's entitled to his own opinion and is doing the right thing of keeping them to himself right now but chris comments imply that if he did something wrong like injury another player on purpose or lie about taxs or worse then that be okay too which it not

Why are people upset with the statement about the 'pass' for tom brady. In the statement , i completely agree with chris, everyone has the right to believe what they want, and vote for who they want to,even if it is the great evil cheeto Why is no one talking about how great it is that chris is finally addressing his white privilege. Also that statement is pretty shady "i give him a pass" is basically saying that he knows that tom has fucked views but the man is his hero.

No one is hating him, at least I'm not. I'm pointing out the hypocrisy of a guy giving a free pass just because the guy is a player of his team. He's being selective. As if he were saying that Tom Brady can do what he wants, that's wrong. We are fighting for equal rights. What Chris does here is what Trump does, select who can and who cannot.

I dont know much about Brady，what did he do wrong? Supporting Trump doesnt necessarily mean you are a bad person. What else?

I'm under no delusion that Chris isn't Steve Rodgers. But it could be worse. He could be a Trump Republican like Chris Pratt. I'm sure Pratt gets a pass too, not just from CE and from a lot of fans. (Not me-I won't spend a dime on animal hunting /dog abandoning Pratt & Faris).

Well if anybody gets a pass for a tone deaf stupid remark it has to be Chris. He gave me 3 Captain America movies. Sry, he gets a pass for this (sry mods I had to :D)

While there's no doubting the context here, I also wonder if this is exactly how Chris said it. It's a pretty dumb thing to say right after enjoying a period of time where he's been (in my opinion) quite considerate about his views Vs those of fans who might disagree. Similarly, there's no definite proof that Brady voted for Trump although knowing how much Gisele wants to be admired and such, if he hadn't voted for Trump I'd expect that she would have clarified that by now. Maybe?

Ciao mia dolce Regina, Mrs. Potts and Ariel. About this TB affair I think that CE is a little immature and maybe he must think twice next time he will talk to politics but for me isn’t a big deal maybe because in Italy must of men are big soccer supporters and they give a pass to all soccer players though they are worst than TB especially in personal life. I think this is only a Italian side of CE 😉. For me he was more disappointing last year. Un abbraccio a presto

Manu

What I do not understand is because everyone here is so angry !! He did not say that now he loves Trump and he will be the best precident !! He talks about the love that has TB and despite having political disagreements he supports TB !! Trump is already precidente and the save that only remains agontarlo for 4 years! And it's not worth to be discussing the same thing on twitter and above that people criticize it for getting into politics !! Chris will continue to comment on Trump on Twitter !

“Seb stans can not say anything because of his friendship with Don Saladino who is a supporter Trump. Don liked a post from Trump at IG about making America great again, the same weekend he signed against the immigrants. It’s same situation, Seb gives pass free too” It´s not the same. Don is a long time FRIEND of Seb, you don´t dump your friends just because you have different political opinions, and Seb never said in a interview he gives a pass free of what Don does. Chris is just a fanboy of Brady, and he thinks Brady has pass free because he is a sport superstar.

Isn't it quite likely, or at the very least, moderately plausible, that due to the Trump/Kraft connection the Pats team where given those hats and Brady just chucked his in his locker? Was he seen wearing it? Has he publicly spoke of his support for Trump? His wife posted that he didn't vote for him so is the hat the only proof?

I have seen many people saying the same. That people from Boston are blind to Brady's mistakes. Obviously not all of them, never all of them. But you know. That still doesn't excuse anything Chris said though.

This whole year has had so many tricky ups and downs. But the Brady-Trump connection is the one part of it that I truly have been unable to process in any capacity. My brain just cannot reconcile that. I truly chose to stick my head in the ground and pretend that doesn't happen. I can't afford to lose my love of Tom Brady. - from Elle. Eww, he needs to stop talking about this! It sounds so immature and 1st world problem and just yikes. It's not even amusing as a joke. Please Chris just stop!

[delicadenza]

Series Description:

"Over the years, the Hasetsu Inn, run by the Katsuki family, has somehow become a second home to a bevy of different mages from across the land. They come and go as their callings require them, but all of them have found somehow that once you’ve stayed at the inn, you never really leave."

Or: the one where Yuuri's family runs a Magical Inn in a Dime-a-Dozen Fantasy Village(TM), where lots of silly things happen (and many feelingsful things too).

Happy to be unveiling this not-so-little (by which I mean currently at nine single-spaced pages of Google doc notes and climbing) collab project between @mayerwien and me, because irl we’re both frustrated fantasy fictionists with way too many ideas. And once this AU had taken root in our heads it just kept growing and growing and growing and could not be stopped.

The main narrative thread moves in a mostly Otayuri direction, but rest assured there is enough evil brewing in our hearts to make this a fairly huge many-ship, many-story affair. It’s going to be an adventure, to say the least, and everyone is of course welcome to tag along and see what mischief we can manage. <3

Updates to this blog will be tagged with the concise and super-eloquent “magic inn au.”