#i really do still want to read the architecture books and a BUNCH OF OTHER SHIT

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Books of 2024: ADHD FOR SMART ASS WOMEN: HOW TO FALL IN LOVE WITH YOUR NEURODIVERGENT BRAIN by Tracy Otsuka.

I saw this on a new release promotional email and thought "well shit, that looks like my life, I should Investigate That™," only to realize it was a brand new hardback and I didn't want to pay $29 for 200 pages of information. Since I found out about it on release day, my next thought was, "Oh, I can check and see if my library has any copies!! We love supporting our libraries in this house!!"

Reader: They did Not.

But! I did find the "request a book" option on their website, and I entered this book, and I got a robocall within a week saying my hold was ready to be picked up! Y'all!! The library literally ordered this book for me (it was stamped into circulation one (1) day before they called me!), and now I have it to read! I love libraries!!

(book pic featuring the super cute coaster set @asexualbookbird made me that I love with my entire heart!!)

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 2/13/2024

writing cover letters like "Market Research Firm 953989464860, will YOU be my Valentine?"

also, a fallout 4 femslash fic for femslash feb

listening

Fresh Blood by the Eels off their 2009 album Hombre Loco. i would say this is another "i think a vampire probably wrote this low, grooving track" but there are several howls featured. wikipedia says it is about a werewolf. this song sounds like it has a simple bassline and simple drums but it knows what it's about. it's probably secretly really complicated but i specced in knowing about fabric, not about music.

it makes me want to ice skate really fast and also sounds like watching broken highway lane dividers go by late at night. fascinating that the back half of the four-plus minute song is fully instrumental. definitely a song for when you are traveling, or perhaps proceeding. spotify

Sun down on the sorry day By nightlights the children pray I know you're probably gettin' ready for bed Beautiful woman get out of my head I'm so tired of the same old crud Sweet baby I need fresh blood

i've been mainlining The Black Keys' album Brothers so it makes sense this popped up on my Discover Weekly spotify playlist

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reading

in 2015, the year i dropped out of college, the closest comic/weird nerd shit store was a forty minute drive from my house. i bought the first issue of the serialized anthology comics magazine The Island bc i liked the Moebius-esque cover by Brandon Graham, before i knew who either of those artists were or that i liked them. i think it was ten bucks, and having to show my drivers' license really sticks in my brain for some reason. the point i am slowly approaching is that the magazine only ran for fifteen issues, and i didn't buy any other copies bc ten bucks a month was too dear for me, but it was a tremendous incubator for artists i would end up loving. about half the time i stumble across a lovely self-contained book that knocks my socks off i find out it started life in The Island.

All his life, Hank Cho wanted to join the ranks of the Habsec—the rulers of the orbital habitat his people call home. But when he finds a powerful, forbidden weapon from the deep past, a single moment of violence sets his life—and the brutal society of the habitat—into upheaval. Hunted by the cannibalistic Habsec and sheltered by former enemies, Cho finds himself caught within a civil war that threatens to destroy his world. A new barbarian sci-fi adventure by SIMON ROY (PROPHET, JAN'S ATOMIC HEART, Tiger Lung), originally serialized in ISLAND MAGAZINE.

Simon Roy's Habitat asks: do you want to hear a story about a generation ship gone wrong? this is a guy who really knows how to draw mechs and all their fiddly bits and loves doing it, which is a really transferrable skill to lovingly detailing the crumbling brutalist neo-mesoamerican architecture. the Habsec cannibals and their bits and pieces of scavenged armor blend in so well, it's genuinely shocking when we see someone in full, kept up, incredibly colorful armor. gorgeous, gorgeous book. love a fucked up generation ship.

found while perusing the stacks of the library that was closest to a bunch of other admin errands i was running, bc i finally have a tx drivers license and can start collecting tx library cards

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watching

im also asking myself why the hell i'm watching yellowstone with my bestie and her husband. it has every trigger warning and a lot of them would make me decline the experience had i looked them up beforehand. however, the inevitablilty of each little tragedy feeding into the circular threshing maw that is the Dutton family is really clicking for me. like well! that mom sure did die in the most traumatizing way possible! and wow that really does go a long way toward explaining why the daughter is self-medicating to an alarming degree AND why no one else is doing anything about it bc they're all still mad at her for being very tangential to her mom's death!

the amount of Stuff that happens per episode is truly astonishing. one of my favorite parts of the ttrpg Beamsaber is the downtime between missions, bc you get to have some really bonkers interactions with people who don't usually interact. despite its huge cast, Yellowstone doesn't yet feel incoherent or like it's jumped the shark in its first season bc it's really successful at getting its huge cast to have unexpected interactions with each other. this sounds a little bit like praising it for knowing how to be good television, but this is a neowestern about a land grab that's also a familial dynasty drama that's really leaning into the familial dynasty part of it. it would be very easy for this to become incoherent or bad at switching between storylines, but so far it's really good at it. it's not beamsaber or black sails bc nothing will ever be beamsaber or black sails but it's really scratching that itch of many small rapidly shifting factions and rapidly shifting political goals bc each child is their own horrible little faction and they have a lot of time where they're trapped in cars or helicopters together getting around their ranch, which is simply too large.

we're trying to watch the yellowstone franchise in release order, and the yellowstone prequel with tim mcgraw came out between the first and second seasons. we will not be continuing this. this is a bog standard wagon train western. cripplingly boring after the brazen insanity of the first season. also i think it is in poor taste at best and irresponsible at worst to show a suicide on screen.

i said i don't know why i'm watching this but i do know why i'm watching yellowstone, and that's bc my bestie keeps seeing tiktoks about it. sometimes im influenced in real life

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playing

changed my sheets this week and didn't chortle at the TOP OR BOTTOM tag which is how i know im having. a brain time. another way you can tell im having a brain time are these screenshots of the Breath of the Wild map. as you may or may not remember from last week, last week i had very little of the map filled out.

now is this EXPLORED? good heavens no. i have under 40 shrines DISCOVERED. i have simply beelined to each tower and went VERY fast. or was very sneaky. the three towers i have not bothered to climb yet are the ones i would have to actually fight some guys about. fuck the akkala tower for real.

i love to accidentally get way too close to dragons and die. some fun things about this run: incredibly, exceptionally rainy. except for the stint in the literal desert and the five minutes in the snowfield it has been raining about 70% of the time, which has made climbing very annoying. another fun thing about this run: exceptionally low ancient shaft drop rate, which makes getting ancient arrows to safely kill guardians from afar very difficult. bc as discussed above i have optimized this little blond boy to be very fast and very sneaky to get up the towers very quickly in the two minute spans of time it is not raining.

another fun thing about this run: not very good at successfully spitting out riders next to horses. you can only see the tip of spinch's hat bc he is underground.

i have unlocked the elephant and the falcon, i haven't gotten much farther than finding painkillers for the goron boss and stalled out at the yiga clan stealth mission. bc despite liking being a sneaky fast sniper out in the world, i fucking hate an enforced stealth mission. i don't think i ever got past this part in my other run either.

not jacked enough to unlock the master sword, i think you need twelve hearts? i would rather have more stamina so i can get faster horses + the princess's horse.

after i unlocked a bunch of towers i spent a goofy amount of time in the Lake Floria system herself hunting for treasure chests (there are easily fifty chests in the water. wild) to get the 10k rupees to unlock the last great fairy. i also spent several real-life hours video game mining video game ore. this was deeply annoying bc i sold off all my gems to get 10k rupees and then had nothing to get those sweet sweet high level upgrades with. this was the point on sunday night where i realized i was getting irrationally annoyed with a game that is supposed to be fun, and is NOT meant to support the kind of grinding i was doing. that was enough video game for one day thank you.

did you know there's a korok in the shrine of resurrection? me either.

also did you know magnesis ACTIVATES on the windmills in Hebra but i can't figure out how to get close enough to any of them to do anything about it. annoying.

this has got to be so funny from ganons point of view. i unlocked the elephant and the falcon in under a week of in-game time and then spent several in-game months mining and collecting clothes. would that make ganon more or less anxious d'you think

making

cross stitch update. this confetti in the rover square. i am dying. here’s what it will look like finished, and a link to buy the pattern

i had such high hopes for pin stitches as a thread finishing method but i had to rip out a mistake near a pin stitch and accidentally ripped out the entire pin and single confetti cross stitch. so what the fuck. i am an insane woman who likes to fully submerge and lightly hand wash projects before they get framed to remove all the oils (yes i wash my hands before stitching, i do get paranoid) and i am not confident pin stitches will hold up to that. oh well. the loop method is pretty great in halving the number of ends i have to weave in, even though i feel like it is extremely wasteful and leaves me with lots of short useless lengths my cats would love to eat. so the gains from halving thread management are really not offset by the meticulous cat management i must embark upon every time i do my fun relaxing hobby.

and the back, which is a horror. and will only become more of a horror. but once this is framed no one will actually see it so it's FINE. i am FINE with this. i started this knowing there was going to be lots of confetti. that's the point of this masochistic pattern

i wrote the first chapter of this fic last summer and outlined the emotional beats (but not much else) while procrastinating moving and have finally lightly polished the first chapter and threw it on the archive. im trying to let things molder less and just fucking post them in the hopes this activates the writing part of my brain again but who could say what's going on up there. this is still something that hasn't quite returned to me post-covid round 2

this will eventually be an E-rated 5+1 fic fixing all the fucking bullshit around Cait Fallout4's companion quest. she will NOT go in the magic chair that tortures her into not being a junkie and being the perfect waifu. she is going to stumble backwards and accidentally into some harm reduction and get railed by a mean top. the mean top and the harm reduction won't fix her but they certainly won't hurt.

[literary-illuminati]

Book Review 5 - The Bright Ages by Matthew Gabrielle and David M. Perry

Okay, the Harper Collins strike is over, so I can finally post this! As you might notice, the wait has meant I have ended up writing far too much of it. Turns out people really are telling the truth when they say writing negative reviews is funner and easier.

Anyway, I did not like this book! It’s an ungainly thing, torn halfway between wanting to be pop history and wanting to be an intervention in the discourse, and entirely too short to do either well. Insofar as is it history, it’s far less revolutionary than it seems to think it is, and the subjects it actually focuses on either already fit entirely into the pop understanding the book is positioning itself against, or else entirely about symbolism and architecture and generally abstracted from (being partial and small-minded) the stuff I’m actually interested in.

All that said the first and fundamental is pretty simple – it’s just altogether too short to do what it wants to. The book tries to be a history of the European Middle Ages – a thousand years of history for an entire continent (more than, given the repeated digressions about the Middle East and also the Mongols one time) – in 200 pages. Which is just, like, I mean I don’t want to say impossible, but I can’t really see any way you’d do it. Which means what we actually get is a series of snapshots, scattered across space and time – just specific, particular dynamics or situations that rarely have much to do with each other. I’m pretty sure the only specific place we ever return to after focusing on it is Ravenna, and that’s for a big, dramatic bookend starting the age with Galla Placidia and ending with Dante. Also the return is really more about Italian city states as a whole. Which is to say only Florence gets any detail at all.

A necessary causality of the snapshot approach is that there’s wide swathes of the period that just, aren’t mentioned in the slightest. Which again, fair, but also it’s a bit much for one of the lacuna to be the entire Holy Roman Empire, right? (Okay, not the entire, there’s repeated off hand mentions of Emperors, and also talk of how the Italian city-states fought the Empire. Just never any description whatsoever of what it, like, was. Except for the specific disavowal of saying it started with Charlemagne, which was never followed up on.) Which is still better than what Poland or Hungary or Lithuania or Kievan Rus got – if any of them were even mentioned, it was only off hand. Which does end up giving the impression that Medieval Europe included Jerusalem but not Krakow – to be fair, something a lot of actual Medieval people might have totally agree with. But given the amount of time spent on the Crusades to the Levant and the Albigensian Crusade, not even mentioning the bloody Christianize of the Baltic in passing feels negligent to the point of being actively misleading.

Also it’s weird, given the books whole focus on connections and commerce between Europe and the rider world – the steppe is right there! You don’t need to wait for the Mongols!

Speaking of – they give a bunch of apologia for the Mongol Empire that’s – well, basically the same stuff all empires get, brought safety to the roads and allowed free movement and trade, brought people together, spread culture and technology, enlightened and cosmopolitan, etc. Which I mostly just find funny because of how obvious it is the authors would, uh, probably not endorse the same sentiment for any more recent imperial projects.

But okay – it’s not that you can’t tell a useful history in what might seem to be way too little space – John Darwin tries to tell a literal history of the world from the 16th century in ~500 pages and I’d still say After Tamerlane is absolutely worthwhile reading. You just need, you know, discipline. Focus. A firm idea of your thesis and an obsession of what’s relevant to it (or just be entertaining and full of fun memorable trivia). So, what are Perry and Gabrielle actually trying to do here?

Honestly, it’s a little bit unclear? The thesis they present is that the Dark Ages didn’t exist – they insist on referring the whole Medieval period as ‘the Bright Ages’ through the entire book, it’s incredibly annoying – and that the Medieval period get a horribly unjustified bad wrap as uniquely cruel and provincial and barbaric and full of disease, illiteracy, superstition, etc. They explicitly position themselves as being a reaction to the vision of the past you see in Game of Thrones or Vikings (I’d say ‘or the Witcher’ but again, for the purposes of this book Eastern Europe doesn’t exist). Instead, they fill the book with hand picked examples of medieval beauty, sophistication, and connection to the wider world with the quite explicit contention that everything good about the Renaissance (and later) was really just outgrowths of the Medieval, and it was only the bad stuff that was new.

(At the same time, they also do not like white nationalists, and go out of their way at length on numerous occasions to remind you that Nazis are bad. Those digressions do always leave me wondering who they’re for – no actual Deus Vult type is going to get more than five pages into it, and they rarely get much deeper that surface level refutation of things no one else is likely to actually believe.)

Anyway – look, the central, overriding problem of the book is that it’s not nearly as revolutionary as it seems to think it is. Very problematic, when it has such a high opinion of itself for being so. The assorted trivia the book uses as shocking examples of how cosmopolitan and tolerant the period was mostly just, well, fit perfectly fine into the popular imagining of the Medieval era? Like ‘royals and elites imported foreign luxury goods and status symbols at great expense; missionaries, adventurers and religious emissaries travelled across Eurasia to preach, trade and try to find someone to help them invade Muslims ; women often wielded significant political influence by virtue of royal birth of marriage, and were active political players’ – are these statements shocking to literally anyone? Basically all of that literally happens in Game of Thrones!

Part of that is that the book keeps almost committing to a really radical thesis – not to say pure unreconstructed romanticism, but close to it – and then always has an attack of professional ethics and cringes away from it, and just awkwardly brings up how, to be sue, there were serfs and slaves and atrocities, but nonetheless when you think about it the later Crusader States really were fascinating sites of cultural exchange, or whatever.

Psychoanalyzing the authors is bad form, of course, but like – reading this book the overriding sense you get is that they’re proud progressives, and have dedicated their lives to studying the Medieval era. But in the contemporary discourse people on their side use ‘Medieval’ as an insult to mean patriarchal, or brutal, or cruel, and the people who like the Medieval era are all in the Sack of Jerusalem Fandom. The sheer angst and righteous indignation they have about this state of affairs just about oozes through every page – honestly if I’m being maximally pithy and uncharitable, you rather get the sense that the real aim of the book is to make ‘being really into Medieval history’ a less reactionary-coded interest to bring up at professional-class dinner parties.

But honestly I could have forgiven almost all of this if the anecdotes and snapshots the book did focus on were informative and interesting. And this is almost entirely pure personal preference, I fully acknowledge but – the things that the book chose to focus on just really weren’t, to me?

Which is to say that The Bright Ages is incredibly interested in architectural and monumental symbolism, especially of the religious variety – there are whole chapters overwhelmingly dedicated to exploring the layout of churches and how their architecture and lighting was meant to convey meaning, or detailing at great length a specific monumental cross in northern England. These are used as synecdoches for broader topics, of course but, like, an awful lot of word count really is dedicated to describing how Gala Placedia’s chapel in Ravenna must have wowed people. And even as far as using them as synecdoches – the way that monasteries, bishops and the royal household in Paris competed to have the most impressive church/chapel as a way to convey religious authority is genuinely interesting, but I’d honestly have rather heard a lot more of the actual politics and sociology or how sacred authority and legitimacy was gathered around the Capetians in the later middle ages and a lot less about how specifically impressive the royal chapel on the palace grounds was. There’s a massive amount of symbolic and artistic detail, a fair amount of time spent charting great thinkers and proving that there was too such a thing as a Medieval intellectual, and almost none at all on, like, political and social and (god forbid) economic history. Which are, unfortunately, the bits of it I’m actually interested in.

The book isn’t just architecture of course, but much of the rest is either very basic – yes, the vikings were traders as well as raiders and travelled shockingly long distances, yes there was intellectual interchange between Muslim, Jewish and Christian thinkers across the Mediterranean, yes the Church acted as a vital sponsor of learning and scholarship. I’m sure these are new information to like, someone? - or so caught up in historiographical arguments and qualifications that it loses sight of the actual subject – I swear the book spent more time saying that it’s wrong to call it a Carolingian Renaissance because that implies there were actual dark ages before and after than it does explaining why anyone actually would.

Beyond that – okay, so as mentioned this book is really consciously progressive. Which, beyond a certain antiquarian distaste for how desperately they’re trying to get across ‘see, our field of study is Relevant! And Important! Please please please give us tenure/prestige/funding’ I wholly support. (I mean, like, I do think Medieval Studies deserves tenure/prestige/funding. Just slightly unbecoming to so transparently be grasping for it, and also more than a bit self-defeating) - but, like, the book’s politics are weird? Or weirdly surface level and slightly confused, given how much of the book is focused around them.

Like – the book spends a massive amount of time and attention combating the myth that women in the middle ages were all cloistered and politically mute and totally powerless. But the sum total of what it actually says is ‘did you know: elite women in the aristocracy and church exercised political influence? And a lot of the Christianization of western Europe happened through highborn christian women marrying pagan kings and raising their children Christian?” And while I suppose ‘elite women have influence even in patriarchal societies’ is a useful fact for someone to learn, I’m not sure examples that more or less cash out to ‘queens could have power by manipulating their husbands and sons’ is a particularly novel or progressive take, you know? More broadly – it’s a weakness of the book’s framework of jumping across countries and centuries between anecdotes that we never get any sense of gender roles and how power and influence were gendered systemically, so much as single (or if you’re very lucky, two or three) particular women with a vague gesture that they’re kind of typical. Not to complain about a lack of theory, but there’s really basically zero theory.

The book’s choices of examples for women to focus on are also – okay, not to be all ‘why didn’t you talk about my faves’, but insofar as you’re talking how women were able to exercise power, it’s really very odd that you never talk about any women who, like, ruled in their own right? C’mon, you mention the Anarchy offhand to introduce Eleanor of Aquitaine but don’t even say what it was about, let alone talk about the Empress Matilda? (I’d say the same thing about Matilda of Tuscany and the investiture Controversy, but it’s not like the book actually talks about the Investiture Controversy beyond the absolute basics, so). The final result is a book that talks a lot about how elite women had influence, and then the influence they actually bring up is almost always of the most stereotypically feminine-gender variety imaginable.

All that really pales to how confused the book seems when it talks about Christianity. Which it has to, of course, fairly constantly – it’s a book about Medieval Europe. But it’s kind of horribly torn between two imperatives here – on the one hand, it desperately wants to fight back against the whole black legend of the tyrannical, book-burning, Galileo-murdering, science-suppressing hopelessly venal and corrupt, all-powering Magesterium. But on the other, they really don’t want to come off as supporting, well, the heretic murdering and antisemitism or being the sort of guy online who posts memes of the Knights Templar. So you see this somewhat exhausting two-step where they go on at length about all the beautiful architecture and scholarship preservation the church did interrupted every so often by this concession about how of course it wasn’t all good and obviously pogroms and burning heretics wasn’t great, but- (The chapter on the vikings is much the same, except with a much clearer ‘it’s important not to romanticize these people because the people who do that are white nationalists, but also see how tolerant and far-ranging and cool they are?’)

Discussing the Church is also a place where the book’s whole allergy to social structure and institutions really serves it poorly. I at a certain point stopped keeping count of the number of times where the book called out that the centralized, papal-centric Church was a creation of the high middle ages, and not at all how things worked for most of the period. But then they just never actually explain how they worked instead, or really even how things changed to so enshrine the Pope’s power. They talk about how convents could be wealthy and powerful landholders and their abbesses’ wield significant power, but never even gesture at explaining how they interfaced with the institutional church. It’s really very frustrating.

Of course Christianity still gets far better treatment than Judaism or Islam – there’s a chapter which goes into some detail on the life of Maimonides in the process of extolling Medieval scholarship and talking about how classical learning was never really lost and the Renaissance is fake news. But despite the gestures to the presence of Jewish communities throughout Europe there’s essentially zero, like, description of how they actually functioned, or were organized, or (aside from the occasionally mentioned pogroms) how they interacted with their christian neighbours. The treatment of Islam is much the same – there are some mentions of the Islamic wold and its intellectual traditions, but essentially just to rehash the same points about the Islamic Golden age and Ibn Sina and all the other bits of trivia everyone probably picked up keeping up with the culture war during the Bush Administration. But again, only the most passing mentions of, like, politics or organization or even theology. It felt gratingly cursory, given the emphasis placed on the fact that eg Al Andulas was clearly part of Medieval Europe

Underneath all this is just the fact that The Bright Ages is almost an entirely a history of the elite. Peasants, serfs and slaves only exist in the for the sake of concessions about how of course things weren’t all good. The book has almost no interest in the lives of the lower classes, and barely seems to realize this. It starts to really, really grate, especially when you’re making all these implicit judgments about how the Medieval era was compared to what came after – in which case, the lives of, like, 90% of the population are rather important! Like unironically peasant life is fascinating! What did life actually look like of the overwhelmingly majority of people? If you want to give a sketch of the entire era, it’s kind of important.

I’m almost certainly being unfair here – basically everything about the book’s sensibilities grated on me, so I can’t say I was trying to be especially charitable. But really – the book’s perfectly fine light reading, but as intentional propaganda is hamfisted and it’s unclear who it’s for, and as an actual history it’s just...bad. It’s useful as a way to get a sense of the discourse, I guess, but otherwise I couldn’t really recommend it.

[belle--ofthebrawl]

Tagged by @anotherghoul666. Thank you for the tags in the games! I only have time for this one tonight. Hopefully I have energy for the Music Era one tomorrow.

Relationship status: Does a work wife who also wingmans for me count? She's awful at it. Scares everybody off because she gets jealous and then tells me it's my fault for being weird. (We love and support work wife. She's my drug dealer now. She buys me edibles.) We both thought the other was weird and stuck up until we were forced to spend time together and now we're forbidden from ever working together again :(

Favorite color: Blue since childhood, but you know, I took a look around the other day and everything is pink. I like all colors I guess. (Except blaze orange in clothing TOBIAS PLEASE RELEASE THE SECRETS OF THE MUSE DESIGN ON SOMETHING BLACK OR GRAY OR EVEN WHITE. I WANT IT SO BAD BUT NOT IF IT'S ORANGE.)

Song stuck in my head: Zenith - Ghost

Last song I listened to: Kuro no Liliana (melancholia) - Shikata Akiko

Three favorite foods: Steak (cooked bleu if possible, usually as rare as is safe), sushi/sashimi and roasted veggies. Also, I'm halfway through a barrel of UTZ's cheese balls.

Last thing I googled: "Phedre Mark". From the book Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey. which I highly recommend if you like intrigue and bdsm. Wonderful series, but I've only read the first trilogy. Anyway, I was thinking about getting it for my first tattoo but who knows.

Dream trip: We're mostly ex-Catholics in the fandom, right? Anybody familiar with World Youth Day? Some big celebration every three years where the pope invites "the youth of the world" to celebrate Mass with him in person (incredibly sus). My church fundraised (I had to work stupid church events for three years) and sent our youth group on a month long gallivant across Europe with groups from two other churches and it SUCKED ASS. All that architecture and food and oh, so many sights and sounds and we couldn't stay at all! A day or two at most in each city because our itinerary was so packed. Don't get me started. And we all hated each other by the end of it but negativity was a sign of the devil so. No venting. A perfect place for a bunch of 10-18 year olds and their chaperones/parents. Boys and girls weren't allowed to mingle, but... 👀. (The stories I have about American Christian modesty versus European beaches...)

I would do that trip again just to take everything in properly. Slowly. Without praying three times a day and every time we "came across sin". (Bus drove through a "red light district" on accident once and I still crack up at that memory) So...Iceland, France, Spain and Portugal. I'd want to take a year. Three months in each place, minimum. (Also one time I stole a smut book from a bar the 18 year olds brought me to and had to pray the rosary for like, an hour straight when they did luggage checks after dinner. It clearly worked.)

Anything I want: A winning lottery ticket to a truly obscene amount of money. That would give me the way to really get everything I want which is far too numerous to be listed here. Failing that, some hostess cupcakes. Which I'm eating right now. Lovely! It seems I'm destined to always get my heart's desire. See what manifestation and affirmations can do?

[theselfdoubtdiaries]

Dear Zoe, I think my blog post is overdue? Anyway, here I am now getting my act together after feeling quite scatty for a couple of weeks. Life gets in the way doesn’t it? That’s why people go on residencies of course! This has been literally hitting me in the face these past weeks as I go back to just juggling everyday life, teaching , trying to keep on top of things around the house and garden and dealing with family emotions and issues…..Where does the studio fit into all this? That’s just it – It always seems to come last – well today finally I have /am prioritising my studio practise!! (well to be honest I have done a few other domestic things too – but I have the kiln going and I am sitting down to attend to a list of things which – whilst they are computer things – also need to happen!)

One of the things I’ve been meaning and wanting to do since getting home from Europe – is to process the lumen prints I did whilst on residency. I rediscovered this process whilst I was at CRETA and it’s so much fun – a little bit addictive! I have finally scanned a bunch of lumens and edited them- just playing around with colours mainly and saturation - here's a few. Fun!

Maybe these will become new works? Who knows? The point is to keep playing and experimenting right? Also revisiting my notes to see what other methods there are for fixing the images as I remember there are other experimental options so I'm gonna try this out too now that they've been documented - the originals can change into something else - I don't mind....

In the background I have been angsting a bit about our upcoming show at Belconnen in February…..I guess it’s precisely because we are working and making in unknown territory that it’s a little bit daunting! Still visiting your studio in Sydney last week was good and I feel that we made headway. The road ahead is still a bit foggy but I can sort of make out where we are going (how’s that for a metaphor!)

Anyway, I am so glad that you will be in Canberra over Xmas and that we can put in some quality collab time in the studio working and making and just putting this show together! It will be an intense couple of weeks but I think it will be good.

So once again: trust the process.

PS that quote from Louise Bourgeois that you mentioned about architecture and memories – I knew I’d read it before – I came across a photo from an exhibition I visited the Gallery of NSW earlier this year - it was all about the idea of home – and I really liked it. There were quotes and poems displayed with the works – one of them was that exact same quote. It resonated with me too….and I just love the idea of memories building up in layers like bricks….creating architecture….reminds me of another book called “The Memory Palace” which I need to revisit.

It’s amazing how in-sync we are with our practices…...

[depressingrantblog]

10-8-23

Update

So, I’m 20 now. It’s been a long two years of not knowing what I’m doing with my life. Right after highschool I started out working at CVS. I’ve been there for 2 years and I’ve got a good chunk of savings for the car I want to buy as soon as I learn how to drive. That is something I’ve been saying I need to do but I haven’t really worked on much because of anxiety about the idea of driving. At this point, I finally finished reading my drivers ed book I got from the SoS. I did the little 10 question test in the back of the book and got all of the questions correct, all I need to do is get a SoS appointment and take the test to get my TIP. The problem is is that I need someone to take me to that but everyone is busy all the time. I’m sure it doesn’t help having to take me back and forth to work. But it’s starting to get really old. And I just feel too old to not be driving. It’s really embarrassing but even my little brother (16) got his license before me. I’m trying not to be salty about it.

In the past two years I took two different semesters at two colleges and never stayed at either. I didn’t really like EMU and WCC was nice but I wanted to decide what I really wanted to do before I spent a bunch of money on it. I partially decided I wanted to do the construction manager program at WCC because one thing I always saw myself doing since I was a child was designing houses. I thought that would be a good start since I’m not smart enough or disciplined enough to get into architecture school. At least I would know how to build houses. But I’m still not sure. I just want to know how to drive and have a car before I go back at least.

The most positive advancement I’ve made was finding a guy. At some point I got so lonely that I got on hinge trying to look for a partner. I briefly talked to a couple guys. But one guy stood out and I immediately picked him. We have so much in common it’s like we’re the same person. I really like him (I think he likes me??). The problem is is that every time we’ve tried to make plans or meet up, they always fall through. At some point I was using so much of my energy to work on the relationship that I was driving myself crazy. So personally I’m taking a break from trying to advance things and leaving up to him or fate.

Right now our relationship is more like friends with the option to be in a relationship. We still occasionally flirt with each other or talk about sex stuff but at this moment it doesn’t feel like it’s going anywhere. Which I’m not too upset about. I don’t feel like I’m wasting my time since I enjoy talking to him, although I was feeling a bit disappointed a while ago.

I just like him. I really hope he likes me too. It’s really hard online dating vs the real thing. I didn’t intend for it to be thing way but we live 165 miles away from each other and neither of us have a car at the moment. Whenever I would ask him what we are, he would say we shouldn’t define it until we meet, which I completely agree with, it’s just hard now even thinking about meeting since it’s been a whole year. And now we’ve got these romanticized versions of each other and our relationship, it would be hard not to be disappointed.

In the end, all I really want is someone to love me, listen to me, be able to share everything with each other, take care of each other, and have fun together. I just think we’re so similar that we’d be perfect together. I’m just secretly worried that he prefers a different type of girl (like maybe a more unrealistic type). I wouldn’t want him to feel like he’s “settling” for me (and then end up killing me or something).

10-10-23

Lately I feel extremely happy.

I think I’ve discovered which depression I have. It’s Persistent Depressive Disorder. It’s pretty much a lower grade lifelong depression unlike Major Depressive Disorder which is more severe but only lasts for a short amount of time but consistently. PDD is always there; lingering. Even when I’m not feeling depressed I always feel like any small thing can trigger it. One small thing can cause me to overthink, putting me into a depression. Usually, I’d be depressed for about 2 (sometimes 3) weeks out of the month or even every couple of days. This has been going on since I was 12 on and off (8 years) but I remember feeling the same way when I was a kid as well, I’m just not sure if can classify it the same. It’s super exhausting living with PDD, it feels like I can never catch a break and in the worst moments it makes me feel like I’ve never been happy in my entire life; which obviously isn’t true. On really bad days I don’t care about anything. I don’t care about making myself look nice, I don’t care what I eat, as long as I can get energy from it, I don’t care about talking to the people I like or doing the things I like to do. I just wake up and try to endure the day until it’s over with.

I’m pretty sure being depressed for that amount of time straight probably wrecks your body and kills you faster. I’m also pretty sure it’s maternally genetic in my family. That’s why I bought one of those 23&me health tests. It can tell me what percentage I’m likely to get a depressive disorder along with other percentages on my health and genetic diseases. I need to also see my doctor about my depression, I’ve talked to her about it before. Formally I’ve been diagnosed with seasonal depression, which it is true that my depression does get worse during the winter, but the PDD is the major factor.

But I just wanted to report that despite all the depression surges I’ve had recently, I’ve been feeling very happy for the past week. It feels like a weight has been lifted off of me and I can finally breathe. I know it’s temporary but I’m trying to enjoy it. Little things aren’t bothering me and I’m not overthinking. Usually when I am feeling temporarily happy I try to avoid anything that’s gonna me overthink. But right now I’ve even encountered things that would usually trigger overthinking and they don’t bother me. I feel great.

It sounds silly but some of the reasons I am so happy are because I did finish the drivers ed book. I have been stressing myself out about it for the past two years. I was worried that I would read the entire book and miss something extremely important and cause a crash or something. So that’s one weight off my shoulder. Another thing is I was able to get my grandpa to help me put up my new blinds and curtains for my room that I’ve been holding on to since Christmas. I asked my mom to get me them so I could try to make my room look nicer. It’s been stressing me out that they were taking up space in my room. I know it’s completely ridiculous, but I think it’s those two little things being erased from my to-do list that makes me feel so much relief. I’m trying to enjoy this moment so I’m even gonna stress the next things I have to do.

I also wanted to say, I quit self harming 2 years ago (nearly relapsed a few times) and it feels good to have healthier coping mechanisms. I feel more mature. Although I do still need to get treatment for depression, I’m not having any suicidal thoughts, self harm rarely crosses my mind. My coping mechanisms probably could be better. Right now to help me get through a depression, I will listen to music, ignore everything that upsets me, watch tv and movies just trying to keep myself entertained and distracted until it is over. I’ve lived through it so long now that it’s pretty much normal to me. It comes in waves and I almost find a comfort in it. It’s like when you’re sick and you’re trying to relax and let your body heal itself. Even with that, it’s still awful. That’s just the dark, bright-side of it. Hopefully still, I’d like to be able to feel as happy as I do now, all the time.

I just wanted to update this blog with some life updates. Originally, I made it during the pandemic when my depression was at an all-time low. I doubt anyone is ever going to read this, I just wanted to make it for myself. It was actually kind of shocking to see where I was at the last time I posted. So hopefully my next life update will be even better.

[th3-z0diac]

How I Make Aesthetics.

Long post ahead, sorry :(

In the past, I've been asked multiple times how I create my aesthetics and where do I get the best pictures for them, so I figured I'd make this master post of what exactly I do. Btw this is coming from a person who has studied graphic design for 4 years and had about 4 years of experience in making zodiac collages here on tumblr. Do what you want with that information.

A few disclaimers

There are different types of aesthetics and in this post, I'm going to be specifically talking about a certain type that I like to make. Here, examples:

My most used format is 6 pictures in 3 rows, but I've also tried 4 pictures, like here for example:

There are other types such as minimalistic photos, dark academia, grunge, and SO many more. Please keep in mind that I'm not hating on these types and when I mention a rule such as don't use photos that are too minimalistic, I am not saying that minimalistic aesthetics are wrong or ugly or anything of that sort!

Just because I don't choose a certain photo doesn't mean I don't like it, it just means that the photo is not exactly what I'm looking for. By me showing you the examples below, I'm just trying to paint a picture. No hate here, okay?

I don't own any of the pictures I use (I've only used like one or two of my own photos in the past) but then again this is just for entertainment, I don't make money doing this or anything. If I ever get a message from an owner of any of these photos and they want me to delete it, I will delete it.

Where to get the photos

Pinterest! Period. AHAHAHA

No but seriously, pinterest and tumblr are my two favorite sources and you will find pretty much exactly what you need there. pinterest specifically.

On tumblr, I usually search for hipster, grunge, indie, and nature, but it also helps to just find specific blogs that focus on photography, follow them and then just download anything from your dashboard that you fancy.

I'll share what I search for on pinterest below👇. My secret tip would be to not always go for the first photo you find but rather to open a picture that sorta has what you like in it and then scroll down, because pinterest is going to recommend you similar, sometimes better fitting photos. On tumblr, I sometimes go to the blog of the person whose one photo I like, and there I tend to find many more of the same kind (since these bloggers usually post a specific kind of aesthetic).

How to choose photos

My number one tip would be to seek texture. Avoid photos that have little going on in them and anything too empty or minimalistic (unless that's what you're aiming for, obviously). Also, don't choose pictures that are very light or very dark, as they tend to stand out in aesthetics and that's not really what you want. At least in the type of aesthetics that I make, I want the final product to be almost a new picture in itself if that makes sense. To show you an example, look at this photo of two sleeping cats:

This photo seems like a good fit; it is well balanced in colours (there are shades of white, beige/ginger as well as some greens) and c'mon, it's two cats, what more do you need!!! However, let's look at it in a complete aesthetic:

While this aesthetic has a nice color scheme to it (well, it doesn't, I threw it together super quickly, but you get the gist), the photo of the two cats just stands out because the khaki background creates this kind of block of color that your eye will automatically go to and it sort of breaks the collage apart. So, by texture, I mean that a picture is filled, for example with trees, flowers, architecture, little people in the background, etc., etc. Furthermore, I prefer when there are more things photographed (for instance, look at the first picture of the aesthetic above; it has a mirror (and a tiny person in it), architecture and leaves all in one picture)

Next, personality. Go to Google Images and search 'Nature Photography' or 'Sunset Photos'. You might get something like this:

Or this:

Look at this absolute angel of a boy💚💚💚💚💚💚Isn't he the cutest freaking thing you've ever seen?????? I just want to give him all the treats and all the pets and — ...ehm, sorry, that's not why we're here.

So I don't quite know how to explain this point, but I guess usually professional photos like this are just so well done that they work perfectly well on their own and you usually don't put them in a set (only with other photos from the same photoshoot maybe). They're obviously well-balanced color-wise and high in quality, but they're just very individual and don't really need any addition in the form of other photos. This point also applies to the previous one (textures, in case you forgot); for example, a bunch of blueberries creates a nice texture, however it might be difficult to pair them with other photos. They have enough personality on their own (and this is not meant in a bad way to the photos I do use).

Related to this, you're looking for a story. Usually, if a photo gives off a certain vibe, tells a story, or just leaves any kind of strong impression, it might be a good indication that this is a good photo to use (given all the other rules as well, of course).

The main themes I search for are:

cities, villages, or abandoned places

related to that — architecture or only parts (details) of it

nature, specifically forests with either road or a body of water nearby, beaches, deserts and so on. plus points for tiny people in the distance

animals, usually with the addition of maybe the texture of a sweater sleeve or some blankets, something of that sort

people, my favorite kind is people turned away from the camera with an interesting background, because by them not having a face, they become a bit more relatable in a sense?

people in a river or some kind of water

museums, sculptures

etc.

Usually, I tend to avoid:

photos with text in it (though as an exception I would mention neon signs or letters/words that are for example above shops, on books, etc.)

heavily filtered pictures

photos with very specific (often bold) colors in them, unless you find multiple photos with that same shade. this again distracts the eye too much

GIFs, animated pictures, illustrations/drawings. also, don't use collages (cause you are creating a collage, duh)

black & white pictures

blurred pictures (or those that are purposely grainy — that goes back to the filters above)

anything obviously photoshopped

When trying to figure out where to put each photo

Squint your eyes. The photos should create a nice harmony, there shouldn't be a corner where it gets too light or dark or where some textures blend together, for example, if using multiple flower patterns, try to place them in different corners.

When to know your aesthetic is done

Actually even before you start, you should be in the mood. I have to admit, there have been times where I've felt pressured into making aesthetics, and now, looking back at them, I'm really ashamed of them. That is why I don't always post aesthetics as soon as I get them requested because I genuinely want them to look good.

Sometimes, it helps to not post the aesthetic straight away but to come back to it later with a fresh look. I'd say go with your gut. You should have a good, satisfying feeling about the aesthetic.

Last note

Rules are meant to be broken. Look at the aesthetic below. I used a minimalistic illustration (two birds with one stone I guess) (and admittedly, that one picture does stand out) and yet the aesthetic still came out pretty nice. So, just play around with your ideas and see what you like the most! I'm just a random person on the internet, you literally don't have to listen to any of the tips I gave you here today.

I know this might seem like a lot (honestly, if you've read this entire thing, you're crazy), but it gets easier and easier with practice, soon you won't even think about it.

Hopefully these tips will help you and please let me know if you decide to make any aesthetics. I would love to see them!! <3

[ja-khajay]

Stuff I read (and liked) this year

As promised, here’s a list of the novels, comics, manga, etc... I read this year, focusing on the ones I enjoyed and would recommend to people. Under a cut, this is going to be a little long.

-------- Books --------

Favorite book of the year: Stranger in the Woods, by Michael Finkel

Non-fiction. Based on the interviews of the man himself by the author, it is about a man who felt so unfit for society he decided one day to leave it, and spent the next 28 years as a hidden hermit in forest in Maine. The book details how he survived there, how he was eventually found, and some of his reasons for doing so. It’s a great reflection on the nature of loneliness.

Indian creek, by Pete Fromm

...Yet another detailed tale of living alone in the woods. This time, the diary of a student who spent a winter in the mountains to help tend for salmon hatchlings, and how he spent the rest of his days hiking, hunting, meeting the locals. It’s a fun little book who, being set almost the whole world away from where I live, was a nice way to travel.

Howl’s Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones

I don’t feel the need to explain this one since everyone and their mom has seen the movie adapted from it. The book, that I first read a decade ago before I actually watched the film, is a less romantized, more spirited telling of the same story. The writing is absolutely delightful and so is the world it paints, and it’s the first time in ages a book had me laughing out loud during my entire read.

-------- Comics (BD) --------

Favorite comic of the year: Monsieur Désire?, by Hubert and Virginie Augustin

A discreet young woman becomes a maid for a decadent, unbearable, byronesque young lord. Caked in the rigid and oppressive social hierarchy of the victorian era, you follow a mental and verbal joust between the two, as the lord tries his best to offend and corrupt his new unrelenting servant, to little success. The writing and especially the dialogues were stellar, drawing me into the tense atmosphere, watching this trainwreck of a character flamboyantly destroy himself. While there’s no precise content warnings that I can give, this is a mature and heavy story.

World of Edena, by Moebius

Anyone who’s followed this blog for over a month knows how much of a Moebius fan I am. Edena combines the vague, dreamlike, wordless storytelling from stuff like Arzach or The cat’s eyes with an actual plot. While I haven’t completly finished the story, the evolution of the main characters and how the story is told have been great to read through, and as always the art is beyond gorgeous. Unfortunately suffers from some good old sexism in the writing that even if minimal, tasted sour

Le roman de Renart, by Joan Sfar (book 1)

Sfar’s work always has a signature vibe of being dreamy and light without being light hearted, of being down to earth but drifting in the fantastical, and this one is no exception. It’s an adaption of a series of medieval folk tales I grew up with, who uses the same characters to tell an original story. If you’re familiar with icons like Renart as well as other mythological big boys like Merlin you’ll fit right in. There is something special in how the dialogues are written, who feel natural in a way that you’d overhear in a street corner and is very special to me.

The mercenary, by VIncente Segrelles

Another one I post about a lot on this blog. The mercenary is a king on the throne of fantasy cheese. The worldbuilding is interesting at times but the writing is a pretty pathetic display of glorious old time sword and sorcery sci-fantasy 10 years too late for it’s prime (warning for ye old sexism and orientalism that plagues the genre, cranked very high...) but you come and stay for the art. The entire thing is drawn in a series of hyper detailed oil paintings with an insane eye for technical detail, from the engineering of the weaponry, to the architecture and weather, to the anatomy of the fantasy creatures... Each panel stands out as it’s own painting which makes even flipping through it without reading the scenario a treat. Click here to see more of the art, in my Segrelles tag.

The ice maurauder, by Jacques Tardi

A short story about mad scientists entirely drawn like a 19th century engraving. In great Tardi tradition everyone is ugly and mean, it ends terribly, it’s both a hommage to the genre of late 19th cent. to early 1900s dramatic adventure novels and a critical eye on it, and it’s morbidly funny. Most people I saw online hated the way this was written but I’m not them and I really recommend this book. Die mad

-------- Manga --------

Favorite manga of the year: it’s a tie between the following two.

Cats of the Louvre, by Taiyo Matsumoto

Most wonderful comic I have read in ages. The story follows a bunch of semi-feral cats secretly living in the Louvre museum’s attic, and the small group of humans who share their life, walking through the museum as the night watch. When the cats are together, they are represented in a humanoid way, but still act like animals, and “become” cats again when a human is nearby. The plot is a sort of supernatural mystery centered around a kitten who walks around paintings. It’s a love letter to art, sincere and beautiful, with a unique art style and great characters.

Memoirs of amorous Gentlemen, by Moyoco Anno

A sex worker in early 20th century paris starts writing down a diary of the clients she meets, in a quest to cope with the troubles of her life. You follow her, her colleagues, and her bittersweet relationship with an abusive lover. I don’t have much words about this comic, but the art and writing both are amazing, it’s the perfect length and drew me in like little series had before. Obvious content warnings as this is an adult story that talks about sexuality, but also depicts both mental and physical abuse.

Hana, also by Taiyo Matsumoto 

A very short story, this was not made to be read as a comic originally, but served as storyboarding and visual development for a play, and the way it is written follows that. Hana is a slice of life story set in a fantasy world, of a young boy, his family, his village. Despite the setting being an original one, the character interactions are refreshingly... normal, and there is no huge plot to speak of, just a bit of the life of these characters. The art is beautiful, entirely black and white, with a scratchy style and an emphasis on contrast. Matsumoto is on a speedy road to becoming my favorite manga artist haha

Delicious in Dungeon, by Ryoko Kui

While not marked as my year’s favorite, I still consider this series among my favorite manga ever. The art and writing are amazing, and it’s both heartfelt, well concieved and plain hilarious. The story follows several parties of dungeon diving adventurers each on their little quests with a premise of our protagonists, on a panic rescue mission, surviving in the dungeon by cooking and eating the monsters they come across. From a DnD party turned cooking manual dinner of the week beginning, the plot creeps up on you and slowly thickens. I don’t want to spoil anything about the overarching story of this because it was a delight to discover for myself. While everything about DinD rules, I am especially fond of the design philosophy of the author, who puts great detail in the practicality and biology of what she draws, as well as the character writing. Everyone even side characters has so much charm and depth to them, the cast is so diverse and entertaining...! Each character is just a bit lame enough but endearing, and has their own little backstory that shows in the way they exist. It’s a delight

Chainsaw man, by Tatsuki Fujimoto

I went into CSM expecting a borderline campy hyperviolent dumb fun thing to read and was very surprised to find an uncomfortably well written story about a teenager being groomed. The hyperviolent dumb fun fights are here nonetheless and the series still qualifies as shonen for some reason, but the more mature character writing as well as some truly outlandish visuals make it something very special. If you can’t stand shonen, not sure you will like it, but if you don’t mind it, worth trying.

Witch hat atelier, by Kamome Shirahama

The oh so elegant fantasy seinen every cool kid started posting about this year, who I also succumbed to and fast. Witch hat is hard to explain, as most of it’s plot revolves around the rules of the world it’s set in, specifically the regulations around it’s magic and the social and historical reasons for them. It’s about growing up, learning, disability, making art. You follow a little girl taken in by a witch as an apprentice, her magical education, and learn little by little why her lovely teacher is so willing to break a lot of rules... While a bit too gentle and pretty for my taste at times, Witch hat has great worldbuilding and explores sensitive themes I rarely see in manga, much less in fantasy. And Berserk wishes it had art this good

[wordsintimeandspace]

All That Haunts Us (1/14)

Jon and Tim have seen their fair share of strange things while working in Research at the Magnus Institute. They still didn’t quite expect to rescue Martin, who has been missing for a year, from a supernatural encounter during one of their investigations. Together, the three of them hunt for answers and try to find a way forward, but they all have things that haunt them.

Meanwhile, Elias sees the perfect opportunity to set his devious plan into motion...

Jon/Martin/Tim, rated T, ~2500 words for this chapter. Read on AO3!

Tim plumps down onto the corner of Jon’s desk without much warning. After months of being friends with Tim Jon supposes he should be used to it by now, but he still startles a little, eyes shooting up from the book he’s been engrossed in for who knows how long. Tim sits there with his arms crossed over his chest, smiling down at him like he’s exactly where he belongs.

“Can I help you?” Jon finally asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh, I hope so,” Tim says lightly. “But first, I brought lunch.”

He sets a sandwich down in front of Jon. Jon blinks in surprise, and only now notices the rumbling of his stomach and the empty desks around him as everyone else in his shared office has gone out for lunch. “Oh. Sorry, we had planned to meet up, hadn’t we?”

“It’s fine. I don’t mind eating here.” Tim takes a bite of his own sandwich, as if to demonstrate. Jon wrinkles his nose as he continues talking, mouth half full. “Reading anything interesting?”

For a second Jon hesitates - out of all the people in the Research Department, Tim might be the only one to agree with him that ‘The Architecture of Cathedrals in the 15th Century’ is actually interesting. But based on the look in his eyes, Jon suspects he has something more pressing to talk about. “Nothing too important,” he finally says, carefully prying the wrapper away from his food. “What did you need help with?”

“I’ve been working on a case.”

Jon looks up from his sandwich - spicy chicken and cucumber, just what he prefers - and frowns. “The one with the cat, right?”

Tim heaves a melodramatic sigh. “Yes, the one with the lady who claims her cat got eaten by, let me quote, ‘a six foot tall monster with too many legs and teeth’. As if that’s the only logical explanation for an outdoor cat to go missing in London. Never mind, oh, I don’t know, cars and foxes and all that.”

Even as he tries to suppress it, Jon can’t quite help the grin tugging at the corners of his lips. “You sound like you had a bit of a week.”

“Oh, you have no idea. I called every vet and the animal shelter if they’ve seen any unusual injuries. And then I’ve knocked on every door in the area that has a cat flap and asked them if their cat has gone missing in the last year, and I scoured every possible missing pet portal on the entire internet.”

“... and? Did you find anything?” Jon asks when Tim doesn’t continue.

Tim throws his hands up, exasperated. “Of course I found something. Do you have any idea how many cats go missing every year in a city like this, entirely due to natural causes?”

Jon nods. “Okay, I get your point. This still doesn’t answer the question of what you need help with though.”

“Look, I just thought... if there is a monster like that - and I’m not saying there is - it’s big enough to harm more than cats, right? So I looked for missing dogs as well. And then, while I was on a roll and because I was terribly bored, I looked for missing persons.”

At that, Jon raises an eyebrow. He knows Tim is an excellent researcher, thorough in everything he does, but that seems to go even beyond his usual rigour. “You can’t possibly tell me you found an account of a person being eaten by a monster like that. Surely we would have heard of it by now.”

“No, ‘course not.” Tim rolls his eyes, taking another bite of his sandwich before he continues. “This has nothing to do with that. But what I did find was a missing person’s report from about a year ago, and several accounts from the last few months that the building where he used to live is haunted.”

Jon stills, looking at Tim with a frown. “That rather sounds like someone is making a crude joke.”

“At first I thought so too,” Tim says. “But the reports on the hauntings didn’t mention that a person went missing there. And the guy’s address isn’t even public. They couldn’t have known. I had Sasha dig that up for me, along with other details on the case. You know Sasha, right?”

Jon nods - he doesn’t think he’s ever talked to her, but even he can’t escape the Institute gossip when someone transfers from Artifact Storage to another department. And he’s seen her around Research by now, in the last few weeks. “I- yes. But… what kind of ‘haunting’ are we talking about here?”

Tim shrugs. “There seems to be a bunch of evidence. Recordings of hushed voices and weird noises, something like rustling? Blurry figures in the shadows. Cold spots.”

“I’m not sure I would count that as evidence.”

Tim lets out a long sigh. “Don’t be such a sceptic.”

Jon frowns. “It is our job to be sceptical.”

“Yeah, sure, but you have to admit it’s a weird coincidence, right? That this building where one person disappeared is supposedly haunted since then?”

Jon bites his lip. He trusts Tim’s instincts. And he can’t deny that there’s something off about this whole thing, even if he can’t put his finger on it. It happens sometimes, that a case just feels… wrong, he supposes. That it comes with a prickle of unease and a shiver down his spine, in a way that is too familiar to ignore. He wonders if Tim feels it as well, or if he just - for some unfathomable reason - wants to get out of interviewing even more cat owners.

“What do you want to do about this, then?” he finally asks, and Tim’s face immediately brightens.

“I want to go view the flat. There’s a rent advertisement online. Perfect opportunity for a bit of snooping.”

“Okay. And you need me for… what, exactly?”

At this Tim smiles - a bit mischievous, which is his usual expression, but also a bit bashful, which is a rare sight for someone as self-assured as Tim. Jon can’t help but feel a bit nervous about that, and reaches for his long cold mug of tea.

“I need you to pose as my boyfriend,” Tim says calmly, and Jon promptly chokes as he takes a sip.

“What?” he finally manages to get out as soon as he can breathe again. His cheeks are burning, but Tim just gives him a sympathetic smile and a pat on the back.

“You heard me. Come on, help me out there buddy.”

“But… why?”

Tim lets out a long sigh. “Look, I first tried to be honest, but when I called the landlord and mentioned the Magnus Institute he swore at me and hung up. The rent advertisement is just the backup plan. I need you to be with me and take over the speaking to make sure he doesn’t recognize me.”

For a moment, Jon can only stare at him. “I still don’t understand why I’d have to be your boyfriend. Can’t I be your flatmate?”

“It’s a one bedroom apartment. He’s not going to believe we’re flatmates.”

“What about Sasha? Can’t you ask her?” Jon asks, a bit helplessly.

Tim gives him a long look. “Jon, I’m trying very hard not to be offended that you really don’t want to fake date me, but you’re not making it easy.”

“I- I’m not-” Jon splutters before heaving a sigh. “I- fine. Fine. I’ll do it.”

Tim cheers, even as Jon glowers at him. “Oh, this is fantastic,” he says, rubbing his hands together. “I’ve always wanted to do something like this. Can I call you a pet name?”

Heat rises in Jon’s cheeks. He tries his best to glare even as his stomach swoops at the idea, for reasons he resolutely does not want to examine. “Absolutely not.”

“Hold your hand?”

“No.”

Tim lets out a sigh, crossing his arms over his chest. “You’re no fun.”

“This is supposed to be work, not fun.”

“I can multitask and do both at once, Jon.”

Suppressing a groan, Jon rolls his eyes at him, and decides to just move on. “When do you want to do this?”

“Okay, so, I need you to call to set up an appointment. We can-”

Abruptly, Tim stops. He goes still, the excited grin slipping off his lips. He’s not looking at Jon anymore, his eyes instead fixed on something behind him.

Jon whirls around in his chair, and startles when his gaze falls on Elias Bouchard, head of the Magnus Institute, standing in the doorway to his office. As usual, he is wearing an impeccable grey suit and a smile that never quite matches the piercing look in his eyes. Somehow, there’s always something unnerving about him, although Jon can’t put his finger on it.

“Um. Hello, Mr. Bouchard,” he starts slowly.

Elias’ smile widens just a little bit. “Jonathan. I’ve told you before, call me Elias,” he says smoothly. “And Timothy. Just the man I wanted to speak to.”

Tim winces and sits up a little straighter. “Of course. What can I help you with?”

Elias fixes Tim with a long stare that makes Jon squirm in his seat. “I had a rather unpleasant call with one Mr. Abbott earlier,” Elias finally says, raising a perfectly manicured eyebrow. “He complained that someone from the Magnus Institute asked to see one of his rental properties to investigate a case.”

“I’m just doing some regular follow-up, Sir,” Tim says, a bit defensively. Jon finally looks away from Elias towards Tim, and watches the crease between his brows deepen as Elias continues.

“Of course. I’m sure you were perfectly polite, Timothy. Mr. Abbott, however, was quite clear that he believes an investigation like this will hurt his carefully crafted image. And I just couldn’t help but wonder why you were contacting him when you were supposed to work on the… what was it, the case of Mrs. Mitchell, I believe? Regarding the disappearance of her cat?”

“Err. Yes, I-”

“Are the cases connected?” Elias asks, a sudden sharpness in his voice that makes Jon flinch. Tim’s mouth twists, as if he’s trying hard to suppress a grimace.

“I don’t believe so, no,” Tim says hesitantly. “I just thought-”

“In that case, I would advise you to focus on the work you were assigned, Mr. Stoker.” The tone in Elias’ voice makes it very clear that he won’t accept any objections. Nevertheless, the smile on his lips doesn’t falter. “We wouldn’t want to get any more complaints, would we?”

“I-” Tim stops himself, letting out a sigh. “Of course, Sir.”

“Since it seems you might have gotten bored with the Mitchell case, I’m sure you have already conducted all necessary research and can deliver the report to my desk by this evening. Or am I mistaken?”

Tim’s frown deepens, but he doesn’t protest. “Sure,” he grumbles.

“Excellent,” Elias says, the sudden sharpness in his voice gone as quickly as it came. He gives them both a short nod. “Have a good day, gentlemen.”

With that, Elias turns on his heels and walks away. He’s out of sight as soon as he turns a corner down the corridor, but still, Jon can’t help but stare after him. Beside him, Tim lets out a pitiful groan.

“This evening?” Tim buries his face in his hands. “I had until next week to do the report. I haven’t even started it.”

“I’m sorry,” Jon says with a wince. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Nah. Don’t think so. But thank you.” Tim looks up with a small smile and stands, wrapping up the remains of his sandwich. “I’ll best get back to work if I want to have this done by five.”

Jon lets out a small hum, but he’s still distracted by what just happened. Again, he stares down the corridor, as if Elias might reappear any second. He can’t shake the feeling of his eyes on him.

“Are you alright?” Tim asks. Jon startles a little and looks back at him. Tim is watching him with a quizzical expression on his face.

“Yes,” Jon says hesitantly, chewing on his bottom lip. “It’s just… that was strange, wasn’t it?”

Tim shrugs. “Yeah. But everything about Bouchard is strange.”

“I suppose. But this was...” Jon hesitates. This was more than strange, he wants to say. This feels like Elias doesn’t want us to investigate whatever is going on in that haunted flat. But that’s a silly thought, isn’t it? Jon shakes his head. “Nevermind. Good luck with the report.”

Tim gives him a pained smile. “Thanks,” he says miserably, and finally shuffles back towards his office.

That afternoon, as much as Jon tries to go back to his book, he can’t quite stop thinking. He can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong, in a way that makes him jittery and anxious and makes it impossible to focus on the words in front of him. He stays late to make up for it, and when he finally calls it a day, the other researchers that share his office have already left. Jon puts on his coat and grabs his bag, and goes to check on Tim.

The door to Tim’s office is still open, although all the desks are currently unoccupied. Tim’s desk is a bit of a mess, filled with piled up papers and books and too many empty cups of tea. With their earlier conversation about the case still on the forefront of his mind, Jon gives in to the temptation to step closer and skim through the texts scattered on the desk.

It doesn’t take long until his gaze falls onto what looks like the copy of a police report. Carefully, he pulls the paper out from underneath a book. It’s undoubtedly the missing person’s report Tim has mentioned. The address fits to the area of the case he was working on. Jon starts reading, and immediately stills.

It hits him suddenly that Tim had never mentioned the name of the missing person. Sometimes, it’s easy to forget that there are actual people behind the cases they’re researching. But there’s the name, right next to a photograph.

In the photo, Martin Blackwood is looking directly at the camera, a small smile on his lips. Jon takes a moment to take him in - the pudgy cheeks covered in freckles, the sad eyes, the light brown hair falling in soft curls around his face. An actual person, with a life and friends and family who must wonder what has happened to him after he disappeared a year ago. Who maybe still have hope that one day, he will come back.

So far, Jon was only a little irritated that Elias intervened in their investigation. Now, he’s suddenly furious.

Before he knows what he’s doing, Jon pulls out his phone and takes a photograph of the report. He places it back on Tim’s desk and leaves.

As he walks to the tube station, he pulls up the address on his phone. He takes the train that goes in the opposite direction of where he lives, changes trains twice, and finally, half an hour later, steps out into the chill September air. By now, it’s already getting dark. Jon pulls up the collar of his coat to protect himself against the cold, and begins to walk towards the haunted flat where Martin Blackwood disappeared.

[procrastinatorproject]

Fic writer review, thank you to @thelaithlyworm  for the tag <3

how many works do you have on AO3?

Ten? Oh no, it’s actualy 12 now!

what’s your total AO3 word count?

86,468

how many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Grand total of 1: Star Trek: Picard - although my latest offering might branch a bit into other Trek as well.

what are your top 5 fics by kudos?

“Passengers”

“And a Barrel of Gagh”

“CMO’s Log”

“Preparations”

“Game Night”

Which is actually kinda interesting. I wrote Passengers, Preparations, and Game Night while the fandom was still a lot more active (especially in the Aramis in Space corner), so that makes sense. The CMO’s log has had chapters added every few months, giving it probably the most exposure of any of my fics. Barrel of Gagh, though? I think I’m gonna attribute that to Thimblerig turning it into a truly, TRULY brilliant piece of podfic. Also the fact that it’s whump involving a character played by Santiago Cabrera. ‘tis A Thing..... :D

do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I really try to! I love talking with people in the comments and just... thanking the people who found the time and energy to leave comments. But especially in the last few months I have gotten very bad at keeping up with the comments and now there’s about two dozen that I have neglected to reply to for a painfully long time 🙈

But I will get there! Because I love that kind of interaction!

what’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

So far, none of them have had angsty endings. Angsty middles, yes, but not endings. I’m just a sucker for everyone being happy in the end. Or at least on the way to being better, and supported and cared for on that way.

do you write crossovers? if so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

I haven’t yet, but I’m definitely not opposed. One of the threads of my 200k unpublishable whump scenes takes place in a continuity that has existed in my daydreams for... I wanna say six years at the very least, probably longer. It’s mostly straight-up Star Trek, but with the twist that it involves the Wraith, the telepathic, hive-minded alien race from Stargate: Atlantis that suck the life force out of you with their hands? Or, well, at least a variation thereof.

I once typed up the world building for that particular setting and it took me three hours to try and make it all make sense. So it’s... involved. But not necessarily “crazy”. And I’m not sure I’m ever actually going to publish any of the stories I have set in it (not least because that would envolve finishing any of them and bringing them into a form that is interesting to read for anyone but me...)

have you ever received hate on a fic?

Nope.

do you write smut? if so what kind?

Hm, not yet. I do enjoy reading smut, but only under very specific circumstances. I think I may eventually try my hand at smut, but the inner prude is still very strong. Writing about Rios and Xyr making out (which, honestly, was really tame, all things considered) made me melt in a puddle of blushing embarrassment, so full-on smut is probably beyond me at the moment. One day!

have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of. Though litigating that in a fandom like ours would be... tricky. ST:Pic is way too small to steal stories outright. But similar or the same ideas pop up all the time. And it’s a complete coincidence. Reading the book that recently came out and that has a kinda similar setting to a lot of my stories (pre-season 1, early in Rios’s history as captain of Sirena, dealing with original characters, holo shenanigans, friendship with Raffi, etc.), I was struck by just how many elements, both scenes or story beats and little details, were similar to things that have cropped up in my writing. And it is entirely coincidental, because I am beyond certain that the author doesn’t read fanfic. Just... for legal reasons. Not to mention I wrote a bunch of the things I saw parallels to while the book was already in production, and some of them are only in my drafts.

So there is a ton of convergent evolution going on in this particular section of the fandom, and trying to litigate who came up with certain plot ideas or character beats when would be a sysiphean disaster. Some things are clear and whenever I use any of them I give credit where I can, but people will have very similar ideas. It just happens. So no, I haven’t had either a full-on story or “an idea” stolen, and I might change my tune if it ever does happen, but so far, I’m trying to practice equanimity, so I’ll be better at it should I ever need it.

have you ever had a fic translated?

Sadly no. My dad keeps complaining that all my fic is in English so he can’t read any of it, but honestly? I’m kinda glad for this very convenient excuse. Maybe if I ever feel like I want to practice my interpreting skills, I will give translating the stories into German a shot. We’ll see. Otherwise, if anyone feels inspired: Have at it! Just let me know, okay?

have you ever co-written a fic before?

Not quite. I have a draft of off-the-cuff worldbuilding that I wrote on Discord with @curator-on-ao3 and that I would love to turn into an actual short fic (letters from a conference on holo-ethics), but I haven’t gotten around to it yet.

what’s your all time favorite ship?

I don’t really do shipping.

what’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I WILL NEVER ACCEPT DEFEAT!!!! One day, I will write the next installment of Star Trek: La Sirena! I have so many ideas for that continuity and those characters. I’m not going to abandon them!

what are your writing strengths?

Hmmmmm. Probably detailed worldbuilding? Ask me something about, say, a technological or cultural aspect of Star Trek and chances are, I have thought about it in the past or will come up with three different sets of intricate lore within half an hour. (Things like... the architecture of San Francisco, or Will there still be taxi drivers? or the treaty between IKEA Intergalactic and the Borg Collective, or the Universal Translator, or Emergency Services or Why There Are Very Few Ambulances On Earth Anymore etceterah etceterah...)

I’m also good at slapping together off-the-cuff plot ideas (if, say, you need an explanation for how Seven and Agnes ended up stranded on a desert island, I could probably give you three different scenarios pretty quickly. Just don’t ask me to make them poignant or actually write them.

I’m also very, very good at beginnings.

what are your writing weaknesses?

Everything that isn’t a beginning. Especially endings, or rather: finishing something, but also just... keeping momentum.

I think my dialogue is somewhat samey and not distinct enough between characters. (Also my witty banter is... let’s just say it doesn’t come to me naturally...)

And I also struggle with keeping things brief and to the point. I can write you 30k of whump covering a span of three hours, but fitting a whole story in the same space? Much more difficult!

I have also avoided writing full-on action so far, but where it has crept in it has always been a struggle and been workshopped a lot with the indefatigable beta.

Otherwise, I don’t know. My self-perception is always a little warped, so I’m not sure what other people would say my weaknesses are.

what are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Oof. Well. I have used Spanish sentences in my fic and done the thing where they’re translated in the end note, but I’ve mostly done it sparingly. I’ve also done the ‘“What do you want?” he said in Spanish.’ It’s tricky. But I will likely keep doing it in some instances, even if it’s a bit annoying.

(It also really helps to have a native speaker of Spanish as a beta, even if it’s Spanish from a different region than you’re character.)

Speaking of regional: I’m also torn about the whole “phonetically writing out accents” issue. Some people love it, some people hate it, I’m really unsure because I’m not a native speaker of English, so I’m not even sure I’m consistent in my narrative voice’s regional quirks. So far, I’ve mostly gone with describing that an accent is happening, and only writing out when phrasing actually differs from standard English. Like Ian (Scottish) saying “dinnae” but not writing “I” as “ah” as you’d see on, say, Scottish twitter.

Though it can be a very useful tool if, for instance, you want to indicate a characters accent getting stronger as they get tired or upset. 🧐

Anyway, I don’t think there is one right or wrong answer here and everyones milage will vary.

what was the first fandom you wrote for?

Published? ST:PIC

Actually first? Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. Pretty much simultaneously, though I did write more for LotR. On graph paper, mind, with my fountain pen turned upside down so I could write smaller. I still have folders worth of those stories that I urgently need to digitize before they fade and I lose them forever...

what’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

I’m going to quote @thelaithlyworm here: I Love All My Children Equally! I honestly couldn’t say. They are different and I love them for different reasons but I love them all.

Thank you for the tag! ❤ I’ve kinda lost track of who all has done this already or has already been tagged, so feel free to ignore me! But I tink I’m tagging @curator-on-ao3, @aini-nufire, @29-pieces, @flowers-creativity, @highfunctioningflailgirl, @cristobalrios and @the-goofball. And anyone else whom I forgot or who feels inspired to do this!

[lorirwritesfanfic]

Training For The Future

Author's note: It’s been two whole weeks without writing my comfort OTP and I had to fix that issue 😁 [Original characters are creations of this author. The others are owned by Pixelberry Studios] Book: Desire & Decorum (modern day AU) Pairing: Prince Hamid x MC (Daphne) Rating: G Word count: 1342 Reading time: ~5min Summary: When Daphne is struggling with issues at home, Hamid steps in to give her the reassurance she needs. Based on the prompt: Choices November Challenge - day fourteen: father

Hamid sat on the king-size bed of his hotel suite and picked up his wrist watch, gazing intently at the ring marking the time in Ithaca. When he was single, whenever he agreed to joining a conference abroad, he couldn't wait to explore the city he was going to visit. Nowadays, when he said yes to those appointments, he hoped his partner could join him. Alas, Daphne couldn't always skip classes to take strolls in foreign cities with him whenever he wanted to. Fortunately, they always found ways to fight the distance.

He was about to reach for his phone when it started to buzz on the nightstand. His lips curled up, reflecting the joy visible in his eyes as he checked the ID caller.

"Good afternoon, aşkım."

"Good evening, bir tanem. How's Prague?"

"It's marvelous! The architecture is breathtaking, the weather is nice, the food is so good... You'd love it here."

"Aw... I wish I was there too..." Her pouty face then turned into a scowl. "I hate stupid college tests for stupid mandatory seminar classes..." She grumbled.

Hamid chuckled. "Speaking of which, how did it go?"

"It was okay, I think. I probably won't be top of the class in the Neoclassical Art Period seminar, but whatever. Neoclassical art is just a bunch of Europeans too lazy to create an original art movement." She gave her shoulders.

"Suuuure…” He smirked. “But the real question is: are you going to survive if you get an A- or should I call reinforcement, my beautiful nerd?" He teased.

"Shut up..." She made a face.

Hamid guffawed.

"Ugh, I must be really lovesick… I can’t even berate you."

“Do you miss me?”

“I do…”

His heart fluttered in response. Even after years of relationship, he couldn't resist the softness of her voice and look in her eyes whenever she told him about her feelings.

"I miss you too, aşkım. How are our babies doing?"

Her demeanor suddenly changed as she averted her gaze for a moment. But she quickly brushed off any wandering thoughts and replied. "Drake is okay, but he has spent a lot of time staring at the door now. I think he misses you." She then changed the camera to show Drake lying in front of the door.

"I miss our chonky boy too. How's Maya?"

Daphne went quiet again, looking away from the screen.

"Daphne?"

"I'm a little concerned about her."

"Oh?"

"She hasn't eaten much since you left, she's constantly tired, her eyes are watery and she has been sneezing..."

"Sneezing?"

"Yeah..."

"Does she have a runny nose?"

"I'm not sure... Let me check."

The view of Daphne's phone showed the way to their suite. As she turned the lights on, Hamid spotted his cat lying on her cat bed.

"Hey, girl..." Daphne carefully approached the cat and scratched her head. "Do you mind if I take a look at you again?"

The cat blinked slowly, but didn't move. The watery eyes gave the cat a tired look. Maya sneezed before Daphne lifted Maya's head to check the nose.

"Yeah, she has a runny nose," she said once she turned the screen back to herself. "Her ears are hot too. That's not a good sign, is it?"

"Allah kahretsin¹..." Hamid grumbled. If his guess was correct, Maya would give Daphne a hard time.

"Is she sick?"

"I think so. But to be sure, I need you to take her to the vet."

Color drained from Daphne's face. She did her best to hide, but every time something happened to Maya, she panicked. Though she loved animals, she had no experience with cats before Maya and, even after a year living together, the viscountess was still worried the feline didn't like her.

"But what if she tries to attack me?"

"I know Maya is a little aggressive when she wants to play, but she's sick. She doesn't have the energy to attack you. You can wear the handling gloves, just in case, but I doubt she will do anything."

Daphne stood up and began to pace around. Yet, he wasn't sure if she was looking for Maya’s things or out of anxiety.

"Take her to the vet, but don't drive yourself. You know she doesn't like cars and she’ll get stressed if you leave her alone in the backseat. Call an Uber."

She chewed on a nail, looking away from the screen.

"Daphne?"

"Yes?"

"I trust you. I know you can do it. I'll be with you every step of the way, all right?"

The lady took a deep breath and nodded. "All right..."

The next day

Hamid approached the door to his apartment, hoping he wouldn't disturb his life partner or the neighbours so early in the morning. But as he reached for the door handle, Drake barked loudly, shaking his whole body as he waggled his tail.

"You stayed by the door all night looking after our girls, didn't you?" The diplomat closed the door, pushed his suitcase aside and crouched down to pet the dog. "Well done, oğul². You're the best boy."

The dog lied down and exposed his belly. Hamid chuckled softly and gave Drake a more thorough scratch before standing up again. "I'm going to check on the girls, okay? Go back to sleep."

The diplomat removed his jacket and shoes, placed them in the closet whilst the pug returned to his little bed by the sofa.

As he made his way to the master bedroom. Hamid stopped by the door and smiled fondly at the sight of Maya lying on his side of the bed with her back pressed to Daphne's.

"Kızım?³" He whispered as he sat on the bed and reached for the cat.

Maya opened her eyes and tried to meow, but no sound came out.

"Ah, prensesim⁴…” He sighed, gently caressing Maya's chin. “You look so tired. But I promise you'll get better in no time, okay?"

"Hamidciğim?" Daphne yawned his pet name and sat up.

"Good morning, aşkım."

"You're here!" A combination of surprise and relief dawned on her features. "I thought you'd only return in two days."

"I got an early flight. I already did what I had to do at the conference and excused myself to come home. My girls needed me," he said, brushing her long bangs away from her face.

"I'm sorry about Maya. I didn't know cats could have the flu too."

"It's all right. You never had cats before. I don't expect you to know everything about them."

"But we're raising her together and I feel so clueless of what to do with her when you're not around."

Daphne petted Maya with a wistful glint in her eyes.

"It's my fault, isn't it?"

"No... Of course not. If anyone is to blame, it would be me. I was the one who took her for a stroll the last time. Most likely she got the virus from an infected cat at the park and I didn't notice."

"But you knew what she had and what to do. I just freaked out. What if she got worse?"

"Daphne, this isn't a life threatening disease. It's uncomfortable for her, heartbreaking for us, but there isn't much we can't do. Cat flu is just like human flu. We treat the symptoms and wait for her to get better."

"Oh..." She frowned. "See? That's why I need you. I don't know anything about cats."

"Well, I don't know everything. We can learn things with each other, together... That's what partners do."

Daphne nodded and lied down again, this time with her head on his lap. "I'm happy you're home again. Hell would break loose here if you didn't come back sooner."

He chortled. "I think you'd be fine on your own, but it's good to know I'm the calm parent. I'll consider this a training for the future."

"The future?"

"Yeah," he answered, giving her a knowing look as his fingers idly ran through her hair.

"If you say so... Okay."

She flipped on her side and looked away to hide a smile.

As they remained in blissful silence, Maya walked over and lied with her back pressed against Hamid's leg, calmly flapping her tail on Daphne's face.

The lady pressed her lips together in annoyance. "Seriously, Maya?"

"I told you what it means."

"That's a weird way to show affection," she nagged.

"Accept it. She loves you." He grinned.

"Yeah, okay..." Daphne yawned.

Soon, the three of them fell asleep and the apartment went quiet again.

_____

¹ Goddamnit...

² Son

³ My daughter

⁴ My princess

[thewidowsghost]

The Daughter of the Sea - Chapter 6

(Y/n)'s POV

Once I get over the fact that my brother's Latin teacher was half horse, we have a nice tour.

We pass by the volleyball pit. Several of the campers nudge each other. One points to the Minotaur horn Percy is carrying. Another says, "It's them."

Most of the campers are older than me. Their satyr friends are bigger than Grover, all of them trotting around in orange CAMP HALF-BLOOD t-shirts, with nothing else to cover their bare shaggy hindquarters. I'm not normally shy, but the way they are staring at me and Percy makes me uncomfortable. I feel as though they want us to do a flip or something.

I look back at the farmhouse. It's bigger than I'd realized - four stories tall, sky blue with white trim, like an upscale seaside resort. I'm checking out the brass eagle weather vane on top when something catches my eyes, a shadow in the uppermost window of the attic gable. Something had moved the curtain, just for a second, and I get a distinct impression that I'm being watched.

"What's up there?" I ask Chiron.

He looks to where I'm pointing and his smile fades, "Just the attic."

"Somebody lives there?" Percy asks.

"No," he says with finality. "Not a single living thing."

I get the feeling that he's being truthful, but I am also sure something had moved that curtain.

As we get closer, I realize how huge the forest is. It takes up at least a quarter of the valley, with trees so tall and thick, you could imagine nobody had been in there since the Native Americans.

Chiron says, "The woods are stocked if you care to try your luck, but go armed."

"Stocked with what?" Percy asks. "Armed with what?"

"You'll see. Capture the flag is Friday night. Do you have your own swords and shields?"

"My own - ?" Percy is cut off.

"No," Chiron interupts. "I don't suppose you do. I think a size five will do for you, Percy, and a size three for you, (Y/n). I'll visit the armory later."

Finally, Chiron shows us the cabins. There are twelve of them, nestled in the woods by the lake. They are arranged in a U, with two at the base and five in a row on each side. And they are, without a doubt the most bizarre number above the door.

Except for the fact that each has a large brass number above the door (odds on the left side, evens on the right), they lock absolutely nothing alike. Number Nine has smokestacks, like a tiny factory. Number Four has tomato vines on the walls and a roof made out of real grass. Seven seems to be made of solid gold, which gleams so much in the sunlight it was almost impossible to look at. They all face a commons area about the size of a soccer field, dotted with Greek statues, fountains, flower beds, and a couple of basketball hoops (which were more my speed).

In the center of the field is a huge stone-lined firepit. Even though it is a warm afternoon, the hearth smolders. A girl, maybe nine years old is tending the flames, poking the coals with a stick. I wave at the girl and she looks surprised, as though no one acknowledged her often, and waves back with a smile.

The pair of cabins at the head of the field, numbers one and two, look like his-and-hers mausoleums, big white marble boxes with heavy columns in front. Cabin One is the biggest and bulkiest of the twelve. Its polished bronze doors shimmer like a hologram, so that from different angles lightning bolts seem to streak across them. Cabin Two is more graceful somehow, with slimmer columns garlanded with pomegranates and flowers. The walls are covered with images of peacocks.

"Zeus and Hera?" Percy guesses.

"Correct," Chiron says.

"Their cabins look empty."

"Several of the cabins are. That's true. No one ever stays in one or two."

I stop in front of the first cabin on the left, cabin three.

It isn't high and mighty like Cabin One, but low and solid. The outer walls are of rough gray stone studded with pieces of seashells and coral as if the slabs had been hewn straight from the bottom of the ocean floor. I peek inside the open doorway and Chiron says, "Oh, I wouldn't do that!"

Before he can pull me back, I catch the salty scent of the interior, like the wind on the shore at Montauk. The interior walls glow like abalone. There are six empty bunks with silk sheets turned down, but there is no sign anyone had ever slept there. The place feels so sad and lonely, I am glad when Chiron puts his hand on my shoulder and says, "Come along, (Y/n)."

Most of the other cabins were crowded with campers.

Number five was bright red—a real nasty paint job as if the color had been splashed on with buckets and fists. The roof was lined with barbed wire. A stuffed wild boar's head hung over the doorway, and its eyes seemed to follow me. Inside I could see a bunch of mean-looking kids, both girls and boys, arm wrestling and arguing with each other while rock music blared. The loudest was a girl maybe thirteen or fourteen. She wore a size XXXL CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirt under a camouflage jacket. She zeroed in on Percy and gives him an evil sneer.

"Oh, look," Chiron says as we approach Cabin Eleven. "Annabeth is waiting for us."

The blond girl I'd met at the Big House is reading a book in front of the last cabin on the left, number eleven. When we reach her, she looks me over critically, like she was still thinking about how much I drool.

I try to see what she was reading, but I can't make out the title. Then I realize the title isn't even English. The letters look Greek to me. I mean, literally Greek. There are pictures of temples and statues and different kinds of columns, like those in an architecture book.

"Annabeth," Chiron says, "I have Masters' Archery class at noon. Would you take Percy and (Y/n) from here?"

"Yes, sir."

"Cabin Eleven," Chiron tells us, gesturing towards the doorway. "Make yourself at home."

Out of all the cabins, Eleven looks the most like a regular old summer camp cabin, with the emphasis on old. the threshold is worn down, the brown paint peeling. Over the doorway is a caduceus.

Inside, it is packed with people, both boys and girls, way more than the number of bunk beds. Sleeping bags are spread all over the floor. It looks like a gym where the Red Cross had set up an evacuation center.

Chiron doesn't go in. The door is too low for him. But when the campers see him, they all stand and bow respectfully.

"Well, then," Chiron says. "Good luck, Percy, (Y/n). I'll see the two of you at dinner."

He gallops away towards the archery range.

Percy's POV

We stand in the doorway, looking at the kids. They aren't bowing anymore. They are staring at us, sizing us up. I know this routine. I'd gone through it at enough schools.

"Well?" Annabeth prompts. "Go on."

So naturally, I trip coming in the door, and (Y/n) grabs my upper arm, straightening me up. There are some snickers from the campers, but none of them say anything.

Annabeth announces, "Percy and (Y/n) Jackson, meet Cabin Eleven."

"Regular or undetermined?" somebody asks.

I don't know what to say, but Annabeth says, "Undetermined."

Everyone groans.

A guy who is a little older than the rest comes forward. "Now, now, campers. That's what we're here for. Welcome, Percy, (Y/n). You can have those two spots on the floor, right over there."

The guy was about nineteen, and he looks pretty cool. He's tall and muscular, with short-cropped sandy hair and a friendly smile. He wears an orange tank top, cutoffs, sandals, and a leather necklace with five different colored clay beads. The only thing unsettling about his appearance is a thick white scar that runs from just beneath his right eye to his jaw, like an old knife slash.

"This is Luke," Annabeth says, and her voice sounds different somehow. I glance over and swear she's blushing, but after a moment she sees me looking, and her expression hardens again. "He's your counselor for now."

"For now?" (Y/n) asks, looking rather curious.

"You're undetermined," Luke explains. "They don't know what cabin to put you in, so you're here. Cabin eleven takes all newcomers, all visitors. Naturally, we would. Hermes, our patron, is the god of travelers."

I look around at the campers' faces, some sullen and suspicious, some grinning stupidly, some eyeing me as if they are waiting for a chance to pick my pockets.

"How long will I be here?" I ask.

"Good question," Luke replies. "Until you're determined."

"How long will that take?"

The campers all laugh and (Y/n) facepalms.

"Come on," Annabeth tells us. "I'll show you the volleyball court."

"We've already seen it."

"Come on."

Annabeth grabs my wrist and drags me outside. I can hear the kids of Cabin Eleven laughing behind me and (Y/n) waves good-bye shyly.

When we are a few feet away, Annabeth says, "Jackson, you have to do better than that?"

"What?"

She rolls her eyes and mumbles under her breath, "I can't believe I thought you two were the ones."

"What's your problem?" I'm getting angry now, (Y/n) watching us cautiously. "All I know is, we kill some bull guy -"

"Don't talk like that!" Annabeth tells me. "You know how many kids at this camp wish they'd had your chance?"

"To get killed?"

"To fight the Minotaur! What do you think we train for?"

I shake my head. "Look, if the thing we fought is really the Minotaur, the same one in the stories . . ."

"Yes."

"Then there's only one."

"Yes."

"And he died, like, a gajillion years ago, right? Theseus killed him in the labyrinth. So..."

"Monsters don't die, Percy. They can be killed. But they don't die."

"Oh, thanks. That clears it up."

"Percy," (Y/n) says calmly. "I think what Annabeth is saying, is that monsters eventually reform."

Annabeth nods and I think about Mrs. Dodds. "You mean if I killed one, accidentally, with a sword—"

"The Fur...I mean, your math teacher. That's right. She's still out there. You just made her very, very mad."

"How did you know about Mrs. Dodds?"

"You talk in your sleep," Annabeth answers and (Y/n) suppresses a laugh.

"You almost called her something. A Fury? They're Hades' torturers, right?"

Annabeth glances nervously at the ground as if she expects it to open up and swallow her. "You shouldn't call them by name, even here. We call them the Kindly Ones if we have to speak of them at all."

"Look, is there anything we can say without it thundering?" I sound whiny, even to myself, but right then I don't care. "Why do we have to stay in Cabin Eleven, anyway? Why is everybody so crowded together? There are plenty of empty bunks right over there."

I point to the first few cabins, and Annabeth turns pale. "You don't just choose a cabin, Percy. It depends on who your parents are. Or...your parent."

She stares at me, waiting for me to get it.

"Our mother is Sally Jackson," (Y/n) says softly. "She works at the candy store in Grand Central Station. At least, she used to."

"I'm sorry about your mom, (Y/n). But that's not what I mean. I'm talking about your other parent. Your dad."

"He's dead," I say simply. "We never knew him."

Annabeth sighs. Clearly, she'd had this conversation before with other kids. "Your father's not dead."

"How can you say that? You know him?"

"No, of course not."

"Then how can you say -"

"Because I know the two of you. You wouldn't be here if you weren't one of us."

"You don't know anything about us.

"No?" She raises an eyebrow. "I bet you moved around from school to school. I bet you were kicked out of a lot of them."

"How -"

"Diagnosed with dyslexia. Probably ADHD, too."

I try to swallow my embarrassment. "What does that have to do with anything?"

(Y/n)'s POV

"Taken together, it's almost a sure sign. The letters float off the page when you read, right? That's because your mind is hardwired for ancient Greek. And the ADHD—you're impulsive, can't sit still in the classroom. That's your battlefield reflexes. In a real fight, they'd keep you alive. As for the attention problems, that's because you see too much, Percy, not too little. Your senses are better than a regular mortal's. Of course, the teachers want you medicated. Most of them are monsters. They don't want you seeing them for what they are."

"You sound like...you went through the same thing?"

"Most of the kids here did. If you weren't like us, you couldn't have survived the Minotaur, much less the ambrosia and nectar."

"Ambrosia and nectar."

"The food and drink we were giving you to make you better. That stuff would've killed a normal kid. It would've turned your blood to fire and your bones to sand and you'd be dead. Face it. You're both half-bloods."

A half-blood.

I am reeling with so many questions I don't know where to start.

Then a husky voice yells, "Well! Two newbies!"

I look over. The big girl from the ugly red cabin is sauntering towards us. She has three other girls behind her, all big and ugly and mean-looking like her, all wearing camo jackets.

"Clarisse," Annabeth sighs. "Why don't you go polish your spear or something?"

"Sure, Miss Princess," the big girl says. "So I can run you through with it Friday night."

"Erre es korakas!" Annabeth says, which I somehow understand is Greek for 'Go to the crows!' though I have a feeling it was a worse curse than it sounds. "You don't stand a chance."

"We'll pulverize you," Clarisse says, but her eye twitches. Perhaps she isn't so sure she can follow through on ht threat. She turns towards me, then she looks at Percy. "Who are these's runts?"

"Percy and (Y/n) Jackson," Annabeth says, "meet Clarisse, Daughter of Aries."

Percy blinks. "Like . . . the war god?"

Clarisse sneers. "You got a problem with that?"

"No," Percy says, seemingly recovering his 'wits'. "It explains the bad smell."

Long story short, Percy made the toilets explode.

Yeah, I said it. He made the toilets explode . . .

Word Count: 2455 words

[steves-on-a-plane]

Pieces Of My Heart

Words: 3038 Square Filled for @buckybarnesbingo​ : K3, “It’s Not Your Fault” Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader  Rating: General  Request: “Hello :) I'd like to request a bucky imagine if that's okay. Maybe something like the love story in the Greatest Showman Zendaya and zac Efron? Where it's difficult for them to get together but Buck fights for your love and in the end you end up together? :)” - @tieddown-withbattleshipchains​ Summary: Bucky goes away on a mission that’s supposed to last a month. After two weeks Reader gets a call from Steve that things aren’t exactly going according to plan...

“It seems like you’re going away forever.” You sighed, twirling a lock of Bucky’s shoulder length hair around your finger.

“You say that every time I leave.” He laughs, his lips inches away from yours.

“Well, I mean it every time you leave.” You pouted.

“It’s only a month, [Y/N]. I know that seems like a long time,” He apologized. “but I’ll have regularly scheduled check ins and you can call the compound at any time. The team will know how to reach me in case of an emergency. Now can I have my goodbye kiss?”

“If I don’t give it, will you have to stay until I do?” You asked, pulling your lips back a few centimeters.

“If I don’t get it, I’ll have to leave for my mission anyway, but I’ll be doing it without your sweet kisses and your blessing. Which would be bad luck.” He frowned.

“Fine.” You finally brought your lips to touch his.  

“There, was that so hard?” Bucky asked once he could finally tear himself away from you. “I’ll miss you the entire time. I promise.”

“I’d rather you promise you’ll come back in one piece.” You told him.

“Can’t. I’m already missing parts.” He held up his vibranium arm. “And every time I leave there’s at least a piece of me still here with you, but I’ll be back in as many pieces as possible. I better go before Rogers & Wilson leave without me.”

“Would that really be so bad?” You asked as he picked up his bag.

“I’ll see you in four weeks, [Y/N]. I love you.” He called over his shoulder.

“I love you too!” You shouted back before he opened up the front door and left for his mission.

You settled into your “Bucky is on a mission” routine after that. There was always an adjustment period whenever he left. You had to get used to eating alone, watching TV alone; it was a lot of doing things alone. A week into the mission you got the usual check in call from Tony. He said the mission was proceeding as planned, and someone should be in touch in a few days.

Another week passed and you picked up a new hobby to occupy your time. You’d seen a lot of internet tutorials that made it seem super easy to create things with resin and some silicone molds. You ordered a bunch of supplies from Amazon and before you knew it, you had a stack of coasters that looked like geode slices. You’d been successfully distracted and didn’t notice that you hadn’t receive a check in call that week. When you did notice, you thought maybe they just had nothing new to report. Often times with the team, no news was good news.

Time moved on to the next week. You decided to re-read your favorite book series as another way to pass the time. Things were slowing down at work just when you really needed your mind occupied. Bucky had been gone for twenty days. You’d been keeping track on a calendar in the kitchen. That night, you were fighting to stay awake long enough to finish your current chapter, when your cellphone rang. It was the compound. You answered on the second ring with a yawn.

“[Y/N]? It’s Steve. Are you at home?” He asked.

“Oh, Steve, are you guys back already?” You questioned. “Bucky said you’d be gone for a month at least. Everything go according to plan?”

“Not exactly.” Steve confessed. “I’d like to talk about it with you in person. I’ll be at your place in five.” He explained before ended the call.

That sure as hell woke you up. You got out of bed and dressed yourself. If Steve would have had good new to share, he would have told you on the phone. Something was very, very wrong. Steve must have been on his way to your apartment when he called because he arrived almost exactly five minutes later.

“Where is he, Steve?” You demanded opening the front door.

“Physically, he’s fine [Y/N].” Steve assured as he stepped inside your apartment.

“Where is he?” You repeated.

“Ah,” Steve rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. “That’s classified.” He answered shortly. “What I can tell you,” He rushed to add. “Is that like I said, he is physically fine.”

“Yes, I heard you the first time. Why do you keep specifying physically?” Your voice was angrier than you expected it to be. The words carried a bit of bite you didn’t usually harbor.

“Because that’s all we’ve been able to confirm ourselves.” You watched Steve deflate in front of you as he sank into one of your kitchen chairs. “Technically speaking, Bucky is considered M.I.A.”

“M.I…You mean missing in action? As in for real missing?” Steve hesitated before nodding solemnly. “Please, tell me how you managed to lose my fiancé.”

“It’s not that simple, [Y/N] and you know that. This was a highly classified mission.” Steve insisted. “What I can tell you is he’s not himself right now. He’s gone full Winter Soldier again. Sam and I had to fall back, we can’t risk him coming in contact with anyone he’ll recognize at the moment. Sam is keeping tabs on him from a distance for now until we can get someone in undercover.”

“Why is Sam there? He’s your best friend, how could you leave him?” You asked.

“I’m going back as soon as I can, [Y/N]. It’s too big a job for Sam to do on his own and we never completed our original mission. But I came back for you.” He explained. “I have to make sure you’re safe, I know it’s what he’d want.”

“You shouldn’t have wasted time. I’m fine here. Whoever you’re worried about isn’t coming all the way to Brooklyn.” You assured him. “You should go back, help him.”

“I know it doesn’t seem like it, but I am helping him right now, just by being here.” Steve said. “It’s not Hydra I’m worried about hurting you, [Y/N]. It’s him.”

“Buck?” You laughed sarcastically. “C’mon Rogers.” But you knew the truth that hung in the air unspoken between the two of you. While the real Bucky Barnes would never allow any harm to come to you, if the Winter Soldier had been activated again, there was no knowing what he was capable of.

“If they’ve been able to find out about your very public courtship, they may believe that killing you could stop Bucky from ever coming back to us. Let me take you somewhere safe.” He asked.

“Where? The compound that has almost as many internal threats as it does external?” You questioned. “Or some type of a safe house somewhere with you who couldn’t protect him from himself in the first place?”

“I can only think of one place safe enough.” He told you. “I’ll help you pack.”

Two years. That’s how long you had been hiding. Sure, Steve had made arrangements for you to be kept in the most secure and luxurious hiding place imaginable, but it hadn’t made you feel better. You never worried for yourself. You only ever worried about Bucky. No one could tell you exactly what had happened to him or where he was. Your every question was met with the same response. “Classified.”

You faced the windows of your guest room, studying the view from the palace. The country of Wakanda reminded you of a planet you might find in a Star Wars film. The architecture in the city below was a strange mix of modern technology with ancient structures. Towers and spires seemed to jut from locations at random. Juxtaposed behind everything else was a backdrop of lush jungles and sturdy mountain tops.

There was a knock on the door. You sighed and looked away from the lively landscape. You hardly left your room since coming to stay in the Wakanda. You didn’t want to be a bother to your incredibly generous hosts. Generally, only the staff came by either to clean or bring you food. On occasion Shuri or even the King of Wakanda himself would drop by, usually to provide a status report if he had one. You opened the door to see T’Challa smiling on the other side.

“Good morning [Y/N]!” He greeted you cheerily.

“Good morning, Your Highness.” You greeted him and invited him in. “You seem to be in a good mood today.”

“[Y/N], I am in a great mood.” He confirmed. “I have just spoken with Captain Rogers.”

“There’s good new then?” You wondered.

“I’m sorry I cannot provide more information at this time,” He explained. “But I am expecting another phone call this afternoon. With any luck, we may finally know the whereabouts of Sargent Barnes. I know you are anxious to be reunited with him and return home.”

“I’m sorry if I’ve seemed ungrateful at all during my stay.” You apologized immediately.

“Please, do not worry. You were taken from your home to a foreign country and separated from your friends and people you love most. You have been rightfully concerned about Sergeant Barnes as well. I am happy that we were able to provide you with security and shelter during this time. Should our services be needed again, the gates of Wakanda will always be open to you.” T’Challa assured you. “Please enjoy the rest of your morning. I will return this afternoon when I have more information.”

That afternoon, you decided to go for a walk. Both to give the cleaning staff room to do their job and to work through your muddled feelings. You thought of what T’Challa had said that morning. It had felt like so long, your stay in Wakanda. You wondered if it could be possible, were you finally at the end of the winding and twisting road? Would you finally see Bucky again? You’d just been about to head back to your room when you heard the exclamations of the princess.

“[Y/N]! [Y/N]!” You heard Shuri excitedly shouting for you. She bounded towards you, full of more energy than usual. “I have just heard the most wonderful news!” She said with a beaming smile.

“Are you going to share it with me?” You asked.

“Of course! But you must promise to act excited when my brother tells you himself.” She told you.

“Shuri, you didn’t happen to spy on T’Challa’s call with Steve, did you?” You narrowed your eyes at her suspiciously.

“It is not spying if he leaves the door to his office open, is it?” She questioned.

“I suppose not.” You laughed. “Okay, what’s the news?”

“They have found him!” She announced, squeezing your arm.

“I suppose it is true what they say. Good news travels fast.” You heard the King’s voice from behind you. You turned to face him. “Sergeant Barnes has been found and extracted. He will be here with within the hour.”

“I can’t believe it.” You said with tears brimming in your eyes. “Will I be allowed to see him?”

“Of course.” T’Challa nodded. “I will gladly notify you once they’ve arrived.”

Your palms were sweaty. You brushed them against the sides of your skirt nervously. Your heart was pounding and you felt like you were struggling to breath in the muggy Wakandan air. You lived anxiously for the past two years and didn’t understand how you could possibly be feeling even more nervous as you waited for the quinjet to land.

“Everything is going to be fine, [Y/N].” T’Challa whispered in assurance as the ramp of the jet opened. Your breath seemed to catch in your throat as James Buchan Barnes stumble down the ramp, flanked by Sam & Steve. He was leaning on Sam partially for support, but his face lit up when he laid eyes on you.

“I promised I’d be back in as many pieces as possible!” He shouted to you with a smile on his face.

“Go get him.” Shuri elbowed you encouragingly. You could only shake your head slightly in response. There was the man you loved. The man you’d worried about, pained over. He was only a hundred feet from you, and suddenly it didn’t feel right. There was a burn in your chest, an ache. As if by saying hello you were actually saying good-bye. Tears traced your face as the three men continued to move closer.

“I have to go.” You told T’Challa and Shuri. You turned on your heels and ran back towards the castle. Once inside you continued running. When you couldn’t run anymore you moved as fast as your legs would carry you. You tore into your room and began shoving your things into your suitcase. There was a knock at the door. You ignored it.

“[Y/N]? It’s Sam. Can I come in?” He called through the door. “I’m alone.”

“I’m a little occupied Wilson!” You shouted back to him, getting your other suitcase out of the wardrobe.

“I’m coming in.” Sam announced before pushing the door open. “What’s going on?”

“Isn’t it obvious, I’m packing.” You huffed. “There’s no need for me to stay in Wakanda so…”

“I meant why did you run.” Sam sighed.

“I don’t…I don’t know.” You confessed. “I saw him and I just…panicked.” You threw the handful of clothes you hold at the bed. “Sam the past two years, I wanted nothing more than for Bucky to be back. But I saw him stumbling out of the quinjet and I don’t think I can do it. I can’t be the person who helps put him back together. I’m not strong enough to do it again.”

“You don’t have to.” You and Sam both looked up at the door where Bucky was standing, slightly hunched. He had deep bags under his eyes and he looked like he hadn’t slept the whole two years. Steve and T’Challa were standing in the hall behind him.

“Buck, why don’t we…” Steve reached forward and tried to gasps Bucky’s shoulder, but his best friend shook him off.

“I love you.” Bucky said very seriously. His eyes locked onto yours and he stumbled a little closer. Sam took a half step protectively closer to you, but you didn’t think anyone else noticed. “I am so sorry that I it took so long to get back to you. Two months apart from you would have been hard, but two years…You lost two years of your life because of me. I know that I cannot apologize enough…”

“Bucky you don’t have to apologize.” You interrupted him. “I don’t know all the details, and I don’t need to, you’re not responsible for what you do as the Winter Soldier. You don’t owe me any explanation or apology.”

“I’m giving one just the same.” He insisted. “I can’t imagine how hard this has been for you and I don’t know how I’m going to begin making it up to you, but I swear I will. I have to. You’re the reason that I’m me again.”

“But I don’t want that responsibility anymore, Buck.” You sighed. You voice trembled and everyone in the room could tell you were hold back a fresh wave of tears.

“It’s okay.” He told you, stepping closer. “It’s my turn to take responsibility. Do you know how I got back? How I broke through the mind control? I fought for you. I imagined how you must have felt, what you must have been thinking when you heard I’d disappeared. I know how much you feared getting that type of call from Steve or someone else. I knew I had to get back to you, so that you knew I was okay. I knew that if I didn’t, you’d never recover from that type of loss. Not because you’re not strong, you’re tough as nails, Doll. But I know you loved me. Even if that’s in the past tense now. I just wanted you to know that I’m alive and I’m okay. That’s all I wanted to say.”

“I-I…You were able to break free of the mind control because of your love for me?” You repeated, trying to make sure you heard him right.

“Well, when you say it like that you make it sound so easy.” He shrugged. “Believe me it wasn’t.”

“Why don’t we give you guys some space.” Steve suggested awkwardly.

“No, it’s okay, I’m going.” Bucky said. “But I want you to have this.” He reached into his pockets and pulled out a small wooden box with hand carved Wakandan symbols on it. “I had some help from the King.” He confessed, looking briefly over his shoulder at T’Challa. It was originally going to have a question accompanying it, but that doesn’t seem appropriate now.” Bucky passed the small box over to you. “Either way, I want you to have it.”

“[Y/N], will you consider staying with us one more night? Shuri will be most disappointed if she doesn’t get to give you a proper goodbye and she’s already returned to her work for the afternoon.” T’Challa explained. “The rest if you are welcome to stay as well. There is plenty of room for everyone.”

“One more night.” You agreed. “It’s the least I can do after everything you’ve done for me.” T’Challa nodded. He, Sam, Steve and Bucky all began filing out of your room. You looked down at the ornate box in your hand.

“Buck?” You called after him. He hung back while the others continued on. “Two years ago, I would have said yes to this in a heartbeat.” You indicated the box, guessing there was most likely and engagement ring inside.

“And now?” He asked quietly.

“How can we be sure this won’t happen again, that you won’t disappear again?” You questioned.

“Are you kiddin’ me? You won’t be able to get rid of me if you tell me that’s what you want.” He smirked. “I’ll get a civilian job. We can move somewhere totally off the grid if you want.”

“I want you to be able to have your own life.” You told him.

“I had my own life for seventy years.” He said. “It only took me two to realize the one part of it that matter was you. I said when I left that I was leaving a piece of me with you, I took a lot more of you with me than I thought.” 

[the1918]

idk if it's something you've experienced, but I was wondering if you had any advice on how to get over feeling like I'll never be as good as other writers. I'm okay, I'm not great, and sometimes reading really good fics and books makes me want to get better! and do it more! but most of the time I get really discouraged because how will I ever put words together like that, you know? idk. anyway thanks for reading this, hope your day is swell

What you’re feeling is a 100% universal experience for all writers. It’s tough. It can feel disheartening at times. There are some writers and artists that will tell you to not focus on what other people are doing and writing, to look inward at yourself only and to write your truth and blah blah blah. In my opinion, that’s bullshit. 

Anon, you’re stopping one step short of success when you look at other works and get discouraged about your own. Steal from those works until your own product is something you’re proud of!

“Wait-- what? What does she mean by ‘steal’? That’s plagiarism!” -- No. 

“Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent.” - Jim Jarmusch 

As a writer, I write what I want to read and what I like to read. There is not a single thing I can do (plot-wise, character-wise, prose-wise) that will be truly original. What I CAN do is steal the ideas of other authors and bunch them together until I come up with something that’s uniquely my own.

If it still sounds like I’m telling you to rip off other works, keep reading. Let’s work through an example in an actual fic I’m writing.

My biggest struggle is that my writing and language is repetitive, most days. I use the same words and the same sentence structure over and over when left to my own devices. I don’t like that about my first-draft writing. So what do I do to overcome that? I steal the ideas of others and patchwork my stolen goods until I have something I like that is mine and mine alone.

Here is the first draft of a short paragraph from Bespoke. This draft was written solely to get action down on paper:

Steve pushed his forearms under Bucky’s knees, and he lifted his legs and body off the bed in an almost gratuitous display of super soldier strength. He pulled the legs back tightly, and Bucky was left bent in half with his back pressed into Steve’s front.

Now I go back and re-read it, and I identify things I don’t like. 

First, I’ve used the same compound sentence structure twice in a row. I know I want to try and avoid this because the tempo will become repetitive to the reader (I’m trying to write prose, not poetry.) So what do I do? I open up my copy of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451...

“Once the bomb release was yanked, it was over. Now, a full three seconds, all of the time in history, before the bombs struck, the enemy ships themselves were gone half around the visible world, like bullets in which a savage islander might not believe because they were invisible.”

... and I start by stealing his syntax (second draft):

Steve pushed his forearms under Bucky’s knees, pulling them apart. With an almost gratuitous display of power, of super-soldier strength, Steve lifted him off the bed, pulling Bucky’s thighs back, stopping when Bucky was bent in half with his back pressed into Steve’s front.

I like that a lot better but there’s too many commas for my taste. I look to one of my many browser tabs, where I happen to have The Sex Therapist by @whendoestheshipsail​​ open on Ao3 (a syntactical masterpiece). I read one paragraph and am immediately reminded of the power of short, stabbing sentences. So I steal that idea and add variety (third draft):

Steve pushed his forearms under Bucky’s knees, pulling them apart. With an almost gratuitous display of power, of super-soldier strength, Steve lifted Bucky off the bed and pulled his thighs back. He stopped when Bucky was bent in half. His back was pressed into Steve’s front. 

Almost there! I’m feeling that my diction is repetitive and boring, and maybe a little cold. Good thing I was reading some older works by @howdoyousleep3​​ earlier, who is the Queen of writing closecloseclose smut, so I’m feeling inspired to add/change things to communicate the intimacy of the position (final draft):

Steve roughly pushed his forearms under Bucky’s knees, pulling them apart. With an almost gratuitous display of power, of super-soldier strength, Steve lifted Bucky off the bed and held his thighs back tight. He stopped when Bucky was bent in half. His back was plastered to Steve’s sweaty chest.

And voila-- I start with something I don’t love and-- after creative thievery of three separate writers-- I end up with something that I like and that feels authentic to my story and my writing style. I don’t feel like someone other than me could have written this. Along the way, I have left love and comments on the fanfics that inspired me, and have let those authors know many times over how much I love their work. Art inspires art; let it.

[jochmus]

Method of Loci and Reality Shifting

There was a video from a source that I will not name that brought this community to my attention. Thus, if you will allow me to do so, I am going to give my two-cents on the matter. Let us see how this goes. 

In terms of reality shifting itself, I do not think that it is a real phenomena, at least in the way that it is presented in terms of literally going to another universe. However, I know that this would not go over well, so instead of contesting the whole of reality shifting and getting chewed-out by everyone, I am going to instead compare it to something that I think is more realistic: Memory Palaces. Reality shifting, really, may be understood as a form of creating spontaneous memory palaces, like in dreams with space (not outer space but more along the lines of “distance”) in them. 

Assuming that most of you reading this are children or young adults, I do not necessarily want to be responsible for getting you into memory palaces, or more properly the Method of Loci. To be honest I only know about such a method from the title of Frances Yates’ book on the subject, which I learned about from studying Giordano Bruno. Indeed there is another post on my account about him that may be of interest. 

Without attempting to invalidate anyone aside from the second paragraph, as that is not my intention at all, okay, I would like to delve into a brief summary of memory palaces, and how they contrast with reality shifting. Then I will seek an integration of the two. 

If I am to be frank, my intention with this post is to help to transform Dark Academia into the next Renaissance, in accordance with the theory of a certain YouTuber. I have come to the conclusion that in order to make this work, the “aesthetic” element of Dark Academia will need to be replaced with actually finding and reading great texts from around the world. Here’s to hoping that can happen with this discussion of the Method of Loci or Memory Palaces augmenting the practice of Reality Shifting. Food for thought; cheers, and lets get down to the meat of this essay.

* * *

Memory palaces function with two essential elements: The space of the building or location where the perception takes place, and then the mnemonic devices intended to enable memorizing things. You could potentially build a memory palace in Minecraft if visualization is difficult for you, but that is a bit off topic. Cicero the Roman Senator and rhetorician came up with the method in the first place, and Giordano Bruno wrote many books on the subject. The specific division of the elements of a memory palace in my own take, admittedly I do not know too much about any of this, but I was hoping to make this post anyway and see what someone could make of it. 

Spatial memory is obviously going to be important with regards to designing and using a memory palace. An author that I will not mention... Well actually he was the guy who wrote Maps of Meaning, but I am not in agreement with absolutely everything that he says. For instance, his protest of the use of gender pronouns in the name of freedom of speech was quite silly, and in fact invalidating for the transgender community, and I do not condone that. At the same time, I do not buy into the other idea that all of his work is utter gibberish, a stance that some people stand by. His work is a mixed bag. I contrasted the titular maps of meaning with memory palaces, and it seems that they both fundamentally rely on differences between values, and spatial memory respectively. Hypothetically both latter terms generally feel to me like they are the same. 

As for the design of the memory palace itself, why, it can be any location that you wish; fictional, natural or real. The problem is knowing the architecture of the fictional place, as I know that people on here are really into fandoms and that is inevitable. A historical-mythical anecdote is the Temple of Solomon and the fascination that Europeans such as Isaac Newton had with its layout as described in the Old Testament of the Bible. Idk, but at least we have those cross section books now, so it should be much easier. Either that or you can design it yourself in your mind, on paper, in Minecraft or using Lego Digital Designer. Yes, that software is still my favorite Lego CAD (computer aided design) despite having not used it in years. 

In terms of icons that populate the memory palace, they could be construed as NPCs or something that you could potentially generate by listing out human emotions, and more importantly how people express them. There is a field called Kinesics (not kinesthetics as I almost typed) and this deals with body motion and expression, but keep in mind that this is advanced college-level stuff. It could be used to image various body movements for these NPCs and enable a very vivid experience. Again, although I want to spur interest in the transformation of the Dark Academia community into a Lay Renaissance; the method of accomplishing this is to “ditch the aesthetic,” a tag I have appended to this post, and start reading classic texts, at the same time I do not want to be responsible for a bunch of teenagers and children getting into subjects that are either occult related, or too dense for them to understand properly. (I think I’ll make another post about the “ditch the aesthetic” movement eventually.) This distinction is of great importance to me, and I hope that whoever is reading this can appreciate that. 

I do not know the intricacies of reality shifting, so I will not talk about that today. You probably know much more that I do about it, and although I do not entirely agree, I can respect what you believe. 

The last thing that I have to say, or, two things, is that if you accentuate your the things you want to remember with strong emotion, then those things will be more conducive to be remembered. The same thing applies to memory palaces and reality shifting. This advice was stated by Giordano Bruno himself in one of his books, which name I unfortunately can’t recall. 

Lastly, if the whole reality shifting thing gets too intense for you, I’d recommend just leaving the community, or more realistically just sitting on the sidelines and taking in some of the positivity emitted from the community, as I have seen some of the posts on here and they look like they do that. I don’t want to stir up any controversy, but if you have constructive criticism I would love to hear it in the comments. I don’t personally think that disagreement needs to be angry, as that just isn’t really feasible in terms of the proper functioning of society. Conversation and the exchange of ideas is better than being angry, and I hope that I have been civil enough in writing this. Sorry that this whole essay was so long in the first place; if you read all of this, I commend you. 

[xxfanfiction-emo-trinityxx]

Graduated - Gerard Way x Reader

Summary: The reader finally gets to graduate university and gets a little surprise from her boyfriend

Reader: female

Warnings: I wrote this for my friend, so this might be very specific (and exaggerated)…, not properly proof read :/

Word count: 2 384

A/N: I know I exaggerated some of the parts in here, and the person who this is for knows it’s for her, but I wrote it the way I imagine it must have felt like sometimes. I’m so fucking proud of you, sweetie.

Impatiently you shifted around on your chair. It was a nice chair, no reason to complain, but truth be told, you didn’t want to be here, not anymore. You were done here. All you really wanted was go home and video-call your boyfriend for as long as possible until he had to hang up.

But here you were, listening to the university’s dean’s speech in which you took no interest. Maybe you should have, after all this was your graduation ceremony, but you had already gotten your certificate, and now you wanted nothing but leave this part of your life behind.

Sure, time at uni had been fun. Sometimes. You had met a bunch of cool people who you enjoyed hanging out with, you had spent afternoons sitting in cafés with them, procrastinating the inevitable studying together, you had gone to parties and met more people, but in the end you had never really become as close with any of them as you would have wanted. Maybe because they wanted to be there, wanted to study architecture, and you just did it in order not to get into trouble with your parents.

How many times you had wanted to give everything up! How many times you thought about just throwing it all in the wind and run away, go on tour with your boyfriend who was playing in a band, just leave this godforsaken city behind!

It had not always been this bad, but the stress and anxiety had worn you out over the years, had caused burn out, or depression, or whatever you wanna call it. Not that anyone cared. Not until Gerard had come back into your life.

You had known him and Ray from school, had always been friends with them, even though they were a couple of years older than you. But as soon as Gerard’s brother Mikey had graduated high school the same year as you, they had piled into a van together with a guy called Frank (who now was just as much your friend as the rest of them), and had driven off into the sunset to make their dream of being a punk band into reality. Of course they had asked you to join them. And you had wanted to say yes so badly. But you knew that if you had done that, your parents would have never talked to you again, and so you had bowed to your parents wish and gone to university to study architecture, even though you never had really wanted that.

It had taken almost two years before your friends had finally been back in town, and those four weeks in the summer holidays had been the best four weeks of your life. You had hung out with them all the time, had made music, taken pictures of them, helped bring a huge art project to life… and you had gotten together with Gerard. He had always been the one you had felt drawn to the most, always been the one you had called first when you had good news to share. And between band practice, drawing comics and staring at you, he somehow had managed to tell you that for years he had felt the same way for you as you felt for him.

That had been almost two years ago now, although it hardly felt like that long. Soon after that summer the band had gone on tour again, and Gerard was only home a couple of weeks a year. Most of the time you hardly noticed, except for in the evenings, when the stress of the day finally stepped into the background, and you had a few hours to your own thoughts. Those were the moments you missed him. Often he called you after shows, talking for hours until he realised you had to get up in the morning, and sent you to bed with a chuckle and an “I love you”. In those two years, in which you had been together, you had only spent about three months in the same city. The last time you had seen him was over three months ago. And how you missed him!

You glanced over to where the girls sat, that usually had spent their lunchbreaks with you. They were surrounded by their families. One was arm in arm with her boyfriend. You quickly turned to look away. You would see Gerard soon. After this weekend, right on Monday morning, you had booked a flight out to L.A. where MCR would play a show that evening, and then you would accompany them on the rest of the tour. You had been hesitant about that at first, when Gerard had suggested it, but you had never been on tour with them, and you really missed Gerard, and judging by the sound of his voice over the phone, he missed you too.

‘Just two more days,’ you told yourself, and tried to focus back on the dean’s speech.

Luckily the dean did not talk for a long time after that, and when he was finished, your favourite professor jumped on stage to announce that there was a buffet for everyone to have some snacks before sending you off into life.

With a sigh you got up. You felt stiff after all the sitting, as if you had not sat for long enough during your time at university. You made way for some elderly couple who seemed to be the grandparents of one of your fellow classmates, and huffed at the memory of your parents telling you, they would not be in town for your graduation. It felt like you had done these four years of psycho terror for nothing, although Gerard had always told you that you needed to finish this degree or you would have thrown away four years of your life. Maybe he had been right, thinking about quitting two months before the final exam would have probably been something you would later regret. And this way you had at least something that proved you had learnt anything at all.

Once you had made your way out of the maze of chairs, you wondered whether you should join the others by the buffet. Scanning the crowd, you realized that they all seemed to be talking to someone already, and you would have felt like an intruder if you had walked over now. So instead you brushed your hair out of your eyes, and turned around, promptly bumping into someone carrying a huge bouquet of flowers. Quickly excusing yourself, you stepped to the side, but then you saw the face of the person who held the flowers, and almost would have gotten a heart attack. Tears shot into your eyes as you stared at this so familiar face while a smile spread over Gerard’s face at seeing your reaction.

Opening his arms, he allowed you to fall against him, wrapping him in a hug, and burying your face against his neck. Gently he closed his arms around you, not as hard as he would have wanted to, but he tried really hard not to ruin the flowers he was still holding.

“Congratulations, baby,” he whispered against your ear, and you quickly turned your head, and pecked his lips before pulling away, and whipping tears of your cheeks.

“What are you doing here? I thought you were in San Francisco,” you almost shouted, playfully shoving him, while you felt tears rise again.

“Couldn’t just miss my girl graduating,” he grinned, “not after all the shit you’ve been through just for this.”

“I fucking love you, you know that,” you sobbed, not caring about the tears anymore. Who cared about make-up anyway?

“I should hope so, otherwise the red roses here would be embarrassing,” he laughed, and handed you the bouquet of sunflowers, daisies and a couple of red roses.

“There you are!”

Before you could thank Gerard, Ray and Mikey pushed through the crowd.

“Gerard just stormed off,” Mikey complained.

Wide eyed you stared at them.

“You’re here too,” you exclaimed, and quickly went to hug Mikey and Ray tightly.

“We’re all here,” Mikey explained, “Frank’s just over there, at the buffet.”

“Where else,” you rolled your eyes, and felt another wave of tears burning in your eyes. “You have no idea how much I love all of you.”

Not knowing what to do with yourself you turned back to Gerard, and hugged him, hiding your face against his chest, making him giggle and wrap his arms around you protectively.

“Oh, we brought chocolates, lemonade and some cake too,” Ray remembered, “but the stuff’s still in the car outside.”

“We didn’t want to burst in here with all the food, in case someone has the idea to ask for some of it,” Mikey explained, making you laugh a little, but you did not move away from Gerard.

“Guys, these tomato bruschetta are excellent,” a familiar voice announced, “Here I brought some. Take them quickly; this old lady is already giving me death glares.”

Laughing you finally pulled away from Gerard, and turned to Frank, who had joined you, balancing several of the tiny breads on one of his hands, holding them out to everyone. Like the others you took one, and waited until Frank’s hand was finally free before hugging him too.

“Thank you for coming here,” you laughed as you let him go again.

“Sure, I mean it’s not like Gee gave us a choice,” Frank shrugged, but his eyes gave away how happy he was to be here, too.

“And by the way, the old lady is one of my former teachers,” you let him know, nodding into the direction of a white haired woman who was watching the five of you closely.

“Ah well, you’re not her student anymore,” Frank grinned.

“You’re right. And that means I also have absolutely no business still being here,” you decided, “Let’s get out of here.”

“But the buffet- ! They have tiramisu,” Frank whined.

“You can do whatever you want, Frankie,” you laughed, “but I’ve been stuck here for long enough. Four years of my life wasted on finishing a degree I never wanted. It’s time I get out.”

“Truer words were never spoken,” Gerard agreed and kissed your hair. “Like Ray said, we brought cake and lemonade. We could drive down to the lake and have a picnic there.”

“Aw, a picnic sounds absolutely perfect right now,” you nodded enthusiastically, and allowed Gerard to slip his hand into your free one.

“We’ll make quite a sight, down there between all these teenagers, while we’re all dressed up,” Mikey giggled following Gerard and you, who lead the way through the hall.

Looking over your shoulder you realised he was right. All of the men were wearing either dark jeans or dress pants, and dress shirts. Mikey was even wearing a tie. And you were dressed in an elegant skirt with a cute blouse and a cardigan. You really would stick out between the high schoolers who were doubtlessly hanging out at the lake around this time on a Friday afternoon.

“And after the picnic, I thought the five of us could commemorate the good old times by grabbing pizza over at Giovanni’s,” Gerard continued making plans, causing Frank to cheer quietly at the prospect of getting some tiramisu there.

You turned your head to look at him, and found he was already looking for your reaction.

“What are you trying to do,” you wondered, “Flowers, picknick, pizza,… you don’t need to convince me you’d be a great boyfriend, I already know that.”

“Hey! I just wanna spoil you,” Gerard defended, “We haven’t seen each other in forever, and you’ve just graduated, so I think I should be allowed to spoil you.”

You let go of his hand, and instead wrapped your arm around his back, which caused him to chuckle, and wrap his arm around your shoulder, pulling you into his side.

“What about L.A., is that still on,” you wondered, as you stepped from the crowded hall into the emptier hallway that lead to the main entrance of the building.

“Of course it is. We managed to schedule the shows so we got today and the weekend of, but the L.A. show on Monday is still on as planned,” Ray explained from behind you.

“And I still hope you’ll come with us,” Gerard added, looking down to you expectantly.

“Not like we’d give you much of a choice,” Mikey added, before you could even answer.

“He’s right, we can’t have Gerard mopping around because he misses you so much for another two months,” Frank agreed.

“I wasn’t mopping!”

“Yes, you were!”

“Oh, you were!”

“Nooo, not at all!”

All his bandmates spoke at once, making you laugh.

“It really seems like I have no choice, do I,” you giggled, linking your thumb into one of the belt loops on Gerard’s trousers.

“No, you don’t,” Gerard agreed, and nuzzled his nose into your hair.

Pushing open the heavy door to the old building, the five of you stepped out of the university into the warm light of the afternoon sun. Stopping in your tracks you leant your head back a little, and felt how the sunbeams warmed up your face. Taking a deep breath, and closing your fingers around the bouquet Gerard had given you, you opened your eyes again. Realisation washed over you; you were free. For four years you had fought your way through the system, just to please your parents, and now you were free. If these four years had taught you anything, then that you would never be happy if you always did what others expected you to do. You needed to do what you wanted to do. The long term plan? No idea. The intermediate plan? Go on tour with the boys. Actually you could maybe do that as a long term plan, too. But right now? Picnic and pizza with Gerard.

“Everything alright?”

You turned your head and looked into hazel green eyes that worriedly glanced down to you.

“Yeah, yes. Actually. I’m just- I’m happy.”

Gerard smiled and leant down to kiss you quickly before the others called for you.

“Let’s go,” he grinned, and arm in arm you followed your friends to the van.

Taglist (if you want to be added or taken off, please let me know):

General: @justawriterinprogress @robinruns @jayloverthe3rd @lookalivefrosty @butterfly-writes @angelevansfalls @rene-royale @starduststyx

MCR: @deadlovers