#it has been 2 days and i have less than half a page. go me.

[luci-z-wont-shut-up]

@aur0ralights does this make any fucking sense

[buckyalpine]

Peter’s Hamster

Crack fic alert: Imagine Bucky with a pet he never wanted. He’s around the compound more cause he’s taking a break from missions for a while. In the meantime, Peter brought a hamster from the pet store and Tony is not having any of it.

“No”

“C’mon Mr. Stark, you won’t even notice him-

“I can smell him from the lab”

“I’ll invent something to stop the smell”

“Aren’t pets expensive”

“Aren’t you a billionaire?”

“Shut up Romanoff”

“He was like 2 bucks!”

Peter manages to squirrel his way into keeping his newest friend but there’s still the matter of who would care for him when everyone else as away on missions. Anyway, Bucky made it clear he would have no part in hamster sitting. Not one bit. If everyone was away then the hamster would have to fend for himself.

Like today. It had already been a few days since the collective team had left leaving Bucky in perfect solitude with his worn copy of the hobbit and his secret guilty pleasure; peanut butter cups. No one would ever EVER see the former winter soldiers suck off the chocolate left on the wrapper, licking his lips like a cat after every bit between flipping pages.

It was perfect.

Except.

Bucky could hear the sound of the squeaky wheel of the hamster going at full speed, the high pitched squeals piercing through the air.

“For fucks sake, can’t you keep it down” he grumbled before pausing and closing his eyes. “…I’m talking to a hamster”

….

“who can’t hear me”

Eventually the rustling and scurrying gets to him so he reluctantly goes over to Peters room to see what the 3 gram rodent is up to. He notices the pellet bowl is empty and water has almost run dry, though the little fur ball didn’t seem to care just yet, more concerned about cleaning and pawing at his face.

“If you had more than half a brain cell you would’ve escaped and fed yourself” Bucky scoffed, ready to turn on his heel but the tiny beady eyes that look at him make him stop.

“Pathetic” he mumbled before finding the bag of food under a pile of Peter’s clothes “no more wonder he bought a hamster, he lives like one”

The hamster nudges against him when he refills his bowl, using it as an opportunity to escape by climbing up his arm and sitting on his shoulder.

“Seriously”

The small light brown puffball stayed there while Bucky scoffed, plucking him off and plopping him back in, narrowing his eyes at it.

“This was a one time thing. Figure it out”

Is what he said and fully intended on standing by but the squeaky wheels and rustling get to him. At one point, he swears it’s on purpose as the hamsters way of getting his attention for a food refill.

So he takes matters into his own hands

“If you won’t feed yourself, I’ll teach you”

So the late night sessions begin. Rigorous circuits for the thing that was smaller than his palm, learning how to scale the cake, click the lock open and nibble its way into the pellets. 

“I’m training a hamster” 

Bucky caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, a few stray pieces of woodchips dusting his clothes while the hamster (who he now called PB....based on an interesting choice...) completed another around in less than 0 seconds. 

“I’m training a fucking hamster” 

“Good Job PB” Bucky petted his head with one finger, stopping when he was about to comment on his ability to climb the cage, 

“And still talking to it” 

Imagine the absolute confusion the team feels when they get back to find random clear tubes running along the walls, each connecting to a different room, most tubes leading to the snack cupboards and counter tops. 

The walk into the living room and no one breathes a word, too entranced by the sight of a very focused Bucky and Peter’s hamster, perched on the super soldier. He sits on Bucky's shoulder, remnants of sunflower seeds left over on the coffee table while Bucky nibbles on a peanut butter cup. 

“What the fuck” 

Bucky turned around to find everyone staring at him with a variety of expressions from shock to amusement to utter confusion. At this point, Bucky couldn’t not care less, shrugging before holding up a seed to his shoulder so PB could grab it in his tiny hands.

“Which episode now, PB”  “Who the fuck is PB” 

Bucky pointed to the furball while scrolling through Netflix, avoiding any animal documentaries, not wanting to traumatize his new tiny friend. 

“You named him PB?”

“Yup”

“Based off of what” Tony cocked and eyebrow while Bucky snorted, feeding him another sunflower seed. 

“We’ll, I originally called him Parker’s balls”

Imagine after this Bucky has PB trained to wreck havoc and steal things he likes from just about anywhere. Peter gets absolute shit from Tony because 1 Bucky was enough chaos and now its Bucky plus this tiny demon. 

[the-nosy-neighbor]

Back of Your Head, Pt 2

There are multiple hints that Sally has two sides or aspects:

Initially, there were two things that made me suspicious about Sally being a divided being:

(I know one of these is canon and one isn’t).

Here, we see an earlier design, one that shows Sally’s buttons as star on one side, moon on the other. In much the same way, her door shows sun (star) on one side and moon on the other., surrounded by her crown. Introducing a moon to aspects of her character is really not necessary. As a star, her story is pretty complete. Fell from the sky, likes to be the center of attention, does theatre. However, a moon has been introduced. We can also see a difference in the eyes of the two halves of the door. Sally’s official image has the same closed eye and blue eyelid.

Sally’s eyes are much more varied than the other neighbors, spending a lot of time closed (tumblr hates all the pics, so I'm going to skip the eyes closed ones, but you can find them in the gallery on the fandom page for Sally)

Sally has her eyes closed way more often than the others, to the point that I was wondering in a post the other day if her eyes have to close for her to shine. She also is very obviously presented with one eye closed with a blue lid on the closed eye more than once, reflecting her door.

In addition to all this, when I wrote about Sally’s Pedrolino costume, I discussed the connections of the French version of the character, Pierrot, to the moon. Sally’s costume looks more like Pierrot version of the character. It appears that Sally is making a reference to her moon aspect with the costume. In that Halloween record, as well, she describes the things that happen at night, which is suspect.

Now, for the shape of the head:

Their art is super cool.  They go so far as to name this aspect of the Sally character Molly (which makes sense). 

On twitter, ArinaX7 posted this image called “Sally Moon”

Which is also badass.

So, I’m not the only one to guess at a dual character in Sally.

I can see where the first artist pulled this idea from.  The blue eyelid is also what kind of pushed me in the direction of a sun/moon Sally.  The question is, would she be half sun, half moon, or would she be more like depicted here—either fully moon with a false exterior, or fully moon at times and fully sun at others?

I think there is a bit more proof that the back of Sally’s head is being pointed out to us:

In some of the early sketches for Sally, the back of her head is flat.

True, it could just not be drawn, but given what Clown was doing here, you would think that this aspect of her would be explored.  (Also, her second row of spikes here decidedly less spiky, which could also be a hint?)  By the time Clown had done the Pedrolino costume, her head was rounded.  At least, I’m reading it that way.

It reminds me of Julie’s legs.  In early versions of Julie’s character, her legs are more rainbow (which is probably where the idea of a rainbow monster comes from) and later, she has the blue to green fade, which we realized were her actual legs, not tights.  Could they have started as tights?

There is another detail that makes me wonder—

You can see in this image the shadow between the front row of spikes and the second.  This appears in different strengths throughout depictions of her.  Is this show between supposed to delineate the layers in the sense of that her crown isn’t fused?  The artist above draws Sally’s crown like the two layers exist on the front and the back, which would mean two layers of two colored spikes pressed together.  What I had imagined was this:

Sharper points on the front, less sharp on the back piece

Two halves that press together with spikes on each side, yellow on the front, and orange on the back.

Interestingly, her toy is split down the middle as well, but that makes sense for the construction of the toy, so it might mean nothing. 

Oh, and I almost forgot, her valentine is “I’m over the stars for you…and maybe the moon too.”

This isn’t a ton of new information, but it is an attempt to explain why we got a truly strange shot of Sally and what seeing the back of her head might mean for us. 

[inqorporeal]

It feels ridiculous to be so nervous about this, after all the other risks I've taken in my life. I'm going to a trade school, full time, for a certification that will hopefully allow me to get and fucking KEEP a job FOR ONCE. It'll be less than a year, but the financial risk is much higher than what I've done previously, which is why I think it has me on edge.

It was tough to decide how to approach it. I have rent and bills to pay, after all, so the smart move would be to go part time in the evening and work during the day. The problem with that is, for me, it's a recipe for burnout and worse. I've been fighting depression my entire life, and having ADHD means that if I don't have a few solid hours per day to decompress and do my own thing, I start to spiral. College was miserable for me and it's honestly a miracle I survived. There's also the lingering issue of me having been engaged in a job hunt since fucking MARCH, sending out 2-5 applications per week, and getting absolutely fucking nothing but rejections or less. The odds of me being able to find a job quickly that will cover my bills, while I take classes for a year and a half, are dogshit.

As the meme says: the time will pass anyway. Better to be actively doing something with it than repeating the same cycle of failure. And if I take the classes full time, I get to work the floor and hopefully earn tips, because cosmetology is still a trade.

I'll still be in dire financial straits, so I'm looking at getting back into doing character art commissions. I need to update my website and my commissions page, but you can find examples of my work here [link to my website], and if you want to just donate a couple dollars to my cat's Food and Litter fund, here's a [link to my ko-fi]. Please send a message if you'd like to discuss getting some character art done, my inbox is open.

(cat tax photo)

[goldfades]

Okay, so I’ve actually been thinking about this non-stop, but I’m no writer, so you’ll have to bear with me: Manager y/n, who is doing ‘research’ for the Paige edits, gets super into TikTok for like a week before they have to cut themselves off.

And during this week, they’re not just watching videos – no, they’re posting them. I’m talking like 5 a day MINIMUM. It all starts when they see the “who’s afraid of little old me” sound is trending and promptly post a slideshow, beginning with a soft, smile-filled picture of them with the team before ���you should be” is sung out, and it cuts to a like 10-second compilation they had seen of them and the team screaming at refs or just looking super pissed off on the sidelines (as others have mentioned, the rbf is no joke).

Fans, of course, go crazy because, omg they’re posting on their account now? (It’s chalked up to KK’s influence.) And when their first video blows up, Manager y/n is officially hooked.

After seeing Paige’s Tru Fru video, they use the song to make an edit of them and the team using mostly unseen pictures and videos from the Europe trip to “I was over love and I’d had enough ‘till I found you”. It’s just so painfully sweet and a little bit sappy; people love it.

Things take a dramatic turn, though, when they discover thirst traps. NOW, they only post one, but one is enough to send people spiraling. “That’s my playpen, borderline thinking like Barbie.”

Lives are lost that day.

And the team’s reaction? Let's just say they've never hit the repost button faster. Paige has it saved and favorited in her camera roll, but you didn’t hear that from me.

“Now I’m down bad, crying at the gym” is posted to a video from when they tried to do the team’s conditioning day with them, and things didn’t go well. Manager y/n is strong, but this is a whole other level; they don’t even make it past the first hour before tears are shed. The whole team finds it hilarious (and it is).

KK gets them into dances too; there’s at least three posted to “Get it sexyy” before the day is done. And there’s soooo much more. “There must have been an angel by my side” is posted with Ice and Azzi. A “You know how to ball, I know Aristotle” ‘fit check with Paige goes triple platinum on the platform. And there are a perhaps unreasonable number of videos posted to “make her disappear just like poof, then she’s gone, addicted don’t know what the fuck I’m on” from a particularly fun night out (they had to take frantically down half of them when they woke up, but we won’t talk about that).

But perhaps the true pièce de résistance is ‘Man eater’. It was supposed to just be a ‘fit check after they got particularly dressed up for a team dinner/fundraiser but simply put, the people couldn’t take it. It took less than an hour for edits to start rolling in, and when some multiple people in their classes the next day (INCLUDING THEIR FAVORITE PROFESSOR) tells them they saw it , Manager y/n decided to take a step back (they can handle online attention, but in person is a whole different ball game).

After all, “we can’t have too many celebrities on this team.”

Last notes: This brief deep dive does dramatically affect the quality of the edits they make though; there was just so much inspiration to be taken (for research purposes only of course). 2 weeks after they stop posting on their personal account, a Paige and Nika hype edit to ‘Carnival’ is posted on the UConn page. They almost get in trouble for it, but they gain a couple of thousand followers and it quickly becomes the most liked video on their page. And who’s going to get mad at someone for what turns out to be a stroke of marketing genius (explicit lyrics be damned)?

THIS IS NOW MY FAV THING EVERTRR CUS YOURE SO SO SO RIGHT, i love the way u think nonnie

absolutely, and i feel like after the week is over she’s on the same level as paige — there are fan edits EVERYWHERE and manager is getting so much attention from everyone (ofc she doesn’t mind tho)

when she stops posting as much as she used to i can def see everyone begging for scraps 😭😭 they reuse the same 10 clips they have and the scraps they can find up until queen y/n posts again 😭😭

pls send more thoughts this was so much reading through it!

[faketrex]

We have reached the end of these cakegate bodyswap shenanigans. I hope you enjoy this final part! The whole thing will be up on my AO3 page... eventually.

Thank you kindly for reading and liking and reblogging and making me smile in the tags!

...

SHARING A SLICE... part 6

RWRB, rated T, 1000 words (this part).

(click here for part 1) (part 2) (part 3) (part 4) (part 5)

...

After brunch, they visit Tower Bridge.

“Over there is the Tower of London.”

“That’s where they locked women up when they didn't pop out babies fast enough for the king, right?”

“Exactly right. Did you know they kept an elephant there, too?”

“What?”

“They fed it bread and wine. I'm sure you’ll be shocked to learn that it died.”

“Y’know, I almost feel like I should cut you some slack. All that inbreeding obviously messed up your brains.”

Henry smiles. It probably looks great to the paparazzi.

After Tower Bridge, it's the Tate Modern, followed by St Paul's Cathedral, Hyde Park, dinner, and then Kensington Palace again for the night.

Yeah, it's a stunt, and yeah, Alex doesn't really get to look at the art or visit the sites, and yeah, he has zero say about the itinerary, but it's not terrible. Henry's not awful company.

By the end of the day, Alex is exhausted. Henry seems just as tired. On the one hand, they’ve convinced the public they're best friends and maybe reached a personal truce. On the other hand, it's twenty-four hours post-caketastrophe and they're still in the wrong fucking bodies.

“We can't stall any longer.” He's watching Henry pace back and forth in front of the windows with the ugly-ass curtains. “I have to go back tomorrow. Well, I mean, you do. You as me.”

Henry doesn't respond.

“How long do you think it’ll take one of us to get arrested for spying? My money's on less than forty-eight hours.”

“I need ice cream,” Henry announces.

“Music to my ears. Lead the way.”

They settle on opposite sides of the kitchen island and eat their ice cream in a half-peaceful, half-melancholic silence.

“Despite the uncanny aspect of it all, I have to admit this hasn't been horrible,” Henry says eventually. “They don't often let me play tourist... and I never get to fabricate pseudo-historical nonsense for a mouthy American.”

Alex nearly fumbles his cone. “Wait, you made stuff up? When?”

Henry shrugs.

“Come on. It was the elephant, wasn't it? I knew there was no way–”

“I assure you, the elephant was real.” Henry taps on his phone and spins it so Alex can see. “He even has his own Wikipedia entry.”

“Elephant of Henry III,” Alex reads, bending closer. “What the fuck.”

The smug expression on Henry's face – Alex's face – and the way he licks his ice cream makes Alex's stomach flip over strangely. His neck feels hot. There's melted ice cream dripping onto his hand.

Without breaking eye contact, Alex slides his free hand over the countertop and rests it on top of Henry's.

“Hey, don't spook, okay?”

His words have the opposite effect. Henry's eyes widen and his shoulders tense like he's getting ready to bolt, but Alex just tightens his grip.

“Maybe... close your eyes?”

“Alex–”

“Suit yourself,” Alex murmurs. As he leans in, Henry takes a deep breath, then closes his eyes. There's a nervous crease between his brows. "Okay. Here goes nothing.”

He mashes what's left of his ice cream against Henry’s face.

“What the hell, Alex?”

So much for that idea.

“Shit. I was thinking maybe the ice cream... after the cake... and I was touching your skin, so...” It doesn't make as much sense out loud as it did in Alex's head.

“You don't–” Henry sputters.

“Listen, I honestly wasn't trying to get back at you for the tour guide shit, I hoped it would fix–”

“No, no, I was wrong, I thought you–”

“What?”

“Alex, don't...” Henry laughs under his breath and reaches out to flatten a sticky palm against Alex's cheek. “Don't spook, alright?”

Before Alex can complain about the mess, Henry brings their lips together in a soft, vanilla-flavored kiss. Alex's stomach flips over again. He closes his eyes. Like this, it's easy to forget he’s kissing himself – and it’s still Henry, isn’t it? It's Henry, kissing him. Henry, kissing Alex.

The kiss is cautious, like Henry's expecting rejection; Alex leans into it anyway. Henry's hand smears ice cream onto his face and the edge of the counter presses into his ribcage, painful, but he wants it. It's shocking how powerful the want is when he hadn't even noticed it before.

Alex slides one hand up Henry's cheek, into his soft hair, and feels – he opens his eyes.

“Well, fuck.” Have Henry's eyes always been so blue? They hadn't seemed that blue in the mirror. They're kind of beautiful.

“Hello,” Henry says. “I'm back? You're back. Are you?”

“I guess. When did you come up with that plan?”

“I – plan?”

“You figured it out? Curse-breaking kisses or something? Wasn't that–” Alex stops. Henry hasn't pulled back from his awkward lean across the counter. From bizarre-but-true personal experience of less than sixty seconds ago, Alex knows for a fact that it's an uncomfortable position.

“If you'd like, I could pretend that it was part of a plan,” Henry offers quietly. “I've got plenty of experience pretending.”

If it's not the truth, though, Alex doesn’t want it. “Nah, no need. Don't get me wrong, it's weird if you don't want any credit for getting us back to normal again, but whatever.”

Henry's incredulous laugh makes Alex feel like kissing him again. “Covered in ice cream is normal for you?”

“Hey, chill. We're having a fucking moment.”

“A fucking moment, truly,” Henry echoes, mocking, but his smile is wide and happy.

“I'm not used to being covered in cake, trading bodies, being covered in ice cream, or kissing princes.”

“No?”

“But I've been branching out lately. Expanding my horizons, y’know.”

“I see. And now you know what to do if any one of those things happens again, I suppose?” Henry squeezes Alex's hand where they're still twined together.

“Yeah,” Alex agrees, squeezing back and leaning in. They've got more to figure out here, but right now it's his turn. Henry kissed him, so now he needs to try it for himself. Simple. “Let me show you. It's a piece of cake.”

...

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA if I refuse to do anymore work on the group project we already missed the deadline for, but can still submit?

I am extremely tired of being walked over and doing all the work. I'm a 3rd year uni student and multiple times I've been the main person doing group project work. The latest example is what prompted this ask. Our task was to do a discussion and then write an essay based on it, the group consists of 4 people including me. We talked for 10 minutes at the end of last week and a little bit yesterday. We did the majority of the work yesterday as well.

There are 14 points/questions we need to cover. Multiple people not only are advised to, but must cover the same questions so there's substance to be worked with. While the rest of the group covered some, it's insufficient and I did the majority of the work on the first half of the questions and all of the second half. A worked on 4/14 questions (pretty short answers), B also did 4/14 questions (one longer answer, three pretty short answers), C wrote 2.5/14 questions (2 medium length answers, one single sentence answer) and D, me, did 11/14 (mainly long answers with a couple of shorter ones).

After I made a Google Doc to make communication easier, they submitted their answers and basically ghosted me. I asked multiple times for help but was met with silence or jokes about checking the grammar and typos later for me. Again, we don't have enough substances to work with, the essay CANNOT be completed with what we have so far.

And here's where the issues get deeper. I asked for someone to at least look at what I've written down so far multiple times, proofread it if you will. Silence. I know for a fact A and C were FREE and could've continued working on the project, while B might or might not have been at work. Finally C said they'll do it. We were left with less than an hour to wrap it up and submit it before the deadline at this point.

2 minutes after saying that they'll read it, they sent me a "it's great" message. They shameless lied to my face.

I was inside the Doc the whole time and no other users were shown to be viewing the page, let alone reading 3 lengthy paragraphs in 2 minutes.

At some point during the day I was so desperate, I was ready to delete all I've written, comments, intro and first few paragraphs of the essay, everything and beg to join a different group. But a friend managed to calm me down and I didn't go that route.

I can't write to the professor and explain the situation to him, it's just not an option, that's not a practice in my country when the subject only consists of lectures and the professor has to look after 100+ students. My last hope is tomorrow morning those 3 will see the newest messages of me asking for help to finish it and will help me. If that doesn't happen, well...

What I can do is say fuck it and give them the same treatment they've given me – ghost them, don't do additional work on the questions and essay and take all of us down for not finishing and submitting the final project. I don't really want to do it and fuck up our grades (we have no idea how important this homework is for the final grade) but I genuinely see no other way. So WIBTA?

What are these acronyms?

[marvelmaniac2000]

The Riddler - (Edward x Reader) 💚

Ch. 4

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

Summary: Edward can’t help seeing you struggle with your day to day life. Being a college girl is hard enough.  

Subject: SOMNOPHILIA/SMUT WARNING, storyline, Fluff, eventually will turn into smuts in between chapters, desperation, submissive kink, savior kink, Being pampered/babied kink, stalking, minor depression, mystery thriller? P in V content, slight choking,

Words: 1.3k

Characters:  Edward Nashton x Reader (college fem! reader) 

Ch. 1 2 3

  Edward skimmed his hand across the manic board he created. All of the intricate pieces of his plan have been put into place.  He closed his eyes and his shaky breath flashed back to the memories of  coming back to his home. 

   The night had soon turned into morning and you instead watched (Y/N) sleep peacefully curled up around your arm. Your naked body was pressed against his side, holding tightly. You push your glasses up and slowly slip out of her grip before making your way out of her bedroom door. With a small glimpse back at you in the darkened room, he finally got the resistance to leave your home. 

  This isn’t something I want to do, this is something I need to do. Edward’s apartment wasn’t too bad but it probably could use something to make it less darker. He began to scramble all of his old newspapers and place them in a pile. I guess it’s time to invest in a file holder he mumbled to himself. He pushed some of his black rugged curtains back to bring in the slow morning sunshine. This something he loathed doing, but for your sake he would push them back close when you leave every now and again. 

 Well that was one step completed. Edward plopped himself on his bed and looked at the rest of the things that needed to be arranged. But it will all be worth it, because he was doing it for you.. My love.

Later on

 “ It’s 8:00 o’clock” Alfred pushed the curtains back and presumed to push Gotham's newspaper onto his night stand. “What is this?” Bruce rubbed his face into his hands reaching for the front page. “Seems like Gotham has a new star killer…” Alfred walked away. 

   Bruce looked up at the headline. Some creep killer was going around spreading a idiotic message. His investigation hasn’t been too successful, but the police have been more than secretive and confusing as the days went on. On his night stand was a picture of you. “Must’ve been nice…having someone to adore” Alfred stood at the doorway with his arms tucked behind his back. “I think it’s infatuation.” Bruce hated his own emotional comfort zone. “Alfred, can you call let them know I’ll be there a little later”  

   “Stepping outside for once?” Alfred was delighted. It was long overdue for young Bruce to have some form of experience. 

   “This time I really don't have a choice” Bruce looked over at him from the edge of his bed. His darken eyes pierced into his only family member.  “You always do, Wayne” Alfred gave him an amusing grin leaving him out of his sight hoping to see you downstairs for breakfast.

   “So as far as I am concerned, you believe that this girl and killer have something to do with it?” Alfred pointed his butter knife in his direction. 

 “ I do think he has something to do with it, but she isn’t involved, sort of speaking. Bruce looks at his breakfast trying to gain an appetite. Alfred knew exactly what was going on, but he wasn’t sure if he was putting himself into a dangerous situation based upon his love for the girl. “If you think that is a starting point then” Bruce sighed and ate half of his berries. “ I know so, I’ll see you later tonight” Bruce pushed his chair out and returned upstairs to prepare for the funeral. 

   “Sure thing Mr. Wayne..” Alfred gruffed. 

Man, he annoys me… Bruce let his thoughts trail off. Past his endless hallway door into his master room to get ready for the funeral. Bruce's anxiety was very much high and he could barely understand how he was going to make it through this day, but somehow he had to. Bruce made his way into his personalized marble black cab and watched his private ownland turn into the streets of Gotham city. The sky was mere gray and only Bruce knew what could possibly be waiting in the mob of people. There had to be more clues to undercover from not just any murder but the murder of the mayor of Gotham City. Bruce's pale white skin and dreary bagged eyes was glossed over the press and the other many people swarmed in for the beginning of the funeral. “I’m sure you received my calls?” a soft voice disturbed Bruce out of his thoughts. “Um no I just don’t answer to people I don’t know anymore” Bruce murmured within his chest. He knew exactly who it was. “I don’t think it would be wise for both of us to be seen together.” 

You had on a black peacoat with your hair tied into a low bun. “No one is paying attention but us,” you grinned. 

  “So? Who do you think did it? You and I  both know something very dangerous  is happening here” You looked up at him. You remember Bruce's face like it was yesterday. 

   “Beats me..” Bruce shrugged and made his way into the common church. He was very much still hurt from the way you treated him in the past. That no one could ever make him feel vulnerable as you did. You were his ex-girlfriend for a while, and you both grew up at the same private school together. But both your family intertwined together with him that you were obligated to run into him in certain private parties you hated attending. You stood there dumbfounded and found your way to the crowded area. You sat near the end of the row and tried to blend in with everyone else near the area. “Who would do such a thing?” you overhear a lady in front of you in disbelief. From what you gathered, This happened between last night and early morning. You did find that certain things were weird and violent about this city, but what really scared you the most was the people behind all of it. Watch Your Back And I’ll Watch Yours.  Was a flier you remember seeing at a very young age at the corner of 34th Street. You hear the chapel doors close shut and everyone grow silent in front of the sermen. 

   “This is an unfortunate day for Gotham indeed… for which I can’t assume what bad evils possess such a person to commit such crime to our own leader.” Your phone vibrated inside your pocket. 

Edward: I need your help!

You: With? I’m kinda busy at the moment.. If this is about moving it can wait a minute right?

Edward: Not really I need you to meet me at the place like right now!

You: Is this an  emergency? What’s going on?

Edward: I locked myself out of the place, and I forgot a spare key and I really need to get in before I head back to work. 

You: Um Ok..

 You quinted your eyes close and imagined how to not be awkward squirming through the row of people behind you.

You politely excuse yourself from the scene before slipping out of the door. “Hey, where are you going?” Bruce grabbed you by the wrist. “Were you watching me this whole time?” you retorted.

 “Look there’s a whole serial killer on the loose” Bruce discreetly moved out into the daylight. 

“That’s nothing new, where was this energy six months ago huh?” you turned around. You walk down the sidewalk and waved your hand for the nearest cab. Bruce looked at you  and returned back inside the hall. If only you knew the things he does to keep you safe. 

My Card

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[scyfozoa]

feed me more kouming content pls i wanna know more abt their dynamic and how they ivercome their struggles pweaseeee

thank yoy for this ask im Not normal about them um . Um . um . gonna just ramble. yapfest incoming

Kou and Gaming met when they were both 14 – a little bit after Gaming ran away, their first meeting was in the pharmacy as Gaming was being treated by Baizhu because he got injured while working (was younger and less experienced in combat back then), and Kou brought back some meds Baizhu asked for. They talked for a little bit, but didnt think much of it at first.

Sure, they both wanted to be friends, but they werent sure if that would work out. Gaming knew how loud and extroverted he was, and he could see Kou was more of a reserved type, barely talking at all. He was simply worried that he would scare Kou off. Kou, on the other hand, could see Gaming was liked, had a group of friends – and the half-adeptus simply didnt think someone like Gaming would want to be friends with someone like him – Kou was always anxious, scared to talk, ofter losing verbality in social situations.

But Gaming ended up at the pharmacy more and more, at first because of how reckless he was, sometimes for deliveries, but with time, he started showing up just for Kou – he didnt say it though, always conveniently "was nearby, so I figured id visit".

As they got closer and closer, they both realized that despite them being polar opposites, some parts of them were really similar.

(b4 next part starts, i hc gaming as autistic and trans ftm because i can..... plus it fits his story ngl look at rhe event!!!)

Complicated family dynamics, their struggles with being trans, them both being autistic and how that affects them, their sense of not belonging anywhere — are the things that connected them, to name a few. They understood each other better than anyone else, felt safer with each other than with anyone else — sometimes it felt like these two were speaking the same language, while the rest of the world talked in a language unfathomable to them. And as the years passed, and they got closer, it was on a Lantern Rite when they were 16, when they finally confessed to each other under the glowing lanterns in the sky – far away from everyone else, as Gaming knew how overwhelmed Kou got in such gigantic social events. It was after that, after their confession, that Kou promised him that when one day, Gaming finally gets to perform infront of everyone, being the center of the celebration, he will be cheering him on from right there, always being his biggest supporter.

And he kept that promise, watching his boyfriend of already 2 years, being the center of the celebration, blinking away the sting in his eyes, never having been so proud before.

They know each others struggles and always do the best to help – Kou always being Gamings no.1 supporter, even when Gaming felt like it was going nowhere. Gaming treating Kous scars like any other part of his body, and sometimes leaving a few kisses on them when Kou is having a really tough day.

Now, some more miscellaneous stuff. When Kou is free, he always comes with Gaming to just be with him while Gaming practices his Wushou Dance, dancing along while Man Chai jumps around him. He is his biggest supporter after all. Sitting on the sideline, Kou takes it as a great opportunity, and pulls out his favourite sketchbook. He cant be blamed, as Gaming's energetic and fluid motions make for great anatomy practice — and the sketchbook would be just that, if not for the numerous pages of random doodles of Gaming, of his face, his body, just him. Luckily, Kous reflexes allow him to hide the sketchbook the second Gaming finishes and turns to him — he would rather explode than let anyone near that sketchbook.

Kou has trouble sleeping through the night, so he often naps a few times throughout the day — in his room, on a tree, away from anyone. But when him and Gaming are together, Gaming often lets Kou nap on his lap or his shoulder. (gets paid back for it in kisses when Kou wakes up)

They both have sensory issues, but Kous are way more extreme — so when theyre out getting dim sum, Gaming always offers to pick out the parts that are inedible for him. (unless its something inedible for him too...)

thats all foe now.... sorey thats its lackluster + messy, its 2 am as im writing rhis bc i NEEDED to ramble... ill write somethign more comprehensive soon i prommy... (+ the fics are pretty comprehensive !!) if u want more of them feel free to ask or dm me... i love them so much theyre geniuely my everything .. have some koumings that i didnt post

[the-way-astray]

No pressure for the Anti Keefe Sencen Rant 2-I know it's going to be absolutely delicious and chef's kiss if you take the time you need and then release it. I'm so looking forward to it. No pressure, though, I swear!

Uh this was meant to be like a comforting and motivational post at the same time. Seriously, just feel good ok

ooh, it's nice to know people are still interested, even though i'm pretty sure it's been a while since the first one came out in . . . july? idk lmfao.

don't worry . . . this seems comforting and motivational. the secret project is sucking up all my kotlc-stuff time currently, but i'll likely be able to go back to the rant after i finish that (why am i always working on something kotlc-related . . . )

anyway. since you seem eager and i'm apparently handing these out like hershey's kisses, have yet another excerpt from the part two rant (i posted one already, in case you haven't seen it). subject to change and being cut and whatnot but. whatever:

“The pounding didn’t mean anything, by the way. That’s why he didn’t bother mentioning it. Of course he had a headache! His mom had just tried to kill him—again!” (541) What in the logical fallacies is this???? Just because you know what caused your headache, doesn’t mean it will magically go away???? I’m so genuinely confused as to what Shannon is attempting to achieve here. Is she trying to make us annoyed with Keefe? Keefe then proceeds to refuse good medical advice for over twenty pages. In case you thought he grew or developed at all from the Nightfall incident.

“Okay, fine—he wasn’t in the mood to hear about all of the mistakes he’d caused everybody to make, because his brilliant plan had turned out to be a little less-than-brilliant.” (543) In case you think this is character development, it’s not. Keefe is only sorry that he caused them to make mistakes, he’s very noticeably not sorry that he screwed over the entire plan by doing the one thing everyone told him not to do, which is what he should be sorry for. He’s not sorry for his arrogance in thinking the group would need him. When I first heard that Unlocked was going to be told half from Keefe’s perspective, I thought we would get an explanation for why (because, like I said, the reason he gives in Legacy for coming to Loamnore makes no sense at all). Why did he come to Loamnore, even when specifically warned not to and agreeing? I was super intrigued and thought Shannon would surprise us with a very specific reason. But I guess my standards were too high because this book does not talk about Loamnore at all past this chapter and the next. That’s literally it. Certainly, we don’t get a specific reason as to why Keefe decided to throw a good plan down the drain and override it with his own. It’s like Shannon completely forgot about the last book’s climax’s consequences.

“Apparently, he shared the Really-Bad-at-Scheming gene with his mom.” (543) His mom’s not bad at scheming, though. Not even close. (At least, not until some . . . choices were made in Stellarlune.) Keefe’s bad at scheming. Keefe. Not this mom. Keefe. Let me remind you that he threw away the entire point of his side’s plan when he showed up at Loamnore, even though he fully knew what his mom was trying to do. Meanwhile, his mom has been thoroughly, intricately, and meticulously crafting and refining her plan for years. Keefe rushes into everything with no thought. Gisela’s actually a pretty good planner. But again, Keefe is so arrogant that, to this day, he still underestimates his mom, even after she’s gotten the better of him time and time again. You’d think he would’ve stopped being stupid and learned by now . . . 

“Though . . . maybe if she hadn’t had to do that, his mom wouldn’t have escaped. There was no way to know, so it was probably better not to wonder about it.” (544) Keefe just . . . brushes right past what should be a serious stop-and-think moment for him. He, once again, hijacked a shared plan and ruined it because . . . genuinely, I do not know. Like I said, I thought the reason Keefe gave at the end of Legacy was a cover-up for some deeper reason he didn’t want to tell Sophie that would make it all make more sense, but that’s not at all true. Anyway I’ll shut up about that now and talk about this quote. Keefe should be doing some serious reflection right now. Again, if you think he developed from the Nightfall scene at all, I hope you can see why it’s very clear he didn’t learn anything of actual value. He just said what Sophie wanted to hear and they breezed past it. He did not actually learn or change from that scene. Once again, he refuses to blame himself for problems that are actually his fault, yet beats himself up over ones that aren’t. Those false problems are then used to attract a great deal of pity. If Keefe truly believed that he messed everything up, he would not have come to Loamnore and, get this, messed everything up. How are we, the audience, supposed to believe that Keefe feels guilty over everything and beats himself up over everything when he just instantly brushes past something that was one hundred percent his fault? Why is he only ever guilty over things that aren’t his fault, like his mom? It’s to attract sympathy for him without actually putting him in the wrong. 

“He just had to keep fighting and remember that the defeats they’d suffered were . . . mostly a timing issue.” (544) Here, Keefe tries to rationalize his way out and excuse himself of the blame by telling himself it wasn’t his fault. Which is just not true. A lot of the defeats they’ve suffered are a direct result of Keefe’s actions. Here is a list of the things he has screwed up: compromising Alluveterre, giving up his blood, freeing Alvar (which probably wouldn’t have mattered, given the whole Lumenaria thing, but Keefe didn’t know that at the time), being wrong several times about the Neverseen going after Grady and Edaline, giving up the caches and bringing back fakes, giving Sophie the tracker that led the Neverseen to her and Fitz, and now showing up at Loamnore when he was forewarned with good reasons not to. I bet you forgot about at least half this list, because the narrative gives so little accountability to Keefe that large, devastating setbacks are quickly and easily forgiven by the other characters without Keefe facing a modicum of actual consequence. He simply throws a pity party, Sophie wrongfully reassures him none of it’s his fault, and they move on. Once again, I would have no problem with Keefe deflecting the blame off of himself if it was treated as a character flaw by Shannon and if it was more consistent, but neither of those are applicable to Keefe. As for the part where he says he just needs to “keep fighting” . . . oh please, no. Please. Please stop fighting. Please stay out of everything, ever. You would do everyone on your side a massive favor.

I’m not copying down the whole quote, because it’s like three paragraphs, but there’s a brief description of the four (4) elixirs that Elwin made Keefe drink to help him feel better on page 563. So what he’s been fighting for over twenty pages is something that took about a minute to do. He would’ve been free to go immediately if he’d just taken his goddamned medicine. Instead, he had to throw a temper tantrum like a toddler. This is what I mean when I say he’s infuriatingly stupid. How did he not realize that taking his medicine would get him out of the Healing Center faster and less painfully than whining like a pathetic brat? (Okay, so Elwin made Keefe take another dose of headache medicine on page 566. That’s literally it. Just five elixirs.)

[thisonesatellite]

Tagged by the always wonderful @fsbc-librarian -- thank you so much, darling! 💖💖💖

1. how many works do you have on ao3?

42 works

2. what’s your total ao3 word count?

677,643 (how do i have so many?)

3. what fandoms do you write for?

MCU/Stucky -- this is my main focus and current sandbox. i love to play with these two. OUAT/CS -- that is where i started my fic writing journey and it still makes up the bulk of my works. i no longer write it, but it will always have a soft spot in my heart. Dramione -- i wrote one dramione fic a while back, and it is a ship dynamic i really enjoy. i still have one big, rather epic fic idea for it, too. Since this idea -- (and @mysteriouscatstellation) -- have been bugging me about it for over a year, i absolutely have to write it. Eventually. Obvi. (Actually, it's up next after i finish my East German Stucky Spy Lunacy, shhhhhhhhh.) Leverage -- i also have one Leverage fic. i have literally no idea how that happened. None. This fic basically walked out onto the page and said, my turn. 😂 It did give me a really good opportunity to create an original character though.

4. do you respond to comments? why or why not?

Always. ALWAYS. i love and appreciate each one, from a row of emojis to a page of analysis. i go back often and re-read them, just to motivate myself. People who leave comments are the real heroes. (Although i do understand that not everyone has the spoons to comment, and that's OK, too. Just know that if you leave me a single emoji i will love it no less than if you write a dissertation. 💖💖💖)

5. have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that i know of. But i haven't checked either.

6. have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes -- The Sword and The Heart, an epic rewrite of OUAT S5 i tackled with the amazing @ohmightydevviepuu. If you have never collaborated with another writer, i strongly urge you to try it. i learned things about myself and my writing that i am still benefiting from to this day and i am immensely proud of what we created together. However, that is pretty much due to dev being the best collaborator ever. (Get yourself someone you trust and love and yet challenges you at every turn, is what i'm saying.)

7. what’s your all-time favourite ship?

That's a hard question, because affinity does change -- and why wouldn't it. We change, become different people, and sometimes the things we used to bleed for no longer resonate quite as hard. Like - my OG ship was Buffy /Angel, and i have the absolute soft spot of all time for them, but also i'm (obviously) no longer in high school and so the urgency has subsided. There have been a few other ships i've sideswiped over the years, characters i absolutely loved but never quite got 'ship-invested' in. (Shipvested? 😂) Personally, one factor is definitely that i did not know what a fandom was, or even that there was 'fandom' (as a concept, a community, a Thing) until Captain Swan tore a hole in my heart five years ago. i didn't really know what fanfic was. Or AO3. Apparently i live under a rock. But currently, the tl;dr is a dead tie between Stucky, Captain Swan, and James Holden /Naomi Nagata from The Expanse. With lots of honorable mentions bringing up the rear. 😂

8. what are your writing strengths?

Plot, dialogue, world building, and having characters stay true to their nature even when seen through various AU lenses, i think. Also action and fights and sometimes even battles. And i think i have a knack for letting exposition bleed through action and dialogue, instead of writing it outright. (That last one is a hard-won skill and kills me dead at least once a chapter, you feel me.) i also put a ridiculous amount of research into everything. Seriously, it's a sickness. i once spent more than two hours looking up radio dramas from the 30s that had a supernatural bent and might appeal to teenagers. For half a throwayway line. Possibly i should not list this as a strength. 😂

9. what are your writing weaknesses?

Smut. SMUT ALL THE WAY. i cannot write it, i don't know how. People who read my fic will always get shortchanged in the E department and for that i am sorry. But i really am completely useless on the smut front. And fluff. i can do soft scenes, but i cannot write pure fluff. i don't know how to do that either. i'll write a fucking coffee shop oneshot, or a thieves AU that doesn't even crack 5K, or even a BARTENDER fic, and yet complex back story and plot and action will still burst out from between the lines. All you people out there who can just tear off a sex scene or a fluff piece, i salute you. Also all you people who have multiple WIPs. i don't know how you do it. i can only ever write one fic at a time. You are all wizards, aren't you.

10. first fandom you wrote for?

OUAT /Captain Swan, back in 2019.

Zero pressure tags: @sparkagrace @cable-knit-sweater @bittersweet-in-boston @late-to-the-party-81 @metalbvcky @voylitscope

[suckishima]

*bangs fists on table* haikyuu and food!!!!!!!! and how furudate uses it to illustrate the varying levels of drive different characters have!!!!

so, context (chp 213), this panel is hinata narrating as he's walking to the bus stop after day 2 of the first years training camp. he was told a few hours ago by washijo that he's not allowed to stay for meals or to sleep over, but since then he's been diligently watching the other players who were invited—he stays late after the regular hours of the camp for extra practice as a ball boy not a spiker/player. and the FIRST thing we see once he's done playing is four whole pages of how hungry he is and what should he do about it, and not just to literally feed his physical hunger but also in order to become a better player!!! food is muscle!!

all of that is so so good and makes me crazy but what i wanna talk about real quick is just this little panel. (1 i love that hinata is even thinking about whether tsukki is eating, he's probably half jealous wishing he could eat those wasted leftovers, and half actually worried whether he's eating) But mostly it's the "he'll leave stuff if nobody's watching to make sure he does [clean his plate]" line that i think is extra effective here

it's so small in comparison to the rest of hinata's hunger narration, but i love that furudate does take a moment to acknowledge that not all of the players are as hungry as hinata! and by using tsukki, someone who we know is less passionate and driven than a lot of the other characters—who earlier in this chapter refused to do extra practice, while hinata accepted it—as the example of someone who eats less, it just further emphasizes furudate's point that it isn't just physical hunger we're talking about here. hunger=desire, drive, passion

and then the bit about tsukki only finishing when someone's watching is a great piece of characterization and insight into his current volleyball mindset—tsukki doesn't like to eat a lot. tsukki only puts in the minimum effort necessary. tsukki will get away with less if no one is looking—in life and on the court. and none of this is new info either, hinata has been eating a ton since the beginning of the series and tsukki has been eating less (there's the scenes at tokyo camp of the third years trying to get him to eat more, or if you ever look his plate in any eating scene his portion is way smaller than everyone else's, despite him being a lot bigger than them) and furudate chooses now, when hinata is at the biggest developmental crossroads of his life to start to really start to shine a light on the theme!!

then of course hunger is contagious too and eventually during camp tsukki does stay for extra practice, he specifically invites hinata to practice with him, and even though tsukki questions himself, he does it anyway (chp 214)

and eventually, eventually, tsukki does start to get hungry too (chps 283 & 284, right to left)

it's not 'ugh i'm so tired i want to stop,' it's 'ugh im so tired, i wish i had enough to keep going' which isn't too far of a jump to him saying 'i like this, i want to keep going' !! which of course, he does admit to volleyball being fun the next day during the next match, thanks to everyone who helped him get there, including hinata and his contagious, never ending hunger

food is volleyball, volleyball is fun and volleyball is connection, connection is love

it was never just about food!!!!!!!!

[anoctoberpepper]

So a quick update: Over these next two months I’m going to be putting effort into original fiction so my AO3 posting will likely be slowing down. Disappearing off the face of the planet is pretty normal for me (I’m a chronic Discord ghoster 😭), but I will do my best to stay active here.

Please continue to hit me up with any of your favorite DnDads headcanons and ideas! I still definitely want to talk and write in this fandom! 

Sappy love under the cut. TL;DR I’m insane and you all have made me feel seen. 

So I’ve had a weird five years, the middle of which involved being hospitalized for the first (and god willing only) time, for mental health issues. I had a major depressive disorder that turned into a late in life diagnosis of “Schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type with mixed features” (I was actively delusional for 8 months, fun times). I have frilly diagnoses around that including generalized anxiety disorder, and an unspecified personality disorder. I say this because I don’t get to say it all that often. In my day-to-day life I have to keep that part of me tucked away so deep down that bringing it out to see the light of day hurts. Even though it’s a big part of how I relate to the world and it genuinely affects every day of my life. 

My closest friends barely understand my diagnosis. It’s hard to talk about. I either feel embarrassed or I’m worried that giving details will make people uncomfortable. Or maybe they’ll pity me, or worse they might not trust me anymore. Schizophrenia and Bipolar have hefty stigmas. So I don’t talk about it in any detail. 

But I need to talk about it. 

I was reading an original fiction piece I wrote before my diagnosis and realized that the main character, who was under the thrall of some violent magic at the time, was feeling exactly like how I would describe mixed mania now. It told me two things, 1) I was feeling horrible for a lot longer than I thought, and 2) I’ve been trying to describe it through my writing for just as long. 

I’ve written a lot over the last ten-ish years, and as all writers do I’ve tossed some of that writing into the void of agents' inboxes hoping for a bite. (I have received half a bite, one time). I write because I want to understand myself and because I love stories, but there’s something unique about having someone validate what you put on the page. Like “yeah. I get it, I feel that too.” 

I want to be able to yell my words to the world so someone will yell back. 

You all have yelled back. 

Genuinely and truly with all of my heart I could not have asked for a better gift this last year than having people feel seen by my writing.

I’m finally pulling my way back up from a really deep pile of crap and part of that journey was being able to write about Lark and Grant and Terry. Them learning to ask for what they need, and taking care of themselves and letting themselves be taken care of has taught me how to do it. 

I’ve found words to describe the mumbling voices I hear when I forget to take my meds, and the crawling-skin feeling of mania. I learned how to ask for things even if it’s as stupid as “can you walk to the kitchen with me so I don’t have to go through the process of making a bagel by myself.” Having characters take care of themselves has trained me to take care of myself. Utterly ridiculous, but absolutely profound. 

Another part of that journey I must mention is having people say, “yeah, that’s what it’s like for me too. I hear you. I see you. We’re in this together.” 

It is a gift I didn’t know I needed. People don’t usually talk about their mental health issues and when they do it’s generally not in a way I can relate to. I’m not really textbook anything, but I am some of everything. Being able to describe the pain of random mental health things and having other people say they’ve felt that way too has made me feel less alone. 

I don’t know how to end this rant, only that I would be remiss if I didn’t say I sincerely appreciated every comment and interaction I’ve had over the last year with you all. I feel comforted in a way I never thought I would. I feel joy in participating in this community, and a deep feeling of hope that things will keep getting better (and then worse and then better again). 

I love you all. Thank you for everything, and I hope to be back up posting as soon as I get some original fictioning done. 

(Or maybe I’ll get sick of trying to write my own stuff and I’ll be back here in a week. Who knows.) 

P.S. I’m still planning to work on Picking up the Pieces, it just might be slower than my usual pace

[jezmmart]

Unwarped version of the photo from the very end of the Summer Special for funsies.

No more jokes or avoiding questions about exactly how long it's going to be, the Summer Special is truly over now!  Thank you all again for reading. I hope it was enjoyable for those invested in the characters and those who just tune in each week for a quick chuckle alike.

It's been a fun challenge to write my first longform story for the comic, as it's far from something I'm confident in.  All together it clocked in at 85 pages (though shave a few off in spots where I just used negative space for dramatic effect rather than filling the longer pages with panels all the way down).  With the average page taking me 3-5 hours to make, that's about 14 days of work.  If I just didn't sleep I could've cranked this out in less than a month, dang!  Well, next time.

I've had the jist for this story in my head for a fair few years so it's been nice to finally realise it.  I'll get into the nitty-gritty when the trivia posts get this far I'm sure, but while it's still fresh in my mind, here's some off-the-cuff bits regarding the broad story for fun:

(Spoilers for anyone who hasn't read it yet!)

* I originally envisioned this as a thing I'd secretly work on behind the scenes and drop in its entirety for download, framed like a traditional "summer special" magazine. But unfortunately I just don't have that kind of time, and knowing that it would be years of work to do it alongside my other output, paired with the fear that not every reader would necessarily ever get around to reading a longform thing when they're used to just tuning in for a 30 second fix once a week and moving on, it became a no-brainer to just make it a "special" in spirit only and make it part of the main comic.  And I know myself, the only way this was ever getting done is if I just posted that first one and then locked myself in to having to finish it, one week at a time.

* The fact that I did it in 2022-2023, and the pacing of the story for the first half, was entirely dictated by the fact that Chamomile's update day was due to land on Christmas Day in 2022.  If I wanted to make that inappropriate Christmas Day comic joke, it was now or never, and because it needed to be a standalone ridiculous one comic scene in juxtoposition to the rest of the story-driven special, staging it as a dream sequence between the two days had to be the time for it.

* To that end... when I began working on it, I didn't have the whole thing planned out.  Day 1 of the trip was more or less sorted but I still had a ton of comics that were just scenes with no jokes yet, and Day 2 was a big question mark that somehow had to lead to Vi's dramatic reveal to Bri and realisation/meet-up with Sam at the end of it.  Day 2 was only fleshed out and finalised by around December last year, when everyone was going to bed on Day 1!  The idea to more thoroughly conclude Brianna's story in an extra epilogue, segregated off from the rest of the special so Sam and Vi's scene would still feel like a "climax", and also allowing the summer special to continue through this year's summer rather than ending right beforehand, only came to me early this year, and finalising the particulars of it came right down to the wire, with all the comics involved fleshed out and ready to go basically when I began drawing the first (or maybe even second, lol).

* On the note of Brianna, her story here is a lighter version of a story idea I had for her back before Cammie even existed and I was considering making a comic about her - a story in which someone returns to their hometown or a special place to find solace but instead finds out that everything has changed and has to learn a hard lesson about how nostalgia can't save you from adult life overwhelming you etc.  In my head it was to be a relatively sombre mood, but tbh I don't know where to begin writing something like that and have it be engaging throughout.  All I know is how to do jokes!!  So I mourn the loss of that imagined version but I'm happy I made something of it at last.  It's impossible to make stuff to your initial vague vision, it was always bound to change!

* While weekly updates meant I never had the time to flesh out their pre-relationship friendship as much as I'd always imagined I would... Sam and Vi have been destined to happen since Sam was introduced to the comic.  Been playing the long game in trying to make them inconspicious but shippers gonna ship and plenty of people saw it coming, but that's fine, haha!

* The elongated search for a 20p coin to get into the public toilets and then it turning out that contactless card payment could have been used the entire time was a real thing that happened to me and my partner during our 2016 holiday in New Forest.  It was really really funny and I've been sitting on the story in order to use it in Chamomile at some point for years and years.

That'll do for now!  Please look forward to the return to regular ol' classic Chamomile antics from Sunday!

[misssugarpinkshome]

Author's Update! (Finally)

Took me a bit, but I'm here now!

I was right about posting that prev chapter being a good omen. Things did get better, a little, so here's the updates, and major news at the bottom.

So, November came and went. We are now full time in our house, with internet and everything!! We also now have heat, which is good, because the pipes apparently leak into our kitchen when we don't have heat and it's too cold.

Let's see... This is not in order, nor as organized as the last update, but I'm just trying to squeeze in the time where I can.

Our boiler had been overfilled, so the boiler guys had to drain it for like a half hour. Then, when that still didn't fix our heat, they had to take off the thermostat. THAT fixed it, so they replaced the thermostat for us.

Then we... ran out of oil just before Christmas, so... they had to come fix that too, lol. It's been an expensive year.

Barely managed to scrape by to ~15k for NaNo this year, but still proud that I managed that much. Lots of visits to the library.

At some point, I managed to finish reading The Belgariad to my partner, meaning we moved into The Mallorean. That was really enjoyable. I've also been reading a lot more.

I wrote up an entirely too long post combating some of the drama going on from Problematic Callout Number Infinity, and asked people to just... not mention it, leave me alone, I'm done. And for the most part people did? Sure, Callout Asshole did not leave me alone, continued writing their... Over 800 page rant about how I'm abusive, jfc, I hope you're okay... Writing out my post about it helped a lot with the feelings, though.

My old landlords evidently were saying some... less than kind things about me to my ex-roommate, who is still staying with them. So... Being who I am, being the writer I am, I wrote up a response to them, and I sent it off. It was heartfelt, and meaningful, an really just... Was what I was feeling. They were kinda floored and did not realize just how rough things had been for me and my fiance.

Just a few days after I posted the last update, I got my pronouns back at work <3 The union really came through. My school pulled some assholery to get out of more legal trouble, but I can at least be whatever pronouns my sorta-but-not-really-it's-hard-to-explain-genderfluid self wants again.

We've recently started to understand a lot more about ourselves in our own brain. It's been really helpful. Therapy's been going more poorly lately (he switched to entirely virtual meetings, which has been a lot harder for me) but I'm also at a point where I feel a lot less distress.

I started up that Bracket Blog I mentioned for realsies, and GOD has it been funny.

I MANAGED TO MEET MY WRITING GOAL FOR 2024 I AM SO HAPPY. New goal is 1mil words for 2025. I think I can do it. It shouldn't be too difficult if I keep pacing myself. According to the tracker I have, it's about 3k words a day. Seeing as I count ALL words (emails, blog posts like this one, even discord messages sometimes) I should have that down pat.

My partner and I are changing our names, officially, and we finally figured out last names too. I'm so happy to be leaving behind the last name of the people who hurt me the most. I'm so happy to be coming into my own.

And then... Big news... ARE YOU READY?

:3

I got married.

The night I posted the chapter -- New Years Eve -- I got married at 11:59pm.

It's just the legal stuff -- paperwork and all that -- but I'm officially married to my partner. My spouse. EEE!!!

We'll have a ceremony another time. For now, we wanted to get married while we could, to really solidify our lives. With the election and everything, we wanted to be sure the world recognized me and them as Together, Forever, What I Own Is Theirs kinda stuff.

So... Yeah!!!

I've been working on this post for like 2 hours now so I'm just gonna post it as it is <3 Love y'all :)

[bonesandthebees]

Okay I'm on desktop because my mobile Tumblr is bugged and won't let me view profiles so I haven't been able to send any asks but I'm here now.

Spoilers for The Priory of The Orange Tree btw for anyone who hasn't read it yet (do it. Go in as blind as possible)

I have been reading Priory and was slowly reading a few pages at a time but because I was sick and getting used to some new meds I'm on (hurray for experimentation and diagnosis on the horizon), I found it hard to actually sit down and just read it but I did it today (yesterday? it's 2am) and holyy shit. I went from being just under 20% through the book to 51% (I track my progress with books w a Notion to motivate myself to read lol) in one day and read about 400 pages. I have just hit part 3 after Ead is exiled.

The world is so rich and the characters are so interesting and I can already feel the ideas I have for my own fantasy world and how I can improve on writing / world building from this since complete fantasy is one of my weaker points as a writer but I want to try my hand at doing one that I would maybe publish in the future.

Tane my beloved. I love Tane so much and as much as I love Ead and Loth's povs, I always found myself wanting to go back to her perspective and learn more about dragonriding and the culture of the East, especially in the earlier parts of the book. Loth is a pov I wasn't expecting but I liked more than I thought I did. Especially when he gets to the Priory it is so interesting to see the reaction of someone who believes so much in the religion of the Vitrudom. Also the Yscalin situation breaks my heart. I felt so bad for the Princess during her entire conversation with Loth.

Niclays is the only pov that I don't particularly enjoy. I like his personality and I find his backstory to be interesting but I'm just not as invested in his storyline as I am in everyone else's.

I have stopped myself from reading just to have some restraint and try to get some sleep but I am so excited to read more. Wish I had someone to talk to in person about it but none of my friends are as into books as I am or as fast at reading.

But overall I love this book so far and I am already planning on locating and devouring other books by Shannon, including Day of Fallen Night and her other series I believe the first book of which is called Bone Season? Anyway feel free to give fantasy book recs as I want more. Poppy Wars and Unwind are already on my list.

I generally like darker books but I also like romance from time to time (sapphic preferred but I am not heterophobic)

Splitting into 2 parts because this is already really long.

-Shark anon (it's me I swear)

shark hi omg you have priory talk for me I'm THRILLED

that is so much of the book to read in one day holy shit good job. usually I read for about an hour to an hour and a half every night of whatever book I'm on (although I was reading 2 hours every night with both priory and a day of fallen night bc I was so into them all I wanted to do was read them) and that's about the max my attention span for reading can handle before my brain gets tired

okay you ask for more fantasy recs at the end so I'll answer them here and then put all my priory thoughts in the read more below

She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan is less fantasy focused (although there are fantasy elements in it) but it's really interesting with the historical setting (1300s mongol-ruled China) and has incredibly fascinating themes and conversations about gender and masculinity and all that. there are both sapphic and gay relationships focused on in the book. it's definitely darker than priory with a lot more discussions around moral greyness and complicated characters. also, I actually liked the sequel to this one He Who Drowned the World more, although it was way darker than the first book and also made me cry. twice.

right now I'm reading a book called The Fifth Season by NK Jemison, and I love the worldbuilding in this one so much. the POV and narration in the book is done in a fairly unique way at certain points, but the world itself is really what's drawn me in. it's fantasy but in a darker way. the world of The Fifth Season is one that is constantly torn apart by earthquakes so it focuses on a culture that is used to the apocalypse happening basically every few centuries. it's just so interesting to explore a culture so deeply rooted in survival and doomsday prepping and there's also a very fascinating magic system at play here. there is a queer relationship featured in it (only for a part of the book), but it's not sapphic

also right now I'm reading a book called The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri. there's absolutely no reason for me not to be obsessed with this book, but I'll be honest it hasn't grabbed me quite like Priory did. I'm taking a break from it to read the Fifth Season so maybe when I go back to it I'll be more invested? but it's very good! It features incredibly rich worldbuilding with a fantasy empire inspired by Indian culture/history, with a somewhat toxic sapphic romance/dynamic blooming at the center. definitely a lot of potential for this one so we'll see how I feel after I finish it

okay now priory talk time spoilers under the cut

but yes the world is SO rich and all the characters are so interesting. the reason I wanted to read priory in the first place was bc I was trying to read a lot of royalty-centered fantasy to help me write rose, and then I just got completely sucked into the book itself. samantha shannon's worldbuilding is just so richly layered and complex but it never feels too dense to understand. like it's a Lot, but it all flows together so well

definitely agree with your opinions on the POVs. when I was reading I was mostly interested in Ead and Tane, and then Loth got way more interesting to me once he left Yscalin for the Priory. Niclays was the only POV I really struggled to connect to. I liked him a lot more towards the end but even then I still preferred the other POVs. I really like him as a character and I think Shannon does an amazing job with his arc, I just didn't click with him as much as I did the other three POVs

if you're interested in learning more about the East you'll LOVE a day of fallen night. we get to see so much more of Seiiki history with the dragonriders and the government and all that. actually adofn just gives you so much more worldbuilding in general which was incredible for me, because the world and history of the roots of chaos series is what has really roped me in. like I love all the characters so much and I'm usually a character first girlie, but I honestly would read about any characters Samantha Shannon wants to write about in whatever point of history in the roots of chaos world because I just love the world itself so much. but yeah adofn is incredible both story wise and worldbuilding wise (and tbh I think I felt more attached to the characters in adofn than the first book but that might be recency bias). you get to learn so much more about the East as a whole (not just Seiiki, but you spend time in the Empire of the Twelve Lakes AND another country not mentioned in the first book called Sepul), you get to learn about and see a ton of Hróth which is only mentioned in the first book, and you get to see a lot more of life in the Priory as well. it's just so so good you'll love it

I haven't read the bone season and I don't know if I plan to because I read the description for the series and it doesn't seem to be my type of vibe, but I'll consider it if I get through my current reading list (which is ever growing tbh)

so so glad you're enjoying priory so far I'm so happy that so many of you have taken my recommendation