#i'm sure all of those people are LONG gone and not reading my story anymore lmao but i still worry

[softpine]

my characters should be worse people tbh.... i’m looking through my old notes and realizing i have a tendency to downplay every “bad” decision they make because i’m so scared of disappointing you guys 🥲 not that it’s any of your faults, i just need to be more confident in myself and trust my vision lol. but it’s hard because i don’t want them to make so many bad decisions that they become unlikable and annoying to read about

[soaps-mohawk]

I'm going to be honest

I'm having a genuinely hard time making this post. I've been fighting with it for a couple weeks now, but I think it's time I finally make it.

I'm not having fun on this blog anymore.

It sounds bad, but honestly, it kind of is.

I think a lot of it started from the very beginning with the precedence and expectations I put on myself. I've always tried to respond to every comment I get. Even from the beginning. It's just a polite thing to do since those who leave comments took the time to write out what they think of my fic, even if it's just a keysmash. I've always felt the need to thank those who leave comments or reblog my writing or (now that tumblr has it) replied to my fics. It worked fine before because none of my fics were particularly popular. Even my most popular fic (at that time) didn't get as much attention as CRCB has. I've never had a "big blog" before, nor a fic as popular as CRCB has gotten.

It was fine at first, responding to everyone, engaging with everyone. I was riding that high of omg so many people are reading and enjoying my fic! I've never had anything quite like this before.

Now...it just feels more like a chore. I set this precedence on this blog that I respond to everyone and I know a lot of people have said that they're surprised I responded to them and to everyone, and now I'm getting why a lot of writers don't. I'm exhausted. I feel like I've just been robotically saying the same thing over and over trying to respond to people now. I used to love seeing asks in my inbox and reblogs and replies but now? All I feel is dread because I have to respond to all of those.

Turning anon off was a big help. It lessened the sheer volume of asks I was getting a day. And while I do feel bad for all of my anons who prefer to stay anons, with everything that happened (the multiple incidents) with anon that kind of started to suck the joy out of everything. That paired with the obsessive need to constantly have my inbox cleared and make sure everyone gets a response...I can understand now too why big blogs will have 200+ asks in their inbox. It's hard and it's exhausting and I'm burning out.

First it was the fic that was burning me out. Things have gone on far longer than I planned and I just wasn't prepared for this fic to go on and for a while there it was dragging. I'll admit that. If I could go back, I'd speed up a few things, but it's done, it's posted there's no going back. I kind of hoped I would have the mental capacity to upload more than once a week too, but I just couldn't. I still can't.

I've come to dread posting chapters because I know I'm going to have to reply and respond to everyone. The only thing keeping me posting is the fact that we're in the part of the story I've been excited about since the beginning and also because I keep leaving everyone on cliffhangers and I love torturing y'all with all of them.

So that being said, this is in no way to shame anyone for interacting with me, anyone leaving comments or replies or sending asks. Don't feel bad about doing it please. I appreciate all of you that have engaged with me and it really means so much to me. Honestly, earlier this year, if I didn't have this fic and everyone on this blog, I might not have made it to now. It's been a really rough year and it's still going to be into next year. It's just getting to the point where I need a break.

I've needed a break for a long time. I thought taking days off the blog would help, and it did for a couple of weeks, but now even on the days I'm supposed to be on the blog and engaging, I just find myself queueing stuff up and just being offline most of the day still.

I'm tired. That's the best reason I can give. I'm tired and burned out on life and I'm tired and burned out on this blog.

So...I think I need a break. I need to not keep responding to every single reply and reblog every chapter. I need to not force myself to answer every ask right away, no matter how much I want to. I feel bad, but I know everyone would rather have me here and enjoying the blog than forcing myself to interact to the point where I'm dreading it and just robotically repeating myself over and over with every reply and answer and comment.

I won't be pausing the fic, I won't be not uploading. I'll still be posting chapters, I just might not be interacting as much as I have been. It's just putting such a mental strain on me still, even with anon off, even with days off. And with things getting busier for me, it's going to be too much to try and deal with irl stuff and write and try to be super active on the blog. There's going to come a point where I have to sacrifice the writing or the blog and I'd rather sacrifice the blog to keep myself sane, and also to keep trying to finally get this fic done. I love this fic, don't get me wrong, but I'm just burning out.

I'm already burned out in a lot of ways.

I was planning kinktober this year but honestly I'm considering not doing it because I know interaction is going to be insane and it's going to be a lot to keep up on. Plus trying to write that many fics is hard and I'm not sure I have the ability to do it. I have a few done but now I'm just like...is that something I want to do on top of irl stuff and CRCB.

There's just no joy in it anymore. It's not anyone's fault but mine. I put the pressure on myself, I held myself to that standard for this long despite the fact I knew it was draining me. I've tried to push through when I should have prioritized myself. I feel so guilty not responding to everyone. I feel so guilty being a day or two late responding to everyone.

I want to be here and interacting and responding to things but I just can't bring myself to anymore. It's no one's fault, and this is not a drag on anyone, or an attempt to make anyone feel bad or guilty for interacting or sending asks or anything. I'm just airing out the truth and saying what I need to say because I feel like I've been so robotic and lifeless with my responses these last couple weeks and I feel like I need to explain why. It's nothing anyone has done. It's my fault. It's 100% my fault.

Things have just gotten to be too much and it's my fault for forcing myself to be so active. The social battery has dropped into the negatives. I'm not a social person. I can only handle so much interaction and I've pushed so far beyond that, that things have gotten to this point. I want to be here and I want to have fun and I want to use this as an escape but I just don't feel that way about it anymore. It's a chore for me, a job, something I feel like I have to do and it's my fault that I feel that way. It's my own standards and expectations I set on myself, and my expectations on what I think my followers want and deserve and now I feel like I've gone on too long like this that I can't change things without hurting anyone's feelings. I don't want people to think I'm ignoring them in favor of others because I know there's writers out there that do that. They only respond to a certain group and ignore others that comment and reblog. I don't want to make anyone feel like I'm doing that to them and that's now led me to here.

I'm forcing it and I'm tired.

It's been hard these last few weeks. The life has just been draining and draining continuously. The joy and the love I have for this blog and my followers and the interactions and the fic. The last anon bullshit that happened was just kind of the last nail in the coffin so to speak. The straw that broke the camel's back. Things stopped being fun. It made me feel bad (and not in the guilty way, though that was a part of it) and I'm honestly just over it. I'm over the blog, I'm over interacting, I'm over life at this point. August is a hard month for me and every year it seems to get worse and worse. A lot of it is unrelated to anything online and I was going to make a post about it but honestly I just don't want to. Those that know, know. Those that don't...it doesn't matter.

I'm getting annoyed by the blog, I'm getting annoyed every time I look in my notifications and see an ask or a reply or a comment. I'm getting annoyed by some of my followers and that's not fair to you. Everyone always talks about how nice and kind and patient I am when I'm really not. I'm not the person I present myself to be on this blog, the way I mask myself so I can present myself as being a normal, kind human being. The mask is coming off because I'm so tired I can't keep it up anymore. It's happening here and it's happening in real life. I'm tired and I'm frustrated and I'm angry at a lot of things and the last thing I want is to start taking it out on my followers. You don't deserve that, especially when it's not your fault, it's nothing any of you have done. It's all me.

It's not you, it's me.

So for the sake of not burning this whole thing to the ground, I'm going to take a break. I'm not replying to everyone, I'm not responding to every reblog, I won't reply to every ask I get right away, if at all because sometimes I just don't have anything to say in response and I need to learn that's okay. It's nothing against you. It's not aimed at anyone specifically, I'm just trying to put myself first and stop things from escalating. I need a break and I'm going to do something selfish and I'm going to take it.

Don't apologize because it's not your fault. Don't apologize because you think you might have contributed to this because you didn't. It is no one's fault but my own.

I'm the one that needs to apologize to all of you because I've just not been myself because I've been forcing myself to be someone I'm not. I've been very unfair to a lot of people over the last seven months that this blog has been active and I've held a precedent that is not sustainable in the long run and made everyone believe that I was capable of maintaining that kind of interaction when I'm not.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry I've been putting everyone through this. I'm sorry I've been so detached and robotic and ingenuine. I'm sorry I led everyone to believe I'm someone I'm not. I'm sorry I've dragged this on this long that it's gotten to the point that I have to make this post.

I considered just disappearing but that wouldn't be fair to you either. I don't want to put you through that, so I'm pouring all of my thoughts out and making you read through this fucking novel of a post. If you've made it this far, then congrats I guess. Gold metals to you who bothered reading this far.

Anyway, all of that aside, I'll still be posting chapters. I'll have them scheduled and I'll probably come on and add links places to keep things current. I'll respond and reply and answer asks when I feel like it. You don't have to stop sending them, but just don't expect them to be responded to right away anymore. I'll probably still be here reblogging things I want and doing things when I feel like it.

I just need a few weeks to myself. Time I don't have to care about the blog at all and keeping up with it. Anon will remain off for the sake of keeping asshole trolls away, and also so I don't open tumblr and have 200 asks in my inbox after a week. Sorry to my anons but it's just the way it needs to be right now. Maybe once this break is over and I've dealt with irl stuff, I'll consider putting it back on. I just can't after everything I dealt with recently on anon.

It'll be the same on Ao3, for those that follow here and read there. Comments will probably sit for a while. They won't be answered right away anymore unless I get the energy to burn through them. Even then I won't try to answer them all at once like I did this last weekend.

I'll try to reblog something every day so y'all know I'm alright. I don't want y'all to panic and it's not fair to put you through that, especially those that might not see this or bother reading it. Those that follow simply for the fic and nothing else. I'm here, I'm just not...here.

This week's chapter is in the queue to be posted tomorrow as usual. Chapters will still come out as planned since I'm not stopping writing, just taking a break from the blog itself.

Thank you those of you who stuck through to the end here. I appreciate all of you so much. You have no idea. I'm sorry I let things get to this point and I'm sorry to anyone that I've gotten rude or snappy with because I couldn't be selfish and put myself first. I'm sorry to anyone that got a robotic, repeated response to something they were probably excited to share. I'm sorry I've been so unfair to everyone and I hope you can forgive me.

Take care and I'll talk to everyone when I have the energy to.

[1toreyouapart]

What It Cost

****THIS IS A FICTIONAL STORY BASED ON REAL PEOPLE. 18+ ONLY. I DO NOT OWN THE RIGHTS TO THE PEOPLE OR MUSIC MENTIONED IN THIS STORY OUTSIDE OF LILITH AND SADIE AND MAYBE A COUPLE OTHERS. DO NOT READ IF YOU’RE NOT UP FOR FANFIC INVOLVING REAL PEOPLE***

Terrible summary: Five years since she last spoke to him. Since she last saw him. Now his face and his voice is everywhere. She can't escape him.

Five years ago Noah destroyed her and the life they had built. Now he’s back and seeking to make amends. As much as she wants to say that it's too little too late, is it?

CW/TW: Angst, mention of addiction, cheating. Mention of character death. Language. Smut (later on). PinV, unprotected PinV (wrap it before you tap it, friends), oral (f&m receiving). All smutty warnings happen later on, so I’ll update TW/CW warning labels as those parts are written and posted. If I forget anything, please let me know so I can fix it! Thank you!

A/N: Unedited. Had to get this out of my brain. Let me know if any errors, please!

Masterlist

9 - Lilith

Lilith stood outside the door to the place she had once called home, her gaze transfixed on the door handle. It was two in the morning. Freezing outside. Yet here she was, debating if she should call, knock, or ring the doorbell. She wasn't even fully sure why she was there. All she knew was she couldn't sleep, Sadie was gone for a couple of days with Jolly, and now she was here. Ringing the doorbell likely wasn't a good option. That would wake everyone. Chewing on her bottom lip she pulled out her phone, hesitating over his contact. With shaking hands she pressed call, putting the phone up to her ear.

"Bambi? What's up? You okay?" His voice, rough from sleep filtered through the speaker to her.

"Fuck. You were sleeping. I'm sorry." She sighed, turning back towards her car.

"No, no. It's okay. What's going on?"

"Couldn't sleep. Uhm. I'm sort of outside. Didn't wanna wake the whole house."

There was a long pause in which she could hear movement. Followed quickly by the sound of the door unlocking before the call cut off, the door swinging open. There he stood, hair slightly mussed, in sweatpants and a plain shirt.

“It’s freezing out here,” he complained, motioning her inside. “Jesus. How long you been out there? You’re not even wearing a jacket, Bambi.”

“Not too long. I couldn’t sleep so I went for a drive. Apparently to here.” She shrugged, stepping through the door and slipping out of her shoes.

The soft click of the door shutting, the lock sliding into place, throwing them into total darkness startled her. Her heart suddenly felt like it was going to burst through her ribcage. A lamp turned on to her left, and the feeling only intensified. Everything was mostly the same, almost exactly as she remembered it. The TV was different. Newer. Pictures still hung on the walls, but none of them included her anymore. The plants she had left behind were still there, though. Clearly well taken care of.

Five years since she had stood in this exact spot. The memory was still so fresh. Like it had only just happened. The way he had looked as he walked in the door. How she had known right then that he had cheated. She could practically smell the perfume that had clung to him.

“The pictures are up in our-“ he paused, quiet for a moment before he corrected himself. “My bedroom.”

All she could do was nod, her throat tightening. He had kept the pictures. Hadn’t thrown them out as she would have. But kept them. Why? The plants still being around didn’t surprise her. But the pictures?

“Listen, Lilly. We can go somewhere. Drive around together. Whatever it is that you need.”

His voice was calm. Too calm. How the fuck was he so calm right now?

“Show me.” She turned to him, pinching the spot at the base of her thumb to keep the tears at bay.

“Show you what?”

“The pictures, Noah. Show me where they are. Unless you have someone you’re hiding?” Where the fuck had that come from? It wasn’t any of her business if he had moved on. He had every right to.

His long arm reached out, the palm of his hand upturned. Hesitant she looked between his face and his hand, taking note of just how open and vulnerable he looked in that moment. His dark eyes searched her own light ones, his brow furrowed just slightly. Shaking off the dread gnawing at her stomach she took his hand and let him lead her up into the bedroom they once shared.

She stepped into the bedroom, blinking as he flicked on the lights, closing the door behind them. Slowly, carefully, she took note of the empty bed. The slew of pictures all over the walls. Pictures that had once lived in the living room. How the picture of the two of them on their first date still had its place on the mirror.

Tears blurred her vision as she looked around, a choked sob bursting out of her as she clamped her hand over her mouth in a feeble attempt to muffle it. Slowly she walked around the room, trailing her fingertips over everything she passed. It was the same. The bed was even in the same spot. Even the “I love you” she had written on part of the mirror was still there. Finally, she turned to him.

“Why?” Her voice was barely above a whisper. Broken.

“There’s no getting over you.”

“Then why did you-“ her voice cracked as she fought to keep herself together. “What did I do that was so wrong that you did that?”

The dam broke, her breath coming in short spurts as the tears finally cascaded down her face. Her hand absentmindedly rubbed at her chest, desperate to relieve the ache there. Noah crossed the room in two long strides, taking her face in his hands, his thumbs wiping away tears while his shine in his, unshed.

“Bambi. Baby. Don’t. Don’t do that to yourself. I fucked up. Not you. I did this, and me alone.”

His long arms wrapped around her, pulling her into him. Face pressed against his chest, her own arms wrapped around him, hands gripping his shirt at his back, she sobbed. Finally, after years of desperately trying to keep it all down, she let herself break in the arms of the person she had always felt safest with. All while he whispered over and over that it was his cross to bear.

“I don’t understand it,” she choked out, holding tighter to him.

“Baby, I’ve been in therapy for years now and I still don’t quite understand why I fucked up the one truly good thing in my life.” He sighed, squeezing her just a little tighter, pressing his lips to the top of her head.

Gentle yet firm he placed his fingers under her jaw, tipping her face up to look at him. What she saw there made her breath catch in her throat for a different reason. Those big brown eyes of his reflected her own pain, but underneath it was the love she had once seen there every time he had looked at her.

His thumb shifted lower on her face, slowly tracing her bottom lip. And just as slowly he lowered his mouth toward hers, pausing just a fraction of an inch away.

“Can I kiss you now?” He asked, lips lightly brushing hers as he spoke.

Her heart stuttered in her chest as she looked up at him, the anxiety that had gripped her the second she walked through that front door now gone. She was caught in his orbit again, and though past experience told her to run, she couldn’t help but give in.

“Yes,” she whispered, barely finishing the word before his lips were on hers.

His lips on hers were tender, the slightest bit of mint still lingering on them. Her heart kicked into overdrive as she relaxed into him, the two of them gently exploring each other, like it was their first kiss all over again. Time seemed to stand still as they stood there locked in a tight embrace, and she knew in that moment that she never wanted to be without him again.

Tags: @collisionofyourkissmakesitsohard @alwaysfightforwhoyouare

[olderthannetfic]

I just got a comment saying I should have tagged for dom/sub undertones and I'm a little confused. In canon, this guy always bosses his wife around re: doing shit that's healthy for her - napping, drinking water, remembering to eat more than once a day, getting more than 3 hours of sleep - and she lovingly calls him "Boss Man" as a nickname because of it. On some occasions where she's gone more than a day without eating he'll swipe her phone and order her to eat before she gets it back, something she always seems to find endearing. There's a lot of 'I didn't mean to worry you', 'you're worth worrying about, now here's your favorite homemade walnut bread' stuff, all there in canon, just lifted from canon and transplanted into my fic.

Is this dom/sub stuff? I'm aroace so I've never been in a relationship, but I assumed "take care of yourself" "I will but I will call you a silly nickname over it" was regular relationship stuff. Or is it that the frequency of it makes it dom/sub stuff, and I'm just not grasping that because my neurodivergency is making me not read the social cues correctly? I was only recently diagnosed but this has been a problem for a long time, the whole line between normal and abnormal behavior, so I thought I'd ask you. You're much more well-read than I am and know a lot more about shipping dynamics and how they're tagged. I feel like you're an expert whose opinion carries a lot of conclusions-informed-by-knowledge and so your take could help me figure this out.

People who are doms or subs or write them, if you have a guide on this stuff, that'd be cool, too. I want to educate myself more so I know if I should tag something. After all, I can't get my story to people who want to read it if it doesn't show up in the tags they're searching for. Readers aren't mindreaders. It's on me to make sure they can get ahold of the things they're looking for. I just need to work around my own ADHD-addled brain to do it.

--

I think this is the usual pattern of demanding silly tags that would only make sense in that reader's own bookmarks.

Yes, caretaking and food control of various kinds can be a part of BDSM. No, your description of canon does not make it sound like this has obvious undertones.

Readers are going to have different interpretations. It's possible that other readers would agree with this one. I have my doubts. I suspect they're projecting. But sure, maybe other people would think there was some of that vibe.

However, if you did not intend the fic to read this way, I would not add the tag. This is not what the fic is about.

--

As for what this kind of thing can look like when it is intended as a dom/sub activity, the movie Secretary has a bunch of examples. She calls him on the phone to tell him what her family's dinner looks like that night; he gives her instructions about which things she can eat how much of. The way she acts while making that phone call makes it clear it's an exciting game to her. Another time, he tells her she's not allowed to cut herself anymore: he will provide what she needs.

Even if the characters are being playful, just nagging someone to do basic self care doesn't really come across as this. It's more charged when it's an intentional power exchange thing.

It's more like... hmm... if you and a friend agreed to LARP as characters for a day. Even if you were acting fairly normal and doing things you'd often do anyway, there would be this added extra vibe to it that someone who knew you well could probably detect.

It's not so much about the specific behaviors: it's about the extra meaning those people ascribe to them. If it doesn't seem like the canon characters think of this caretaking any specific way and you, as the fic author, don't see it that way, then I don't think it will generally read as a dom/sub thing to most readers.

[sehodreams]

I know I haven't posted in a long time because of many reasons but I feel I should say this.

It's disheartening to see something that should've been a happy moment be twisted like this, and I can't say Seunghan is the reason I entered the fandom, but his absence was definitely one of the reasons I felt conflicted liking them for some time.

I fell in love with the group with the MV of memories because they made me feel something I hadn't in a really long time. I was sure I had outgrown my fan era but riize with their youthful concept made me feel like just a girl again. They made some of my days a lot better and helped me when I felt a little loss in life, and for that I'm grateful, but to see a young boy be hurt and lose so much just for doing things we've all done– A boy enjoying a time of his life I don't wish anyone to miss, it's too painful for me.

I understand idols have to take care of their images a lot, but Seunghan was just a boy living his own life and enjoying things I would love all the other boys to do.

Sadly these news have affected me more than I imagined and have only pushed me further into the block (not only writing, but reading too) I was having, so I'll be taking a step back from writing or interacting with any riize content for some time, if not indefinitely.

I don't know if I'll close this blog or if I'll stop writing/liking riize altogether. I've given this (even if now quite inactive) blog so much of my time I don't see myself deleting it, but I'm trying to figure out what to do because I am sehodreams, I've been sehodreams for many years, even before riize, and I never thought any group would make me be a k-pop fan again until I started liking them, but seeing my blog be full of them –god, my longest fic is Seunghan's- is honestly just too painful right now.

I'm thankful for all the lovely messages I've been getting about the fics I've done based on them. I can't believe I got so many people to follow me and like my stories, and I'm sorry for not responding to some of those messages because I felt I didn't deserve them considering I haven't been writing for quite a long time.

Somehow, this is my blog, I'm sehodreams, I've always been, but I don't feel I belong here anymore.

It hurts that I don't know if Seunghan also felt like that with the group. I wish him the best things in life and that he gets to heal these wounds. He's gone through something I don't wish any other idol, or person, go through. From now on, I hope other doors open to him, who is talented and was such a bright person. The post he did blaming himself showed how deeply affected he is, and I can't pretend things or I will be okay and give more of my time to the group.

I love the other boys, and I can't imagine what the others are feeling right now because obviously they'll be affected too. They've worked so hard to be where they are, and I'm sure they'll overcome this.

But I'm not them.

I wish them the best, but my stability is the most important thing to me, and I can't bring myself to give them the same amount of attention and time to be hurt like this.

I've already been in fandoms that have lost members, you all know I was an avid exo-l, but now I'm 23, and suddenly I'm a 13 year old girl seeing that a member of her favorite group left again because of the bad management and abuse of a company that did nothing to prevent this. I'm sorry, but there are so many things SM could've done to protect him and the others, I'm afraid this only shows there's no human treatment for them as their workers and how any situation with the others won't be correctly managed doesn't matter what we, as international fans, say or beg.

Many won't understand this, but there are precedents of the massive hate consequences and this has been added as one more. I'm afraid what the other boys will think or feel, how much they'll fear to have a normal life and the way they'll blame themselves every time something doesn't please the Korean fans.

I can't help but feel repulsed of this kind of society.

They're already under an incredibly amount of pressure because of society standards and I had hoped that after so many years at least something had changed, but instead they decide to be stuck under their most toxic traditions.

I love them, but I don't want to support this kind of treatment in any way.

I'm sorry, this is just too painful.

[fiveredlights]

Okay I need to know things from literally ALL of the wip’s 😂

But I guess the ones that intrigue me the most are the post AUS2024 fic, the alternate Vegas 2023 story and the lmao daniel retirement fic!!

But like I said, I want to know all things lol! You are like one of my favourite authors ❤️

P.S. please feel no pressure to update, write or anything. Take your time

beth you ask and i will dutifully answer, gonna put everything under the cut because this is a long post 🫡

snippets: ausgp 2024/you're on another path

so fun fact about this one i wrote it post quali, and i had planned to post it after the race was done so i a "pre-wrote" two endings. i wasn't going to because i was gonna be like "oh max will win but something bad might happen to daniel" so i had this ready to go:

and i was sitting in the grandstand watching max's car explode in the pitlane and all i could think about was "did i do this. again" and honestly who knows.

Daniel’s already lying down face first on the bed when Max makes it back to their hotel room. He’s been doing it a lot recently after races, opening the door to their hotel room and just starfishing on the bed, unmoving until Max gently coaxes him to actually sleep. 

God, if his twenty-something year old self could see him now. 

Yeah, you’re back at the team you started with—no not HRT, that’s gone now, yes the Red Bull—not junior—sister team. The Red Bull seat? Yeah, not yours anymore, and it’s looking like it’s gonna stay that way. No, no podium at your home race, more like qualifying P18 because you were an idiot and drove over track limits. Points? Well, you had a good chance but I guess luck just wasn’t on your side yet again. 

Oh, and that young and upcoming driver from the Netherlands? Yeah, he’s your boyfriend now—surprise, you’re gay! And he’s a three time world champion, but that’s probably not important. 

Any one of those things would’ve sent Daniel into hospital, but all of those things combined? 

Early death. 

snippets: las vegas 2025/bonus fic reimagined

(i'm going to assume you mean las vegas 2025 and i'll give you both)

Max isn’t winning right now. 

He couldn’t really tell you why. 

Plenty of pundits, fans, strangers on the street have stopped him and asked him to dissect why he hasn’t won a championship in the past two years. He gives them a hastily PR trained and approved answer that seems to be more conscious in his mind now than before and cracks a well timed joke he’s sure his teammate would be proud of. 

Then Daniel comes along and will say, “Max already has three, he’s got to leave some for the rest of us!”, and the conversation will usually move on quickly after that. 

He knows that Daniel isn’t the sole reason for his non-winning ways right now, but when the eventual news of their relationship happens to drop, there’ll be dissections for days on if Daniel plays a part in Max’s performance right now. 

The last time Max hadn’t won a championship was when Daniel Ricciardo was with Red Bull, surely there’s some connection there?

snippets: las vegas 2025/don't read the last page

(Max is italics, Daniel is not.)

Max 🩵

July 31, 2025

...

I may have accidentally 

I swear it was an accident 

Like I pinky promise swear to our first born child

Don’t bring Matilda into this

Did you murder someone

What

Why is that your first thing

You are making a big deal out of it

Like bigger than the podcast you did in January

So I have to assume you murdered someone

Okay well it’s not murder but nice to know you think I’m capable of it

Daniel

I forgot to take off my wedding ring and wore it in the paddock and people saw and I got asked about in the press conference 

They definitely thought I was just engaged so I guess that’s just a silver lining

And you have a bet with Lando over when I was going to accidentally do this

Which is rude because I would never do the same to you Maxy

You literally have a bet with Fernando over if I’m going to slip up and say husband in an interview

How do you know that

And he’s Fernando you know you can’t say no to him

Daniel

When you came out you literally posted a photo of me on your Instagram

The whole paddock knows we are married

Half of them went to our wedding

About 85% of fans think we are in a relationship because you keep on teasing them with photos that is definitely me

Is it so bad that we just say yeah we’re married

We are literally about to have a kid

Okay well when you put it like that

I guess you’re right 

I know

I’m always right

snippets: lmao daniel retirement

They asked him if he wanted a big farewell thing, like they had done with Sebastian and Kimi a couple years back. 

He’d almost said no until Lando pulled a face and said “Mate, people’s last memory of you driving can’t be you heading to the pitlane again.” 

So he agreed. Told Blake to tell them to keep it minimal. No standing on giant mockups of his face during the national anthem or whatever. 

[aldritch-ao3]

Omg I love reading your analysis, I love reading about parallels, I'm literally like that one meme of character with a conspiracy board

The fact that you develop so many of the characters that by most fans are discarded as simply "bad guy who's bad and nothing more" is so interesting. The Zen'in clan, Kenjaku, are such interesting characters that don't get explored in fanworks because people either don't care about it or are uncomfortable with the truth that, yeah, no matter how bad those are still people.

Are you also planning to develop Tengen more? I think she's interesting because most people either ignore her or demonise her, so your work's been a nice exception. Honestly I'm ready to eat any crumbs of content for the immortal sorcers.

And also Jian. He's so interesting because he's currently trying to be better but we can still see that he's a curse. I can't wait to see more of his past with Kenjaku and Tengen, they occupy a permanent place in my brain now

THANK YOU ive got a big soft spot for characters who are either underdeveloped background characters or one-facet characters ... i like getting to analyze them. flesh them out a little. i think ive said before that if i wrote something else for jjk unrelated to playback, itd be centered on Just Some Guy like aratta nitta. im your average jjk fan who goes crazy at a character's 3 total lines of dialogue

i definitely want to explore tengen more! in fact, that'll be pretty soon, i think (at least in terms of where im at writing-wise, since im working on chapter 39 right now)? the dynamic of the immortals is super fun to me, and ive got a big soft spot for all three of them as very flawed people with very human flaws. i think tengen is probably the most understandable of the three, in a way. like, yeah, i too would withdraw and become kind of apathetic to individual struggles after a lifetime where individuals' lives are so much shorter than my own. people can demonize her all they want but at the end of the day she too was a human and no one is meant to live that long. im excited to get to write more of tengen and jian, since at their earliest incarnation he didnt really Know anything. and god, i didnt get to toy with that from tengen's perspective, but imagine how thatd feel. one of the only other two beings as old as you are, one whos been there your entire life - sure, he tends to choose your sister over you sometimes, but he's always been there anyways. he loves you. and now he has no idea who you are anymore. the centuries youve known each other are Gone. just bc it doesnt show much from jian's perspective doesnt mean tengen is an unaffection emotionless husk about it.

its fun i like them a lot. tengen is a complicated character, but playback is very much a story about feelings and human connection and i think they deserve the chance to get explored in that light too

[carakook]

Hi 🥲

So.... remember how I said I'd be back before? Lol, well right after that post some shit happened and it honestly made me not even want to open tumblr anymore. I won't go into deep detail of course, because I wish nothing for the best for these people. However I had some friends that were not actually friends, and some of them took things too far within our friend group. Long story short, I lost a good chunk of the friends I previously mentioned in my post, and some of them knew about my tumblr account (even though I did not give it out freely, they just found it and shared it with each other) and they were sending me asks pretty much making fun of me. Mocking my writing and my love for BTS in general. I also was sent screen shots of them talking badly about my writing, and it really just made me feel insecure, angry, and sad. This isn't everything that happened of course, but it is the reason I have not posted or even been on tumblr in months. It's immature really, I'm 26 years old, and don't have time to be dealing with bullshit like that. But, I do suffer from mental health issues (I'm sure you guys could tell, huh? ADHD and Anxiety gang wya?) and anxiety is a big thing for me. This entire situation really messed with me, but made my anxiety flare up horribly. So when this started happening, I got really bad anxiety about posting and interacting on tumblr in general. I had a lot of irl stuff going on too, and it felt like my safe space to be creative and cope with that shit was intruded on. All of this is to say that I'm sorry I didn't come back when I said I would, literally the week I was going to finish Bloom, this happened. A lot of stuff came to light, and then my tumblr asks were invaded, and I just felt burnt out and lost my spark. But I do wanna say thank you to J and K for being such good friends to me throughout all of this, they have been encouraging me to pick up my story and even make new ones. I love them a lot, they are probably some of the best friends I have ever had and they have been so helpful throughout all of this. The good news is, I am feeling a lot better about it all now. We have all moved on, and my anxiety is gone because I got over it. Just don't care anymore really. I'm more at peace. So I think I am ready to come back! I also wanna thank the author of Mutual Help, @personasintro, I don't know her personally but she recently uploaded a new chapter of Mutual Help (if you have not read it, and you are a Jungkook lover, GO READ IT??? IT IS LITERALLY ONE OF MY FAV FF EVER.) and that heavily got me in the mood to write again. Her writing is beautiful, and she always inspires me. So thank you Mimi for being as amazing as you are. <3 I am sorry again for being gone so long, but I want to come back. I love writing and I love BTS, other groups too, and I really love being delulu and turning it into little stories. So I hope you can all welcome me back and get excited. I won't give a timeframe yet, but I will be uploading the new chapter of Bloom very soon. Might have some smaller stories posted while I work on Bloom and refresh my brain. I have some work stuff I need to catch up on, and then my focus will be on Bloom. In the meantime, how are you all doing? Are you eating well?? Getting rest? Anything new? Taking care of yourselves? I'd love to hear. I have really missed you all so much, and god I have missed tumblr. It took a lot for me to open the app recently, but after I finally did, I realized everything is ok. To those who have waited for me patiently, thank you so much, I love you more than you understand. I can't wait to start again! I have a lot of stuff planned for the future, and I still have Metamorphosis to upload. So please bare with me while I get back into the swing of things.

P.S, shoutout to @wearentdelulu, she’s my best friend and has helped me a lot. She’s recently started writing stories on tumblr, please check out her page. She’s an amazing writer. But beyond her writing, she’s a great friend and inspires me to be better every day. She is a big reason I want to come back to you guys, knowing she’s here gives me courage and inspiration, so thank you J. 💖

[kingofbodyrolls]

Hiii Lissa, just saw your post and first of all, thank you so much for mentioning me in your latest post, it truly means a lot 🥹❤️‍🩹 tbh i don’t usually write reviews for the fics I read but after finishing the "Coming Home" series, I felt I had to because it was so beautifully written and I’ll hold it close to my heart 🥰 Most of the time, I'm a person who read everything in author's/blog m.list; so i will make sure to read your other stories andddd Im actually planning to binge read friendcation too hehe ✌️

Anddd based on your recent post, It sounds like you’re going through a really tough time and I want you to know that it’s completely okay to feel this way. I’ve been there myself many times when doubt sets in and it fades my passion :(( Taking a break to think about your passion and your space is really important, so don't worry <3 also remember that your worth as a writer isn’t measured by likes or comments BUT it’s about the joy and fulfillment you find in the process ✨️ It's your blog, your creations, your emotions, your feelings; don’t ever feel sad or hesitate to take the time you need bcz its also important to prioritize our mental health.

those who appreciate your work and your kindness are still here, cheering you on always ❤️✨️ When you’re ready to share again, I'll be excited to see what you write and will always support you !! I wish i was your friend irl so that i could hug you and tell you many times that it's okay to feel all this emotions 🫂 Since couldn't, I'm sending you virtual hugs 🤗 "Believe in yourself, trust the process and go with the flow, the nature will always guide you" - this is something i always tell to my friends and myself :) Lastly, we dk each other at all but if you ever feel like you need someone to talk, I'll be always here to hear you.. Cheer up and take care of yourself, love youu lissaaa 😘🫂❤️

(pls ignore my grammar mistakes here and there 🫠)

Oh Honey 🥹 Of course! Your review meant so much to me, and it cheered me up so much 🥹 That’s so sweet of you, but you don’t have to read it all if there’s one or more stories you don’t vibe with! But I hope that you enjoy those you decide to read (if not all, there’s a lot lol), and you’re always welcome to write a review or comment, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to (silent readers are also okay) 🫂 Oh, and thank you so much for saying you find my writing beautiful 🥹 Friendcation is a banger! I’m sure you’ll have a lot of fun reading that one 🫶

Wow, that was a really beautiful way of putting it; and you’re right. Honestly, I’ve been struggling with mental health on and off for many years, but this is the first year that I’ve really done something about it by being consistent in going to therapy (quite many times before until I found the right fit), and now I’m also on medication, and it’s helping a lot. I still have a lot of work to do, mentally and emotionally, but I feel like I'm on the right track and I’m getting there. Step by step. I’ll get there. Doesn’t matter how long it takes, but I’ll get there. I know it. I’m sorry to hear you’ve gone through rough times too 🥹🫂 If you wish to talk or anything, my dms are open 🫂 This is honestly one of my biggest passions, and I’d hate to end up not loving it anymore (that has happened to my love of photography, but that’s another different talk lol). Mental health is so important! So if you want to talk, you’re always welcome! I feel like talking helps a lot, and also knowing that there’s people out there who have been through similar stuff or felt the same—knowing you’re not alone 🫂

Thank you 🫂 I’m honestly very surprised by how many who cares—but it really warms my heart and I appreciate it so fucking much 🥹

Oh you’re just so sweet!!!! Thank you for the hugs!! 🫂 Virtual hugs are also good 🥹 I wish I could hug all of you irl too!!!

That is such a good, sweet and inspirational quote and it really resonates with me, it’s very beautiful 🥹 Thank you so much! I’ll take that to heart, believe, trust and let nature guide me ✨

Thank you so much Honey 🫂 The same goes for you, even though I don’t know you—you seem very sweet, lovely and nice, and you’re always welcome to my asks or dm 🫂

Love you too and take care too 💜😘

(and what grammar mistakes? I didn’t spot them, but please do ignore mine)

[quinloki]

Quill

So I've talked about Quill before, my (currently) one and only OC.

Quill is, in a sense, kind of an experiment.

Can something be a self-insert, a reader-insert and an OC all in one? Who fucking knows, but I'm going to see if it's possible.

Quill has a specific body, and name. Traits and personality (all my readers have an archetype at the bare minimum), and very much a sense of "This is Quill's story".

But they're also wildly malleable.

The body of Quill is effectively a vessel for the soul of something - someone - very removed from the world they're in. Someone with no form, or name.

Which lends itself to a strong reader vibe.

The story is also going to be told from the second-person perspective. I've come to really enjoy writing in it, and I don't want to be writing in multiple perspectives right now.

As weird as this whole set up is, I might be the only person who ends up liking the result XD but I'm not worried about that. The idea is to have fun with it. It is going to be self-indulgent as fuck.

Anyway, if any of that sounds interesting to you, the click the read more and check out the Prologue. It's just a bunch of foundational stuff and a little world-building, so don't expect much ^_^

Temporary Title: One Piece of Quill

Opening your eyes, you look to the ceiling.

Wood. That’s kind of unusual for you, but maybe the place where you are now is -.

The room shifts and breaks your train of thought. It’s subtle. But maybe because you were looking at the ceiling you noticed the soft shift of shadows more.

No matter, you’ll adjust to whatever this is. Maybe this new life is going to start on the shore in a boat home or something similar. It could be an island nation that raises babies on the waves because the natural tides are enough to help keep them calm and sleeping more readily.

You move your hands until they are in front of your face, and a cold dread grabs you. They’re not the hands of a child, and they should be. Not even a child, they should be those of a babe newly born.

You died.

You know you did.

You died in your last life and have now been reborn. That was normal, that was how it worked. Inevitable death, inevitable rebirth, and inevitable new world. Over and over, again and again for so long you weren’t even sure how many times it had been anymore.

But you were grown.

That didn’t make any sense! You hadn’t started any life fully grown. You’d always started as a baby and worked from there. It was how you learned the rules and language of the new world you were in. How you learned customs. What was polite, what was rude. What was edible and what was dangerous.

It was the one advantage that was constant.

No one made demands of a baby. No one did anything but feed you and teach you and you had time to adjust to things. Time to learn all the things you needed in order to thrive.

Had you gone through the cycle so much that things changed? You had no idea why you were being reborn over and over. It was so random. Different bodies, different worlds, different rules, again and again. Nothing ever happened to explain the reason for it.

No divinity. No game interface to track your progress. Not great fate or terrible evil needing brought low. There was nothing to guide you, and no one ever treated you as anything but a random life in a world full of random lives.

It had been utterly maddening at first, but now you were just used to it. There was no rest for you, just one life after the next. Never the same world. Never the same people. The history was always new, the circumstances different, the maps unique. The differences kept you from a certain drudgery you supposed.

Now, it seems, there was no reprieve for you between lives anymore, never mind rest.

Not only were you in a fully grown body, this body had no memories. You didn’t know it’s name, or anything else about it or this world. The knowledge of your other lives was well intact, so there was some consolation there, but nothing about this world.

You were wearing simple cotton clothes that didn’t seem to fit well, and while this body seemed unmarred, it was malnourished. You were hungry, and weak from it. You barely wanted to turn your head to look around, never mind trying to sit up.

You weren’t restrained and the IV in your arm seemed to be benign. Saline, or this world’s version of it, since you were dehydrated too.

Whatever circumstances you had the pleasure of waking up to, it seems like someone is trying to save your life.

“What a waste.” You sigh the words, but they’re little more than a dry crackle of incoherent sounds against the air. Talking burns, so you stay lying down and slowly take in more of your situation.

There’s no windows in the room, but it’s dimly lit and your eyes have more than adjusted. It looks like a medical room of sorts, and the scent of sea water that permeated the air even in the enclosed room meant you were likely on a ship.

Being lost at sea could explain the amnesia, and certainly the malnutrition and dehydration. You had a few bandages, probably sunburns or sores, but nothing felt broken and as far as you could tell you didn’t have stitches or staples anywhere.

With no immediate concerns, now was probably a good time to determine the rules of this world. Physics might be stable within a given world, but they certainly weren’t stable from one world to the next. The variance in the rate of gravity had been enough to bother you in your second life.

That had not been a good time.

Experience, however, was ever the best teacher. You learned about more things than you imagined could even be possible as the lives had gone by. World after world, even the worst of lives weren’t a complete waste, even if they were often cut short.

Closing your eyes you breathe in very carefully, and breathe out in a measured rhythm. Breathing techniques had seemed absurd in your first life. Interesting in fantasy and useless in reality, but many of the worlds you’d existed in had rules different from that first one.

Once you learned how to do one technique they became easier and easier. So the first thing you did, once you were able, was test if a world’s rules allowed for it. There were a lot of benefits to it when it worked - not the least of which was helping to heal injuries.

As the air, and the concentration it brought, filled your body, you realized there was something in this world that was like a breathing technique. It was different from others you knew, but similar enough that you didn’t think mastering it would be difficult.

The way it flowed was more like blood than air. Blood meant something physical in nature, and air was more like magic. The effects could overlap in use, but those were the two of three sources you sorted things into.

Metaphysical, physical, and technological.

Worlds overlapped in what comprised their rule set, but every world you’d lived in so far had a primary rule set that fell into one of those categories. Strong technological worlds relied almost entirely on science and engineering. Strong magical worlds could look like technological ones at first glance, but usually they created worlds more entwined with nature than forged from it.

Strong physical worlds often seemed low tech at first, but often surpassed the other two in terms of quality of life and cultural complexity.

No world was completely one or the other. Many were often a solid mix of two, and supported by the third as a foundation. Usually the support structure was useless for a human to tap into. The bulk of it was sunk into the maintenance of the world itself, and so there was little left over to make use of.

Abundance was important.

Something about the energy moving through you felt familiar. It slipped along pathways you could visualize, and seemed to slip even beyond your own self, reaching out beyond and giving you a sense of the space around you. Something… it reminds you of something, but you can grasp the word for it. The familiar feeling is a little frustrating, and so you let it go.

You can work on sorting it out later. Right now what you need is for someone to come into this room and interact with you. You don’t know if you can understand this world’s language in this state.

Plus you are ravenously hungry and would happily resort to questionable acts for a halfway decent sandwich.

A soft knock at the door is a welcome sound, and the voice from behind the door, while muffled, makes perfect sense to you.

“I hope you’re awake, yoi.” A soothing voice carries into the room as the door opens.

Wait.

Yoi?

No way.

A tall man steps into the room. He’s pushing seven feet, but you’d bet your soul he measures 203cm quite precisely. A surprisingly pineapple shaped head, topped with a few soft, wavy locks of golden blonde hair, and below that a pair of hooded eyes. He notices you’re awake and looking at him and he gives you an easy smile.

The word you were struggling to grasp earlier was haki.

[mihai-florescu]

i think i feel pretty similar to you in that the world is terrible, depressing, it sucks. that’s it’s natural state and we will always return there. but i thank that even though it hurts there are ideals unhampered by reality, stories we can create where that cycle ends for a moment in a happier direction. it isnt our job or duty as there isnt any grand purpose like that, but there is an opportunity out there to create a story with our lives. whether it’s a well known story or lost by the wayside, those who acknowledge the layer beneath the cheery “reality” that is peddled can be writers of their own. i might be delusional and there really is no hope but i hope to create stories for people to enjoy that elusive dream in if only for a temporary respite and cant give up until i well and truly fail. i don’t know if any of my thoughts speak to you in any meaningful way, but i felt compelled to share as while i think we share beliefs we seem to have come to rather different conclusions. i want to give my life to a story, an art, that will hold ideals the real world can never truly embody and thus cannot really give up as every taste of the real reality only strengthens my resolve. is there something like that for you? i’ve read your blog for a while and in my mind (which is an inexperienced mind so I apologize for sharing its fallible perceptions) you seemed like a fascinating person who holds ideals the world refuses to embody and is slowly sinking under that weight. i know it’s not really my place, so i apologize for my audacity, but i believe that you are the sort of person who can create a true happiness for yourself eventually. well, i mean i kind of have to if i believe that for myself. i have more to say, but it seems this is become a ridiculously long message. i apologize, my words likely have crossed between ideas and lost sense at times. i hope they help, or at least don’t harm. i hope you find loveliness loveliness in your day as you deserve it.

I've been journaling about this yesterday... my entire outlook on life i guess? I know i used to be creative and make projects that i found fun, but i cant find this drive in me anymore, i'm more than ready to give up (if only upset at the way it ended so im pressuring myself to make a good Last Project, but nothing is good anymore. It's all so...plain. useless. banal. there's no wit or multilayer to anything i can come up with anymore. I cant develop an idea anymore. There are enough stories, enough artworks, plenty of them bad, theres no need for me to add to it). Im sure it's just burnout stacked on top of depression and general worsening misanthropy and paranoia, but i don't think i will ever feel more hopeful again.

However i do think art, literature, games, even just stories from other people are keeping me grounded. They're also humanity's only redeeming quality - imagination will save our souls... but my position isn't to be an artist anymore, i cant spare the energy and i dont see a point in it either. I cant do a single basic living thing anymore that others seem to be able to do? I very much feel like an npc trying to do my most necessary tasks as best i can, failing more often than not. I hate getting asked what i'll do on a day off (it used to be often at my internship. I dont even want to imagine what they thought about me, that's another can of worms that still haunts me and contributed to why i became like this). The answer is quite literally Pretend I Dont Exist. I will not do anything. I cant do anything. I stop existing the second you stop seeing me, im just in bed dreading the next time i have to be human. I think when other people say they didnt do anything it's a hyperbole, but i can go weeks, and i have gone months even, without leaving the house, if i wasnt expected to.

Part of me wants to think, hope, i could maybe even get interested in making things again if there was no expectation for me to be a person for a few years, completely disappear off the grid (the expectation to be a person that just doesnt come natural to me anymore... and a specific one at that - achieving goals and moving forward, working, with ambitions or any sort of drive, young and energetic, an only child with a good education earning a living... i despise the idea of making money. I despise consumerism too. I want to fund artists, family owned restaurants, bookshops, cafes, and i do, i spend so much money without realising, but i'm really worried i'll run out and not be able to make any to survive once im older and wont get funds from my parents anymore. So i try to save and fail... My family friends, same age or even younger, are buying their own cars and apartments, successfully working multiple well paying jobs at the same time, with plans for the future...? Id like to know both how and why. How do you have the energy and why do you care. But even if they tell me the answers it doesnt change how i feel in my own life)

But this also has skewed my perception of other people... it connects to how i dont actually understand friendships anymore, im sure i mentioned it recently. Like with being an artist, there was a time i did understand and had deep friendships, i think, but it's quite alien to me now? In the way im not real until i have to interact with someone else, and even then, debatable, theyre not real to me either. Like i know this isnt a good mindset to have but it's either everything is real and i genuinely believe we need to disappear, to put an end to this sad species soon, or nothing is real and everyone's just playing a role in a story i get to watch. In a way taking away people's humanity and making them characters in my head is out of kindness, im being delusionally optimistic and quite frankly parasocial even with "friends", but it keeps me floating, stable. Ish. Still kind of empty but entertained enough. But then actually having a conversation outside my head with them is scary, unpredictable... on good days that can be fun too. My roommate always says i end up on side quests a lot if i leave the house, i think im just open to witnessing new stories... just on good, no, great days though, i cant stress that part enough. Great days are getting rarer and rarer. Most days pass by while im in bed and in my head trying to process anything, where i can barely have a coherent thought, and i wait for the day to end. Today was good for example but i still didnt manage to do anything to earn me the title of person, yet it was good because i 1. Ate, and 2. Didnt cry.

The part of your ask that hit me the most was when you said i seemed like a fascinating person, past tense. Im sure i was, but nowadays im very little even a person. Cant be helped. I hope i managed to explain how and why. If you ever want to share your art, my dms are open, i can maybe tell you about my gallery of failure wips i cant stand to look at anymore. I saw the followup ask with your personal info but im not quite sure what else to say... even this ask took too long to answer and now i need a nappp

[ash-elizabeth-art]

Writer's Block (or Whatever the Heck This Is)

Okay, I just need to vent about writing for a bit, because oh my god has it been plaguing me recently, and I just don't know what to do anymore. For some context, it's a dream of mine to write a novel that I'm really proud of and have it published. Sounds like a pretty straightforward, simple goal, but of course I have to go and make it extremely complicated for no reason. I've been writing stories in my spare time since I was a teenager, and I've gone through so many ideas, written and abandoned so many things, had my fair share of writer's block, but I don't think I've ever struggled quite like this before.

This current struggle started all the way back in 2015, when I got an idea for a story and started working on it. Eventually, I realized that I was more interested in two of the side characters, so I ended up spending the next few years writing a story about those two instead, and I did it! I wrote a novel-length story about those two characters, and I did like it, but by the end, I just didn't have the desire to pursue it any further. What I did do, which you'll never guess, is I took two side characters from that story, and wrote a whole spin-off story about them! And again, I wrote a whole 50K+ words about these two, mostly just for fun, and I liked it, but again, just didn't want to pursue it further. And don't get me wrong, I'm still proud of those two stories, and there's a lot about them that I truly love, but I still have this desire to write something and share it with people, to be excited to share it with people. I know that I don't have to share everything I write, but for me, part of what I enjoy about writing is the idea that I could make people feel things, you know? I want to feel the joy and the sadness myself while writing, then share in those feelings with others as they're reading.

The problem now, I suppose, is that I can't seem to commit to a story idea long enough to even write an outline, let alone 50K words. When I wrote those first two stories, I really loved those characters and that universe they were in, and I was excited, and passionate, and committed to those stories. Now? I change my mind about my current idea every five minutes. I can't commit to anything. Does this character have blond hair? No. Wait, yes. These two meet at a bar- no, they meet at a coffee shop! No, I'll stick to the bar. But what if they met through mutual friends? Or in a library? Or, or, or. You get the picture. I'm second guessing everything. I'm doubting my own feelings. It's like I have pre-impostor syndrome, if that even makes sense. I'll be like “Oh, I like that idea!” and there's this evil little gremlin in my head that's like, “No you don't. You don't actually like that.” and I'm like, oh, I guess I don't? And it makes me feel like maybe I should just abandon this idea altogether and try to think of something that I'm not questioning every two seconds. Because surely if I was confident in my idea, this wouldn't be happening, right? Or would this same thing just happen with every story I try to write now? Am I just never gonna feel excited and passionate about something ever again?

Like, you know that feeling you get when you first start writing something, and you're like, this is the best idea I've ever had. I love this. This is great. And you write, and write, and write, and eventually, you go back over what you've written and you're like oh, this is garbage! I can't believe I liked this! I was so blinded by the sheer joy of expressing my ideas that I didn't see the mistakes I was making, let me go back and fix those, and then keep writing this story :) That whole experience, I feel like I'm incapable of having that anymore. But I want to! I want to be so stupidly in love with my own ideas that I write absolute trash but have a blast doing it. And I'm worried that I'll never feel that way again. I'll just be so overly-critical of myself, so doubtful of my own feelings, so worried about how my writing is perceived, that I won't be able to enjoy it anymore.

For instance, with my current idea, I have these two characters who fit the “grumpy and sunshine” trope. And I don't know if I did this subconsciously or what, but the grumpy one has dark hair and is kind of pretentious and likes being alone, and the other one has lighter hair and is sillier and more extroverted. And so at every turn I'm like, no, this is basically just Simon and Baz! Or Sherlock and John! Or Bitty and Jack! Or Hinata and Kageyama! I'm just copying them! I gotta change their appearance and personalities immediately or everyone's gonna know that I'm a character-stealing criminal who deserves to be in Writer Jail forever. This is how my brain works, and it's not fun. And I miss having fun with writing! I know it's not always fun, and it is in fact hard work a lot of the time, but it should also not be this miserable!

And all of these feelings, all of these doubts, they follow me around and stick to every new idea I try to come up with. And the worst part, I think, is feeling like I'm alone in all this. Like I'm the only one who feels this way and has ever felt this way. That everyone else who has written a book has done so easily, and they were in love with their idea the whole time, and the fact that I feel this way means maybe I shouldn't be writing at all. And I know that's not true, but social media sure does do a good job of convincing me it is. I see people announcing book deals, or publishing special editions of their books, or starting work on book #5 after just finishing book #4, and I will be the first to admit that I'm jealous. I don't know how they do it. I look around a Barnes and Noble at all these published books and think, all these people did it, why can't I? And not even just publishing a book, because I know that's a whole other can of worms, I mean just the act of writing something, still loving it after you've written it, then sharing it with people. That in and of itself feels impossible to me.

I don't know..it's just a lot. And I know that some of these things are probably issues that run deeper that I should probably talk to my therapist about, but for now I just wanted to get it all out somewhere because it's been bouncing around in my head for way too long. And if you've ever felt this way or felt anything similar, please please let me know! I think it would really help if I knew that it wasn't just me, because I've basically convinced myself that it is. And if you've never felt this way and have no idea what I'm talking about, thank you for sticking with me and reading this far x)

I hope that you're all enjoying your summer, and that you're not experiencing writer's block!

[evesaintyves]

989 words, for @remadoramicrofics prompt "haunted."

Read it below or on AO3 🎸

Tonks's old bedroom floor is a mess of rumpled t-shirts and her rattiest underpants. Five days since Remus took off his ring, knotted the strings on his traveling case, and told her he'd made a terrible error. All she's done is sleep. She dozed off on the macrame throw pillow and it left a crisscross red rash on her cheek, went downstairs before she noticed, and her Dad gasped, "Dora?" 

She just fled back upstairs without breakfast.

It's not even her throw pillow. Mum has snuck them in her old room sometime since she's been gone. Other things, too, an elegant white bowl to hold all the knuts and plastic hair clips and ticket stubs that were scattered across her chest of drawers. Mum's things, minimal and clean, make Tonks's stuff, the fairy lights and the thrashing band posters, seem like they're trying too hard. It's just like her last year at school, the stress-cracking of all the faultlines between who she is and who she is supposed to be. She was constantly reinventing herself back then—a new chin, a chelsea cut, a ring in her eyebrow. But she's not the only one in charge of her body anymore. It's making decisions without her.

And it's so shit to want Remus here to settle behind her on her squeaky old bed, tuck his bony knees into the parenthesis of her legs, stroke his skinny fingers up her arm and say, like he does, that he's sorry—but at the same time to want to scream at him so hard he vapourizes into a fine red mist.

In the afternoon, her mother does her two-tap no-time-to-pull-your-knickers-up knock and comes in with cups of tea.

"Your father tells me you've been looking ill."

"I'm not."

Andromeda sits on the side of the bed.

"You were a terrible pregnancy," she says. "I'd have sworn you were trying to fight me from the inside."

Tonks pulls her knees to her chest. "This one's a scrapper. I can tell already."

Andromeda smiles into her cup.

Tender moments have a way of making Tonks show her belly. Her mother doesn't say much, just sits and keeps her company, and before long Tonks is compelled to overshare. That she isn't even sure Remus ever really loved her, but maybe loved an idea of her that she led him on into believing while they were still just awkwardly clicking teeth in stolen moments at headquarters; an idea worn smooth and shiny by those months they were apart.

Almost as soon as she married him she was up the duff and puking, breaking out in spots faster than she could morph them away. Still having dreams that Sirius was just tilting on his heels—suspended in the moment he might have been saved—waking up choking. Remus seemed perturbed that she could spend hours staring at the telly, not watching, just trying to shush the noise in her head. It seems so stupid now, but she'd really thought that he, of all people, would understand.

"My mother used to tell me," Andromeda says, "that I'd better stop all my moping about, that men don't care for girls who brood. And that I'd never get married and out of her hair, acting that way."

"What did you say?"

"I didn't say anything. I made a plan and then I climbed out my window in the middle of the night. Your father picked me up in his old car and took me to his parents' flat—you know the story. Let me tell you, Nymphadora—" She pins Tonks with a look. "—how much brooding I did in his old bedroom. I was a wreck. The room smelt of some horrible potion he used on his model railway. The carpet crunched underfoot. And I was worried about what was going to happen to—to some of the people I left. I was crying every night. Waiting until your grandparents left for work in the morning to creep into the kitchen like a ghoul. I had..." She pulls her posture up straight. "Difficulty adjusting, at first."

Tonks's throat is getting tight, and tears are needling the rims of her eyes. It's not just that she's grabbed for that kind of love story and missed; it's also that her mother never talks to her like this—spilling the way Tonks sometimes does, talking fast, saying things she probably shouldn't. It makes the world feel all the more unfixably cracked.

"Dad—Was Dad...?" Tonks can't even finish, her voice is cracking and squeaking. She curls forward and hides her face in her mother's sleeve.

"He'd lie with me—and touch my hair. He used to tell me if I didn't eat I'd disappear and it was going to be very difficult to explain to the officiant why he had an invisible bride."

She says it gently, sadly, as if she knows what it'll do to Tonks, and she's right. It's full waterworks now, the type Tonks has always sworn she wasn't going to do over a bloke. It's coming out her eyes and nose, it's thick and salty in her mouth, it's getting all over her mum's silk blouse. She's going to hate that. Tonks flops back against her pillows, sniffling, wiping her face with her palms, automatically morphing the puffiness out of her eyelids.

Her mother turns to inspect the shiny web of snot Tonks has left on her sleeve. Her face gets that pinched, long-suffering look for just an instant. Then she takes Tonks's empty cup of tea and stacks it in her own, and tucks Tonks's feral bedhead back behind each ear with her cool fingers.

"Supper's at seven," she says. "Your father's trying out a lasagna."

She shuts the door behind her when she goes, and it's just Tonks and the frenzy of the rock bands on her walls: forever joyfully flailing, forever faithful to their own silent beat.

image: egon schiele, woman lying on her back

[thedawningofthehour]

so while I've been reading doth---and I'm sure this is mostly cuz I'm a sucker for good family dynamics---I've been all for draxum and galois and Casey getting to be a good healthy family unit, and have been righteously annoyed on the family for not being able to see that Donnie and galois are two separate people now and trying to treat gale like he's still they're brother when he's now functionally NOT, but then I got thinking about how, if when Donnie got new memories and became galois 'Donnie' continued existing as like a spirit or something, how he would feel about current events. And. I came up with this.

"Oh, no no no no, no no NO NO NO!!! HOW DARE YOU? How dare you care about him? How dare you comfort him? YOU DID THIS! You're the one who gave him those traumas! You don't get to pretend you didn't do anything! You don't get to erase what you did to me, like it didn't happen! How dare you erase my life, erase ME like I didn't matter. Like you can just make up this perfect son without having to deal with such silly inconveniences as the CONSEQUENCES OF YOUR OWN ACTIONS. Because the stupid thing is, you do might have won me over. Because you DO have a point. I really didn't know about all the bloody history, or the reality of life for yokai. And maybe I would've been willing to help you with a less crazy plan. But what kind of fucking conversation starter is chaining someone to a table? It's YOUR fault I wasn't willing to compromise. I can forgive you for having a cause. But I find it fucking HILARIOUS that you think it's reasonable to, after KIDNAPPING ME, make one (1) offer to let me choose to help you, WITHOUT REALLY GIVING ME A CHOICE, and when I said no just going, 'WELP, I TRIED. TIME TO FUNCTIONALLY MYRDER THIS TEENAGER.' BECAUSE THATS WHAT YOU DID!! You shattered me and shoved my broken pieces back together to make this perfect new person, caring so much that my 'personality' was intact, like you can just pick and chose parts of me that you like and get rid of the rest. How dare you? How DARE you reduce me to that?

You know it will destroy him, don't you? He's smart, just like I was. Eventually, he'll find a piece of evidence that you can't explain away, or my family will finally find a way to get through to him, and he'll finally put two and two together and realize what you did. Who he used to be. And when he does---when he finds out you've been lying the entire time, that all his memories aren't real---you know it'll destroy him, don't you? who he is and who he used to be will slam back together, and it'll be like a meteor crashing into a moon, and there will be no survivors. He'll break into pieces so small that you won't be able to build anyone new out of it this time. and then you'll have no one. And it's all you're fault. And there's no avoiding it now. It's inevitable. And I hope you know that by taking the short cut and cutting away the pieces of me you didn't like, my history and my loyalty and my love for my family, you've put a count down on his existence. you only have so long left with him, and there's no minimizing the damage. I hope you know. And I hope it eats you up inside.

and I can't wait for it to happen.For it to all come crashing down on you. I hope he gets dragged from your arms. And I don't care if we suffer in the process. I'd kill Galois just to make you feel his loss. I would have died to keep myself from you."

So I mightve gone a little overboard (and also a little out of character, but I like to think rage does things to a person), but long story short I'm not voting for them to be a happy family by the end of this anymore :/

Sorry that this is stupid long haha

Thanks for writing! I do really love your fic. It makes me think deeply

Donnie saying he would kill Gale is...interesting. Carry on.

Donnie and Galois don't really have separate consciousnesses or anything, but...yeah, this works.

[slashersludge]

Where I've Been

You may or may not remember me, since it's been a... very long time. If not: Hello! I go by Sludge, and I was the sole creator of Spectral Vices, a rough draft game for my upcoming visual novel, Blithe Vices. You may have also seen some fanart I've done in the past, particularly the Goretober stuff from 2022. If you decide to look through my post history, however, you will see that most of those are gone. The same is true for Spectral Vices, and I'll explain why.

Ripping off the band-aid with the art. I took those posts down because I do not want to support the respective devs (I won't get into why because I also don't want to put a target on my back). Within a year, there were two separate instances in which I lost so much respect and admiration for an artist. For a while, I was debating on whether I even wanted to be in this community anymore after the second time. If you're reading this post, that means I decided to stay, but not without extreme trust issues. You likely won't see me drawing other people's cool murder OCs anymore, as a result. That's a huge bummer for me, because now I have love for other people's projects that I'm too afraid to express.

As for Spectral Vices, I decided to make the game private. I'm not entirely proud of its portrayal of suicide, namely how I implemented different methods in which the player character could kill themselves. The person who taught me (and many others) how to make these games, expressed that they did not want to stream any more of mine in front of an audience of mentally ill people. I'm honestly thankful they said anything about that, because that made me realize how others may be affected by the many different graphic depictions of... something they can readily do to themselves.

I know it's not my job as an artist to make sure my audience of adults is consuming fiction responsibly, and I don't want it to be. I don't plan on sanitizing my content, either. In fact, Juda's route is likely going to contain much more intense manipulation and mind-fuckery. All that's changing is that I'm shifting the focus to overall despair, instead of an "ABCs of Death" tutorial on how to kill yourself. It makes for a better story, anyway, in my opinion.

Yes, I'm still going to make my game. It may not be the first I release, since I'm collaborating with a friend on another project at the moment. Both, however, are going to take a while, due to both of us having offline things to take care of, and me currently working through burnout. I'll post updates whenever I make enough progress to warrant one. Additionally, I won't give a release date until I'm absolutely sure when the game will get finished.

Thank you all for your patience. Until next time, take care.

[storiesbyjes2g]

New look, same story

Hey folks! Did you enjoy the memory lane posts? I know I did! Before we jump back into the story, I want to give you a heads up. For the TL;DR folks, I'm rebranding The Piersons and Friends, so be on the lookout for new banners, colors, etc.

For those who enjoy my thought process, board my train of thought under the cut. (woo wooooo!)

A year or two ago, I gave my blogs one cohesive look. I wanted to brand myself! So I made this banner and have been using the colors and fonts from it for everything.

In the spirit of rebranding, I also remade the banners for PnF to match this new style.

Recently, I realized this was a mistake. I make different banners for my stories to give them their own identities. Changing PnF's assets to match the blogs essentially took away its identity, and that's probably why I've felt a bit unsettled when looking at it lately; it didn't work for me anymore. I needed to change it, but to what?

This story is a rotation, but it's also the story of a family, the Piersons. That's why I used trees in the previous banner. The tree also reinforces the organic feel I want. The story is funny sometimes, but it's not a comedy. It's sometimes dramatic, but it's not a soap opera. It's everything all at once and flows in and out of various emotions seamlessly--organically!--which is why script fonts work well for the title. Looking back at old banners, I had those elements and didn't even realize what they meant and how well they worked.

It was clear I needed to go back to my roots with the tree and script font, so I set out to make something new. I also needed to move away from the black and yellow. Even though I could think hard and come up with some deep, philosophical reason for why I use those colors, frankly, there is no reason. I was new to storytelling on Tumblr at the time, and I just did what I saw other people doing. Also, I didn't have the design knowledge I have now and was just winging it.

Black doesn't convey organic according to color theory, so I ditched it, made white my primary neutral, and introduced green, which just so happens to be Kameron's favorite color! I suppose, theoretically, we can pay homage to him for generations after he's gone, but I'm sure this story won't be around that long. I also wanted to make the banners more modern to match the present-day setting. After trying a LOT of different designs, this is what I came up with!

I know, I know. "But, Jess! Where's the tree???" It's there! I promise lol. It's just very blurred and covered in bokeh. I think it works for the modern style. It still feels very organic to me, so it's working.

I added the characters' names to the banner because I think it will help new people who begin reading in the middle.

So what do you think??? Did I accomplish my goals? Does it work for you?

My design brain tells me I should go ALL the way with this branding thing and change my dialogue typeface to the sans serif one I'm using for the subheading. But, a. it only comes in regular, thin, and bold, and not having italics is problematic for me (see what I did there lol), and b. Myriad Pro is perfect for what we do because it's clean, readable, and has multiple fonts in its family. I experimented with green text, but yellow just works better. Honestly that's how I started using yellow in the first place. But anyway, that's my announcement! I hope you enjoy the new hotness!