#it's not finished but honestly this is probably better than posting it in december :\

[suretkerim]

Ectober Haunt – Black cat / White crow

[walkingstackofbooks]

Fanfic Writer Interview

Tagged by: @a-most-beloved-fool - thank you!! <3 <3 <3

What fandoms do you write in? At the moment, pretty much just DS9, though I've written one TOS ficlet this year.

How many words have you published in 2024? 139, 411 😅😅 Absolutely bananas, I cannot even comprehend how I did that!

It's been an absolaute delight to properly fall in love with writing this year though ❤️Before 2024, I'd written very little fanfic ever, and this has been JUST so much fun! (ftr, 3.5k in 2021, ~3k in 2015, and - huh! Almost 30k in 2011/12 🧐 Well, that's a surprise - apparently my "baby's first fanfic" back in 2012 was a whole 20k, which is far longer than I remember!)

What is your greatest achievement this year? I mean, Vision Awry for sure! Seeing it grow and grow and slowly realising just how long it was becoming (although even right up to the end, I was never able to guess accurately!) My crazy summer marathon to get it all written before I resumed posting (which I did mostly manage!) and then the last few weeks in December pouring my heart and soul into actually finishing it before the end of the year. It's completely mad that I did that!

(Although weirdly, now it's finished it's just kind of like 'yeah I suppose I did that, feels ages ago now though' and I feel like I have to really push myself to feel the pride and excitement I think I should be feeling? Idk, it's weird 😅)

What are your top three fics you've written this year? Oh gosh, I have to choose? Okay...

Vision Awry - obviously :P

Sleep Paralysis - that mad, 3-day blitz of inspiration was so worth hiding away in my room for 😅

Um, unpublished, but the Miles&Julian-talk-about-suicide ficlet I posted on Tumblr? It was far better than I expected when I read it back, and was a higlight amongst the rest of the December writing-is-hard feels.

What was your biggest pit of despair moment? There were definitely many times during Vision Awry... the biggest were probably either:

Re-starting Day 5 in August, after writing nothing during June and July, and reailsing I had no idea what was going to happen in Day 5 apart from the deaths at the end;

Writing Epilogue 3 in the last few weeks, only eking out 1-300 words at a time unless I overdosed on meds (😅 it worked tho...), getting increasingly convinced that I was not going to be finishing by the end of the year, which sucked; or

Any time I realised the scene wasn't working because of X thing which meant I would need to totally rewrite it. I don't do drafts, really, so that was always devastating 😭 (but DID work out for the best, at least)

What have you learned? SO, so much. I'll limit myself to three things. (I'm sorry, I'm no good at choices or being concise!)

That if I have an idea, ideally I need to write all of it, straight away, and finish it while it’s fresh. I honestly don’t know how many WIPs I’m actually going to finish, because even while I love many of the ideas, I’m not in love with them the same way I was when I started.

That I love writing Garak and Julian interactions, even though I keep forgetting that I do, because Garak is an absolute pain to write sometimes (affectionate), and I've never been the biggest fan of stories that are solely Garashir.

That I need to be super careful about opening up prompts, because while they’re great for short-term motivation, if I don't complete them in a timely manner they end up hanging over me in a less-than-fun way.

What three fics have you read this year that you love? I do not know where to start with this one, omg, there are too many <3 <3 <3 Trying to think of ones I haven't mentioned before... (and while I'm trying to be better, I'm so bad at bookmarks 😅)

After The Siege by @youngpettyqueen - I didn't know I needed Worf&Julian but this has stayed in my mind since April and I love it to pieces. This dynamic is soooo gooddd 💕💕

The Recitation of Names by @jennelikejennay - Incredible, haunting, pre-TOS Spirk fic about the events mentioned in Obsession.

By Design by @akingnotaprincess - I haven't finished it yet (I am SO hype though, I just haven't had time over Christmas!) but it's SUCH a lovely Data/Julian fic, it's so sweet and sincere and wonderful.

What ideas are percolating for next year? Ughhhh, oh man. Idek. I've got about a dozen WIPs but the way my brian is rn, I'm just hoping that I'll be able to edit and publish some of the things I've written on Tumblr to finally put on AO3.

Hopefully I'll get going a bit more at some point - and whatever it is, you can bet on a traumatised Juian, I'm pretty sure ;)

Who do you want to thank? Again, where do I even start, there are so many people who have made this year wonderful 💕 I've never really felt like I've been *in* a Tumblr community before, and this year has really changed that, so a huge thank you to everyone who's made me feel so welcome! 🥰

@ectogeo-rebubbles, @the-last-dillpickle, @hellostuffedtiger for welcoming me into the Sloanshir side of DS9 with aplomb. Waking up to your reviews and recs of Imprisoned was actually unforgettable, it made my day many, many times over, and definitely gave me confidence to continue putting Julian into fucked-up situations!

@jackleg-penwright for messaging me and becoming my first Tumblr friend ❤️❤️❤️

@flippetyfloppity, @dreamerdrop, @phoenixfeathersinfall - your comments are life and love itself, your support for my writing this year has been incredible and made me feel so warm, thank you just so much! 🫂🫂🫂

I'm kind of High Key Anxious about missing anyone out if I tried to tag everyone else who has been supportive and wonderful and lovely, which sucks because I really want to, but if you've ever left a comment on anything I've done, PLEASE know that you are held in my heart most fondly with great love and affection 💖💖💖

tagging: @jackleg-penwright, @dreamerdrop, @ectogeo-rebubbles and anyone else who would like to!

[destinyc1020]

back in 2019, Tom besides Z was with Jacob, he was still talking about her in those comic cons He attended. They were broken up but not bad blood and We had Claire’s comments about Tom in December of that year, she definitely preferred Tom over JE but she respected her daughter’s decision. It was obvious the New York photos were something Tom wasn’t expecting, I don’t think the Darnell unfollowed and followed was by mistake. That moment was probably when Tom decided to move on. Nadia was still dating her ex by February 14th, they broke up afterwards and by march she moved in with Tom, for supposedly a few weeks of lockdown that nobody predicted will be months.

Tom posting Nadia: I was happy for him, He can have a public relationship like Z, but afterwards I felt He posted her because she was jealous of Z and insecure, and he did it to make her feel important. When Nadia finished filming and didn’t go back to Berlin, then went on vacation with a friend and then to London, showed It was over. All his family went to Berlin to say goodbye to Tom, she didn’t. It was kind of messy but She had all the signs, he was still with Z in his heart. Better this way than a cheating situation

My opinion, don’t come after Destiny

back in 2019, Tom besides Z was with Jacob, he was still talking about her in those comic cons He attended. They were broken up but not bad blood and We had Claire’s comments about Tom in December of that year, she definitely preferred Tom over JE but she respected her daughter’s decision. It was obvious the New York photos were something Tom wasn’t expecting, I don’t think the Darnell unfollowed and followed was by mistake. That moment was probably when Tom decided to move on. Nadia was still dating her ex by February 14th, they broke up afterwards and by march she moved in with Tom, for supposedly a few weeks of lockdown that nobody predicted will be months.

Yup!! I can tell the ones in my inbox who were actually there during that time like I was, and saw everything go down in real time lol.

Tom posting Nadia: I was happy for him, He can have a public relationship like Z, but afterwards I felt He posted her because she was jealous of Z and insecure, and he did it to make her feel important. When Nadia finished filming and didn’t go back to Berlin, then went on vacation with a friend and then to London, showed It was over. All his family went to Berlin to say goodbye to Tom, she didn’t. It was kind of messy but She had all the signs, he was still with Z in his heart.

^^THISSS!!! In fact, if you all go back to my blog and look at the posts I made when Tom made his rlshp "Instagram Official" lol, I was actually HAPPY for him and glad that he was able to finally have a relationship in the public eye and not have to be hiding a gf all the time like he was in the Tomdaya rlshp (which, I understand WHY they did it, but was NOT sustainable long-term imo at ALL).

I was actually happy for him!!! And I honestly didn't mind N. Until, she started shading him and Zendaya... 😒

Another thing to keep in mind... Fans keep clinging on to this, "Oh he posted her TWICE on Instagram" thing. Omg twice?? WHAT?? Alert the papers! He posted her *gasp* twice on his IG! 🤣

I totally agree w/your assessment ...it was my same line of thought... I think that he posted her the first time genuinely... But the second time?? I strongly suspect that was done in order to make her feel less insecure. Cuz remember, he and Z had obviously reconnected by then cuz of her Emmy nod back in July. What fans FORGET is that Tom posted her on like Aug 6th (was it?) and then by August 15th, Nadia's mom had already UNfollowed Tom. I forget the actual dates now (I'd have to go back on my blog to double-check lol), but let's just say, it was obvious that Tom and Nadia split up..... like DAYS after he posted her the second time. LOL. The second time doesn't even really count to me. Let's get real lol.... 😅😅 He was not in love with her!

Better this way than a cheating situation

[bleachbleachbleach]

8/12 - 8/18/2024

I wrote a version of Renji 11 what is at this point several years ago (RIP me), and have since just been throwing random stuff/required additions into that Note with no rhyme nor reason, so it took over two hours this week just to sort it all out. But! It is sorted!

Modern-era Renji 11 consists of 3 new scenes and 3 already-existing scenes. I wrote 1.5 of the new scenes. As far as how well I think this Chapter is going, I dunno. As a narrator, Renji’s kind of like, oh hey, here’s a thought I had. And here’s another one! Which feels legit but I’m not sure if it allows the reader to understand which pieces of information are actually important for following the narrative.

You know those reblog memes that like, ask people to identify hallmarks of your writing? The concept is fun, but it wouldn't work in practice because 0.02% of anyone who might see that post would have any familiarity with my writing. SO. I WILL SIMPLY TELL YOU. My hallmarks are that I love an interstice—love having things that should be on the cutting room floor not on the cutting room floor—but am also a firm believer in stories not needing to have every scene the characters experience to exist on the page. This combination means there’s a good chance that actually relevant, defining scenes simply do not exist and only the interstitial nonsense does. I think in certain stories this can be a real thing that works. I think it can also have the effect of nothing hanging together, making any sense, or meaning anything, without certain bits of key information/certain scenes that I simply did not include because they exist in my head and therefore exist everywhere right. I think that’s where this chapter is.

Maybe the remaining 1.5 new scenes will help ameliorate that, but I feel like that’s asking a lot of them. And then, theoretically, you’d think fixing the existing scenes would go more quickly than writing from scratch, but I don’t know that they will. Because the story leading up to this point has changed enough that the characters are in very different headspaces and perceptions of each other than they were when I first wrote those scenes. Well, that’s not true—Kensei and Renji are in a very different place with each other. Renji and Hitsugaya need to have the exact same conversation but, you know… better. And FRANKLY, I do not know whether entirely overhauling Kensei and Renji will be harder or easier than merely line-editing Hitsugaya and Renji. =_=;;

I’d really like to finish Renji 11 by the end of next week, and then take some time to finish out the revisions on Rukias 7 and 10, which are the most related to Renji 11. Then I’d like to go back to do final line edits on Chapters 4, 5, and 8 before heading into the big mess of revision that is Hisagi 9, because those revisions will be most related to Hitsugaya 12.

I’m not anticipating getting much done in September, because I have a major work deadline September 30th, and the rest of autumn will probably be kind of garbage, too, and I probably won't exist. But I would love to finish Part II (so, Chapters 12 and 13) by December. Well, speaking honestly, my original hope was that I would finish Part II by May, but here it is, August, and I am still working on Chapter 11. So: I would LOVE to finish Part II by December.

—

I did a low-res mockup of the fic banner several months ago (okay, this might have been last November). I pulled out some high-res assets to work with on Friday and played around with a new design I thought was fun, but it turns out design-wise the old mockup looks much more polished. Or it would, if I were using higher-quality materials. XD So I’ll probably go back to the old design. The only reason to continue with the new one is that it reflects the clusterfuck spirit of everything that happens in this fic, but I kind of like the way the old banner puts a pretty bow on the clusterfuck lurking beneath the surface. Maybe I’ll solicit opinions once I’ve made a more serious mockup of the first version.

[neewtmas]

24 days of Appreciation

DAY 4

Good morning! It's day 4 of 24 Days of appreciation this december, where we shine a spotlight each day on those we appreciate in this fandom!

If you want to submit someone or something (for more info read here), you can do so here or just message me! If you wanna stay anonymous, either tell me or submit on anon.

Appreciation from me:

Today's appreciation is for @givemea-dam-break. I know you're not on tumblr a lot rn, so idk when you see this, but ofc I could never not make an appreciation post about you. I loveeee and adore everything have done for this fandom, whether it be your edits (heart-shattering, wonderful, fantastic, spectacular, the locklyle hands!!!!) or your fanfics. There is a reason why almost everything you've ever written is on my fic rec list, and imo you're in like the top three lockwood & co writers on this site. I'm not lying when I say that Touch is probably my favourite George x reader fic ever (at least top 3!!). Your feedback the fics I write is what keeps me going and it makes me so happy every time! I love that at this point we're also connected outside of tumblr and I get a little glimpse into your life. I just know that when we finally finish the collab fic (one day that will happen I swear lol) it will be the most iconic thing ever written. I am so grateful I get to know you, and I hope you're back soon! ily eden🫂💙

Appreciation from others (submissions):

from anon: Could I possibly submit @krash-and-co for the 12 days of appreciation thing you're doing? She is such a bright, bubbly, joyous person to be around. I love reading her posts because she always has such great ideas and hcs. She's so naturally funny! Her art style isn't my cup of tea, but she's sm better than me and it's super cute!! I honestly could easily imagine a cartoon or animation with her art style. And her writing, oh, don't get me started in her writing, MY GOD, her writing, the first time I read her work, I was awestruck by how similar to Stroud her writing was. Her fics are such a delight to read and her writing is genuinely so impressive. Definitely my favourite fic writer. I particularly adore the AU drabbles she writes because it's so interesting to see my blorbos in different situations. so exquisitely in a way we don't see in the fandom, I could go on and on about how much I love the way she writes. The talent she has is so impressive (allahumma barik), good at writing AND drawing!?!? Puh-lease!!

Show your appreciation and submit someone or something here :)

[crehador]

for asks, 5, 11 and 30

for 11, I mean longest maybe not time wise, but which daily stumped you the most overall? maybe an idea took a while to finalize but after that it was fast to write?

thank youuu for the ask! (っ˘ω˘ς )

5. what work of yours got more feedback than you expected?

honestly i think i will have to go with the one with the clones for this one because it was just. such a ridiculous crackpot fever dream idea that spiraled wildly out of control all thanks to the encouragement of my lovely horny regulars

i definitely didn't expect to spend as much time as i have with the clones (and would have probably tackled their story in a different format if i had) and i probably wouldn't have if not for the feedback! so thank you to everyone who has been following along with that hot mess lmao

ALSO HELLO ARKNIGHTS AU?! i mean that didn't get a ton of feedback or anything but it definitely got more than i expected, which was none. it is such a niche fusion that honestly i didn't expect anyone to like... read it while also knowing what arknights is, so i was thrilled to see you there lol and i want to write more of it one day!! snow leopard samatoki distant cousin of the silverash clan my beloved

11. what work took you the longest to write?

so whenever i sit down to start a daily, i create a new page in scrivener and title the page with the number. so if i'm working on daily 123 for example i'll title it "123." then start writing and add a more descriptive tag to the title after it's complete

but if i start writing something and don't finish it on the same day, i'll often just add another page above it and make that the new 123 without changing the previous one...

which is basically to say sometimes, when one idea stumps me for a while, my numbering system ends up looking like 156, 157, 158, 159, 123 lmao

anyway all this is to say, this has definitely happened a few times throughout the year, where one number just kept getting pushed down and down. i can't say for sure which one took the absolute longest

BUT ONE THAT I KNOW took a heinously long time was the prince/pirate request from a beloved mutual! i wanted to write that like as soon as the prompt came in because prince/pirate! what could be better!!

it wound up taking months, i think. (once again sincerest apologies dear mutual who had to wait. for. months.) i went through a whole bunch of different ideas, i think largely because each one wanted to be something bigger than a daily. something longer, more plotty, more substantial

(and so there may be at least one prince/pirate au coming next year lol)

so to answer the actual question here, it might have been that one, but more broadly speaking when a daily took a long time it wasn't usually for lack of interest in the idea, it was usually just Too Ambitious ideas that got me hung up

30. biggest surprise while writing this year?

honestly just... the fact that i actually did it. one fic a day. for samaichi/ichisama. every day. FOR A WHOLE YEAR. i mean okay the year is not quite over yet and i don't want to jinx it but it's pretty much mid-december already and i haven't missed a day?!

like. i had covid for the first time this year. and i didn't miss a day. not even god could stop me at this point. i'm fine. i'm normal

i've done "write every day" challenges before and even challenged myself to write and post every day before this at one point, but my longest streak lasted 50 days. and i'm coming up on 350 now so... yeah. definitely a surprise and a pleasant one at that lol

in terms of specific works... i'm a little surprised by my whole, like. high school au fugue state from earlier this year. where i committed to writing high school aus only for the entire duration of the samaichi high school au event in arb (which wound up being even more samaichi than it originally seemed WHAT DO YOU MEANNNNNN IT WAS ICHIRO'S DREAM ahem. anyway)

like i have nothing against high school au and i find it generally cute and occasionally fun to write, but i don't think i would say it's one of my top favorites. so a bit of a surprise that i was able to keep it up, and i remember having a ton of fun with it too! yes i cheated on occasion and had them as teachers instead of students BUT IT WAS STILL IN A HIGH SCHOOL SO. i say it counts lol

ao3 wrapped asks

[i-did-not-mean-to]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Ah, my dear @cilil has tagged me, and I'll try to do at least one Tumblr thing today. I had hoped that I'd have more time this weekend!!! This week was madness...I swear!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

391 (and yes, I am one of those who put between 7 and 133 different ficlets into one work to keep the number of individual works down).

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

1,800,713 (this does not include 2 longfics I've orphaned and several fics I've posted anonymously)

(but I've been writing since July 2021)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Tolkien, roles played by Richard Armitage, roles played by Adam Brown, the odd Dean O'Gorman fic for @laurfilijames, 1 Lucifer fic...)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Tumblr Imagines (it's a collection of ficlets from when I started and has over 200k)

October 2022 Ficlet run (Yeah, as I said, I don't post all my fics separately)

Black (Local folkore meets The Hobbit retelling

Silm imagines and ficlets (Again, a 50k+ collection)

"The only way is up" or "thrice stuck" (Smutty dream sequence with Thorin)

These are mostly my first writings which had had time to amass some few kudos :D

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Always!

It takes me a while sometimes, but I need people to know how much I love and appreciate their support! I love every comment, and I truly wish I was a little better at expressing myself when it comes to these things <3

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I honestly do not remember...Probably, Love letter to the man you've never got to be.

I usually don't do much angst 😇

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Very hard to say because I don't finish too many of my long fics lol. I'd want to say Sticks and stones (Christmas Hallmark story)...it's just that kind of story.

My TRSBs are usually "Happy End given the circumstances" rather than all-out Happy End...lol

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Thus far, no.

I am not relevant or known enough to attract that kind of attention!

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Me? No...(There have been spicy scenes in long fics, spicy fics, outrageous ficlets, Kinktober, Dead Dove December, MSV...Ok yeah, I do...and I do all of it. M/F, F/F, M/M, M/F/M...from vanilla to whips. You choose, I write)

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I am an AU bitch. I've done a HP drabble once...Les Mis/LOTR for last year's Christmas event...it happens...

Right now? Twilight Crack parody for a good friend :D

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't think so? Who would steal trash?

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nobody has ever approached me...

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yes...Once for last year's S&D, I am doing it now for the Calendar fic...I love collaboration, what can I say?

14. What’s your all time favourite ship?

Ship-ship? Russingon.

OC ship? Ori x OC

Rarepair? Nerdanel x Anairë

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Black - It's one of my first fics...and I've never written that last chapter.

I am also known for having written chapters and chapters of other longfics but just...never posting them lol

16. What are your writing strengths?

I am fast, I am versatile, and I am willing to write almost any character, dynamic, ship, and genre. From tooth-rotting fluff to noncon. From very vanilla M/F meet-cute to kinky sex.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I am bad at punctuation. I rarely have an outline, I just write. I do not plan, I do not come up with complicated worldbuilding, I have exactly 0 HC documents.

I just write whatever comes to mind.

Moreover, I have a real problem with posting. I write A LOT more than I post...because I just can't motivate myself to reread LOL

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I avoid even Tolkien's languages for fear of getting something wrong. I am fluent in at least 3 other languages, but I am not entirely sure whether there would ever be a place for them.

If I did that, I am afraid that it would become incomprehensible as the only one I wouldn't use is my mother tongue. It would sound a bit...magniloquent...

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Tolkien. Only fandom thus far...

20. Favourite fic you’ve written?

I don't know. Every so often, I write something I don't hate, but I can't remember right now loool

Open tag for everyone who hasn't done this yet :D

Tell me something about yourselves!

[itspixelatedfaeries]

Yes, it's mid-way through January, but I'm finally easing my way back into simblr, so I'm doing it now! I'm going to write a bunch of random goals (that I do want to accomplish, to be fair), and hopefully I'll check back in when December or January rolls around.

In one year, I managed to finish the rose generation and get maybe halfway through the yellow generation (in-game, I got to the beginning of the grey generation), but I also didn't really start playing again until the spring, so I'm going to be a little (um, a lot) ambitious and say:

finish posting the yellow generation

play and post through the grey generation

play and post through the plum generation

orange generation is at least born

I quite enjoy this legacy, but man am I taking it SLOW. In-game, things are finally moving a bit, but I have a feeling that I'll have many, many posts for generation one before I can finally post generation two, so I'll be a little more conservative here:

finish posting the first generation, which is actually generation zero, so I haven't actually begun to post the first generation yet 😭

post the actual first generation

be close to posting the second generation

I'm still on generation one in-game, but Felix is at least a teenager by now, and I honestly might age them up soon (they came out as nonbinary when they became a teenager) so I can get a move on, once I...

finish the last few goals for generation one

play through and post generation two

be on or about to start generation three

This is probably my most low-key legacy at the moment, and I hope to keep it that way - just have fun playing it and posting about it without getting too bogged down. So, simple goals:

complete generation one

complete generation two

And I'm spoiling things a bit, but I want to try posting another legacy (I know, I know), but it would be a bit of a challenge for me: I want to do more playing than posting, so it'll hopefully go faster, and I also want to try playing on short lifespan, so I decided to see if I could post it all in one year, approximately one generation per month, since it's all about the holidays in a year. I know this is quite ambitious, and there's a chance I'll get too hard on myself if I fall behind, but I want to give it a try (plus I made banners for all ten generations already 😁)

play and post all ten generations

How many of these goals will I achieve? All of them? None of them? One of them? Only time will tell! But if I want to achieve any of them, I'd better start playing/editing/posting soon, so I will go off and do that.

[spookfished]

media roundup june 2023

hey guys guess who just went "oh its the 4th of july. that means that its july" here im going to talk about things i read/watched/played last month! i didnt read as much but did finish a couple books that ive had checked out Forever. ok actually i read a lot woops

books/comics/written media:

fake dates and mooncakes by sher lee: fake dating (obv) premise between a cooking boy and a rich heir! book that made me realized im honestly just not that interested in ya romance anymore LMFAO. pretty sweet and a decent read, but landed more heavily on the expository end of uhh i guess diaspora fiction? than i really prefer. i think i picked this up bc the author got mega cancelled on tyk twitter lol??

bird by bird by anne lammott: book about how to write. i love to read about how people do stuff :3 some of the advice applies pretty universally to creative efforts i think.. made me want to write more too

john dies at the end by jason pargin: DNF. comic/horror about this loser guy who discovers stuff. sigh i tried so hard to like this book its supposed to be pretty 'mecore'...talked about this with alena a bunch but its like hm... i know the sort of casual offensiveness sort of goes in hand with being poor and white and in the midwest and i appreciate how its like that creates its own doomed narrative or whatever. but also i feel like the protagonist would call me slurs or something. also the lowgrade but pervasive orientalism is kinda offputting. probably fun for some other guy! i did enjoy the horror elements though

the goldfinch by donna tartt: literary coming of age about a boys relationship with a painting (the goldfinch). also he flops a lot and its sort of homoerotic i guess? a movie was made of it. so something to note is that ive had this book out on loan since literally december. neil kept on being like hey man just stop reading it LMFAO. thoughts cp'ed from discord:

why does the goldfinch feel like a 600 page leadup to the actual book which is 800 pages

idk at this point im kinda sick of pathetic lovelorn self obsessed semi literary men. like toku men are also sopping and pathetic but i think its more appealing when they are also kind and can be vulnerable. this guy is just annoying and kind of incel coded. like does a grand gesture to make up for the fact that he killed your dog while dogsitting

i actually did enjoy the parts post timeskip but i still think the first two thirds could have been cut or Greatly compressed or interspersed w the present or Something, yk? prose was nice though

the bodyguard by katherine center: romance novel about a woman bodyguard who lives for her job. fresh from a breakup, shes given a new undercover assignment with a handsome actor, recently withdrawn from society. will they be able to break each others' shells....? my mom recommended this to me LMFAO we kind of have different tastes in romance.. ive read a book by this author before i think her platonic scenes are very strong? i wish there had been a couple more of those. also i like how she always includes a life affirming section at the end about how important it is for us to open ourselves up to love etc etc cute but not especially memorable

kiss quotient by helen hoang: (reread) a shy, autistic econometrician decides that she needs to get better at sex, and so hires an escort. helen hoang is one of my faavorite romance authors i really enjoyed this reread although i kinda forgot that both leads say, think and do some pretty embarrassing things. but you know a little embarrassment is endearing and all that.. i still prefer her other book (the bride test) but this one is pretty good too. vivid characters 👍

sisters of dorley hall by alyson greaves: web fiction - a trans woman infiltrates a secret force-feminization program. ok im just cp'ing my thoughts from discord again but i enjoyed it a lot:

my thoughts are that the first like, third? is really really good. it like idk takes the very real trans fears of like discovery and passing and all that and fictionalizes them a bit. but like its still grounded and swag. sooo tense once The Reveal happens n things w steph are pretty normal it gets kinda meandering? which i dont really mind bc i love interpersonal drama even if i miss how tense and scary it was. but also theres only like two major plot threads going on rn and theyre both pretty slowburn. a timeskip would probably benefit tbh like the point rn is kinda like. the 7 year meteor? yeah sorry

like it used to be sort of psychological thriller? and now its sort of more character focus and also surprisingly fluffy.. im surprised that the author has said they have a complete outline bc it doesnt feel very focused atm? but also like i suppose things are snowballing a bit re: revealing the sisters to the outside world

an unauthorized fan treatise by lauren james: a fangirl trying to prove her rpf ship is real uncovers a greater conspiracy. to me if something is able to capture a specific age/vibe from the internet its automatically pretty good. however more and more people are learning how to do that so maybe i should change my standards... i was never involved in All That re: rpf or even fandoms of live action shows until kamen rider? but like i definitely knew people in hs that were sort of like this LMFAO so it felt very familiar. i appreciate the author trying to make that $$ but i dont know if it really needs an expansion/sequel.. the ending is better off with some ambiguity imo

impossible us by sarah lotz: literary romance? a man and a woman fall in love online, but encounter difficulties when they try to meet. ok im just pasting my thoughts here again (spoilers btw):

ok that was a lot of stuff. onto movies/tv:

xo kitty: kitty goes to a school to connect with her online boyfriend, but all is not well. yall this was not good. i guess my standards shouldnt have been that high but to all the boys ive loved before was so cute!! (havent watched/read the others). but like.. the writing was bad and the main actress just wasnt very sympathetic or charming? characters waste time saying "i can explain" until time runs out for them to actually explain, additional (and nonsensical) romance plots are added for no reason, and the male lead isnt even that hot. sorry. also kitty deciding to move to korea to connect with her mom but not bothering to learn a speck of korean and insisting that everyone else speak to her in english really sucks honestly. not even my mom liked it so thats how you know its bad 👎

succession season 1: yesss succession. greg is my favorite cant wait to see him become evil. makes me stressed

shin kamen rider (hideaki anno): reboot of the first kamen rider by the guy who made evangelion. this guy kinda makes the same thing over and over but it looked sick as hell so i wasnt complaining. like stella obstinaterixatrix said, kinda more introspective or even insular to the point of kinda ignoring the usual kr theme of justice but it was still very fun :3 kinda want to watch the original now

ready player one (movie): my parents made me watch this movie. aggressively mediocre.

kamen rider revice and live and evil and demons: pretty fun if you have the disease that makes you think revice is good, but mostly made me miss revice. i think they should have gone more into the clone thing but i always think that so

kamen rider juuga vs kamen rider olteca: two-parter special for kr revice. i forgot what happened in this pretty much immediately after but karizaki was hot

roman holiday: a princess touring in rome escapes her duties for a day, and meets a dashing young reporter. classic romance!! i actually liked this so so much like it actually is very romantic and funny and like deserves the hype. didnt expect it to be in black and white even so audrey hepburn is really hot. (spoilers) more romances should have bittersweet endings though like it hit

kamen rider ryuki: a young man is inducted into a battle royale between those fighting for their deepest wishes, and decides to try and stop the rider battle once and for all. hey guys ryuki is so fucking good for those who have watched madoka magica a lot of it is very heavily based off of/inspired by ryuki! but ryuki does it better. pretty much The kamen rider has so much to say about justice and love and what it means to be a hero and sacrifice and *runs out of air and falls over* also it made me cry. if you ever try kamen rider try this one <3

EDIT OH i forgot about across the spiderverse 100/10 obviously groundbreaking in animation nice take on generational trauma and also like the nature of adaptation and being in a multimedia comics franchise and all that. really hope the sequel doesnt get crunched too bad. oh but copaganda not great 99/10

video games:

twisted wonderland: gacha game where random disney villains are bishie high schoolers instead. ill play chapter 3 sometime soon i swear. gameplay is terrible as with most gacha games but the characters are cute? i feel terrible guilt for being involved with a disney franchise. honestly pretty compelling character writing sometimes though sorry

apico: stardew-like about raising bees (in beta). sooooo cute and the devs obv care about bees a lot in real life. the gameplay loop + breeding systems are a little bit punishing right now though i really hope it gets adjusted. took over my life during finals (woops) and i got like half the bees and then burnt out. multiplayer is fun though!

legend of zelda tears of the kingdom: the next zelda game, now featuring building + vertical elements. yeah this took over my life for two months like it did for a bunch of other people i finished the main story a couple days ago! i might go back to do a couple more of the shrine puzzles, but other than that i think im done. LOVE the vertical elements and also all the little sidequests there are to do and how the world has changed since botw. dragons tears was really good and OMG PROVING GROUNDS. would be a 10/10 if zelda was the protag stop damseling her you guys cmon

paper mario origami king: newest paper mario game, which is a spinoff of the main series where theyre all paper (duh). im about halfway through this, i think? tried it out because of the dunkey video lol and also bc it was free at my library. very charming and inventive, has a really good soundtrack and really funny writing! i know the gameplay was controversial, but im enjoying it a lot (and theres a lot of room for error). might 100% it

it feels like this month i tried a lot of things that i didnt really like LMAO. also a lot of romance. im very happy about finally finishing the goldfinch! the only holdout on my libby is slaughterhouse 5 :P i did find some things that i really liked though! anyways this one feels a bit more scattered but if you got to the ending, congratulations! thanks for reading :3

[thompsborn]

Just wanted to send a little reminder that even though you've planned to finish HB by Christmas Eve, everyone will still appreciate your work if you don't make this goal! Just because it's kind of soon and you haven't posted as much about progress since Ch16 dropped (which was perfect, by the way) so wanted to make sure that you weren't putting too much pressure on yourself to meet that goal :)

hi!!

first of all, thank you for saying this!! i have this habit of making promises that i know i COULD follow through on, but since there’s no consequences to NOT following through on them and there are other things that take priority (work, family, etc.) i tend to shove things to the back burner rather than put the effort in to follow through on my promises? if that makes sense? idk

so, i’m definitely going to TRY to reach this goal i’ve set out—and, honestly, it is entirely possible that i manage to! i can write a lot in a single day, like i wrote the first chapter of homeward bound (7.2k words) in a single sitting in december 2021 and i started the second chapter the same day i finished the first one but didn’t finish it. like it’s entirely possible for me to write hb 17 and 18 like. THIS WEEKEND. like i could, writing-abilities wise, write chapter 17 tomorrow and 18 sunday. that is well within my capabilities.

it’s less the writing-ability side of things getting in the way though haha. it’s more being tired and being busy. but!! i am NOT busy this weekend! my only plans are to do laundry, do some cleaning, go to a dog training sunday afternoon for like an hour with my best friend, and sleep!

that’s not to say that i’ll be as productive with hb as i would like to be - sometimes things get in the way, sometimes i end up being tired enough to sleep until like 1 pm lmao, shit might happen, but my HOPE is to get chapter 17 on a roll!

part of it is also that like, chapter 17 is basically the climax of the investigation? but hb is currently over 150k words and i have not been keeping very good track of the investigation in my notes and am lowkey paranoid that i’ve forgotten something important and such, so i’ve been rereading chapters 1-16 to make sure i have everything written down properly and accurately in order to close off that part of the plot in a way that is hopefully satisfying, which has taken time away from actually WRITING chapter 17, if that makes sense??

basically, i won’t promise anything, but i am still going to TRY and reach this goal, and i know that if i’m able to manage my time and maintain motivation then it is entirely possible for me to do so, but there is still probably a good 50/50 chance of it actually happening. but i’m hopeful!! and honestly every comment and ask i’ve gotten about hb has been SO kind and heartwarming that i know no one will be like mad at me if i don’t manage to make it work, which is a nice reassurance to give myself (i’ve mentioned this before, but the reason i stopped writing losers club fics was because of the asks being sent to me were very VERY rude and demanding and angry and i’m kinda just scared of that happening again here, even though i have not once been given a reason to think it would since writing for marvel/parkner, but still i get a little bit anxious about it)

so, genuinely: thank you for this, it does make me feel better and less worried about the idea of like. letting people down if i don’t manage to reach this goal? and i am not going to promise that i’ll be able to, but i am definitely going to try nonetheless!!

[happiighost]

Collecting my thoughts on Persona 5

Warning this gonna be a ramble/rant/a mess, whatever you wish to call it! I beat P5 a while ago (on June 9th) and I needed to stew on it. On one hand, it was super fun and I blitzed through a big chunk of it in two weeks in late December 2023. On the other hand, a couple arcs made me stop cold for a week due to how much things annoyed me. Came back months later to start and finish the 3rd semester in 3 days.

A part does wonder if I should've spaced out playing it more but I had the free time to keep going. I ended up with 120 hours of playtime when I completed it. I do wanna go back and replay it one day. There was so much I missed because I went in blind. The one guide I did have was how to unlock the 3rd semester (AND IT STILL GOT STUFF WRONG).

So here's my weird tier list thing read more for nonsense if you want below~

Okay, I'm sure my putting Morgana as my favorite will jar many people. I started the game assuming I'd hate him, ended with him just being a little guy. Honestly, I didn't expect him to be a party member. I thought he was a mascot guy who hangs out like in magical girl shows. Ended up adoring the little dude. He is a mouthy little kid at times sure. But he's excited to show everyone the ropes. Plus his puppy crush on Ann is adorable.

Futaba is another character I only saw memes about before playing. And this girl broke my heart. She did end up reminding me a lot of myself at that age (minus the kid genius, I'm a moron). From the goofy way of talking and her awkward mannerisms. Some of it hit a too-close home, especially with her being stuck at home all day. Plus the arc of everyone taking turns to help her out of shell was super sweet. Especially her just rambling her heart out about games to Joker. The amount times I do this to my older brother about whatever I'm into atm. I do wish we got ahold of her mom's research for her at some point.

Slight tangent from the tier list but p5 felt like a very weird time capsule to me. I'm very late to this party, but the year the game came out is the year it takes place. Which means I would've been the same age as Joker. The game does date itself several times and weird looking back on it.

Now Sumi and Akechi are just in separate tiers even though they should probably be in the top tier. I started the game not caring to much but grew to really adore them! I think a replay will make me pay attention to both of them more. because I noticed more stuff was off with Sumi very early (lack of blood first awakening, her school ID having a brown hair/a mole). It just bunch clues that don't get pay off till veryyyyy late in the game.

It's pretty apparent they crowbarred Sumi in the first part of the game. I think execution wise it could adjusted a bit to work better. I still think there is more to explore like her relationship with her sister and parents. Also would've killed to go to one of her meets/competitions. I wanna be her #1 cheerleader! Would love to cosplay her thief design, Violet, one day!

Speaking of her thief design sense so much of her character is emulating others and confirmed her violet design is based off Joker as her idea of "rebellion" I really wish she got a new design to further show her coming into her own. Unless it is confirmed somewhere she really was scrapped femc at one point. There's really little reason why her outfit has nods to jokers. At least change the color scheme to be more in line with Ella and her gymnast outfit. And her persona. being based on Cinderella is an odd choice for me. I feel the better choice to keep with the trickster theme is Odette/Odile. Last I wish I had few more scenes with Maruki post her 2nd awakening.

For Akechi... One of my old coworkers compared him to Dimitri from fe3h. I love Dimitri, he's a favorite character for me. But all I knew of Akechi was that he got shipped with the Joker a lot and he's "mean/tsudere". Other than that, nothing! I didn't know he was a murder going in. So to spite said coworker I kinda went in determined to dislike Akechi for poor Dimitri comparison (said co-worker kinda like bashing me for fe3h characters I liked and overall was not the most fun talk to about games I played.).

As a result, I didn't pay much attention to him at all in early supports. I went in thinking he is more like Inspector Zenigata from Lupin the 3rd (who is my favorite from The Little I've Seen btw!). But he kinda off put me off because I called him forcing the prince persona from when you met him. As the game went on I figured out he was black mask and just got more and more worried about the guy. It becomes pretty obvious by Futaba Palace he's gotten himself into something he not gonna easily get out of. It's pretty clear holding back what wants to say. Even when he joins I recall very long text messages about the "motivations" of the black mask killer. It's just him spiraling into an indirect makeshift confession of his crimes.

And the third semester where he little more honest in how he acts. He is not at all what I expected, his navigator lines are indeed hilarious to me (the delivery is similar to Hubert from fe3h they share eng voice actor) for the most part he gets the ball rolling and helps spearhead the 3rd-semester palace heist. He's very blunt but I wouldn't call him "tsundere" or "crazy" at all. He has trust issues for sure but The navigator lines seem to exception, as he comes off pretty level-headed outside of combat. He is very upset at the fact he got left off easy, he wants to face the consequences of his actions and works to make sure it happens. Though I still don't think Dimitri's comparison is apt. Besides the hair?

I have so much to say about akechi and sumi but I'll stop here!

This is more of an issue I have with the player/writing but you really can't reach out properly to any of the cast. Joker kinda feels like he's stuck as a rule of cool protag. So it seems a lot of the cast is talking at him. It's like the devs were a little torn on what direction to go with him. He's more like the smug scheming Lupin the 3rd vs gentlemen thief angle of the OG Arsene (and Miyazaki's Lupin 3rd run as well). So they kinda don't wanna make the player feel bad at any point if that makes sense. It's nice to see the original director did see this issue and fixed in his newest game metaphor (voice acting does wonders yall)

Even if you as the player get to point out stuff like where you need to go next. The game has to stop you until another character (generally Makoto) gives you the green light. The game seems to have a bad habit post Makoto joining, of having her and Futaba just info dump on the player which extenuates the issue. The only time they kinda dump an explanation I didn't see coming was how the whole interrogation room stunt worked. I'm honestly very surprised there wasn't more emotional fallout from said stunt. I know it's based on an actual Arsene Lupin story but one of the moments in the game post the reveal I was taken aback by.

I think my biggest issues with the game are the emotional tone and whiplash it can have from arc to arc. The support lines feel separate from the characters in the main story (even though they continue to lose ends from their initial arcs). I get there are a lot of characters to balance and some do end up fading in the background if they aren't stuck expositing the next plan at you. But it feels certain comedy moments really shouldn't have happened due to what occurred in the previous arc and in character support links.

There is also the issue of the game being very... aimed at the male audience. The first arc has the main antagonist a predatory adult sexually assaulting students. But you playing as a student can romance all the older adult women. Almost every female support you have, you can also romance. There are also several points in the game where you can pick a girl and go on a date or go with ryuji to hit on women who don't wanna be bothered. Even near the end of the game on Valentine's Day/Christmas the game hammers in how "sad or bad" it is if you choose to not romance anyone ( which I choose to do purpose). Even the way your support links with how the teacher starts to feel very invasive to her life outside of school. Ann at the start of Yusukes arc just makes me feel terrible for her.

I know I'm biased due to being a lady but it's just not cute nor funny to me guys just walk up and don't go away. I really would've been fine just sitting on the beach with Morgana or getting ice cream rather than getting forced into dates.

Well that's all for my word barf, if you read this I'm sorry. I'm not very eloquent as you can tell. Despite my complaints, i did enjoy the game i just think it has a very shakey execution on its themes for what ever plot currently demands in the moment.

[glassmarcus]

Pokémon Violet has Transcended Embarrassment

*Played in November 2022, Written in December 2022

Pokémon Violet does a surprising amount well. I still think it has a ways to go both as a Pokémon game and as an open world game, but it's still head and shoulders above what I expected and honestly MOST Pokémon games. I didn't presume much because this was rushed, but that's really not a new issue. This franchise is categorically rushed at this point. The last new batch that was actually finished cooking was Generation 5, and those are what I would classify as outliers.

You can look at games like Pokémon Platinum and Emerald and view them as easy cash grabs because dumb kids will buy the same game twice without reservation. I didn't buy Platinum when I was 11 because I thought I was getting grifted. "Why would I buy ANOTHER version of Pokémon Pearl?", "That game was awesome! There's not much to improve on", "I'm not gonna save up my allowance just so I can get a third option for a fire type" were the thoughts I had on the matter. It was after returning to Pokémon in my senior year of high school, when I replayed every Pokémon Generation, where the illusion shattered before my eyes. Pokemon Pearl...is really slow. Every action you take in that game is as slow as a Shuckle. It has the lowest speed stat of any Pokémon game by far. I didn't realize it before, because my perception of time was suspect when I was a preteen, but that game was not optimized at all. It wasn't recycling the same product, it was charging for the completed version. It's a patch, you put up money to get. That doesn't make it excusable really, but at the end of the day I'd rather a finished version of a game exist than not.

It probably wouldn't have been good to market it as Pokemon Diamond and Pearl: Actually finished edition, but it would have made it clearer to me as a consumer what was on the table. That's pretty much what they tried to do with Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon a decade later, but the complete versions of those games just happened to be worse than the betas. Plus, it's not like there is no precedent in the series for transparent updates that should have been there at release. It's just that most people don't know about them. The versions Pokémon that were released world wide had drastically better sprites and a few bug fixes to boot when compared the original Pokémon Red and Green. And even then, every version of Generation 1 is still full of holes. Pokemon, at its bare foundation, is a franchise that is OK churning out products that could use another year of development. Games like Yellow Version and Crystal looking back were honestly the only ones I'd consider pure cash grabs. Pokémon Yellow didn’t fix much from Red V2 and Blue. Gold and Silver were more or less complete. Ruby and Sapphire though, while they weren’t egregious in any way, the lack of post game content left them feeling like they were hurried in development, especially compared to the previous games' massive post game. This makes Emerald feel necessary in retrospect. People whine and cry about the lack of battle frontier for a reason. It wasn't just an additional thing, it completed the experience.

Platinum was the first case where a fix was implemented mainly for technical reasons rather than content ones. And because of those technical kinks being ironed out, the rest of Gen 4 and Gen 5 were as polished as the series has ever been. Then Pokémon X and Y happened. And while the performance wasn't an issue, it certainly had the same problem of feeling like a ton was left on the cutting room floor. Gen 6 is probably the most reviled generation of Pokémon and I can't help but think that's because A) they really are the worst games, and B) they had no “patch release” to fix any of its problems. I have fond memories of Gen 6, but that's because I had too much free time on my hands and they made EV training and online battling painless. The games themselves I've beaten twice and don't remember any of. It's the essentials with no flourishes, and as much as people would have welcomed another version with some meat on it's bones, a Pokémon Z would never happen. Sun and Moon had a dearth of content and a surplus of technical issues. An update for that game felt more necessary than in Gen 6. And like I said before in Ultra Sun and Moon’s case, they barely fixed anything and made that story worse and added content that was bad.

This marked the end of the "Third Version" era. If the things added just detract from the game, then why bother making them at all? Downloadable Content always seemed like the obvious route for Pokémon to go, but was never feasible due to the hardware. Any extra content they can't add on release, can just be developed later and sold for the price of not an entirely new game. Things like performance and bugs can be fixed in updates as well. So there's no real need to buy an entirely new version. Sword and Shield came out, lacked content, but announced DLC to make up for that lack of content. The DLC was decent, but that didn't really sway public opinion about the game itself. Its legacy is that of a paint by numbers poké. This is all based off the osmosis of opinions I absorbed from the circles I hang around in. Still haven't touched them myself. It's getting to the point where I'm about to play Sword and Shield for the sake of having my own opinion on it when I spend far too long developing context for these essays. It's agonizing having this gaping fissure in my Pokémon knowledge, but those games do look painfully mediocre, so I have no drive to try them.

People can look back at Gen 4 and think fondly of it because while it was initially a slog, it was improved later. Not just because it was optimized, but because the adventure itself was tweaked to be improved. DLC fixes the amount of content that can be contained in the game, but it does nothing to fix the distribution of said content. The main journey is still underwhelming and no additional content will change that. The third version wasn't just a patch, it was a second shot. There are design decisions and story beats which can be tweaked. Changes that would be awkward if done via an update. No matter how polished an addendum is, it can't make up for a rough draft being so rough. And that's what I was worried about for the new games. Because I knew they would be drafts just like almost all Pokémon games initially are.

Pokémon Violet has issues. It has spelling mistakes. It has busted grammar. It has misused vocabulary words. But it's still coherently formed and carefully crafted. It just turned in its work without using spell check. The base game is strong and nothing about it is broken. It's just kind of embarrassing, but the game confidently shrugs it off. Violet is populated with glitches, but the only one that really matters is the memory leak one after a long play session. Violet has extremely rough looking animations, but you will get over it and not really care after a few hours. The indoor exploration feels like a cheap visual novel, but that ends up being a small percentage of play time. Violet has low fidelity graphics, but the art direction more than makes up for it.

It might be because I played them back to back, but Pokemon Violet reminds me a lot of Sonic Frontiers. It's not Broken and Embarrassing like Sonic 06; It's not Broken, but polished on surface level like Sonic Lost World; It's just Embarrassing sometimes. And that’s funny. Most of the wild bugs you find in the game are things you laugh at and move on from and Violet is the same way. I'm not condoning games lacking polish, but I really can't get too upset at it. The only true killer is performance slowing down the pace of battles to near Gen 4 rates, and that is something I would call a major issue. Especially after how quick it was in Pokémon Legends Arceus which released in the same year.

I'm of two minds about this. Yes, they should give the game more time so that it's polished and presentable. I don't want to support smooth brained upper management and I wouldn't say I PREFER things to look awful, but when you change your perspective you can appreciate how hysterical this game turned out. We're at a point where Pokémon is unstoppable and the vote with your wallet approach is futile. So all I can do is be happy with the product being good enough. And yea, this is good enough. Probably the best Nu Pokemon game, an age bracket I’m gonna say extends from Gen 6 and onward. Not sure I can say it’s better than any of the old ones though. Why? Because they are far different experiences with different goals. Old Pokémon games were about building your team and overcoming obstacles. These new ones are about exploring and finding your favorites. There's probably more challenge here than in any from the past decade, but I still had to really try to not be over leveled. I was training like 20 Pokémon at the same time here, and caught 300 by the time I got to the credits. It's a middle ground between a traditional Pokémon and a Legends game. Which makes it not great at either. There's no satisfaction in overcoming anything, but exploration isn't as smooth as in Arceus. There's just...more of it. I remember areas in Arceus because they were smaller and had land marks and locations where only certain things happened. Violet is just larger and more connected, but it has the same motifs spaced out further. This game lacks interesting locales and events, and while the things you do are fun, I'd rather just do them in Legends where it's faster. It does nothing old better. Battling and catching is not what you go to Pokémon Violet for if you want the pinnacle of those activities.

The new it brings to the table is the best part though. Multiplayer works. Just being able to point out where things are to people and experiencing new Pokémon in stereo is the most magical part of this game. The synchronous wonder you feel during unions do a lot to enhance the feeling of adventure. It wears off once you're near the end of the game and things are inherently less exciting, but it's still relatively seamless and only additive. It starts to feel like a MMO. But instead of massive it's micro. People have been asking for a Pokémon MMO since the dawn of high speed internet access, and while it's not there yet, it's at least something.

The story is also the best the franchise has had due to its approach. Instead of 1 story arc that takes itself far too seriously and takes too long to tell, you are given 3 story arcs with a final one at the end. Each story arc is easy to follow and character driven, endearing you to the setting and cast. All 3 are genuinely touching tales. And when things started to pop off and get serious at the end, I was more engaged in learning the outcome more than other Pokémon games aside from maybe Sun and Moon. I can attribute a lot of the strengths of this story to those games as well, but they’re held back by linear structure and can feel like you are getting pelted by story at all times. In Violet, no storyline feels like they are interrupting your adventure because you can do them at your own pace. I liked this game about as much as Moon, but I will never replay that game. The story is far too obtrusive. So I have to prefer Violet just based on how much replay value it has, not just because the story is structured better, but because I'm certain my next play through will be FAR different.

The non-linearity is yet another thing this game brings to the table. A lot of people were bothered that this game doesn't have level scaling for gyms and other equivalent goals. I expected them to do this so you can do things in any order you want. But they didn't and it was a great decision, because now it feels like I’m breaking the rules by doing things out of order. It feels more free when there are structures you can surmount. I liked doing gyms out of order in the first two Gens and this is the logical extension of that. Having the challenges curve with badge amount makes it feel like you've been placed in a bounding box and would make it impossible to attempt to punch above your weight class. Personally, I think it's good for players to have the freedom to get bodied by lv 30 Pokémon near the beginning of the journey. It builds character.

Having a variety of goals also helps break Pokémon out of its linear structure. You can swap between storylines whenever and in any order you like. And each one gives different rewards. If you prioritize movement, you take on titan sized Pokémon to get traversal upgrades. If you want higher level Pokémon to obey you, take on gyms. If you want a wider variety of attacks for your Pokémon, you take on Team Star. The path the player walks along is not driven entirely by curiosity, but by implementing a system that supports prioritizing some modular aspects over others. Players who beat the game will end up at the same place, with the same abilities, but with a different story. Pokémon has sort have always been that way. Everyone becomes champion with a different team that you bonded with along the way, with their own tale of how they succeeded in each challenge. But now that those challenges have no order, there's an even greater variance the narrative you can craft.

I wish this game was finished. I want there to be free updates that enhance performance and fix memory leaks. I want there to be DLC with more to explore. But I do not want a third version. Because the bones of this game are strong and Game Freak is really onto something.

[raincitygirl76]

I know “did he say he would give up the crown for you?” Is an iconic line. That said, I want to inject some realism. Wilhelm CAN’T abdicate until he’s 18. Right now he’s 16 going on 17, and legally still a child. And honestly, for a huge, life-altering decision like that, I wouldn’t expect him to make it at 18. Yeah, 18 is old enough to vote, join the military, and make your own legal decisions, but most people are still pretty emotionally immature at 18. God only knows i was! Abdicating is a massive decision for a teenager.

Plus, even if he abdicates, his face would still be instantly recognizable. His life would probably be closer to normal as the ex-Crown Prince than as the current Crown Prince, but he would never be able to lead an entirely “normal life”. He would probably still need bodyguards for his own safety, but since he would no longer be part of the royal family, he’d have to pay for them himself. At 18, where would he get the money? If he abdicated, Kristina would be furious. I can’t see her setting him up with a trust fund for his post-royal life.

I’m not saying it’s impossible that Wilhelm might abdicate one day. If that’s what makes him happy, he should go for it. But if he does, realistically, I hope he waits until he’s at least finished university. He needs more life experience under his belt before he makes a decision that would affect the entire rest of his life. And would probably result in him becoming permanently estranged from both his parents. I mean, I know Kristina and Ludvig aren’t winning any parents of the year awards, but since Erik’s death, they’re the only immediate family he has left.

Don’t get me wrong, I think Wilhelm exploring the POSSIBILITY of abdication is a very important part of his S2 arc. Therapy with Boris helps him realize he’s allowed not to be grateful for his privilege, because it’s also a burden. He didn’t earn it, he didn’t choose it. Thinking about potential alternate futures is a healthy thing to do when the status quo has you miserable. But exploring a possibility with your therapist isn’t the same thing as pulling the trigger on a life-altering and irrevocable decision that you can’t make yet legally anyway.

Also, S2 Wilhelm is privileged but has zero autonomy. His mother and the royal court shoved him back into the closet in December. When he flipped out in January, his mother ordered his bodyguards to remove him from Hillerska by force. The only reason it didn’t work was all the students outside his room with camera phones. Wilhelm has to eat 3 meals a day, every day, in the same room as the sex offender who put his naked body all over the internet, knowing his mother protected said sex offender over her only surviving child.

In 2.06, Wilhelm coming out isn’t only about his relationship with Simon (although that’s the biggest reason, obviously). It’s also about Wilhelm seizing a chance to make his own decisions for once. Once he’s outed himself to the world on live TV, his parents and the Royal Court no longer control the narrative. They wanted him to keep lying to protect the monarchy’s image, and they would never have wanted him to stop. I know Kristina said he could come out when he turned 18, but i’m pretty sure she was stalling.

Now they have an openly queer Crown Prince, they have much less leverage over him. And I don’t think it’s necessarily being Crown Prince that is what Wilhelm hates most, it’s having no control over his life. If he manages to grab more autonomy for himself, he will feel less helpless. And he may end up coping better with his position as Crown Prince.

He might still abdicate eventually, but the job isn’t necessarily the biggest problem. It’s being treated like a disobedient child by his parents and the Royal Court that stresses him out the most. In S1 he’s forced to make two different media statements that are both lies. The one in 1.01 where he claims he and his parents mutually decided he would enrol at Hillerska, and the one in 1.06 where he claims he wasn’t in the video. He didn’t want to make either statement, but he succumbed to the pressure and did what he was told.

After the jubilee speech in 2.06, it becomes a lot more difficult to force Wilhelm to lie to the press and the public. In fact, putting him in front of the press and the public at ALL becomes problematic in the wake of the jubilee. If he’s gone way off script on live television once, he could do it again. The queen and the royal court will view him as a loose cannon. But they’ll also be forced to negotiate with him, and he’ll be negotiating from a position of strength.

Yeah, in 2.05 Wilhelm says he could give up the throne to be with Simon. And I’m sure he means it. Also, it’s possible he hasn’t connected the dots yet and realized a minor can’t abdicate. But that isn’t a decision he could take tomorrow. The biggest takeaway from that line, I think, is that he’s contemplating a step that big at all. It’s narrative shorthand for “I love you. You matter to me. The chance to be with you is more important than all the status and money.”

Also, that line, as much as I want it on a t-shirt, isn’t the most important part of that scene. Wilhelm gives the decision to Simon. He acknowledges he shouldn’t have kept the truth about August from Simon, and he’s trying to make amends by giving Simon control. Simon can choose to press charges against August, in which case Wilhelm will feel obliged to stay Crown Prince, or let August off the hook, in which case Wilhelm could eventually let August take over.

But Wille makes it clear that’s Simon’s decision to make, it’s not just symbolic, and it’s not a decision Simon has to wait to make until he’s 18. Wilhelm promises he will abide by whatever Simon decides. And then he does! Simon chooses going to the cops over letting August get away with it and potentially getting back together with a Wilhelm who plans to abdicate. Wilhelm, although clearly terrified, doesn’t try to talk him out of it.

If Wilhelm has zero autonomy in S2, Simon’s autonomy is a negative integer. He didn’t get to pretend he wasn’t in the video, because everyone could see his face. He’s been fucked over repeatedly by multiple different people. Including his sister, August, Jan-Olof, the queen, his ex-boyfriend, his new boyfriend, and his parents. Micke is, well, Micke. And Linda is so happy he’s dating that nice steady Marcus she ignores the inconvenient fact that her son is acutely uncomfortable when she talks about the guy. Read the room, Linda!

Yeah, Wilhelm meant what he said to Simon about abdication in 2.05, but at their age, it’s a symbolic gesture. The more important thing was that he let Simon decide how to handle whether to press charges against August. Even when Simon made the decision that was rejecting Wilhelm’s offer to abdicate. Wilhelm doesn’t just want to seize autonomy for himself, he wants Simon to have autonomy too.

Poor boy needed a few minutes to process all that (or maybe days)

[vgperson]

What Did I Do In 2022?

Game Translations That Aren't YTTD: 1. Okay, maybe 1.5.

----

First of all, while I didn't add it until later in the year (not entirely unmotivated by the Stability of Platforms), my site now has an RSS feed for notable updates of any kind! I mention this upfront because I'm mostly just going over the things that are already listed there. It currently retroactively covers everything back to 2020, but I might add more past stuff over time so it can better serve as a general "everything I've ever done" page.

In February, I translated Kenshi Yonezu's POP SONG (and an interview). Noel The Mortal Fate Seasons 1-7 also got a revamped version on consoles (Switch, PS4); the console versions include a new Season 3.5 translated entirely by me, and the rest of the seasons have a revised script which is more thoroughly edited by me than even the redone Steam translation was.

In March, the update adding Kai to Your Time To Shine came out. Yes, he is Kai.

In April, I finally finished up my unofficial Japanese translation patch for Petal Crash. たのしいね、クラッシュ！ It actually just got some extra attention after the Petal Crash run for RTA In Japan about two days ago, which is kind of wild. Is this what it's like to be famous...? (clueless)

In May, I translated Kenshi Yonezu's Shin Ultraman theme song M87 (interview, interview), and the coupling song from the single, ETA. And there was an article about the 10th anniversary of his debut!

Also in May, the Ib remake came out on Steam in English! Told you they'd contact me. It was later announced to be coming to Switch, scheduled for March 2023.

In August, Your Turn To Die was announced to be coming to Steam. It's planned for early 2023, but to be clear, it'll release first in Early Access still with no final part, though with some exclusive mini-episodes and character profile sheets. Apparently once that's out, the actual completion is estimated for 6 to 12 months later... but, you know. Estimates are hard.

In September, I put together a guide for and officially "released" my Custom Translation Engine plugin for RPG Maker MV, the one I made for the Ib remake, and back-implemented into Your Turn To Die shortly after I was contacted about it coming to Steam. It's fancy (in-game language switching!), convenient (minimal direct editing of code!), and you can use it for your own translation projects if you want!

In October... well, I didn't do anything new for it, but I'll take credit for The Witch's House MV coming to consoles. (Switch, PS4, Xbox) I also translated everyone's favorite Chainsaw Man opening KICK BACK, associated interviews, and the single's coupling song Y'all Should Be Ashamed.

Finally, in December, after lots of spending my time elsewhere and indecision about how I should go about returning to doing some dang free game translations, I concluded that what I'd really wanted to do all year was translate Uri's PEDESTAL.

I think some people latched onto specific parts of Uri's original explanation for why it wasn't being translated, such as the cultural aspects (I honestly winced at her blunt remark that the story was "no good at all"), but while Uri indeed had those doubts at the time of release, the only real reason it wasn't translated at the time is that I did a less-than-ideal rushed playthrough that slightly hurt my overall impression of its quality, and I felt too busy at the time to work on something with lots of text that was likely to be divisive. So similarly, me finally feeling up to it was the reason it did get translated. I probably should've come back to it quite a bit sooner (after I was made to give up a certain other translation, say), but as I alluded to in last year's post, I was self-conscious about "my big return to free game translations" being something that might not have wide appeal. Uh, glad to be past that, hopefully.

Oh, and ever since finishing PEDESTAL, I've been working on all sorts of overhauls to my site, but like... not the kind that actually majorly changes any part of the visible design and annoys people (and if something did change in an annoying way, it's probably accidental). Some of it's just better consideration of mobile browsing (stuff like images or tables sticking out of bounds at mobile resolutions), or making things more convenient for myself behind the scenes (did you know I made a program to add "br"s to every line of all lyrics content before considering I could just have the page code do that, and also better?).

Some more major observable changes include general renovations to the lyrics page (bigger font size, buttons that hide individual languages to aid in side-by-side comparison), and more convenient navigation of OSTER's tweets, such that I could actually imagine someone reading through them all the way from the start without it being too much of a hassle.

----

While I'm glad to be over the PEDESTAL hump, I don't... necessarily have any definite plans for upcoming free game translations. I mostly just have some stuff on a list that I may have to make myself check out soon enough. Also, Game Atsumaru (which you may know as The Site That Hosts YTTD's Japanese Version) is ending in June??? So uh, might have to accelerate checking out stuff on there, though I guess it depends on how many creators are able to migrate. (Nankidai does plan to put YTTD's Japanese browser version up somewhere else.)

As I mentioned, Your Turn To Die's Early Access release on Steam should be coming up early next year with those mini-episodes and character profiles, and the game might be completed within the year. No promises. I mean, I don't have anything to promise, it's not my game.

Speaking of my game... also no promises. But I'd really like to release one. We'll see what happens. There's also a different kind of original project I recently returned to trying to make real, which could come early in the year, but who knows. As should be apparent, I'm working on a lot of different fronts here, so I frequently feel bad about neglecting such-and-such type of creative work, which sometimes means nothing actually gets done and released. Ultimately, though, it's probably better to follow what I most feel like doing, rather than force focus on one thing and end up not actually getting much done.

Which is to say: hoping to finish something in the new year!

[hydrangea-bindery]

I posted 70 times in 2022

That's 70 more posts than 2021!

6 posts created (9%)

64 posts reblogged (91%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@renegadepublishing

@agatharights

@sbooksbowm

@greaseonmymouth

@a-gay-old-time

I tagged 48 of my posts in 2022

Only 31% of my posts had no tags

#bookbinding - 43 posts

#inspiration - 32 posts

#fanbinding - 29 posts

#ficbinding - 27 posts

#bookbinding resources - 9 posts

#hydrangea-bindery - 4 posts

#complete - 4 posts

#insipiration - 3 posts

#hydrangea bindery - 2 posts

#booksbooksbooks - 2 posts

Longest Tag: 103 characters

#maybe not interesting or big but i really like the muted color choices with the red of the opening page

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Sorry I haven’t posted any bindings on a while! I’m currently in hospital for a surgery😖😖 but I do want to let you guys know that I now have an Insta, where I post more frequent in-between updates and the like, so please go give me a follow there too! You can find the link in the pinned comment, or on Insta at hydrangea_bindery!

1 note - Posted September 14, 2022

#4

Haha this is silly but I hope you know I really love this blog. I love seeing your projects and I love seeing you reblog other projects. It’s very inspirational and aspirational to me.

No this is not silly at all!!!!! You’re my very first ask!! I always see you reblogging my posts, and it makes me smile. Thank you for telling me that you like the stuff I make, it makes me really really happy to hear that!! I was having a pretty bad morning up until this point, when I saw this, and it made me feel a lot better actually.

And I love your stuff!! I love your Pokemon and Disco Elysium art, especially the animation you made. I think I probably listened to Dancing Queen on repeat for like the next two days, and I think i’ve watched it like three times now? I guess what I’m trying to say is thank you!!! For both your support, and for your amazing art. We’re in this together👏😆

8 notes - Posted December 1, 2022

#3

My next binding! I actually started to work on this one concurrently to Browniefox’s copy of ‘The Haunting of Ryunosuke Naruhodo’, but I didn’t have time, and only just finished recently, and apart from the last signature being too small, I’m really happy with this one! ‘Stay the night with the sinners’ by @bodhirookes is my all time favourite shyan fic, and it’s honestly what got me back into the ghoul boys in the first place, and what finally pushed me to finish watching s7, even more so with the announcement of Watcher! Every line feels like a gut punch in the best way possible, and the world feels fleshed out and truly passionately lived in and you KNOW I love me some angel/demon.

See the full post

44 notes - Posted August 18, 2022

#2

See the full post

67 notes - Posted November 11, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

THE CASE OF THE MAN WHO TWO-THIRDS WASN’T THERE • @glisteningceruleaneyes (sorry for not tagging you originally, I didn’t realise you had a tumblr account!!)

Three-and-one-third bodies have been found in an abandoned vehicle on the riverbank.

It would be a challenging case even without the bad weather, weapons smuggling, white nationalists, industrial accidents, and the concept of pedigree dog breeds—but over it all hangs one troubling question: What is it that fascinates you about Kim Kitsuragi? Is it working class camaraderie? A sinister hex of mysterious origin? Did you imprint on him in Martinaise, like an amnesiac duckling? If you don’t figure out what’s going on soon, people are going to start to notice. Especially him. And sooner or later? Everything is related to the case.

See the full post

267 notes - Posted September 26, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[pebblysand]

[I WOULD LIKE ...]

As you may have seen on Discord, I recently had to go through the #corporatemillenial hell of writing down “goals” for my IRL boss to review and approve. I laboured over the bloody thing for an entire week, proof if needed that there are different types of writing and that I can clearly write 50k of fanfic in three months and still struggle to come up with three lines of actionable professional targets. 🤣Especially knowing that they will inevitably land me the same “meets expectations” at my yearly review that literally everyone else in the #corporate hell I live in gets. Hooray!

This being said, I’m on holidays from IRL work at the moment and I feel like in fanfic and blogging land, the year is coming to a close. It’s funny: ever since I was a child, I’ve always seen the year running through September to August, rather than January to December. Even now - I’ve been out of school for five years, and I still think of it that way. First, I reckon it's the fact that the end of August is usually when I take my only actual, long holiday of the year, and is thus also when I have time to sit down, reflect, breathe, recharge and, most importantly, as someone who is very future-oriented: decide what I want to do next.

I’m also an August baby, so coming up to my birthday on the 26th is actually when another year has officially gone by. Lastly, my friends often affectionately call me a sunflower, meaning I’m boosted by the sun, the heat, long summer days, etc. I’m much more likely to start something/decide on a new project in the summer than in January, where I just want to lay under the covers and sleep until it’s light again. There is a reason why the first chapter of Castles came out at the end of summer 2020, haha. 

So, I’ve decided to learn something from my corporate job and sit down to write… things I would like to see happen, this coming school year. These are not “goals” - I’m not tying myself to any of it and am happy for them to change, but it’s just stuff which I’d like to make happen, if I’m able :).

So, without further ado: here is below a list of five things I'd like to see happen between now and August 2023.

1. I WOULD LIKE... TO FINISH CASTLES

Out of all of these, this feels the scariest, but also the most likely to happen. I’ll edit and publish chapters 14 and 15 in the autumn, then probably take a few weeks off writing in October (I’m going to the US for work, then my mum will come to visit in Dublin for her birthday so time will be scarce).

I would then like to write a new ROAR fic in November/December (basically post by Christmas), though I can’t decide if it’ll be the Hermione one (which I really want to write because one of the plotlines is Very Relevant at the moment and matters to me) or one of the Peaky Blinders stories (Ada’s probably), because I get depressed in the autumn (see above) and PB is my comfort TV series. I'm leaving that open - we shall see, haha.

But then, in 2023, I feel like January to August might be the time during which I bury myself into castles again and write the five chapters I have left. Could this be? Honestly, I'm terrified to finish (what will I do next? 😱) but I'm also so fucking excited. If I could make this happen, I would be the happiest gal in the world!

2. I WOULD LIKE... FOR THE PODCAST (@thefanficwriterscraft) TO CONTINUE, GROW, AND POTENTIALLY BECOME FINANCIALLY INDEPENDENT

If you’d told me a year ago that I’d have a podcast about fanfiction going (and going strong), I’d have laughed at you. But, now, seven episodes in, I am loving every minute of it. Every new episode seems to do better than the last in terms of downloads and feedback/engagement, and hearing from you guys about how you found it interesting/helpful is honestly the absolute best thing! It makes all the work that goes into it (planning the episodes, recording, editing, etc.) totally worth it. I would like for the podcast to continue to grow, build an audience, build on its themes and episodes, and generally bring something good and useful in the lives of the thousands of fanfiction readers and writers, out there. In my head, it’s my way to (a) help new and existing writers and readers, and (b) contribute to the legitimisation and de-stigmatisation of fanfiction as an art form, which I’ve always struggled with and am obviously very passionate about. I know we've received feedback to that effect already, and it's honestly made my year so far!

In terms of the future of the podcast, as we’ve said before, we’d like to start interviewing more writers about their work, or a particular theme of interest to them, like we did for episode 6. Some might say it’s a good way to extend our reach with more diverse audiences but honestly, most importantly, it’s just fucking fascinating to hear other people’s perspectives on writing. Personally, I find listening to what other people have to say much more fun than listening to the sound of my own voice, haha. That’s one of the things I’m really hoping to do in the next year but getting people to agree to record/do interviews is obviously rather hard. We’ll get there, though. Hopefully! In the meantime, as I've said before, if there's anyone you'd like us to have on, let me know!

Lastly, regarding the podcast, while I’m not hoping to get rich off of it (lol), I would like for it to support itself. I currently pay $12/month for hosting (but I might change platforms soonish, I'm not sure), and I’d like to find some sort of sponsor for that. Not that I can’t afford it, I 100% can and I’m happy to, but it would be great if this just found a way to balance itself. At the same time, I'm always very awkward about asking people for money, especially since I have a cushy corporate job that pays me a comfortable wage. So, I don't know.

I’ve not really looked into anything or even talked with Lani about it yet, and frankly, I’m not sure if it could even happen, but I’d still like it to be at least not a negative entry, financially. It is rather hard, though, because from what I’ve quickly researched online, you need at least a thousand downloads per episode to monetise through ads (and let me tell you, we are far from that lol). The other sustainable solution is patreon (one-time donations are nice, but monthly is better, you know?) but on top of the asking-people-for-money struggle, Patreon also requires you to provide extra benefits and advantages, in exchange for support. To be honest (see point 5 for more info on this), I am totally at capacity in terms of what I can offer the internet at the moment, and don’t know where on Earth I would find the time to offer something extra. 

So, I don’t know. It’s one of those things I’d like to see happen, but I don’t know how. Honestly, if you’ve any ideas, let me know. Also, if there’s anything else/new you’d like to see us do on the podcast, please tell me, too :). I'm doing this because I enjoy it, but also for you guys 🥰.

3. I WOULD LIKE … TO WRITE MORE FANDOM/WRITING POSTS

I was under the impression that no one read them but these days, I can’t seem to go anywhere without someone mentioning one of my long opinion posts on fandom/writing to me, which I linked here. So, I’ve been thinking: maybe I should write more of these? You guys clearly seem to enjoy them, and I'm pig-headed Gryffindor with Opinions, so it suits all of us 🤣. There’s certain writing advice/fandom stuff that wouldn’t necessarily fit within the podcast if they require visuals for example, and I’m like: why not write them out? Some people contribute to fandom via writing metas, but I’d love to write about: the monetisation of fanfiction and copyright law, the fandom move to discord, fanfiction stats, etc. That’s stuff that’s kind of outside the realm of the podcast, that I’d also be keen on exploring. 

I was already going to do this last year and began with the 15 things I learnt post in January, then the editing one in February, but then the podcast happened, and I also spent so much time writing castles… I think if I’m gonna do it, I’d have to write them during those months I’m taking “off” writing, then schedule them for later. I love writing these and I can see you guys like them as well so I really want to try and make it work, somehow. 

4. I WOULD LIKE... TO READ MORE FIC

I feel legitimately embarrassed by this but I think since January, I’ve probably read less fic than I can count on my fingers. And, it’s not that I don’t like reading fic, to the contrary, but I find it So Hard to find fic to read in the Potter fandom. I used to live in fandoms where you could reasonably refresh AO3 every day and be served with a reasonable number (20/30) new fics, so looking through those and finding a couple you wanted to read was nice and easy. I used to read at least a fic every night.

But in HP, it’s all about tags, genres, ships, etc. and there's thousands of fics published every day. I don’t fucking know how to search. I don't know what I want to read before I read it. I can be convinced of a lot of things, if the writing's good. For example: I’m not interested in the Marauders - should I always exclude all the Sirius/Remus fics? But then, I’m not opposed to the pairing, I just don’t want it to be all about them, and what if I exclude good fics that just happen to have this tag? I also don’t love fluff, but sometimes I like certain fluffy fics, and sometimes fics have that tag amongst others. And, I used to go through people’s bookmarks (either people who’d bookmarked fics I like or fics I wrote) but now everything that’s popping up I’ve already read, or people generally have less varied taste than I do. Like, if you look at my bookmarks, there’s: character pieces, a bit of Romione, a bit of Hinny, a bit of Harmony, a bit of gen, a couple of Dramiones even, etc. But most people are only focused on one thing, which I respect, but it’s not helping my own selfish search, you know? 🤣. I always end up giving up in the end and go back to my books. 

I want to hire someone to go through AO3 for me, find the good fics and send me a weekly digest lol. 

5. I WOULD LIKE... TO FIND A BETTER WORK/LIFE BALANCE

Last but not least, as they say. This is the toughest one because for the life of me, I don’t know what to do about it. What I do know is that I work at my day job 30-40 hours a week (depending on work from home, etc. let’s be honest, I’m not productive all the time), spend around 10 hours a week on this blog/the podcast, and when I’m writing (which, let’s be honest, is most of the time) easily 20 hours a week on that, plus generally any hour I’ve claimed back from my 9-5 to illegally (sue me) write fanfic during my work hours. My last relationship tanked for the sole reason that I didn’t have time to see him + see my friends, and I can’t justify abandoning my friendships, so something had to give. 

And, it’s hard because a lot of the time, when you say (even to people who love fanfic) that you spend so much time on it, they say: “Oh, don’t worry, chill, it’s just fanfic,” which I know comes from a place of love, but also it’s one of the things in my life that makes me happiest and keeps me sane. My 9-5 brings me money, but writing is what makes me happy. And, chatting with you all, and maintaining the podcast, and the blog - that also brings a smile to my face. It’s fun. I want to do it more. And, yes, it’s fanfic, but it’s writing, first and foremost. So, I don’t want to give that up. I can’t afford to give up my day job, and I don’t want to stop seeing those I love. I struggle to find time for everything.

There’s a whole rhetoric amongst millennials at the moment that’s like: your day job can just be about money, it doesn’t have to be your passion, etc. which I totally agree with, but also how realistic is it to have a full-time job, a time-consuming hobby, exercise, a family, a significant-other, friends, and a decent mental health? Like - how? I’m slowly starting to rest, being on hols at the moment, but when I finished my last writing sprint I was absolutely burnt out. And, it’s also hard to face how long it takes you to work on something and finish it, when you’re working on it part-time. I know I could have finished Castles in a year if I hadn’t been employed. Yet, here we still are, two years later (sigh). 

So, I don’t know. Honestly, what I’m hoping is that I can somehow sustain this rhythm on and off until I finish Castles and also have enough money saved (from my previsions, looking at January 2024) to quit and live off my savings for six months to a year. I also think I would feel better quitting once Castles is finished in the way that I wouldn’t just be quitting to write fanfiction which doesn't have any recognised value, both as an art form and as an economic thing, but quitting to write my own stuff. I know I could write original work, and ultimately I want to, it’s just the time that’s lacking, and I find it hard to sustain multiple long projects at once (i.e. castles + original writing). I would like to not be burnt out by the end of next year, but who the fuck knows? If anyone out there has any idea how to make work, please let me know haha.

.

Anyway, these are the “I would likes” for this coming school year. If you feel like doing your own, even in your own head, don’t hesitate to do so! If anything, this was quite exciting and cathartic. Fuck capitalism which prevents me from blogging and writing fanfic all day haha!

Lots of love,

-jo