#just an a level paper so not that hard to revise for

[thursdayg1rl]

just realised this term ends on the 31st...

[astermath]

the harrington way･ﾟ☆

pairing: steve harrington x fem!reader

summary: steve won’t stop distracting you from studying for your midterms. to soothe your frustrations he uses his own, supposedly more effective way of quizzing you.

word count: 3.1K

tags: kinda mean!steve, reader is in college, established relationship, oral (f receiving), a bit of a breeding kink lol, reader is a bit of a brat, unprotected sex (wrap it before u tap it guys) minors dni!

notes: inspired by this ask that @stevenose wrote out for me, tysm for the inspo <3 i'm a history major so I sprinkled some history trivia in there lol

please let me know what you think!

Midterms had been positively kicking your ass. You’d been working harder than the devil, spending half your time awake in the library or at your desk, stressed out of your mind. And your boyfriend was well aware of this too.

He’d tried countless times to coax you out of your room for a date, even just to go get dinner, but to no avail. You felt bad, of course, you didn’t want your relationship to suffer under the circumstances of your education. But college is a privilege, your parents both worked very hard to help you achieve your dreams, and you weren’t about to let them down.

So, you’d compromised. You let him stay in your room while you went over your last chapters for premodern history. It was supposed to only be an hour before you’d finish up and the two of you could watch a movie, but the words weren’t sticking in your mind whatsoever. Maybe you’d overworked yourself, your stress levels way beyond anything anyone could consider healthy, but you were determined to keep trying.

You groan, flipping your glasses up to rest on your head while you rub your face. The sound made Steve rise from your bed to his feet, popping up behind you.

“You ‘kay sweetie?” His large hands settle onto your shoulders, concern only growing when he feels how tense they are.

“No,” you lean your head back, and you could see his brows furrow worriedly at the sight of your eye bags, “I’m going to explode if I have to read about another another dynasty…”

“Well, don’t,” he leans down to press a soft kiss to your lips, “I prefer to have you in one piece.”

“And I love you Stevie,” you lean back forward, hunched over the dozens of papers on your desk, “but I prefer to pass this course. I seriously cannot retake this.”

He sighs, hands gripping a little tighter at the taut muscles of your shoulders. It was like you were an elastic band, stretched so thin you could snap any moment. You were grumpy, and it wasn’t your fault, he knew that, but he missed spending time with you. He’s not used to spending this much time apart, even if it for the sake of your studies.

“Come on,” his thumbs press into your shoulder blades, “let me help you out a little, at least.” He starts making circular motions, and you bite your lip to suppress a groan at the contact. “Let Steve’s magical hands to their thing.”

You could just hear the smirk in his tone, but there was no possible way you could be relaxing when you hadn’t even properly revised yet. “Steve, I—“ you interrupt yourself with an accidental whine from his impromptu massage. “I can’t relax right now, I haven’t even used my flash cards yet.”

His eyes flit to the pastel cards placed on your nightstand. Clearly you’d been revising a lot before bed, which wasn’t exactly helping your sleeping schedule either.

“I can help with those.”

“You?” You lean your head back again, expecting a joking grin, but instead being met with a genuine smile. Steve wasn’t exactly what one would call an academic weapon, but you’d be rude not to let him try and help at least. “Hmm… Fine, I don‘t see why not."

He gently brings you up off your desk chair, unable to keep his hands off you now that he's started. His strong arms wrap around your waist, and he senses your hesitation at first. "If I'm gonna quiz you, ya gotta loosen up a little honey," he leans his head down slightly, "plus, I'm gonna quiz you my way."

"Your way huh?" You decide to take his bait. Though he isn’t in college like you, and he never really scored too well in high school, you were intrigued nonetheless. And you weren’t immune to your boyfriend, after all. You were bound to cave to his advances eventually.

"Yeah," his lips ghost over yours, "the Harrington way."

"Alright," you grin, "color me intrigued."

He takes that as his cue to close the distance between you two and press his lips to yours. Usually he'd start off slow, ease you into it, but truth be told, Steve had been deprived of your affection for long enough. The kiss is a lot more passionate than usual, teeth clashing slightly as his tongue slips into your mouth, eliciting a soft whimper from you.

You stumble backwards onto the bed with him on top of you, albeit less by accident and more as an advance. His hips settle between your thighs, and you could feel the reason for his urgency pressing against your heat. Even through a layer of underwear and tight jeans, the shape of him was so clear to you.

"Steeeeve..." You whine, transitioning into a giggle as you drag out his name. His lips move to your neck, pressing sloppy, wet kisses to your sensitive skin. "This all-- fuck-- part of your technique?"

You could feel him smile into the crook of your neck, hands slipping under your shirt, nudging it up.

"Yep, just let me do my thing baby... All part of the plan..."

At this point it was nearly impossible to deny Steve anything. Not just because you felt bad for your distance as of lately, but because your mind tended to go blank with his hands on you like this. You'd already succumbed to his touch, too late to turn back to your desk now.

Your shirt was discarded onto the carpeted floor, his own following soon after. He works on unhooking your bra while leaving feverish kisses all over your chest, nipping every now and then. His breath hitches when it’s discarded, and he’s met with the sight of your bare breasts. It didn't matter how many times he'd seen your tits, he'd never get tired of it. Ever.

He wastes no time in latching onto your nipple, rolling the other one between his fingers. His tongue kitten licked over the sensitive bud, hazel eyes peering up at your expression, which was growing increasingly desperate.

His lips drag over your skin, leaving tingles in their wake as he moved over your stomach. He halts when he reaches the waistband of your shorts, eyes flicking up at you for a moment before he started scattering teasing kisses right above the hem.

"Stevie..." You sigh his nickname, propping yourself up onto your elbows so you could watch him. You knew he was teasing you, lips remaining so close yet so distant from where you needed them to be.

"Impatient?" He questions, hands coming up to settle on your hips, thumbs skirting just over the edge of your bottoms.

"Look who's talking..." You scoff, the cockiness in your voice disappearing as soon as he traces his fingers over your clothed pussy. "O-Okay, jesus, quit... Quit teasing baby--"

He refrains from rolling his eyes at your attitude, knowing you were quite pent up yourself. You'd usually never go this long without fucking, so he understood the sexual frustration. Luckily, that was his exact field of expertise.

He hooks his fingers around your shorts, and you take his hint to lift your hips to help him pull them off, along with your panties, joining the rest of your clothes scattered on the floor. He smiles at the sight of your slick coating your folds so beautifully, proof of just how worked up he'd gotten you by just kissing you and touching you a little.

"Fuck, you're soaked baby," he leans down onto the bed, arms hooking around your thighs and pulling your heat closer to his face. He runs a teasing finger up and down your slit, coating it in your juices. "Jesus, she's just begging for me, isn't she?"

Your hips buck at his dirty words, whining softly. You’re so close to just grabbing his hair and grinding against his face, but you know the payoff to his teasing would be worth it in the end.

He leans down and licks up your cunt, stilling at your clit, flicking his tongue over it a few times. His brown eyes peer up at you, watching you lose your composure over just the faintest of touches. He adores watching you become undone for him like this, melt underneath his touch, loosen yourself up a little.

He continues working on your needy clit, groans sending vibrations through your core that make you grip the sheets beneath you. If your mind wasn't so hazed with what he was doing to you, you might have noticed the hand coming down to his pants, palming himself. He tended to get off on your arousal like that, your moans and whines only spurring him on further.

"Sh-Shit-- Stevie!" You cry out his name, fingers gripping his chocolate locks when his lips closed around the sensitive bundle of nerves. You weren't going to last much longer, and he could tell with the way you were bucking your hips into him.

He wanted to ask you if you were close, in that teasing, cocky voice he knew you secretly loved, but he’d rather die than tear his lips away from your cunt at that moment. So he just kept going, tongue lapping away at your sweet juices, eyes fluttering shut as he loses himself to the sound of your moans.

The coil in your lower stomach snaps, and you moan his name loudly as your orgasm crashes through your body. Your fingers pull at his locks, earning a groan from him as your vision goes white with pleasure. You continue to ride out your orgasm against his face, whimpers falling from your lips with every roll of your hips.

Steve, a bit reluctantly, pulls away from your core, catching his breath. He looks so beautiful, lips swollen and pink, lower face just covered in your slick, hair all messy from your the firm grip you had on it.

He wipes his mouth clean with the back of his hand, grinning at your fucked out expression. “You ‘kay honey?”

You nod, a sweet, dazed smile adorning your face in response. “Yeah… Not quite done with you yet though.”

He smirks, sitting up to undo his belt, eyes not leaving yours for even a second. “Good,” he continues to pull off his jeans and boxers, “because that was only the first step of the Harrington way.”

You roll your eyes, almost having forgotten about the fact that he was supposed to be quizzing you. “You serious?”

He replies by leaning down and pressing a soft kiss to your lips. “Do I look like I want my girl to be failing college?”

You nibble on your bottom lip, shaking your head slowly. You can feel his cock rub against your thigh, and the contact alone is sending tingles of pleasure through your body.

“Good.” He wraps his arms around your waist, almost manhandling you on top of him. You squeal from the sudden change of positions, giggling from the spontaneity of it all.

You’re already reaching down for his cock, ready to line yourself up with him and slide down so painstakingly slow like you usually would. But he grabs your wrist before you get a chance to, and the expression on his face is a lot more stern than the one you saw just moments ago.

“I’m serious about this, so you gotta be too, okay?”

“Yeah, I am, god, just— I need you inside me Steve, like right now.”

“I know sweetie, and you can, if…” He reaches for the flash cards on your desk, picking out a random one and reading over the question. “You can tell me who was widely credited with publishing the first ever printed Bible.”

You whine out of frustration, trying to think back at all of the subject matter you’d crammed into your head the past few weeks. “Shit, baby, you’re kinda putting me on the spot here…”

“C’mon,” his hand reaches down to grab his cock, running the head over your folds and gathering your slick onto him, “think sweetie, you got this.”

You bite your lip, resisting the temptation to force your hips down onto him. You peer down at him, his eyes meeting yours in an expectant gaze. “I-I, uhm… Gutenberg, it was— it was Gutenberg.”

“Good girl,” he coos, and finally pushes up his hips to slide inside you.

“Fuck!” You moan out, louder than usual. You suddenly realize your dormmates are in for quite the treat that night.

You try to move your hips, but his right hand on your hip stops you from doing so. Even with you on top of him, he’s still in full control of you, it was honestly pretty impressive.

He fucks into you at a slow, lazy pace, feet planted flatly onto the mattress to ground himself. His cock drags deliciously over your walls, and you can feel every curve and ridge of him inside you like this.

You whimper when he stills his hips, already opening your mouth to protest before he interrupts you by holding up a finger and taking out another flash card. “I’ll continue if you can tell me when Queen Elizabeth I reigned.”

“W-What… I don’t— I don‘t know, uhm…” You’d never taken the expression “fucked stupid” seriously, up until that point. He was being so mean, so teasing, and you'd be lying if you said you weren't loving it. Maybe this was his payback for being away from him for this long.

"Don't tell me I've already fucked the answers outta you," he smirks, and it makes you whine, clenching down onto his cock. You liked this side of him, so mean, even if you knew he was just going to shower you with kisses and praise after.

"N-No, I--" you furrowed your brows, "uhm... 1558... t-to..." you could feel his cock twitch inside you, and it almost makes you lose your train of thought, "1603, I think-- fuck!"

He wastes no time in driving himself deeper inside you, your treat for answering correctly.

"So smart, look at you-- shit-- my little academic..." He coos, hand coming down so his thumb could play with your clit. You begin moving your hips to meet his halfway, the obscene, almost pornographic sounds of skin slapping skin filling the room.

You almost didn't notice that he'd grabbed another card, too busy chasing your orgasm now that he was finally giving you something more to work with.

"When did Luther post the 95 Theses--"

"1517!" you cry out, hands coming down to rest over his hairy chest, supporting yourself as you worked your hips over his throbbing cock.

He looks up at you, trying to keep his own composure, but it's getting harder by the second. You look so beautiful, tits bouncing, lips parted as his name falls from them after every other whimper and moan. He's doing his best to keep up his strict tutor persona, but he feels his own orgasm creeping closer by the second, not being able to stop his hips from rutting into you.

"A-Alright--" He almost drops the stack of cards on the floor, trying to grab a random one as he reads it aloud, "Which scientist-- fuck-- f-formulated the laws of... of planetary motion-- holy shit baby--" his brown eyes find yours again, unable to hold back the continuous groans and whimpers you're earning from him.

You feel that familiar heat building up in your stomach, your thighs burning from making you bounce over his cock the entire time, but you ignore the strain it has on your body. All you want to do now is cum, feel him fill you up to the brim until it's leaking out of you.

He can tell you're not even thinking about the answer, so, although a bit reluctantly, he starts to slow down. You open your eyes, looking down at him with a pleading gaze. You're about to start sobbing, tears already watering up your vision as you bite your lip. "I-I-- Uhm, fuck, Stevie, I--"

"Come on," He taps your ass lightly to encourage you, "that pretty mind's gotta be good for somethin', think, baby."

A stray tear rolls over your cheek, thoughts of everything you'd been studying running rampant. Your eyes widen, and in a sort of eureka moment, you yell out a name. "Kepler! I-It was Kepler!"

"That's my girl," he groans out, throwing the card besides him and reaching out to fully envelop you in his arms. He starts to piston himself into you at a pace your hips couldn't possibly keep up with, instead holding onto him as tight as you could, moaning his name over and over into the crook of his neck.

"'M gonna cum," you manage to mumble between your pleas, thighs starting to tremble.

"Me too baby, gonna fill you up so good-- shit-- gonna give you your reward-- fuuuck!" He groans loudly, pulling you flush to his chest as he paints your walls in his sticky warm cum.

You follow right after, clenching down on him and milking his cock for every last drop, your body going limp against his from pure exhaustion. Your orgasm ripples through you, the aftermath rendering you completely fucked out, but blessed with the euphoria of your release.

The two of you continue to lay there for a bit longer, catching your breath and enjoying the warmth of each other's bodies. Eventually, Steve pulls out, and you sigh at the emptiness without him inside you. You feel some of his cum dripping onto your thigh, making a mental note to ask for a shower together later. In a moment, at least. When you'd regained your ability to walk.

You pull away from his neck to look at your boyfriend, who seems to be pretty satisfied with himself. "You did so well sweetie," he leans up to press a gentle kiss on your lips, "you're totally gonna ace that exam."

You'd almost forgotten you had an exam the day after, but surprisingly enough, you weren't that stressed. If you could come up with the answers while he was pounding into you, you could write them down in a lecture hall no problem.

"I'm pretty fond of studying the Harrington way, actually," you smile, reaching out to brush some stray brown locks away from his face.

"Really? Huh," he doesn't mention the fact that he didn't even look at the answer the last time. He was way too eager to make you cum, and besides, you're a smart girl. You're going to ace that exam either way. "Well, if you want," he glances at the clock on your nightstand, "I think we have time for another round of revising."

"Hm..." You pretend to mull it over, "in the shower?"

"In the shower."

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[jaysswlvrr]

Hatred

Summary☆ You and Jake were the most popular kids in school, but I never got along. You hated him. Soon, that would change.

Paring☆ Y/n x Jake

Warnings☆ Swearing, teasing, unprotected sex (wrap before you tap), kind of mean dom jake, in the begging jake was kind of sub, slightest degration, nicknames, reader is on pill, slut shaming :(

You sat next to jake in lesson ignoring whatever he said.

"y/n and jake you are partners for the project" your teacher announced.

"ughhh " you groaned

"meet me at my house, around 7pm?" jake questioned.

"whatever, I hate you" you said before walking out the ended lesson.

" if she hates me that much, ill fuck the hatred out" he muttered to himself before walking out too.

Luckily, you never heard that part and skipped away to your friends house.

You were now home from your friends house and had just woke up realising you had to revise with jake. The only thing running through your head was "i dare you to make jake hard" one of your friends had dared you to do that after you said you weren't scared of doing anything, but this was on a whole another level. You had no other option to do, so you stood up and did you hair and makeup but leaving your high shorts and low-cut shirt.

ding dong

You rang his doorbell, fascinated by the size of his mansion but kept your cool. A few seconds later a shirtless jake opened the door welcoming you in. He had sloppy eyes which showed that he had just woken up from a nap, he somehow looked cuter.

Now its flirt mode (try not to cringe)

"Hii jakee, oh my gosh you've never looked cuterr" you said whilst running a finger on his abs "there rock hard" you looked up at him flutterring your lashes.

He couldn't even speak.

"Are we not going inside" he questioned moving your hand away gently.

Jake never showed he was flustered so you weren't shocked.

He led you into his bedroom which was way neater that you thought before siting down on a chair. You took of your jacket revealing you shirt hoping jake would notice.

He came back wearing a hoodie and sat next to you with spread out legs and papers ready to work.

time skipp

You have been studying for a while now and had enough.

"Jakee can we have a break-" but you stopped to notice jake staring at your- cleavage?

This gave you the idea to bend over slightly more to expose your chest.

"So, would you like to tell me what your staring at?" you said with a smug look on your face.

Before he could speak you climbed onto his lap, your clothed cunt now on his hard dick.

"Damn your really hard, do I look that good?"

mission accomplished (Hehe)

You started grinding slow but hard unto him.

"fuck" he groaned "you know how much of a fucking slut you are" but you just giggled. He lifts you off him and you lose any tension you had between him.

"whyy" you whimpered "I hate you"

"that's exactly why we are here today" jake said.

He started coming closer to you and before you could move anymore behind you back hit the wall, he grabbed your wrists with one of his big hand and lifted them above your head.

He used his other hand to slightly pull down your shirt to reveal more of your breast.

"this is what you've been teasing me with this whole time huh, you whore"

All you could do was let out little whimpers and look down.

"now any hatred that you have in me will be fucked out until the only thing in your mind will be my name" he spoke.

You looked up at him in shock whilst letting out a nervous laugh but you realised he was being dead serious.

"J-jake i think this is too far" you said with a cracking smile, but its not like you could go anywhere as jake had you trapped in his embrace, staring directly at you.

All of a sudden he started smirking which gave you shivers "if you don't strip by the time I'm back you'll be done"

done?

Well, you weren't risking anything and as soon as he left you took of your layers of your pyjamas. You hadn't even realised that you wore your light blue lingerie under.

You were now practically laying on his bed waiting for him to come back, as if he could hear your thoughts, he entered the room, once again, shirtless.

"Get up" he ordered sticking his hand for you to hold onto him. You grabbed his hand as he suddenly push your stomach onto the cold desk making you silently moan.

Without any doubt you were soaking with arousal which made jakes job easier. He started rubbing his veiny finger along your clothed pussy.

"Ughh please touch me jake" you pleaded.

"I am y/nn" but he wasn't properly, and he knew that.

"Jakee pleasee, actually" you both knew he was soaking hard as well but he clearly loved seeing you plead instead.

He didnt hesitate and pulled down your now ruined panties and stared at your dripping pussy.

"woah"

But all you could do was whimper and sulk about him not being in you even though you have been waiting so patiently.

He quickly enters you with a sharp thrust. And wow he was hard. He didn't give you anytime to adjust. He kept a steady, speedy pace which had you clenching around him already.

"If you keep doing that ill cum already" but you couldn't help yourself, his dick fit inside you like a finger around a ring.

"Fuckk jake I'm going to cum too"

He suddenly pushes your head down onto the ice cold desk, hitting a different angle.

"Jake!" you yelled

You quickly reached you orgasm followed by him.

"Where do you want me to cum?"

You pulled out from him and kneeled down with pleading eyes and a stuck out tounge.

"fuck" he groaned

You wrapped your lips around his cock as he started thrusting into you, his sperm creaming your mouth. You swallowed every bit without hesistation.

"Youre such a fucking slut" he argued.

" im your slut"

"And i still fucking hate you." You said.

"Then were going to have to have another round."

"Sure"

★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆

☆Thank you for readingg pookie☆

@dependsontheday @jaeyunsprincxss

[sashketter]

Dancing The Blues Away

Summary: Padmé Amidala convinces Riyo Chuchi to go out dancing. They bump into a few men from the 501st, including Captain Rex and ARC trooper Echo. Padmé leaves Riyo with the clones. Years later, Rex, Echo, and Riyo reminisce about that night.

Word count: 2.3K

Warnings: Mentions of Anidala. Hints of Echiyo and Rexiyo.

Notes: This starts during the Clone Wars and jumps ahead immediately after season 3 episode 15 of The Bad Batch, “The Calvary Has Arrived.” I can’t get over Echo’s throwaway line about Riyo sheltering clones on Pantora (THE QUEEN THE ABSOLUTE LEGEND THAT SHE IS). I figured that can’t be the only time she’s surrounded by our boys.

Growl, growl, growl, growl.

Riyo Chuchi looks up from the packet on her desk. She stares in disbelief at the clock on the wall. She had missed dinner, and her stomach was protesting. She starts to remember her guards offering to fetch her food hours ago, but she had dismissed and ordered them to fetch their own meals instead. She reaches for her comlink when soft knocks land on her door.

“Come in.” Riyo’s voice cracks from disuse, so long had she been poring over papers in silence. She stands to greet her visitor. “Senator Amidala!”

“Good evening, Senator Chuchi.” Padmé opens and stands next to the door, her hand still on the knob. “I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

“Not at all. Please come in.” Riyo gestures towards the two seats in front of her desk. As Padmé crosses the floor, a gloved hand from the hall reaches for the doorknob and closes the door quietly. “I’ve almost finished reading the revised refugee bill. Did you have something to add?”

“No, I think we’ve covered everything.” Padmé sits and takes in Riyo’s desk, bare of trimmings except a simple, gold lamp on the corner. “It’s a shame it’s taken so long for the Republic to provide aid to those displaced on the Outer Rim. I’m glad you decided to co-sponsor it.”

“Of course.” Riyo sits back down. “Naboo has been an inspiration to those like myself and a few in our moon’s Assembly who wish to take Pantora in a more active and humanitarian direction.”

Padmé nods and smiles at the compliment, but immediately changes direction. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t come to discuss legislation or diplomacy. Are you busy tonight?”

Riyo blushes. “Oh! Um, well, I had hoped to study the bill further in case the opposing—”

“We have the votes, Riyo,” Padmé soothes. “There’s not much the opposition can do.”

Riyo looks down at the packet and searches for another strategy. She doesn’t want to turn down the senator, but her body is screaming for sleep and sustenance.

Padmé senses Riyo’s hesitation and tries again. “It’s just we’ve been stuck in the Senate district for days, ironing out this bill, and I think we both deserve a break.”

“I agree,” Riyo concurs a little too quickly. “But I’m afraid I skipped dinner, and I don’t think I’ll make good company before—”

“Then it’s settled! Dinner it is.” Padmé is up and at the door in the blink of an eye. “I’ll meet you at your quarters in an hour.” She turns the door knob before whirling back around to clarify, “Oh, and don’t wear anything too fancy.”

Riyo blinks in confusion. “Why?”

~~~

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this, Padmé.” Riyo tugs at the hem of her dress as they cross the busy street. They land on an even busier sidewalk.

“Nonsense. A little music and some dancing won’t hurt.” Padmé manages to outpace Riyo’s guards who are losing their breaths trying to keep the two senators in sight. “Think of it as a treat after all our hard work.”

Riyo lost count of the number of levels they’d descended searching for whatever destination Padmé had in mind. She had simply said, “Trust me,” after dinner before grabbing Riyo by the wrist and venturing into Coruscant’s perpetual darkness. Each turn around a blind corner seems to reveal a new shade of neon lights, a deeper depth of dampness clinging to the walls, a more pungent smell of different species packed tight.

After what feels like a full rotation to Riyo, Padmé stops in front of a nondescript building. No signs, no crowds. Blue neon light bathes the alley from above the sole door. If not for the low thrum of the music within, Riyo would’ve thought these durasteel walls were empty.

“Are you sure this is the right place?” Riyo looks at her guards who start to station themselves.

Padmé looks around until she spies some graffiti. “Yes. Senator Mothma said to look for that.” She points to an imperceptible rendering of a lotus blossom to the right of the door frame. It glows a faint blue. Riyo admires the simplicity of the blacklight above. “She used to come here as a junior senator, said it was safe and out of the way.”

Inside is only marginally brighter than outside, though with significantly more people per square meter. Padmé spots the bar at a distance and starts towards it. Riyo follows close behind, looking around the crowded floor before colliding into the senator’s back. She peers around her at the unmistakable armor of a trooper.

“Captain Rex?” The clone turns at the sound of his name and faces Padmé. His eyebrows shoot up in shock. “What are you doing here?”

“Senator!” He starts to stand at attention until he spies Riyo. “Uh, senators.” He plants his feet and points his thumb behind him. “Uh, some of the boys thought 79s was getting old and stuffy.”

“No, I mean what are you doing here on Coruscant?” Nearby patrons start to recognize Padmé’s voice. Elbows jab and eyes turn for quick glances; Rex’s peripheral vision serves him well. “I thought the 501st was on a mission to Saleucami.”

“Yes, we were. But you know General Skywalker, he—” Rex stops abruptly, eyes bulging, and blushes impossibly red. Padmé smirks and steps in to save the captain’s decorum.

“Let me guess: he saved the day and cut your stay short.” She shakes her head in amusement.

Rex clears his throat but finds himself coughing. “Y-yes, ma’am.”

“How long will you be on Coruscant?” Padmé somehow stretches the question several syllables longer.

“Just for tonight. We received orders as soon as we landed to support General Gallia in the Mid Rim. We leave at 0900.” Rex doesn’t miss the senator’s surprise.

“I see. Excuse me,” Padmé plans her escape, “have you met Senator Chuchi?”

Rex and Riyo exchange nods. “We’ve met. Senator.”

“Captain. Padmé, what—” A small hand and a passing group shove Riyo into Rex’s chest. His hands fly up to her arms to reestablish a respectable distance between them.

“I’m so sorry, Riyo,” Padmé starts to back away towards the exit, “but I need to— um—”

“Prepare for a briefing?” Rex raises an eyebrow and employs her and the general’s code word.

“Y-yes. My apologies, Riyo, really. I-I promise I’ll make it up to you.” Padmé disappears into the anonymous crowd. “I’ll see you tomorrow!”

Riyo stares in shock at being abandoned in the lower levels. She turns around and finds Rex pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Are you alright, captain?”

“Uh, yes, ma’a—uh, senator.”

“You don’t have to entertain me if—” She stops and squints at Rex. “How long have they roped you into their dates?”

Once again, Rex is caught off-guard to the amusement of the senator in front of him. “I, uh, I-I’m not sure what you—”

“Never mind.” Riyo doesn’t want to torture the man. “It’s none of my business.”

“Hey, Rex!” The captain looks over his shoulder as it’s enveloped by the hand of another trooper. The clone takes in Riyo with interest. “Hello there, sweetheart. Listen, if the captain here’s not showing you a good time, I—”

“Stow it, Hardcase,” Rex sneers. “The senator doesn’t want to hear your sithspit.”

Before Riyo can ease the tension, a voice from behind her chirps, “Senator Chuchi?”

Riyo turns around to a wall of white and blue armor. She recognizes the ARC trooper designation of the clone’s double pauldrons. “Yes?”

A second ARC trooper elbows the first. “Aiming a little high there, Echo.”

“What? No, I just—” Echo starts to double back. “I mean, not that I wouldn’t, but—” He lurches forward when the second ARC trooper slaps his back with a dull thud.

“Gentlemen, please.” Riyo is surrounded. She spies Rex start to laugh at her own befuddlement.

“Stand down, men.” The captain steps in. “Let the senator gain her bearings.” He puts a gentle hand on her back and leads her towards the bar. As they gain some distance, Riyo catches the sound of plastoid meeting plastoid before Echo growls, “You’re a karking sack of bantha fodder, Fives!”

Rex deposits Riyo on a stool before taking the seat to her left. “Sorry about that, senator. We don’t get a lot of opportunities to,” he searches for a less provocative word, “decompress.”

“No need to apologize, captain.”

The bartender ambles up to them. “The usual, Rex?”

“Yeah, thanks, Slice.”

Riyo recognizes the bottle as Slice pours a generous amount. “I’ll have the same.”

“Really?” Rex takes his glass and watches the bartender fill another. “I wouldn’t have thought you liked brandy.”

Twin glasses in hand, the captain and the senator toast and take big swigs. “Pantoran distilleries aren’t as famous as Corellia’s,” Riyo raises her glass to the light, “but we still make a good bottle.” She blinks at Rex above the rim of her glass and takes another mouthful. She suddenly remembers that she had had two glasses of wine at dinner with Padmé. She regrets the show of bravado and hopes her stomach won’t betray her.

They turn to face the crowd in time to see the second ARC trooper from before march up to the bar. A playful smirk wrinkles his eyes as he makes a beeline for the senator. He bows before her ceremoniously, his head nearly level with her lap, and raises his right hand to her. She puts her hand in his and turns to send a confused look at Rex who’s already shaking his head. The ARC trooper’s fingers curl around hers, and he looks up. “Care for a dance, senator?”

Riyo smiles wide. “What’s your name, trooper?”

“CT-5555, but they call me—”

“A real pain in my ass,” Rex bellows. The bar erupts in laughter.

Riyo’s sympathy starts to flare until Fives aims a finger gun with his free hand at Rex and winks. “Only to the best ass in the GAR, brother.”

The bar roars even louder. Rex rolls his eyes and turns to the bartender for another drink, blocking fists to his back and shoulders.

The force of Riyo’s laugh almost knocks her off her stool, her outstretched hand already disrupting her balance, but Fives straightens up and takes her other hand in his, steadying her.

“Don’t fall for me yet, senator.” Fives steps closer to balance her forearm on his.

Riyo laughs. “I suppose I can stand to—”

“Not sure you can stand at all, ma’am.” A new clone flanks her from the right. Riyo recognizes the medic by the insignia on his spaulder.

“I-I’ll be fine, trooper, thank you.” She looks up at Fives. “Unless you’ve gotten cold feet.”

Fives smiles broadly and swings her around to the dance floor. Riyo’s head spins, but the ARC trooper gives her all the support she needs. The rest of the night is a blur of flashing lights and reassuring baritones and white armor. She dances with Echo who keeps his kit to himself. She dances with Rex who keeps a hand on hers and twirls her around. She even dances with Hardcase whom Rex and Fives have to peel off her shoulders when his fifth shot of tihaar hits him hard. Between the warm treatment of the troopers and the lingering effects of the wine and brandy, Riyo floats. Her skin fizzes, and her mind empties of the galaxy, replaced by the simple desire to remain in the company of the clones.

~~~

Riyo sits on a crate and waits for the caf to finish brewing on the busy table next to her. From a distance, she watches her guards distribute food and water to the prisoners scattered in groups of twos and threes across the small airfield. Rex and Echo make their way to each group. At the edge of the Remora’s platform, the female clone speaks to Howzer whose face flickers between horror and curiosity.

Sunset drapes over Pantora. Pink and purple meet in the sky while the city past the airfield is cloaked in silhouette. The air starts to chill, but the atmosphere is filled with warm relief. Tantiss is destroyed, its prisoners freed, and a glimmer of hope spreads with Emerie’s arrival and intel. Riyo looks on with pride.

Rex and Echo start towards the caf table. Riyo stands as they reach her. “Good work, you two.” She’s always eager to comfort them.

“It’s a start.” The clones nod at each other, a shared thought voiced by Echo.

Without warning, music warbles out of the airfield’s PA system. The three turn towards the communications tower where they see Gregor wave and give a thumbs up. He bends to speak into a microphone. “It’s a party tonight, boys! You’re free men! Woohoo!”

Cheers and laughter drift through the airfield. In the distance, Riyo spies the city’s lights come on, a blessing on their festivities.

“Not exactly Lotus, is it?” Rex smirks down at Riyo. On her other side, Echo is simply stunned.

Riyo looks up at Rex. A hazy memory from a lifetime ago starts to sharpen. She remembers him escorting her to a waiting taxi away from the club, her guards securing the sidewalk. She thought they were alone and had left the other clones back inside until a chorus of jeers and laughter erupted behind them. Hardcase and the ARC troopers had run to catch up. “That was a fun night,” she recalls, surprised at the details coming back to her.

“The boys never let me live it down.” Rex crosses his arms. “For awhile, my kit was covered in blue lipstick every time I got out of the fresher.”

Riyo smiles fondly at the image of Fives and Hardcase pressing blue-painted lips to Rex’s armor. She looks between Rex and Echo and at the clones celebrating and marvels at how far they’ve all come since that night.

“It should’ve been purple,” Echo interjects, “but I could only find blue.”

Rex chokes on a curse, and Riyo bursts into laughter. She doubles over, clutching her sides and gasping for breath, while Echo blocks Rex’s punches over her head. For awhile, Rex finds a single stain of purple lips on his helmet every time he debriefs the senator.

[wutheringmights]

Commentary for latest CTB chapter???👀👀👀👀

Thank you! You guys are as prompt as ever. Unfortunately, I needed a few days to get my thoughts together (and honestly would have taken even longer if I wasn't going out of town this weekend).

I kinda struggled a bit to have Important Thoughts about this chapter (I have been so tired all week), but I did my best.

(Triggering content from the chapter are discussed below).

I’ve mentioned many times already that I suffered from a massive bout of writer’s block during this chapter; and it’s a bit hard to pinpoint what exactly caused it. 

On one hand, I think the last chapter was just so much that I may have burnt myself out on an emotional level. Usually, a week or two off is all I need to fix it, but I also had a lot of personal responsibilities that took up all of my bandwidth. 

And, frankly, there’s a part of me that is a little freaked out that I’ve been working on this story for so long, and that I might not be able to finish it within my self-imposed deadline (if I have to see CTB’s 4th birthday, I am gonna lose it). That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy writing CTB or that I feel pressured to keep going; I just felt exhausted and overwhelmed by how much of my life I’ve sunk into a story that not only refuses to end in a timely manner, but that I can’t share with anyone I know in real life. 

My burnout required a few months' rest to get over, but that’s not to say I didn’t try to work on this chapter that entire time. 

So I actually started this chapter back in April, right after I published STP. I wrote this opening scene of Link ruminating over the past and got stuck trying to transition to him being found. I got so stuck that I ended up bouncing over to the present-day section, where I got stuck in a new and novel way (which I’ll talk about more later). 

That means that everything else in the past I wrote the day before posting. On one hand, I was raring to go and I felt really good getting all those words onto paper. It did a lot for my ego. On the other, I really wish I took more time to revise a lot of this. I think the pacing overall is really strong, but there’s a few ideas I threw out into the story that I really wish I lingered on. 

For example, I mention that Link’s physical abuse was a relatively short stretch of time compared to how significant it is. Him being violent towards the engineer feels like it went on forever and forever, but it only lasted about 4 months. I like this detail so much because it helps to illustrate how even short-term abuse has lifelong effects on people. If I lingered on this chapter a bit more, I would have found more ways to ruminate on it. 

I almost had Ayane discover Link in his house. I ended up changing it to Jakucho since, as much as Ayane likes Link, she would not care enough to go check up on him.  

For the longest time, I imagined Link’s room at the Miyashita estate to be the same as the one he was held prisoner in post-Kakariko Well. But I ended up stating in that chapter that the room was located in a part of the house he had never seen before. So Link’s room was changed from a formal guest room to a study.

In universe, this is so that he’s encouraged to read books and is easily within Jakucho’s reach.

I personally got a hearty chuckle out of Link being denied chopsticks by default; he’s probably very good at using them in the present, but during this time he’s probably really shit at it. Real white boy behavior. 

If I gave myself more time to work on this section, I would have played around with the idea of him being haunted by an imaginary engineer, just as he had been haunted by an imaginary version of his old self on the way to the Kakariko Well. I don’t know if I would have committed to it, though. On one hand, it would have been a cool way to illustrate his inner thoughts. On the other, it implies a mental break I don’t think he’s experiencing. 

On a similar note, I worry that this chapter wasn’t that effective because it was way less (for a lack of better words) dramatic than the past few “Link Has A Breakdown” chapters have been?

Let me explain. So nearly every time Link has been under emotional duress before this, I’ve played with the prose to show how his reality is being warped. Take chapter 24 for example. Link gets stuck on the engineer leaving him, so the passage of time in that chapter becomes unclear-- both in him not realizing how quickly time is passing and him constantly going back to the day he realized the engineer was gone for good. The prose is written in a way that conveys that reality has broken. It’s very melodramatic. 

But for this chapter, reality is firm. Link’s mind has cleared enough to see what happened in the past clearly. The prose can’t dramatically screw with perception because that’s not what’s happening. The passage of time and the depiction of reality has to be crystal clear. 

So despite making these long, semi-experimental passages one of my signature moves, I couldn’t use it here without actively detracting from the story. On one hand, a more grounded chapter effectively shows how this breakdown is different. On the other, it’s a little basic. 

I have a bit of a problem where past!Ayane is a bit too similar in personality to Linkle. Ayane in the present day is supposed to be a cool teenager who is probably a bit of a mean girl at school-- the kind that will grow out of it the moment she leaves for college. But I wanted to show her entering this stage of life in the past, so she’s less bratty and more troublemaking.

Speaking of which, any reference to Ayane “going through a phase” is supposed to refer to her becoming a moody teenager. I didn’t realize until literally yesterday that it might come off as her family being transphobic. They’re supportive of her being a girl; they just get fed up with how much of a kid she is. 

The point of the chapter that made me start tearing up in the coffee shop is when Ayane got mad at Link for destroying the journal. I’ve been that kid who understands cognitively that a parent in your life is not well but still struggled with what that meant on an emotional level. Her family definitely explained to her that Link isn’t well and etc, but that can be kinda abstract for kids to really understand. So when the mental illness causes him to react badly, it seems to her that he is hurting her because he does not care about her. 

And there are a whole slew of issues you can explore with that idea alone, like how culpable is Link for his actions when he is unwell but still the adult? I’ve already started exploring bits of it with the child’s relationship with Link and the engineer. But exploring this idea from a different perspective (the child and his fucked up emotional issues vs Ayane’s normal preteen perspective) is always interesting. 

Link impulsively trying to kill himself was not in my original plan for the chapter, but after everything... yeah, he would try. This might have something to do with an episode of You’re Wrong About I was listening to work last week where they talked about the percentage of suicides that are impulsive decisions versus premeditated.

(Of course, today I listened to the episode on copycat suicides and now I am very nervous about this chapter being used as an instruction manuel)

I was going to have his attempt be to freeze to death outside, but then I thought of the obi belt, and I really could not resist alluding back to the hanging scene in chapter 13

It ended up being a good transition into a scene I’ve wanted to do for a while now: Ayane’s mom asking him to continue acting like Ayane’s older brother. 

I originally wanted that moment back when their friendship was just starting out, but decided to toss it to his depression arc to act as a moment of encouragement for him. What I didn’t expect was to stumble into this scene being both a way to talk him out of suicide, as well as him realizing he’s a shitty brother. I’m a terrible brother is a monumental realization for him, and I stumbled into it by accident. 

I was tempted to remove Ayane’s mother from this scene and put Jakucho here instead. But Jakucho would never ask Link to play an older brother role. Plus, I like the idea that a random, near-stranger accidentally talked him down without realizing what they were doing. 

And of course, having Ayane’s mother talk helps to develop the Miyashita family dynamic and give a better idea as to why Shigeo is estranged. 

Ayane’s mother also has a very tiny appearance earlier in the story-- chapter 9, when we meet Jakucho for the first time. Granted, I think I only referred to her as Impa’s sister. 

I also stumbled accidentally into the moment with the koi fish and using them as a symbol for perseverance. I really like that scene. I almost named the chapter “The Koi Pond” in its honor. 

I also admit that until fairly recently, I also didn’t know fish could live in frozen water. 

I went back and forth about whether I wanted to make a big moment at the beginning of the chapter about Link going non-verbal, or if I should let it build up slowly; I ended up going with the latter.

I didn’t want to make his non-verbalness the center of his issues when it’s just a consequence of his depression. He’s not depressed and non-verbal. He’s non-verbal because he’s depressed. So waiting until the second half of this section to address it homely drove home that this is only a symptom of a larger issue. 

This chapter also gave me the opportunity to address my sign language headcanon; it’s standard taught in school, but not in a way where everyone is actually good at it. It’s like learning Spanish in elementary school; you grow up remembering a few phrases and words, but never actually become bilingual. 

I like the way the bell motif is used in this chapter. In the past, Proxi’s bells are a sign that things are going to get better. In the present, the Castle Town bells signal that things are about to get a whole lot worse. 

But, yes! After all this time, Proxi is finally here. Hopefully the long wait for her introduction/return will be worth while.

For the present day:

Remember how I said my writer’s block struck for this part of the chapter as well? I solved it in the dumbest way possible. 

One of my big issues was that I didn’t know how to string everything that I needed to get done into a cohesive chapter (because if the chapter isn’t good, then I would have wasted so much of my time on a story that isn’t good, and etc.). My solution was to write a flat draft with only the stuff needed to move the plot forward (talking to Ganondorf, getting on the boat, etc), and then do revisions where I added character moments.

Except, I did character moments by the character. So I would spent a week adding scenes about Spirit, then another about Time, and so on. I said in this post that I turned a 5k draft into a 12k draft. Yikes. 

Because I wrote the chapter like this, I think the pacing is not great. The dinner scene and the post-Midlink gossiping was originally one scene, which I split into two to accommodate other character stuff. But I also think this is one of the most well-balanced chapters in terms of how many characters got a moment to shine. 

I’m really enjoying how much you all enjoy Ganondorf. I think nearly every comment on the chapter so far has mentioned him. I almost regret keeping him in the Zora’s Domain right now, but have no fear. He will be back. 

I am endlessly amused by this moment when Warriors realizes he has to talk to Spirit again, and he thinks “Spirit. / Fucking Spirit.” Is he cursing him out, or is he remembering... you know...

I mentioned a long time ago that one of the issues I had to fix when starting this chapter was finding something for the rest of the Chain to do in this final act. I figured out what their deal is, and a lot of tiny moments in this chapter is the set-up for that.

In a similar vein, I feel like I lost the thread on Time for a hot while there. I really had to mull over what his problem is, how he was going to respond, and how I can show Time responding near Warriors so that the reader can know. I’ve never had this much difficulty writing him-- or characters in general-- before. Hence, my on-going battle against writer’s block.

Another amusing moment that only I think it funny: Spirit lifting Warriors up by the scruff of his neck to haul into the alley way, like he’s an old cat. Honestly, I should write more jokes based around Spirit being strong enough to lift Warriors now.

Now that I think about it, I have a scene in my head where Warriors bitches so much while traveling that Spirit just throws him over his shoulder and carries him like a sack of rice. Is it out of character for both of them? Yeah, but we can imagine it happens in the AU where they are friends.

I have been wanting to provide some form of a resolution for Midna and Twilight for so long, but there hasn’t been a good moment to make them talk-- or at least, a moment where they can talk while Warriors is nearby to listen.

I really enjoy striking a comparison between how Midna and Twilight hashed everything out versus the bullshit Warriors got up to last chapter, especially because Midna and Twilight’s solution was to just give up. It’s not going to work out ever, so they might as well enjoy themselves now.

I love MidLink so much, but part of that love is in how it 100% would not work out between them. As Midna says, they would hate each other in a year. But they keep trying anyway because they love each other right now and that’s what matters. 

Speaking of which, Midna’s “we’ll hate each other in a year” line is a reference to the Greta Gerwig Little Women movie. I love that movie so much, enough that I can forgive Timothy Chamalet for being in it. He has a scene where his proposal is met with basically the same sentiment from Saoirse Ronan’s character. 

Tiny little headcanon: Skyloft’s theater style is very similar to ancient Greek theater, with heavy use of masks and choruses. That’s why he mimics holding a mask when performing Twilight’s line for Lana.

His line was originally something Twilight actually said, but then I went in a revised the MidLink scene and got rid of it. I kept Sky’s mocking of it because I thought it was more realistic.

I won’t say much about what the boys talked about post-confession scene, except to point out that they were kept up by the noise, they might have an idea of the timing of when everything went down during the Hot Mess

I’m glad everyone found my joke about always going to Wild’s era funny lol

Chateau Milk (aka: alcoholic milk beverages) is a tiny little world building detail I have been dying to do for ages. I wanted to use any scene of milk-drinking to shove in a joke about Hyrule being intensely lactose intolerant (he’s immune to all bad food except dairy), but I couldn’t squeeze it it. 

The ribbon kinda got a disproportionate role considering how briefly I referenced Spirit losing it last chapter. 

The reason Warriors was sharing a room with Four was so that I could finally do a follow-up on the Four Swords stuff I started forever ago, but it has once more been punted off to another chapter. Maybe one day...

By the time I got to this second conversation with Time, I was feeling much better about how I was writing him. Between this and his earlier appearance, this is definitely the stronger moment. 

I also deeply amused by Ganondorf and Lincoln have to pretend to be very bitchy with each other in order to not seem like they were married. I wanted to write a scene where Ganondorf argues that Lincoln needs to show him the proper request so that Lincoln would have an excuse to kiss his hand, but I ended up not having the energy or will power to go back in and add it. 

Spirit is so not used to anyone having a genuine interest in his senses that Sky’s question totally caught him off guard. Thank god Sky is the type of person who would ask because I got a good moment to clarify more of the limits of Spirit’s senses-- mainly, that a lot of the info he gets is so contextual that most of it is nonsense to him

To clarify, Spirit’s senses freak out people outside of his era. In New Hyrule, where the idea is a bit more common place, it’s considered rude to ask just as its rude to tell people what you sense. Lokomo customs, and all that.

I didn’t plan on having Spirit cut his hair, but I was deep in the throes of writer’s block and felt like I needed to write about Spirit doing something a little insane to respike my interest. Cutting off your hair because the guy you hated saved your ribbon fitted the bill nicely.

(Nonetheless-- RIP Spirit’s long hair. You were much beloved)

Spirit and Lana’s relationship has always been very underbaked on my part. I didn’t do a lot with them at the beginning of the story, and I haven’t done much with it now (or even much with Lana in general). Here is a vague attempt to salvage my mistakes. If I could ever revise the whole of CTB (I will never), this would be one of the things I would improve

Oh God... the Nephus stuff...

Like, I knew this was going to happen. What I worry about is whether it feels cheap to just have a character go back on their word like that. It’s realistic, if only because Warriors’s deal was really shitty. But on the other, it’s not very satisfying for the reader. You want the characters to have complex reasons for everything. I’m not sure that this qualifies. 

And this applies to all of the war stuff this chapter. Did Nephus lie about not wanting the Triforce? Whatever the answer is now, it’s not going to be satisfying. 

I know I said previously that Lincoln had no suspicions as to what happened during the Hot Mess. Well, I lied. Guy had it figured out fairly early on and only needed the opportunity to ask.

I just hope this scene with him and Spirit shows how Lincoln can be Warriors’s dad. Warriors is his mother’s son, but some of his insanity is from his father. 

Also we’ll pretend Lincoln has had that arm tattoo this entire time. The tattoo is not plot relevant, but it’s important to me.

Legend’s “it’s always the fucking Triforce” speech is my favorite Legend line in a chapter.

On a subconscious level, I was basing Castle Town on Boston. Why? I have no good reason. Just felt right. 

I really wish I managed to get us to Castle Town any time before this part of the story, if only to explore all the various neighborhood ideas I have. I managed to squeeze in the Gerudo neighborhood, but I have more thoughts on neighborhoods for the Zora, Goron, Rito, and even regular-old humans. 

I’m going to tell you right now that the girl in the graveyard is not plot relevant. I had a whole thing about the grave being a memorial for all the heroes across the eras and her praying to the memorial for a new hero that I just never got around to explaining

“Shines with humility” is another line that deeply amused me. Like, buddy. That is not how humility works.  

The Master Sword rejecting Warriors is supposed to feel very fitting and very unfair, all at once. I wanted people to understand why he’s lost the right to use her while still being frustrated that he was still being punished. I wanted this to be another opportunity for complex feelings. I don’t think the scene hit the right way, but that’s alright.

There was a point of time where I was plotting this half of the story when I realized I could use the Triforce scar idea that I had previously abandoned. I like the idea and the scene a lot, but I wonder if it feels forced? Like the whole story bent over backwards to make my silly idea possible. Let me know if this feels like a natural conclusion, or if I messed up somehow. 

That being said, this whole scene where Warriors and Spirit were cutting the Triforce into his hand was a lot of fun to write. Nothing breaks writer’s block like writing an insane character dynamic. 

I feel like I should talk more about themes and what this means for them, but you have eyes. You probably get the point by now. Instead, I will inform you that I did try to read that section to my writing friends, who all agreed that they did not have enough context to understand what the fuck was going on. And, yeah. That’s fair. 

I really wish I waxed more poetry about Warriors reentering the public eye. I did not have enough willpower to revise the hell out of that scene. However, I love the ending bit with Warriors asking Hyrule to make sure he gets the scar. 

One last thing-- I really should have done a revision because an important plot element may have gotten lost in it. I won’t say what, but hopefully it won’t cause problems down the road. 

And that’s the chapter! I feel like I didn’t have a lot to talk about this chapter, despite taking a near-week to write up all my thoughts. Next one should hopefully come sooner, but note that I still have a few more weekend trips and real life responsibilities to handle. My life is not settling down again until the beginning of October. 

I really want to emphasize that my bitching about my writer’s block and the source of it is not something I really need sympathy for, and it’s really not something encouragement is going to fix on it’s own. I appreciate the thought, but a lot of my issues right now just require some self-reflection on my part. I don’t want anyone feeling forced to drop a nice word or feel worried I’ll drop the story without it; I’ll still dedicated to finishing CTB. I just need some time (and to stop hanging out with my extended family). 

In other news, my friend offered to bind CTB into a book for me. Well, books. She knew the word count going in, but I have heard many complaints about how long CTB is. Apparently, it’s 6 volumes so far. Some volumes only have two chapters. When I told her I updated last Sunday, I saw the light leave her eyes. I love her dearly, and I will find a way to pay her back for this. 

[majesticfaba]

What would you do, advance on or change if you became president of the Aether Foundation?

(WHAT HAVE YOU DONE).

Humph! It’s about time someone asked my valuable opinion!

(He pulls out a list. Oh, that’s not so bad, it’s just one sheet of paper— NEVER MIND it rapidly begins to unravel and turns into a several foot long document that trails across the floor. Faba clears his throat).

First of all, I would immediately cut the budget of the Pokémon Rescue and Retrieval Division, and refund it into the Dimensional Research Division: primarily the Ultra Space department. Aether Paradise should always strive to protect and advance its research before concerning itself with anything else.

(It’s worth noting that he’s lifted his finger for emphasis… and has closed his eyes. He’s not even looking at the words. This man has memorised. The. Entire. List. It’s suspiciously as if he’s practiced this speech many times in front of a mirror. Huh).

Now that that important task is out of the way, I would create a greater number of ranks. Currently there are only: general employees, contract workers, low-ranking admins, high-ranking admins, and a superior-admin. …Mh? Oh yes. And ‘assistant to the superior-admin’ I suppose. That is far too small a selection! How can people possibly comprehend how hard I have worked and what I have accomplished when there are so few titles to represent Aether Paradise’s hierarchy?! (Ahem. He composes himself). Continuing…

I would then revise the uniform design, and personally oversee this process. Not that the current uniforms for the grunts aren’t appropriately bland, but… there’s nothing wrong with adding a little style. Presentation is very important, I’ll have you know. And it’ll also give me an excuse to dress up in even better clothes…

Let’s see… ah yes, taking a short break from the more essential changes I have written down some minor ones. Dimming the lights for example, imposing a volume limit that means the noise level within the facility never exceeds 75 decibels, twice daily uniform inspections… blah blah blah blah blah (…I would write the rest, but you’ve zoned out by now. Don’t feel bad. It’s only natural).

[takataapui]

for the tarot ask game -

The Fool – What do the earliest stages of work on a game look like for you? OR How did you get into game design?

The Choice — Which do you prefer: drafting or editing? Design or playtesting? Beginning projects or ending projects? Fluff or mechanics? Or a pair of your own invention.

Fortitude — What are your tricks for staying motivated in the middle of a project? OR Are you interested in making game design a career?

The Hanged Man — What other creative pursuits do you have? OR What current trends in game design are you most interested in?

Death — Talk about an idea you’d love to make that no-one would expect from you.

The Tower — Talk about about a game you tried to make that crashed and burned.

The Star — Talk about a game you’re working on and what excites you about it.

The Sun — Talk about a game you’ve made that you’re proud of.

Thanks so much for these questions!

For the Tarot RPG Designer ask game.

The Fool – What do the earliest stages of work on a game look like for you? OR How did you get into game design?

My very first game design attempt was of a Playbook in Wanderhome! I had joined the Unofficial Wanderhome discord server, and had realised suddenly that people could create supplementary content for existing games, and oh hey, maybe I had an idea to do just that! The playbook (which I've been wanting to revise!) is called the Freed, and is based around the theme of someone who's been possessed for some time, and has recently been freed. It's about what they choose to do with their life now, and how they rebuild themself. This premise is based on one of my more frequent and terrifying delusions.

The Choice — Which do you prefer: drafting or editing? Design or playtesting? Beginning projects or ending projects? Fluff or mechanics? Or a pair of your own invention.

Drafting is more fun (I probably should put more effort into editing actually, but it's so boring!). Design for sure, I don't typically playtest my solo journaling games. Ooh the third is hard! I can't choose! Beginning is so exciting, when you have that rush of an idea and the world is full of possibilities. But the end is so good too, when it all comes together, and you've done the layout, and the feeling of satisfaction when you put it out in the world. Fluff for sure, I relate to the lyric game genre of ttrpgs.

Fortitude — What are your tricks for staying motivated in the middle of a project? OR Are you interested in making game design a career?

G-d, I wish I had some! I think I've learnt with my ADHD, that forcing myself isn't productive, so for me, it's about the waves of motivation. Generally though, with the exception of 'the farmer and the bog body' the rest of my games have been created in one or two sessions. If I don't manage it in that time, it's unlikely I have enough interest to keep going until the end and it sits in the pile of unfinished games.

The Hanged Man — What other creative pursuits do you have? OR What current trends in game design are you most interested in?

Crochet is my big one! Then lino printing is a recent one I've picked up, and calligraphy is one I've had for many years but haven't done much of recently.

Death — Talk about an idea you’d love to make that no-one would expect from you.

The easy answer here is anything that isn't wetland themed lol. I've made a bit of a brand for myself at this point, with a 70% wetland game ratio! I don't really have any super out there ideas. I want to make some games based on Māori stories/creation stories. I'm in the beginning phases!

The Tower — Talk about about a game you tried to make that crashed and burned.

Okay so, I'm also doing my undergrad in Anthropology, and I did a 300 level paper on combining design with anthropology in a very broad sense, and as part of that course we looked at participation, and read the Ladder of Citizen Participation. A friend I made through the course was a boardgame designer, I'm a ttrpg designer, we decided to join forces and made a ttrpg using this model. We had one design session, we struggled to agree on things, and we never met up to keep working on it haha. Somehow in my Notion database, it has the title of 'Spinach', and I can't for the life of me remember why.

The Star — Talk about a game you’re working on and what excites you about it.

I mentioned above that one I'm starting about Māori creation stories! I'm using the 7 Questions RPG system by Morgan Davie, which I used also for 'the farmer and the bog body' . The system was originally made for a more plot based story, but in farmer+bog body, I used it for a conversational game, and really enjoyed using it in that way, and immediately had a bunch of ideas about ways to use it in that form, and this was one! The game will be a conversation between Ranginui, the sky father, and Papatūānuku, the earth mother, two pivotal characters in Māori creation stories. I'll be using a fair amount of Te Reo Māori (the Māori language), and am planning to have audio files attached to each use of te reo, which is gonna be a lot of work, but I'm excited for it! I'm also planning to include an outline of the creation story too, which I'm a little nervous to write out tbh. We'll see how that goes! But the most exciting thing, is that as far as I am aware of, there aren't any ttrpgs that are focused on Māoritanga and pūraukau Māori, so it's exciting to maybe be one of the first to explore that!

The Sun — Talk about a game you’ve made that you’re proud of.

I answered this also here talking about 'the farmer and the bog body', but now I'll talk about 'these little delusions', which is a one-page rpg I made that is an approximation of what my delusions are like. It was fun to play with my understanding of what a rpg is, and map my experiences onto rpg mechanics. This game is quite intensely personal to me and felt very vulnerable to make, so I really am quite proud of how it came out and how I managed to make something like it.

Thanks again for the questions!

[plantingatree]

Hi do you have any tips for year 12s studying a level biology and chemistry??

Or what you wished you did before your as exams or mocks??

hii!! i hope your a levels are going well so far!!

the first thing i’d say is remember that a levels are HARD. especially biology (i don’t do chem unfortunately). i think the biggest thing to tackle is the heaviness of the content for biology. my biggest tip is to make all your revision resources at a very good quality throughout the entire year. if you haven’t started yet, deffo start now. there is a LOT of content so id recommend downloading anki. it’s a computer software app which reschedules your flashcards for you. it’s important to keep up with ‘due’ reviews to maximise anki’s help in spaced repetition. if you don’t, it’ll build up quick and you’ll forget everything. i can’t explain enough how important it is to go over old content because you’ll get to the end of year 12 and have this absolute mass of information to recall.

make flashcards packs based on the specification points. i’ll show you my anki to demonstrate:

(this is the appstore app btw, u don’t need it you can use the free computer version or website version)

obviously you can make them however you want to, it’s just helpful organisation wise. i’m not sure how much content you have to remember for chem but it’s probably helpful for chemistry, too.

second is to make sure you take advantage of the topic tests your school gives you. it doesn’t count towards your final grade in quantitative way but it does with giving you an idea on where you need to work on, exam technique, and adding anything to your flashcards to make them more mark scheme specific. i can’t explain how much i thank my year 12 self for doing it. you’ll thank yourself too, trust me!!

if your exam board is AQA i really really recommend buying pre-made notes by biologywitholivia. they’re quite expensive but honestly it’s worth it because she’s the only person i’ve found who covers everything concisely and it’s every markscheme specific to AQA. also if you haven’t made flashcards yet it’s very easy to just copy and paste the content onto flashcards (but that will make them harder to remember).

and of course USE THE PAST PAPERS. learning content is important but so is past papers (probs something you’ve heard a million times!)

finally, don’t get stressed out or give up. you can do it i absolutely believe in you!!! i hope this was helpful 😊

also here’s the link to notes with olivia if you do AQA

[malkaleh]

For this to make sense read this gorgeous fic by @nocompromise-noregrets and also have knowledge of my OT3 verse. This is an in universe fandom post (on a tumblr that it is like, Good Website But Also Still Hell Site)

So I went to the panel discussion at Welles Hall (with a friend which was life changing levels of great) and I wanted to write a book report for the tumblr.

Natalie is actually Aphrodite. Like, I was speechless. I do not know how us mere mortals can gaze at such beauty and anyway, I was the most useless of lesbians.

I’m not personally into men romantically or sexually but like, aesthetically James and Jon and Rupert are very appealing. Like a sunset or a piece of art. Also very charming, A+

Ahmed is a sweetheart and very funny.

The questions/answers were all great but uh, some highlights:

Ahmed really talked about how much he admired the work Rupert did in particular - that he really sat down with the primary sources and asked great insightful questions (quote “I think in some ways actors have a similar drive to historians - to understand people, even repellant ones”)

“People ask me if I have any sympathy for him [Norwich] and the answer is no! I loathe him - the historical study is fascinating and important but I have never liked him”

Rupert said it was hard to be in [Norwich’s] head - that he ended up developing a ritual for getting in and out of character to separate himself - he really gave credit to the shows intimacy coordinator for the workshopping before anyone was on set.

(Aside we learned that Rupert was cast really early on - apparently they didn’t want anyone else because he’s quote ‘handsome and charming and a brilliant performer and that’s what we needed’)

Maya said there were times she had to stop herself from quote ‘making excited squeaking noises’ on set (world renowned historians - they are in fact just like us) and that her favourite set was the Arthurian Masque plus “one I can’t talk about yet” *eyes emoji*

Maya “I went into the process of revising it (The Tudor Triad: New Edition) with delight and sadness” she talked about how she loved being back with these three but also the heaviness of it - how she wrestled with how much to include.

Ahmed interjected and said that it was one thing he really struggled with as well - that only having Norwich’s voice, Noriwch’s details on the abuse was something particularly sickening and that’s in large part why it was so incredible to see James’ performance.

(“I think, I hope that somewhere in the afterlife Thomas Cromwell is glad to see that he is given his story back to him”)

Both James and Rupert really talked about how the townhouse visit was the most confronting part - that Norwich’s journals are awful and chilling but somehow being in the space where it happened, that made it all the more real, especially because by this point they’d both been in their characters heads for a while.

“It was horrible - i actually don’t like to talk about it in detail honestly”

They both talked about how great Ellie at Welles Hall was - that she and Ahmed and Maya really talked them through the diary/papers and the decoding. (“All props to Rupert and James - not only is the content not an easy read, reading/interpreting Tudor handwriting is a process and reading Tudor handwriting in a mix of languages is even worse”)

Natalie “my guiding sense was that Anne would rip him [Norwich] apart with her bare hands and dance on the remains - I just found that through playing her, reading her own words even if it’s never referred to directly”

Jon was very sure he wanted to have what Henry says to Norwich remain a mystery (though Rupert knows!) and he didn’t want the audience to see Henry’s face when it was sad - Rupert said that it was ‘incredibly bloody satisfying’ to play the moment when Norwich realises that he has ‘fucked around and found out’

Rupert said he thought that Norwich absolutely believed in his own mythology - that essentially, might makes right, that he was a great Roman General etc. (Which apparently Ahmed is currently working on an academic article about Norwich and Ancient Rome)

I’ll be back for part II: the Lionel Discussion Panel later.

-semperlyqueerly

[physalian]

My experience with Miblart cover designers

I picked Miblart on recommendation. They're a Ukranian company, so my money's at least going to a good cause. Priority one, however, was making sure I had accountability. Freelancers make me very, very nervous, because I have been screwed over and scammed by people on instagram and the like who will just take your money and run without consequence. So this website gave me the all-important paper trail, and the second all-important factor: A deadline I can enforce.

First off: They are very nice, and their website is very easy to use. You get exactly what you ask for, for better or for worse.

However.

—

Biggest complaint: They work with exactly what you give them and don't stray very far from your original design. Which is great, if you're able to give them a quality concept image. If you are not able to do that, and you hand them something jank as hell, you will recieve back a polished version of your jank design. Artist's intuition is what I pay a real person for, instead of dialing up The Robot to generate an image for me.

Secondary complaint: Delivery time*** which I will excuse for the holidays, but their standard delivery time is 8-10 days. Revisions also did not have a true deadline, the only response I got was an "asap".

Tertiary complaint: They don't give you a preliminary sketch to approve general composition. It's radio silence until they give you your cover, watermarked, waiting for your approval. If that's how you like it, then this is a feature, but I don't, and things might've been different if I had been able to make corrections before the hard work was done.

These are general issues, below are my specific issues with my specific cover.

—

I hate clipart covers.

Maybe it's just me, but the images you pick to make the composition of your clipart cover have to be exactly on point so they all look like one cohesive piece, and that's far harder to do compared to a fully illustrated cover, and they make illustrated covers.

I see a clipart cover and I'm immediately looking at how elements don't fit. Everything from the black levels (how one piece is inexplicably darker or more saturated than the other elements, telling you that they're from different photos), to the instagram-y filters to the eras and tones of those different elements all crammmed together.

A cover is supposed to help tell your story. For example, if I'm writing a historical fantasy pirate novel, but the ship you pulled off Getty Images is a 19th century cutter, when the plot says it should be an 18th century Spanish galleon, it's going to look sloppy. Especially if I'm reading this novel because I love historical fiction, if you have the wrong type of boat on your cover, I might not read it thinking somebody somewhere cut corners and didn't do their research picking style over substance.

Especially when clipart covers are pulling more "realistic" images with excessive detail over an impressionist style of an illustrated cover. Your sci-fi novel might be about an underground cyberpunk war, but have a spaceship that leans more into space opera, and maybe a robot that's absolutely steampunk. What genre am I supposed to be getting from these mis-matched elements?

Outside of a horror novel, which tends to be pretty minimalistic with the cover design (a haunted house, a keyhole, a rosary, a grave), they look cheap, and messy.

So, I got my commissioned cover back from my designer.

And they're... not great. I don't know where the rules lie for who owns what so I won't post the watermarked concepts. What it boils down to is a disorganized composition of photoreal elements mixed with semi-illustrated silhouettes, and they clash pretty jarringly.

So after I sent them an essay explaining why I didn't think different elements worked, along with six different examples of where to take the new direciton to experiment, the V2 I got back was even worse.

Little things, like how I gave them a fishing boat, and they used a yatch. Very big difference in the tone and purpose. The revamp of their corals were also bright and healthy, when I'd already told them the whole point was mass coral bleaching, with example images.

The same illustrated silhouettes were copy-pasted in, reoriented, and shrunk, so my initial issue with them remained, and I wasn't pleased.

When I sent them examples for the changes, I felt awful about changing the design since they pretty much gave me what I asked for, it just did not look as good compared to the version in my head (they even used the exact position of that mer that I had given them in the jank sketch). I gave them plenty of suggestions of elements I wanted to change from their own database of covers, but felt bad for the artist so I told them this was in effort to preserve as much of the work they had already done.

And, well, they definitely reworked what was already there. It just feels...

Lazy? The only element they had to draw was a silhouette. So if all you're doing is yanking images off the internet and tweaking the lighting, I can do that, too. I'm paying you to look at a mess and make it better than the sum of its parts. You're an artist, so make something, instead of simply rearranging something. For $220, neither of Miblart's offerings were worth it.

And Miblart does have some gorgeous covers. Idk what happened with mine.

I paid an artist because I psyched myself out of what a typical cover of my genre demands—contemporary sci-fi—and convinced myself I could not draw with the skill necessary.

Well, while waiting for the revisions from Miblart, I made my own cover, from scratch, as I have done for my past two books, and I love it more. The combined work probably clocks in around 4 hours, with everything drawn by hand. Theirs took 12 days, and is all but one copy-pasted elements. I'll be dropping my version with the official book release announcement shortly.

—

Overall, Miblart seems to be very hit-or-miss. If you yourself like clipart covers, and you have an already solid concept to give them, you'll probably find success. Though it does bother me that this implies complete unoriginality, if their artists can only recreate what you give them instead of devising something new. Adhering to genre principles is one thing, but being unable to truly get creative is a red flag for me.

When I tried to cancel my order, after insisting that I wanted to compensate the artist for their time, they hit me with the same canned apology email. On the one hand I can chalk it up to a language barrier, but on the other, once you have an upset customer, the time for canned responses is over. After already dealing with a lack of human artistry in the design, I was not pleased to be dealing with a lack of human comminication with customer service.

These covers aren't awful. They're just uninspired and unprofessional. If I saw it on the shelf, I might only pick it up to study how off it looks, and would not trust the competency of the book inside.

[studywithmith]

THE BACKBONES OF NOTE TAKING:

Notes in my opinion is one of THE BEST ways to learn effectively.

However, the method of notetaking matters and so does the subject.

I think the reason why a lot of people, despite taking notes, don't get a good grade is because of their inefficient and wrong method of notetaking and the revision of rewriting our notes.

Let me explain.

LEVEL 1 - SIMPLIFICATION and UNDERSTANDING

The first time you learn a topic, be it from a textbook or video, we take down notes.

Whenever our teacher teaches us in school or in tuition, we take down these lecture notes. These lecture notes are to simplify our learning as our teachers often explain concepts for us to get a grasp of it. That's level 1 of our note taking.

LEVEL 2 - DEEP WORK

With textbooks like the NCERT, we often have to refer to other guides and websites and just resources in general to learn concepts or learn the basics of certain concepts as NCERT skips them over. By doing this thing where we dive deep into a certain concept, it helps us to connect to the topic and it is very helpful for higher studies and colleges. Study to learn and learn to study. This is level 2 of deep work

LEVEL 3 - CONSOLIDATION

Now we compare the textbook,, our lecture notes and our other conceptual understanding notes so we can derive on whatever's important from an exam point of view. This is where our mind mapping and the connectivity of topics in our brain starts.

This is level 3 of note taking where we bring our first draft of consolidated notes.

LEVEL 4 - EXAM STYLE NOTES

Finally, we go through past paper questions, question banks, book backs and numericals and add these questions, modify our notes in certain concepts so we have the best chance of getting full marks on that concept. This is level 4.

This is HOW we should take notes. Not once or twice, we have to take notes in such that we understand a backbones of the topic first. Then we must consolidate to create exam style notes to minimise time for our revision sessions.

It is really time consuming, I do agree, but half of our work is done if we listen in school and write whatever that's relevant whenever our teachers teaching rather than whatever's written on the board. I find that many teachers often explain some concepts via voice rather than noting the points down on a whiteboard. So it's better to take out your textbook and follow along with whatever the teachers saying and relate and take our lecture notes.

This is 50-60% of our work done in school.

If school teachers aren't good, then we have videos on YouTube or tuition as our alternate.

The rest is up to us at home as once those refined notes are finished, I promise you they will get you the best grades possible. It just takes a bit of deep work + hard work+ consolidating by making connections.

Love,

Mith <3

[jojo-schmo]

THIS is how invested I am in the Roleswap. I am not messing around here.

Extra thoughts on my creative process and other bonus material under the cut :D

So! My creative process has evolved a bit since I made this post five months ago!!

I have graduated from a used computational notebook to a handy disc-bound notebook!! I tell you, the disc-bound book is life-changing. I thought they were just for those bougie planners but they make plain notebooks with them too!! It was a little more expensive than a traditional notebook but it's been so incredibly worth it for me so far. I thought I'd share in case someone else has been looking for a system like this!

My habit of revising, adding, and deleting sections of the story isn't a problem anymore, because I can literally remove a portion of the notebook from the binding and stick it somewhere else! Or add more paper if a section I'm working on becomes longer than I intended. It's absolutely fantastic and keeps my chaos 1000x more organized. I can finally keep everything sorted by chapter without committing to a set number of pages! I can actually figure out where the story is going to go now, and actually organize my ideas for endgame chapters... and the endgame is going to be FUN. >:)

Here's a peek into my brain for previous updates: Chapter 1 Pages 26-29, and Chapter 1 Pages 34-42! I still love my sticky note thumbnails. And it's fun to compare how much the final pages change from my initial thoughts :P

Here's a sneak peek of Chapter 2 and some scrapped content! Fixing the pacing is the biggest cause of scrapping scenes.

So yeah!! This Roleswap is the biggest exercise in storytelling and art that I've ever taken on, and I'm so, so excited to keep working on it and sharing it! Perhaps this organizational approach is a little unconventional (I have personally not done this on a true professional level... yet) but it's working well for me as I continue to learn and evolve! I'm so grateful for the opportunity to share this.

Thank you for reading- and thank you for the warm reception so far! I never expected this story idea to grow to the size it did, but I'm so happy for the opportunity! I'm really passionate about it. I'll keep working hard to make the wait between updates worth it and create an enjoyable story!! <3

[frenzyarts]

Could you talk a bit about how you design your OCs from a visual level? I really love their designs. Only if you have the time and energy of course <3

Thank you so much omg 💕 I was trying to think of a good way to answer this question, but the truth is my methods are very nebulous and hard to define! I’ll do my best though 🥳

Some characters come to me very easily, some go through a few revisions, and some go through a meat grinder of revisions lol. Rune was easy, her design was just in my head right off the bat from years of drawing/thinking about demons. Yorick was a little different. Awhile back I played a ttrpg and designed this character:

Look familiar? This is prototype Yorick!! (I have this on my portfolio at a higher res if you wanna zoom in or something idk) She was a character who was kind of elfin and was a clown who controlled shadows. When I started pinning down the stories and characters of A Slowly Beating Heart I KNEW I had to put a demonic clown in there, and I thought of this design.

A phase I go through when designing characters when im not sure how they’re gonna look is doing a bunch of iterations based on vibes. Here’s some of the earliest Yorick sketches I could find, you can see how they don’t quite look “right” yet:

Like the vibes were there but that’s not our Yorick! Here’s what I think might be the first or second sketch I did where they look right:

I used the old Yorick I had designed but finally modified the outfit and design in a way that pleased me. I went with this design, and went through some minor edits with the colors, and boom, the demon clown was born! (Though even in this image they aren’t quite right, in the final comic I got rid of the lines on their horns and saturated the green parts of their eyes):

Melody is another story. Versions of Melody had also been living in my mind for almost as long as Rune, but never as a solid design. I have a zillion sketches of Melody that don’t look at all like how she looks now. It wasn’t until right before her appearance in the comic that I actually decided to refine her character design. Since I had never quite solidified how she looked in my mind, getting her on paper was quite the task. Her hairstyle was already on my mind, but I did a bunch of different versions of her halo and outfits. I put a bunch of designs together and sent them out to my friends to ask them to vote on their favorite outfit to help me decide 😂:

In the end Melody’s outfit didn’t quite look like any of these, because they’re all somewhat complex, and I need things to stay really simple for comics. Once I had designed the outfit the struggle still wasn’t over, cause now I had to do colors. Here’s just a small sampling of the color pallets I went through:

I guess if I was gonna break down my process into steps, it would be like this:

1. Sketch a bunch of ideas based on vibes

2. Choose my fav and then refine it further by tweaking the outfit/hair ect

3. Try out a lot of different colors and keep adjusting them until they look right

4. Give birth to my Art Child 💃✨🙌

I don’t always do all that, and some of the design processes for certain characters happen a little differently. But that’s basically it! Sorry this was super long, I hope it helped!!

[tarot-by-e11e]

Heyy Elle! How are you? I am here for your new event!

Your Initials/Nickname-JD

"If money wasn't an issue: - what features would you want to have in your dream house?" - A chandeliar,a patio and a horse stable.I love the old money European aesthetic and I would love to have a house like that.

"what would be your ideal self-care routine?"-Romcom movie marathon,a day out,shopping,cafe visiting,travelling,book stores,eating and trying on new cuisine.(Every sagittarius of me I know).

Thanks in advance!!

Hi JD,

Thank you so much for participating in my Home ask game.

Old money European aesthetics tends to be what quiet luxury seems to look like. So I totally agree on the patio~ By any chance, do you love horses? Chandeliers are truly mesmerizing, it's the upkeep that just personally stresses me out. But hey! That's not a problem if money wasn't an issue right?

I love how your ideal self-care routine is filled to the brim with dopamine increasing activities! I can intuitively tell you're someone who desires to be as well-red, cultured and have as many passport stamps if money wasn't an issue! No way you have Sag placements? Which ones??

So the cards I pulled are: 7 of Cups, Justice, Sun

I personally love that 7 of Cups showed up in your reading because you have Sag placements, this is so Sag coded, I literally cannot stop giggling!

This usually talks about have many choices, or searching for some meaning or purpose in life. Other instances, this could be corelated to daydreaming or wishful thinking, also indecision.

So to relate all of these in the reading, it is suggested, more like, highly encouraged for you to go further in expanding your horizons. You have the green light from the universe to go forward in your plans to travel and try as many foreign cuisines as much as possible. Visit as many museums in your area as possible. Because these activities are what helps you feel at home in your body and in your life.

Now the card suggest that in order for you to feel at home in your body and life, being accountable with how your life has brought to where you are now would be a good start.

Try to first assess, is how you are living your life helping you get to where you want to in the future? If not, list down everything you're currently doing on a sheet of paper, categorize which habits or decisions are holding you back, and which ones are helping you forward. When you finally see the list of what works and what doesn't. Try to plan out, atleast 1 -3 months ahead, what you can do to help you get to where you want in life.

Now this process will definitely go through a series of revisions, so please be kind and understanding towards yourself when going through this part of your life. This strategy revision will always be subject to adjustments, so don't beat yourself up if you can't seem to keep up with establishing new habits and routines. Just remember, there's more than one way to create a habit. So do you research and find which one works for you, then stick to it for as long as you could. Should there come a time where that strategy no longer serves its purpose, see it as another opportunity of your evolution.

Also in this specific process, a personal suggestion from me would be to change your vocabulary on the things you do. Don't say, "Oh it's so hard to do this or that.", rephrase it by saying, "I'm a beginner at learning to do this or that, that's why it's normal to make mistakes." Do you see the difference?

Instead of saying, "I'm so unproductive and lazy right now.", try rephrasing it as, "Okay, with my current energy level/state of being, the task I want to do might seem a bit overwhelming. So let me just do the first step of the task for just 2 minutes."

Rephrasing your inner monologue might take a bit of practice but it will be to your benefit in the long run. The reason is, your brain can't differentiate sarcasm with facts. So if you verbally or internally self-sabotage, your brain will un-discriminately believe it as an absolute truth. To avoid that, rephrasing comes in play.

Now, it's all great to be accountable and productive but always remember, you don't always have 100% of your energy everyday. Some days, you have 50%; while other days, you're at 25%. So instead of beating yourself up for how much you can give and do that day, just remind yourself, you waking up, and dragging yourself to brushing your teeth is you showing up for yourself, and that is enough. You bed rotting because your nervous system has been severely dis-regulated is your body's way to recuperate, and that is you being enough. Ideally, yes it'd be nice to be always going all out, but that is not realistic, nor is it sustainable.

So until you've somehow found a way to curate your life in a way where your strengths are incentivized while your weaknesses are given the chance to be cultivated as a strength later on, you'll need to be serious on being kinder to yourself along the way. It's a huge adjustment, heck, it might be the biggest commitment to yourself thus far, but it is, in hindsight, absolutely worth the investment in the long run.

Now does it mean that you have to just be all productive and serious and dedicated 24/7? Of course not. You got your off days too. So when in your low moments, you are encouraged by the Sun card to find little glimmers in your daily life. If you can prepare a self-soothe box prior to being triggered, please do so. If you can incorporate dopamine stacking in your daily routine, please feel free to do so. Because in your case, happiness is a committed pursuit. You have to actually show up for yourself, and actively choose to curate and schedule your life where you permit yourself to be happy.

Now this happiness takes form in whichever form you feel the most joy in. Feel free to add into your self-care routine at least 5 minute breaks every few hours, dedicated to relax and cultivate dopamine.

Let yourself actually enjoy those little moments. And you don't owe anyone any kind of explanation why you want to be happy.

This is your life, your body and ideally, you get to decide how to get utilize your energy, time and resources. And if anyone around get mad at you for choosing yourself, this is a tell sign that these angry people have benefitted from your self-sacrificing tendencies and lack of boundaries. They're mad because they have no access to you so easily anymore. So with that in mind, you get decide how to deal with such individuals. Where they stand in your life as up to your discretion.

This concludes the end of your reading. Do let me know how this resonates with you. Feel free to show some support via my Buy Me A Coffee here (This reading is for entertainment purposes only.)

[tryslora]

ND Creative: Time, Focus, Organization

Time, focus, and organization can be complicated things as an ND creative.

Objectively, I know what I need to do. I know all the steps. I even know that in order to get it done, I have to list out all of those steps, note how long each will take and their dependencies, then reorganize them into a timeline.

Then I stare at the screen, or the piece of paper, and my brain just stops. Says nope. Hits the mental and emotional back button to get the hell out of that mode.

Makes it kind of hard to get anything done.

I’m currently struggling with this exact thing on multiple levels. Why am I blogging about it? Well, I’m hoping that if I talk about the places where I’m stuck, maybe I’ll become unstuck.

Oh, the funny ways we try to trick our minds, yeah?

Big List Things I Need to Do:

Publishing stuff with DPP (timeline not under my control)

Publishing stuff for independent book (oh hey, a release date would be nice and I’m the one who has to set that)

Plotting and outlining the next PHU novel (is it over a year overdue? I’m sure no one noticed…)

Plotting and outlining the next 7Lakes novel (because when the first one comes out, “where’s the sequel” will hopefully be the obvious first question)

There are a million other things on my list in various sizes from small through medium and even large, but none quite as unwieldy as all of those.

I’ve been blocked on these timelines—both for publishing and for plotting—for a long, long time. I feel like I’m trying to do too many things at once, or attacking things on too many fronts. I worry about well, what if one thing overlaps with another—are the people who want to read my work going to be like “nah, I can’t buy two books” and just nope out of everything? Am I screwing it all up?

I keep telling myself I need to let go and just Do The Thing.

Seriously.

Do The Thing.

So, let’s break down what needs to be done at the highest of levels for the writing-related things (and ignore all the blog posts, TikToks, video editing, etc that also needs to be done).

For publishing with DPP, there is: 2nd edit on book 2, large revision on book 3 before it goes to first real edit, then 2nd edit on book 3, and final edits on all of that. Plus cover reveals, blog posts, teasers. Pulling out quotes I want to use for stickers. I am pretty sure I’m forgetting things. The nice thing is that all of the big overhead things like planning a campaign has been done for me. YAY Duck Prints (Seriously, they are AWESOME). I think my sticking point here is that I have no realistic expectation for how long each editing round will (or should) take, so I’m not sure how to slot it in. Plus I know it’ll be overlapping with the other book.

For solo (independent) publishing, I have so much more to do. I have to create accounts with both the private and public profile information that’s required on publishing platforms. I need to create a logo and develop a description of my “publishing company” (me, it’s just me) and I need to business work for that company, like buying ISBNs. I need to finish the final book editing, then do the layout so I know what the spine width is. Then I can contract for and get a cover. After that it should get easier, right? Pull out quotes, do blog posts, cover reveal, announcement of the release date (probably not in that order). Get the news out. I can set a release date once I get everything else on a calendar. And if the bulk of the editing is done sooner rather than later, my editing energy can be spent on the DPP books while I’m doing production and marketing for the 7Lakes book.

Okay. This all starts to feel like something I can get my arms around. I’m going to let the high level/low level plotting go for now, and come back to it in another post.

So—why is this a blog post anyway?

I mentioned before that I was trying to unstick my mind. By talking out loud to someone else—even though I can’t see that someone, and who knows, maybe I’m shouting into the abyss—I feel like I’m being held accountable. I’m working through it in public. In plain sight. It means I have to keep putting one foot in front of the other, considering every word. It has to get out of my fingertips and onto the page because I am here, not just trying to make notes privately for myself.

I can’t back button out of it.

Sometimes that’s how I get things done.

Will this translate to me taking the things I’ve said above and moving them into something where I can add timeframes, and schedules, and put it all on a calendar with due dates and start breaking it down into even smaller tasks?

Gods I hope so. It’s a goal, anyway.

Getting back to where we started… time, focus, and organization can be complicated as an ND creative. 

Time—I spent thirty minutes and a thousand words of chatter.

Focus—It’s like body doubling—by talking to you, I got something done.

Organization—I think I have a list. Or a start of one. It’s more than I had!

It’s a complicated way of doing things, but fingers crossed that my next step is getting to cross off the first part of my timelines task.

[xeduo]

I’m really sad, there’s been an ongoing series of interpersonal conflicts at my internship that I’m not sure how to interpret, overall. Keep in mind, we had our final team meeting yesterday and next week is our last week here as interns.

I’ve been trying to be really clear on communication and trying to be intentionally considerate of the other interns because not only am I a decade older than most of them, there are 4 of us and I haven’t worked closely with a team in a professional setting in a while (my last position was a very individual role within a broader team where we all had our teaching but we weren’t coordinating teaching with anyone else on the team).

Our individual mid-conference, my boss said that one of the other interns (let’s call them Intern A) said she felt like I was always “doing all of the tasks” and leaving her with none. I felt as though there weren’t enough tasks for 4 interns in general, because despite her feeling that way I felt like I wasn’t doing hardly anything at all. But I took the criticism and since then I’ve been doing even less, and when we get assignment lists I’ve been writing them on the board in our office so I can make sure that I’m not taking more than 1/4 of the total tasks.

To be clear, I am. Incredibly bored.

Then, the other day, when we got tasks, I wrote them all out and waited a few days because I had things I could do instead of the new tasks, then I grabbed what hadn’t been started and started it myself. Again, making sure to not take more than 1/4 of the work, despite the fact that this was at least 2 days into our task cycle and most of the tasks were still up for grabs.

So like Monday morning, a week after I grabbed that task, Intern B came to me and said that Intern C felt like I took that task from her, and she had been planning on doing it. She didn’t post on the group chat or on the whiteboard that she wanted to do it, and it was untouched for 2 days after we mentioned it. I don’t understand why she felt that way, but I apologized and gave her a larger subtask that I had reserved in trade, and I think we smoothed it out.

Then yesterday our boss mentioned that a storage closet could probably be reorganized before we end next week, plus we have paper revisions to do (we wrote an academic paper over the summer and she was going to look at it). Since only Intern B and I are in the office today, I started on the closet and invited them to join me if they felt like it (it’s a mess and really big, so there’s room for all of us if we all want to work on it) and they chose to work on the paper revisions.

We were all planning on working from home tomorrow but I feel like there’s enough closet to be a significant chunk of my next week and I don’t really want to work on the digital stuff, so I texted the group that I was going to go into the office and keep working on the closet, keep the momentum going. And Intern B responded in a grumpy way that there’s time enough for it next week, implying that I should just work from home, which I get but honestly I’ve been so bored it’s nice to just have a thing to do physically.

I’m not sure what to do about all of this. What I’ve found in work before is that people think I “do too much” but I’m just doing things until I’m not bored anymore. I’ve tried really hard with this internship to share tasks and not step on any toes, but it seems like everyone is still annoyed at me for doing too much anyway, again. I was really hoping that based on the level of difficulty for even getting this internship, the attitude would be different and everyone would be a “let’s find something to do” type.

I know I’m probably biasing the narrative here, so I’m sure there’s something I’m missing, but what do you think I should do? It’s only a week and a half more but this has been such a reoccurring thing that I’m very stressed and sad about it.