#i've stopped myself from doing it because frankly i think it would be A Lot for a public forum

[prince--kiriona]

man i really need to find and read more nonfiction about romani/traveller experiences because i feel like it's the one thing that will keep me from feeling Insane about how i was treated growing up

[onbearfeet]

In Which the Wizard School Books Are a Hammer

Okay. I'm gonna tell this story once, and only once, because I think it might help people who are struggling to finally, FINALLY boot J.K. Rowling from their lives.

I can't precisely say I sympathize, but I definitely know how you feel, because I have already had to do this dance with someone I guarantee you've never heard of. I've had all the feelings you've had. I had to find a way through all by myself, and now I'm going to help you so you have an easier time. Okay? Okay.

Content warning: discussion of child sexual abuse (mentioned but not described in detail).

So there's this writer. I refuse to speak or write his name these days, so we'll call him Evil Bob. ("Bob" is my default placeholder name, and this Bob is evil.) Evil Bob was a damn good writer and, frankly, an underappreciated one in his time. I picked up a few of his projects out of the bargain bin on impulse when I was about 12, and after that he was one of my names to conjure with. If Evil Bob had written it, I wanted to read it. He had a kind of perfect workman's style--he did a lot of things pretty well, and he did them in such a way that a bright 12-year-old could see how the trick was done. I learned a lot of basic writerly technique from Evil Bob--things about dialogue and pacing and how to convey character through action and lots of other stuff. Evil Bob unlocked something in my brain, and I really blossomed as a young writer by applying the lessons of his work.

Evil Bob's fiction started to fall off in popularity eventually, so he switched to nonfiction and wrote a damn good history book that won a lot of awards. I read it in college. The man could really interview, I tell you what.

I even got to interview Evil Bob myself, eventually. I was working for a small magazine that wanted to publish an article about a certain minority group's representation in a certain fiction genre, and Evil Bob had written one of the seminal works in that niche, so I tracked down his contact info, called him up, and we had a lovely hourlong chat. He was kind and gracious and funny and --

Yeah, this is where you learn why I named him Evil Bob.

A few years ago, people in Evil Bob's old fiction genre started circulating a list of, shall we say, disgraced writers in the field. Think of it like a MeToo list. The list got passed around every time a new name was added, and at a certain point, after a much more famous name had just been added to it, the list crossed my feed for the first time in a while. I dutifully scanned down it in case there was anyone on it I'd missed; after all, I attended conventions for this genre, and some of these fuckers were on the list for assaulting fans like me, so I wanted to know who to watch out for.

And there, in the middle of the list, was Evil Bob.

Weird, I thought. Evil Bob had seemed chill when I spoke to him, and usually, being 22 with big boobs (as I was when I interviewed him) brought out the perv in these guys if there was any perv to bring out. Well, maybe this was something else--maybe he used a slur on an old tape or something. I googled.

It was something else, all right.

As I sat there googling, Evil Bob was sitting in a federal prison a thousand miles away. He was there because, according to his Wikipedia page, he had been convicted of having so many CSA images on his hard drive that the judge in his case became physically ill. Honestly, I want to know where he got a hard drive that big in the year he was arrested, but I absolutely will not be asking him.

Evil Bob was EVIL. Fuck the carceral state, but also never let that particular dude near kids or a computer again.

So now I had a problem. I was going to stop buying Evil Bob's stuff, obviously--I would drop the man like a hot potato--but I couldn't so easily remove his influence on me. I'll never be 12 years old and digging through the quarter bin at the used bookshop again. There's no way to re-learn the foundations of my artform without Evil Bob. The bastard is part of me, whether I like it or not. He's left his fingerprints on my brain. And while I have negative interest in creating my own criminal hard drive, it's a little hard to shake the irrational guilt (especially since I had been raised in a high-control religious environment where any contact with sin could permanently stain one's soul, and Evil Bob's writing was part of how I escaped, and--you get the idea). I couldn't shed the stink of Evil Bob. I'd written that article. I was covered in the fuckin' ooze.

I'll spare you the six months of angst and self-flagellation. I've been to therapy since this happened. Here's what I eventually decided:

Evil Bob is like a hammer.

My dad gave me an old hammer when I moved out, along with some other miscellaneous hand tools in a paper bag. I bought a toolbox, I put the tools in it, and I use them when I need tools. My dad is an asshole who abused his children, but a hammer is a hammer. Scratch the previous owner's name off the handle, and you can build a pretty fine house with it.

What I learned from Evil Bob are the tools of a trade, and tools are not inherently evil. He taught me how to put sentences together--but I decide what my sentences say. He showed me how to convey character--but I choose what I'm conveying. He made me a writer--but I'm the one writing now.

So I still use Evil Bob's tools, with his name scoured off. I still teach some of those lessons, but he's the one source I don't cite. Oh, that dialogue hack? I picked it up in grad school, pinky swear. Here, let me share it with you for free, with no credit or compensation to the bastard who taught it to me.

I won't pretend Evil Bob wasn't an influence on my younger self, but you'll never hear me speak his legal name. I was one of the few people who really counted themselves fans of his work ... and he'll never get a whisper of a hint of that support from me again. I guarantee you won't be able to track him down from this post, and that's just the way I like it. There's a reason I haven't identified what genre he wrote in, or what his seminal fiction work was about, or whom he interviewed for that prizewinning book.

Damnatio memoriae, motherfucker. This is my hammer now, and it always has been.

So how do we give JKR the Evil Bob treatment?

Unfortunately, the Terf Queen has a larger media presence than Evil Bob ever did. One sad ex-Potterhead won't be able to erase her from culture. But there's a lot more than one of you, isn't there?

The thing is, cultural trends fade faster than you expect. Plenty of celebrities and famous artists of your parents' generation are nobodies now, and it's usually because their work spoke to your parents but not to you. I once witnessed my brother trying to read his sons a 1912 book about Spanish naval history as a bedtime story, and let me tell you, it did not go over well. Some art burns hot and bright and then it burns OUT.

The Potterheads are the parents now. Imagine how easy it would be to just ... stop talking about her. Stop buying the merch. Don't watch the new TV show or play the new game. Don't tell people you used to be a fan--not because you ought to be ashamed, but because you're not going to give her the satisfaction of saying her name. And when your kids ask about your tattoo, just tell them not to get blackout drunk in college.

Damnatio memoriae, motherfucker.

And if you feel the need to explain where you learned your kindness and courage, your unshakable loyalty to your friends (especially the trans ones), your hope in the face of overwhelming darkness ...

... why, that's your hammer. And it always has been.

[avoicebehindthestars]

About bootlegging Good Omens...

I don't have the ranges to reach a lot of people, but I'm going to say this nonetheless.

If you feel like you can't bare anything that NG has ever created, you don't want to hear about Good Omens, Sandman, Coraline etc. ever again, that's perfectly fine and a decision to be respected. Quite frankly, I've found myself feeling uneasy while I tried to read Sandman recently because I can't stop perceiving it through what I found out about the author. Hell, even the sex scene in Stardust doesn't sit right with me anymore...

BUT

If you are still a fan of any of Neil's ongoing franchise (GO, Sandman, DBD, Anansi Boys) and choosing to bootleg them just to "punish" him - think again. Neil's current net worth is $18M. Even if he doesn't ever earn another penny, he can spend up to $0.5M a year and live to be nearly a hundred without a care in the world.

What you'll actually be doing is informing the streaming networks (Prime and Netflix) that Neil's franchise isn't worth investing in anymore. And, as a result, you guessed it - the shows you still love WILL get CANCELLED. Make no mistake, just because Prime has greenlit Good Omens s3 doesn't mean that can't pull out on a whim.

Neil hates showrunning, he said as much himself. He's only persevering on Good Omens because he'd made a promise to Pratchett. So let me say it again: by bootlegging, you won't be punishing Neil. You'll be punishing YOURSELVES by literally telling the networks to cancel the show, because they won't get any money out of it. Or, if not cancel - limit the investment, as they did with GO s2, which will result in shorter episodes (in case of GO right now we're looking at 6x45m... would you rather get 6x30m instead?), fewer extras, lower budget on CGI and sets, and overall poorer quality.

In other words - you'll be cutting multiple artists' income. I'm not talking about top-tier actors like MS or DT - they'll do all right either way (although MS will mostly likely be heartbroken, as we know how much he loves Good Omens). I'm talking about all the extras and less known actors who perform minor roles! I'm talking about everyone involved in the production - in making of the sets, in creating the special effects, hell, in carrying equipment and pouring coffee! Those are the people you'll be punishing.

Seriously, aside from his promise to Terry, I'm convinced Neil couldn't care less. Otherwise why would he be so adamant about wrapping it up in just 3 seasons when it's winning distinction after distinction?

Last but not least, watching Good Omens legally and buying franchise doesn't harm the victims. If Neil really committed the atrocities he's accussed of, he'll be punished by the court! Punishing Neil isn't your responsibility!

So before you make a decision, please remember:

if the show you bootleg is cancelled as a result, you will have punished: yourself, the fandom, all the artists and people involved in the production

punishing Neil is NOT your responsibility

wanting the networks to continue the franchise you like doesn't harm the victims

[fuckyeahgoodomens]

Neil talking about the responses to Good Omens Season 2 - from the Neil Gaiman interview with Brian Levine for The Gould Standard (x,x)

BL: The audience that you have built is a very passionately engaged audience. They, frankly, they love you. And one of the reasons they love you is that you fit into what I think of as one of two great divisions in art. There's, or in writing, um, there is: I'm entertained, I'm amused. I may be even enchanted; and then there's this hits me at a visceral level. You understand me as no one else does. You have touched something very central to my experience. And it seems to me that Much of your writing, maybe all of your writing, actually reaches your audience at that latter level. You know. I would say in the former category, sort of my quintessential and beloved example would be P. G. Woodhouse. He amuses me, but I don't feel like he's revealed my inner self at a very deep level. Um, were you aware that you were going to be able to achieve that? Um, that this is something... was it a startling thing when people began coming up to you, who'd read your work and said, this means so much to me?

Neil: Yeah. It was huge. And it wasn't expected. I... if I had a mountaintop I was heading towards, it was gonna be P. G. Woodhouse. Um, I wanted to be a proficient entertainer with a clear prose style who could tell stories. Um, it probably wasn't until Sandman that I found... I started to realize that in order for a story to work, I had to show too much. In order for a story to resonate, in order for a story to matter, I had to let it matter too much. And, and I remember the first people who would start coming up to me and saying, um, you, you know, your, your Sandman comics got me through the death of a loved one. Your death character got me through my child's death, through my parent's death, through my partner's death, through my friend's death. Um, and that left me kind of amazed. I'm like, well, I didn't write it to do that. I wrote it to feed my children. I wrote it to satisfy myself. I wrote it because nobody else had ever written it. And if I didn't write it, it wouldn't be written, but I don't think I wrote it to give you what you've taken from it. And I spent really about 20, 25 years feeling awkward about that. And then my father died, in March 2009, and never got to cry about it. Never... I, you know, I've, I've got on a plane and I went to the UK and dealt with the funeral stuff and organized all of that stuff and came back and go toff the plane and went and did Stephen Colbert's Colbert Report and wearing the funeral suit because and that was all I had with me and carried on. And then, somewhere in the middle of summer, I was reading a friend's script. They'd sent me a script and said, can you look this over? And I'm reading it, and on page 20, the lead character meets somebody, and on page 26 maybe, she's dead, and I burst into tears. And I'm bawling. I am sobbing. It is coming out of me in giant racking waves. And I realized that it's everything that I'd been, hadn't let myself feel, or hadn't been able, hadn't stopped enough to let myself feel, was suddenly being given permission to feel by the death of a fictional person who I'd met six pages earlier, ia script. And I thought that... and it was huge for me, and I thought, okay, that's that thing that people are talking about sometimes, when they come tome and they say, you, you did this. So right now, I'm in this weird, wonderful place where I think a lot of people in Good Omens Season 2 thought they were signing up for the P.G. Woodhouse, and didn't know that, no, no, no, you've, you've signed up for the whole thing. You've signed up for the feelings. You've signed up for the emotions. I... it is my job to make you care and to make you feel and to feel things you haven't felt before. And which meant that the first week or so after Good Omens came out, I was getting angry, furious, deeply upset messages on every possible social medium telling me that I had betrayed people, and it was awful, and they couldn't stop crying, and why would I do that to them, and did I hate them? And they hated me. And then a weird sort of phenomenon happened as people would watch the show again. And again. And now they started to know, okay, this is where it's gonna go, this is what's gonna happen, this is how it works. And they started realizing that they were actually feeling things, and that was good. And that they were caring about two people who don't exist. You know, I made them up, and then and Terry Pratchett made them up, and then, um, David Tennant and Michael Sheen gave them life, and then they get to walk around on a screen and you know they don't exist, but you can cry for them, you can love them, they can make you laugh, they can make you exult, and most important of all, they can make you care. And the number of people who are now writing to me, saying, 'This was so important to me. This has changed my life. This makes me feel like I belong. This makes me feel like I can cope. And it's let me sort of find myself. P. S. I hope you get to do Season Three.' is, is huge.

[lu-is-not-ok]

A Narcissistic reading of Hong Lu

Yup, I'm actually doing this.

To lay down some facts first: I have NPD, alongside a bunch of other things that coalesce into a nuclear concoction strong enough to kill every dark empath in a five mile radius. If I find you ableisting it up, I give myself the permission to smite you. This is a threat and a warning.

Now, let's talk about Hong Lu. Because as it turns out, he might just be the most difficult literacy check in Limbus Company according to what I've seen.

I could just say "I'm a narcissist and Hong Lu is just like me fr fr so he's a narcissist too" and end the post, but honestly, where's the fun in that? There are, legitimately, things I want to yap about, so I'm going to yap about them, and no chucklefucks can stop me.

So, to start this off, let's make one thing clear.

Hong Lu is not only a good actor, but also a skilled liar. The way he navigates conversations and the methods he uses are just as important to analyze as the actual words he says, if not more so. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that trying to understand him based Only on what he says and not how he uses the things he says would result in an understanding that's not only incomplete, but potentially outright wrong.

Now, this isn't really tied to why I think Hong Lu could be very reasonably read as having NPD, at least not directly. Narcissists aren't inherently evil liar manipulators, and if that's what you take away from this post, that's more of a you problem (and you can go ahead and block me considering I'm one of the evil liar manipulator narcissists according to you).

However, there is a reason why I have to bring it up. And it's because almost all of Hong Lu's narcissistic traits become a lot more obvious once you look at the exact ways he takes control of conversations.

With that out of the way, what exactly are we even looking for?

NPD, in my experience, primarily affects one's sense of self-worth and self-esteem. I personally found that the analogy of a pendulum makes the most sense to me - a narcissist's sense of self-worth can swing between massive highs and massive lows, almost never staying in a middle "balanced" position, with even the tiniest things being able to throw it to one side or another.

The ways this can present outwardly are. Quite frankly, way too fucking many to count. But there are some common threads we can keep in mind:

High sensitivity to criticism

Need for an external source of validation

Tendency to seek out ways to make oneself feel more special, important, or powerful

So, does Hong Lu fit those criteria?

Well. Yeah. This post wouldn't exist if he didn't.

Let's talk about the first point, high sensitivity to criticism. And, immediately, I would like everyone to remember Hell's Chicken, specifically the scene where Meursault begins to verbally roast his team's dish, and in the process laying down a verbal smackdown on everyone involved. That scene ended like this.

Curious, isn't it? The moment Meursault was about to start criticising Hong Lu, he just jumps in and distracts Meursault with a change of topic - something even Dante's narration points out.

Mind you, this isn't an isolated event. This is just the most obvious example of Hong Lu exhibiting this kind of behavior.

Don't believe me? Just look at these.

These are all examples of Hong Lu either backpedaling, changing the subject, or otherwise trying to avoid the acknowledgement of something that criticizes his status, thought process, or (in the last example) which would reveal an emotional vulnerability.

This is a fairly consistent pattern for him, and that's not even getting into the fact that the line he says when hovering over him before a skill check he has a Very Low chance at succeeding in has him suddenly try to excuse himself and leave.

Hong Lu is absolutely highly sensitive to criticism, it's just that his primary emotional reactions aren't ones we're privy to. Instead, what we get to see is how he acts to try and minimize the impact of those criticisms, if not outright find ways to never let them leave someone's mouth in the first place.

Next up - need for external validation.

This one doesn't have as many examples as the previous point, as Hong Lu is a generally closed off person who keeps a certain level of distance from most other Sinners. However, that doesn't mean I don't have any.

One such example comes from Canto 4, where soon after acting out his part in the play, Hong Lu seeks validation from Yi Sang.

Then there's this moment in Canto 6, where Hong Lu, once again, seeks validation for something he's done.

And then there's also these lines from Hong Lu's various Identities.

Aaaand then there's these base Identity voice lines, which, if you ask me, feel a bit like fishing for compliments.

This point is a lot harder to say is a definitive one, mainly due to Hong Lu's more closed off projected personality. That being said, the fact that one can find examples of it despite that is pretty notable.

And for the final one - trying to make oneself feel more special, important, or powerful.

This is one that's a bit harder to provide exact examples for, as again, Hong Lu isn't someone who talks about how he feels often, and when he does it's not always exactly trustworthy. He's not like Rodya, who while still putting on a facade, is pretty open and easy to read about how she actually feels.

But, there's still some non-mutually exclusive interpretations I want to posit here. Two, in fact.

One - I believe that for Hong Lu, the thing he sees as power is control.

See, avoiding criticism isn't the only time Hong Lu steers conversations. In fact, it's something he does All The Time. He's often the one asking questions to get the group moving, trying to gather information that might be relevant to him, and generally taking over the direction a conversation is going in. Chances are, if Hong Lu speaks up, it's likely to alter the conversation he joins in noticeable ways.

This, I think, is one of the ways Hong Lu makes himself feel more powerful. After all, it's not that hard to guess from what little bits of his background we have that Hong Lu lacked agency for most of his life. So, wouldn't it make sense for him that having that agency, that being able to be socially in control, would be the exact kind of thing that would boost his self-esteem?

In fact, the only times we see him rendered completely speechless, seemingly stripped of that confidence in conversations he usually exhibits, are in Canto 7 - specifically in scenes where he's Not In Control of what the others are talking about. Those scenes being when the other Sinners start shit-talking Xichun in front of him, and when Xichun actively tries to bother Hong Lu by alluding to the way he's been treated back at home.

Extremely confident until something external happens that utterly strips him of that confidence... sounds familiar, doesn't it?

Then, there's the second interpretation.

See, with NPD, there are two ways a narcissist can try to make themself feel more deserving of attention. One is the one most probably think of when they think about narcissists - setting out to fulfill extremely high goals to feel amazing when one reached them and then feeling utterly crushed in the case one doesn't. This would be someone like Rodya.

However, there is also another way, one which I personally have much more experience with - to undersell. To set extremely low expectations, so that it's as hard as possible to fail reaching them, and to feel way better upon surpassing them than one would with higher, more "regular" expectations.

This, to me, is exactly the kind of narcissist Hong Lu is. Think about it. He's constantly putting out this image of an extremely sheltered person that barely understands the outside world, with notable moments where it's made clear he's Just Making Shit Up at points. Wouldn't making one seem unable to do anything, only to then proceed to do things you've led people to not expect of you, make it feel like you're much more exceptional than you really are?

The underselling goes the other way too. When the other Sinners point out something odd about Hong Lu in a more positive way, he's often quick to point out how it's Nothing compared to what his Family expected of him. Wouldn't that make one feel exceptional, to make it seem like whatever effort you're putting in to do well is but a fraction of what else you can do? That you don't even have to try to be able to be special?

...So, there. That's all the analysis and interpretation I find important to do to get my point across.

Just to make it clear, I don't think that the only thing wrong with Hong Lu is the narcissism. There's definitely a lot more shit going on in that head of his. But, I'll be honest, the NPD reading felt so obvious to me that it genuinely took me by surprise that other people don't see it.

Though... maybe I shouldn't be shocked. Some fuckers out there still think Faust is a narcissist when she's literally just autistic.

[arcane-vagabond]

I love that you’re writing for Tyler! I would love to say that I have an idea for you but all I can think of is something with a shy and/or insecure reader. I don’t remember if you wrote for plus size!readers, so shy/insecure reader is another fave.

Maybe reader is someone Tyler and the Wranglers save during a tornado? My mind is empty of ideas rn, sorry!

First of all, I'm always down to write a plus size!reader as I, myself, am a plus sized girlie and quite frankly? We need more love.

Imagine you're a member of another storm chasing crew, kind of like Kate, but less exploitative of the victims of these storms. Your crew does a lot of the same stuff Tyler and his crew does, except you aren't shooting off fireworks into the funnels because hello??

But you're stopped at a gas station one day while your friends/crew stock up on snacks for the road and hit the bathrooms one last time. You're out surveying the skies, trying to decide which storm is worth your while when that cocky sonofagun from the rival team comes sauntering up to you. You think nothing of it.

Of course you found Tyler Owens to be extremely attractive, you'd have to be blind not to, in all honesty. But you had resigned yourself to the fact that this Adonis of a man would never look twice at you, at least not in the way you wanted him to. So you accepted that your crush was most definitely one sided.

"Looks like chances are good for some kind of action today," he drawled. You glanced over at him, eyeing the way his hands rested on his hips before blowing out a breath.

"Yeah," you muttered, tearing your gaze away and back toward the sky. There was a heavy pause between the two of you, and you shifted on your feet uneasily.

"I hope that team captain of yours hasn't said too many bad things 'bout me," he chuckled, though he didn't sound amused in the slightest.

"What do you mean?" You asked, turning to look at him fully now. A frown tugged on his lips as he peered at you from the corner of his eyes.

"Just would hate for a pretty girl like you to think the worst of me is all," he shrugged. "Especially when I'd like to see more of her."

Your heart stopped. Surely he wasn't be serious. This had to be a joke, right? There's no way someone that looked like him would be interested in someone like you.

Right?

A look of uncertainty crawled onto his face the longer you went without saying anything.

"I mean, if you're not interested, that's fine, too," he said, the words coming out in almost a jumbled mess with how quickly he spoke. "I mean, I've just seen you around, and I think you're real pretty and all that. I just wanted to try my luck and see if you'd be interested in grabbing a drink sometimes, but maybe I'm overstepping and-"

He blew out a breath, his cheeks tinged pink with embarrassment as he rubbed the back of his neck, avoiding your gaze.

"I'm just gonna shut up now," he grumbled, turning to head back towards the large crowd.

"You wanna go on a date with me?" You asked, voice quiet, and you were surprised that he heard you. He turned back to look at you, a twinkle in his eyes as his lips quirked upwards.

"Was I not being obvious enough about it?" He teased, shoving his hands into his pockets. You heard Ricky, your team lead, call your name. You waved over at him to let him know you were on your way before looking back at Tyler, a grin playing at the corner of your lips.

"I gotta run," you told him, watching the crestfallen look that covered his face. You bit your lip and stepped closer to him, his pretty, green eyes widening slightly at the proximity. "But if you want, you can buy me a drink the next time you see me?"

"Yeah?" He asked, a grin breaking out across his face. You bit your bottom lip, looking up at him shyly through your lashes.

"Sure thing, cowboy," you giggled, spinning on your heel and making your way back towards your team.

[letteredlettered]

Hello there! I recently read your thoughts about By the Grace, in which you mentioned that you've never been happy with how it turned out. (I am one of the readers who love BtG, btw, I found it transformative in the sense that i loved it so much that I felt changed afterwards. my comments trace my slow disintegration 😅). I wondered if you'd be willing to share which fics of yours you like the best - which fics came out as you wanted them to, which fics make you feel understood and known? (Totally understand if this is too personal an ask btw but just thought I'd see if it's something you'd like to share).

Well, hi. You sent this ask in August of 2022. I am apparently very very behind on a lot of things. I just had a lot to say to you and didn't have the energy to say it. I'm currently dealing with some health issues so fandom is actually now one of the only things I have energy for, so here I am.

The first thing I want to say is how glad I am that you liked By the Grace. It's hard not to love something I've written, but I think it shows so much about our humanity that something I find so deeply imperfect could be something that really worked for you. Thank you so, so much for all your kind words.

The second thing I want to say is that for me, the fics I like best are the one that came out as I wanted them to, but they are not necessarily the ones that make me feel seen and known. For instance, I wrote By the Grace because I felt upset about the world, and I also felt upset about some things in fandom that felt like an ugly reflection of the world in a place where I didn't want to have to think about such things. The fact that people love BtG, in spite of its flaws, makes me feel that people understood what I was trying to say, no matter how imperfectly I said it; they care about its message and its values, even if I couldn't deliver those messages and values in the way I hoped and worked for.

Another example is The Way Down. The Way Down is one of the first Harry/Draco fics I ever wrote. I started writing it in 2007, and I was in a very difficult place at the time. It was two years after I finished college; I still wasn't doing anything with my life; I felt like a failure. I started to want to stay inside, never leave the house, never see anyone I knew, never do anything but talk to people on the internet all day long. Incidentally I felt very lonely and left out of the fandom I wanted to be a part of, which was H/D. No one was interested in my writing and I couldn't make friends in that community. I couldn't finish the fic. I got myself out of that situation, moved across the country, got a job, made new friends, and also stopped caring as much about whether my fic was popular. I was able to finish the fic because I as a person changed, and that fic reflects both parts of that journey. I don't actually think it's a good fic; some of the characterizations are too fanon for my taste; some of the scenes are a bit too silly; a lot of the deeper parts don't go deep enough. But when someone loves that fic, when it really touches someone, it's like they're loving me as I was then, loving the fact that I got myself out of it, loving a person who can struggle in that way. And that means so much to me.

Meanwhile, Away Childish Things is a perfect fic to me. It came out exactly as I wanted and said so much about both Harry and Draco that I had been wanting to say, that I felt I hadn't been seeing in fic. I knew it was good when I was writing it. Frankly, I thought people would like it, and I was right. I'm not sure that people loving it makes me feel seen and understood. It's not like ACT isn't a personal story for me--it's terribly personal! But I don't think it's saying things that make me feel bad about myself, or that I think other people or the world are struggling with. It's a sharp story that I think many people can identify with from different directions.

In terms of fics that turned out exactly as I hoped, The Eighth Tale is another such fic. It always makes the list because I had this idea for so, so long--a fic in which the war didn't go as it was "supposed" to, but instead drags on and on and on, a fic in which the canonical ending is glimpsed, but other endings are glimpsed too, a fic in which universes collide into the idea that the ending is never set, it's always the choices we make that give us our own endings. But whenever I imagined such a fic it was half a million words long, and while such a fic sounds interesting, I am so glad that @tacktigerfic would come along so many years later to write that grand epic. Meanwhile, what I had in mind was just a little paradox timey-wimey business that should take only 15-20K to get out into the world. I just didn't know how to do it. But finally, I read a fic that really inspired me with its voice (in a completely different fandom; it's Crow on the Cradle by Refur in SPN fandom if anyone is interested) and it helped me to understand I would need a very particular narrative voice to make this fic happen. Then I sat down and wrote it in about two or three sittings. It's exactly what I meant to do.

Ginny Weasley: Dragon Slayer is a similar fic in that it did exactly what I wanted to, and I wasn't sure I would get there. I think both of these fics are things I often think of as perfect because I have a habit of having rather small ideas that quickly turn huge and unwieldy. It's why BtG is a problem, imo. I love that I was able to make these fics concisely what I wanted them to be, no more, no less.

There are fics in other fandoms that are exactly what I want them to be: Sincerely Your Pal, in Captain America fandom, Say More in The Untamed (CQL) fandom. The End Resting Only on Air is the perfect end to my series of fics in The Walking Dead fandom. I still think Or Even Rearrange You has the best Tony Stark voice I've read, and that's cool because I wrote it. The Chuck Writes Story for SPN fandom is one of the cleverest and most incisive things I've written, because it's about SPN fandom more than SPN--and I happened to write it before SPN even had the mythos that it does now. But in terms of fics that make me feel seen/understood and I'm perfectly happy with how they are written, Responsible Science in MCU is always my answer to which fic I've written is my favorite fic for a reason (although it's actually a series). That Lesson Alone in Schitt's Creek fandom is probably one of the most personal things I have ever written, and I wouldn't change a word of it.

But in H/D fandom, if you want a fic of mine that I'm happy with, that came out exactly as I envisioned, and makes me feel seen and understood, only one fits the bill: The Pure and Simple Truth. I actually don't think the writing is perfect--I would tighten it up a little, maybe. But it's exactly what I wanted to write, and it was so fun to write; I still think it's fun to read. But on top of that, this fic is also trying to say something about morality that I think is really fundamental to who I am. It's trying to say things about friendship and forgiveness that I believe with my whole soul. It's trying to say things about conversation, what that means for people, what that can build, what community is and what it isn't. I've gotten a few comments over the years from people saying they didn't really understand it. I've also gotten a lot of comments yelling at me about it because there isn't a kiss at the end. I've also seen people saying that the fic is suggesting that Neville's a bad person because he struggles to forgive folks who tortured him, which is the exact opposite of what the fic is about.

But when people do get this fic, when they comment or message me to tell me what it means to them to see folks who have hurt each other, some of whom have been actual torturers and part of hate groups, come together and grow from that, discuss that, and learn to love in spite all of that...wow, that makes me feel like the things I care about aren't just mine; other people feel that way, which is a wonderful feeling.

[widebrimmedhatsblog]

Onyx Storm Predictions!!

I wanted to do a full theory post but the clock is TICKING and I decided to get sick last week before I could write one up, so this will have to do!

Predictions below the cut! I'm going to re-blog and re-spoiler tag with extra info from the apple books preview, so no onyx storm spoilers on THIS post.

I'm going to start off with my most controversial prediction and say that I don't think Xaden is leaving! The bond is still in place (re: end of IF) and Sgaeyl evidently still gives a fuck about him (again, re: end of IF) and so I don't think she's going to break the bond! I DO think he might try and leave, but I think Violet will stop him.

This is probably the second most controversial (at least to me) but I do think Violet might be part/half venin. I think Lilith turned when she was pregnant with Violet. I don't fully know how being part venin would even work, but we know next to nothing about how being FULL venin would work, so I'm not gonna sweat it. There's a huge theme (motif?) of being two things at once in these books (violet's hair, her eyes, her two dragons, her two signets, scribe/rider, Xaden's two signets, etc.) Further, you have Lilith's cure-investigation, and also the matter of the extreme amount of parallels between Lilith and Xaden. I think they both turned to protect Violet.

The subsect of that prediction/theory/whatever is that I don't think Xaden can drain her! If you read the fight with JFB in FW wherein Vi is "shaken by an internal force (she doesn't) understand, as though he's forcing his own power into my body, shocking me with a thousand stings of vibrating energy" while he has his hands holding her face. A couple paragraphs later, it's confirmed his eyes are red-rimmed. (Fourth Wing pages 294-295). I think this is JFB draining her to a certain degree. It HURTS Violet, he gets power, but no hand prints! I actually really wanted Xaden to leave sexy handprints on her, but in the last like 4 days I've changed my mind. I foresee a sort of vampire-esque power drinking thing!

I keep calling myself controversial but I'm going to keep doing it. My NEXT controversial take is that I don't think they're going to the isles yet! I think Vi may WANT to go to the isles, but I think she'll have to go to Poromiel first, then head to the barrens!

I think Vi's second signet is one of two things: the type of mirroring signet I used in Teach Me, or a straight up inntinnsic. Both of these are used in the throne scene, as I spelled out in that fic! I don't mind Vi being an inntinnsic*, especially since all the men in her life have a direct line into her head. I really think it's only fair if she can get back at them, IDK.

I don't think we're meeting Xaden's mom this book! I think that's book 4. But while we're talking about her, I think she has a second kid Xaden doesn't know about, and I think they'll meet this secret sibling first and it will be a moment of tenuous trust between riorgail (in that Violet will have to grapple with the possibility of him keeping secrets from her AGAIN, only to find out her isn't)

I'm saving my thoughts on who dies for the spoilery part!

I don't think Xaden is getting "Cured". I'm not entirely sure there will be a cure on a person-to-person basis, because I frankly think that defeats the purpose of the metaphor.

This MAY be a book 4 thing, but I'm going to add it here anyway! My IRL bestie and I talk a lot about how the story of the 3 brothers here is the Deathly Hallows reborn, and we've been joking about how Violet must gather said hallows to defeat Voldemort etc. However, we joked about it a little too much, and now I'm convinced: at some point, Vi will be the dragon rider, the gryphon flier, and the venin

OR: Mira is the gryphon rider* and Brennan's the venin.

This is wishful thinking actually but the quest squad somehow ends up being just x, vi and the dragons!

This is more of a theme prediction, but every book thus far (all 2!) have been about unpacking a level of propaganda. FW is Navarre's propaganda about war, and IF is Navarre's propaganda about Poromiel. Therefore, we have at least 2 more forms of propaganda to unpack: whatever the fuck is going on with the dragons, and the idea that venin are inherently evil. I think we tackle one of these book 3 and one book 4! Or perhaps both together, because they are intertwined.

Crack Pot Theories

Papa Sorrengail's first name is Adam.

I don't think Halden is Violet's ex. I think it's literally two random ass infantry guys. Also Xaden gets to kill Halden :)

I think Brennan killed Naolin! I also think they were gay. I think it’s a mirror to a different way to handle someone turning venin for you than what Vi and X will do

I may edit this and add more. Why am I blanking on every thought I've ever had about onyx storm in my life.

[angelicbeaut]

Manifesting An Ex Back (Success Story + Advice! Long Post!)

Recently, I have been trying to apply the law and really distance myself from social media and loa accounts. For me personally, it is a lot of information at once and can be quite overwhelming, although I still enjoy reposting content I find to be helpful to my fellow manifestors. It has done wonders for me to allow myself to watch the law work, and today, I would like to share with you some things that helped me achieve one of my latest achievements, manifesting my ex back after 1 year of no contact. I hope this can help others to continue to be motivated. If you are interested, please read onward!

So, let's start by laying out the guidelines of how I view manifesting:

1. time does not matter. It has no control over if you can manifest anything, and in my head, it does not exist. I simply am unaffected by it, I know that I will have what I want regardless.

2. You are manifesting self. You are not going to get something, this is not a grocery shopping trip to purchase something. You got all the ingredients that you need at home, right in your beautiful mind. Do you have self? Then you have everything you need. Now, take it a step further, are you the "self" that has your ex partner back in your life, or the "self" that doesn't?

3. Everything is you pushed out / There is NO separation. Everything you believe is pushed out into your reality. Do you believe your ex hates you? Then they hate you. Booyah! Do you believe your ex loves you? Then they love you. There is no separation between you and them, there is no separation between you and any of your desires. All you must do is match your thoughts to that desire, and you will have what you want.

4. Persistence is Key. I remember when I first started my journey here, and I hated hearing this. It was like nails on a chalkboard. How long do I have to persist? Why? For what? This is why I will continue to stress that time does not exist, if you hyperfocus on the time passing on this planet, you will never get it. Because your focus is on time, not on your desire. Know that it is done, and it will be.

5. How it happens is none of your business. Read that again. You should not be focused on how am I gonna get to, what am I gonna do, how's it gonna happen. Who cares, quite frankly. Do you want your desire or not? Then want the desire, stop wanting for the in-between, it will happen in means you cannot even imagine. I promise you. It will be so out of the blue you won't even see it coming (more on that later).

6. Dominant thoughts manifest / robotic affirming. I used to believe this was bull, I'll be real. I won't sit here and act like I've always been a robotic affirming girly. However, it's sort of like vaunting but it's just one phrase. Changing your mindset can change your life. It starts by changing your dominant thoughts about your desire, or even about manifesting itself. The easiest way for me has been any time I get a negative thought, I turn on a 20 minute timer and I think or say my desire. It's like disciple. Whenever your teacher saw you disrupting class and they had you continuously write the same thing on the board, that was affirming. We were just too young to realize. Of course it sucks, but it taught us that we didn't want to end up in that position again. I robotically affirm because I don't wanna end up in a reality where I don't have what I want, it teaches me to keep my thoughts on my desire. It also dulls out the negative thoughts from rising, such as the continuous writing on the board dulls the child's want to continue the bad behavior.

My ex and I had officially stopped talking in Auguest of 2023. It was abrupt and feuled by arguments. We were both fed up with our own lives and we could no longer take care of each other. We ended on bad terms and I was in full belief he would never speak to me again and I wouldn't speak to him. I believed he hated me for a good while. But, in manifesting we have have to understand that nothing, and I mean NOTHING is set in stone. All we have is present and even that is ever changing. A simple change in perspective can open millions of possibilities.

Now, On to the Success Story Darling.

The first thing I did was process my anger. I hated him. The version of him that I was manifesting sucked, and I gave myself full right to feel that. You have the right to be angry and frustrated, emotions flow, so let them. Do not hold them, or you hold your state of being and solidify your reality for yourself. You are in complete control of everything, so process what you got going on before you do ANYTHING.

Second, I need you to have a funeral. I need you to kill the version of them that you created. Metaphorically, anyway. Let them pass away, forgive them, let them die from your reality. As a very emotional person who often feels like my emotions are very big and overwhelm me, I now use them to my benefit. I was crying like he had really gone away. Then I decided that a new him, the version of him that had learned from his mistakes, that had taken time to work on himself, the one that loves me, rose in his place.

I decided that I was open to meeting this new him, that I would meet him. That my experience would be completely different, that I would be refreshed. Every time I thought of him or had doubts, I would robotically affirm or sometimes even just tell myself, it is done. My main focus outside of this was changing myself, I changed what my definition of love was, I changed the way I loved myself, I changed the way I thought about myself, I continued to live my life. There is nothing to do, just be.

Before I knew it, Christmas was passing, and so was his birthday, it was the new year and then it was college graduation, and then it was summer. So much time had passed and I wasn't even thinking about it anymore. Of course the sneaking doubts would come but I would know it was done. If I didn't, I would say it was until I felt satisfied in my knowing.

Now, Let's get into how this started showing up in my reality and the final success. :)

1. Hearing his favorite songs/or songs we used to listen to

2. Discovering old music I listened to when I was with him. Like it would randomly show up in my playlist.

3. Dreams. Oh my god he was in my dreams, I was waking up like what is going on.

Remember that these are not your desire, they are manifestations of your ever-solidifying belief (imo) Do not accept it as the end until you get what you want.

The Success

Yesterday afternoon, I was scrolling on my phone, I wasn't thinking of anything really I was just enjoying making lists on Amazon (it's my thing, it's an addiction), and I saw a notification on cash app. I was thinking, oh did my mom send me money? Period! TELL ME WHY I OPEN MY PHONE TO SEE IT IS MY EX SAYING HE NEEDS TO REACH ME. I sat in a feeling of a full circle moment, and at that moment it all clicked. I had persisted. At this point I believed he was coming back and he did. Neither of us have much social media, I had changed my number, I had blocked him on most apps and so did he. I DID NOT EXPECT IT, I DID NOT KNOW THE MEANS AND YET IT HAPPENED. I send him my number and before I know it we are on the phone, he is repeating everything I said to myself, everything I wanted to hear. Even if I could not see the movement, it was always there.

He told me he had never stopped thinking about me, that he had cleaned himself up mentally and had started practicing meditation (again, didn't see that coming, he was not the type) and that he was sorry for everything. He said I was on his mind 24/7, the entire time I was affirming (no separation) he was feeling and thinking the same thing. He had tried finding any possible way to reach me, he was dreaming about me none stop. He prioritized his mental health, he focused on getting better, he became a better person, even though he admits that he is working tirelessly to become his best self for himself.

He said he wanted to see me, and now we are going on a vacation in the next comign months and he is taking me on a vacation to Disneyland on my birthday. Flights, hotels, excursions? Booked. He took out his laptop and immediately booked everything, literally. And we stayed on the phone all night until we got tired, and I just had to write this.

Please persist. Please keep trying. Please don't give up, you are so powerful, even when it seems like nothing is happening, something always is. Check your negative beliefs at the door, and get what you want. And if someone tells you that you can't manifest your ex or you shouldn't, I want you to remember who the god of your reality is. That's you right? Period! So go manifest!

Luv yall sm ♡

Che☆

[artisimpossible]

For a couple years now, I've been struggling with reading Big 5 books because I realized that the majority follow a very specific formula, and once you crack the formula, every element becomes predictable and kind of boring.

Last year, as publishers started leaning hardcore into AI (especially my publisher who has been trying to force AI on us for years), it really clicked for me that the reason they don't think AI books suck is because they've already been forcing a sort of AI-adjacent storytelling on authors. "AI writing" is just language prediction. Put a bunch of words together in the order they'll most likely appear in based on previously established datasets, and in a lot of ways, that was how I felt writing books for trad pub to buy. It felt like every time I sat down at my computer, I was just plugging pieces into slots to fill in the formula, and any time I deviated from that formula, I would be told that every deviation needed to be removed to make the story "clean".

I don't know at what point so many people who claim to love books completely lost sight of what stories are supposed to do, but last year, I told myself that if I don't want to be replaced by AI, I need to stop letting trad pub force me to write like one. And frankly, this is why I think media literacy is so important.

Every human made book--no matter how good or how bad--has something to offer because when you engage with it, *think* on it, you open yourself up to another chunk of the human experience. You're communicating with other people like or unlike you. Even books you hate inform your opinions. Even books you think are problematic help you better establish your moral compass. Every book has something to offer.

But if you can't tell the difference between a real book and ai content with a book aesthetic, you also won't notice the difference as real art and storytelling is replaced by ai generated slop that has nothing to offer because it doesn't come from *anyone*. It's just the book-length equivalent of pressing the suggested next term on your keyboard while you text your mom. The words mean nothing, there's nothing to engage with, and anything it makes you feel is based solely on your own projection, the equivalent of getting into a fight with yourself over something that could never happen.

Now, I don't think all trad pub books are bad. Like I said, every real book has something to offer. But I think the prevalent mentality overtaking trad pub of what makes a book "good" is not actually about writing quality and is entirely about how to generate the fastest, most formulaic story on the misguided premise that this will make the most money. At some point, authors, agents, and editors will have to push back against this or we're all set to be replaced because publishers have established audiences that are looking for formulaic and predictable stories, so why not let them be written by predictive text? Saves them a lot of money and completely cuts us out of the picture. I'm over it.

[oxymoronictransfem]

Welcome to my blog 𖤐

I am Mera (she/her). I am a black and Native American Marxist transfeminist who creates theory on underdiscussed topics.

I am a womanist, lesbian, intersex transgender woman.

Temporarily I am removing the link to my essay. It will be back up once it is altered with the intended changes.

For my other intro post.

At birth I was designated female. That event has impacted my experience with and relationship to transfemininity/transmisogyny. Regardless, like any other trans person, I do not identify with the gender assigned to me at birth. I identify as a woman, of which I was not assigned.

If you want to learn about it more, come talk to me! If you don't, do us both a favor and block me.

On this blog, “female” and female assignment refers to the patriarchy's idea of gender that determines that women should be defined by immutability, sexual subjugation and essential biological traits. Trans women too suffer under this assignment. Here, “female” does not refer to biological sex or gender identity. “Female” and woman are two different things.

My essay delves into this further.

I am several times more assertive of my identity and positionality than I used to be. Unless you have meaningful critique of my analysis, don't bother engaging with me. I've heard what you want to say before and I don't care to hear it again.

I'm open to honest conversation and discussion over my theory though I expect a basic understanding of marginalization dynamics on your part.

White people, that means stop making false race comparisons.

I won't tolerate transphobia (associating me with my assigned sex ie. calling me “an AFAB”) or purposeful misrepresentation of my posts or beliefs. If you treat me as “less trans” than other trans women or try to tell me I don't deserve a voice in transfeminine spaces then I will probably tear into you and/or call you pathetic.

TwERFS, transphobes, bigots, fascists/right wing, trans/misogynists, racists and serial harassers go fuck yourselves.

My posts of personal experience are based on my own struggles as a perpetual victim of transmisogynoir, I share them partly because this site needs more black transfeminized narratives and partly to illustrate how someone like me exists as a trans woman.

For more information, see my Bluesky, Substack, or Medium.

Block #transmisogyny tw #transmisogyny cw # transphobia tw & #transphobia cw if discrimination against transgender people triggers you.

Check my featured tags in the search for more!

FAQ

Is this an AFAB transfem blog?

This blog doesn't especially focus on transfems assigned female at birth, it's not a mogai blog or a contradictory label blog. This is a politics blog.

It is mostly about transfeminized people in general. That includes transgender people who weren't assigned male at birth yet have feminine gender identities that fundamentally don't align with their assignments and that defy patriarchal gender norms. I consider them under the transfeminine umbrella.

Do you support AFAB transfems?

In large part yes, I've come to a lot of different conclusions having surrounded myself with the community and in short I can say that I do. If you strongly oppose that I frankly don't care and would like you to consider that your perception of them — like mine was — is based on your assumptions rather than any real source. That's not a good way to build your perception of a minority.

And frankly I don't trust you if vocally obsess over them.

I don't personally appreciate the fact that there is such an emphasis on “AFAB” as part of the label and think that is a large part of why so many transmisogynists identify themselves that way but I understand there isn't much of another common way to communicate the same concept currently. This is why I coined “assignment variant”.

Are you an AFAB transfem?

Even though technically I was assigned female at birth and am transfeminine, please do not call me “AFAB”. Referring to me as “an AFAB” associates me with my assignment which upsets me as it would any other trans person. I would never describe another trans woman as “an AMAB” so don't do that to me. Neither AFAB nor AMAB is a social category or identity, it is a description of the coercive designation society assigns infants at birth that determines what they're supposed be.

I am a trans woman because I am trans in relation to my gender assignment — of which I do not identify — and utterly and entirely a woman.

Are you TME or TMA?

Considering that I am literally a trans woman who's womanhood is subject to being revoked or used against me at any moment, as well as my being frequently targeted and affected by transmisogyny it would be mistaken to consider me TME. This acknowledges my material reality and lived experiences that, regardless of your opinion, directly tie into my oppression.

I have lived with the internal experience of being trans ever since I was born and an external one for years now; excluding transmisogyny from an assessment of my marginalization leaves out crucial factors that contribute to my social position.

Transfeminism?

I am a very avid transfeminist. My theory, my accounts, my blog are all based around it. I have done a lot of reading and a lot of living which has influenced my own analysis. Do not assume that because of my assignment I am somehow naïve around topics within transfeminism. I have intricate knowledge of gender assignment and the functions of marginalization especially.

Don't bother to engage with me if you can't explain to me how marginalization as a whole generally works.

[cyanocophrenic]

What are your favorite aspects about blueberry inflation?

lmao I'm so sorry, Anonococcus, you probably don't deserve this, but it's happening anyway.

👆 That's basically the question that prompted me to create this, an entirely separate tumblr from my normie one. I figured I'd write a couple of horny stories, get no attention whatsoever, and look at What I Had Done, and I'd see some patterns, and I'd be like "Ah Okay Now I Understand What's Wrong With Me" (fun fact for y'all homestucks, I'm a diehard Kanaya main. best girl. i miss her. do with that what you will.) anyway and having that analytical understanding of my weird fetishy ways, i'd then dissolve those desires back into the raw psyche-material and integrate them into more realistic, normative sexual expressions irl. i been thinkin' bout berries alone for a long time, and i got really tired and sad being that alone.

anyway, i have at least one fursona now, and i've made some cool friends (with more on the way?), and i keep finding good ideas for stories, and people seem(?) to enjoy the ones i've published, so... you can see how well that worked. and i love what i have now. working toward accepting these things about myself is (and was) the only real way forward, and i'll fight tooth and nail to keep what i've found here.

so, *big boss voice* favorite aspects of blueberry inflation, huh?

Gonna put this under a cut because it's gonna be nasty and weird and vulnerable and I don't wanna just drop that on anybody. Not suggesting that anyone will want to, but maybe don't reblog this if we're not mutuals, or if you don't Get It. And knowing me, Getting It will be a rare occurrence.

And once more, for the people in the back: MINORS DNI !

Favorite blueberry inflation aspects, go:

Well, first of all (and I mean this very literally):

it gets me soaking fucking wet.

I've kinda stopped trying to understand why. I have vague ideas, but I don't know that I'm ever going to be able to explain my needs to someone in a way where their lightbulb clicks on and they get it, and... I could be using that time to look at yummy smut instead, tbh.

It cuts straight through my skull, grey matter, every real and imagined barrier i've put between the outside world and my deepest vulnerability. It hits me dead-center-bullseye in the heart and the mind at the same time. That's a favorite, for sure.

Like... I kind of love everything about it? Even the depictions I don't care for, or the interpretations that don't resonate for me. I don't know if I've just spent too long fermenting alone and maybe I've gone a little crazy, but... I don't think I have. I think I was always like this, but it's been hard to tell without anyone else to provide context. Now I've gotten to talk with some people, and feel a little seen, and see them (i think? a little?) for who they are, and we're so different while still being the same. I knew there were other people like me, but now I Know, y'know? It's a wild feeling.

It's pretty cool how it just haunts me like a shadow, too. I mean that.

Not often, but every once in a while, I'll catch myself in the mirror, avoiding eye contact for some reason. I'll just kinda like... watch myself: long two-tone hair, pronouns, frankly great boobs, muscles, tattoos, long legs... no lie, I'm lowkey a hottie irl. T4T candy, at the very least. It's taken a while to get there, but I can see what other people have seen, sometimes. I have a few really-good things going for me. Not the ones I would choose for myself (get me a rouge the bat bbl STAT), but good nonetheless.

But I digress (a lot).

Anyway, I'll just watch that reflection and think "You think you're supposed to be a blueberry, don't you?" and after a moment, it'll reply "So do you, beloved."

How can I hide from that?

I know this isn't what you wanted this answer to be, Anon, and I'm a little sorry about that. I just can't really answer your question in a fun or hot way at the moment.

I don't think I have favorite aspects of blueberry inflation, disappointing as I know that answer is. I don't know that it's accurate to say I like it, or want it. I'm somewhere else with it for the time being. Hate to say this, but-

Blueberry inflation isn't something I just enjoy. Blueberry inflation is what I am.

[wanderingblindly]

do you ever read a fic that's so good you wonder why you even bother writing cause it will never be as good as what you just read? cause - and i mean this in the bestest most complimentary way possible - that's how i feel after reading october birds (truly genuinely you are so! so! talented!!!)

but i was just wondering if, as a writer, this is something you've ever felt and - if so - how you motivate yourself to keep writing

Oh my god YEAH I get writer envy all the fucking time -- it's par for the course when you're writing in a space with such an abundance of talent. Every writer I've talked to on here has talked about feeling the same thing at some point, too.

You are so so so far from alone. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it's one of the most unifying experiences besides writer's block lol

There are a few ways I deal with this, though none of this advice is even remotely original:

What makes a story impactful isn't just the words

Sometimes I get writer envy on a level of like, feeling jealous over someone's eloquence, their word choice, the sort of maturity and polished-ness they get into their fics. And that's fair! Everyone wants to improve, everyone has styles and pieces they idolize and study from.

But when it comes to getting back into my own ideas, I remind myself that what makes a story isn't just the technicalities. The most beautifully executed novel could still fail to hold my attention if the idea isn't gripping. Hundreds of thousands of words of gorgeous prose and scenery doesn't mean anything to me, personally, if it doesn't make me feel.

What makes your writing special is the fact that you -- with all your unique experiences and perspective -- wrote it. You took the idea and made it your own, and no other person could do it exactly like you did. And that matters! The way you feel emotions, how you choose to show the world to the reader, that matters! You could hand a hundred authors the same outline, and no one would create the same story because none of them have lived the same life, and that's wonderful! All of that, the intangible bits, matters just as much as someone's artfully crafted a sentence -- so never forget that.

It's cruel to use others to belittle yourself

This doesn't just apply to writing, but I have to remind myself that using others to put myself down is, in a way, assuming things about them. Why have I decided that this other author, someone who's writing for fun and love, would look at me and say that they're better? That my writing isn't worth pursuing? Why would I put something so awful on another person who's only ever put good into fandom?

Similarly, why have I decided that the people who read, enjoy, and connect to my writing are, what? Devoid of taste? Dull? Wrong? Jesus, what the fuck have they done for me to think that about people who have only ever been kind?

As dumb as it sounds, I have to reverse bully myself to stop the negative trains of thought. I would never want to make someone out to be cruel in my head, and that means I can't decide my writing isn't worth something by using other people as a scapegoat.

Writing is a progressive skill

Sometimes when I'm struck particularly badly, I go read my old work. Frankly, I don't love a lot of my old stuff in terms of execution -- I always think that I could do it better now. But I love my old work for what it tried to be; I love my old ideas, I love my old characters, I love my old effort and care.

And as I look back at it, I know that if past-Liquid could read my current stuff, they'd be astonished to know they'd get there one day. My writing still isn't perfect, I'm constantly hitting my head up against the limits of my current skill set, but that's the POINT!

Every fic I've ever tried writing has been a step closer to becoming the writer I want to be. Every idea I attempt, even if it seems too difficult at the time to really nail, gives me the experience to do it better one day.

The author you're envious of right now, they had their own journey, too. Maybe they hit the ground running a little faster than you, or maybe they've been writing since before you could even read! You have no way of knowing!!!! All you can do is think about the fact that every time you get knee-deep in your own docs, you're getting better!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You're getting closer to becoming your own writer envy :)

[thetriggeredhappy]

Hey hey, 48-hour moratorium's over! In light of that --

It's been a good 72ish hours and I'm still beside myself (in a good way) about how everything panned out -- like, woah; this might be the most upbeat conclusion I've ever seen a Valve game get. And the fandom's (largely) positive/joyful reaction to the comic has been delightful to witness. Three cheers for the comics team... wasn't expecting to see issue #7 this year, but it was a fantastic holiday gift.

Really looking forward to seeing what people make of post-canon and the seven-year timeskip (Scout's post-canon life being the most fleshed out out of all the mercs is fascinating to me... leaves a lot of room to interpret what the others have been getting up to, which is fun!). Very curious to know more about all the cut content Jay Pinkerton was talking about in that one email -- but I'm also (somewhat uncharacteristically) content with not knowing? What we got was pretty golden.

Pointing and nodding at the subtle little things (Heavy & Medic, Patton being dressed up like a mini-Demo)... likewise reckoned that semi-implicit stuff's probably the most we could've gotten from a Valve IP, so I'm glad to have it.

On a Scout-related note: overjoyed to see him living his best sitcom life, with his four kids and his Venture Bros haircut (and his seemingly-better relationship with Spy). Figured for a while that he might retire post-canon, but actually seeing that pan out was wild. In a nice way. Very happy for him.

i’m honestly really surprised to see so many people being taken aback at how lighthearted the ending of the comic series is. the tone of the comics in TF2 have pretty much universally been silly and goofy and fun and campy, this seemed perfectly in line in my opinion—the only thing i find at all unusual is the lack of sarcasm. that’s the thing, is that it’s extremely easy to write something over-earnest and for it to come across as kind of… shiny-eyed and nauseating. to be frank, a ton of what we did get was toeing the line, but they put enough effort in over the previous comics to make it all feel pretty deserved. all things considered, after what they’ve all been through, pyro deserves a puppy. of course medic would keep the baboon. of course soldier and zhanna would have kids. more shocking to me is the slightly smaller heartwarming moments—it would be so easy to make saxton hale just kick olivia out because we cut ahead 11 years and oops, she’s 18 now, scram! it would be so easy for miss pauling to have just been bowled over by the plane instead of having spy leap to help her in an incredibly selfless moment, considering his character. it would be so easy to make pyro wave to the engineer on the balcony instead of running, visibly cheering, completely estatic.

it would’ve been so easy to make the “our team were never even considered a real team—the other demomen don’t need to make their own explosives, the tech is handed to them on a silver platter. our demo is forced to do it himself because Mann Co does not care.” reveal so cruel and direct and cutting, but instead, demo is having it entirely on his own, quietly, subtly. the choice to make it something you have to really think about to notice speaks to a level of… maturity, from the writing staff.

the reason we get this happy ending is, to a degree, because at this point the writing is done with the assumption that the readers can be trusted to read and marinade and interpret.

frankly, i’ve known for many years that the only happy ending that any of them could truly get - i mean this from the bottom of my heart - is for several of them to stop being mercenaries entirely. Mann Co and the teams and the desert and miss pauling burying these bodies and negotiating for weapons have always been backlit in the subtext as that the thing they are doing is hurting them and preventing them from living real lives and growing as human beings. any ending where they didn’t break free of that cycle is grimdark and edgy in a way that the writers have made very clear they like to mock and cartoonify, and the choice to instead take itself fairly seriously and to commit to things being okay is a much more daring decision, from a writing perspective. a few issues ago medic was pouring blood back into them in buckets.

fantastic comic, my favorite thing in the world is stories and writing that trust you to engage with them earnestly, and this probably takes the cake. the administrator’s storyline is fucking haunting. and, unfortunately, would.

[yuurivoice]

Not answering is A-okay with me fyi, but I just wanted to say as someone who struggles, THANK YOU for the sh "content" take. Do some people have good intentions? Sure, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Do good intentions even begin to scratch the surface of qualifying someone to handle it in a respectful and proper way regardless of personal experience? Nah. Thanks for keeping your space cool and safe, you're a real one.

- appreciative long time follower

I appreciate the message because sometimes I second guess myself like omg is my stance on this too firm? So hearing that I'm making sense to someone is comforting.

If that sort of stuff has helped people, etc, and it never got weird, I'm glad it helped. I wouldn't want to diminish that experience.

At the same time, my exposure to this that radicalized me was when I stopped in on someone's stream to get some insight into a situation (untold years ago) and got some key info that I think set my opinion in stone.

People boasting that they were making content like that for vulnerable people, and that those people "need us", framing the dynamic in the most codependent, unhealthy way you could fathom.

People who had been making this content since they were MINORS, and into young adulthood, who were also at risk themselves at the time.

Financially incentivizing their help with donations and wishlists, leveraging their own struggles and lack to create what I feel is a radically unhealthy relationship between comfort/aid and risky spending.

So yeah. I don't take too kindly to idiots with microphones specifically targeting vulnerable individuals who need a hotline far more than a parasocial hyperfixation.

I don't speak on a whole lot on shit in the ASMR Roleplay slash hobbyist VA space, but that in particular is a rancid corner I stumbled across that I think invites some of the most at risk, vulnerable members of the community to put their wellness in the hands of people who I frankly wouldn't trust to put my fries in the goddamn bag let alone talk to me about the value of my life and why I should stick around.

If I seem harsh, it's because somebody damn well should be. Shit isn't a game.

Anywho......yep. The topic came up recently in private when I was dealing with an unrelated situation, and I remembered this exact thing and how much it bothered me.

I can respect anyone who would like to hear very specific comfort from one of my boys. I don't fault you for that. You know they'd want the best for you. I just don't think I can personally deliver it to you, and they wouldn't want me to, because I can't do nearly enough for you. You deserve better than care being pantomimed and imagined, and no matter how alone you feel, there are people who will fight for you, you gotta go grab them and tell them you need that. And if they fail, you try again, and again.

Me and my content can be a lot of things, and helping soothe aches is a big part of the job, but there are limits. I think there has to be for the safety and peace for everyone involved.

I can't risk putting myself in a spot where someone has to rely on me like that, and I wouldn't want to put them at risk either. Because I can fail. Maybe the words wouldn't be right. Or the tone didn't match their needs. Or it was just too little too late.

For everyone, that's a path we shouldn't go down. But we can still support one another. I think my characters and their stories are filled with messages and purpose for people who are in need, because I've been there. Quite literally, I'm familiar with the territory. So what I've created reflects that journey. It may not be specifically comfort for the thing. But the underlying meaning and purpose is one that speaks to some of those dark places.

Or not. Because it's art. You'll take what you want from it. But you'd probably find it there if you need to.

Anywho. Thanks for the message, Anon. Take care of yourselves, everyone. 💖

[bottomless-pit-of-whining]

So here's a thing I wish I could put on my main blog, or post on my Facebook, but I think all it would do is make me feel even more miserable and alone.

So, I consider myself Jewish and always have. That's my cultural and ethnic heritage on my dad's side of the family, the only family I grew up with. Yes, patrilineal, but I'm still Jewish. My dad's grandparents fled pogroms in Ukraine and came to the US as deeply traumatized people seeking survival. You can see the repercussions of that recent history in the generations that followed them. For the past few years, I've been actively working to find my place in that history and that heritage, because it's a part of who I am and who I will always be, and I want to be able to be part of it in return. That's my personal context.

When a terrorist group murdered and kidnapped a bunch of civilians last October, I was horrified. When a far-right extremist government retaliated by slaughtering an unthinkable number of civilians, I was horrified. I contacted my own politicians, I donated what money I could spare, I wept at the nightmare that was playing out.

I continue to be horrified as the inhumanity continues, at the sheer scale of tragedy and terror. I wish I had any power to stop it, and I do the small things I can to try to help alleviate suffering.

But you know what else has horrified me? The way my so-called allies, the leftists, the social justice warriors, have responded. I'm lucky that I could grow up without hate being thrown my direction (perhaps because people where I grew up did not know I was Jewish despite my very Jewish last name), but I am aware of what Jew-hate looks like. And I have been seeing people I thought I could trust now wallowing in variations of centuries-old hatred without questioning it, believing outright lies that can be easily disproven with even the most superficial fact-checking, listening to people who wish to do harm, and reducing a complex situation to the stark black-and-white, good-versus-evil conflict from a bad young adult novel.

I'm still going to hope for peace. I'm still trying to contribute what I can to help victims of violence and war.

But, speaking frankly, I don't trust a lot of people anymore and I probably never will. There is no place for me in leftist social justice communities.

I don't know why people have hated Jews for so long, except that I suppose it feels good to have someone else to blame your problems on. But people really truly do hate Jews, and they really truly have for a very long time with unthinkably tragic consequences, and there are modern groups who are absolutely thrilled to be able to bring newcomers into their circles of Jew-hate in the guise of fighting for justice.

And so many of the people I thought were my friends are following them into it without a second thought.

I am disappointed. I am betrayed. I am hopeless.

And I guess I'm pretty damn alone, because I am sure as hell not going to align myself with people whose values are in opposition to my own just because the leftists are also showing their hate.

It breaks my heart.

I'm posting this on my secret sideblog because, I don't know, I've been reading Jumblr for months now and it often helps me feel less alone and I suppose I am reaching out a hand asking if anyone else will be willing to take my hand and tell me I am not alone.

We are not a monolith, I know some of you feel differently from me in either direction, but I know at least some of you feel like I do and even those of you who don't fully align with me will still not smear me with hatred.

Tomorrow I am going to my first ever Rosh Hashanah service and I have been doing my best to prepare and I want to be proud, I want to be joyful, I want to embrace hope for a brighter new year and I want to shout to the rooftops that my people are beautiful and our traditions are beautiful and isn't it wonderful that I am able to step back where I belong among them, but instead I want to weep.