#one day i will post pdfs of the ones i own

[autodiscipline]

Plastic Tree official fanclub zine Sickroom karte: 07 2002

[2soulscollide]

my favorite free tools for writers

hello, hello! hope you're doing well.

today i am bringing you another list with my top 3 favorite (free!) tools that I find helpful for each phase of writing a novel.

brainstorming phase

Fantasy Names Generator - not only for fantasy (you can also generate real names). this website is just... amazing! it helps you come up with names for characters, places and locations, descriptions, generate traits, outfits (yes, outfits!!), and probably something else you could ever think of.

The Story's Hack - this one is so cool! you can generate names for everything, create your own generator, and practice writing through writing exercises! plus, you can save your generated names to see later, and you earn coins for each idea generated (you can later buy themes - dark, snow, forest, etc)

RanGen - my last favorite generator on this list is RanGen! you can generate plots, appearances, archetypes, love interests, cities, worlds, items, and more.

developing the idea phase

Bryn Donovan - in this blog you can find master lists under the tag "master lists for writers". it is so helpful when you first start developing the characters and need to find the right words to describe them and to find some quirks and flaws!

Writers Write (350 character traits) - again, this is so helpful!

Story Planner - ah, the number of times I've talked about this website... please, PLEASE take a look at it, you won't regret it. this website has literally everything you need to fully develop your idea with outlines for you to fill in step by step.

writing phase

Colleen Houck (80+ barriers to love) - need more romace conflict? there you go!

Cheat Sheets for Writing Body Language - so, you know how your character's feeling, but don't know how he'd physically act? check out this list!

Describing Words - honestly, this is a lifesaver. don't you struggle to find the right word to describe something? well, with this website all you have to do is to type the object you're trying to describe and see which description fits better to you!

revising phase

Language Tool for Google Docs - i know we all have heard about google docs before, but the truth is, it's almost impossible to find free softwares to check grammar and spelling. so, google docs is useful, because it automatically revises it for us, and it's completely free. plus, you can add adds-on, such as "language tool".

Unfortunately, there's only one (free) tool that I actually enjoy for the revising phase. if you know some others, please let me know so that I can try them out and feature in this list.

exporting phase

Google Docs - i find google docs very easy to format and export to .epub, so i'd recommend using it as a free tool.

Reedsy - this is also a free tool available online. all you have to do is to write down each chapter (copy and paste) or import your word document. it will format the document to your liking and export it to pdf, epub and mobi.

that's everything for now! i hope this post was somehow helpful or inspiring!

if you want to see more master lists full of resources, check these:

WEBSITES FOR WRITERS {masterpost}

BEST accounts to follow as a writer

BEST SITES & SOFTWARES TO WRITE FICTION

DIALOGUE IDEAS TO GET RID OF THAT WRITING BLOCK (masterpost)

Useful Resources & Tips for Writers

also, if you are a notion lover just like me, check the free template I just released with everything you need to develop and write your novel!

thank you so much for reading! hope to see you around, and have a nice day <3

[wttcsms]

if you feel like falling (catch me on the way down) | TWO

ᝰ.ᐟ after getting your heart broken by professional soccer player, rin itoshi, all because he loved the game more than you, you officially swear off all men — especially athletes. your publicist doesn’t get that memo, though, and you find yourself roped into a fake relationship with yoichi isagi, who isn’t just a pro soccer player, but also your ex’s rival. things could get messy. ( fem!reader )

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pairing yoichi isagi x reader (endgame), past! rin itoshi x reader word count 5.9k chapter synopsis the busier your schedule, the less time you can spend thinking about rin. the only problem is, you see something you can't unsee. nothing a bottle of tequila can't fix, right? (spoiler: tequila isn't fixing a broken heart) chapter contains partying and drinking to cope, diet culture author’s notes i have nothing to insightful to add rn, but send me any asks discussing this fic and i will have a lot to say LOL

From: fumiko.gima@apextalentgroup.com To: [USER EMAIL HIDDEN] Cc: wfitch@everlanefitch.com, mai.sasaki@apextalentgroup.com, hideakitakeda@titansecuritysolutions.com, benji1968@gmail.com + 3 others Subject: 6/19 — [NAME] [SURNAME] AGENDA Attachments: 📎 [6.19 AGENDA.pdf]

All — 

Attached is the PDF copy of [Name]’s itinerary for today. Reminder that these times are STRICT. Stay on schedule. 

Fumiko Gima

Get Outlook for IOS 

Your first alarm goes off at 4:50 AM to what you assume is the noise they play on repeat in hell (By the Seaside, an Apple classic). After waking up, you roll over in your king size bed (the problem with always choosing to go big instead of just going home is the fact that when you’re all alone, the luxury of extra space just becomes empty space) to promptly hit the snooze button. You’ll allow yourself five more minutes of sleep (as a treat). When the second alarm you set up goes off at 4:53 AM (By the Seaside, once again), you scream into your pillow, and shut it off for real this time. You knew you weren’t going to give yourself the full five minutes, but it felt really good to trick yourself into believing that you would. You always start the day with this tiny disappointment; that way, no one has the privilege of being the first person to piss you off. 

At 4:54 AM, you slide your feet into your Ugg slippers, readjust the loose straps of your silk camisole, and shuffle into your marble-floored bathroom. You rub the sleep from your eyes, brush your teeth with your pink electric toothbrush, and wash your face. By the time you’re done with your morning skincare, it’s 5:06 AM. You honestly can’t remember the last time you did your own makeup, but you bring your makeup bag with you anyway. If there’s downtime between shoots, you’ll post a faux-GRWM TikTok where you apply three miniscule dots of concealer on your seemingly already flawless skin and add a fresh layer of the brand new, limited edition Rhode peptide lip treatment that Hailey Bieber’s team gifted you. They also gave you twenty grand to do so, with a personal “hey girlie, would love to catch up with you one of these days!! life has been so hectic, sorry for not keeping in touch x btw, i just came out with a new shade of my…” text from Hailey herself. (You replied back with a “yessss, we need to meet up soon!! Also, LOVE LOVE LOVE the new shade omg 😍” — neither of you have any intention for planning a meet-up, and you don��t “LOVE LOVE LOVE” the new shade as much as you “LOVE LOVE LOVE” to deposit a fat check.) 

You’re sliding into the backseat of the glossy black SUV parked in front of your driveway at 5:14 AM. Your chauffeur, Benji, holds open the door for you. 

“Good morning, Ms. [Surname],” Benji never drops the formalities with you, except for when he’s lecturing you. Thank God he doesn’t own a smartphone; if he saw half the things Daily Mail wrote about you, his voice would be gone from scolding you so much. Even if he’s technically on your parents’ payroll and is paid to make sure you get to and from places safely, it still feels nice to have someone who cares about you enough to call you out on your shit. 

The first stop is an exclusive, members-only pilates studio. If you’re home, you have to work out in the morning, no matter what. You like your routine. Out of all the things online magazines put out about you, it’s kind of embarrassing how the most accurate one is revealing how you stay “fit ‘n flawless even after going out every night.” Most people didn’t believe it. Rin got it, though. Rin would actually work out with you, when the two of your schedules aligned, and— Time to start your workout early! Nothing takes your mind off of matters more than focusing on the burn of your core and arms. 

By the time you finish your private session, you’re walking out the studio with your puffy tote bag slung over your shoulders. Your body is still a bit damp from taking a quick shower but not drying off properly, and Benji drops you off at your first business stop of the day — ELLE Japan.

You smile brightly as the team of makeup artists surrounding you shower you with compliments. One of the girls brushing on your foundation tells you that you have really nice skin. When she goes in for a second layer, you almost consider rescinding the thanks you gave her.

The set is hectic, as expected. No matter how long these people have been in the industry, no matter how big the host is, something always seems to be going wrong. Apparently, there’s been a mishap over in wardrobe, and ELLE’s people are not very happy with how this is going to delay everything. With your hair and makeup done, there’s nothing for you to do besides sit down, be quiet, and look pretty. 

Downtime is the last thing you want. You’re used to a busy schedule, but you convinced Fumiko to accept as many projects as possible. If you have to rank at the top of the list for celebrities who emit the most CO2, then so be it. You’ll pollute the whole damn planet if it means you won’t have a single second to be alone with your thoughts. 

At 9:00 AM sharp, you go on your phone to inform your manager that the agenda is fucked. ELLE Japan is definitely going to push back this session with you for at least a good hour, which means Fumiko is going to have to explain to Your Style (the YouTube channel name for a famous fashion commentator who’s amassed nearly twenty million subscribers) why you’re going to be late for the Zoom debrief on what you two are going to talk about in an upcoming video. At 9:02 AM, you receive a text.

juli ᡣ𐭩: u know i love u 

It’s two in the morning in Paris. When Juliette said she was going to visit her father, she said it was going to be a much-needed vacation — just something chill and lowkey, like going to all the designer stores and eating croissants on a balcony. Those were her exact words. 

juli ᡣ𐭩: [photo attachment] 

Somehow, from the neon strobe lights, bodies pressed against one another’s, and the way the image is blurry because she couldn’t get her phone to focus, it feels like Juliette’s “something chill and lowkey” morphed into club-hopping all over France. You roll your eyes with affection. You should’ve known her vacation was going to turn into this; as if Juliette would eat bread for pleasure — she’s been quoted for claiming that carbs are a necessary evil. She probably hasn’t even touched a croissant for the past week she’s been there.

juli ᡣ𐭩: showing u before TMZ posts it juli ᡣ𐭩: [video attachment] juli ᡣ𐭩: do not freak out. not worth it. juli ᡣ𐭩: ugh i knew this club sucked ass for a reason 

You wait for the video to load. It’s almost as blurry and unfocused as the original image she sent, but you can tell she had to zoom in pretty hard to capture what she wanted. It’s two figures with a minimal amount of space between them. One of them is definitely a girl; she has the build of the usual French models. A thin, leggy brunette who has mastered the intricate art of Just Had Sex hair. Perfectly messy, but could never be considered sloppy. She’s wearing a sparkly, tight minidress. The fabric shimmers when the strobe lights pass by her body. The person she’s practically pressed up against is a man. Tall, lean. He’s leaning down, presumably so he can hear her better. When the video clip ends abruptly (someone bumped into Juliette, and the video ends with shaky footage and a loud “putain!”), you replay it. And replay it. And then you play it again, just for good measure.

Each time you watch the stupid video, you find something new to notice. Her red lips brushing against his ear. The way his hand hovers near her hip. The way you’re certain she’s smiling when she speaks, like the smirk of a victor. The exact same self-satisfied, smug grin you sport whenever you get a guy right where you want him. Upon every rewatch, though, one thing remains the same: you’re constantly fixated on him.

Right now, it’s two in the morning in Paris. You know that when you weren’t in this fucked up headspace you’re in right now, you’d be in bed, snuggled underneath your blankets, by 11:30 PM. You know that when you felt your best, you could be in bed, whispering in the dark to the person you felt safest with, at 10:00 PM (at the latest, because you both would have a busy day ahead and needed the rest). He likes sleeping early because he likes being well-rested. 

So why the hell is Rin Itoshi at a club right now?

At 9:39 AM, ELLE Japan gets right back on track. Before your editorial shoot for a special anniversary edition of the magazine, they get you to sit down to do a video interview that they plan on posting all over their social media. 

“This is a very special edition that will be coming out, and you are not only having the biggest spread dedicated to you, but you’re also going to be on the cover. Knowing this, how are you feeling right now, [Name]? This might be the most high-profile photoshoot you’ve done so far in your career, and that’s saying something. You have quite the impressive resume.” 

The ring lights are shining directly in your eye. The stool they have you sitting on for this interview is uncomfortable, and you have to focus on remaining balanced. Your back is perfectly straight, and your hands are folded in your lap. You blink, and you see the video playing in your mind. You have God knows how much makeup caked on right now, and you still have a long day ahead of you. Rin is at a club right now. Rin is at a club right now, with a girl. Rin is at a club right now, with a girl, and they’re basically grinding against each other, and he might just have forgotten all about you.

You smile brightly. At 9:40 AM in Japan, you let everyone know, 

“I honestly think I’m the happiest I’ve ever been before in my life! This is a great way to establish a sort of, I guess, new era of my life and my career.” 

You turn to face the camera directly, giving them a dazzling view of your pearly whites. “Not trying to rush the process or anything, but I am definitely looking forward to seeing how this will all play out in the future.” 

You’re operating on autopilot for the rest of the day. The ELLE shoot wraps up close to noon. You forgo lunch, but knowing you and your tendency to skip meals, Benji refuses to start the car until you eat the lunch his wife packed for you. It’s light and refreshing — they want you to eat well, but they’re not cruel. Even if they want to bring you a feast of a nice, hot, home cooked meal, you’ll eat it out of obligation and then suffer the consequences on set when everyone asks why you’re so bloated. You don’t even taste what you’re consuming. 

At 12:30 PM, you hop on the Zoom call and pretend to care about discussing matters such as the lack of personal style affecting the younger generations. Every topic is a trivial topic to you. The only thing worth dissecting is that damn video. You should’ve asked those twenty million subscribers to help you analyze that, instead of nodding along when the YouTuber starts going on a rant about how Shein and other fast fashion brands are ruining everything. 

Late in the afternoon, you get another text. 

kenyu: So the team wants to host a belated birthday party for me lmao. Team’s planning on having it at 10 tonight kenyu: Sending you the address right now

A party is exactly what you need right now. Endless drinks, no need for rational thinking, and you’ll be (mostly) surrounded by people who think models are all vain and vapid. No one there is going to expect a decent conversation from you, and with the state you’re in, it’s a wonder how all your sentences are even making sense. 

You give Kenyu’s next message a like in response. You were expecting a club, but when you click on the address, Maps reveals that it’s residential. Rin is gallivanting around European nightclubs, and meanwhile, the best you can do are house parties. This is how the future is playing out? 

At least even at your worst, people still think you’re on top of the world. 

Maybe life without a man dragging you down and invading your space is for the best. After all, once you got done with all your professional obligations, it’s only eight at night. You’re used to going out with whatever makeup they did for you on set at your last shoot of the day, which is a shame. You have shelves full of makeup that’s been sent to you by different brands, and one of these nights, you plan on just messing around at your vanity. 

You like living alone, you decide. You can leave all the lights on if you want, and no one complains about it hurting their eyes. You have full control of the thermostat. You don’t have to fight for counter space in the bathroom. Plus, no one can see how you’re living. 

At 9:13 PM, you’re sprawled on the cool marble floor of your bathroom (squeaky clean thanks to the housekeeper you have come once a week), and instead of rewatching that dreadful video and subsequently crying, you had a quick retail therapy session. Your new Prada heels should be coming within the next two days. 

You don’t get Benji to drive you. Nobody bats an eye at a rich girl having a driver, but it does seem kind of weird to have him drop you off at a party as if you're a tween girl getting taken to the mall. If the house is owned by one of Yukimiya’s teammates, surely it won’t be too awkward if you had to leave it there because you got too drunk to drive yourself back home? 

Because — no offense to Yuki, you’re happy he’s getting another birthday celebration — the whole point of even going to this party is to get fucked up. You already know that Juliette had a point — if not TMZ, then at least Daily Mail will be all over Rin and that girl in the club. If that gets leaked, then you might as well have your own headline to combat his. Sure, lately you’ve been out partying, but that was with other models so it doesn’t raise too many eyebrows. Rin being caught at a club is basically him hard launching the breakup. You need to raise some speculation on your side of things, too. 

you: can you get someone to pick up my car from this address tomorrow morning? you: please :) 

When you see three dots appear, you smile for real. You can practically hear her sigh and see the shake of her head.

Fumiko Gima: Yes. Fumiko Gima: Be safe.

Aw, maybe your manager does have a heart. Right before you can send her a heart, she adds:

Fumiko Gima: Don’t stay out too late. You have your first shoot at 8 AM. 

This is the message you give a heart reaction to. Maybe everything really is just business with her. 

You suppose you can’t fault Fumiko for always seeming cold. She’s your manager, not your best friend. 

In this industry, her honesty is refreshing. You normally find this to be the case, but you really feel it now when you step into the mansion and hear a cacophony of laughter swarming you from all sides. At every turn, there’s a celebrity with a drink in hand. Everyone’s leaning towards each other, as if they’re so captivated with the other’s words. 

You see an actor leading a stumbling model up the spiral staircase. To your side, you see a baseball player chatting up the daughter of one of the baseball league’s board members. Upstairs, someone’s probably snorting a line off Yukimiya’s teammate’s bathroom counter. There are only three reasons why people in your social circle attend these parties: to get fucked, to get fucked up, or to make business deals. Considering the fact that you’ve been here for nearly five minutes and have yet to see a birthday cake — or the belated birthday boy himself — you’re pretty sure everyone here has lot the damn plot for the original celebration.

When you venture some more, you end up in the massive backyard. Some people are drunkenly making out in the pool, some people are watching them, and in a table in the corner, you spot a group of girls giggling and cheering as they all do shots. Perfect. This is exactly where you need to be. 

One’s a model; you’ve seen her on a couple pages you flipped through in Harper’s Bazaar. You go up to the table and give her a bright smile.

“Hey, girl! Or should I say Miss Bazaar?” You greet her like how you think people would tease a friend. She’s not your friend; you don’t even know her name. You know she knows your name — everyone here does. And it’s because of the fact that everyone knows you that she lights up when she realizes you’re speaking to her. 

A photo op with you guarantees that even if the headline coming out tomorrow is centered on you, she’ll still be in the frame. Daily Mail will add a caption naming everybody from left to right, and she’s planning on being the one captured right next to you. 

“[Name]!” She squeals, giving you a quick side hug. “How have you been?”

All your friends, the grand total of exactly two people, know how you’ve been. You grin, pointing to the bottle of tequila they have on their table. 

“After how this day has been, I honestly just need a shot.” You play it off like a joke, and as someone pours you one, you add, “Or maybe like five.” They all giggle before throwing back the tequila straight. They might think you’re joking, but this table full of strangers are the first people you’ve been honest with all day. 

At 12:15 AM, they aren’t strangers anymore. In fact, you think they might be your best friends in the whole world. You don’t know the lyrics to the rap song blaring through the bass boosted speakers, but you’re laughing as you take another shot. The Harper’s Bazaar girl is doing another shot with you, but she has her phone in her other hand. She makes sure that the both of you are in the frame together, and a second later, she’s tagging you in an Instagram story you don’t bother to view. You’re not even following her. 

“Okay, so out of all the guys here, who looks the most fuckable?” One of the girls leans on the table for support as she asks this question. You can’t help but notice how glittery her lipgloss is. Wow, even after all the shots she’s taken, there’s no transfer. Impressive. “I say Theo Sachs.” 

“Who the fuck is Theo Sachs?” Harper’s Bazaar asks, and the whole entire table giggles. Honestly, at parties like these, laughing comes easy. In fact, you’re giggling right with them, even though you also have no fucking clue who Theo is. There’s just something so freeing in tequila-induced joy. 

“Um, the host of this party?” Glittery Lipgloss says. “Oh my God, girl, he’s like, one of the players for Bastard.” 

“The fuck is Bastard?” Another girl asks, adjusting her blue minidress. 

“The soccer team!” Glittery Lipgloss is too drunk to be fed up, but you’re sure she would be rolling her eyes if she could. 

“I didn’t know we had soccer players here. I only saw baseball players.” Blue Minidress frowns, before adding, “I would totally fuck one of the baseball boys, though. No preference whatsoever. Matter of fact, I could take the whole team.” 

Harper’s Bazaar laughs. “What about you, [Name]? Who are you taking home tonight?” 

Before you can think of something to say, Glittery Lipgloss groans. “Oh my God, she has a boyfriend.” She looks at you for confirmation. You don’t give her any, but thankfully Blue Minidress has her own insight to add to this conversation. 

“So what the fuck does that have to do with her question? [Name], who are you taking home tonight?” 

Nobody. Out of every party you’ve gone to this past month, you went back home, completely and utterly alone each and every time. It’s not even because nobody offered — they have — but because no matter how lonely you may get or feel, you don’t like strangers in your space. It took you three months of dating Rin to let him into the penthouse you were originally staying in, and that was with you being in love with him. 

Once again, you’re saved from answering when someone behind you goes, “[Name]?” 

You turn around, only to come face to face with Yoichi Isagi. On second thought, maybe this isn’t the rescue you thought it was. Drunk You can’t hold back your frown when you see him. He’s wearing a dark blue polo shirt and chinos. He looks perfectly business casual and could pass off as an off-the-clock investment banker instead of the world class athlete you’ve heard he is. Then you let out a little snort of laughter, which only makes him look more confused. You don’t want to tell him that it’s kind of funny how normal he looks. 

Not in a bad way. You’re surrounded by models for practically the whole day. Looking unattainably hot or having ethereal beauty is the one non-negotiable job requirement. Even Rin, with his stupidly long lower lashes and impossibly high cheekbones and his pretty boy resting sulking face, is serving standards some male models can’t achieve. Isagi looks like the type of guy you would have a crush on if the two of you were completely normal and attended regular high school together. 

But that’s not the reality you’re living in. Right now, you’re getting drunk with girls you don’t know, and every night, you’re making headlines. He’s a professional athlete that everyone at this table would gladly fuck just for a chance to be declared social media’s favorite WAG of the Week. The both of you could have your pick of anyone at this party, but you refuse to let anyone in, and you think Isagi might be one of those intense athletes who only care about their sport.

If that’s the case, he’s doing every girl a favor by not pretending he can commit to anything but soccer. You know someone who could use a few pointers. 

“Hi,” you mumble, and then you want to slap yourself because why the fuck are you acting like you’re nervous? But for some reason, you feel like you're a kid caught with their grimy hand in the cookie jar, like you’re doing something wrong.

“I didn’t know you’d be here.” 

“Well, it’s Kenny’s birthday party. Of course, I’d be here.” You cross your arms against your chest, feeling like you have something to prove. Before Yukimiya became his teammate, Kenyu was your friend first. Like, real friend, not just someone you leave supportive comments on their Instagram post type of friend. 

Isagi actually smiles when he hears that. “Funny. I think everyone but Yukimiya actually wants to be here.” 

You sober up a bit when you hear that. “Yeah, I couldn’t find him anywhere.” Not that you looked very hard. The minute you found this table of girls, you didn’t bother exploring the rest of the mansion. 

“He was upstairs with some of the guys. You know that he, uh, doesn’t really like these types of parties.” He rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. 

“You don’t seem like the type to like these parties either.” If he was anyone else, you’d be saying this to flirt. You’re honestly not sure what your intention behind this comment was, either. You’re too drunk to decide if you wanted it to be an insult (some way to defend Yukimiya’s behavior?) or just you trying to make conversation for once (you’re not normally one for small talk). 

“Caught me.” Isagi smiles easily. From now and thinking back to Yukimiya’s birthday lunch, Isagi is rarely not smiling. You wonder if he means it. Surrounded by people who only let you drink with them because being seen with you elevates their own status, you decide that the answer to that is a probably not. “I was about to head out before I thought I saw you, and I wanted to come by and…” For a second, he pauses to choose the right words to say. “Just wanted to see if it really was you.”

“Well, you saw me. Guess your business is done here.” Then you swiftly turn your back to him, as if to abruptly end the conversation. Instead, you’re drunker than you realize, and your heel ends up being wedged deeper into the grass than you expected, and you lose your balance. You think you might fall, which would be so embarrassing, but maybe not as embarrassing as what actually ends up happening.

What actually ends up happening is that Isagi is quick to wrap his arm around your abdomen, pulling you close to him as he attempts to keep you steady and upright. The girls looked shocked, but then they burst into another round of giggles, and since you’re not joining in the laughter, all you can think about is how annoying they are. You squirm around in his grasp, ignoring the whiff of fresh laundry you get from being all up in his personal space (not by choice!!!; he’s the one that pulled you in, after all!), and he releases you. 

“Are you feeling okay?” He asks you. It’s hard to glare at him when he looks so genuinely concerned. 

“Never better.” 

“Do you have a ride home?” 

What does it matter to you? Is what you want to say. 

“I’ll call an Uber.” You lie, hoping that this will end the conversation once and for all. Seriously, Isagi just killed the whole vibe of the party for you. You want to go back to drinking. 

“But I thought you didn’t do Ubers.” When Isagi calls you out on your bullshit, you soften momentarily. You almost forgot that he heard about your weird thing of having strangers know your home address. Then, you go back to giving him the cold shoulder. Sometimes, it’s a warm and gooey feeling to be known. Right now, you want to drown your sorrows in tequila and be showered with fake affection by girls who probably don’t even like you sober. You didn’t come to this party to be known. You came here for revenge. 

(You’re not going to acknowledge how drinking your sadness away isn’t necessarily showing up Rin, but for nearly an hour straight, you hadn’t thought about him, and that’s good enough.) 

When you have no response to that (wit doesn’t come easy when you’re in the condition you’re in right now), Isagi looks at you imploringly. 

“Let me take you home.” 

You shake your head childishly, almost saying nuh-uh. “Just because you don’t like this party doesn’t mean I don’t like it. I’m staying right here.” 

He finally frowns. “Fine. I’ll wait for you to finish up here, then I’ll take you home.”

“I’m with my friends right now. Leave me alone.” 

He raises an eyebrow. “Really? Which friend is going to make sure you get home safely? Yukimiya already left early.” Despite the two of you not knowing what the other is thinking, you both give wry smiles about that statement for the same reason. The party is still going on strong, despite the guest of honor not wanting to show his face and leaving early. 

“These are my best friends.” You gesture to the trio of girls you know nothing about, besides the fact that they can keep up with your drinking habits. They all smile at Isagi, who waves back before turning his attention back to you.

“Really?” He asks. “What’re their names again?”

No one has anything to say to that, especially you. When the silence gets too awkward, Isagi clears his throat and also puts his foot down.

“I’m taking you home, [Name].” 

You look at the trio of strangers you just spent hours with. Harper’s Bazaar shrugs, and the other two look away. The sting of not knowing who they are, despite them obviously having enough notoriety to be invited, makes your “best friends” not your friends anymore. Whatever. 

“Fine.” You grumble, following Isagi to his car. 

“Did you have fun tonight?” Is what he asks you as he signals to make a turn. The clicking of the turn signal is the only thing that fills the silence in the car. 

No. 

Sometimes, it’s fun in the moment, but that’s only when you’re drunk enough to trick yourself into thinking you’re having a good time. You’re more like Yukimiya (and — gross — Isagi) than they know; the whole “It Girl dominates the party scene” vibe you’ve got going on… It’s just bullshit that your PR team mixes together to get people talking. The high of being adored by everyone in a room vanishes almost immediately the minute you go home and wash off your makeup. In the bright lights of your bathroom, you stare at the sad, lonely girl in the mirror. It’s too dark outside for you to see anything out the window, but you lean your head against the cool glass, and before you know it, you’re waking up…

To Isagi groping you?

You’re groggy and confused and trying to blink the sleepiness out of your eyes, but Yoichi Isagi is definitely all up on you. You’re shocked, honestly. He looks like such a sweet guy! No wonder he was so pushy in getting you home.

He’s holding you in some awkward side hug, and he’s patting down your waist, trying to slip his fingers through the fabric of your dress, and finally, because he must be a novice-level pervert who doesn’t know the first thing about female anatomy, you speak up. 

“Gross! You can’t even feel up a girl properly! No wonder you take advantage of drunk, vulnerable girls!” 

“Ah!” He jerks back, shocked that you’re awake. Serves the pervert right. He should be backing up. You took a month of kickboxing classes (your modeling agency thought it would be the next big thing, since all the Victoria Secret models kickbox — they were wrong). “I-I wasn’t feeling you up!” 

“Then why were your hands all over me?” 

“I was looking for your key! You were asleep, and you looked like you needed it, so I just carried you to your door, but it’s locked.”

Oh. Likely story. You’re not letting him off the hook just yet. 

“Obviously my front door would be locked, dumbass. Who doesn’t lock their house?” You point to the perfectly trimmed hedges by your door. “Key’s in the bushes.”

Since you’re making no moves to get down on your knees and rifle through the bushes, Isagi sighs and does it himself. When he holds up the key, you nod in thanks, take it, and then proceed to unlock the door using your fingerprint. 

He blinks. “What?” 

“What?” You repeat back, innocently. 

“You didn’t even need the key to unlock the door!”

“Yes, Isagi. Modern technology is something, isn’t it?” And because you feel kind of bad, you offer him the chance to wash up before driving back. 

“You’re really something, you know that?” Isagi says from the kitchen sink. You’re sitting on a stool by the counter.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s nothing bad.” He clarifies. “It’s just… Rin’s a pretty private person. We always wondered what his girlfriend must be like. Sorry.” He shuts off the faucet, dries his hands. “Ex-girlfriend, I guess.”

“How do you know that?” You’ve been racking your brain, wondering if Yuki spilled your secret accidentally. Or — even worse — Rin himself confirmed it. Rin never even told anyone explicitly that the two of you were dating, so it’s not plausible that he would go blab about the breakup. 

“Well, I didn’t really know for sure until I drove you home that first time.” He admits. “I just thought you made a weird face when I mentioned Rin during lunch, and then you started acting funny afterwards. Just had a hunch, that’s all.” 

Great. So, Isagi, who’s basically a stranger to you, could read you to filth. Is there anyone else that you haven’t been fooling? How embarrassing. Being perceived sucks. 

You don’t say anything else. You can hear Isagi mumbling about something, and you make a half-hearted noise in reply, but you’re sleepy and drunk and coming to the realization that you can’t keep fooling everyone around for long. There’s no point in dancing around the topic of your breakup. It’s getting tiring, anyway. 

It is pretty exhausting to be pining after someone who’s not coming back. 

Because that’s why you’re trying so hard to keep the breakup a secret. Partly for pride, but mostly because… You’re hoping that after learning everything there is to know about you, Rin Itoshi wouldn’t go so far to cut you so deeply by leaving you. Right? He understood your level of loneliness like no one else, and he related to it. For the first time in both of your lives, the two of you suddenly found the right person to fill in all the empty spaces. 

And then he left, and the emptiness just continues to grow in infinite amounts.

You groan as you move around, only to find that you’re moving on top of your bed. You’re tucked into your sheets, and your hair is splayed across your pillow. You turn your head and see a shadowy figure exiting out your bedroom door.

“You’re leaving, too?” 

Your throat is dry, and the words come out small. You hate this feeling of hopelessness and vulnerability, and the figure pauses in his steps. 

He hushes you gently. “You should go to sleep. You’ve had a long night.” 

“Fine. Don’t stay. I don’t care.” You burrow yourself further into your blankets. 

“Do you really want me to stay?” 

At one in the morning, covered in the darkness of your bedroom, you turn every shadow into Rin Itoshi. You don’t know what you mumble in response, but you know that whatever you said, it’s directed towards him.

[anim-ttrpgs]

Re-Introducing the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club & FAQ

Alright, so, we have this discord server called the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club, and it’s exactly what it sounds like. A discord server, run by the A.N.I.M. Team, for reading, analyzing, and playing TTRPGs. It’s free to join, and at the time of writing this it has a community of nearly 200 members.

Also at the time of writing this, for a limited time, you can get a FREE PDF of the July 11th update of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy just by joining the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club! This is a huge upgrade over the free May 10th version!

Here’s how the book club operates:

Nominations. Members nominate RPGs they wanna play.

Voting. After we finish the current RPG, we vote on what the next one will be. You can vote for as many nominations as you want, and nominations with the most votes wins.

Reading. We encourage you to buy the winning game to support the developers, but if you can’t for any reason, we will find a way to get you a PDF. A rough deadline is set that will allow everyone to read the rulebook at a rate of about 10 pages a day, though reading faster or slower is okay.

Playing. We assign GMs on a volunteer basis, and players are assigned to groups with GMs based on schedule compatibility. Each group plays the same adventure module, so each group will have commonalities in their adventure that they can talk about and compare their experiences with, even with different GMs, players, and characters.

Repeat. Voting begins anew with the nominations that we have accumulated in the mean time.

A.N.I.M.’s current Patreon goal is also tied to the Book Club. If y’all can raise our Patreon income to $310/month, that will allow us to set aside manpower to carve out and organize a small additional space within the ANIM TTRPG Book Club server for other games which do not fit the nomination criteria for the main book club! At the time of writing this, it sits at $259/$310. Signing up to the patreon grants you access to monthly rulebook updates as we continue to finish the game, adventure modules, short fiction, and our patreon discord server.

Below is a bit of an FAQ as an attempt to quell any concerns or hesitations

“The Book Club games probably don’t fit with my schedule.”

They might! Because we assign multiple different groups based on schedule compatibility, the book club games are actually very very schedule-flexible! You might be surprised!

And if they still don’t, even just reading the rulebook and joining in on discussions is a valuable form of participation!

“I’m afraid to play with strangers.”

They won’t exactly be strangers if you hang out around them in the book club long enough! Yes we do get what you mean, but there’s nothing to worry about. The A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club is a safe community, and we have rules and, more importantly, procedures designed to make playing with relative strangers as smooth an experience as it can be!

“What if I don’t like the RPG that wins the vote?”

While we encourage you to step a little out of your comfort zone, participation in any given round of the book club is not mandatory, there’s no punishment for sitting out! It’s cool to just hang around in the discord server and discuss virtually anything if you want to.

Elegantly designed and thoroughly playtested, Eureka represents the culmination of three years of near-daily work from our team, as well as a lot of our own money. If you’re just now reading this and learning about Eureka for the first time, you missed the crowdfunding window unfortunately, but our Kickstarter page is still the best place to learn more about what Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy actually is, as that is where we have all the fancy art assets, the animated trailer, links to video reviews by podcasts and youtubers, and where we post regular updates on the status of our progress finishing the game and getting it ready for final release.

Beta Copies through the Patreon

If you want more than just status updates, going forward you can download regularly updated playable beta versions of Eureka: Investigative Urban Fantasy and it’s adventure modules by subscribing to our Patreon at the $5 tier or higher. Subscribing to our patreon also grants you access to our patreon discord server where you can talk to us directly and offer valuable feedback on our progress and projects.

The A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club

If you would like to meet the A.N.I.M. team and even have a chance to play Eureka with us, you can join the A.N.I.M. TTRPG Book Club discord server. It’s also just a great place to talk and discuss TTRPGs, so there is no schedule obligation, but the main purpose of it is to nominate, vote on, then read, discuss, and play different indie TTRPGs. We put playgroups together based on scheduling compatibility, so it’s all extremely flexible. This is a free discord server, separate from our patreon exclusive one. https://discord.gg/7jdP8FBPes

Other Stuff

We also have a ko-fi and merchandise if you just wanna give us more money for any reason.

We hope to see you there, and that you will help our dreams come true and launch our careers as indie TTRPG developers with a bang by getting us to our base goal and blowing those stretch goals out of the water, and fight back against WotC's monopoly on the entire hobby. Wish us luck.

[sindar-princeling]

LOTR Newsletter 3 Shire Drift - FAQ

Hello everyone!

Just like last year: for those of you who are already familiar with The Lord of the Rings Newsletter, this serves as an announcement that I'm doing it again; and for those who aren't - an introduction to the project :)

What is LOTR Newsletter?

I'm one of the people who subscribed to Dracula Daily in May 2022, and immediately thought, "Hey, I can do this too but with XYZ!" - XYZ being The Lord of the Rings. Because the events of LOTR also have specific dates ascribed to them, we're gonna be reading LOTR as it happened.

When does it take place?

Because of the way the beginning of LOTR is structured (read: because I don't want to leave six-month-long breaks between the first entries), we're gonna start on September 15th - a week before September 22nd, when the main events start to take place. It's also the publishing date of the Silmarillion, but that's just a fun fact for my own enjoyment.

From September 15th to September 19th, we'll read the prologue, and the fragments preceding Frodo's departure from the Shire. From September 20th, we'll be reading according to the dates in the book until April 8th. Then we'll be reading last parts of the book - which are stretched over a long time - once a week, to once again avoid lengthy breaks in delivery.

The Newsletter will last from September 15th to May 26th.

Where do I go if I want to post/talk about something related to the Newsletter with other readers?

We discuss current (and not only current) entries in the #lotr newsletter tag, and we have a Discord server set by the amazing @k-she-rambles! (I really hope this time I managed to generate a link that never expires...)

How do I subscribe?

Since the original platform I was using (TinyLetter) was shut down halfway through the second year of the newsletter, I had to figure out an alternative way to execute this project.

For the lovely people who joined the last edition of the newsletter, just a short announcement - I weighed all the pros and cons and decided to continue carrying out the newsletter the way I did after TinyLetter shut down.

For the new folks, a lengthier explanation: check out this post if you want to learn the details, but long story short: I can't send the newsletter as e-mails anymore, so instead I decided to provide you with a ready copy of the entire thing. I prepared formatted copies of the whole newsletter - September 15th to May 26th - as an .odt file, as a .pdf file, and most importantly as an .epub file, because I assume most of you are reading on your phones (if you don't already have an .epub reader, I use FBReader, and everything worked fine on my phone). At the beginning you'll find the whole table of contents with hyperlinks, so the navigation inside the document should be easy!

The MEGA folder can be accessed right here, and it's available for everyone!

In the folder linked, you'll also find a calendar file made by @none-ofthisnonsense that you can download on your phone and import into your calendar app so that all days when we read are marked in your calendar!

If you want to receive notifications about when there is an entry to read, you can also follow @is-today-a-lotr-newsletter-day and turn on notifications! This is a blog created solely for notifying you all when we're reading a new fragment of the newsletter, so all notifications you'll get will be about new entries, and nothing more. The notifications are meant to be the equivalent of sending e-mails.

Anything else I should know?

Please don't rat me out to Tolkien Estate/j, and have fun reading!

(And as a PS.: Thank you very much if you join - or join again! Last year was very tumultuous because of all the changes in the format, and I know the new way is not for everyone - but introducing more changes again felt like once more creating new chaos, so I decided to stick to a solution that mostly worked. I hope you understand!)

See you on September 15th!

[rjalker]

Flatland: An Adventure in Many Dimensions, a 2024 translation into casual English, is done!

You can read and download it completely 100% for free on the Internet Archive!

When it's done loading, you will be able to read it directly online, and the Internet Archive will automatically generate audiobook versions with text to speech.

You can also download and torrent various versions as PDFs, epubs, and editable documents so you can change the font, paragraph styles, and do anything else you want with it, like give everyone neopronouns or turn them into unicorns!

I will also be making my own audiobook version at some point. but that's gonna take a while since this is around 38,000 words long. You can make your own too! And you can translate this into other languages!

Edit: The "lazy" (unedited) audiobook is now available on youtube! It is in two videos, since my computer wouldn't let me combine them lol.

“https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpFcEwm88RUsMYmhY6DBYZcIvvKv6_ZS3”

Did I mention this is public domain? Because I hate capitalism and I'm poor and I want other people to also be able to enjoy books for free.

Buy the cheapest possible print version for $7.45 (I get $2).

This version is a paperback with no illustrations, no prefaces, a greyscale cover to make it as cheap to print as possible, so that more people can afford to buy it.

Buy the regular print version for $22.17 (I get $5).

This version is a hardpack with illustrations, the preface from the original author, and one from me.

You can also download all the HD illustrations included in this story here on the Internet Archive.

If you enjoy reading it, you can also donate directly to "TinyelFlatland" on paypal!

And if I haven't made it clear yet, this is Public Domain. You are 1million% encouraged to download it, print it, share it, do literally anything you want with it. I am 100% serious.

Now you can all join me in laughing at the narrator :)

Edit: oh wait lol. I realize I wrote this post assuming only people who already know what Flatland is will see it.

Uh so people who have no clue what Flatland is, here's a quick summary:

The narrator, who hides his identity using the alias "A. Square", is a resident of a world called Flatland, a world that only exists in two dimensions, where every person is a flat geometric shape. A. Square tells us the history and culture of his world, which is rife with bigotry that he buys into without question. Until New Year's Eve, before the first day of the year 2000, when a mysterious stranger claiming to come from the third dimension appears in his living room, and starts saying things that sound absurd, and performing what seem like magic tricks.

The original Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions, was published in 1884 by Edwin Abbot Abbot. It is both a scathing political satire criticizing the systems of bigotry in Victorian England, and an entertaining introduction to the concept of more than three dimensions.

Edit: Now there's an itch.io page too!

Edit again: And you can read it here on tumblr now! @flatland-a-2024-translation and on Pillowfort!

[rallamajoop]

Queer lit of the 1800s: Two gay Victorian vampire stories you've probably never heard of

So, I have this post in the works tackling that all-important question: just why are there so many gay vampire stories? But in writing it, what was supposed to be a brief tangent about a couple of little-known m/m vampire stories from all the way back in the late 1800s era… started expanding into something not-so-brief, as such tangents are prone to do.

But what the hell, the internet tells me it's queer history month: clearly the only solution is to give those stories their own post, where my tangent can spin out as far as it likes!

Now, if you know anything about Victorian vampire literature or the lesbian vampire genre, you’ve probably already heard about Carmilla, by Sheridan le Fanu (1872), the world’s very first (known) lesbian vampire story. To this day, it's easily the second best-known and widely adapted tale in all the Victorian vampire canon (after Dracula, obviously) – and it probably deserves to be too.

But this is not a post about Carmilla, because Carmilla is not the only gay-vampire-story written way back in the Victorian era. It's not even the least subtle gay-vampire-tale.

There are (at least) two others, both featuring male/male vampire/human pairings. And whether or not they ‘deserve’ to be remembered in the same breath as Carmilla, they’re both fascinating works in their own rights: Manor, by Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1884) – one of the world’s first gay activists – and A True Story of a Vampire, by Count Eric Stenbock (1894).

You can read both online. A True Story of a Vampire is long out of copyright and can be found on Gutenberg (Carmilla is too, if you're interested), and many other places. Manor has been translated into English only much more recently, but you can still get hold of it in pdf form, or buy it in ebook format. But if what you really want are some summaries, and/or whole lot of extra context and analysis to go with the stories themselves, I've got you covered below.

Manor (1884), Sailor Stories, and Karl Heinrich Ulrichs

We’ll start with Manor, since it was published ten years before our other example, and because I’m not quite cruel enough to leave you going "wait, did you really just tell me there was a legit gay activist writing vampire slashfic in his free time way back in the 1880s?" while I ramble on about the other story first. We'll start with the author himself, because his own story is at least as interesting as any fiction he ever published.

Born in Germany in 1825, Karl Heinrich Ulrichs knew from a young age that he was attracted to men. He trained in law, but wisely resigned before he could be fired in 1854 when his proclivities came to the attention of his superiors. Most in his position would've redoubled their efforts to hide; Ulrichs spent the next several years joining societies dedicated to science and literature and developing his own theories about non-hetero orientations, before officially coming out to his family in 1862.

He was just getting started. By 1867, he was ready to come out to the whole world.

Ulrichs is far from the first gay man to recognise his attraction without shame and find society in like-minded individuals ‒ but he may well be the very first to come out voluntarily and publicly, and advocate for the decriminalisation of homosexuality. And when I say "publicly" what I mean of course is, "in a formal address to the Congress of German Jurists." He was shouted down, but it was still a staggering act of bravery for a man of his time. It would still be a staggering act of bravery in many parts of the world today.

Undaunted by his reception, Ulrichs would also publish a dozen booklets advocating for rights for his community between 1864 and 1879, framing their sexuality as natural, inborn and wholly benign. In 1880, after multiple arrests for his political advocacy, he left Germany for self-imposed exile in Italy, where he would remain until his death in 1895. But it's during this period that he published some poetry, as well as Sailor Stories, a collection of four short stories inspired primarily by Norse mythology, including Manor (which we’ll get to, don’t worry).

Though Ulrichs saw little legal success in his lifetime, through modern eyes, his greatest failure might be only that he was so far ahead of his time. When he began writing and advocating, the word 'homosexuality' didn't even exist yet ‒ he himself used the term 'Urnings' for gay men, eventually coining terms for variations like 'Mannling' and 'Weibling' (gay male equivalent of 'butch' and 'femme') as well. He also came to recognise bisexuality, lesbian attraction, and even intersex conditions, theorising that all resulted from some combination of male and female characteristics developing in the same individual, as the available knowledge on embryonic development suggested might be possible. For a guy with only Victorian era science to work from, that's still remarkably close to the modern consensus today.

Nor did Ulrichs' work die with him. His writings would go on to inspire and be republished by gay rights movements that followed him ‒ including the work and advocacy of Magnus Hirschfeld, who created what may be the world's first trans-affirming clinic. Even in his own time, responses from his own readers show much his work meant to them, reassured at last that they weren't alone.

So how does a German activist from the 1880s find himself publishing gay vampire fiction based on Norse mythology while living in exile in Italy? I only wish I knew. My sources suggest his main goal with Sailor Stories was to publish something that would sell. Unsurprisingly, given the subject matter it seems to have sold very little. Manor is the third of four short tales, and by far the gayest of them all. It's also (IMHO) by far the best, and the most interesting.

Set in a Norwegian fishing village, Manor tells the story of the romance between a 15-year-old boy called Har, and the titular Manor, a sailor 4 years his senior, who rescues Har from the wreck which killed his father. In the days that follow, the pair become close, and Manor takes to swimming across the bay on summer evenings to visit Har at his home. And so they meet whenever they can, until tragedy strikes again, and Manor is killed in a shipwreck near the coast, leaving Har inconsolable with grief.

But this being a vampire story, in the nights after Manor’s death, something is seen swimming across the bay to Har’s home, just as Manor used to do. Har is visited night after night by the spectre of his beloved, who lies beside him in bed, strokes his cheek with cold hands, and kisses him with icy lips, draining his blood from his heart, "like an infant at its mother’s breast." Har himself awaits each night with mixed joy and fear, longing to see Manor again, even in such a form.

As Har weakens, the villagers attempt to trap Manor in his grave by hammering a stake through his body, but he continues to visit Har nonetheless, now sporting a gaping wound in his chest. The villagers return with a new stake, widened at the base like a giant nail, and finally, Manor is restrained in his grave. But it’s too late for Har: weakened and heartsick, he dies, begging only that he should be buried beside his beloved at last. Neither rise again. 

Though I can’t speak to how it reads in the original German, in translation, Manor is relayed in largely workmanlike prose. Its tale is short, simple, and sad – but so much about it fascinates me all the same.

(Draugen, Theodor Kittelsen, 1891)

There’s the incorporation of elements you might better recognise from Norse draugr folklore – revenants more typically associated with deaths at sea, or charged with guarding their own graves ‒ but still far more closely related to the vampires of Slavic mythology than most people probably realise. Manor is also one of painfully few stories which clearly recognises what is surely the original purpose of hammering a stake through a vampire’s body: not to kill it, but to hold the creature down and prevent it from leaving its grave. As a hopeless vampire-nerd (I've presented panels at conventions about this stuff, it's dangerous to get me started), I can’t tell you how much I love those aspects of this story.

But above all, Ulrichs’ tale captures what might be one of the oldest and most traditional versions of the folkloric vampire: the spectre of a lost loved one, and the potent mixture of fear and twisted longing thus inspired, that the weight of their loss might drag you down into death to join them. Many ‘real’ tales of vampirism have been inspired by outbreaks of wasting diseases like consumption, working their way through a family, one member at a time. But in Har’s case, it is clearly grief as much as Manor’s physical visits that claims him. He loves Manor so much that he welcomes his lover back, even as a revenant. In his own way, Har too is cursed by Manor’s death to wander the world like the walking dead, until finally reunited with his lover once more.

Nowadays, tragic love stories like this tend to get an eye roll from a lot of the queer community. The old ‘bury your gays’ trope has been done to death, and we’re largely sick of being told that noble suffering is the best we can hope for. But it’s notable nonetheless that Manor’s sexuality has no bearing on his death, and little about the story would change were Har female. It's far from clear if the rest of the village even recognises Har and Manor's love for what it is, let alone whether they'd disapprove ‒ after all, vampires will often go after friends and acquaintances when lovers and family members are exhausted. As such, it’s hard to read the village’s attempts to keep Manor in his grave as a simple matter of prejudice. They're also genuinely trying to save Har's life.

And yet, the way Har keeps the undead Manor’s visits a secret, even begging for the stake to be removed so they can resume, echoes the real experiences of so many gay and lesbian couples far too clearly to be accidental. And however disturbing to a contemporary audience, Har’s willingness to follow his lover to the grave leaves little doubt of the depths of his feelings. To an audience in the 1800s, even the most cliched example of bury-your-gays would be revolutionary.

Did I mention that this story fascinates me? There are layers to this thing.

For completeness, I’ve also read the rest of Sailor Stories (and you can too at the same link). Only one of the other three tales contains any queer romance: the first, Sulitelma, where a boy called Erich falls for a handsome sailor called Harald he meets aboard a spectral storm ship. But there's no happy ending: his sister falls for the same handsome sailor, and shoves Erich overboard to his death to eliminate her competition.

Atlantis, the second story in the collection, is a direct sequel to Sulitelma, but it's even more bizarre. Erich is barely mentioned, and instead we find ourselves reading a tale which I can only summarise as like something I might have found on fanfiction.net back in the early aughts, written by some 14yo trying to straightwash the original material. Here, Harald and some of his fellows go on shore leave to the land of the phoenix, populated by Greek nymphs and Cupid, and mildly comedic hijinx ensue. It is fascinatingly bizarre, but not exactly satisfying as a read (or a sequel).

The final story, The Monk of Sumboe, tells of how two close friends destroy their relationship and themselves with their fixation on the tale of an alluring siren. There's a solid concept in there somewhere, but it's far too short and abrupt to do much with it, and all the characters remain strictly heterosexual. But if there's one thematic detail that ties it to the rest of the collection (beside the many Norse elements), it's that hopeless longing for something others would warn you away from ‒ whether that be a phantom ship, a visit from a vampire lover, or an elusive siren. None of these tales end well for their protagonists, but we're drawn to sympathise with them nonetheless.

I cannot guess what reception Karl Ulrichs expected in publishing this book. Sailor Stories is neither a work that could expect good reception from mainstream audiences or a defiantly-radical queer masterpiece. What did people make of it in its own time? Was it read and cherished by at least a few boys or men like Har and Manor? I’d hope so, but I’ll probably never know.

If you'd like to read more about Karl Ulrichs, I can recommend (among my sources) this New York Times article for a quick overview of his work, or the various work of Michael Lombardi-Nash and Hubert Kennedy (link 2). You can also read the first chapter of his published correspondence online for free.

A True Story of a Vampire (1894), and Count Eric Stenbock

Our second Victorian vampire tale was first published in English, though it was written by a Swedish Count. Like Carmilla in its own day (and quite unlike Karl Ulrichs), both story and author seem to have flown largely under the radar until many years after publication, the queer subtext little noted or commented upon (if at all).

If nothing else though, A True Story of a Vampire aptly demonstrates that at least someone of that era spotted what Carmilla was really about – because he wrote his own version, only about men. Stenbock’s tale is effectively a much shorter, gender-swapped version of Carmilla – but with a larger age gap between vampire and victim lending the story uncomfortable pederastic overtones.

"Vampire stories are generally located in Styria; mine is also," it begins – though I couldn’t name you any vampire story from the era besides Carmilla set there. The narrator, the surviving sister of the vampire’s victim, is called ‘Carmela’, if you needed further proof.

Much like in Carmilla herself, the vampire, Count Vardalek (a Slavic term for vampire) arrives at their house after being forced to seek local hospitality when some convenient ‘accident’ interrupts his travels. There, he bewitches and slowly drains the life from her brother, Gabriel – a boy described in terms variously angelic and fey, a wild thing who befriends wild animals and would rather climb a tree to a window than take the stairs to his own room, but who cleans up beautifully for church – a sublime, cinnamon roll of a creature, far too good for this sinful earth, too pure. Gabriel is a true male equivalent of the likes of Dracula’s Lucy, feminised further still by his youth and innocence. Had a vampire not got him, one can only imagine he’d have eventually have been spirited away by the fairies.

Gabriel and the mysterious Count are drawn to one another immediately. Even as Gabriel wastes slowly away, he greets Vardalek eagerly each time he returns by throwing his arms around his neck and kissing him on the lips. Count Vardalek himself seems to be a vampire of the psychic variety, gaining in health and vitality while Gabriel wilts, merely after spending time in one another’s presence. Vardalek himself seems to genuinely regret Gabriel’s inevitable death, but unlike in Carmilla, there’s no rescue at our conclusion. Gabriel dies, and we’re given no reason to assume he’ll rise again.

To the modern reader, the true horror of this tale lies not with the vampires or even the homoeroticism, but with those uncomfortably pederastic implications. Gabriel can’t be more than twelve years old, his youth and innocence emphasised in his every description. Pains are taken to suggest that Gabriel’s own attraction to Vardalek is as much responsible for his fate as the vampire himself. Gabriel’s father is similarly bewitched by this charming stranger, and never recognises the danger, or the reason for his son’s tragic death. Even the narrator, his loving sister, cannot truly hate Vardalek for taking her brother from her – even when her father dies of grief soon after. Gabriel’s fate seems sealed from the moment the Count enters their home.

But knowing how often real child molesters get away with it, their actions excused or downplayed by their family, their victims accused of ‘seducing’ their abusers and made complicit in their own misery… I can only say that, for my money, A True Story of a Vampire is a very effective horror story in ways the author probably never intended, once you start to question the reliability of its narrator.

It won’t surprise you to learn that the author, Count Eric Stanislaus Stenbock, was a (very) gay man, deeply involved with the gothic and decadent artistic movements of his day. Born to a Swedish Count and an English heiress, Stenbock seems to be remembered less for his writing than for his character. In The Oxford Book of Modern Verse, 1892-1935, W.B. Yeats describes him as a "scholar, connoisseur, drunkard, poet, pervert, most charming of men" ‒ naming Stenbock as an exemplar of the poetic zeitgeist of the age. Notably however, none of Stenbock’s actual poetry is featured in the volume.

Stories about Stenbock are so bizarre that it’s hard to know how much should be believed. Eric Stenbock supposedly travelled with a multitude of exotic pets and a life-sized doll he referred to as his 'son', dabbled in religions ranging from Roman Catholicism to Buddhism, and decorated his dwelling with peacock feathers, oriental shawls, a bronze statue of Eros and a hanging pentagram. One acquaintance once compared him to a 'magnified child': "very fair hair beautifully curled, and a blond, round, blue-eyed face," who paused at the door and "took a little phial out of his pocket, from which he anointed his fingers, before passing them through his locks." But by his thirties, he was already dying of liver disease after years of alcoholism. He passed away at only 35.

Stenbock’s surviving artistic legacy consists of three volumes of poetry and one of prose, with some of those poems including explicit references to Ganymede or male lovers. So how did he escape the same controversy that dogged similar works by other queer creatives of his day, like Oscar Wilde or Walt Whitman – let alone Karl Ulrichs? Well, simple: his work never attracted enough attention to generate real controversy. Stenbock may have been just as much a character as figures like Wilde, but he hadn't nearly the same talent or success.

One last minor biographic detail that may be worthy of note (discovered courtesy of some very poor-quality scans of his one proper biography) is that the youthful Gabriel of A True Story of a Vampire may owe his name to a real Gabriele ‒ a female cousin ten years Stenbock’s junior, whom he would've spent time with in his teens, and seems to have been especially fond of. Whatever the true significance of that name, he'd use it more than once in his fiction: another short story, The Other Side: A Breton Legend, also stars an angelic little boy called Gabriel, with a similar dangerous attraction to the strange. It features some lovely mood and imagery as it sets the scene, but (perhaps as a result of the lack of a suitable model story like Carmilla) it is, in my opinion, a much weaker story overall.

But again, the most disturbing aspect of Stenbock's biography are the hints about his own relationships with much younger men. His second book of poetry, Myrtle, Rue and Cypress, is dedicated to three people: Simeon Solomon (a gay painter of the pre-Raphaelite movement, whom he met at Oxford), Arvid Stenbock, Eric's cousin, and to "the memory of Charles Fowler" ‒ the son of a Clergyman, who died of consumption at only 16.

This enigmatic dedication is all we know about Stenbock's relationship with Fowler. We don't even know how the they met (Fowler seems to have had a relative at Oxford at the same time as Stenbock, but even this is speculation). But that dedication, in a book which will go on to feature poems about the beauty of Ganymede, or explicitly addressed 'To A Boy' (Tis ever a delight, dear, To gaze upon thy face, To love the life within thee, Fair fashioned, full of grace) makes it hard to read Stenbock's feelings as remotely platonic.

It doesn’t help that the same volume includes a poem about an actual vampire, published ten years before A True Story of a Vampire would ever be penned, but with very comparable subject matter:

With slow soft sensual sips Draw the life from the tender spray, And brush from thy soft lithe lips The bloom of thy boyhood away

It's worth keeping in mind that Stenbock himself would've been only 21 at the time of Fowler's death, and that we don't know whether he ever acted on his attraction (whatever form it may have taken). He may well, as I've seen suggested, have kept his admiration private, idealising the image of the beautiful, dying boy in his final days, in that classic Victorian-gothic way. But it doesn't help that Stenbock's cousin Arvid, from that other dedication in the same book, was 8 years his junior, and that their family apparently disapproved of their relationship as "unnaturally close." Or that another famous Stenbock-associate was Norman O'Neil, a composer whom he met on a London omnibus in 1891, when O'Neil too was only 16. Stenbock was apparently taken by his intelligence and beauty, and would go on to leave him a considerable sum of money in his will. By 1891, Stenbock would've been 31, but his fixations hadn't aged with him.

So how are we to take all this? This was an age where a marriage between a 16-year-old girl and a suitor of Stenbock's age would scarcely have raised eyebrows. Uncomfortable as it may sound today, for many queer youths of the era, a romance with someone older and experienced enough to play mentor may genuinely have represented the safest real option available. There are layers of complicated subtext, meanwhile, in the idea of any gay man of the Victorian era casting himself as a vampiric monster, doomed to ruin the object of their attraction with their very touch. There may be layers more in Stenbock framing his tale as "A true story" before telling us of the misery a foreign Count brought to an innocent family, with his helpless fixation on their youngest child.

It's worth noting also that even in Manor, by Legit Gay Activist Karl Ulrichs, our love story is between a boy of 15 and a man of 19 ‒ an age gap of only 4 years, but large enough at 15 to raise some serious eyebrows. His first story too, Sulitelma, involves attraction between a man and a boy (exact ages unknown). Though Ulrichs explicitly viewed relationships with prepubescent children as reprehensible, he seems to have had no problem with relationships between young teens and much older adults ‒ even printing a story sent in by a reader (details in this article), joyfully recounting how he (the reader) was initiated into the world of male/male love as a 14-year-old by his brother's riding master. Ulrichs saw no reason to disapprove.

To confuse things for anyone looking this up today, google Ulrichs, and you'll find a number of online articles claiming that his own first experience involved being sexually assaulted by a riding instructor when he was only 14. This is wrong on multiple fronts: not only is the story related by Ulrichs as a positive experience, it wasn't even Ulrichs it happened to. No, shit like this would not be okay if it happened today (and frequently wasn't then), but we don't help ourselves by distorting the stories told by our queer forebears to fit modern expectations.

But none of that surrounding context makes the youth of the day any less vulnerable to predation, or Stenbock's fixation on youthful beauty less creepy. Today, no evidence remains to help us guess whether idealising the beauty and innocence of youth was the greatest of Stenbock's actual crimes, or the least of them. Anything is possible.

In brief: welcome to the joy of trying to reconcile the complicated place of pederasty in queer history! I'm afraid you can look forward to seeing a lot of it from here on back.

A True Story of a Vampire is not a bad work of fiction by any means. There are some lovely descriptions and entertaining turns of phrase, and the horror is certainly effective. It may even be considerably more readable than Carmilla to many, simply for being so much shorter. But how you feel about it is really going to be up to you.

One last digression about Carmilla and Christabel

There’s one additional work that I’ve once or twice seen listed as an even earlier queer vampire tale: Samuel Coleridge’s unfinished poem Christabel (1800) – the only problem being there’s no vampire in the story (and how queer it is may be questionable too).

Like Carmilla, Christabel tells of a Baron’s daughter (the titular Christabel) who comes upon a mysterious stranger in apparent distress (Geraldine) and invites her into her home. We never learn what kind of being Geraldine truly is (three further parts were planned in addition to the two that were completed), but when she undresses, Christabel spies something that horrifies her, remembering it later with the words "Again she saw that bosom old / Again she felt that bosom cold." But under Geraldine’s spell, Christabel’s recollection of this incident comes and goes, and Geraldine has soon bewitched her father too.

All ‘evidence’ that Geraldine was intended to be a vampire rests on such details as Geraldine having to be carried past an iron gate into the house, much as vampires have to be invited in – but that particular vampire trope wasn’t actually codified until a solid century later (like most vampire-tropes, we have Stoker's Dracula to blame). The idea that Geraldine has the cold, shrivelled body of the undead and revives herself on Christabel’s blood is a perfectly valid reading, but the more obvious interpretation would be that she’s some manner of shapeshifting fairy creature, weakened by the iron of the gateway, not the entrance to Christabel’s home. The aristocratic literary vampire had existed for over 40 years and appeared in numerous works of fiction by Carmilla's day; but Christabel predates the origins of the genre a solid two decades. For Coleridge to have come up with the idea independently seems vanishingly unlikely.

I mention Christabel here partly for completeness, but mostly to bring us back around to the greater family of Carmilla, which is still legitimately the first known queer vampire story. Though far better known than any other story discussed here today, how it came about is perhaps the most mysterious.

Sheridan le Fanu was a prolific writer, but I don’t know of any other story he’s penned with subtext like Carmilla's (and I’m not quite invested enough to read all of the rest to check, though someone totally should so I don't have to). Le Fanu was married, and had children, and that's all I can discover about his personal life. Was he some shade of queer himself? Did he have connections to anyone who was? Did he even realise what he was writing with Carmilla? Nothing I’ve read about him provides any answers. Nor can I tell you how many readers spotted the subtext it the story was first published. In its own time, it caused no great scandal, nor even seems to have garnered much attention (by contrast, Byron & Polidori's The Vampyre caused an uproar when it was published in 1819, mostly thanks to Byron's established fame and debates over its true authorship). It took until well into the 20th Century for it to obtain the reputation it has today.

But I’m sure it’s no coincidence that it was Carmilla that spoke to Stenbock enough that he chose to retell it. And while A True Story of a Vampire is still the only other vampire story of the era set in Styria, there was almost another one: Dracula, at least Stoker’s early plans for the novel. Styria also remains part of the unused prequel chapter later published as Dracula’s Guest. The setting isn’t the only detail Stoker nearly-borrowed from Carmilla either, my favourite example being the weird schedule by which both she and Dracula seem to have to be in bed in their coffins at dawn each day, both apparently helpless and immobile in sleep, though both are also repeatedly seen up and about later in the day. Neither tale offers any real explanation.

Have I mentioned lately that Stoker, too, was almost certainly some shade of gay?

Now, the fact that two different queer writers both found Carmilla so very inspiring – and would even both publish their own works of vampire literature within five years of one another – isn’t much to go on, in trying to establish what a story like Carmilla might’ve meant to England’s queer population some twenty years after it was written. Maybe Carmilla was being eagerly passed around London’s own Uranian gothic societies at the time. Or maybe two different men happened upon it by chance in wholly different circumstances, and took very different things from reading it. Maybe Stoker didn’t even notice the queer subtext himself. But I can’t help but wonder if just maybe, there's something more than coincidence at work here.

Carmilla the vampire is an explicitly villainous character, her victim confused and unwilling. But she remains one of the most complex and sympathetic vampires of her era. And perhaps, to a community who had never seen Ulrichs’ writing published in their own language, and might never see themselves represented in fiction except as monsters buried in layers of protective subtext, that still meant something to readers like Stenbock, and Stocker, and who knows how many others.

In short, maybe old, gay vampire stories like these really are worth remembering. I'll leave that one up to you.

[antariies]

how to build a chair........... director's cut ∠( ᐛ 」∠)__ this is about to be a very long very self-indulgent post where i just talk about my own writing. i also doodled on all the pages i think it makes the whole thing more fun to go thru. welcome to my ted talk

SIKE before i begin. credit where credit is due, this post was the start of it all. it changed my brain chemistry my jaw was dropped i was in awe i was obsessed and before i even finished it i knew that i would eventually have to make something similar for the commander or else i would be cursed to think about it for the rest of my life. and i Was cursed for like two years every day i would just be like........ is today the day i sit down and draft the commander chair fic of my dreams....... maybe tomorrow......

and then i got accepted as a writer for the gw2 zine ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ the chair idea was actually my backup option in case my first idea didn't pan out, and thank god it didn't, bc this one worked so much better. (still working on my initial idea, just turning it into a full fic! it was wayyy too long to be a zine submission.)

this is the chair i used. i downloaded the assembly instructions and tried out a bunch of different free pdf editors until i found one i liked, which ended up being sedja. if anyone's interested in doing something like this, i recommend printing out the pdf and writing directly on it! it was a lot easier for me to just figure out everything on paper first and then digitalize it after :P here's a picture of my physical copy

okay actually getting into it for real this time !!!!!

1. yeah i could've just erased the ikea logo and left a blank space but then i realized i could turn it into an in-universe joke. and then i ran with it.

2. i ripped this straight from the product description on the website. thanks ikea

3. i'm not sure if anyone went and looked it up, but it's a real item code!

hehe :3c

4. if your commander willingly goes to therapy i'm happy for them but TO ME? you'd have to drag the commander kicking and screaming. it's not that they don't know that something is wrong with them, they know, and they know YOU know. you're just never supposed to talk about it. they don't look at their own psych eval results bc that's none of their business.

5. i normally avoid specifying the commander's race when i write them bc i enjoy the challenge, but for the zine i was assigned to write about a norn commander! as a human main i was uhhhh very ill-equipped. but that just meant i had to study up on my norn lore (•̀ᴗ•́)و i spent hours on the wiki, then went around interviewing norn mains for their opinions, which was great fun :D it all helped me narrow the focus of my piece: joining the war on commander objectification on the side of commander objectification (ㅅ´ ˘ `)♡ and no one self-aggrandizes quite like the norn commander!

and to balance that i knew my narrator had to be patronizing as shitttt. they've clearly been following the commander since the beginning and seem to know a lot of intimate details about their life, despite not thinking very highly of them. wonder who that could be :3c

6. i can't stop making references. so the original part number is actually #122620 in the manual but i've changed it here (and on the previous page!) to #082812, as in 08/28/12, the date gw2 was released! no real reason for it, @dalennaugw suggested it for funsies and i liked it. if you're my pal and i show you a wip and you have a cool idea for it, chances are i Will put that shit in. hi dale if you're reading this

7. another thing about me. i loveeee repetition. here the word "over" is repeated four times to match the picture. honestly a lot of the creative process for this piece was just staring at the pages and figuring out how to tie the pictures to the commander in ways that weren't extremely corny or trite. idk why i enjoy writing like this when i could be frolicking in the beautiful prosaic meadows of a word doc instead but. it's like i see a tiny little restrictive box and i'm like OH BOY can't wait to think inside of that thing!!! i like when the format matters just as much as the content and in some cases informs the content. am i making any sense here. well all you need to know is that i'm a virgo and my favorite book is house of leaves

7. aw fuck just realized i wrote 7 twice. whatever i'm not changing it this is 7 part two now. the theme of my piece is glory, what it means to the norn commander, and how far they're willing to go for it.

8. does norn culture place emphasis on seeking individual glory Yes are norn also very community-oriented Also Yes. i think it's common to see norn kids napping together in a big pile, usually after they've worn themselves out playing games outside. it makes sense practically (apes together warm) and socially (pack bonding good) but that's just my hc. growing up i used to share a bed with my cousins all the time so it's normal to me.

a young, naive not-yet-commander, with no real combat experience, has no point of reference to compare a "blaze of glory" to. but the way everyone talks about it, it must be a good thing. a wonderful thing. a reward fit for a life well-fought and a legend hard-earned. so they imagine it must feel like falling asleep surrounded by the people they love, who love them in turn.

9. .........i was playing a lot of ace attorney when i wrote this page. i wish i was joking 👍🏼

10. ohhh shit the truth come OUT this whole chair thing was all a ploy just so i could write about the departing. again.

will i ever stop thinking about her. reply hazy, try again later.

11. out of all the pages, this one has the most emphasis on text placement, like comparing the enlarged picture of the screw to a sword, the numbers counting the screws, and "up up up" being arranged to mimic a wisp of smoke.

i also wanted to lean into the viking/norse mythology influences with my word choice.

12. more nods to norn culture. i didn't know they referred to the six human gods as "spirits of action" until i was doing the research for this piece :O

and the domain of the lost is called a hall of ghosts....... cause valhalla.....

13.

i'm sorry this so funnyyy. SAYS the guy who literally clawed their way back to life for a rematch.

me when i'm in a sore loser competition and my opponent is the COMMANDER!!!

14. arms as in "limbs" and also arms as in "armaments" :•]

15. haha get it because the picture makes it look like there are two mirrored speech bubbles while the text paints two opposing interpretations of the norn commander. one that's selfless and humble versus one that's selfish and vainglorious.

16. and the best part is IT DOESN'T MATTER which one is true bc at the end of the day no matter what their motivation, balthazar is dead by their hand. ofc i'm of the opinion that the most compelling interpretation of the commander is both, simultaneously. contradictions are good for the soul.

17. i could've name-dropped kas, the only person present that would do something like that, but i felt it was better to leave it ambiguous.

18. low-hanging fruit. the metaphor was so obvious here but i had to do it. for the culture

19. the alternate title for this piece was "THIS COULD BE GLORY". "how to build a chair" was only supposed to be a placeholder title til i figured out a better one, but the innocuousness of it grew on me. also i came up with the other one too late and had already advertised under the chair title lol

20. my first instinct was to end it with something more reassuring, like "what you have built so far is enough" but that would've been an ooc switch-up for a narrator who has been nothing but snide and detached this whole time. gotta stick to my guns

21.

obligatory chair joke as the last line. for realsies though it’s meant to be an earnest appeal to the commander to take a break, to have a seat, but it’s also a challenge. are they willing to lean on their friends? are the bonds they’ve forged strong enough to hold their weight? are they willing to put their faith in someone else’s hands? are they brave enough to try? well. only one way to find out.

also guess what that wasn’t even the real last page of the manual. it's THIS

but no way i was letting this be the image we ended on. IT LOOKS LIKE A DICK AND BALLS!!!

and on that note, THANK YOU if you made it this far!! a very special shout-out to @hawkepockets, my lovely boyfriend and beta reader, without whom this piece would not be nearly as polished. i would bring him pages to look over and he would say Scrap half of those lines you can do better than that. kill your darlings. i would complain and argue for a few minutes then we would revise. rinse and repeat until we had honed this thing to perfection. i can't stress enough the importance of having a second pair of eyes on your work throughout your creative process, even better if it's someone who challenges you. i don't even pay him 🫶🏼

and if there was anything i didn't cover that you still have questions about, please feel free to shoot me an ask! (ㅅ´ ˘ `)♡ thanks for reading! see u later dudes ;P

[copperbadge]

Howdy! I am considering submitting manuscripts I've written to a publisher or possibly self publishing. The publisher states on their website that authors must maintain an active social media presence. I'm not normally a social media type, Tumblr is my only one. What would you reccommend for such? Is it worth it to pay someone to make a website for me? Thanks and many virtual kisses for Dot and Deebs!

Honestly, I haven't submitted to a publisher since before a lot of modern social media existed. :D

It is my understanding, but this is secondhand information, that publishers want you to have either a twitter or a tiktok, preferably both, where you're frequently active and have a high follower count, because they want you to be able to publicize your book on it. One of many reasons I don't even consider trad publishing anymore is that I don't want to spend a significant chunk of my time filming videos for the sole purpose of hawking my books.

Now, as I said, that's an inference I've drawn; you may want to speak to someone who has been trad published recently to get the inside scoop (readers if you work in publishing or have been published recently, feel free to add commentary; remember to comment or reblogs, as I don't repost asks sent in response to other asks). I do have an author website but I built my own; I don't know what the going rate is for paying someone to build one these days but most website platforms are pretty intuitive to use -- I built mine on Wordpress and I'm building a new one on Wix currently, and at this point both are very drag-and-drop oriented. I do think a website is a good thing for an author to have, but I wouldn't pay someone to build one for you until you've taken a swing at DIY and decided it's not where you want to spend your time and energy.

In terms of self-publishing, the good news is that none of the rules apply; this is also the bad news. :D Because the thing about selfpub is that you either pay or DIY for...everything. It can be very inexpensive; when I publish a book the only direct monetary cost is what I pay for an ISBN and a proof copy of the book, which I will make back in the first 10 sales or so. However, I am "paying" in man hours in terms of typesetting, cover design, uploading the PDFs to lulu.com, proofing the initial copy, correcting the proof and reuploading (which usually involves further typesetting), and of course all the publicity -- website design and redesign, copywriting, tumblr posting. And while my profit per copy sold is well above what most authors with traditional publishers will make, that's because the publisher is doing a lot of the work for you. And, because I don't have an active twitter or tiktok or a publisher, my books are not very widely publicized. Undoubtedly I sell fewer copies than I would if I had a robust twitter following, but catch me touching that rancid wasteland without inch-thick gloves on.

So -- I think it's probably pretty important to understand that I have deliberately rejected trad publishing for good but not lucrative reasons, and I'm considered at best an iconoclast and more commonly a crank for having done so. If you can go the tradpub route, I would, but I also wouldn't put any money you're not prepared to write off as a loss into that pursuit. Definitely I would see if there's anyone in the industry you can reach out to who can answer these questions with a more thorough understanding of what publishers look for in an author and how to go about achieving that than I possess.

In any case, good luck! It's a journey regardless and I hope you enjoy your time on the path wherever you end up. And I'll give the cryptids a special cuddle for ya.

[equalseleventhirds]

well, i think i've edited it to my satisfaction, and so now here is my official post about it: i've posted a little isekai supplement for (ttrpg of your choice) on itch.io! create a story-within-a-story and play as readers of a Very Cool Book who have suddenly found themselves trapped within that book, in the bodies of characters who they already know are doomed.

the mechanics borrow from trophy dark, and push you to risk walking to your own doom in order to gain the upper hand in your story.

(if you've seen my blog these past few days you've probably seen my drafts of it, but for one (1) dollar you can get it all nicely edited and laid out in a pretty little pdf)

[taylor-titmouse]

Shrinking Violet is out! another of @petitemortality R/L Monroe's wonderful erotic shorts, with another cover by yours truly >:) i've been saying it on nearly every promo post i make for this but if you're one of the people who has wanted me to write f/f, you're legally obligated to read this one. below is the sales copy, and then below that some discussion of the process for designing the cover!

Nobody at college knows that shy, nervous Maya had a 'bad boy' reputation in high school - and Maya is the only one who knows tough, rebellious Nasrin used to be a sweet-tempered teacher's pet. Mutual attraction is rekindled when their paths cross again, but the two find their old dynamics have been flipped on their head. Maya finally knows what she wants, and Nasrin is bold enough to give it to her...that is, if she can bring herself to ask. Will their first time be perfect the second time around? 7k words, EPUB and PDF format. This is the second in the Fuck Yourself Friday series of shorts. New stand-alone erotic stories are released on the last Friday of every month. FYF 1: Go Fuck Yourself These stories contain explicit sexual content, and are intended for 18+ audiences.

Contains: -F/tF -transfem sub -outdoor sex -praise kink -soft penis stimulation -non-penetrative sex

THUMBNAILS

this one was very straightforward with the request: "the image I have in my mind for a cover is someone's fingers knotted in a skirt spread out against wildflowers. but more in the sort of gripping your own skirt gently kind of way, somewhere between anxious and excited if that makes sense. I'm thinking like you know the classic soft grunge tumblr aesthetic photo vibe. type of shit you'd post next to a closeup of a skinned knee in long socks"

very easy instructions to follow! so while i usually prefer to do 3 thumbnails, i only ended up with 2. there's only so many ways you can depict a hand on a skirt, after all. and we decided that we wanted to continue with the style i established with the first one, with silhouettes, lineless art, and bold textures. we liked the first one more, but wanted to get some leg in there.

i proposed adding black pantyhose to the narrative to make it work on the cover (i have changed prose to match what i drew for illustrations Many times) but we went with bare leg in the end

FINISHING

so i didn't actually do a sketch for this one, just went straight to rendering. as we all know i use gradient maps a lot in my work, so i gave lee a choice between a bright, springy palette, and a wetter, darker palette. i also offered it with the border, or with the skirt going over it. personally i like the skirt going over it, but the border keeps it consistent and more book-cover-y, so we went with that. lee chose the darker palette, which suits the story much better

but the font didn't fit! too vintage for the story, which takes place in modern day.

fonts time :^)

we went with the third option for the contrast. and also added a raindrop to the flower (which got moved to the right petal in the final draft). gently touching petals, wetness, This Is Yuri.

and the final result is as above!

anyway you should all read this story, it's incredibly sweet childhood-best-friends-to-lovers and in itself a love letter to trans femininity. i highly recommend it, and it's only $3!

go and get it!

[shazzbaa]

HEY GUYS!

Brief interruption of ridiculous fandom posting to let u all know I've set up a short-lived BIG SALE shop for the physical books of Today Nothing Happened and Runewriters (AND ALSO ORIGINAL PAGES FROM RW!!). If you remember my old Webcomic Days and missed owning a physical copy of one of these books, this is your chance!! I'm moving soon (YAY!) and I don't want to move heavy boxes of books across the country (BOOOOO) so THIS WILL BE YOUR LAST CHANCE TO GRAB THESE IN PHYSICAL FORM!!!! because I'm going to just get rid of anything that doesn't sell and BE FREE OF IT!!!!

HERE'S THE LINK!!

https://shazzcomics.bigcartel.com/

Nothing will be shipped out until after mid-November (I'll update here again with a LAST CHANCE warning when I have an actual date), at which point I'll close the store and then ship everything out before my move.

For those who weren't around for my webcomic days, Today Nothing Happened was a light-hearted journal comic I drew for a few years after college (over a decade ago..... crumbles into dust....), and Runewriters was a fantasy story I drew after that, about friendship, body horror, and magical mistakes. I think they're both cute and funny and have good art, but there's def some of the old TNH strips that make me cringe today, and Runewriters' story was never finished -- I had to step back from the comic about 4 chapters in. BUT IF YOU DONT MIND THAT they're pretty neat!!!

TNH is no longer online, and I'm not planning to keep RW archived online long-term, but I do hope to get a PDF version of these books available online at some point when I'm not running around closing an estate and selling a house and getting geared up for a big move, so if you don't particularly want a physical copy you can wait for that. BUT IF YOU DO WANT A PHYSICAL COPY DONT WAIT!!! THEY ARE NOT COMING BACK AFTER THIS!!!!

ONE MORE THING: I have to set up shipping manually for each country so: if you want to buy something but your country is not listed, please CONTACT ME (either here or through the site) and let me know what country you need shipping to, and I'll go look up rates and see if I can get it added as soon as I can!!

[johnandrasjaqobis]

to no one's surprise, the Dark Dice supplemental book has already been funded, but of course we want to see what All of those stretch goals might be and OF COURSE y'all want to get in on this insanely cool book

it absolutely refuses to let me embed the link all pretty but you can find it here!

(Taken from the campaign description) Unnatural Horrors contains a plethora of content to bring to your home games and with which to torture your adventure’s very souls. Book Contents will include:

The best-selling horror adventure: Domain of the Nameless God

The frightening campaign setting of Cromana – Realm of Nightmares

Over 275 pages of unique content in a beautiful Hardcover book

Over 150 original illustrations from over thirty artists around the world

Over fifty ‘Dark Designs’ -exclusive necromantic abilities and feats

Over thirty magical and menacing items offering power at a cost…

Over forty monsters from Allbeast to Wisper, waiting to haunt your table…

A growing catalogue of over twenty NPCs

The unique True Necromancer Class:  Play as a necromancer or incorporate necromancers into your own stories - includes new spells, abilities, magic items, and creatures to call to unlife!

"Untethered" Undead species - Death doesn't have to be the end! Return to Unlife to seek vengeance or resolve unfinished business.

‘Lethal’ d100 Critical Hit Chart

Early access PDF in October upon the conclusion of the Kickstarter campaign.

Expanded rules for Stress and Sanity - As stress mounts, heroes may be prone to... lapses in judgement. These mechanics outline how to be an "unreliable narrator / DM" and encourages characters to embrace their flaws.

Rules for Dark Speech - These secret words of creation were never intended for mortals... and offer power to those foolish enough to use them.

Surgeon’s Kits - Expanded rules for injuries and those proficient in the mundane healing art.

Nightmares and Encounters as your table rests when The Silent One is near.

Alt Text for all illustrations and easy to navigate PDF tabs.

Sanity & Stress inclusive character sheets

5e and 5.5e compatible rules (2014 & 2024)

As of posting (September 10th) we've already hit the first stretch goal, and there's still a full month to go!

Domain of the Nameless God is an incredible module, and Travis and Kaitlin are some of the best podcasters and nicest people out there. Having been following them since the early days of The White Vault, it's super exciting to see how far they've come and how much cool stuff they still have planned. I will happily attest to the horrifying delights of play testing a bunch of the content here, just not in this post because it's already Long

SO ANYWAY, Unnatural Horrors!! Bring some fun terror to your table!!

[theoutcastrogue]

the internet is rotting, as Jonathan Zittrain noted in an important (but paywalled) 2021 Atlantic article. A huge percentage of the links on the internet are broken, and there is no single authoritative, accessible universal repository that keeps track of everything. It is frighteningly easy for crucial information to slip away. ...

The practice of making changes to an article without noting that you’ve made them is called “stealth editing,” and even the New York Times does it. ... The existence of stealth editing means that it’s difficult to trust that the version of an article you click on at any given moment is the article as it was originally published. ...

I also, to my alarm, realized just how dependent we are on private publications themselves to give us access to records of their own work. Often, they keep it payawalled behind locked gates and charge you admission if you want to have a look. There are lots of sources in the Chomsky book to which you have to subscribe if you want to verify, such as this 1999 story in the Los Angeles Times about NATO’s bombing of a bus in Yugoslavia. This is a story of national importance, far too overlooked at the time, but if you don’t subscribe to the LA Times, you need research library access or a workaround if you want to read it.

Thank God for the Internet Archive, whose Wayback Machine preserves as much of the internet as they can and is invaluable for researchers trying to figure out what was once housed at now-dead links. But the Internet Archive has its limits. Social media posts, YouTube videos, paywalled Substack posts, PDFs—all can be very difficult to track down after they disappear. If a politician tweets something embarrassing, for instance, and then deletes it, it might be preserved in a screenshot. But we know screenshots are easy to fake. So where do you turn to prove satisfactorily that something was in fact said? ...

it’s very easy to lose pieces of information that seem permanent. E-books, for instance, can be changed by their publisher without the changes even being noted. You might read a book on your Amazon Kindle one day and open it up the next day to look for a quote only to find that the quote has disappeared without a trace. The Guardian, for twenty years, hosted a copy of Osama bin Laden’s “letter to the American people,” an important historical document. After the letter went viral on TikTok, the Guardian removed it from the site entirely. The New Republic did the same after an article of theirs about Pete Buttigieg caused controversy. The documents in question can still be found, but only by digging through the Internet Archive. If that ever goes down, researchers will find that trying to piece together the online past is like trying to learn about a lost civilization from excavated fragments. ...

I think that in an age where people (rightly) don’t trust the information they’re getting to be true, it needs to be as easy as possible to do research. Instead, while we have better technology than ever for sifting through information, it’s still the case that the truth is paywalled and the lies are free. If you want to “do your own research” to check on the veracity of claims, you will run headlong into a maze of broken links, paywalls, and pop-ups. How can anyone hope to find the truth when it’s so elusive, trapped behind so many toll gates? 

[dearheart42regenerated]

MOTORCITY SEASON 2 MASTERPOST

once upon a time, over 10 years ago, just a few months after the announcement that Motorcity was officially canceled...the creators of the show took pity on their heartbroken fandom and gave us several glimpses of what season 2 might have been like. they saw how much we loved Motorcity and gave us every scrap of info they could at the time, so that we could use those scraps to imagine our own personal "Season 2" - whether it continue on in our fics, our fanart, or simply our own heads.

I'm making this masterpost so that none of this material will be lost or forgotten, and so any fanartists/fic writers still hanging around today can use it for inspiration. if there's any related material I've missed, PLEASE feel free to add it in a reblog or let me know in my inbox! I want this list to be as complete as we can make it! :)

--

The Season 2 That Never Was: A Comprehensive List

Motorcity Season 2 Rough Intro "Scratch audio by our very own Chris P." (x)

-> backup download

--

Season 2 Writer's Wall posted (and later deleted) by @chrisprynoski on twitter, and shared on tumblr by @peopleofmotorcity, these pictures of the writer's wall showed us a "rough sketch" of what could have been, and gave our imaginations SO many fun theories and possibilities to play with. every blurry sticky note was a treasure to us. :')

-> original tumblr posts: x x x x x x x x x x x x -> image masterpost -> google drive folder

--

Chris Prynoski's Fan Interview + Tumblr Q&A's this whole interview on youtube is a delight to listen to, and Part 2 in particular has some interesting bits about season 2. (skip to 17:10 for some good stuff about Texas and Chuck's backgrounds!)

-> Part 1 -> Part 2

Chris P also answered several juicy season 2 questions on tumblr. sadly his blog is deactivated now, but you can still read through all of them at the links below!

-> image masterpost -> google drive folder

--

Capri Chilton - Mike Chilton's long lost big sister! I can't remember where or when it was first revealed that they were considering giving Mike a secret older sister, and I haven't been able to track down the origin. that being said, when it was revealed, the fandom loved the idea so much that they begged the creators to make it canon. Chris P busted out the "magical canon stick", gave us this delightful concept sketch, and "Capri Chilton" was born!

--

The Motorcity Series Bible "To help you all understand what it is you are reading, this is the material that Titmouse used to help pitch Motorcity, and it was also a tool for writers to use when coming up with episodes to help understand who the characters were before there was any other reference. That being said, this was one of the very first documents about Motorcity, so many things have changed or evolved from these early concepts." (x)

-> original tumblr posts: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 -> image backups -> PDF download

EDIT: the COMPLETE series bible has now been leaked by Lost Media Busters on X (Twitter) and helpfully shared by @waksworldrebooted!!

--> here is a google drive download for the full PDF file!

--

Motorcity Series Bible - Redacted Version (Pages 1, 2, 17, 19, 20) funfact: @peopleofmotorcity was the official? unofficial? tumblr blog for Motorcity, and it was run by a guy named Mac - an animator for the show who loved to tease and joke around with the fandom. before revealing the actual first 13 pages of the series bible, he posted this censored version as a prank - a mix of truth and trolling! it's up to the fandom to decide which is which. ;)

-> original tumblr posts: 1 2 17 19 20 -> image backups -> PDF download

--

MTV Era Motorcity Masterpost a fantastic collection of glimpses into the original pilot/pitch trailer that would evolve into the show we know and love today, found and compiled by @waksworldrebooted. "In 2000, Chris Prynoski pitched a cartoon called Motorcity. He made a card and a website promoting the show, which wouldn't see the light of day until the Walt Disney Company got their hands on it."

--> tumblr masterpost (including wayback links to the old website) --> twitter sources from Chris P himself :)

--

Motorcity Unaired Pilot - 2009 Disney Version Originally aired during Comic Con 2012, the pilot was recorded and then posted on YouTube by Allison Simmons in July of 2012, later being privatized in 2022. The video was re uploaded onto VKVideo 22 days after its original posting to YouTube and is still currently available to watch online. (x)

--> backup download --> also viewable here!

--

if I find more material, I will add it here! :)

[nova-dracomon]

Modern Draconity: A Draconic Zine || Info Doc

Summary

Draconity isn’t solely from ages past, but something that still burns bright in the modern age. This zine will be a collection of pieces created by nonhumans and alterhumans about what it means to be draconic in the present day (or even future). Also, this zine imposes no set definition on what is or isn’t “dragon enough.” If you feel like the label applies, we want to hear from you! 

What Can I Submit?

Both fiction and nonfiction pieces are accepted. As long as what you have in mind fits the theme, it’ll probably be a-ok. 

Off the top of our head, we’re thinking of:

Essays of your personal experiences

Short stories 

Poetry 

Mock advice columns

Alternative covers

Fictional advertisements

Comics 

Recipes

We welcome you to think outside the box and dig into what it really means to be draconic in the modern era!

How to Participate

Please email your completed submission to ruffledgryphgon(@)gmail(.)com and title the email “Modern Draconity Submission.” Also make sure to include the following information in your email:

A name you would like the piece attributed to 

Title of your submission

Any content warnings that you feel are necessary for the piece

Any social media handle or personal website you'd like linked in the contributor section

A logo or icon for the contributor section

**If you would like to stay anonymous let us know

Members of systems are welcome to submit individually or collectively. Please let us know your preference when it comes to attribution.

Once the deadline has passed, these submissions will be put into the zine and it will be posted on itch.io as a free PDF. 

Submissions are due by October 31th, 2023.

Submission Guidelines

Each individual may submit up to 3 works to be featured in Modern Draconity. Comics and multi-image works count as one piece. Individuals within a system may each submit up to 3 works. All work must be your own! Anyone caught plagiarizing or submitting AI-generated work will be barred from entering Modern Draconity and any future zines from us.

Written submissions should not exceed 30 pages and multi-part art entries should not exceed 10 pages. Please keep in mind the zine’s pages will be 8.5x11 and entries will be scaled accordingly to fit that size. We request all art submissions to be sent in either .jpg or .png file formats. 

For stories that use multiple different fonts, we will do our best to preserve the general "feel" of your piece but cannot guarantee we will be able to use the exact fonts or sizes due to restrictions in what fonts we have access to, readability and overarching zine style.

Submissions must fit the thematic criteria of

About draconity / being draconic

Involve the modern era or the future 

As stated in the summary, we will not be policing what is or is not considered “dragon.” If you self-identify as draconic you count! 

FAQ

Q: Where will the zine be hosted? What will it cost? A: The zine will be hosted digitally on our itch.io and will be free to download. 

Q: Is there a cap on submissions? A: There is none, as long as the file doesn’t start getting too big for our computer we’ll do our best! If there are an unprecedented amount of submissions, we may have to delay the release. In the event that happens, we would communicate that through updates on our tumblr.

Q: Can I update my application after it’s been submitted? A: Yes you may, as long as that is communicated to us before the submission deadline.

Q: Can I rescind my submission? A: Yes you may, as long as that is communicated to us before the submission deadline. This is because once we begin work on the zine, having to remove content mid-way through would throw off the formatting of everything else after. Please take this into account before submitting. 

Q: Will this zine allow NSFW entries? A: No, nothing 18+ will be accepted.

Q: What is your timeline for the project? A: Our submission deadline is October 31, 2023. We are then planning to spend the next month or so compiling all of the entries. Our goal is to have the zine live by the end of the year. If something unforeseen happens and we are unable to make that deadline, we will post an update about it on our tumblr.

Q: I have another question! A: Feel free to reach out to us at our email ruffledgryphgon(@)gmail(.)com with any other questions you have about the zine.