#i usually average about 1k/hour

[jaywhere]

im really enjoying the thing where i make a very detailed outline (like multiple thousands of words long) and write directly off of that, is absolutely incredible for writing dialogue-heavy things, which i have historically shied away from but. it is fucking with my brain a little when im looking at my wordcount?

in the sense that today i was like "why are u so tired u barely wrote anything today, that was like 4k max come tf on" and just did the math and it was. 8k lmfao

[apollos-boyfriend]

Hey I've been observing from afar through your reaction blogging, I haven't been in mcyt as much since the dsmp ended but I still care about a lot of the people in the mcyt circle and I'm interested in what goes on - care to give a rundown of what happened at this twitch rivals thing everyone keeps talking about? (no pressure only if you want to) Aside from the fact I'm sure it was terribly run like most twitch rival events are, but it sounds like there was more to it than that

okay so. i am going to be missing quite a few details because i missed a day myself + my streamer could not care less, so i heavily encourage others to add on stuff i missed

this was a multi-day competition, running for 5 days with prize rewards from 1k to 100k. it started with i think 150 players, with select numbers of people getting eliminated each round. day 1-2 are fairly normal, at least for twitch rivals. of all the games that got played through the whole event, i'd say like 1 was actually good, and maybe 2 were decent, at best. most are bad, poorly-executed, poorly thought out, or just boring in terms of both player enjoy-ability and content creation.

DAY 3 EDIT:

now, sapnap's been sapnap for this entire event already. obnoxious, a bad sport, but most notably, playing DMCA'd songs. the event ran on proximity chat, so while he was unmuted, everyone around him would also be subject to said songs, which could mute vods at worst and terminate accounts at best. most people are fed up with him at this point. while everyone's trying to come up with solutions for the glitch, sapnap spams the discord with useless shit. couriway calls him out in the discord, calling him annoying and obnoxious, then later calling him a cunt in twitch chat. sapnap uses couriway and feinberg's name in his stream title for clickbait and talks shit about them + their friends (hbg/house builder gang). he also makes some weird comment asking if couri is homophobic because sap was talking about having skeppy's dick in his mouth?? or something?? i'm unsure exactly how day 3's issue of the glitch resolved.

day 4 is also your average experience with your usual range of average to horribly painful games. sapnap continues to be a bitch and not take responsibility for his stans attacking anyone in sight, but what else is new

day 5 is. bad. the game set for deciding the final competitors can be cheesed (if you let someone else do all the work, you can punch them in the last second and steal their win) and eliminates like 20 people at once. on top of that, a glitch happens that leaves the server on standby for at least 30 minutes while admins decide what to do. firebreathman sends a picture of a bare naked ass in the discord. someone else sends a photo of their debit card. streamers entertain themselves in various ways, including growing a cactus (fulham), playing osu (purpled), collecting other people's streams for their overlay (fruitberries), playing slime rancher (badboyhalo), and building real-life furniture (couriway). tubbo (who was already eliminated at this point) starts jumping between streams and asking in chat for the tea. the game is eventually replayed, deciding the final 4 players, but it's just as broken and at that point, no one wants to be there anymore. it's revealed through multiple streamers (purpled, i believe also feinberg) that twitch rivals games are not tested before being ran. the only testing done was a stress test to see if the server could handle all original 150-some players. this explains why the games are so bad and poorly organized (some games take over an hour, others barely 30 minutes).

the final four are sapnap, shadoune, sneegsnag, and i think feinberg. it's the most anticlimatic game of connect 4 you can imagine. sneeg eliminates sapnap, and shadoune eliminates fein. notably, fein's game glitches during a throw, which despite being obviously a glitch, the coordinators brush off as being "part of the game". fein and multiple other streamers spend time analyzing every pov frame by frame and all agree that yeah, that was a glitch. shadoune and sneeg are left for the finals. they come to an agreement that this is stupid and a horrible event. tired of this bullshit, they purposefully stall the games and run a podcast for approximately 2 hours, forcing the coordinators to bend to their commands hunger games-style. essentially since the first glitch of the day people were begging twitch to just split the money, something that wouldn't be easy according to tubbo, because everything is pre-signed and delegated before the event. sneeg and shadoune give no fucks, and force the coordinators to split the money anyway, winning the day through the power of friendship. i cannot stress enough how no one wanted to fucking be there by the end of all this.

[unlosts]

Short n' Sweet

1k words. Or; you're not as sneaky as you thought you were.

It’s not so bad sharing a cubicle with Spencer; he brings a new pile of books every day and he lets you borrow whichever you want once he’s done with them - which usually happens before lunch. He never complains when your stuff inevitably ends up over on his side of the desk because god forbid you attempt minimalism once in your life. But the only downside is that Spencer notices way more than he’s given credit for, and he’s not shy about pointing it out. 

In other words Spencer Reid knows something is up. 

The third time that morning you go up to the kitchenette to get a refill seems to be his breaking point. 

“Eighteen” 

“Excuse me?” You say startled, not really paying attention to him as you walk back to your desk. 

“Since last month the average time you get up from your desk went from ten times a day to eighteen, and at first I thought you weren't sleeping right and upped your caffeine intake but then I noticed you sometimes get up only to get someone else a file even though you never did that before, and even at lunch you seem to be out more often than not, so I thought maybe you were having trouble focusing, and if that’s the case then some simple modifications to your diet could really -” 

“Spence!” You cut him off before he could keep going, although the concern doe eyes he was still directing at you made your stomach tense in guilt. It was like being mean to a puppy. 

“I really appreciate you looking out for me but honestly I’ve just been feeling more restless, so I go out to jog at lunch and can’t really sit still” You said with a shrug of your shoulders and an apologetic smile “didn’t mean to make you worry.”

“That’s alright” he replied with a tight lipped smile “if you’re interested I could still send you the studies just in case they help” 

“Y'know what? Yeah that would be great” You said, and the negative karma from the lie and the absolute knowledge that you would not be reading those studies made you promise yourself that you would get him a super sugary caramel latte tomorrow morning to make up for it. 

Later that day at lunch the lie still weighed heavy on your mind. 

“I think Spence’s onto us” You said as Aaron slowly kissed a path up your neck to right behind your ear. Usually having his hands slowly caressing your back and his lips anywhere on you rendered your mind completely useless but today the fluorescent light of the file room was buzzing particularly loud in your ear. 

“Honey, can we please not talk about Spencer right now? I’m doing some of my best work right now” Aaron said, his voice muffled since he didn’t lift his lips from your neck, his breath tickling your skiing and chipping slowly away at your resolve. 

“I mean it, he said something about me getting up from my desk more which is Spencer code for you’re distracted which is actually code for everyone else noticed and since Spence sits right next to me he drew the short stick on having to talk to me about it” You finished out of breath, having worked yourself up about it during the two hours after your talk.  

Hotch sighed in defeat, slowly straightening up and looking at you.

“You got all of that from him asking if you’re having trouble focusing?” 

“Yes” 

“And now you think we should tell the rest of the team” He stated, quite sure by now of your answer. 

“Yes” 

“Alright” He agreed, squeezing your waist reassuringly. 

“Good” You said, your arms slowly going back perch on his shoulders “I mean it’s the least you could do since it’s like 70% your fault” 

“Okay how is it not 50/50 here?”

“It would be, except today you wore that dark green shirt I love” You said, playfully running your palms over his chest “so that’s 10% more and you rolled up your sleeves so that’s another 10, at the very least” 

“You’re absolutely right, It’s all on me” 

“Glad we straighten that out” 

“Now, we still have” he looked at his watch 25 minutes before we had to go back to work. Do you want to actually go get some food? There’s a nice place just around the corner from here” He said softly, sneaking a kiss right next to your lips. 

“Actually I believe you were in the middle of some of your best work so if you don’t mind I’d like to be the judge of that” 

“Excellent choice” 

Ten minutes after you got back a takeout order filled with sweet and sour pork got delivered right to your desk. As you caught yourself smiling at it like it was a flower bouquet you couldn’t help but feel Spencer's keen eyes on you letting you know that, indeed he knew something was up. 

[savventeen]

you say the stupidest (sweetest) things

pairing: seungkwan x gn!reader rating: 16+ (for swearing) wc: 4.5k prompt: seungkwan + "things you said at 1am" summary: you say stupid shit on the best of days, so when seungkwan comes over when you're having a bad bout of insomnia, the last thing he expects to hear from you is an accidental love confession warnings: insomnia, mental health issues, dissociation mention tags: fluff, friends to lovers, first kiss, reader is a little unhinged but who isn't tbh, they're also highkey allergic to genuine expressions of love/affection but they're working on it, banter, stimming, wrestling like children to try and work through emotions, reader is some flavor of lgbt+ (they make an "i've never done anything straight in my life" joke), reader's pov is dramatic bc they're dramatic oops a/n: this is for @dokyeomin as a part of my emergency commissions (check out the post here) and this was only supposed to be 1k but it 100% got away from me... i hope you still enjoy the fluff and all of the attached nonsense <3

From: Y/n 🔪 [11:47pm]

yo kwannie if i impulsively decide to go to the 24h convenience store how harshly do u think they'll jusdge me for buying every flavor of gummy candy available *judge i wanna see if i can melt them down into one Ultimate Gummy u know for Science

Seungkwan pauses brushing his teeth and stares down at your messages.

To be fair, it's probably not the strangest thing you've ever texted him. He's known you since your second year of college, after all, so he has about half a decade of experience with all of your various y/n-isms under his belt now.

Which is how he knows to trust his gut when it tells him that this probably isn't your usual brand of nonsense.

He spits the toothpaste into the sink and dials your number. You answer on the second ring.

“Before you say anything,” you start, “I was only half-serious about the gummies thing. Like, it's a fun idea, you know? In theory. But in actuality? I do not want to deal with the mess that it would create. Or the smells. Well, the smells might actually be pretty good depending on—“

“Uh-huh,” he interrupts dryly. “Y/n, when's the last time you slept?”

The beat of silence that follows is enough to confirm his suspicions, and the hesitant “Um” that follows is just the icing on the cake, really.

He sighs. “The fact that you have to think about it says enough.”

“I don’t need to think about it,” you argue petulantly. “I just… don’t wanna tell you.”

“Y/n...” he groans, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Look, I know, I'm sorry.” And you do sound a little bit sorry, at least. “I'm just. Having an episode. Don't worry about it.”

His shoulders droop as the words sink in. “Episodes” are what you've taken to calling your intermittent bouts of serious insomnia.

Generally speaking, you sleep about as well as the average twenty-something with a caffeine addiction. But every few months or so, it's like your brain completely forgets how to shut off and you end up staying awake for 40+ hours straight.

“Well,” he says, putting his toothbrush away and going back to his bedroom. “You know that ship has sailed, right? You know I'm gonna worry about it.”

Your deep sigh crackles over the line. “Yeah, I know.”

“So. Where're we at this time?”

He mentally braces himself. The two of you have done this enough times now that he knows that you know there's no point in trying to lie or beat around the bush.

“Uhhhhhhh, I'll be hitting the 46-hour mark in about 20 minutes.”

“Aish.”

The fact that you can say that so casually makes his heart hurt. He knows that whenever he doesn't get enough sleep, he makes sure everyone knows it and thus babies him accordingly. But you've always been so intent on hiding anything and everything you struggle with. It's taken years for him to bully himself past the walls you keep hidden behind shit-eating grins and an over-willingness to help.

“Okay,” he says, moving to the dresser to grab an extra set of clothes. “I'll be over in an hour.”

“Wait. What?”

“You heard me.” He tosses the clothes onto his bed before going to grab one of his duffle bags, firmly asserting, “You've got an hour to mentally prepare yourself for my arrival.”

“Honey, you've got a big storm comin',” you quote at him without hesitating.

“You sure do,” he assures with a snort. “Better get ready to feel the wrath of my friendship.”

“Why do you have to love so aggressively?”

He rolls his eyes while he throws his clothes into the duffle bag with one hand. “Because it's the only way you'll accept it, idiot.”

“No, it isn't.”

Your pout is so audible through the phone that Seungkwan has to stop and glance at the screen in disbelief.

“Y/n. Y/n L/n. Do not stand there and lie to my face like that.”

“I'm not lying!”

“Not—” He gesticulates wildly with one hand like he's going Can you believe this shit? to an invisible TV audience. “Okay, tell me this: what did you do the last time I sincerely monologued at you about how much you mean to me as a friend, hmm? No bits, no bullshit, just me telling you how much I love you and how amazing you are.”

A beat. “I'll hang up on you, Kwannie, don't test me.”

He barely resists the urge to shove his face into the bedspread and scream. “You're literally proving my point right now!”

“Kwannieeee,” you whine, because you know he's right.

“Also, because I'm never letting you live it down, I will remind you exactly what you did."

You say his name again, but it's muffled, and he assumes it's because you're hiding your face in shame.

“I gave you a sincere, heartfelt speech about how much your friendship has changed my life for the better and made me become a better person—” he ignores your wordless pterodactyl screech, “—and how do you respond? By staring at me like a deer caught in the headlights, slowly raising your arms to give me double finger guns, winking, and then slowly backing out of the room like an awkward mannequin!”

“...”

“Well?” He puts his free hand on his hip. “Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

“… I’ve changed a lot since then.”

Seungkwan rolls his eyes before moving to continue packing his overnight bag. “It was literally three months ago.”

“Yeah, and? Doesn't change the fact that I've changed,” you assert.

“Into even more of a nuisance? Yes, you're absolutely right.” He smiles when he hears you scoff playfully.

“Listen here, Boo Seungkwan. You know that well-rested Y/n is ready to throw down with you at a moment's notice. What do you think sleep-deprived, zero-impulse-control Y/n is going to do the second you get to their front door?”

“Stop referring to themself in the third person, hopefully,” he mutters, finally zipping up his bag and heading to the door. “And then after that, they're going to let me bully them into resting.”

“Hmm. The council has heard your proposal, briefly pondered it, and deemed it “unnecessary” on the basis of: they're a bad bitch that can't be stopped by neither time nor physics nor any god of your choosing.”

Seungkwan scoffs as he puts the call on speaker and sits to put on his sneakers. “Well, “the council” can go fuck right off.”

“What if the council would like to fuck right on?”

Pausing in the middle of tying his laces, he blinks down at his phone. “I'm— what?”

“Okay, real talk, what do you think it would mean in this case? Like, would this be like a 'hop on' versus 'hop off' situation? Or more like an 'I'm down for this' versus 'I'm up for this' kinda situation? Because it would have very different outcomes depending.”

Seungkwan decides that this is a debate better left for another time. “I think it means that I'm going to be at your house soon and that if you're not in your pajamas with hot Sleepy Time tea and the series Planet Earth ready to go, there will be consequences.”

“Booooooo, you whore.”

He finishes tying his laces and jabs his finger at the phone. “Consequences, Y/n.”

“Ugh, fine.”

“See you soon, love you, bye.” He hangs up before you can get another word in, but doesn't move from his seated position in the entryway.

Slowly, he takes a deep breath in and lets it out, taking a moment to lean back on his hands while he stares at the back of his front door. Specifically, at the large collage of sticky notes and pictures and doodles that have taken up residence there.

A few of the notes are ones he's gotten from other members of your shared friend group over the years (the one from Chan that reads "if u eat my rice i'll eat ur kneecaps xoxo" hangs proudly in the center, right next to a picture of him sleeping that Seungkwan managed to capture from an extremely unflattering angle). But most of them are from you.

Dumb puns, meme references, bullshit animal facts you made up just to get him to laugh… almost all of them are stupid in that extremely charming way that only you somehow manage to pull off.

But the one he's staring at now is almost completely hidden by other notes and pictures that have been added to the collage. It's a pale blue, the ink starting to fade a bit with time — the first note you ever gave him, back when you two were just people who happened to sit next to each other in an astronomy class.

Even though most of it is hidden, he doesn't need to be able to see all the tiny words you crammed into the small space to already know exactly what it says.

how do u make a space party? u planet :P u looked sad today, hope this makes u feel a little better also if this is 2 forward feel free 2 pretend i don't exist. or punt me in2 the sun idk u'd be doing me a favor tbh

He'd almost skipped class that day because of how bad he'd been feeling, but he'd decided to try and push through. And before that day, neither of you had interacted with more than a polite greeting and the occasional question about the homework.

But then you'd passed him that note, and he'd passed one back that said “that's dumb. but thank you” with a smiley face, and you'd passed another one back that said “do u think lizard people have ever been to space?” and the rest, they say, is history.

Seungkwan shakes his head with a sigh before standing up and grabbing his bag and his keys, striding determinedly out the door. He's got a best friend to take care of.

Seungkwan should be at your place soon, and you're not quite sure what to do in the meantime.

You have your laptop hooked up to the monitor in the living room with Planet Earth queued up, you have the kettle filled with water and ready to go on the stove, and you have mugs and teabags ready on the counter next to it.

The Required Tasks™️ have been completed as much as possible without the arrival of your best friend, and now all that's left to do is wait.

Which, normally, you're not the worst at. You're excellent at entertaining yourself, actually, mostly because there's always something to think about. Whether it be about cute dogs that you've seen over the past week (I wonder if the pomeranian down the street will let me pet him next time), potential plot twists for the new fantasy drama you're a little bit obsessed with (what if Gregothy was cursed the whole time???), or generic ponderings of the human existence as a whole (do souls have the metaphysical equivalent of a fingerprint?), you're pretty much always thinking about something.

Which is totally fine and dandy and cool or whatever when you have the ability to, you know, shut it off. For example, when you need to do something simple and necessary like, oh I don't know, go the fuck to sleep.

You also hate when that manic mental energy somehow translates into kinetic energy as well. It makes you feel like a hamster in a cage, watching yourself running and running and running on that stupid wheel until you exhaust yourself.

Tonight's metaphorical wheel: stimming like wild in the kitchen. Flapping, rocking, (gently) slapping, making weird and fun mouth sounds, the whole shebang.

And again, normally stimming is fun. Stimming is great. But stimming because you feel like if you don't stop moving you're going to literally vibrate out of your skin is, to put it lightly, Not It.

It takes you about ten minutes to work out all of the energy until you no longer feel like your blood was replaced with pop rocks.

With a groan, you lower yourself to the kitchen floor and lay down face first. Because despite how exhausted you feel in every possible way, there's still something like an itch in your conscious, a fucking pea underneath the miles of mattresses that refuse to let you just. Fucking. Sleep.

Your pity party must've lasted longer than you realized (or, more likely, you dissociated for a hot second there) because suddenly someone's knocking at your door at the same time you get a text from Seungkwan.

And you know it's a text from Seungkwan specifically because you got Vernon to help you change your notification settings so that whenever Seungkwan texts you, the "i love you.. bitch" sound clip plays instead of a normal text tone.

For a fraction of a second, you contemplate slowly inching your way to the door like an uncoordinated caterpillar, but you swat the thought aside like you’re swatting a gnat and you awkwardly roll to your feet and make your way to your front door.

Without hesitating, you unlock the door, swinging it open with a flourish and sticking a finger right in Seungkwan's face before he can utter a single syllable, forcing him to cross his eyes.

You open your mouth wide like you're going to say something, pause for a moment, then tap your pointed finger to his nose with a quiet "boop."

He blinks, expression turning deadpan, and sighs. "I should have expected this, honestly."

“Yep!”

You let him into your apartment, and he makes himself right at home, mildly bitching at you as he goes to get the tea ready, and something within you shifts.

The inside of your head is still a bit of a dumpster fire, unfortunately, but inside your chest... something clicks into place that you're not sure that you're ready to name. Whatever it is, though, it's soft and warm and kinda feels like your heart is being hugged.

Smiling to yourself, you follow him into the kitchen.

💤 💤 💤 💤 💤

It was pretty much straight to “business” after that, and it only takes Seungkwan one cup of tea and two episodes listening to David Attenborough's dulcet narrations for him to knock right out, leaning heavily against your shoulder on the couch.

Which means it's now the perfect time to sit there and Admire Your Bro™️.

It's rare to see him so still, you think. He's an active guy, in pretty much every sense of the word, and you always feel a little honored when you get to be witness to his quiet, vulnerable moments like this one.

He looks so serene, face smoothed out and painted in soft twirling shades of blue from the screen of the monitor, though you can't see too much of it from this angle. Mostly you just see his cheeks and stupidly adorable button nose.

And you've seen the same thing a million times before — in all kinds of states and expressions — and despite how much you've tried to ignore it, each and every time you've caught yourself noticing just how cute Seungkwan is, it's caused that thing in your heart to scrunch up, full of the L-word feeling that you've kept unnamed for what feels like forever now.

Except, maybe that thing in your heart is tired of scrunching up. Maybe it's decided that it's tired of forever.

Maybe that thing has finally decided to burrow itself out of the walls you've built up because you find yourself finally allowing yourself to think, Holy shit, I think I'm in love with you.

You don't realize that Seungkwan has completely stilled against you, but you certainly notice when he suddenly throws himself forward so he can turn around and stare at you incredulously. Only he overshoots a little bit and ends up falling off the couch with a squawk and a dramatic flail.

"Oh my god, Kwannie are you okay?!"

He stares at you from where he fell, wide-eyed like you've grown a second head or like the time you'd tried to convince him that birds weren't real and actually just a government conspiracy.

"Am— am I okay? No??"

Now it's your turn to move off of the couch, coming down to his level to see if maybe he hurt himself when he fell. "Fuck, okay, did you hit something? Do you need an icepack?"

Seungkwan being Not Okay is maybe one of the worst things that could ever happen in the entire universe and you're trying not to panic as you reach out to check for injuries.

"No, no, stop—" he bats away at your hands and you stop in your motions, now kneeling in front of him. "I'm not hurt!"

Your brain does the cartoonish screech thing as it comes to a halt, and you furrow your brows. "But.. you just said you're not okay?"

"I'm not!" His eyes are still wide in shock, but he also looks confused and maybe a little bit like he's about to cry?

Oh no. If he cries and it's somehow your fault (because it has to somehow be your fault) you think the world might actually end.

"Okay, uh. I am— confused,” you start, sure you must look as lost as you feel. “But, um, what can I do to help?"

He swallows, and a part of you realizes that he's looking at you with an expression you've never seen before. "Did you mean it?"

Knowing that it's significant but not yet knowing why, you maintain eye contact. "Mean what?"

"What you just said."

You blink. "...that I'm confused?"

He shakes his head. "No, before that."

You have a hard time remembering what you just said when you're not sleep-deprived and worried you've just somehow accidentally caused irreparable emotional damage to your best friend. "Uh... when I asked if you were okay?"

"No, fuck," and it's a shock for some reason, hearing him cuss right now. You hear him say much worse things all the time, but you think it might be the way he said it — with a kind of desperate vulnerability that you're not sure you've ever heard from him before.

That thing in your chest twinges and you think maybe you're the one who's gonna start crying.

He says your name like a plea, and then he's on his knees right in front of where you're kneeling on the floor, reaching forward to cup your face in his palms. "You said— Y/n, you said "holy shit I think I'm in love with you.””

Oh.

You're pretty sure your heart falls right out of your ass and bounces across the rug, judging from the way it comes to a dead stop. You blink at him. Full of new and sinking kind of dread, you whisper, "...I said that out loud?"

He laughs, but it's tinged with incredulity and sounds a little too close to a sob for comfort. "Yes! You did!"

And wait, no, your heart is still stuck in your chest, because you can feel it start pounding against your ribcage in double, triple, quadruple time. He must see the fear in your expression, because suddenly his eyes are narrowed in a determined scowl and he growls, "Oh no you don't."

Then you find yourself going down with a yelp as Seungkwan octopuses himself around you, trapping you within the confines of his surprisingly strong arms and legs as he basically tackles you to the floor.

You try and wiggle away even as you know it's useless, and he grits, "Y/n dammit, answer my question."

"Why were you even awake?” You deflect, getting an arm free and trying to give him a wedgie. “You were supposed to be asleep!"

"I was supposed to be asleep?!” He screeches, easily evading your reach and poking your ribs to get you to reflexively pull back your arm. “You're the one who hasn't slept in literal days! And stop avoiding my question!"

"No!" He has you trapped once again, and you resort to licking his arm.

"Oh my god!"

He muffles his scream into your shoulder, long and frustrated, and then he just... goes limp. He loosens his hold and just lets his full body weight kinda crush the parts of you he's ended up lying on and just... lays there.

This is your chance, you know — to wiggle free and escape and run away from your feelings just like you always have.

But, for some reason, you don't — that scrunched-up thing in your chest holds you back. You stay there, lying beneath Seungkwan on the floor of your living room at one-something in the morning, and the two of you just breathe.

"It's okay, you know," he murmurs after a moment, so quiet you barely hear him over David Attenborough still narrating softly in the background. "If you didn't mean it. It's okay."

Holy shit, I think I'm in love with you.

And you realize how easy it would be to play it off, to blame it on the sleep deprivation, the way you blurted it out like that — to say (to lie) you meant it completely platonically, like the way you propose to Mingyu at least once a month when he cooks you all dinner.

And you also realize, quite shockingly, that despite how a part of you still desperately wants to run away, the larger part of you wants to stay. Doesn't want to run. Doesn't want to lie anymore.

You swallow heavily, briefly close your eyes, and take in a deep breath. "And if I did? Mean it?"

This time, you do notice when Seungkwan goes still. Slowly, he lifts his head so he can look you in the eyes.

When he doesn't say anything, just continues to look at you with an unreadable expression, you try to continue.

"Would you— would that— would it be okay? If I meant it? When I— when I said that I'm in love with you? Is— because um, like you said, it's okay if it's not, and uh—"

Your nervous rambling comes to a stop when he once again cups your face, but it's gentler than before, closer to a caress. The whole time you'd been talking he'd been slowly sitting up, and now he's on his knees next to where you're still lying down on the floor, looking down at you like all the hope in the world is somewhere to be found in your expression.

"Y/n." he says your name like it's something precious, and you feel the absurd urge to burst into tears. "It would be very okay." His thumbs make gentle arcs across your cheeks. "And just to be clear: you mean it in a non-platonic sense, right?” He chews on his lip. “Hopefully, in a very much romantic sense?"

Staring at him staring at you, eyes bright with hope and a little bit of wonder... you can only imagine you must be looking at him the same way. Your chest feels like it's full of helium but also like something warm and gooey is sloshing around in there. And all that hope and wonder and holy shit is this actually happening? is causing your tongue to stick to the roof of your mouth, and all you're able to get past your lips is a breathless, "Hopefully?"

"Oh my god," he groans in frustration, but it's light and airy and makes you think of amusement park rides and fairy lights and how you want to annoy the shit out of this man for the rest of his life, if he'll let you. He's shaking his head, smiling, beaming, and he asks, "Why can you never give me any kind of a straight answer, huh?"

"Because it's my life's purpose to be the bane of your existence until the day we die," you say, reaching up to hold his face too. "Also because I've never done anything straight ever in my life."

And then your body is moving before your brain can think it though, dragging him down until you can press your lips to his and finally, finally know what it's like to kiss Boo Seungkwan.

He makes a little noise of surprise, one that you can feel buzz against your lips before he melts into you. And oh, any thoughts you might have had are forcefully ejected from your brain because all you can focus on are his lips pressed to yours, the way they move slowly, gently, turning this chaste kiss into the most scorching experience of your life. His nose bumps against yours and the heat of his warm breath sends tingles throughout your body, and his hands, fuck, his hands are still holding you gently but also with a firmness that feels like he doesn't want to let you go.

And then he's pulling away, and you whine at him because this may be the cruelest thing he's ever done to you ever in your entire life. "Noooooo, why'd you stop?"

"Because, as much as I'd love to continue to make out with you on your floor while an old British man narrates about life on the Serengeti—” he mercifully ignores the way you choke on your spit at the way he talks about making out with you so nonchalantly "—it's past someone's bedtime."

Your mouth drops open in offended shock. Was he actually going to put you to bed like a child? Like you both hadn't just declared your romantic love for each other? "Are you fucking serious?"

He just stands up and crosses his arms, looking down at you with a single raised eyebrow. You take the part of you that finds it annoyingly attractive and promptly smother it, crossing your own arms from your position on the floor.

"I'm not a baby," you definitely don't pout.

"Hmmm...” And then the bastard fucking pouts at you. “But you're my baby."

You blink at him.

"Welp, that was nice while it lasted,” you grunt, rolling to your feet, “but I suddenly need to relocate to Antarctica and become a penguin herder.”

He pulls you into his arms with a laugh, and you let him, burying your face in the crook of his shoulder.

“You know,” he starts after he's held you for a few moments. “This isn't how I ever imagined how us confessing to each other would go.”

You snort.

“But also,” he continues, “it feels very 'us' doesn't it?”

"Yeah,” you murmur, not bothering to lift your head from his shoulder.

“Mmm, is someone finally sleepy?” he teases, starting to waddle you both towards your bedroom. “Did all the emotions finally wear you out?”

Instead of nodding, you lightly kick him in the shin and the sappy part of your brain that is currently in charge of everything thinks that his indignant squawk is one of your most favorite sounds.

The sappy part of your brain is right, of course, and when you wake up in your bed 15 hours later and accidentally smack him in the face, the urge to run is a little bit smaller than it was before. And the way he flushes bright red after you sleepily kiss him on the cheek is an image you're going to cherish until the day you die.

[lou-wilham]

Let's talk Piracy

In light of the shitshow that is what's happening with the 'zon right now, and my post about downloading your files, I've seen a handful of people bring up pirating books as a viable option. So let's talk about why I'm so against pirating.

Here's who you're hurting when you pirate a book: The Author.

You are not hurting the guy who sits at the top of the publishing house. You are not hurting the 'zon. You are not hurting corporations, or CEOS. Pirating a book is not some radical act of resistence. You are hurting The Author.

So why do I say that?

TLDR: Pirating is bad and hurts authors directly. For more reasons why keep reading.

I say that because authors are not rich. By and large we don't make that much off each book sale. I'm in the unique position as an indie where I make 70% of my ebook sales, but traditionally published authors make less. A lot of us work second jobs, or take on freelance work just to make ends meet. Yes. Even traditionally published authors.

But even with that 70% indies have a lot of upfront cost. To produce the best product that will hopefully sell the most books we need: 1. a professional editior (which costs usually upwards of 1k$ USD per book), 2. a professional looking cover (which on average costs anywhere from 250 USD-500 USD), 3. some way to format the book (there are free options for this but the best option is a piece of software that costs 200$ upfront). All of that puts an indie author in the hole before they ever hit "publish".

And those are just the upfront costs. Many of us also put out money for character art (because we like putting money back into the art community and because our readers love that stuff). We have to pay to attend signing events. If we run ads, that comes out of our pockets. Every print book that sells we're only making 1-4$ per book. Don't get me started on the cost of audiobooks without a publisher to help you, that's a whole other ball of wax.

And sure, we could cut corners, and cut down on those costs. But you know what happens when we do? We tend to sell less books.

So who does pirating hurt?

Again. The Author.

And what are the consequences of your actions?

Well I mean the direct consequence is you could download a virus to your computer, but let's talk about the indirect consequences for a minute.

First and foremost, that author is unable to pay their bills, or has to take on more hours at their second job, or more freelance projects, or a third job. Which leaves them less time to write.

But a far bigger consequence is that a lot of us burn out. We're people. We're not machines. We need our basic needs met, and unfortunately to have those needs met we need to make money. Pirating makes that less and less possible. And if an author can't make what they need to cover bills, pay upfront costs, and feed themselves, they very often are forced to quit. That leaves series unfinished sometimes. That leaves readers wanting.

But let's step away from the money discussion for a minute, because "ew money". Let's talk from a sales numbers perspective.

Sales numbers are a metric indie authors, but also big publishing houses, use to know what's actually being read.

Those pirated downloads? We don't get reports on that. The pirating site isn't telling us how many people have downloaded that book.

Why does that matter?

Because writing a book takes a long time. I can draft a book in about 6 weeks if I don't have any other work I have to take care of (spoiler alert: I always have other work to take care of), but it still has to go through mutliple rounds of revisions, plus the aforementioned formatting, and then the absolute brain melting process of uploading it to sales platforms. That's nothing to say of the time to market it.

So if a series isn't popular, why should I continue to write it? If people aren't reading it why put forth the effort when I can go and write something else that people might actually read? I have a shiny new idea every other week, I put those shiny ideas on hold to finish off the series I've already commited to because I have readers who read those series.

This whole discussion of numbers becomes doubly dangerous for traditionally published authors from marginalized communities. If they don't make the numbers, that's a sign to those CEOs you want to screw that "no one wants queer books" or "no one is reading authors of color right now" or "I guess no one is insterested in women writers anymore". That makes them less likely to take a chance on authors from those communities.

So why am I telling you this?

It's not for pity. It's really not. I just want to be clear that when I beg you for the love of 🧀 not to pirate it's not because I'm some billionaire looking to make a couple extra bucks off a book. It's because I'm an every day human being with a family of my own, who is trying to turn the labor of their art into something that might actually be sustainable.

Authors aren't asking for mansions. They don't want to live in big houses on the hill. (I personally would just like to help my parents pay the mortgage and save for their retirement.) They just want to be able to make their art and still feed their families. They want to not have to choose between publishing and keeping the lights on.

We do this thing because we love it. Because it's a part of who we are. Because we have stories to tell. But if we're forced to choose between being literal starving artists or going to work in retail, we're going to choose retail.

No one should have to starve. Full stop.

That includes artists of all stripes.

So please stop pirating books.

[imgunnagetyou]

Stormlight Archive review of all 5 books + 2 novellas (Brandon Sanderson)

i dont know how to start this

i got a pran, a pran of cingles

stormlight archive fuckin sucks and im going to try to explain why

actually, a small disclaimer. an interesting thing i learned about brandon was that in 2019 he visited shitrael as he was invited to some ‘con. now, one could argue, for example, he didnt know what shitrael was doing to Palestine. unfortunately, i also learned that his fans had protested and told him not to go, to which brandon responded with something along the lines of “i dont believe in boycotting” or “boycotting doesnt work” or some shit. “Another lesser-known issue is Sanderson’s visit to Israel in 2019 as a guest of honor for the science fiction and fantasy convention, ICon. In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, Sanderson expressed that the invitation was one that some asked him to declined stating, “My general inclination is I don’t generally boycott no matter what. I don’t think it’s an effective way to cause social change. I think there are other and better ways. So I didn’t agree with these requests.”” from expertbooksmuggler. now, i literally had to google if brandon is american. he is, he was born in nebraska in like 1970s or something. one of the most famous boycotts of all time in this country is the Rosa Parks Bus Boycott. which worked. to claim boycotting doesnt work is profoundly stupid thing to say. so either brandon is horrifically ignorant and doesnt know of the hundreds of boycotts that have worked and are working today, or he supports shitrael. i cant buy that he just doesnt know. all of this is to say, i no longer wish to support this author for this reason and also multiple reasons of genuinely problematic things i found in these books. its also to let you know that i know, and i can let you know.

this review is not very well organised at all. so if you thought youd read the review until i said “ok spoilers for oathbringer” then stop, dont do that. im going to be spoiling all 5 books plus novellas all over the place during this review, this is only suitable to read if you dont care for spoilers or have already read the books.

SOME MATH: Those last two hundred or so pages are usually great, but I have to ask myself if the rest of the book can stand on equal footing. if only the end of a book is the good part, why should i read any of it? im not going to play a game for 50 hours because "it gets good at max level" or some shit, it should be good IMMEDIATELY. same goes for books. if someone recommends me a 1k page book and says "it gets good at 800 pages in" im not reading that shit. this the entirety of StAr reading experience. i did a little bit of fucked up math. lets claim the average reading speed 200 words per minute, 400 words on the page. 3-4 mins on a page. average time spent on reading a day, 15-20m. 4500 words a day. 320,000 words in 800 pages. 71 days or 1700 hours. math is probably wrong, but you get the point..

FILLER: lets be real, the way of kings is just a giant prologue... 1k pages of set up. id argue someone could start the series at words of radiance and treat way of kings as a .5 prequel and theyd be completely fine tbh. theres an insane amount of filler in these books, considering if they were edited by someone with a brain, theyd still be 500-700+ page books. length of book =/ epic... compare to lotr: its considered the greatest epic fantasy of all time (i think) and tolkien achieved that in... about 1500 pages. or the hobbit, which is barely 300 pages..

filler is a horrible problem in these books, as ive already noted. now i cant remember when this particular interlude happened, but its not a spoiler anyway lol. either in radiance or oathbringer, we get a random pov from some herdazian man who is about to get executed and the judge or wtv gives him the option to get beheaded or get "the hog" while oiled up. the hog turns out to be some giant sea creature or something. the interlude chapter ends. it never comes up again... at first i thought lopen, being herdazian, would make some sort of joke about the hog and we'd be like ahh i saw that. but no. and its like, are you fucking serious? this book is 1k pages long and we still get this random ass filler? ??? im so confused..

for a bunch of 1k+ books with filler, why the fuck are we missing giant, pivotal moments that we shouldve seen? for example: in oathbringer, jasnah just. coming back. people thought she was dead for months, and we dont get any scenes with her reuniting with her family and shallan???? what lol??? when her death is revealed by shallan to navani and dalinar, navani mopes for a bit, then forgors when shallan almost dies (doesnt unfortunately) but her death goes strangely unmentioned for the rest of the book... elhokar literally started a war over the murder of his father, yet when his sister is murdered he doesnt give a shit? what?

in rhythm, I kept wondering how many more chapters filled with science experiments I could endure before I would officially give up. theres no way anybody , even die hard fans, give enough of a shit about the science of this world to read multiple page long chapters that go on and on about the fucking fabrials. like, its great that you have this information as a writer of fantasy. however, WE DONT NEED ALL THE FUCKIN DETAILS!!!! if I wanted to read about this many god damn experiments I would have majored in a fucking science. the only good part of those chapters were raboniel, and of course the manipulative navani kills her, giving me another reason to hate her..

taravangian: why yes, do please tell me again (for the 100th time!) that Tara is dumb/smart depending on the day. you did not make this point very clear in the previous novel, so do please repeat it every other sentence when it is a Tara chapter. every. single. time. this is actually a little bit of this telling not showing thing that happens a lot in these books. couldve just SHOWN us he was stupid or smart that day with his tests or thoughts or whatever but nah you had to just tell us directly

adolin: in wind and truth, I cannot figure out why every single Adolin chapter has to rehash his feelings towards his father. We heard about them 30 pages ago, we don't need it again, I have memory. the worst part of this book is just how little of a real story is present. For each of the ten "days" very little actually happens. Adolin, for instance, starts the book making a forlorn last stand at a fortress. by day eight, 900 pages later, he's still there doing the same thing. Kaladin starts off on an epic fetch quest, in which he visits about a dozen essentially identical locations (including recursive versions in flashbacks) with no sense of unravelling mystery or significance. by the end of the book, he's still doing the same thing.

for a book with 1.3k pages, there is insane amount of filler, "balanced" by completely ignoring massive events that happen in the book. kaladin finally getting his bridge four tattoo: like one sentence. taln waking up and fighting his way through multiple fused to defend people and dying: literally off screen. fuck even dalinars death is off screen. and i really wouldve loved to see him die. he didnt burn alive like he deserved to but I DESERVED TO WATCH HIM FUCKING DIE!!! also: shallans mom being chana, oh who cares i didnt either... gavinor being 20 years older, nobody cares about that, he kinda just disappears at the end. youd think he’d be hanging around dalinars body and people would be like who the fuck is this guy but nah and last, the issues of how the 10 day format caused the plot to be static and stall for 1k pages lol. first 100-200 pages, ok, last 100-200 pages, ok, inbetween? why am i still here.... just to suffer...

ROMANCE: brandon, i believe has said he hates writing romance and it shows... im gone say it: if navani was a man, you would hate her. IF NAVANI WAS A MAN YOUD HATE HER!!! she literally coerces dalinar into getting with her like 3 times, he constantly saying no every single time, practically begging her to leave him alone until he finally gives in and gets with her. how do yall like her? if their roles were swapped, you would fucking hate dalinar for constantly harassing navani, but since the woman did it, i guess its fine.. the hypocrisy is fucking crazy

the fucking betrothal... apparently this is a unpopular opinion, but frankly i dont give a fuck if your book takes place in a fantasy world with 0 concept of pedophilia*... as the author, you have the choice to make your characters ages the way they are... why the fuck is shallan 17 and adolin 25 grown ass man? if this was real world, hes be in jail bruh. and its supposed to be romantic... his CONTINUED SEXISM!!! which shallan literally notices but AGAIN is not mentioned or confronted. wtf? note its like when i read a classic from 1800s and its racist as fuck and i go i dont like this book its racist as fuck then every fucker and his mother come to tell me noooo its from the 1800s it was ok to be racist then. ok? i dont give a fuck racism is bad now it was bad then.. i dont care whats normal for the time lol. im going to dislike it, and again, as a fantasy writer, you literally have the option to age up or down your characters, there was no need for this straight up fucking pedophilia. idk if im reaching, but i seriously feel like a lot of authors write fantasy like theyre writing historical fiction. youre writing fantasy... youve created your own religions, cultures etc just for them to have the exact same problems we have/had in medieval times. sexism? (including child marriage apparently, with the girl kaladin had a crush on get married at 14/15 to a man who had to be 45+ and nobody gives a shit. also the thing brandon did where she ended up actually liking/loving him is kinda fuckin weird. girl no shes a fucking victim of pedophilia, forced marriage and hell, stockholm syndrome too apparently. we not doing this fuckin noooo she actually ended up loving him uwu) racism? slavery? you betcha, for everyone even. like girl write fantasy. yk what the real fantasy would be? 0 prejudice. world fuckin peace. i mean cmon get creative here..

again: terrible romance. i mildly rooted for shallan and kal to get together, because they are at least closer in age... but frankly she shouldve stayed single. this is another problem in the series that seems to come up, why it seems all main female characters are, really, FORCED to get into relationships with men, (for example jasnah and wit getting together for no reason at all). maybe i am reaching here but it just seems weird, especially considering that all the relationships suck such massive unwashed cock. NOT TO MENTION... despite shallan spending more time in oathbringer thinking about kaladin and how hot he is, (we spend time in adolin and shallan pov, they hardly think about each other??) somehow she and adolin "love" each other after 3 months of meeting. Why? Why The Fuck? not to mention AGAIN adolins BLATANT SEXISM at the end where he says "ill let him have you", shallan repeats it like she couldnt believe he said that, then adolin is like "dont make this harder :(((" then shallan goes on an unbelieveable speech about how she loves and wants to fuck adolin. wow. turns out sexism works when you use it on a 17 year old girl who has no self worth to fall back on. TAKE NOTES GUYS!!!! no wonder he DOESNT FUCKING GROW!!

rlain and renarin: while rlain and renarins relationship is great to see in a sanderson book, its not well written at all. It’s partially the fault of the fact that Sanderson didn’t know what to do with Renarin’s character, partially the fault of the fact that Sanderson has positioned Rlain as The Token Parshendi. rlain and renarin get so little screen time that when they get together i dont believe it... we’ve SEEN them interact like 3 times so we never see any sort of friendship grow at all. so i couldnt give less of a fuck about their relationship because i dont know or care about these fucking people. yay gay written by a mormon i guess guys look hes not homophobic... this literally wouldve been fixed by giving renarin or rlain or both a fucking pov in earlier books but nah. "im worried to write gay characters because im scared to mess it up" heres a hint sanderson. WRITE THEM AS PEOPLE WHO HAPPEN TO BE GAY!!!! Finally, I’ve been uncomfortable with how Sanderson handles Rlain’s character since the Bridge Four days. His role here feels very similar to that of the Listeners in the context of the war. He experiences xenophobia throughout the series, and that’s never really been addressed.

GENUINELY PROBLEMATIC THINGS:

In this book, Shallan says, "Slavery was a mercy for the lower classes." The darkeyes. Sanderson goes out of his way to highlight the different schools of thought, as though he is setting up for a rebellion.(which never happens) But Shallan is so accepting of slavery that it rubs me wrongly. Her nickname for Kaladin throughout the book is "bridgeboy," (as with adolin) which is a reference to his role as a slave. Why is a main character sympathetic to enslaving darkeyes? idk if im reaching, but if i was kaladin, i would not want to be reminded of the part of my life where i literally considered suicide as an escape. not only “bridgeman” - bridge BOY. even more disrespectful as fuck. reminding him of slavery, and also demeaning the fuck out of him, for no reason. adolin starts calling him that out of racism i guess, all because kaladin took control of a situation where adolin was an emotional bitch and couldnt get anything done. be grateful, dickhead. he saved your child killing father... (at the very least, stop calling him bridgeboy..)

when moash gets shard plate and then Kaladin becoming a full Surgebinder they both have their eyes lighten. At face value, it appears brandon is giving credence to the misguided class system. but guess what? by the end of these books, THIS DOESNT FUCKIN MATTER!!!! nobody cares!!! do you have any idea the implications of this??? its like if in this world there was some legit honest to god proof of white superiority, what the fuck would happen? it would be fucking chaos. itd probably be WAR!!! but these people just dont care, that there seems to be legit validity to light eyes being better

also .. man writing women syndrome galore lol. really none of the women in this series are likeable and written badly... just,, this quote from jasnah: “used a fetching face to make men do as you wish is no different from a man using muscle to force a woman to his will” im sorry... in what world is jasnah saying that? nobody with a brain should be saying that and we've already established that jasnah is very big brain lol. i think shallans entire character is men writing women, which is probably why people dislike her so much. and then manipulative navani

the racism/classism dropped plotline was the worst blow. you start the series off with the main focus being a slave who fights against an oppressive system. can you imagine just two books later you have him fully assimilated INTO the very system that enslaved him and he doesn’t even care? you’d imagine with the parshmen gone, darkeye oppression and slavery would be expanded greatly but Kaladin just doesn’t really care and neither does the narrative.

stormlight healing disabilies: why.. why is this a thing?? and nobody ever talks about it.. yeah sure its a society where they dont care about people with disabilities, but idk i was hoping for some commentary on this? maybe the people in question thinking, "hmm.. stormlight healed my seizures. was i not worthy of being a knight radiant with seizures and having to wear glasses?" (as much as having to wear glasses is a disability, its never explained how badly renarin actually needed his glasses, and when he suddenly stops wearing them, NEITHER HIS FATHER OR HIS BROTHER gives a shit and never asks about it.) its very strange. yk whats sad, when renarin was revealed to have seizures, i thought oh cool, ive only read one other book with a chara with seizures. oh neverfuckingmind its healed. i remember someone saying that it was cool renarin wore glasses. well thats healed too lmao. in wind and truth dabbid is followed around by a windspren before kaladin leaves. the guy near kaladin is like yeah dabbids had that for a while he hasnt noticed. then proceeds to say "you think itll fix his problem?" what is this trying to insinuate? he has a speech impediment, thats the only “problem” he has. and why was he singled out with rlain at the beginning to not be a squire anyway? because of the battle shock? or because he slurs? and wtf does that mean? it never goes anywhere and it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. like constantly this shit that seems like everybody has to be healed by stormlight their disabilities and everybody agrees is really disturbing. people are like omg rysn!!! disabled rep waaaowoow like girl did you read the other fucking books? and shes such a background side character that doesnt even matter in the first 5 books that i dont understand what the fucks to be praised anyway…

dalinar, love him not being able to handle his war crimes, but i love even more manipulative navani ENABLING his alcohol addiction is insane LMFAO can we get a wife of the year award? she has the audacity to think "why are men allowed to be sad and drink and i have to do all the work" ???? what the fuck are you talking about? YOURE GIVING HIM THE ALCOHOL TO GET DRUNK ON!!! WHAT!?!?!?!? this bitches audacity fucking pisses be off the whole book. my blood pressure rises and i get dizzy with hate. i never liked her. i hope she dies horribly (unfortunately, i guess ill never know. at least she went into a coma, people can get a break from her manipulations.) on that note, gavilar was a piece of shit, but when he calls her out for marrying him for the power and wealth she has the audacity to get mad at him? wahhh my husband doesnt love and respect me wahhh you literally married him for power and then married his brother who is just as bad or arguably worse… for the power and wealth again. i like how it tried to tell me otherwise in rhythm where navani thinks to herself she doesnt want power or wealth and yet married gavinor. so did you marry him because you loved him? because you didnt… (also the part where she considers herself a good wife and mother. my pubic hairs are a better mother. fuck you mean)

dalinar: why do people suck dalinars cock so much, calling him a holy man when hes murdered children via fire and his wife and abused/neglected his own children.(granted this part nobody knows or can accept) if HES holy am i God? i mean seriously, even in this shitty society where they glorify murder, how the fuck are they okay with the burning of a city, the direct murder of children and his wife which btw he had zero remorse for? perhaps he left the remorselessness out of his little book, but in the real thing he couldnt have gave less of a shit... he just felt ah damn gavilar is going to beat my ass for this :\ also the end of part one of rhythm where hes "lamenting" on those murdered children that horns navani up so much they fuck? holy shit that child killer cock must go crazy. that power hungry vagina must be hungry. holy shit. if i fucked for power i would at least not be so god damn obvious or having a lack of morals. if the guy i was fucking for power was revealed to be a child murderer and wife killer i would be like dam that power dont taste that good no more

in rhythm of war, the sibling constantly dislikes navani for imprisoning spren to be used in fabrials. navani says that the other spren have said that the fabrial spren are mindless and therefore it is fine to use them in fabrials. thats weird. that is also the exact same argument they used for the slaveform parshmen, that they were mindless and therefore it is ok to use them as slaves...(this goes nowhere)

while the prejudice against people with differently coloured eyes is a mildly interesting concept, it kinda crashes when it seems the only people with eyes considered "dark" are brown only, and then i did some bare minimum googling and according to the top page first answer, 20-30% of caucasians have brown eyes, 70-80% of Black people have brown eyes, 80-90% of Asians have brown eyes, and 60-80% of Hispanic/Latino have brown eyes. (give or take in accuracy) why do i bring this up? because i remember distinctly that renarin in oathbringer was described as having "sapphire eyes". sapphires are almost always extremely dark blue, with some exceptions, (and also pink sapphires exist apparently). but he is considered light eyed, so do dark green and dark blue not count as DARK eyes? if only brown eyes are considered dark eyes, it kinda just falls back on racism toward brown and Black people again

bad rep with shallans personality disorder… now i dont have a lot i can say about this as i know next to nothing about personality disorders. however, one thing i can say, is that one “stereotype” of people with these disorders is they always have a personality/es that are violent and aggressive. and of course shallan has a violent personality that murdered ialai without her knowing. waaaoww…

why are victims forgiving their abusers? again, something i cant say too much on, but in oathbringer, dalinar claims he hears evi’s voice saying she forgives him. excuse the fuck out of me? she was verbally abused and therefore a victim of domestic abuse… why are we writing her forgiving him? especially after her noticing dalinar actively pretending renarin doesnt exist, and then you know, the part where he burned her alive ALONG WITH CHILDREN AND WOMEN??? on that note, in wind and truth, renarin has a fleeting thought that he has some “resentment” for his father, but doesnt expand on what. explain to me pls, the resentment. the neglect part? the part where he murdered your mother who was the only one in your family apparently to give a shit about you? do pray tell, what the resentment is for. this is never brought up again

Dalinar is as bad as the rapists in the army. in oathbringer, dalinar comes up to sadeas and there is a group of women who are 100% going to be given to soldiers for rape, as thats the only thing soldiers are good at in every reality apparently. i called dalinar a rapist, and someone said they dont think he was. ok. in brandons narrative, he isnt. realistically? yes. he is. but ok, but looks at this scene instead. as commander (i think he was… correct me if im wrong) (or at least a brother to the KING) he should be able to tell his soldiers to not be fucking horrible. He does not do this. when sadeas makes a remark about “looking forward to tonight”, dalinar doesnt even fucking blink. let me explain something to you guys. ill hold your hand. lets make a venn diagram. on the left side, there is a big circle, this circle is the normal people circle. on the right side, there is another big circle. this circle is the creatures who are rapists. these circles dont overlap/ there is another smaller circle. this circle is people who are silent, and do not speak up or stop things that are in their power to do so. where does this circle go? ill give you a hint. NOT IN THE NORMAL PEOPLE CIRCLE!!! you cannot be fucking neutral on shit like that. therefore, dalinar is just as bad as his rapist soldiers.

DEUS EX MACHINA GALORE: everything just conveniently good happens to the characters... in words of radiance, shallan: somehow manages to go into shadesmar just enough to set the ship on fire, survives drowning because of a FUCKING SANTHID which is NEVER EXPLAINED???? like, they know nothing about santhids. if we actually knew things about santhids, brandon could say they are like dolphins in which dolphins sometimes will randomly save a drowning person. deus ex machina? sure. believable? yes. a random nanthid which nobody knows anything about much less what they even look like? she should’ve died… and make the books slightly better! manages to persuade all those bandits or whatever into keeping her alive and they r just like aight. only one who tries to kill her is tyn who of course failed. also she becomes a master con artist so fuckin fast, especially considering how limited tyns lessons were.

kaladin: only thing i can remember is that god damn shardblade wound, which is literally supposed to be unrecoverable, but jk he drinks a healing potion from skyrim and it doesnt fuckin matter. i was like holy shit his fucking arm is fuckin gone what he gone do???? oh jk.

jasnah: somehow survives a fucking knife to the chest (can claim she used stormlight i guess), manages to teleport herself into shadesmar and proceeds to survive there for multiple months

also szeth: strangely brandon seems unable to kill characters in this series having jasnah survive impossibly bc why not, which is weird cause honestly if she died, i dont think anything fundamental wouldve changed about the books at all. shes a completely useless character… and also szeth gets approached by a fuckin god for some reason and hes like "ur cool here get resurrected like jesus. also you get an annoying sword”

dalinar randomly bonding with stormfather by just saying random words. i thought the whole point of becoming radiant was the spren in question had to really pick and choose who their knight would be and it would be about genuine intent and shit and they had to choose to possibly sacrifice themself and die but apparently u can just say some words accidentally as shown in dawnshard with lopen and the spren will go ah fuck we bonded now. not to mention, wind and truth completely just, abolished knights radiant so we go from, a spren picking a choosing and potentially sacrificing themselves all the way to... you dont even have to be bonded to have third and fourth ideals (which are apparently very difficult to achieve) swords and armour, all because adolin just talked to his fucking armour and sword sometimes. are you serious? so whats the point of radiants..probably think, oh what about their powers? well fuck what about them? truthwatcher? i dont even know what those fuckers do. elsecaller portals? who gives a shit, seems everyone can accidentally themselves into shadesmar anyway. windrunner and skybreakers seem the exact same fuckin radiant with flight... i cant even remember what the others are. they seriously seem obsolete..

no stakes: nobody can fucking die. not even a (important) minor character dies or takes a lasting injury. in oathbringer, adolin gets stabbed, and theres no way anybody worried he was going to die, no dalinar becomes god and miraculously frees them from shadesmar right where renarin is so he can heal adolin. coo. the stakes are rapidly decreasing to me in that way and reduces the fun of the action. when characters are constantly healing and battling off insurmountable odds without any failure I just lose interest. stormlight shouldve never been this powerful tbh that was a horrible decision, which couldve been solved by just not having it heal at all. or maybe keeping the cleric-like radiants (truthwatcher and edgedancer) be the healers of the group, and only they could heal other people and themselves, but nobody else can do that) good to know a character can just pause the game skyrim style and eat cheese and be fine lol

Shallan and Kaladin going through the same things they went through in the earlier books, again? Shallan has another deep dark secret? What did she do this time, drown her grandmother? Kaladin is depressed? sure do hope he snaps out of it before the big finale.. (hint, thats not how depression works… source: im depressed)

Wit becomes an insufferable vehicle of exposition and deus ex machina. Wit in the last two books is completely unlike himself in the first 3 books. I understand the stakes have changed for him, but as was the case for so many other characters, his allure was completely abandoned because his unique voice was foregone. he’s never panicked or lost his composure, but in this book, it’s like he has never been composed in his life.

kaladin becoming a "therapist" felt extremely strange to me, for the entire book. there might have been much better ways to develop this aspect of his character, but straight up calling him a therapist, and then having him "cure" Szeth and his spren after a few days of conversation. i mean szeth literally after like day 4 is like, ok kaladin ur right... im going to kill myself instead :D and then two days later somehow is convinced that kaladin is right and actually hes not going to kill himself? ok.... And then curing Nale by literally playing a tune on a flute. it was so wildly far-fetched for me that I couldn't help but feel myself cringing. NOBODY - seriously, nobody - lives through the kinds of things that Szeth lived through and then finds healing and peace after a few days of therapy. Yet not only Szeth - a 7,000 year old Herald overcomes his mental obstacles just as quickly? buddy i havent even half the traumas of those two, had 2 years of therapy (searching for a new therapist :D ) and im still depressed AND im on anti depressants. i understand that it says multiple times that it takes time, but still that nale is able to snap out of his "fog" so quickly is insane. then ishar, well at least the flute playing didnt work on him, but saying an ideal did...somehow lol. despites szeth's 5th ideal not working, kaladin says the 5th ideal, blasts ishar back with a "burst of power" and when ishar wakes up hes like Holy Shit Im A Bad Person.

UNCATEGORISED: Elhokar: he is dead. his death had no effect on the story, nor the development of any of the characters. kaladin mopes for a bit, then his little depressive episode clears up after about (checks watch) 24 hours. he is almost practically forgotten about in the same chapter he is killed in. Navani cries for like a sentence when she hears the news, but swiftly moves on, he is never brought up again. no other characters brood over his death in a meaningful capacity, we don’t even get to see any kind of funeral rite for him.

There is a frustrating lack of gravitas in many scenes. Lift appears at the tailend of what was set to be one of the better chapters in oathbringer, when Dalinar first meets Odium, seemingly only to deflate any tension by making comments about his butt and how she dislikes old people. Szeth now has a sword that talks in the same particularly childish quippy way as Syl, who already talked in the same particularly childish quippy way as Shallan. its like a gd marvel movie, a moment cant go by without a stupid joke. please... shut... on that note, nightblood i believe is an insanely old consciousness, why is it so childish? i understand why syl was childish at the beginning, but she never grows, changes or matures in any way whatsoever as she gets her memories back

sadeas got killed by Adolin at the end of Words, nothing comes of it ever. there's a cursory investigation but when the copy-cat killings are revealed to be the work of one of the Unmade, it's forgotten until Dalinar wants to make Adolin king. so Adolin admits to killing Sedeas. and then nobody cares still. i was hoping for some real complications to rise from that. adolin had some guilt but it was barely a factor. also it never comes up again and nobody cares. aight. look, did sadeas deserve to die? yeah. but why does nobody care about finding the murderer? the copy cat killings had to be based on the original murder of sadeas, therefore, to everyones knowledge, the murderer is still at large. but its ok nobody cares ig

shadesmar: this is more of a personal opinion lol.. but shadesmar is so boring!! why are the spren just humans? its like reading a faery book and they are just hot humans. give me weird shit. i dont want humanoid beings with a strange "pattern" for a head. give me fuckin weird little imps and shit. nah not only do the spren take on human forms, they are just alethi most of the time. ?? its so boring.. for example, i was imagining the honourspren being like, translucent spriggans from skyrim. crypticspren incomprehensible shit. inkspren as some sort of squid sorta thing. like wtf get creative. youre writing a FANTASY PLEASE!!!!!!!!! why are they all humanoid im bored

im not convinced that renarin and adolin give a shit about each other. there are MULTIPLE instances where renarin is COMPLTELY forgotten and its like, brandon why the fuck did you even bother writing this character? way of kings, when adolin and dalinar come back from almost being fuckin massacred, renarin gives adolin the good ol clap on the shoulder. WHAT???? BUDDY YOUR BROTHER WAS ALMOST KILLED HUG HIM???? in rhythm, adolin is going to leave for shadesmar for who knows how long and who knows what dangers lie ahead. his shitty father talks to him and gives some speech and fucks off. renarin is NOT mentioned and nowhere to be found. why wouldnt he say goodbye to his brother hes supposed to care about? again, in wind and truth, adolin goes off to azir to fight again unknowable dangers and can possibly die as he isnt a radiant to heal himself. renarin is nowhere to be found and never says goodbye. in wind and truth or rhythm, dalinar is playing with gavinor and lamenting he didnt witness more of adolins childhood. renarin is NOT mentioned. this is a huge tell not show thing because i think its mentioned a few times how adolin cares about renarin and vice versa, but i dont see any god damn proof of this.

the spiritual realm: in wind and truth, our next big disappointment was the Spiritual Realm. we were, again, led to believe that this realm is extremely dangerous: Wit and the gods were supposedly afraid of the Spiritual Realm because it was difficult to navigate, time was easy to lose, and you couldn’t know what to expect. it turned out, however, that the Spiritual Realm is just a mindscape-style place that was rather easy to navigate when you actually try for more than 2 seconds. the most difficult part of being in the Spiritual Realm is, apparently, confronting yourself/your history. we’re again in a situation where I feel like I’m supposed to be impressed or enraptured by the new setting and overlook how dreadfully boring the plot occurring there is. what a god can do in the spiritual realm is so confusing. what tara cant do: find radiants when their spren is hiding them. what he can do: recreate a fucking simulation of an entire city and its people

dalinar: he had one job and he fucked it up astronomically. and this is the most unforgivable part for me. when faced with Adult Gav, Dalinar proves he has learned nothing from his jouney of the past five books. he does not even TRY to save his grandson, or to reconcile with him. not even when adult Gav is frozen by Odiom, not even when he is visibly weeping because he knows he was deceived. Danilar doesn't even fucking try. No apologies, no "I love you's", no "we didn't know and if we had, we would have torn the whole Cosmere apart trying to find you's." The only options he sees are "Kill grandson" or "let grandson kill me." He doesn't even fucking try to find a third option. The Bondsmith doesn't even try to reinforce the most important bonds of all: those of his own damn family.* Had he been able to get through to Gav, and to in turn persuade Gav to surrender, he could have so easily won everything. *note of course this isnt surprising how shit he treats his entire family considering he hated, verbally abused and eventually murdered his wife, (who nobody forced him to marry btw) and also neglected his sons, and even when he got "better" he still had a clear favourite in adolin and continued to pretend renarin didnt exist because he had seizures i guess. the moment renarin revealed himself as truthwatcher, suddenly dalinar is like holy shit i forgot about this one. anyway, he decides to pass the entire problem on to the next generation. but not before making the absolutely batshit decision to abandon his oaths, allowing Odium to kill the Stormfather and assume true supervillain status. and, through the killing the Stormfather, he has also allowed the planet to be stripped of its most important resource, not just for the Radiants, but for the world economy. Dalinar has single-handedly undone centuries of societal progress. he makes the most self-centered decision he can possibly make, and fucks everyone else in the process. And all of Roshar is going to hail him as a hero for it. (see: wit going holy shit hes a genius just so people can continue to dick ride him is insane bruv) its literally like "wow! he made the situation worse 100x, kills himself and leaves it for the next generation! what a hero!” ????? in this world when old people leave shit for us younger generations ,we hate them usually..

other thoughts: this is more of a personal Hot take but I believe that the Cosmere with its characters and lore that connect brandons different stories works best when it's kept as a simple framing device. as his stories have expanded to includ more and more characters from different worlds, it feel like he loses focus on the important character of those stories. it also leads to a lot more bloat and is probably the reason that this is his longest book yet.

theres also a problem i noticed in this book especially of strange modern language being used a lot, making me think perhaps an editor does not exist..? (i cant remember if the previous books had this problem) examples: "literally" (i never saw that used before) "therapy/therapist" you can claim wit introduced them to this words but idk... "alcohol" instead of wine like previous books. randomly mentioned is "200 proof alcohol" huh? when the fuck they start doin that? lift using the word "hot" to say attractive, again, has never been used in this way before. kaladin randomly says "okay", nobody has ever said okay before. there can be something said for the word “awesome” being used (100% by lift) the way it is. the first version of awesome used was to indicate horror or fear, as opposed to our modern use to indicate amazement. lift uses this modern version, and compared with nobody else using the word awesome ever, its very jarring

in wind and truth, both sigzil and child killer break their oaths and kill their spren for some greater good (?) however, in the same book and literally the same day, szeth casually releases his spren from their bond and his spren does not go deadeyed and is perfectly fine. are you telling me this entire time the radiants couldve just "i release you from your oaths" and the spren wouldve been fine? nobody tried that ever? they just immediately jumped to, "i renounce my oaths" rather than a more kinder "i release you from your bond". granted, the radiants from 4k years ago didnt know the spren would go deadeyed, but i still dont understand why they never tried that out of curiosity. not to mention, renouncing your oaths required you to genuinely believe that. also, szeth easily releasing his spren from the bond and not killing him makes sigzil and dalinars decision more stupid

correct me if im wrong, but im pretty sure may aladar isnt among the women adolin was sexist to in the first few books, so as far as i can remember shes introduced in wind and truth. why the fuck is her name may, when we already have an established character whose nickname is maya??? no joke, i literally got confused multiple times on which may/a was talking.. you are writing a fantasy book and have 74 billion options for names and you pick one thats one letter off from an established character

writing in world swear words is all well and good but i dont understand what type of swear "storms" (and other storm words) is supposed to be when everybody and their mother will say it for anything and everything, so it makes me think its a "mild" swear word like crap or frick, but then there are times when it sounds more like a "fuck" like for example in rhythm of war and lirin is trying to stop kaladin from fighting and possibily getting his family killed , kaladin says "storm you" (which first of all, kinda cringe i aint even gone lie) which SOUNDS like a "fuck you" moment, but again, everybody uses "storm" for everything and everyone so i just dont understand what type of swear word it is. take it from someone who swears like a sailor- in books (and other media) i think swears should only be used when they could have a real impact. if "storm" etc was replaced with "fuck" and "shit" etc i imagine there might even be complaints about how, perhaps, immature the characters sound when they are swearing all the time. i think "storm" shouldve been used a LOT less than it was, because it was hard to tell what kind of emotion (?) the character had when they were using it, and again idk the severity of the word in the moment when it is used

why does mayalaran talk so modernly? the last time she was alive was 4 thousand years ago, she should be speaking the equivalent of ye olde english (hell, the language the people spoke 4k years ago was described as a whole different language) and people having a hard time understanding her and vise versa, but for some reason she speaks their modern common tongue extremely well, even calling adolin a slut at some point. where did she learn to speak their modern language? shes been practically unconscious for 4 thousand years with no one teaching her that. on that note, why does everyone in the visions speak again ,perfect modern common tongue? apparently with child killers bondsmith powers he can understand them, but this doesnt explain why in other POVs they also understand them perfectly

this is a little nitpick but the pursuer was written kinda shit. so youre telling me this guy has made a tradition in hunting down humans that killed him? ...so hes been killed by humans multiple times before enough for him to make it a tradition? it doesnt make him seem competent or scary at all if hes so easily killed… instead, it wouldve been better if kaladin was the first human that killed him, and it enraged him so much that he demanded to be the only one to kill him, thus turning him into the pursuer. otherwise, i feel like i can take on this guy with a kitchen knife lol

END: im going to end this essay by quoting a review i saw on storygraph (who then quoted it from reddit) which pretty much summarises the main problem with these books: "A book needs to be able to stand on its own, not just be a vehicle to provide context for previous novels and propel future novels."

[eemamminy-art]

17, 20, and 28 for the get to know your fic writer meme!

17. What do you do when writing becomes difficult? (maybe a lack of inspiration or writers block)

I do much the same thing as what I do with art, usually! Which is to say, I take a break for a few hours, days, or sometimes longer and work on something else in the meantime or I describe it out loud to someone and usually have an "aha" moment as I'm doing that.

If I'm feeling insecure about the characterization, I reread the source material and reread whatever I've previously written. I do this with art too, looking at things I drew of the same character and looking at detailed references of them :3

In my long fic, when I've not wanted to write a particular part but I know it needs to be written to get to a part I like better, I find writing sprints help very much! Risu called them "load bearing chapters" and I think of them like this now too, and find the combination of that mindset and the sprints helps me get through them!

If I just have no ideas or I feel too tense to write, I don't have any good way of pushing past that. There have been times where I go months and months without writing a new fic 😭 But I think to some extent that's been just perfectionism getting to me-- not thinking I can execute it well, or thinking others could have/already have written it better. I've honestly found it really liberating writing oc x canon, because even if other people ship their OCs with the same canon character, only I can write my OC so there's no one to compare myself to! When I see other people with the "same" oc x canon ship, I'm just like "yay you also like him, what is he like with your character?! :D" and I don't feel like it affects me in the same ways I've been affected in the past by writing canon x canon ships!

(me realizing I wrote all this for just ONE of your questions! 😭 fuck!!)

20. Have you noticed any patterns in your fics? Words/expressions that appear a lot, themes, common settings, etc?

I try to keep the same expressions for describing certain characters, I think it's fun to call attention to the same things in the same ways again and again. Like describing Estinien's eyes as "stormy" both in the color and also in the inner turmoil he has. I describe eyes a lot actually, I really like to do that. :3 I like to bring up my OC Mallory's eyes as being blue-green (though they are really teal-- same difference I suppose?) and then describing them as "more blue than green" or "more green than blue" depending on the context of whatever the scene is. Like the glowing jellyfish making them appear more blue than green, for example! :3 It's cute and fun idk I like it!

I know people always meme on eye color descriptions in fics but I really enjoy it. My eyes are brown but look amber in the light and have a purple ring around the edges, it's always fascinated me so I like to think about those little details in characters' eyes as well!

I also really like to write themes around personal identity (usually gender and/or sexuality), grief, and recovery! Just about everything I write touches on at least one of these things! They are really important topics to me and I enjoy writing about them more than anything :3

28. On average, how much writing do you get done in a day?

I don't write every day, but I usually write in big bursts when I do! I think in most sessions it's between 1k - 2k words! I've been kind of in a bad mental health hole the last few days so I've been writing a ton to escape a little and I wrote something crazy like 10k words in three days 😱 But that's not really normal for me haha it's usually like, a couple of times a week I write a few thousand words!

Get to know your fic writer! Ask meme

[apomaro-mellow]

🤩&⌛ please!

🤩 Who is your favorite character to write?

Right now, it's gotta be Steve. He has wormed his way into my brain and become my muse. I can't explain it. I just like writing about him.

⌛ How long does it take you to write a fic, or a chapter?

On average, it takes me about an hour and some change to write a chapter. My chapters aren't that long, usually about 1k. My low efforts ones are even shorter than that so they take even less time

[fictionyoubelieve]

oh I have so many thoughts on this. The halloween bags specifically are only a small part of the picture here, and it’s honestly brilliant.

So Neopets has a few events that happen more or less every year at the same time and follow the same basic pattern—e.g. there’s a “Negg Festival” around Easter and this trick-or-treating event on Halloween. Normally, the team creates a whole set of new items for each of these events, ranging from common to rare/collectible. So, for example, previous years’ trick-or-treat bags would have common drops that were fun little items that didn’t do much, and then one or two rarer drops like a new stamp, book, or gourmet food—all consumables that are guaranteed to go up in price, due to constant demand and only being available at this one point in time. (Paint Brushes are also commonly used as rare prizes, even though they’re not event-exclusive, since demand for those is widespread and “evergreen”.)

It was important to participate in site events, because holding on to these items was the easiest way to make money (neopoints) in the long run. You would jump through whatever hoops the event entailed, and then sock away your prizes for a few years until they mostly stabilized, since there’s a huge difference between “released for free last week” and “released for free a year ago” but not as much between prizes released 5 vs. 6 years ago.

However. The site has been suffering from wild inflation, largely due to botting/hacking, but also because of an old gambling “game” called Food Club whose payout scales based on the age of your account, with no cap (there is a cap on winnings from one bet, but it’s high enough that it’s usually irrelevant). 20-year-old accounts can make about 100k a day from it on average with minimal effort. Keep in mind that Flash games—ostensibly the main way to generate neopoints—pay out just 1k max per play, and you can only do that three times per game per day. 100k would have taken hours of effort even at the site’s peak when all its games were available. And the Food Club money faucet is being exploited by the site’s horde of botters—bots have generated hundreds of billions of neopoints through FC, according to someone with access to site logs.

All this is to say that, like in any economy experiencing inflation, it’s lately been better to invest in assets than to keep liquid cash. People don’t want to sell their old, exclusive event items, because those could be worth ten times as much in a month. So it’s hard to buy anything even as an established player, and new accounts that can’t make as much from Food Club have almost no way to catch up. The inflation has even affected very rare items that are not event exclusives, especially since botters have an advantage snatching those up too.

So the site’s economy is in dire straits. The new CEO has his work cut out for him. What are they to do?

Well.

Since the new guy took over, the site events changed tack a bit. Like the OP mentioned, the last event (Faerie Festival) included loot boxes with a small chance to drop rare items, but only the ones that are still technically available in NPC shops, if you can buy faster than a bot. However, the event ALSO had two other components that granted items—one was a daily item giveaway, and the other was a prize shop where you can redeem participation points—and the pools for both of those, which normally would be stocked with event exclusives, instead were stocked completely with items that already existed on the site. Many were normal items of medium-high rarity, but quite a few were previously exclusive to a certain event or item code from years ago.

And the pattern has continued for this Halloween event, AND the “daily/weekly quests” feature which launched the same day (triggering the worst lag I’ve ever seen on the site). Previous event prizes, even those at the highest tier, are no longer exclusive. Nothing is off the table.

This is genius for two reasons: we know the site is running on a shoestring budget, so reusing items to save artist, designer, and programmer time is shrewd. It lets them do more with less. And, of course, it sends a clear signal to hoarders that their investments carry risk. Buying up a bunch of event items while they’re cheap is no longer a guaranteed profit, because the team may just rerelease them next year! Might be time to sell off that uber-rare vintage stamp/weapon and diversify a little, because the biggest-ticket items are now the biggest targets!

Ultimately they still need to address the botters, cheating, and site security issues; this is only a partial fix. But it’s a huge step in the right direction, and I’m looking forward to seeing what they do next.

god i wish i wouldn't have to explain the intricacies of the neopets economy to you guys to give the full context for this but. the new neopets team that took over from jumpstart pledged that they were going to curb the inflation of rare items, which is great because a lot of rare items are worth literally hundreds of millions of neopoints, they are unbuyable unless you've been playing actively for 20 years. they did this earlier with a site festival that included random loot boxes, some of which had Unbelievably Fucking Rare And Precious items worth 200 million neopoints apiece.

well.

today they have gone a step further. by releasing this year's trick-or-treat bags. and having the trick-or-treat bags be stuffed to the brim with unbelievably fucking rare stamps, weapons, paint brushes, defense magic, and other unbuyables. (all prohibitively expensive and in-high-demand types of items.)

jellyneo, the premier neopets website, has recorded prices of some items plummeting from 2,000,000 neopoints to 4,000 neopoints IN THE LAST THREE HOURS. this is when most people haven't even heard about the event or OPENED THEIR BAGS YET.

and of course. cherry on top. 20-year-old account holders are crytyping on the site events neoboard about how mean and cruel it is to make rare stamps part of the prize pool, because their entire identity hinges on being part of the neopian bourgeoisie, and they are having MELTDOWNS over their assets being devalued until they're part of the lowly proletariat.

this is a children's game for children btw.

none of the money is real.

i'm having such a good time.

[stonathandreamer]

A Gift for Jonathan

🔸 Stonathan Masterlist

🔺 My AO3 Account

Summary: It's Jonathan's birthday, and Steve wants to give his boyfriend a special gift. The only problem is he can't find anything as special as Jonathan himself.

Word Count: 1k

A/N: Today is our beloved pookie bear and #1 Stonathan shipper's birthday (happy birthday, Charlie 🥳), which means it's a perfect time to write a fic about Jonathan's birthday!

Steve scratches his head as he drives aimlessly through Downtown Hawkins. He's on a very special mission, one of utmost priority, a matter of federal scale, no, scratch that, a matter of global scale!

He's looking for a birthday present for Jonathan. The birthday present for Jonathan, precisely.

This is the first time Steve is celebrating Jonathan's birthday as his boyfriend, so he wants it to be special because Jonathan is special to him. So, so special. That guy deserves the world (Steve's opinion).

The only problem is there isn't a single mundane gift on this planet that is up to his standards. Granted, the guy would be happy if Steve buys him a pair of socks, but Steve wants to find something unique and remarkable - like Jonathan. But damn, that's a challenge for him.

Yes, he could have asked Joyce or Will for help, but Steve's ego spoke louder: "C'mon, Harrington, you can do it!" His ego said, "You can find a nice birthday present for Jonathan on your own!"

But he's been searching for hours - only one, but it feels like three or four - and still hasn't found the right thing.

"Goddamnit," Steve grumbles under his breath while stopping at a red light, tapping his fingers on the wheel impatiently, "This would have been so much easier if Jonathan was a girl. I would have bought him a teddy bear and some flowers, and he would have squealed with happiness."

Steve huffs again and leans against his seat, running a hand through his hair while looking around at the outside town, glancing at nearby store windows, hoping to find a suitable gift for his boyfriend, but alas, nothing catches his eye.

"Damnit, I should have asked for Joyce or Will's help. That way, I wouldn't have—"

Steve stops talking once his eyes land on a nearby store on the corner. Something on the window catches his attention, and he smiles. He's found Jonathan's present!

Birthday parties on the Byers are not the type of parties Steve is used to. Usually, an average teenager's birthday party would feature an indiscriminate supply of alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, and other things that will easily shorten your life expectancy by a couple of years. Even the birthday parties of family members or close friends of his parents are different than the Byers' way of celebrating. The classic Harrington family party is posh, boring, and filled with annoying relatives wanting to stick their big noses into businesses that are none of their concern. The Byers have none of that. It's just the three of them (plus Steve), a cake baked by Joyce and whose flavor was chosen by the birthday boy, sodas, pizza, and whatever the birthday boy wants to do.

It's not fancy, elegant, or classy. But it's cozy, sweet, loving, and fun. Steve likes it. He likes it very much.

They played Monopoly, talked, and laughed. Joyce shared some stories of when Jonathan was a kid and even showed Steve some of his baby photos (much to Jonathan's dismay and embarrassment), and Steve found out Joyce bakes the best cakes in the entirety of Indiana, maybe even the whole continent - no fancy bakery his mother has ever hired comes even remotely close to Joyce's cake.

But when it came time to give the birthday boy his gifts, Steve's anxiety skyrocketed. Will Jonathan like the gift? Or will he hate it? Maybe Jonathan was expecting something more extravagant? Or did Steve go overboard with the gift and buy something too extravagant? God, it's killing him.

He watches as Joyce goes first, handing Jonathan his gift and kissing him on the cheek. Jonathan thanks his mom and unwraps it; it's a jacket. Just a simple and plain black jacket. And yet Jonathan smiles as if Joyce gave him a brand-new fancy yacht. He's never seen someone smile like that because of a piece of clothing.

Will is next, his gift: a mixtape he made with the help of his friends. Again, Jonathan smiles as if the kid gave him his private jet instead of a simple mixtape. But that's Jonathan to you. He doesn't care about the gifts themselves. He's just happy his family gave him something. It warms Steve's heart to see his boyfriend so happy.

And now it's Steve's turn. He takes a breath, holding his gift behind his back, and steps towards Jonathan.

"So, uh... I bought you this," He takes his hands from behind his back, showing Jonathan a small black box, "Hope you like it."

Jonathan smiles softly, noticing Steve's anxiousness - he finds it cute - and takes the small box from his boyfriend's hand.

"Thank you, Steve, but you shouldn't have—" Jonathan stops talking when he opens the box. His lips remain slightly parted, eyes locked on the box's content. "S... Steve, you..."

He can't formulate a simple phrase, which Steve, being the optimistic guy he is, assumes to be a positive sign. Steve smiles sheepishly and scratches the back of his head.

"I hope I bought the right color and brand you might like..."

Jonathan doesn't respond immediately, stunned by the gift. He carefully and gently took it out of the box. It's beautiful.

"I loved it. It's beautiful," Jonathan smiles and wraps the watch around his left wrist, running his fingers on the black straps. It's perfect. Jonathan looks back at Steve and sends him what's perhaps the biggest smile he flashed today, "Thank you, Steve. I loved it."

Steve's smile mirrors Jonathan's as he steps forward, interlocking his fingers with Jonathan's and admiring the watch on his boyfriend's wrist.

"It does look good on you."

"Yeah?" Jonathan asks, his voice low and soft, barely above a whisper.

"Yeah," Steve replies, matching Jonathan's soft tone. He leans forward and gives Jonathan a quick kiss on the corner of his lips, earning a low chuckle from his boyfriend.

Jonathan rests his forehead against Steve's, closing his eyes and relishing having his boyfriend with him today on his birthday. Steve's presence is enough to make him happy, but the thought that the guy actually bought him a present. It makes Jonathan feel special. Feel loved. He likes it.

"Do they know whe're still here?" Will whispers to his mother. Joyce chuckles at his question but gently shushes him, not wanting to pop Steve and Jonathan's bubble.

They'll be staying in this bubble for a while.

A/N: You know the watch? That one Jonathan's always wearing? This one right here 👇🏻

That's the watch Steve gave him. Don't bother changing my mind, you'll waste your time and mine as well. That watch was Steve's gift, and Jonathan loved it so much he uses that watch every day. End of discussion.

[fosteraudios]

How long does it take you to write a fic on average?

1k words is usually about half an hour if I’m focused? I did a livestream on Discord once where I wrote 6k words of fic in about 2-3 hours ish!

[nuggeteri]

Sleep deprived ramblings because i had the silly thought to open commission (i haven't and wont for a while butt)

Okay so i just put myself to work and i got 100 words in 2 minutes.. Which is not a lot But when you think about it, the more you write the more it takes. The first few words might take a while just like they could flow. Then continuing on they could flow even better or slowly fade out into scrolling mindlessly through an app.

I find that the best average for 100 words is 5 minutes. It can get you time to think and etc

now going over to 500 words, that's a different story. 500 words is usually when i loose my flow- (if i didnt loose it at 300.) Which takes up to 30 minutes.

I find that i should write 1k words a day, so the balance i could give myself is 500 words in the morning, and 500 in the evening. Because then in the morning, you wake up and you get your mind set on something to wake you up. And at the end of the day, ideas fuel your brain from everything that's happened.

So, basically-- i had settled on 1€ the 100 words, and i think that now i've thought about it it makes sense-? Like, minimum wage workers get paid 10€ the hour. So, half an hour in the morning and in the night would be 5€ each.

I think thats quite fair. If i were to open up commissions, i'd open them up to like, 5k max. Because like 5K would be 2 weeks of work (excluding the weekends) (yes 2 weeks bcz i wont only be working on commissions)

this rambling should really be in my notebook now that i think abt it

[jackalhadrurusluvr]

im late diagnosed (technically but not blagh blah blah they told my parents when i was a kid but didnt tell me until i was 17) so i still have the lingering insecurities and unsureness BUT ANYWAYS thats not the important part

i go "what if im lying and/or overexaggerating about pokemon being my spinterest" and then i remember that most people cannot name hundreds of pokemon based on silhouette alone

everyone whos ever watched me play whos that pokemon (by that i mean like 3 people) has always been a little shocked

like im not perfect at type matchups and i never was but typically i can just Know somewhere in my Brain. and i remember random little things. starter first evo at 16 and again at 36. i can hum along to most songs in the games i played a lot of, the song just Comes To Me when i hear it. really never was a meta/battling type player but i can remember a few abilities and stuff, not very much, i never learned how to IV train but i do remember the minigames for it in ORAS that was quite fun. i know noibat evolves in the level 40s because i had to search it up on my dads phone because i was so sad that it wasnt evolving and then i spent quite a few hours grinding.

i can typically know which moves are stat based/offensive based because i always said no to my pokemon learning status moves. i remmeber quite a few pokemons cries (especially in ORAS bc of the search system). i can especially remember the yawn move sound effect it plays in my brain a lot.

i have a lot of b/w knowledge that is specifically from pokepark 2. krokorok's name still echos in my mind. whenever im stuck on a pokemons silhouette and theyre in pokemon i can usually recall their cry and know their name. i can remember a large amount of that game. i probably put around 1k hours into it just replaying it over and over again

didnt have money to go back and play the older games so i ended up replaying x/y and ORAS a bunch of times. at least 4 times. i remember the fireworks in the palace in XY. it is so fond. i remember first meeting maxie and instantly liking him way more then i can explain. idk at 10 i probs shouldnt have been a bit madly in love with a middle aged evil scientist but i was

anyways. the point is i probably know significantly more (and care significantly more) than the average person and i forget that a lot

i know everyone wants the switch 2 or whatever its called to come out but they need to wait until after pokemon z comes out bc i do not have the funds to buy a whole new thing but i NEED to play pokemon z

[icyowl]

Phantom Limb Pain

Pairing: Vash the Stampede x reader

Synopsis: Self-explanatory. Helping Vash deal with phantom limb pain. 1k

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

In many ways Vash was both the luckiest and unluckiest person alive. He was lucky because, well, he was still alive, firstly, but also because he was (mostly) healthy, fed, sheltered from the blistering wind, with you, and nestled away in the back of a tavern largely out of sight of the rest of the patrons. He was, however, unlucky in that he didn't have a place to stay for the night, hadn't had one in about two weeks, couldn't convince you to stay away from him to stay safe, and his own body had begun to betray him. . . again.

“Vash?” You said to lift his head from where it rested on the tabletop. His posture looked very different from what it was when you'd left to get drinks. Hunched, visibly taught even with his coat, flesh-hand discretely fisted under the shadow of the table. He didn't bother to move even when he knew you were there.

“Is it hurting again?” You asked. He nodded as much as he could. When it truly drove him mad, he became eerily silent. You couldn't have this — Vash immobilized to the point of turning mute, afraid to show you and resigning to a silent suffering. “What kind of hurting?” You tried.

Quiet, breathless, he finally replied: “Like someone's got it in a grinder.”

His tone just about broke you. Out of all the outlaws, vagabonds, and backstabbers, he deserved this the least. “Tell me how I can help.”

At last he looked up. There was a little more water in his eyes than normal; and if a man of much suffering had been pushed this far? It had to be bad. Vash's eyes were especially round with sorrow — perhaps as much to have to ask you for help as to endure the pain — and his voice was almost consumed by the raucous of the tavern. “Rub the other one? The way you like to do it?”

You pulled your stool right in front of his until your knees were overlapping. His glasses slipped off easily when you pulled them from his ears and put them on the table.

“What if people see?”

“They're too drunk to talk, Vash, don't worry about them seeing us.”

He was always scared to attract unwanted attention. Any person could be the wrong person; they could hurt you, cast both of you out into the desert, bristling with nighttime cold, or hail a swat of police to chase you for days. Vash had just gotten you out of the elements and into this tavern even if for just a few hours.

You grabbed his human hand wordlessly and stretched it out. One of your hands held onto his wrist while the other began to squeeze and massage the bicep and tricep. Anything to distract from the pain. “This doesn't usually happen unless you're stressed. What's up?”

“I'm alright, I—”

“Vash.” You cut off with a sudden, grating edge to your voice, still moving down his bicep with rhythmic pulls. “We've talked about this. Don't make me force you to do your affirmations in the back of a bar.” He knows you mean it, remembers the time you had him do it in a bathroom through his tears, another time after waking up with a breathless jolt in the deep of the night, again when he'd barely managed to get you out of a hostage situation with your life.

“Seriously, it—”

“Say 'it's nothing' and I won't let you cuddle me for a week.”

A whole week? Vash knew you were serious, too. Open up, or. . . for a week? Bare his problems to you, allow himself a moment of empathy, share just one of the demons usually hidden behind his large glasses. . . or no cuddles. Why did you have to be so adamant?

His head dipped, a bit ashamed, but still he let those sinful hands of yours hit every knot in his forearm. “I've been worrying over this sleeping situation. It's not good for you — so cold every night.”

The heartfelt statement made your eyes sting. To be so kind as to incur physical ramifications at the pain of others — he really was something beyond the average human. His kindness, above all his struggles, had become his greatest curse.

Whether to hide or to be close to you, his head plopped down unceremoniously onto your shoulder, the disheveled mop of hair atop his head vaguely tickling your neck and cheek. Your fingers moved carefully to the back of his neck. There was a fine line before his boundaries were crossed; if you overstepped, he'd completely clam up. It was hard to get him to do this in the privacy of a tent in the middle of the dunes, let alone in a bar full of inebriated patrons. Thankfully Vash didn't shy away when you touched the taught muscles and continued up into the soft hair of his undercut. Not even when you pushed into the pressure points there did he pull away.

Oh no. If anything, your stampede opened himself even more. A subtle puff of air, a faint groan, a slouching of his shoulders, and suddenly it felt like he was trying to get under your very skin.

“I can't stop you from worrying,” you said, “no one can. I can't make you care about yourself, eat enough, or stop you from trying to save everyone. Only you can do that, Vash. What I can do is say this isn't good for you. How can you expect to do the things you want when you won't take care of yourself? If the phantom pains are getting this bad. . .”

He knew exactly what you were doing. Sometimes he hated your reverse psychology, but it was working.

You continued: “I want to help you in whatever way I can, so you can keep doing all these crazy, stupid, amazing things. So trust me. Trust me to be your stampede.”

A hefty pause broke when he burrowed his forehead deeper into your shoulder. “I hate when you're like this.”

You laughed. “I know you do, now, how is it?”

“. . . better.”

You pulled his head off your shoulder and, before your thoughts got the better of you, caressed his jaw in your palms and pressed a quick kiss to the tip of his nose. Vash seemed to glitch out for only a second or two this time. His prosthetic hand, previously too uncomfortable to move, lifted to rest on your thigh.

[rockitmans]

Ellipsis

A/N: This one is for @jazziergin who stumped me in the fic line game. She helpfully asked for Soulmate AU with a twist, obviously an easy thing to embody in a drabble 😛

But here we go, at least it's less than 1k this time. Hope you enjoy, love! Not convinced this counts as a twist but hopefully this is something different.

~~~~~~~

An ellipsis. That's what Kurt has tattooed across his wrist in the place that is meant to display the first words your soulmate says to you. A classic dot dot dot. The most mocking collection of punctuation ever conceived of. 

He has theories. But most of those theories all kind of point firmly in the same direction. He's probably destined to die alone. Even if the ellipsis is meant to indicate something, how is Kurt ever going to find the person that is embodied by something as abstract as a pause? 

He determinedly doesn't think about it when he gets to college. Either he'll find his soulmate or he won't. All he can do is keep an open mind and give himself the best possible chance of finding The One. He even signs up for an English Lit class with the absolute mammoth leap of logic that Lit students are much more likely to use an ellipsis in everyday speech than your average person. Like that’s something that’s likely or even possible to achieve.

He may be losing his mind. 

He regrets the decision immediately when he finds out the lecture is at eight am. He slumps in clutching his coffee and thinking fondly of his bed. He should drop this stupid class. It's way too early and he signed up for dubious reasons and they're reading Lolita for God's sake.  He doesn't need that kind of toxicity in his life. 

The bad mood lasts until the exact second an incredibly cute guy slips into the seat next to Kurt. Dark curls and warm eyes and a tiny waist that Kurt kind of wants to wrap his hands around. Cute Guy tosses an absent smile of greeting in Kurt's direction and it's the most radiant thing Kurt has ever seen. Holy fuck. He thinks he's halfway in love already. 

Kurt wants to say something, but is not caffeinated enough to manage witty repartee and this guy is hot enough to make him feel speechless on a good day. Instead, he goes to nod and then tries to change it to a wave. The result is that he just kind of twitches violently. Fuck. He’s lost it. A guy smiles at him and he’s completely lost it. He quickly grabs his coffee to try and cover for whatever the hell that just was and tries to pretend he’s anywhere else. 

The guy touches his arm, three gentle taps with his finger, and Kurt's eyes snap up, only to be surprised when a notepad is slipped in front of him with a single line of text. 

I'm Blaine. I'm not ignoring you, I just can't talk. 

Kurt blinks, frowning. And then he watches Blaine get his phone out and start up a text to speech app and it clicks. Oh. He gives Blaine a thumbs up and Blaine smiles slightly and touches his ear. Right. Blaine can hear. Which means that Kurt doesn’t have to resort to gestures as well. But he’s an idiot. So of course he did. He genuinely can’t wait for this hour to be over so he can go and walk into a deep fog never to be seen again. 

He does his best to focus on the lecture for the simple fact that the professor seems to be the sort to pick on people at random and he’s already suffered enough humiliation for the day without being caught not paying attention. It’s hard though. He can’t stop stealing glances at Blaine. He feels like he can’t breathe. His pulse is racing. He seriously wonders if he might be coming down with the flu or something.

He’s only dragged back into the moment by the most garbage take he’s ever heard a human being utter so confidently in a room full of total strangers. People usually save that shit for twitter.

"Humbert Humbert being a misunderstood genius is not the hot take I expected to be subjected to today," Kurt mutters before he can stop himself. 

He hears the intake of breath. He practically feels the way Blaine stills beside him. And then Blaine moves in a flurry, tugging up his sleeve to expose his wrist, shoving it under Kurt’s nose. Humbert Humbert being a misunderstood genius is not the hot take I expected to be subjected to today, it says in slanting script.

Kurt's mouth drops open. Blaine gestures, pointing at Kurt's wrist, a question in his eyes. Kurt slowly turns his hand over to show the three dots neatly pressed against his pulse. Blaine frowns and starts to sign something out before remembering. He grabs his notebook instead, scrawling out some quick sentences. 

Disappointed but not surprised to learn the soulmate system is so ableist. It can't even be bothered to have the first words I write to you? Unbelievable. 

Kurt laughs. Mostly out of shock and relief and the feeling of a heavy weight being lifted so suddenly it's like he could float away. All this time he assumed that the dots meant his soulmate would never speak to him for the worst of reasons. But his soulmate is right here. Blaine is here. Blaine is his. He’s literally won the soulmate lottery. 

"I thought you didn't exist," he whispers. "Because of this."

Blaine's eyes soften and he lightly brushes his fingers over the offending dots. But I found you, he writes. 

"You found me," Kurt repeats shakily. And maybe that's where he was going wrong this whole time. Years spent fretting over what the dots meant and doubting that he was ever going to find his soulmate.

It just turned out that all along his soulmate was meant to find him.

[preciousbarnes]

I Bet You Think About Me (Tony's Version)

Pairing: Tony Stark x Reader

Word count: 1k-ish

Tags: Angst

Inspiration: I Bet You Think About Me (Taylor's Version) by Taylor Swift, lyrics bolded and italicized belong to Taylor Swift

3 a.m. and I'm still awake, I'll bet you're just fine Fast asleep in your city that's better than mine

You laid in bed next to Tony, as he lightly snored, the noise filling the room of his bedroom in the penthouse he had just moved you into. You had been comfortable in your own place in Brooklyn, but it wasn't up to Tony's standards. At first, when the move-in talk began, his reasonings were "you deserve better", and "its not safe there, there was a mugging down the street!" But those remarks, after your refusal, turned into "honey, its embarrassing to me that you live there" and "you really want Happy driving all the way there and back almost every day for you?"

His shame hurt the most.

Brooklyn wasn't good enough for Tony Stark. He wanted someone from Manhattan or New York proper.

So here you were, all moved in and items put away. Living right in downtown New York City was a big change. It was brighter, louder, faster than your little corner of Brooklyn.

You curled to your side, bringing your legs to your chest and curling your arms around them to be in a position reminiscent of a fetal position. You allowed yourself to focus on Tony's breathing, thinking it would calm you. Instead, it made you more aware of the juxtaposition of Tony's comfort and your weight of shame and sadness.

But reality crept in, you said we're too different You laughed at my dreams, rolled your eyes at my jokes

"I want to go back to school, and try to start my own business", you told him one night over dinner. He choked on his expensive wine you didn't even know how to pronounce the name of, which at first you thought was an accident until the choking sounds morphed into laughter. He was laughing at your goal. It was funny to him.

Your heartbreak must have began to show on your face before you could school your expression into indifference. His cold hand reached across the table and grabbed yours, sending a chill up your arm from the temperature difference.

"Sweetheart, there's no reason for you to work. And business starting doesn't usually work out for people like you," he said as he sipped his wine once more.

"People like me?" You asked, not understanding and laughing awkwardly, trying to get rid of the tenseness that had begun enveloping the room.

In response, he rolled his eyes a bit and gave a condescending smile before chuckling and saying "Average people, darling. Business starting only works out for people with a way in, with some ingenious ideas."

Mr. Superior-Thinkin' Do you have all the space that you need?

"Hey Tony, where are my things?" You asked upon his arrival back to his penthouse after spending the last few hours trying to find where your things had been moved. You assumed that maybe a cleaner had gathered things up to clean and must have moved them to a spare room or something. Nothing prepared you for what was about to happen.

"Oh, I was hoping to avoid this. I thought you'd get the hint and JARVIS could just inform you if you asked anything. Well, this isnt working out. Having you live here with me, its too crowded, too much. We're too different, its better to end things now." He told you, avoiding eye contact as he hung his suit jacket in the coat closet and took off his tie from the day of meetings he had.

"Its better to end things? You knew how different we were. I gave up everything for you. I gave you everything I had. Everything." You cried, eyes blurring with tears. At this, he snorted with a small laugh.

Everything? He asked with a chuckle, pouring some scotch into a glass. What have you possibly given me? It's been me doing the giving, dollface.

This broke your heart even more. He didn't even remember?

"Tony, I gave you my first, I gave you my heart and soul and body and you don't even remember?" You ask, in sobs.

"Listen, you were bound to lose it sometime, and we don't live in fairytales, it doesn't always work out" he said crassly.

You sobbed openly at his callousness. He was unaffected. He turned to walk to the bedroom you once called yours too, calling to you over his shoulder.

"I was able to get your old apartment back for you, I paid the security deposit and three months rent to give you some time to find a job again and as thanks for our time together. I'll see you around, maybe," he said loud enough for you to hear as he walked into the bedroom and shut the door behind him.

A thanks for your time together? Some kind of thank you, you thought to yourself as you wiped the tears off your face and gathered your coat and purse to return to the apartment in Brooklyn that was once your home before this disaster.

The voices so loud sayin', "Why did you let her go?" Does it make you feel sad That the love that you're lookin' for Is the love that you had?

It took months for Tony to see his mistakes. He went out, partied, playboyed it up. It wasn't the same as coming home to you. Someone who was so different. Something he once thought was bad. Turns out, it was so much better than being around people like him.

The next time you saw Tony was in the same little coffee shop that you had first met in. He was sitting across from a young woman with long, shiny blonde hair. She was talking, gesturing with her hands along with her words, but he looked overwhelmingly bored. He slowly blinked, picking up his coffee you had no doubt was straight black as it always was, as his eyes met yours over the mug as he took a sip.

You gave a small smile, and ordered your coffee to go, thinking to yourself that not too long ago, that girl had been you. The only difference was for a short time you kept Tony's interest. You just weren't what he thought he wanted for himself.

I bet you think about me.