#i like never share my writing on this account but i’m writing for this zine

[protestgradedunit]

image created using calligram maker , using creative writing

I wrote a piece with my feelings documented (see below)

When translating the writing into a physical format through my collaged zine I felt this format favoured a shorter length. Two account so much of the writing piece been cut and to satiate my needs for the whole piece to be shared I decided my second final piece would be a sound/video piece drawing from disparagements I have done throughout the project up until this point. I used an AI text-to-speech generator to translate to the viewer the feeling of detachment in the same vein as the collaged ‘ransom note’ text in my diary. It detaches the author/artist by removing their hand from the work which mirrors my feelings of detachment in regards to my memories being so physically distant or forever changed. The slow and tedious nature of the creation of the work (the process of selecting text from magazines, cutting, arranging and sticking) is evocative of time, reflection and memory alike.

 Childhood is an idealisation of an adulthood you will never have.

My memories of kinship are clouded by my desperation for it to have been different. Rationally, the possibility of a worse lot should discourage me from seeking another roll of the dice. I’m not much of a penchant for rationality nor does the game of life allow for double rolls.

Although the place that I was born lives and breathes underneath a much grander glasshouse than Glasgow, It’s the grey of my previous life I remember most often. I miss the South Lake like a child torn from a parent. I miss the frozen water and the bread clumps that would mould and hang under the frost. I miss the buds of Rhododendron but not the fear of suicide. I miss the meadow scorched to dust by the sun and the creek that begged teenagers to go over not around. I miss the concrete pool filled with the longest table a child had ever seen and I miss wet mud and I miss being a child. I’ll never see the longest table in the world again nor will I kick and dribble tiny red apples for a mile.

I’m too scared to jump off a swing in midair and my back isn’t fit for party tricks anymore. There are parts of me that didn’t exist then but do now and there are parts I lost a long time ago and couldn’t find again. Entire vessels of my youth are sold on and cleared out and others resurfaced and repainted. The bones exist beneath wood tiles but won’t be seen again for a while, if ever.

[buriedinbaltimore]

I just saw some Nora appreciation posts and this has been in my drafts for a while and why not jump on the bandwagon? :)

Beyond Nora sharing these awesome books and characters with us, encouraging fans to make their own headcanons and fanfictions, and answering our questions and giving her own ideas of the Foxes’ futures, she did it all for very little in return? I am talking financially, and also a little bit referring to all the hate she gets from the fandom based on her books (but that’s not the focus of this post.)

The ebooks are only $.99 each AND the first one is free. So the entire trilogy is $1.98. Nora probably only gets like 25-30 cents total when someone buys tkm or trk. This year AFTG was the #4 book fandom on tumblr. So she has this crazy successful series that she makes hardly any money off of. She probably only gets 50-60 CENTS whenever someone buys the entire trilogy.

5,000 people follow the “aftg” tag, that's $2,500 approximately, not taking in to account that a lot of people download PDFs of the books and therefore don’t pay! Compare that to what other authors profit from their books. Like, I don’t know how much Maggie Stiefvater has made from The Raven Cycle, but it’s the #8 book fandom on tumblr and it’s definitely way more than $2,500! (I am a little confused about this though, because the raven cycle definitely has a much larger readership the aftg, and 39k people follow that tag? I guess AFTG really is just small and mighty!)

And then I was thinking about all the people selling fanart prints/zines/tchotchkes etc. and commissions based on her characters (and I’m not speaking against those, support fan artists/creators please!) But, if you pooled all the money other people have made off of her characters vs. what she has made I bet she’s made a lot less overall.

So this is a Nora appreciation post, since I cannot financially compensate her, and we don’t even know her real name or what shes up to these days (I don’t think). I know you’ll never see this but thank you for sharing all this with us!!! These books have actually changed my life, they inspired me for the first time to create my own writing, led me to meet new people, and also they just make me feels things. So really, thank you.

[hillbillyoracle]

When Are You Ready to Teach

Through all of the Witchblr drama lately, there's one thing I've not seen commented on much and it's something that's been stuck in my head for weeks now - how does someone know they're equipped to be a teacher? And it's not just because of some of the questions raised, it's personal. I am constantly questioning whether I should be teaching workshops or giving talks, even with them being unpaid. I am always trying to walk the path of sharing what I know as ethically as I know how to and it's an incredibly difficult process to navigate well. So I wanted to share some thoughts, almost as a letter to my younger self, on whether and how someone should go about teaching esoteric, occult, and witchcraft practices.

After thinking about it quite a bit, the best way I can think of to tell if you're suited to be a teacher is to share what you know without positioning yourself as a teacher at all or charging money for your work.

Before you even consider teaching, I recommend putting out what you are doing for others to see and doing so regularly. For folks who read tarot, what spreads are you doing and how are you thinking through them? For witchcraft or occult practices, while you may not be able to share details, are there any insights or realizations you've had that you can share for others?

I think this is key for a few reasons actually. For one, you'll quickly see whether you have the ability to accept and grow from criticism - which is a hugely vital part of the teaching process if you accept that role. Or at least, it has been for me. I was born with the gift of what my family calls Foresight, not the gift of teaching and so learning that skill has involved taking feedback into consideration. Not all of it has been kindly given, but almost all of it has been valuable.

Another reason is that it will quickly show whether you seek to teach for your own ego and or to genuinely share what you know to help others. If you are comfortable sharing what you know without an ounce of expectation of respect or clout, that is the best indication to me that stepping into a teaching role is possible at some point. I do not know how anyone can teach effectively without being deeply humble. Especially in spiritual traditions. Otherwise teaching quickly becomes a means to control and left unchecked can lead to abuse.

One other reason to share without positioning yourself as a teacher is that it'll pretty quickly let you know where you seem to know more than most folks and where you know less. When I first created this account, my first post was literally just a write up of my intro lesson I'd been giving friends who'd just bought tarot decks and wanted to pick it up as fast as possible. I wrote it specifically as a record they could come back to. I had no intent to position myself as a teacher, just as a way of sharing what I had gathered over my 10 years of reading cards.

The response to that and later my shadow work posts showed me that people were getting a lot of what I was sharing. The responses to my deity veneration posts showed me that people weren't getting as much out of them and that I had a lot to continue learning. I was able to shift my approaches for both. I put more work into figuring out how to share what I knew about tarot and shadow work and more work into continuing my learning about deity veneration. It was a year of writing like that before I ever took a leap and taught my first tarot and shadow work workshop where I again got feedback about what was actually helpful and what I needed to learn more about. That process is valuable and I'm thankful for it everyday.

Another reason for sharing without expectation is that it will allow you to begin to develop a radar for teachers who aren't going about their work ethically. You'll start to notice when people present something as absolute fact or as their observations and experiences. The latter has been far more useful in my own spiritual education than the former. You'll see where people are charging for information they never write about deeply. They'll position themselves as needing to charge for freely available information because they "did the work" of reading it at one point.

Which brings me to the complicated question of when is it right to charge for what you're sharing? I think personally the best way to handle it is to just set up a donation link and let people decide how much your work is worth to them. If you manage to make a little money while you're still figuring out whether teaching is right for you, then it's a bonus! I see the “fuck you, pay me” mindset in so many places if has no right to be in my view. It’s not other peoples job to pay you while you’re still bad at what you do. And believe me you will be for a while.

Personally - I'm still in that transition period and I've been writing and putting out work for about 3 years. I do charge for my zines and my digital workbooks but that's less because of the information I'm presenting and more for the work it took to write and format it all. I have a Patreon I maintain and add bonus materials to as I'm able and I often stick a donation link on the bottom of my posts just in case folks feel lead. While lots of folks have asked me to develop a course, I have a feeling it'll be another 2 years before I know how to really walk the walk of being a teacher proper and feel comfortable putting out something so involved.

I don't take the work of teaching lightly. I see it much more as an additional calling to my work as an Oracle/Seer as it's in line with my mission to use my gifts for the betterment of others. When asking yourself about the role teaching plays in your life, ask yourself whether if furthers the work you're called to. What you're sacrificing to be a teacher? How are you seeking out feedback and training? Does your work actually improve the lives of others? Does it further your spiritual callings or does it merely support your ego?

Some folks will consider those questions and still not have the self awareness to know it's not their path and that's fine. I'm not really trying to reach those people. My hope is that someone truly called to teach will get some use out of hearing about how I'm navigating that transition of competent practitioner to facilitator and teacher. If that person is you, the best advice I can give you aside from the above is take it slow. If it's truly you're calling, the path will unfold a little at a time as you are ready.

These are just my thoughts and how I'm navigating it. I'd love to hear how other folks are!

[scimitar-and-longsword]

Tagged by: @morallygreywaren <3 <3

Name(s): *sigh* I don’t make this easy as my SNs are different everywhere lol thecuriouslo on twitter, scimitar-and-longsword here, I used to write a bunch of LOTR and SPN  fics YEARS ago so one of my pseuds is CasintheShire (I orphaned all those fics lol) but my main is thelittlelo/Lolo.... I’ve also got a secret ao3 account where I’ve posted more than one “taboo” fic.... that you will never find lol

Fandom(s): Obviously TOG is my main right now, but Star Wars is always right there too.... other than that?? Idk I was into lotr and spn for a long time (as I already mentioned) and atla/korra, teen wolf and kingsman have all had their moment too.

Where you post: AO3. I’ve got a couple things here on tumblr.... but they always make their way to the archive eventually. (speaking of... I should transfer my most recent prompt fics....)

Most Popular One Shot (by kudos): Brothers Fight (518 kudos) which is my take on Joe and Booker starting to work through their issues following London.

Most Popular Multi-Chapter (by kudos): Share Your Address (1699 kudos) which is my Uni AU... which I’m sure you’re all sick of hearing about by now lol

Favorite story you’ve written so far: I would say SYA or Brothers Fight... but instead of repeating I’ll say it’s Collapsing Walls which is my Book of Nile whump lol.... I’m real mean to Booker in it... poor guy.  Low key I think it might be my Big Bang though.... I’m having so much fun writing it, I can’t wait to post it!

Fic you were nervous to post: fucking all of them!!! I’m always nervous.... But I guess the one that was the worst was It Feels Like Flying. I hadn’t written full on smut in a LONG time. I felt so silly and awkward..... I THINK I did ok though??? idk lol

How do you choose your titles?: Depends. I usually have descriptive or joke titles as I’m writing, but I usually just end up going with something simple and descriptive. (SYA is the one exception here lol)

Do you outline?: Yeah. My outlines are all over the places though, mostly they end up being bits of dialogue and jokes lol

Complete: Officially??? Nine. but there’s a lot more of my work out there lol, some of it orphaned, some of it on other accounts.

In-Progress: Published WIPs, two. Both of which I have not abandoned I PROMISE! I’ve just been working on a few other things behind the scenes. (Big Bang, Zine One Shot, and my SYA holiday fic, all of which have deadlines I need to hit so other things got pushed to the background)

Coming soon/not yet started: ahahahaha how much time do you have?? I’ll Never Love Another - my big bang, Prince Yusuf/Knight Nicolo - lots of letter writing and pining... it’s fluffy angst, as is my brand lol Everything I Did to Get to You - SYA holiday special 😏 Impelled by the Persuasion of Love - My fic for the TOG Zine... which is taking me way too long for how short it is. (You’ll have to buy the Zine or wait a long time for this one... but safe to say I thought of a really sweet and fluffy idea... and then made it emo lol) Free Fall - It Feels Like Flying sequel Pilot!Nicky POV this time. it’s just smut lol I Padri d’Iatlia - Yes I’m still working on this.... I’ll post it at some point I PROMISE Mission Fic (temp title lol) - This is actually the very first thing I started writing for this fandom.... it’s quite long and I’ll post it once it’s completed.... but that won’t be for a while. Sniper/Spotter - Joe/Nicky and Book of Nile one shot that I have had about 75% completed for like 3 months lol  To Winter in Russia - Book of Nile get together fic.... Snowed in, there was only one bed, slow burn. it’s delicious and I already have like 20k written.... once again I probably won’t post until it’s complete... though I’ve posted some snippets from it on tumblr before. There are three different A/B/O fics that will end up on the forbidden AO3 at some point lol I have like 6 other docs too lol, but they’re all named things like Rockstar/Artist and are mostly just a few bullet pointed ideas. AND this doesn’t even take into account the half finished chapters of Sword of the First Crusader, As You Wish and my FinnPoe fics... I am an ADHD mess and have trouble focusing on one project 😅😅

Prompts?: I’ve never been HUGE into prompts.... I have way too many of my own ideas taking up space in my brain. What I do tend to like prompts for is when I’ve hit a wall in something I’ll ask for prompts, or reblog a prompt list. So you know ya girl is struggling when you see those lol

Upcoming work you’re most excited about: My Prince/Knight Big Bang, 100%. 

Tagging: @almostcanon @kiaya @themoonwheniamlost @siriusnebulae @heisallandheismore @cluelessheroes @goldheartedsky @ceraunos @heelipabo and @nicolodigenovas (and anyone else who wants to!)

[livinginsunnyhell]

Ask game for fanfic writers! ⌨️🖊📓📝

1. What fandoms do you write for?

2. What pairings do you write for?

3. What is your most popular fanfic?

4. Do you write original stories as well?

5. What fanfic of yours should everyone have read?

6. What is a fandom you will never write for?

7. What is a ship you will never write for?

8. Archive of Our Own, FanFiction.net, Wattpad, Tumblr, etc. which platform do you prefer?

9. What are your favorite fanfics?

10. How do you stay motivated to finish what you’ve started?

11. What’s your longest fanfic?

12. Do you want to break your readers‘ heart or make them laugh?

13. What is your planning process?

14. What have others criticized about your fanfic?

15. OCs or no OCs?

16. Do you use sentence starters, writing prompts and/or fandom headcanons for your fanfics?

17. Do you use/follow advice from writing blogs/posts?

18. What is your favorite writing prompt?

19. Dead or overused tropes?

20. Can we get a list of all of your current available fanfics?

21. What’s your shortest fanfic?

22. Do you listen to music during your writing process? What music do you listen to while you’re writing?

23. Long chapters or short chapters?

24. How many WIPs (work-in-progress) do you’ve got?

25. How many WIPs will you finish?

26. First-person-narrative or third-person-narrative?

27. Do you take requests?

28. I will name you three things (drunk Ian — shared bachelor party — Gallavich): write a paragraph or two!

29. What’s more difficult? Fanfics or original work?

30. What writing software do you use?

31. Do you use beta/sensitivity readers?

32. Past or present tense?

33. Do friends and family know that you write fanfics?

34. How did you find the magical world of fanfics?

35. What is your favorite review?

36. Did you ever delete a work of yours?

37. Did your work ever get plagiarized?

38. Do you partake in any fanfic/writing events? (Big bangs, zines, NaNoWriMo, etc?)

39. Collaborations or working solo?

40. Do you have any rituals before uploading a fic?

41. What is something you don’t like about your writing?

42. Rudest review?

43. Guilty pleasure tropes and scenarios?

44. Does fanart of your fanfic exist?

45. Do fanfics of your fanfic exist?

46. Few long essay reviews or many short reviews?

47. What fanfic of yours is truly underrated?

48. What is your favorite sentence that you’ve used in a fanfic?

49. Where do you draw inspiration from?

50. Can we get a teaser for an upcoming chapter?

(Don't feel obligated to answer. Thought if you're into these kinda things, that'd be a nice ask. ;))

Oh this is so nice!! Thanks for sending this @annansmith

I chose a few of them to do. 

1. What fandoms do you write for?

Currently, I’m writing for Shameless (Gallavich) but I’ve written for:

Veronica Mars (LoVe), Veep (Amy/Dan), Arrow (Oliver/Felicity), Once Upon A Time (Hook/Emma), The Old Guard (Joe/Nicky), That 70′s show (Hyde/Jackie), Sons of Anarchy (Tara/Jax), Vampire Diaries (Klaroline), Hart of Dixie (Zoe/Wade), Gilmore Girls (Rory/Jess), X-men (Rogue/Pyro), One Tree Hill (Haley/Nathan), and a few others.

2. What pairings do you write for?

Now I write Gallavich. 

But I’d say my top ones I love writing for now (my fanfiction writing has spanned about 14 years) are Dan/Amy, Veronica/Logan, Klaus/Caroline, Mickey/Ian.

3. What is your most popular fanfic?

My most popular fic on Ao3 is The Course of True Love (Arrow) and on FF Of Bloodshed, Babies, and Epic LoVe (Veronica Mars)

4. Do you write original stories as well?

Yes, I do. I’m working on a book, well, two books. But it’s going very slowly. The first is a memoir of my travels from around the world and the second is a vampire urban fantasy one. We’ll see how it goes, but I’d like to finish them by next year and see if I can get them published, but it’s hard so who knows. 

10. How do you stay motivated to finish what you’ve started?

Well, recently I’ve really been trying to finish everything I write. I have a lot of WIPs from years and years ago and even within the the last year, so this answer is pretty new. Basically, I focus on one fic at a time and write a little every day to stay motivated. Now, I try to update once a week on a certain day. I think comments/reviews and kudos and people being genuinely encouraging helps though. It’s also what’s gotten me considering finishing my older fics.

11. What’s your longest fanfic?

Of Bloodshed, Babies, and Epic Love (over 165k)

13. What is your planning process?

Now, it’s different. I have a doc of ideas and I wait to see which one I can’t seem to shake. Then I plan out each chapter with a few sentences and I have a list of things I want to focus on in the story. Usually, each story now has a kind of theme to it and a main focus. I sometimes will just want to write a certain situation/scene/focus and the story is born from there. But what really helps is writing down chapter 1, 2, etc. and having a sentence or two for what I want to happen. It doesn’t always go according to plan, but I never get writers block or forget what happened in previous chapters now.

16. Do you use sentence starters, writing prompts and/or fandom headcanons for your fanfics?

Probably a mixture of fandom (or my personal) headcanons. I don’t start with prompts unless it’s a challenge or sentence starters. Usually, I have a scene I already want to write in my head and then I sit down and write it.

17. Do you use/follow advice from writing blogs/posts?

Yes, I’ve read several books on writing. My undergrad was creative writing too, so I learned a lot there. I also follow writing instagram accounts which are helpful. I take everything I learn with a grain of salt and I see what is best for me. The best advice I heard recently was short sentences and so now I’m experimenting with that.

20. Can we get a list of all of your current available fanfics?

There’s a lot from many different fandoms. I used to be on FF.net as Psyc0gurl0 and now I’m ProstheticLoVe on a03. I like writing on ao3 better cause it’s easier and I love the tagging process. Plus the gallavich fandom on there is unreal. So to think about going back to ff.net to finish my WIPs seems like such a process now. 

Currently though, I’m writing an Ian’s POV 5 chapter fic called Chocolate. It’s not out yet, but it’ll focus on Ian from 1x06 to 1x09 or so and how his feelings for Mickey change and evolve. It’s the second part to a series called Chocolate and Cigarettes. Mickey’s POV was Cigarettes.

22. Do you listen to music during your writing process? What music do you listen to while you’re writing?

Yes, I listen while writing but I need silence while editing. I have a Love (lol) playlist. It’s basically all the love songs that remind me of couples I ship. So for example, The Acid is in there a lot because their music is great, but also Basic Instinct is so haunting. Overall, I like all music except country, so sometimes I’ll listen to my larger playlists while writing. 

23. Long chapters or short chapters?

So this has changed over the years. Initially, I wrote short chapters, then when I got back into fanfiction while writing klaroline they got a lot longer and now it’s just basically where the chapter has a natural ending. So the chapters are between 4 - 10k words depending. I try to get over 4k though. Right now, once I’m done with my current fic, I really want to write something over 100k.

24. How many WIPs (work-in-progress) do you’ve got?

A lot...none in Shameless though. Well, I guess my current one, but I haven’t posted that yet. I’d say I probs have about 10 WIPs spanning different fandoms. I know. But my goal for 2021 is to pick two and finish them. 

25. How many WIPs will you finish?

Not all of them. Some of them are from years and years ago. But I’d like to finish the ones that I still get reviews on. So there’s a SOAs fic I want to finish cause that fandom is so lovely. I also want to finish a klaroline one cause that was fun to write. And my Amy/Dan ones I’d like to finish. I would like to finish my Veronica Mars ones (I have two) but they need a lot more attention, so when people message me about them I tell them the planned ending.

28. I will name you three things (drunk Ian — shared bachelor party — Gallavich): write a paragraph or two!

“Fuck, Mickey, I probably shouldn’t have had the third Hot Toddy,” Ian grimaced as the world around him spun. 

Mickey laughed at him and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. Ian wanted to think his future husband just wanted to pull him closer, but he had a feeling it was to steady him.

“Probably should’ve cut you off earlier,” Mickey said tugging Ian closer. 

Ian wobbled and plopped down on the back steps of the porch. Mickey followed suit a moment letter and they both looked out toward the backyard where the Gallaghers, Balls, and a few of the Milkovich cousins were alternatively huddling around a fire, drinking, and dancing.

“I blame Lip for making us have this stupid shared bachelor party in the first place,” Ian grumbled.

Mickey kissed him on the forehead as Ian lay his head on his shoulder. “It’s Sandy’s fault too.”

Ian hmmed in response and Mickey knew he was going to fall asleep any moment. He ran his hand up and down Ian’s arm and watched as Debbie bounced over to them.

“Jesus, you aren’t even married yet and you two are like an old married couple. Are you going to come dance or what?” she whined.

Mickey looked down at Ian, whose eyes were already closed, and then back up to Debbie. She was watching them with knowing eyes.

“We’ll dance at the wedding. Go grab Lip, I need his help to get Sleeping Beauty upstairs.”

Debbie turned to go get her eldest brother and Mickey looked back down at Ian. In his sleep, he nuzzled Mickey’s shoulder, breathed deeply, and a gentle smile appeared there. 

3 more days and they’d officially be husbands. 

34. How did you find the magical world of fanfics?

I was about 10 and my cousin used to write a buffy the vampire slayer zine. There was a link to a site called buffyworld.com or something like that. And I found fanfic that way. There was a link on the site to ff.net and that’s how I stumbled across that. I stayed there for many many years until my second time in the veronica mars fandom around 2014 when I was lead to a03 and then I’ve been there ever since. On and off, my writing has fluctuated through the years based on my personal life.

49. Where do you draw inspiration from?

Everywhere! omg. It’s insane. Gallavich I love writing for. There’s so many different facets to them, but truly everywhere I find inspiration. I have a whole doc of gallavich ideas that have stemmed from other fanfics, headcanons from me and other people, rewatching episodes, what’s going to happen in s11, cute moments i’d like to see happen, holidays, and just general life. I saw a pic of WW2 vets who were in a long term relationship and i was like mickey and ian! another idea is born.  

[lost-tanuki]

- Life update (25/08/2020) -

Hey pumpkin! This is an unfortunate announcement plus, I guess, a fortunate summary (which I now think I could've done sooner but I'll just do it now). I'll be talking a lot and it's quite centered on personal stuff so I won't blame you if you skip past it, this is a long post. TL;DR: the unfortunate announcement is that I won't be posting as much as before, the fortunate summary is that I'm very grateful for the year (+ a few months) I've spent as a contributor.

1. Unfortunate announcement : the year which I'm about to start will not allow me to create as efficiently and profusely as I have been creating. 

Long story short, my real-life occupations take priority over my hobbies and internet life. Real life is tiring. I'm going to have to throw myself into work and I'll be too busy/spent to be able to give GM,L the time I used to. The same goes for anything I hoped to update regularly. I probably won't stop writing but I will likely drop the weekly/bi-weekly update schedule unless I’m very motivated all of a sudden. What does this mean I will post? - Original work : snippets, occasional chapters, whump prompt fills - DBH fics : GM,L Vol.1  updates monthly (edit: this objective has been accomplished as of end 2020, and Vol. 2 will have to wait), Lucky Dog/Pigments and Solvents updates probably, maybe oneshots or short fics if I get a burst of inspiration and have the time - End Roll fic, Gintama fic : maybeee? 

I won't be participating in fandom events, obviously, since I won't know how much time I'll be able to devote to those. Answering comments will not be easy but please continue leaving them, I always read them all and it really boosts my mood/creativity :D (Expect me to answer in waves of replies- you might have to wait a year but you'll get one eventually)

I wanted to let you all know about what to expect this year. Hopefully I'll be back on my usual bullshit in about a year, though I'm not sure what I'm supposed to expect of my future exactly. I'm still around so please don't hesitate to interact with me as you have been doing! I'll answer asks and DMs, see mentions and comments, link fanarts to the corresponding chapters (make sure to @ me) and give feedback on them as always!

2. Fortunate summary : the amazing year (+ a few months) I've spent as a contributor

Since I've started posting online a few years ago, I've met people who share my centers of interest and enjoyed talking about writing and drawing and creating. It's not easy finding people like this in real life and it's even harder to dare talk about my own things, and I'm glad that being TNKT allowed me to do this. I feel more confident now. I even feel like I have an actual, tangible talent, and that's very reassuring.

I've written a lot the past year in particular. Really, it's more than I ever have before! I was able to write almost daily and I was constantly inspired, and I've managed to keep a mostly consistent weekly update schedule for the better part of a year with huge-ass chapters (the mean word count per chapter for Good morning, Lieutenant is 7k- and that's not taking into account how the first chapters were about 5k while the later ones tend to be around 10k). That is CRAZY. It's a productivity that I never thought I could achieve, before.

Because I finally decided to join and produce for a big fandom instead of simply enjoying other fans' products, I got to know what it felt like to write (and very very occasionally) draw and be seen by a LOT of people. It hadn't happened to me before for one of my works to get so insanely popular, for readers to actually spread the word and mention my stories, to theorize on them and make fanart. Just thinking about this makes me emotional. Thank you so much for the support you've shown me, I'm grateful for how creative you all are and I'm overjoyed that I could inspire anyone at all in any way. The comments on my works have been so motivating and heart-warming, they made me feel like what I did mattered to many many people and I'm grateful for those who took the time to show me their appreciation. It also makes me emotional to think of the readers who've commented that they felt a sense of kinship with some of my depictions of characters and that it helped them figure themselves out somehow. I'm glad I could help. I had so much fun learning about events like Big Bangs and Gift Exchanges and Zines and participating in them. 

I still am astonished that people see my name and think: "I like what they do, I want to read more of their work, I relate to their writing". Thank you for telling me how you feel about me and the creations I put out in the world. It has been a very incredible year and I hope to spend more of those with you in the future once I'll have accomplished 2020-2021!

If you've made it this far, thank you very much for reading. If you have any questions about anything at all, my ask box is always open! This tanuki wishes you courage and luck for your own year ♥️

[violetsystems]

personal

I’ve been able to sleep until six the last few days.  I’ve been on this miserable eight to four sleep schedule.  I ordered a silent vortex coffee grinder specifically to be less annoying in this regard.   Even if I could literally just grind the coffee the night before.  I also bought a rug cleaner for the first time in my life.  It’s amazing the things you don’t realize you need for a home let alone an office.  Last night I received an email from LinkedIn asking me to weigh in on a conversation about higher education.  The only public facing social networking site I really use actively I pay for.  They bought a service called Linda.com years ago.  It was probably the most important site to me for instructional videos.  These days it is included on the platform so I spend a fair amount of time keeping my job skills plausible.  I learned pretty hard the last six months that my professional network had all but evaporated.  A hard thing to face when you worked with your friends for over twenty years.  But people have to move on.  I sometimes make decisions that seem smarter in retrospect.  You could even mistake it for premonition but I just call it good judgement.  I made the decision to start the process of becoming a LLC.  It was pretty easy to do once you paid the four hundred dollars.  There’s services out there online that will do the legal part for you.  I chose VS consulting as the name which becomes real around mid December if the Secretary of State accepts it.  They asked me to cut the ribbon virtually.  I congratulated myself in silence but this is pretty much the first place I’ve shared the news with.  My mom didn’t quite understand what I had done and my dad is an accountant.  I haven’t told him yet either.  I got the idea seeing some of the people who still work at my old job starting their own side businesses.  Crazy to see people still employed having extra jobs in this economy.  But for the most part I don’t really compare my experience to anyone’s anymore.  So I just look forward.  There are a lot of ways I generate income.  Some of them aren’t very lucrative.  I released another ep Monday.  Three of my friends from across the world I never really talk to bought it immediately.  It makes sense because my music is how they know me.  So that’s how they keep up with me.  From there, Bandcamp revenue share Friday passed with little or no fanfare.  It still doesn’t change the fact I owe taxes on the income above a certain amount if I report it.  We all know how the rich hate paying those taxes.  And the whole world now knows that I work for a LLC on the premier professional social networking site.  It’s a win win for me because I can still look for a job but I appear employed.  It’s also a nice buffer in these times for your resume.  In retrospect, every article I read says the end of December is a perfect time to start your own business.  Mostly because January 1st allows you to start with a fresh balance sheet and good accounting.  So if anything my New Year’s resolution is to be cleaner and more concise about everything.  Even if the rest of society’s ethics and accountability gets muddier as COVID-19 and the election process drags on.  The only things I really have to worry about this next year are documenting my spending, opening up a business checking account, and deducting business expenses.  Sounds like a job to me.

There are tools you need for a job.  I bought a year long subscription to Creative Cloud.  I had it for free for years.  I worked in a visual communications department for ten years.  I saw the most amazing work every morning hung up outside my office.  It inspired me to learn about print making and screen printing.  I even owned Adobe stock at one point because I realized Microsoft Office wasn’t doing my resume much justice.  I shudder to think how many jokes were cracked by the Workday staff over my Chanel submission.  Truth is nobody called back for interviews at any of the places I applied.  And this doesn’t really stop me from keeping my eyes out for a position anywhere.  But if we are talking about generating income, I can do that all by myself.  I can also hire people and deduct more business expenses if I felt that was an option.  Which starts to get into the meat of why the job market and economy is so fucked up in America.  A lot of people didn’t fall in line on a balance sheet when COVID-19 came crashing down last February.  And when the fiscal year came time to start fresh, they thinned their liabilities.  Companies are now thinking in quarters rather than years at this point.  And small businesses like myself also have to think the same because I now owe the IRS money every three months.  The accounting side of it doesn’t really bore me.  I’ve done every IT role in the business pretty much over twenty years.  I guess that’s why LinkedIn calls on me to offer an opinion.  I’ve never had to be this hardcore about the finances.  Another great reason why I spend so much time in spreadsheets aside from writing on the internet.  It’s much easier to approach a professional consultant with twenty years of experience with an invoice than it is to tether them to your payroll with benefits.  I’m always having to think six months ahead myself.  This has an advantage to it insofar that I don’t often look back.  You pay your taxes and you move on.  There are many things I could do to generate income.  I could make a zine and sell it quarterly on bandcamp along with shirts.  I could post flyers around the neighborhood offering after christmas tech support.  I could scour the net for opportunities to audit galvanized IT departments.  I could do all this with more confidence if I could say I am employed.  I could also hire someone to help me.  But I could do none of this and deduct expenses without applying for a sole proprietorship.  And truth be told I already have to claim this for the New York Stock Exchange.  So if you had to put a label on what I do now it isn’t really that much different from any other business.  The state’s richest men started as LLCs.  They’re also the biggest pricks who pay the least taxes.  Trickle down economics is a funny concept.  Businesses offer jobs they deduct from their income therefore paying less to the pool.  This would be fine for small income generating businesses.  But Ken Griffin would say otherwise as he and other rich people benefit from this structure.  They say the American Dream is owning your own business.  So welcome to my personal nightmare.  I hope you don’t mind me taking the itemized deductions after how I’ve been treated.

I don’t actually know how it’s going to work out.  I just know I don’t want to appear unemployed while corporate America expects me to wink and make them more money.  There are investments that have worked out for me as volatile as they might be.  One Chinese company I invested in has made the CEO twelve times richer.  I own four hundred and twenty shares of that company in a brokerage.  My intent is to hold on to them for the long term possibly making someone richer at my own risk.  I could short the entire next year to my heart’s content.  My credit scores have gone through the roof.  Nobody has had any answers for me on what to do.  Nobody has coached me.  I read.  I think.  I come up with solutions to my problems.  And I put money in the right places.  That doesn’t mean anything is a sure thing.  Especially when my government finds it more advantageous to punish other countries while forgetting about it’s own people.  I am absolutely in the dark about everything.  Everything except running my own business in America.  I already have income I have to report over the next three years due the CARES act.  So that is income I will deduct.  This is how it works here in America.  You seize the means of production and you go to work.  If it seems backward for me, you wouldn’t know the half.  My life is so fucked up in terms of how hazy and confusing other people have made it.  People invaded my life on pretenses that I can’t even begin to explain.  And part of being a strong, responsible adult is engineering your way out of these problems.  And for the most part, I’ve engineered myself into a fort that overlooks the CTA train.  And a small portion of that fort can be written off as an office.  Which in some ways if you do the math makes rent and utilities cheaper in the long run.  I don’t make the rules.  This is how America works.  A LLC gets a tax id number.  It allows you better options for retirement savings with a SEP IRA.  You can apply for business accounts and waive taxes on business purchases.  Even the family dollar around the corner has a sign in the window reminding me I can apply for tax free status.  Maybe they’re mostly to blame for planting the idea in my head.  I’m the one who made the call to apply.  Nobody held my hand.  You could also get audited by the IRS.  And I’m sure the IRS would have to figure out how I got into this situation in the first place.  Maybe they’d offer me a job. There’s other fantasies in my life I could imagine happening more than that waking nightmare.  Like actually having money to retire.  I could be travelling around the world cleaning up the mess mark to market accounting has left on big business.  The scars on economies the rich have pock marked on the middle class.  Or I could just keep generating income and be my own boss here in my kitchen.  The one thing I do know is that is sexier to be confident enough to move ahead with your own plan slowly than to short a bunch of stocks disruptively and brag about it on the internet.  You could call it my three year plan.  Don’t ask me how bonds factor in that equation.  I’m not a spy.  What I am is a guy that is trying to be the solution and not the victim.  And that guy doesn’t ever want to be a burden on the people I love.  So that guy is going to keep doing what he does.  And I’m not going to lie that you inspire me to do so.  As sexy and confident as I’m born to be.  <3 Tim

[guiltyhearts]

Snow-Capped Cocoa

Now that the @twosidesfanzine zines have been shipped out, and we’ve been given the green light to share our completed pieces online, here is mine! It was so much fun to write this, and I am beyond excited and happy to be part of a project with all these talented creators. 

Summary: At a ski lodge two boys will meet two girls, and it’s the start of something new.

Pairings: SoKai, RokuNami

It was suffocating in the lodge. Were it not for this insufferable cold he had so clearly recovered from, Roxas would have joined his friends out at the slopes. By all accounts, he was much better than he was a week ago, when his cold immobilized him and left him bedridden. Axel, of all people, ganged up on him with his brother Sora, and forced Roxas to stay in, lest it “aggravate the bacteria any further”, according to him. But he would stand for being the only person in their group of friends who would be alone and bored at the lodge resort. Fortunately for him, he brought his camera. He would indulge in this hobby if nothing else. And so, appropriately bundled up with the camera around his neck, Roxas stepped out of the main resort and welcomed the crisp, cool air.

 He set about trudging through the snow and taking pictures of whatever caught his eye. The snow-capped trees and slopes in the distance, the winter sun cast over the lodge and mountains, kids having a snowball fight, a young woman drawing in a sketchbook. From his vantage point some meters away from the resort, her focus didn’t seem to stray from the book on her lap.

A hundred pictures later, Roxas made his way to the benches just outside the lodge to take a break and review the pictures taken so far. All the benches were occupied, including the artist from before. The space next to her was occupied by a Styrofoam cup that was topped with an excessive amount of whipped cream and silver sprinkles decorated together like H2O molecules.

“Is it okay if I sit here?” He asked the girl, who looked up at last. The lower half of her face was covered by an oversized scarf, so only her blue eyes were visible. The girl nodded, removing the cup to make room. He thanked her and settled comfortably. He set his camera to review the pictures taken so far, and deleting the less-than-perfect ones.

“That’s pretty.”

Roxas looked up at the sudden voice and its source. The girl next to him had taken her scarf down. 

Yeah, that is pretty, he thought, taking in the full face of the girl and her gentle smile. 

When he didn’t answer right away, the girl continued. “The picture. It’s good.”

Roxas snapped back to attention and looked down at the picture on display. It was of the mountains over them; he timed the shot so that it created the illusion of the sunlight spilling through the gaps to illuminate the snow.

“Thank you. I like it too. I’m Roxas, by the way.” 

“My name is Naminé.”  

“It’s nice to meet a new fan.” Roxas joked, which elicited a light giggle from her.

“Can I be honest and say, you sound… off. Are you recovering from a cold?” Naminé asked with a look of mild concern.

“Actually, yeah,” Roxas admitted abashedly. “But I’m much better. I actually wanted to go snowboarding with my friends, but they kinda forced me to stay back until I was fully recovered, by their standards.”

“So it’s safe for you to be out here.” Naminé pointed out warily.

“Well…” Roxas’s eyes darted to the sides, before leaning forward and whispering like a conspirator, “they said nothing about me going outside. All they said was I wasn’t well enough to go snowboarding.”

Naminé let out another giggle. “You sure showed them, then.” She said, rolling her eyes.

“Hey, I’ll have you know this is a bonafide act of rebellion.” Roxas shot back with a playful grin. Naminé laughed harder, covering her mouth with her hand. His chest swelled delightedly at the sound. It seemed like he took her by surprise, but not in an unpleasant or unwelcome way. 

“What about you? What brings you here?” Roxas asked in turn.

“I suppose it’s the same as you. I’m here with my friends. They wanted to go skiing and snowboarding, I didn’t, so here I am.”

“Here you are.” Roxas grinned. Was he glad at this turn of events.

 Naminé toyed with a lock of blonde hair behind her ear. “You know, a little part of me wished I did join them. But…”

“...but?”

“...but now, given the present company, I don’t mind as much anymore.” She bravely held his gaze for a moment before she looked down at her lap. She missed his bright, hopeful smile.

“I couldn’t agree more.”  

This time, Naminé didn’t miss Roxas’s smile, and gave back one just as bright.

“Can I see what you were drawing?” Roxas nodded down at the sketchbook on her lap.

“Of course!” Naminé scooched closer to show off her latest sketch of tiny figures descending a white slope.

----

Just as Sora made his way down the slopes on his third trip, another snowboarder cut through his path at lightning speed. He didn’t recognize the rider from their group of friends, and soon it became an unspoken challenge to race to the finish line.

The rush of wind against his ears. The icy wind against his form as he slid down the clear slopes. The adrenaline did not diminish at any point, as if strengthening him every second he slid further down, down down. The sensations felt as he rode down the slopes were unparalleled. Even as the other snowboarder barely beat him to the bottom of the slope, the adrenaline could only diminish lightly, but not entirely. Nothing could compare or come close to the thrill of the ride.

That was what Sora thought. Then the snowboarder took off their goggles and he got a proper look at her face for the first time. In hindsight, he couldn’t be sure what made him more winded.

“You’re amazing!” Sora breathed out.

“Sorry?” The girl frowned, her eyes creasing.

“I-I mean!” He stuttered, suddenly aware of himself. “You-you are amazing! At the slopes. At snowboarding.” Smooth as the slopes he was.

The girl grinned, propping her hands on her hips. “Not bad for a rookie, huh?”

“You’re a rookie? I couldn’t tell.” Sora said as he took off his beanie and his wild hair was freed. Had he been looking closer, he might have noticed how the girl stared at him, her fingers twitching as she wondered what his hair felt like.

“Thank you.” She stammered with a flush in her cheeks.

“I’m Sora. It’s nice to meet you.” He offered his hand to the snowboarder with a jovial smile.

“I’m Kairi.” She shook his hand in response.

They held the other’s hand perhaps just a little longer than was normal. And they could never say for sure.

“Kairi.” She immediately liked how her name sounded coming from him. “How’s about another race, Kairi?”

“You must really like losing then.” She grinned at the challenge.

“Oh-hoh, we’ll see about that. Best two out of three!”

“You’re on!”

And it became a race back to the ski lifts, even as they eventually realized that running would only tire them out more, not to mention nearly impossible to do in heavy snow gear. That didn’t stop them from goading each other along the way. They reached the top and before they knew it, they were racing down the slopes again. This time, they were fueled with competitive spirit, and (though they wouldn’t admit it yet), the desire to impress the other. Even if Sora wanted to win so badly, his wounded pride was a non-issue as he heard Kairi whoop triumphantly.  

They made their way back to the ski lift at a much slower pace as the fatigue started to settle in.

“I don’t know about you, but I could really go for some hot cocoa when we go back.” Sora was wistful at the thought. 

“I second that. You know, the restaurant sells this cocoa where they top up the whipped cream like one of the mountains.” Kairi added.

“I wanna see that!” Sora practically hopped at the thought.

“Yeah! We can get some together later… maybe?” Kairi asked nervously.

Sora beamed. “Definitely!”

 --- 

When the group of boys came back to a Roxas who was less grumpy than he was earlier that morning, they didn’t stop to ask how or why. They were still preoccupied with teasing Sora, not that he or Roxas paid much attention to them. It didn’t take long before their friends noticed that both boys shared similarly smitten looks. Not that the brothers knew, nor were they ready to share just yet. Both were taken with the promise of warm, sweet cocoa, and even sweeter company.

~Fin~

[ray-the-fanatic]

Personal posting tw//blocking

I had made a choice to cut out a very toxic person from my past. Said person was harrassing me over it since I had done so. At first i just made the simple choice of unfollowing them and not talking i figured that all thats all I would need todo.

Said person was an ex of mine and the realtionship was highly abusive. To a point they had me isolating myself from friends and even family. Eventually I ended it. I kept our "friendship" out of fear because they had me believing so much that they were the only person who cared about me. I lost my love for doing the things I loved because of them, it's why I took so much pride is graduating from Rocky Mountain college of art + design. Because despite my loss in passion I manage to do it.

After sometime, after the break up, thier behavior was the same. But they were the only friend I felt I had because of how closed off I became. They just dragged me down more and more even when not in a realtionship. I stopped interacting on social media and just kept to myself. After some time they started to stop talking to me as well. I had a major break down one day with my mother and just like a child cried my heart out over everything. Eveutally thanks to her I got help i needed and I repaired my broken realtionships with family and friends I became distance towards. But social media i stayed away from for about 3 years.

Last year around the holiday season i was catching up on ducktales 17. I had fell behind around the DWD epsiode. And just loved seeing a charater that was such a comfort to to me come back.. ended up reading drakepad fanfiction between work breaks and started to follow others who made content or just reblogged stuff cause Disney ducks was something I always liked. I was inspired by some of these people and decided to draw some fanart, got interested in the ships, worte my first fanfic in years. Started to interact with others even revived two old ocs of mine.

My art was just some basic stuff but someone started to reblog it, gave me a heart attack each time xD. Then I made a post asking to borrow someone's oc for a drawing promt. I never expected a friendship to come out of that. Which lead me to talking and interacting with another mostly for ask memes on here but everytime I saw these two usernames it made me smile. Since we just tended to reblog stuff between the three of us often. Eventually I started to use Twitter again too where I saw some fanart for a au I thought was a cute idea and got invited into a discord from the artis of that. Where some of the first people I followed were in and gave me a chance to get to know them more. Thanks to a epsiode bringing back a charater from the show I got to talk more to that second person mentioned before that I was just following/admiring and now we're in a discord with the person who took me up on the oc thingy.

I was stand of ish and scared outta of my mind but these people were just so nice to me? And it helped me see all the things this toxic person put on my head was maybe wrong? So I decided to cut them out. As stated before at first it was mild but I slowly had to take bigger steps in the process blocking them and such which is whu im glad social media makes it so other's don't know. I blocked them on anything they personally interacted with me on, but they kept harrasing me beyond that. Screen shotting posts I was making claming they were about them finding accounts of mine they shouldn't be able to (big reason my nsfw Twitter is locked and why I dont give to much attetion to none of my tumblerblogs outside my art one) I've had to take futher action because of them.

Its been well alot but these friends I have made especially two who have become very dear to me dorky and kezzie, had really helped me through all this. I unfortunately am a very private person, and keep things to myself. Not out of any reason. so I haven't talked about this alot and I'm getting better about that. But these friendships I made I really appreciate no matter how small our interactions may be to just Twitter interactions or sharing art or yelling in discord haha. It's been a major blessing to me. I love doing art again, I love writing fanfiction and I even went and tried to get into a zine (which I did!) And its thanks to the support I've been receiving that im where I am now. All because I wanted to read drakepad fanfiction haha.

[aconim]

Many thanks to @flintandfuss for tagging me! I don’t write much, so I don’t know how accurate this will be, but I will try!

1) What’s your favorite genre to write?

Fluff, usually. Slice of life type stuff is my specialty, mostly because I don’t have the concentration to write longer fics. I like hurt/comfort too, and a lot of AU’s are super fun, but it depends on the fandom itself. (I say, acting like I know what I’m talking about when I’ve wrote 5 posted fics total, and all are fluff)

 2) Do you pull inspiration from real-life, or do you pull things from other books/ fanfiction you’ve read?

I pull inspiration from anywhere! Books, fics, real life interactions, anything. 

3) Do you tend to write one-shots, short stories, or longer things?

One-shots and short stories, usually. The longest I have currently is an original short story I’m about half done with.

4) Do you prefer to write description or dialogue?

Description! Most of what I write is prose and long descriptions, and writing dialogue fells awkward and clunky.

5) Favorite fic/book of all time?

This is a really tough question to answer! I have so many...

6) Favorite trope?

Is ‘all of them’ an acceptable? I love magic aus, secret friend aus, and pining. Actually, I think Pining and Oblivious is my favorite trope. (probably why I like Snowbaz so much)

7) Are you the kind of person to work on more than one wip?

Yes. Absolutly. I have more than I can count right now, including-

-a nightmare hurt/comfort AFTG one on ao3

-my AFTG Found Family Zine project (coming out soon!)

-AFTG Big Bang

-COBB Big Bang

-AFTG Spring Exchange

And sooo many original things. 

8) How long have you been writing for?

I think the first fic I ever wrote was a drarry one when I was about 10. It was understandably cringey. (I got into fandom when I was 9, so.) I wrote a couple PJO ones a couple years later, on an account that is now orphaned. On general writing, I’m the second oldest of my cousins and the default babysitter, so I started making up stories to entertain them when we were younger. I don’t remember most of them, but I remember that they were little tales to explain how things worked-like how leaves turned colors, how water fell from the sky, why the sun was there, etc.- they were not very scientific, to say the least.

9) Do you tend to write more during the morning, afternoon, or evening?

Whenever I have time! I’m generally busy, but with this quarantine, I’ve been having more time than usual! 

10) Do you prefer to post and update your wip chapter by chapter, or do you prefer to wait until your wip is 100% finished before sharing it.

Chapter by chapter. I do not have enough patience to wait long enough to complete it beforehand.

That’s enough of my rambaling! I shall tag my only mutuals, despite the fact we have never exchanged a word, @akazani09, @annabellelux, and anyone else who wants to do it!

[abkdkzine]

Important Message About Recent Concerns

Hey there! Thank you so much for tuning in. This is Mod Ari. I want to apologise in advance because I wrote most of this around 3 AM and didn’t finish most of it until around 9 AM on Wednesday, so I’m afraid I may not be as articulate as I probably would have been hours beforehand. Since then, I’ve been trying to sort out all of the information I’ve gathered from people as well discuss everything with my mod team. I also apologise because this message is going to be very long. But, I come to everyone to address a concern that has been present since the very beginning of this project, and that is the presence of our finance mod Fiama/Fif.

Now, before I delve deeper into this topic, I want everyone to know that the issue I spoke of in a Twitter post I made a while ago isn’t exactly a true issue because it is more of a heavy concern found among a few people. I hope to defuse that by the end of this long message. The real issue is that I have failed to communicate to everyone about my decision to let her stay and that I have let these concerns grow until people have become uneasy with our zine’s management. In this message, I will discuss about the steps my team and I has taken in order to (hopefully) clear everyone’s doubts. Please bear with me and know that I speak with certainty, utmost honesty, and with respect to many people’s feelings about the matter.

First of all, I want everyone to know that this zine is the first one I have ever started on my own. I dove into this project while only being in the BNHA fandom for around 7 or so months, absolutely enamoured with the KatsuDeku relationship, and with no online zine modding experience other than being an artist in a few. The only experience I have comes from real life volunteer work as well as from my part-time job, so I opened moderator applications in hopes of getting some help and advice while being open to letting a few newcomers learn with me. But please do not think I was not capable of organising small projects and reviewing finances before this project because I was and I am. I learnt a little bit of financing from my own mother who is excellent at budgeting (as she has been through many hardships as a result of living in poverty), from my schools and classes throughout high school and current college career, and retail job (which is also where I learnt how to ship lots of packages and keep up with orders). It just never hurt to have another person, or a few others, who have previous experience help me along the way because zines are run very differently and I didn’t know how financing in zines usually worked. So, I joined other projects as moderators to see if theirs were done similarly and I wasn’t disappointed.

If I recall correctly among all of the mod applications, only two people had experience with handling finances, so I chose the one whom I thought was the better choice, which was Fif. Now, please remember that I was very new to the fandom especially in this ship (wherein back then, I only knew a group of people who I was comfortable talking to, and now I know whole communities!); and so at the time, I had no idea about who Fif is and the history she has with the zines listed in her application. This is relevant because when I revealed that she was a part of our team, two people immediately came to me and warned me about the zines she used to be a part of, what her behaviour is said to be like, and what is said she has been known to do.

I humbly ask everyone to understand that I was blissfully ignorant to the happenings within the zine scene because I was brand new to it all, but please know that I still heeded their warnings with high regards and proceeded to tell my editor/beta mod, Maj, about it (who was the first person I appointed as a co-mod and is a dear friend whom I know I can trust with everything). Both of us became cautious, but because I wasn’t sure what to believe (and I partly wanted to see for myself if the behaviour they warned me about is true), I allowed Fif to continue being in my team—but not without strongly reaffirming my position as the head of this zine. I asked for everyone’s cooperation with as much honesty as they can give me, and I told them they will receive everything I have to offer and more in return.

I believe it was at that point that everyone developed a sense of respect for one another because while we work in different areas, we all have the ability to interfere with each other’s works without needing immediate help from other people. We all had initiative and enough individual skill to make up for someone else’s errors. From then on, we communicated very often, and everyone follows the tasks I give them. We’re an efficient team with good communication, but the only unfortunate situation that had us scrambling about is that our schedules started to get out of sync due to us all being college students, which has caused us to delay completing the feedback emails (of which I personally apologise for because I am in charge of writing them).

The reason why I let Fif stay is because she has done nothing suspicious or has said (or done) anything to affect this fanzine in any way to make me believe that she is everything that people have been warning me about. I say this with complete honesty: I have seen nothing but genuine intentions on her part, and while I find it true that she is sometimes inactive, I never expected her to do any of the work I had already assigned to the rest of my team and she has always communicated to us all about the reasons why she has to be away for certain periods of time. She’s done as I have told her, answered anything I asked of her, gave her opinion when I needed it, completed the financial sheet decently, has explained to me her thought processes, let me review and check the numbers on my own, and that is all I needed from her. The rest is under my and the other mods’ control. Madin, Maj, and Grim can all attest to this, and if need be, we will provide evidence to anyone who does not believe it to be true. But after a long discussion with all three of them, we have come to a conclusion with an extremely difficult decision.

Fiama will no longer be a part of our moderator team. We have asked her to leave our project, not without remorse, and she has been removed from the server and all of our accounts.

I’ve thought about the necessary precautions in case we decided to keep her, with all the initial warnings in mind, but recently an acquaintance of mine who I also co-mod with in another zine has come to me about his experiences and is extremely worried that this zine will also be affected by so many possibilities. He has given me enough information about the zines Fif used to be a part of and how they were all handled, so I respect his opinion very highly because he was in the direct line of fire when Hallowzine happened. 

A few of our contributors has also expressed their worries to me, and now that a potential customer has also done the same, I wanted to assure everyone that we have already discussed our decision with Fif herself. The information I gathered from my own research and from talking to a few sources held enough weight for all of us to become reasonably wary. So, I have communicated my own suspicions to Fif herself, and she undoubtedly understands, and I hope that everyone currently reading this message does as well, that I do not tolerate malicious intentions of any kind and that I am a woman of my words—that while I may be an amicable person, I am not weak and I will always persist in my decisions.

That being said, I want to give everyone some insights, and although small as it is, I hope it brings anyone who reads this message a sense of comfort that we are running our zine as smoothly it can.

For starters, I had established in the beginning that I will be the one handling money in this project. The payment systems I have created are both connected to my personal bank accounts, but I am allowing my entire team access to it so that they, as well as everyone else involved in the zine, can have the reassurance that I do not hold any malicious intent with the money sent to those accounts. However, if anything suspicious happens to the money at anytime during the pre-orders period, rest assured that anyone in the team or I will be closing the accounts immediately and freeze this project momentarily until we find a solution to whatever issue that may arise. I highly doubt that any of my moderators have the desire to steal money for personal and evil purposes, but I want everyone to know that I can be trusted too.

Secondly, I have contacted an acquaintance and a colleague from my part-time job, both of whom are accounting majors, to help me look over the financial sheet. My acquaintance and I have reviewed it together a few days ago, and we did not find anything suspicious or wrong with it; and before that, I had reviewed it several times myself to see the progress made on the sheet. My friend has done so as well yesterday and shares the same thoughts. So, I believe it is safe to say that the budgeting is done correctly, but because we have officially removed Fif from the project, we will have to make slight adjustments to the sheet. It is still under discussion, but one of the options I presented to my mods is that we can invite my acquaintance and help us out for a bit, at least to re-organise the sheet. It’s only an option however because we have yet to see if she’s needed or not. As previously mentioned, the team and I are all capable of handling the job ourselves, but we’ll definitely give out more information about what we’ll decide on doing.

Lastly, in an ask I had answered previously, an anon wanted to know if there were any funds saved for emergencies or for the contributors, and I want to relay what I said in here too: I have $800 saved up for this project, or more specifically for the contributors, but I can and will use it to cover anything lost should there be any unfortunate events in the future. This $800 is my investment and testament as to how seriously I treat this project, and I know that the rest of my mods (as well as close friends) will do their best to pitch in with anything they can offer.

In the end, we have done all we could to ensure the safety of this project, our contributors, and our potential customers. I support the absolute validity of all their concerns just as I fully respect everyone’s opinions. The rest of the team has their own reservations about Fif’s zine history, but we were absolutely prepared and had precautions set just in case we decided to let her stay. Either way, even without her aid, Wanderlust will continue to run strong because I believe that the team I chose is capable on their own feet and are versatile enough that I believe they can handle everything even without my presence in this project. 

It shakes my morality to the core knowing that Fif did not do anything wrong during the course of this project, that it is not entirely fair of me or the rest of the mods to do so; but we will always hold the safety of our contributors and future customers with the highest priority.

To end this long and arduous note, I can only humbly ask everyone to place their trust in us—in Madin, in Maj, in Grim, in ME. Because while I know we have our own faults to improve on, being in this team has already helped teach us things we need to know in any future projects. We will continue to be as transparent and honest as we have been since the very beginning. We’re just so, so sorry that this has and is causing so many people to doubt us, but I cannot blame anyone for it. I can only place that blame onto myself for not knowing her background when I should have been more responsible and researched it. For that, I want to apologise for ever causing such a feeling to surface. To the people who has seen and felt the consequences of the fallout regarding Hallowzine or any other zines that ended in a similar light, I want to apologise as well because I’m sure that those situations must have been incredibly difficult to deal with, and it must have been uncomfortable knowing that the possibility of history repeating itself again was plausible.

I hope that you all may have the heart to forgive my oversights and that you do not place any blame onto my team. Know that I will take full responsibility and accountability in the event that our project fails for any reason—however, I am absolutely certain that it will never happen because I trust my three co-mods with all my heart. It’s only up to you now to decide whether we are still worthy of your trust, and whether I am worthy of that trust. 

I’ll end my statement with this: Wanderlust will remain strong so as long as I or the rest of my team are here to run it. 

If there is anything else we can do to reassure you, please let us know and we’ll try our best to address this.

In behalf of my moderator team and with great sincerity,

Mod Ari

[snakeslide]

A “quick” & “simple” guide to finding old fic off of AO3

I wrote this in a fit of hyperfocus while looking for old LOTR fic for a friend, and figured I’d share it, for fandom posterity if nothing else. So much has changed just in the years I’ve been in fandom! This is how I started reading fic... though I had way fewer broken links to deal with back then.

Quick guide: If you are looking for unread/old fic from an older fandom, go to Part 1. If you know some vague info about a fic you once read but don’t remember the name/author, go to Part 2. If you have a broken link, go to Part 3.

Part 1: New Old Fandoms

1. Just got into an old fandom? Congratulations. Looking for fic for it? ….good luck. But I’m an old hand at this, and I’m pretty good at it. Step one: lower your expectations, and be prepared for disappointment. Lots of fics have been lost from zines, listservs, down archives, the loss of Geocities, deleted LJ’s and dead personal fansites. More than that, you can’t be picky: sometimes only the shit survives. Also, I’ve found that the quality of fic writing has gone up over the years. Stuff that people viewed as masterpieces years ago might look to be cliche or mediocre now. But it’s like Star Trek: they’re full of cliche tropes because they invented the tropes.

2. You’ve probably already looked at AO3, but take a closer look. For old fanworks that have moved onto AO3, sorting by kudos/bookmarks/hits doesn’t work. A work could be remembered as a masterpiece and only have 2 bookmarks on AO3 simply because no one’s thought to look for it there. Check by date: backdated works show when it was originally published. Summaries used to be shorter and vaguer, and most people don’t bother updating them or using descriptive tags other than the pairing when they post them, so sometimes the only way to tell what a fic is about is by opening them all and reading them. You’ll find plenty of shit, but sometimes you’ll strike gold. Now that AO3 lets you exclude by dates, this is even easier. Pick a range of time, perhaps the height of the fandom, and THEN sort by kudos/bookmarks. It’s not bulletproof, but it’s better.

3. For stuff that hasn’t been moved onto AO3 at all, my first step is always checking two places: the Fanlore page for the fandom + pairing(s), and the TV Tropes fanfic rec page. Fanlore often lists popular authors, archives, and even links famous fics. The TV Tropes recpage is just a handy place to start: always organized the same, sometimes amusing, and still updated. (Don’t be afraid to go to fanfiction.net if you get linked there. There are gems there, no matter what anyone says.) If you find a fic or archive you want to read but the link is broken, go to Part 3.

4. Now, my fave: reclists. Personal reclists are easy enough to find: just google “(fandom) + fic + recs” and a bunch will pop up, on LJ, DW, and tumblr. There are rec communities out there too, posting old fics, or just with extensive archives that you can troll through at your leisure. If you find a fic you want to read but the link is broken, go to Part 3.

5. Depending on the fandom, any fic archives might be down or not. A simple “(fandom) + archive” google works, and you can add more specifics, such as “slash” or a specific ship. Some archives don’t allow anything above PG13, some don’t allow anything queer. Most don’t have any form of sorting other than by pairing, either. There’s a commonly-used website form that creates “Top Tens” reviewed, favorited, etc., that may or not exist on the archive, depending on its age.

6. If you’re more about talking to people than lonely googling, you should ask people in the fandom (if you can find them) what their favorite fics are and where you can get them. Sometimes older fans will have them stored in a harddrive and will give them to anyone who asks: but you have to ask.

7. That’s about it. It’s a lot of effort, but it can be worth it if you find what you’re looking for. And sometimes you make new friends along the way.

Part 2: Lost Fics

1. Knowing some vague info without any easily findable keywords is one of the hardest spots to be in. This is the time-sink: google the shit out of it. Any vague term you can think of, any random phrase you remember. Use search operators and quotes. Look through reclists to see if anything looks familiar.

2. Skim fics to see if the writing is similar - or identical. Sometimes what you remember is just a single paragraph in a 7 chapter fic, and if you’re not careful you could skip it entirely. If you still can’t find it, it’s time to get active: it’s time to ask other people.

3. Some fandom history: before archive search functions and AO3 bookmarks, if you lost track of a fic, you could go to a “fic finder” forum or community and make a post describing the fic you were thinking of, and people would comment with a link if they knew what it was. Some of these still exist, but they’re much less trafficked these days (especially since comments on tumblr are such a mess). If you can find a ficfinder LJ/DW community: Make an account, and post a description of everything you remember from the fic. If it’s on tumblr, send an ask/submission. 

4. On tumblr, a post in the general fandom tag might also work, though I’ve never tried it myself.

5. If you’re lucky, someone will know the fic you’re thinking of, and you’ll get the name/author, if not a link. If the link is broken, go to Part 3.

Part 3: Broken Links

1. If the website/link is broken, try googling the author’s name and/or the fic name to see if they uploaded it anywhere else. Try googling the username and fic name together and apart, plus and minus the fandom name - authors change usernames but fic names almost always stay.

2. Then try using the wayback machine (an internet archive that screenshots and saves old websites, if you haven’t heard of it. Very handy!) to see if there are any screenshots - sometimes there are saves of some chapters and not others, which is the absolute worst. Always check all the saved dates!

3. Go back to googling. It’s possible someone else has asked for a downloaded copy on some ficfinder forum, tumblr, or livejournal post somewhere. If they did, you can try commenting on the same post or DMing the person to see if they found it/still have it.

4. Wait and see if you get lucky.

Finally,

If you still can’t find what you’re looking for, wait. Ask around. Sometimes archives come back up; sometimes you run into the right person in the comments or at a con who has it downloaded as a txt file or has a printed copy. And if you do find it, finally, and manage to get in contact with the author: ask the person to upload it and backdate it on AO3. AO3 even lets them orphan it if they don’t want their name attached to it. But if they say no, RESPECT IT. People don’t want their stuff online for many different reasons, and that’s fine. Ignoring someone’s wishes for your own personal gain is NOT.

Good luck, and happy hunting!

[lionpridezines]

Meet the folks who will be modding Lion Pride zines!

Mod Drew | @boggled-senseless

Hey all, Drew here (aka @boggled-senseless on Tumblr) and I’m one of the music and finance mods for this zine! I’m currently doing a degree in technical theatre production, specializing in audio design, and I’ve been performing music for most of my life, starting piano at 8yrs old and percussion at 12yrs. This is my third time as a mod for a zine and as soon as I saw this project even being thought about I was thrilled! As a member of the LGBTQA+ community as well as an artist, having a project like this that encourages not only LGBTQA+ work, but original stuff as well is, I think, greatly needed. Plus I’ve never seen a zine involving music before and am extremely excited to share and collaborate with the mods and participants!

Mod Finn | @milk-is-nutritious & @finwritesthings

Hello lovely folks! I'm Finn, a mod for this zine - with a focus on working with the writers! For social media I have two (2) tumblr accounts with my main being @milk-is-nutritious, which ranges from memes to political issues, and my slow going writing blog under the handle @finwritesthings - I also have a twitter by that same name! A little fun fact about me is that I'm a huge nerd when it comes to the ocean - especially sharks! I once spent half an hour info dumping about sharks to someone I had just met about an hour prior to that conversation. I also spend a lot of my time educating folks on queer issues, which played a huge part in wanting to help make this zine a reality. That and the fact that Nick is an incredibly talented and well organized person who I knew would propel this zine into being a complete smash! I work part-time as a peer support worker at an HIV/AIDS and trans health clinic as well as sitting on my city's pride committee as the youth outreach and coordination personnel. I have spent the last few years since coming out as trans doing various workshops education staff at schools, students, health care providers, and various organizations on queer identities, language, and how to be more inclusive. This zine is not only an opportunity to create queer rep, but is also an opportunity for queer folks to create that representation themselves - which is even harder to come by than queer rep made by cishet folks. I have also worked on 7 zines as a writer as well as currently running my own zine. I am so ecstatic for this project and I can't wait to continue forwards with it!

Mod Haryuu | @haryuusart

Hi, my name is Haryuu and I'm a Mod for the Lion Pride Zines! You can find me as "haryuusart" in basically any social media (Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter, etc.) I love creating art in any form, from drawing to music, and I hope to transform this passion into a job. That's one of the reasons I am motivated for this zine: projects like this give people the possibility to create and share their work, and it's so beautiful in my opinion. Plus, being part of the LGBT+ community myself, I feel represented and I hope everyone will feel the same way.

My mod roles are general organization, music and art, and what qualifies me is my experience in these fields: I participated in a lot of zines and events, both as a mod and a contributor, and I recently organized my own zine, so thanks to these I learned lots of things;

I love music immensely, it's one of my biggest passions: I've played the piano for many years and recently started learning the ukulele. I wrote some original songs and did covers of my favorite ones, and I'm so happy I can mod this part of the zines because it's very original and new.

Finally, as I said, I love creating; I'm a traditional and digital artist, I've drawn since I was very little, so art has accompanied me through basically my whole life. I have a Diploma in Ceramic design, earned after five years of an artistic high school. l I've done commissions and illustrations for short books and fics, and I hope to share my passion with as many people as possible.

I can't wait to start this wonderful journey with the other mods and the participants!

Mod Isaiah | @galacticcannibalisms

Isaiah @galacticcannibalisms on tumblr and instagram or @galacticanibals on twitter) is one of the graphic design mods for Lion Pride. I'm a graphic design/printmaking major with aspirations to go on to graduate school and then become a professor myself. This zine speaks to me because it aligns fairly closely to one of my dreams, creating an LGBT+ focused publishing company for stories about and by members of the community. 

My mod rules consistent mostly of focusing on the layout of the zine itself, as well as any additional design that's needed. This is the second zine I will be taking care of in this way, but I've had outside experience in collating and formatting large volumes on information and creating my own layout designs that are both functional and artistic.

Mod Jay | @agentnavi

Hiya! I'm Jay, a mod for Lion Pride Zines! You can find me on Tumblr as @agentnavi or any other social media site as jaythefae. I'll be working as a mod for finance, art, and music for this project. My finance experience comes from my time spent as a Campus Activity Moderator in college. As a campus activity moderator, one of my duties was to budget the supplies necessary for multiple events throughout the year. In addition to this, researching products to find the best possible price was also something I took care of as part of my responsibilities. For my art and music experience, I took up piano at the age of 8 and have played ever since alongside picking up the flute at age 11. I have a bit of experience playing the tenor saxophone as well as clarinet and have started teaching myself guitar. I have also been a fine arts student since age 11, attending an arts-focused middle school and independently pursuing my interest independently beyond that time. Being involved in this zine is super important to me because not only is it supporting original works by a multitude of creators, it's supporting LGBT+ works, potentially giving people the springboard they need to get their content out to more people and that's super cool to me!

Mod Nick | @nikneedsalife

Heya! I’m Nick, (@nikneedsalife on Tumblr, @nïck on Pillowfort). I’ll be working on social media, writing and the general organizational aspects of Lion Pride zines! This project is my baby, and I love it very much, because I adore LGBT+ fiction—you can usually find me in a corner getting emotional about it. I also really hope to give LGBT+ creators a platform for their work!

I’ve written for about eleven zines, mainly fandom, and have experience in modding about five others! I usually work mainly with social media and writers, but I’ve also gained a lot of experience in dealing with the general work, communication and organisation that comes with a zine. 

Mod Noah | @fricz-art

Hello! My name is Noah, also known as Fricz (@fricz-art over tumblr and FriczArt on twitter) and I'm one of the art and graphic design mods for this project. I majored in Animation and Visual Effects and soon I'll start a master in Concept Art and Storyboard (I'm really excited for this!). I have always been an art kid, I started with music and writing and finally found my true vocation with drawing. I'm very happy to be part of this project, since it's an excellent way for creators to show their original works and express themselves as part of the LGBT+ community. I'm excited to help and see how this project will evolve!

ABOUT | ASK | FAQ | SCHEDULE

[crestoriaweek]

Wrapping Up Crestoria Week 2022

Hello~ I had to wait a couple of days to write this because I was out of town for the weekend, but congrats, we made it through our first Crestoria Week commemorating Tales of Crestoria's second anniversary! When I placed our first interest check to make a fanweek back in April, I never could have expected such a wonderful turnout. I figured that I'd garner enough interest to pique a few of my friends and I who missed Crestoria and we'd have a small celebration for ourselves, yet y'all exceeded my expectations. Not only did we have an amazing turnout among fans, we had, as we like to put it, two cakes as @/teikurefes also had a celebration for Crestoria roughly around the same time. So what did that mean for us? More Crestoria stuff!!!! People posted fanart, fanfic, food, cosplay, screenshots, memories for both events. It was phenomenal, and I am truly blessed by having enough Crestoria fancontent to make me smile for years to come. When I first bounced the idea about a Crestoria week in the Tales of Exchanges discord, I was a little hesitant on doing it because a) I'm me, and I thought one person can't change things and b) while this is a trend within gaming in general, there is a lot of stigma (and especially notorious within the Tales community) surrounding mobile games, so I wasn't sure if people wanted to celebrate for a mobile game that got shut down within a couple of years. I was gladly wrong LMAO I would like to thank the Tales of Exchanges discord for getting me out of my comfort zone and encouraging me to make a week dedicated for Crestoria instead of just sitting around and being like, "Well, what if there *was* one-". I want to thank @/teikurefes on Twitter for promoting their week and inspiring more people to share their feelings for the game. I want to thank my team slash group of friends who assisted me with translations, graphics, and countdown art/cosplay signs. They really helped me figure things out and DVD screen ping pong things around to see which things worked, which things didn't. I want to thank my friends slash mutuals on my personal Twitter account for promoting Crestoria Week, even if Crestoria's not their favorite Tales game in the world (in some cases, some of y'all don't even play Tales LMAO). And lastly, but not least, I would like to thank every fan who RT'd/reblogged/liked posts on Twitter and Tumblr or made contributions to our event. Tales of Crestoria's mobile game may have ended, but as long as there are fans who hold love in their hearts for Crestoria, it will never truly die. For now, our Twitter/Tumblr account will be sparse in posting content until next year 2023. I will be checking our tag #CrestoriaFanweek2022 for late entries and promoting them; I will also be creating a Moment on Twitter for all of our lovely contributions and announcing the giveaway winners in the upcoming week, and the Ao3 collection will remain open for late entries, but otherwise you won't hear from us til around the spring. (Fingers crossed, we wanna start planning a little earlier next year LMAO.) You may see me rt signal boosts for other Tales fanweeks/events or zines unrelated to Crestoria on the account, and that is because I believe in promoting the same love for other Tales games that y'all gave us. Any support is truly appreciated. To end things off, thank you once again, and I hope y'all have lovely days. Stay safe, stay hydrated, stay bopping fresh. - Am c:

[chonideno]

Hey Mag, I love your writing so much, honestly. I was just wondering if you had a koffee account or something. I want to be able to support you and show you (even though it may be just a little) that I love what you create and would definitely spend money on it cause you work so hard to create such wonderful artworks. I love and appreciate all that you've done and created.

assadhadghs ANON I’M WEEPING you can’t just come forward and say this you have to warn me first

i do have a kofi?? but i never shared it and kept it on the side to send money to friends instead so hhh ;A; though people have apparently found my page already how the hell

if you want to support my work, i would encourage you to look into the zines i’m participating in (currently the myths zine and the sixth wheel zine), but also to support other people in the fandom since, as i’ve said before, most of my inspiration and motivation comes from the community!!

now if you prefer something more direct then my kofi is right here but don’t feel like you have to do anything with it!! the thought alone is already enough ;;u;;

[yellowcardigan]

We Will Get There When We Get There, Don’t You Worry: On Mountain Goats songs that take place in cars

illustration by John Keogh

The Mountain Goats have a lot of songs about places. There’s a whole series of “Going To…” songs about Going To A Place. They’re also, necessarily, often about leaving a place. “Going to Japan,” for example, is not about Japan. It’s about saying goodbye. “Going to Maine” isn’t about Maine: it’s about running away together, escaping the problems you’ve made wherever you are, and going somewhere you aren’t. The problems will always follow you, and that’s the beauty and contradiction of the Going To songs.

The Mountain Goats have a lot of songs about houses, too. A house is a place where feelings and memories collect, grow, and decay. A house is both a structure and a way of living in that structure, both shelter and prison, both the family and the dysfunction.

The car, then, may be the ultimate symbol in Mountain Goats songs, because it represents both travel and home. Motion and stasis. I’ve never owned a car--I’ve never even had my driver’s license--but I’ve been on a lot of road trips. My husband and I dated long distance for three years. And what I know is that a car is a crucible, an incubator of feelings. When you ride in a car with someone for some hours, you’re hotboxing those emotions, and whether you express them or not, they build up.

On The Coroner’s Gambit, there’s a brilliant three-song run: “Scotch Grove,” “Horseradish Road,” and “Family Happiness.” In each of these songs, the narrator hates the other person in the car. Maybe also loves them? But definitely hates them. In “Scotch Grove” and “Family Happiness,” the narrator hopes an act of nature will kill them both (“wished [the rain] would wash us both away” and “I hope we both freeze to death”). In “Horseradish Road,” he hopes for a more karmic settling of accounts:

You're gonna get yours and i'm gonna get mine. 'Cause in this car, in this car, Somebody's bound to get burned. I know. I know. Because i've been watching the road turn.

The narrator and the second person are trapped together until they reach their destination, which may be a place, an event, or the ultimate destination of the grave.

Sometimes the two people in the car are in love. In “Twin Human Highway Flares,” they’re taking a trip together, and the narrator is so happy to be with the second person he can hardly stand it. In this song, too, he wishes for death, but only as a potential self-reproach. Only if he forgets this moment of bliss will he wish for his heart to explode. In “The Recognition Scene,” the two characters have burglarized a candy store and the narrator uses this moment, eating their loot on a joyride, to reflect on how much he’ll miss the other person when they’re gone. Like Emily Dickinson before him, John Darnielle writes about cars where the narrator, Death, and Immortality all ride together.

It’s not always love that binds the people in the car: sometimes it’s a solidarity of purpose, a shared grim determination. Sometimes they’ve decided to light out for the territories together. In “Home Again Garden Grove,” the narrator and second person are alone together against the world: “don’t let anyone see that you’re bleeding … don’t speak unless someone speaks to you.” They’re going to Garden Grove, where “the jackals are breeding,” and in this case the car is the protection between them and the rest of the world. We’re in here, and they’re out there. In “Psalms 40:2,” the narrator and friend(s) are going on a crime spree, and he assures his companions: “we will get there when we get there, don’t you worry.” It’s about going there, not getting there.

There’s also a category of song where the narrator is alone in the car, and the vehicle functions as his method of interacting with the world. When you’re on the highway, you’re both alone and surrounded by people. You’re moving, but you’re bringing yourself--your fast food wrappers, your cup of old change, your regrettable odors--with you wherever you go. On All Hail West Texas, both “Jeff Davis County Blues” and “Source Decay” feature narrators taking long trips alone. In the first, the narrator has “no place to go,” so decides to come home to Midland, where he doesn’t know whether he’ll be welcomed. He has his memories with him, in the form of polaroids on the passenger seat, tangible reminders of a past he’s hoping to regain. In “Source Decay,” the narrator makes a long drive to the post office to pick up postcards from a former lover. In the old neighborhood, he sees “Chevy Impalas in their front yards up on blocks”--both a class signifier and a symbol of people who have settled down and made a permanent home. The cars are immobile because the owners aren’t going anywhere, or don’t require the cars’ protection. They can move through the world as themselves. The narrator wishes he never had to stop driving, that the highway were a Mobius strip and he could “ride it out forever.” The car offers both the illusion of forward movement and insulation from the world. If he stops moving, he has to confront his life as it is, not as a transition state between what was and what will be.

All of these characters think they’re going somewhere, but it’s an illusion. It’s always an illusion. The dark thing that demands confrontation will still be waiting when they get there. Here are some songs about being in a car with your worst self in hot pursuit. Recommended activities for this playlist: crimes.

The Recognition Scene Twin Human Highway Flares Scotch Grove San Bernardino So Desperate Jeff Davis County Blues New Chevrolet in Flames Source Decay Ezekiel 7 and the Permanent Efficacy of Grace Southwestern Territory Psalms 40:2 Home Again Garden Grove Family Happiness Going to Port Washington Pure Milk* Horseradish Road This Year The Grey King and the Silver Flame Attunement Alibi* See America Right

Hear this playlist on Spotify: http://spoti.fi/2zGyGQS

*These aren’t on Spotify, but you can find them on YouTube (I added the links to this Tumblr post). As always, please support artists, and especially support the Mountain Goats. Thank you.

*******

This essay is from Hard to Love #4, a Patreon-supported zine. Buy it on Gumroad here, or become a patron and get instant access to this issue and all the back issues.