#one week to read a 4 page story? i might just be able to do that

[juliamccartney]

i'm genuinely so grateful for the existence of audiobooks and audio dramas, i don't know what i'd do without them. if i could only read physical/e-books i would read maybe 2 books a year

[artificial-transmutations]

Out Now: Dam Breakers

Hello everyone! I'm extremely excited (and, quite frankly, more than a bit nervous) to announce that I finished my fantasy romance novel Dam Breakers!

For the very TLDR-version: It is available here! Be sure to read the disclaimer below, though.

First of all, thank you! Everyone who reads my stories or likes them shows me that there is at least some interest in my mediocre writing. And even though the novel is not exactly like my stories here (more to that later), it gives me hope that you and other people might like it.

Now, for the actual novel!

Dam Breakers is the tale of Jared, a rather normal modern day college student, and Aleron, an apprentice mage living in a secluded tower with his teacher. One fateful day, they meet and are drawn into a maelstrom of magic, change and love - and dark secrets threatening to destroy everything they loved.

With over 120000 words, this is not only my longest story yet, but also my most carefully crafted one. I will attach an image of my Obsidian graph for the story at the end of the post.

Disclaimer:

As I have mentioned, it is a bit different from the stories I usually post here. First and foremost, it's a lot tamer. This novel isn't meant as a porn piece, but as an intriguing fantasy and romance tale. While there is love, desire and sex, of course, it's way more sparse and less explicit than, for example Closer Than Flesh.

It also features transformation themes, and the concept of change is one of the main focus points of the book, but, again, don't expect 500 pages full of transforming bodies because of it :)

And, finally, for a multitude of reasons, it does not contain AI generated images. I wouldn't be able to generate any that do the story justice, anyway.

Now that you know what not to expect, here are some things you MAY expect:

Transformation. Both in the sense of bodily changes but intriguing character development as well.

Gay Love. This is a story about two men from different worlds falling in love with each other, and their stony road to being together.

Magic. It's a fantasy story, and a truly enchanting one at that, with a fresh concept of magic and change.

Story. Last, but certainly not least, it's a good and interesting read, at least according to my opinion. Since I might be a bit biased here, let me tell you that my beta readers agree.

If you still want to read it (and I hope you do!), then you can grab your copy here:

If you are not in the US, you can just replace the .com with, for example, .co.uk to go to your local Amazon marketplace

I have not forgotten, of course, that I promised a special condition for you folks at Tumblr. Since Amazon makes it a bit difficult to actually implement that, I plan to offer a time limited discount or giveaway in a few weeks. I'll announce the exact time here on my blog beforehand.

If you really want to support me, it would mean a lot to me if you could leave a review on Amazon. That influences the algorithm a lot and helps the book get visibility, which is incredibly important . So, please, if you like the book, leave a review.

Teaser / Preview (mild spoilers)

And here is a short look into the book, from chapter 4. It contains some mild spoilers, but nothing too important. I also added an AI image, which is not in the book (see above).

[...]

Even though the weather was unstable, Jared enjoyed the journey through the vibrant spring land. It was a closeness to nature he had never experienced. Even back home with his parents, in rural Texas, the land had seemed different. Back there, the wilderness had been tamed decades if not centuries ago. There was no wonder, no adventure. Here, there were hills and forests, rivers and bogs, and who knew what else. It was as if Jared was seeing the world for the first time. Not to mention the smell. Jared could not remember a time when he had smelled the spring air like this.

In addition to the landscape, Jared's traveling companion also played a big part. Aleron was an intelligent and witty conversationalist, and Jared learned a lot about his new friend. They spoke of everything under the sun, and Jared told stories of his home, of modern inventions and the differences between this world and his. Even though Aleron was fascinated by his tales, he was also clearly skeptical about some of them, especially when it came to the more complex topics. That was only fair, though, as Jared himself had a hard time believing the fantastic stories of this world, even after having experienced some with his own eyes. Dragons, for example. It didn't matter how often Aleron recited what little information he had about those magnificent beasts, something in Jared resisted fully believing in them. He hoped that he would be able to see one of them for real - although Aleron repeatedly stressed how dangerous they were - in order to be able to fully believe in them.

While Aleron's world was certainly magical, it wasn't all like in the Lord of the Rings. There were, for example, no other humanoid races, as Jared learned. No elves, dwarves or orcs, at least to Aleron's knowledge, which, to be fair, mainly included the Kingdom of Myrthien. Although the Whispering Woods were not technically a part of Myrthien, and were generally considered wilderness, it was clear that they were no part of another nation either. The closest neighboring country to the Whispering Woods would either be the Golden Isles beyond the coast south of Eldoria or the Verdant Lands to the west. According to Aleron, the Verdant Lands couldn't really be considered a nation, too. It was more of a loose confederation of tribal communities, living in the characteristic dense forests of that region.

As Helena had promised, Luminara wasn't difficult to find. The capital of Myrthien was well known and if there was a sign post somewhere, it was sure to point to Luminara.

There was no shortage of smaller and bigger settlements, and about every third or fourth night they were able to sleep in beds. During the other nights, they made camp a bit off the road in order not to attract too much attention. It was one of those nights, about two weeks after they had left Eldoria, that Jared woke up in the middle of the night. Aleron, who was sleeping next to him, was moving in his sleep and occasionally made a sound, which had caused Flicker to gain a bit of distance to the sleeping man.

It was clear to Jared that his friend was dreaming, and he briefly considered waking him up from his nightmare. However, judging by the sounds, Jared began to suspect that Aleron was not having a nightmare but quite the opposite, although the dream seemed to be just as intense.

Quietly, he left the tent, careful not to wake the sleeping mage. Outside, he was greeted by the stars and a clear sky with an almost full moon. The campfire was almost dead, just a few embers and ashes were left. It was a quiet, peaceful night, and Jared decided to go to the nearby lake to drink. Aleron had never once shown a single sign of sexuality before, except for demonstrating a certain uneasiness around nudity and related topics. He never had commented on any woman - or man - in a suggestive way, so Jared had been half- convinced that this whole topic didn't have any relevance to the mage at all.

Of course, for his own reasons, Jared had avoided the subject as well, so, perhaps Aleron thought the same about him. Jared didn't mind that. As magical as this world was, he had yet to encounter a single sign of same-sex attraction. Perhaps this wasn't a thing here, biologically, or perhaps it was socially frowned upon, like in his world's medieval ages - or rural Texas, present day. In any case, there was absolutely no reason to bring that topic up, so he didn't. Not bringing up his sexuality was a sport he was very experienced in for 9 years straight now, after all.

As Jared neared the lake, he was feeling weird and tingly all over. It was not entirely unpleasant, but it stirred a vague memory in Jared. He had felt this feeling once before, but he couldn't quite recall when.

When he bent down to scoop some water into his hand, he stopped before his fingers touched the surface of the lake. The moon was bright, and Jared could see his reflection in the mirror-smooth water quite well. The only problem was that it was not him who was looking back at him.

Of course, there was a strong resemblance, but the details weren't right. His face looked somewhat stronger, his jawline a bit squarer. His hair a bit lighter and styled like the day he first stepped out of the mirror. On his chin, there was a short well-groomed beard even though he had shaved just last morning. It wasn't just his face, though. As he looked down on himself, he looked fitter than he should, as if he was visiting a gym regularly. In fact, the definition of muscle on his torso increased further, just as he was watching. Suddenly, the wonder was replaced by fear. He had felt that way before, and now he remembered when. It had been during his first visit to Aleron's world, when his body was 'destabilizing' as Aleron had put it. Given, the feeling had been stronger then, but it was definitely the same. And now, his body was changing again, and he was weeks of travel from the magic mirror.

Half-panicking, he sprinted back to the tent, not caring about being quiet anymore. Perhaps Aleron knew what to do! He ducked into the entrance and called out to the mage.

"Aleron, wake up!"

Almost immediately, the apprentice jolted awake. "Jared? What is wrong?"

"I... don't know, it's me. Look at me!"

After a few words of encouragement, Flicker began burning brighter, allowing them to see in the tent as well. Aleron looked at the half-naked Jared critically for a few moments before asking: "Okay... what am I looking for?"

"Can't you see? I'm..." However, as Jared looked down on himself, everything was fine again. He was looking at his plain old self, just as he should look like. The tingling feeling was gone, too.

"Oh." Jared felt incredibly stupid all of a sudden. "I... must have been imagining things."

[...]

If you liked the teaser, be sure to give the whole thing a read :)

Let me close with another whole-hearted Thank You for your continued interest!

Stay awesome!

And here, as promised, a peek at the creative complexity of the story:

[emeritusemeritus]

Just wanna bewitch you in the moonlight. Pt 8.

[Fred Weasley x Reader x George Weasley]

Part 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

Title: Just wanna bewitch you in the moonlight.

Pairing: Fred Weasley x Reader x George Weasley

Timeline: Predominately set between GOF and OOTP (some canon has been altered to fit the story)

Summary: Both twins like Gryffindor!reader. Reader likes both twins. How will she decide who to chose in the end? Amortentia might be able to help, or not.

Warnings: Smut, oral sex, p in v sex, 69’ing, established relationships, threesomes, friends to lovers, all the good stuff. NO Twincest. Mentions of illness, Brief mentions of vomiting. Tiny bit of angst, possessiveness, talk of kids. Mentions of dominant behaviour. Snape has a soft spot for reader. Love potions? But none are actually used. Not beta-read nor spell checked, we die like Sirius ❤️

The Freddie smut train isn’t stopping 🌹

George returned a little while later, taking a suspiciously long time in the shower which you didn't doubt had been organised by Fred.

"Are you both decent?" He asked as he crept in, smiling at seeing that you were both now clothed and sat on the bed laughing.

"Reckon tea will be ready soon," George says, hopping onto the bed, now clean and redressed. He immediately pulls you into his arms, getting the cuddles you'd promised earlier as you absently draw shapes onto the skin of his arm with your finger as you all chat until Molly calls you for tea.

You all sit and chat as you eat, Fred, Harry and Ron all celebrating their win from earlier in the day. Molly has made a heap of mashed potato, steak and onion pies and veg which you excitedly tuck into, knowing how much you'll miss her cooking when the week comes to an end. It was Hermione's last day at the burrow tomorrow before she went home to her parents and so you were all trying to think of something you could do tomorrow, gathering ideas or group activities but not quite deciding anything.

Fred looks increasingly fidgety throughout dinner, which made you glance at him questioningly a few times. It wasn't entirely uncharacteristic for him to be squirmy and hyper but this seemed different, like he couldn't wait to get away from the table. Once the meal had been had, you and both twins make your way up to their bedroom with Fred immediately fluttering round the room grabbing random things and slinging them into a little shopping bag he'd knicked from Molly.

"You'll probably need a sweater princess, want one of mine?" He asks as he delves into the drawers, not waiting for an answer as he pulls out a green knitted jumper with a big 'F' on the front in gold lettering. You gladly accept and look down at what you're wearing, suddenly wondering if they're suitable.

"Fred, do I need to get changed?" You ask, making him pause briefly as he looks at you up and down.

"No princess, though if you want to wear less I'd have no qualms," he smirks before returning to his digging. You roll your eyes and turn your gaze to George who is lay on the bed reading. You slink into bed beside him and without ever taking his gaze off the page, he opens up his arm for you to cuddle into his side.

"Gonna miss you," you whisper in his ear, quiet enough so Fred wouldn't hear. You see him smile and turn to you as his hand creeps down to reach your bum, giving it a little pat.

"You already know I'll miss you," he smiles, pressing a kiss to your head.

"Right! Princess if you would like to follow me," Fred says, standing beside the bed and offering his elbow to you like a man in an old fashioned movie. You giggle and stand to grab his elbow, casting one last glance back at George before you slip out of the door and down the stairs, following Fred until he leads you out of the house.

"Where are we going?" You ask, your arms still gripping his arm as he guides you. He looks over at you with a smirk and winks, not disclosing anything.

You follow the familiar path up to the back field, praying that he wasn't going to make you play quidditch.

When you got to the field, he pulled the bag off his wide shoulders and pulled out a large picnic blanket and laid it on the floor as he knelt down, gesturing for you to take a seat.

"Okay my princess, we have a blanket, some candles, some beer and."

"Where did you get that?" You interject, laughing as he pulls out two bottles of beer from the bag, no doubt stolen from Arthur's stash. He gives you a wicked smile and leans in to pull you into a kiss, both of you giggling as your lips meet. He then lights the candles around you and reaches into the bag to pull out a little box.

"Okay we have Weasley's whizzbangs, whizzfire bangs, whammy rockets and miraculous mystic mayhem makers," Fred smiles as he pulls out a selection of fireworks from the bag, all tried and tested Weasley products they'd been developing.

"Putting on a show for me handsome?" You flirt, looking at the selection of explosives in front of you.

"Sweetheart, I'm constantly putting on a show for you, have been since second year," he admits with a little chuckle, making you laugh.

You actually end up sitting and talking for the majority of the night, reminiscing about previous pranks you'd all pulled and memories together over the years as you sip on stolen beer. You were both lay on the blanket, your head on his chest as you looked up towards the stars, feeling at peace.

"You're so beautiful," Fred says suddenly, making you turn to face him. Instead of a teasing smirk that you'd expected, he actually looks a little bashful with a smile tugging at his lips. You blush at the sudden intimacy and lean up to kiss him. The kiss starts off slowly and playfully but in no time you are beginning to rut against each other, hands wandering and little breathless gasps falling between your lips in between the passionate kisses.

Something changes in you immediately like a switch had been flicked and you needed to feel him on you, in you, however you could get him, surrendering to the intense desire that Fred always seemed to pull from you.

You began tugging at his sweater, needing to get it off his body to feel him. As he sat up slightly, you immediately began attacking his brown, woven belt to get to what you really wanted.

"What's your rush princess? You need me?" He asks, his hand coming up to grab the side of your face, long fingers tangling into your hair as he feverishly kisses you. You nod and a little whimper falls from your throat without realising as you carry on trying to undress him, the lust you felt becoming a burning need.

Fred pulled off his sweater and T-shirt, leaving him in just his trousers which were quickly pulled down as soon as you'd worked his belt.

"A little unfair don't you think sweetheart?" He smirks, pulling your body to his, your hips meeting as you feel the growing bulge in his underwear against your thigh. He immediately pulls off the sweater and top you're wearing, gasping and growling as he realises that you aren't wearing a bra, your naked breasts spilling out. He immediately latches onto your nipple with his mouth, feasting on the feverish skin as his other hand grabs hold of your neglected breast and toys with the nipple. Your hips chase his at the overwhelmingly pleasurable sensation as he sucks and nips at your pebbled nipples.

"Fred," you groan, throwing your head back as he sucks little lovebites into the side of your breast, never neglecting the nipple as his tongue switches back and forth, devouring your aching breasts.

"That's it princess, tell me who makes you feel this good," Fred smirks, pushing your breasts together to pay attention to them both. "Such perfect tits," he mumbles as he dives right back in.

Your hands begin to wander on his body, running down his smooth abdomen until you reach the little fuzz of his happy trail and the waistband of his boxers. You slip your hand into his underwear and immediately reach for his big, swollen length earning a loud growl from Fred as you wrap your hand around him. He breaks apart from your breast just for a second to pull down his underwear, exposing his perfect cock and balls to you, allowing you to toy with him without restriction.

You slowly begin to move your hand on his cock, tugging and gliding gently just how he likes, causing a broken moan of your name to fall from his lips. He bends his neck to reach down and kiss you, slipping his tongue into your mouth as it wrestles with your own, the sensual glide making you squeeze your legs together to relieve some tension. Fred misses nothing and immediately moves his hands to your jeans to tug them off. You reluctantly let go of his length to let him pull off your jeans and panties in one go. He then pulls off his boxers the rest of the way and slings them away, leaving you both completely naked and exposed.

A single moment passes as you look at each other, your eyes wandering all over his perfect body, really trying to commit it to memory as you look at him with sheer adoration.

He leans down and presses a sweet kiss to your lips, smirking against them as his hand begins to trail up your thigh with teasingly delicate touches which only fuel the fire within you further.

His hand meets your wet folds as his fingers slip beneath them, earning a groan from him as he discovers just how wet you are.

"Is all of this for me princess?" He smirks.

You nod, desperately trying to buck your hips so he'll touch you more, chest heaving already at the sensation.

"Have you been thinking about this sweetheart? About how my big cock is going to stretch you out? Filling you up just right."

"Fuck, Fred yes!" You moan as his long, talented fingers slip inside you, curling up to hit that special spot that makes you keen.

"There it is princess, fuck you're so hot, can't wait to get my cock in you," he says as he leans back down, attacking your breasts once again as he works his fingers in and out of you. You immediately reach for his cock and begin pumping him, making deliciously lewd noises fall from his mouth.

"Come here sweetheart," he suddenly says pulling away, gesturing for you to sit up. He moves you and positions you into a similar fashion to what you'd done that afternoon but instead of being on top of him, you are laid on the blanket in opposite directions whilst facing each other.

His cock is right in front of your face, flushed pink and leaking precum already, just begging to be sucked. Fred parts your legs with his big hands and moves to rest his head on your thigh, wrapping the other one over his shoulder as he kisses your pussy lips, teasing you. You buck your hips, trying to get more than just butterfly kisses and he immediately reaches up to spank your ass, causing you to let out a gasping moan.

His hand comes up to spread your little lips and he begins giving little kisses to your sensitive clit, swirling his tongue teasingly around the exposed nub as you gasp.

You can't hold back any longer and grab hold of his cock at the base, squeezing gently before wrapping your lips around his cock, swirling your tongue devilishly around the fat head, licking up all the little beads of precum. Fred immediately moans out your name and begins feasting on your cunt perfectly, both of you trying your hardest to please the other. Your paces are slow and unhurried, trying to tease and please the other to give the most pleasure you can.

You can feel your orgasm building as your hips undulate over his face. He moans, sensing your impending release and strokes your thighs as he begins wildly sucking on your clit, tugging gently and licking over the spot repeatedly as his pace increases, keeping perfect rhythm until you cum.

You have to pull off his cock as a loud moan erupts from you, your body completely at the mercy of his as your climax takes over, the white hot flames burning you from the inside out as you shout if his name.

"Fucking hell princess," he gasps, stroking your thighs as you come down from your high, a blissful smile plastered on your face. "So hot when you cum."

Fred leans up and moves to lie beside you again, smiling and kissing you as he sees your little blissful, fucked out smile and heavy eyelids.

"Want you Freddie, please," you moan, reaching for his cock again.

"One time not enough sweetheart? Or do you need my big cock?"

"Need it Freddie, please," you beg, completely overwhelmed by the emptiness you felt, needing to be filled by him.

"I've got you sweetheart," he cooes, pulling you closer to him so that your bodies are directly facing each other. He kissed you passionately, hands wandering as they slip down to your ass again. He squeezes and massages the skin of your ass before reaching down to grab your leg and hitch it over his hip. You gasp at the sudden feel of his heavy length pressed against your pussy, just begging for entry.

You reach down and hold his cock steady at the base before rolling your hips just right so that he sinks into your wet heat, both of you gasping and moaning in sync as the bliss of him stretching you out.

"Oh princess, so tight for me," he gasps, thrusting deeper inside of you until every inch of him was buried inside, making you breathless. "Oh you feel perfect princess, so fucking good."

He begins to thrust in and out and you have to hold back your loud moans which you're sure could be heard all the way back at Hogwarts.

You begin to roll your hips in time with his thrusts and you both immediately cry out at the sensation as you fuck yourself on his cock. His hands come up to grab at your ass, guiding your movements, helping you to roll your ass back and forth as he fucks you deep.

"Fuck Freddie, so good, you're so deep," you moan out as the angle of his cock presses hard against your g-spot with each harsh thrust.

"Princess, y/n," he moans, "not gonna last, you feel so fucking good."

"Cum Freddie, please, want you to cum inside me!"

He begins brutally thrusting into you, abandoning your hip movements as his hands dig deliciously into the skin as he grips you hard. His groans and moans mix with yours as he sets a brutal pace, fucking into you with abandon as he nears his end. He suddenly grips you bruisingly hard and slams your hips down onto him one last time, holding your body tight to him as he buries himself as deep as he can. His face scrunches up deliciously as he cums, the blistering hot cum shooting deep into you as his hands keep you firmly in place as your walls clench around him, another orgasm surprising you and taking over your senses.

As the climax slowly begins to wear off, Fred's grip loosens and he slowly rubs the skin where his hands have been to soothe it. He looks up at you with a wide smile and leans down to press a sweet and gentle kiss to your lips as your hands run over his chest.

"Didn't even need the fireworks," he quips as he leans his forehead on yours. You laugh, causing your muscles to contract around him where he's still inside you and you hear him let out a little gasp of over sensitivity. He slowly pulls out, limp cock now resting between you in his thigh as you both take a few moments to catch your breath before untangling yourselves .

"You never needed fireworks to get me into bed... or the ground I guess," you laugh, sitting up and reaching for your clothes. He smiles, watching you dress with a tenderness that made butterflies spread within you.

"You know, it would be a shame to waste these," he says, sitting up and fiddling with the magical fireworks.

"Alright big boy, clothes on first though," you laugh, chucking his T-shirt towards him. You were surprisingly warm and so opted not to wear the sweater, staying in a T-shirt and your jeans as Fred quickly dressed and started preparing the whizz bangs.

You couldn't help but watch him as he moved with proficiently, seeing him in his element of causing mischief as he lined up the whizzbangs.

Moments later, the enchanted fireworks erupted in the sky with a resounding bang, illuminating the entire sky with a prism of colour. One of the particular fireworks turned into a dragon midair and began circling around the rest of the explosions in the most spectacular sight you'd ever seen.

You sneaked a look at Fred's face seeing him smiling in utter delight which made you feel so proud of him and George at their incredible inventions, forever thankful that you could always get a firsthand show.

When the ash settled, the familiar scent of gunpowder and settling smoke overwhelmed your senses and took you back to the potions classroom, smelling the Amortentia. The scent was so unmistakable, like the smell of an extinguished candle with a little more dry smokiness and a lingering musky that was entirely Weasley's wizzbangs.

"Y/n?" Fred asks, bringing your attention back to him. You realised that whilst you had been spaced out, he'd tied away the leftovers from the fireworks and was now lay back on his elbows with his long legs crossed at the ankle, watching you. "Where did you go pretty girl?"

"Nowhere important," you smiled, lying down with him as you looked back at the Burrow, seeing a couple of lights still on throughout the house. A sense of dread suddenly overwhelmed you. "No one can see us right?"

He laughed and shook his head, "only window that looks out back here is mine and George's," he explains with a smirk, "think he was watching?"

"Fred!" You laughed, hitting his chest at the thought.

"Think he was taking notes on how to please a woman?" He laughs and you nudge him again, throwing him off balance of his elbows, forcing him down. "You didn't argue it, he really that bad?"

"Merlin no, just didn't think you'd want to know all the details about how your twin brother pleases me and how he likes when I-"

""Alright I get the point," he says quickly, pulling a disgusted face at the idea. You had to chuckle as you settled back onto the blanket, sprawling your legs back as you looked up at the stars.

You sneaked a glance over at Fred who was doing the same as you with his eyes closed as he relaxed and thought back to all the times you'd tried to sneak glances at him over the years without him noticing. It was one of those moments when you realised how incredibly lucky you were to have not only Fred but George too, for however long you could have them.

The whizzbang smoke had brought back memories of the Amortentia incident and had stirred something up inside you which was eating away at your happiness, never truly knowing who it was you desired more.

When you and Fred were alone together, it was easy. You'd liked him for years, daydreamed and fantasised about him every chance you could, even so much as scribbling his initials in little notebooks in your younger years like any good schoolgirl would. You'd fantasised of your life together if he ever reciprocated your feelings, your wedding, your future children, all a distant but hopeful thought. It should be easy really, he liked you back and for that you were eternally grateful.

You'd been best friends for years, even closer than you and George had been and it was constantly exciting and passionate, like everyday was a new relationship but without all the awkwardness of learning about each other. Your mischievous best friend turned boyfriend, the constant prank master and joker, always the ringleader; he kept you on your toes at all times, bringing joy and laughter to your life like no other. Your relationship was filled with teasing and witty banter that you hope never faded and you were almost certain that you loved him, and had for a long time.

But then there was George. A prankster and joker at heart but with a stronger conscience and greater moral compass. He was sensitive and kind, at-least more often than Fred tended to be and he was comforting, above all else. George made you feel secure and loved. He was the personification of that feeling after a long, stressful day when you finally got home and could relax, putting on your cosiest, comfiest clothes and shutting out the world as you sought comfort. You'd never anticipated falling for him so hard and just like his brother, you were near certain that you were falling in love with him, if you weren’t already fully there. How were you ever going to chose between them?

"Your thoughts are loud," Fred says and you can hear the smirk in his voice.

"Sorry," you say, turning your attention back to him, "I think I'm just tired."

"Want to go to bed sweetheart?" He asks tenderly, placing his hand on your thigh. You had to admit that going to bed did sound very appealing right now, but you didn't want to cut the cut your little date short.

"Not just yet Freddie," you say, leaning back against him. He hums and extends his arm out to you so that you can lean on it.

"Love when you call me that," he says bashfully, touching the braids on your head as he brushes away the little wisps in your face. You smile up at him and immediately your mind, filled with problems and negative thoughts is calmed and quiet again.

You decide to head in not too long after, throwing everything back into the shopping bag and walked back to the house. You managed to sneak in undetected and immediately head up to the twins' shared bedroom, carefully avoiding the creaking stairs whilst trying not to wake anyone, if they'd been able to sleep through the fireworks at least.

Upon entering the room, you noticed that George had in fact made himself scarce and wouldn't be sleeping here tonight, his pillows gone from the bed. You briefly thought of asking Fred but it was his night with you and you didn't want to bring up any potential conflict. Fred had gone to the toilet and so you took the opportunity to take off your makeup with a wipe and get dressed.

You tossed the jumper in your arms over to the washing hamper and shimmied out of your jeans, replacing them with your sleep shorts. Your T-shirt was switched out to one of Fred's old ones that you kept and you dragged yourself into bed, your tiredness from the night before hitting you like the hogwarts express.

When Fred strolled back into the room, he smiled at seeing you in bed. He tore off his clothes, opting to just sleep in his boxers and climbed into bed behind you. It was strange sleeping without George but you didn't fixate on it, you just hoped that wherever he was, he didn't feel pushed out or alone.

Fred's arm immediately falls over your waist, falling just underneath your breasts as he pulls you tightly to him so that his body is directly connected to your back.

"How do you fit so perfectly in my arms?" He whispers into your ear, musing at the near perfect fit of your body in his. It was true; you suspected that his height versus yours had a lot to do with it but you fit neatly into the plains of his body. Your ass was pressed against his crotch whilst his arm reached perfectly with the curve of your waist, your head slotted right under his head to rest against his chest whilst his arms encased you.

"Maybe you just fit perfectly around me," you smiled into the dark room, feeling him squeeze you tighter at your words.

"Did you have a good time tonight princess?" He asks quietly and you can sense a slight hint of vulnerability in his tone.

"The best Freddie," you answer honestly, "atleast, the fireworks were great." He immediately grabs you and begins tickling your ribs as you fight back, squirming and struggling to hold in your squeals at the horrendous sensation.

"Oh I see how it is, I give you some of my best work and all she remembers is the bloody pyrotechnics," he says dramatically, causing you to roll your eyes.

"It was perfect Fred, every bit," you say quietly, no longer playing around. You twist slightly in his arms to seek out his lips, placing a kiss of sheer gratitude on him.

"This is really nice," Fred says after a few moments of comfortable silence. You hum in agreement, enjoying the peace and the feeling of his arms securely wrapped around you. "One day we'll be able to do this every night," he says, sounding as if he's narrating his thoughts. "When school is over and me and George have opened the shop, you can move in with us and every single night I'll kiss you goodnight and hold you until you fall asleep."

"That sounds perfect," you say with a yawn, feeling as if you could fall asleep within mere seconds.

"And every morning I'll bring you a cup of tea in bed and kiss you before I leave for work," he adds, clearly daydreaming though he sounds increasingly more tired with each word. "You can help me pick out my tie, checking that it matches with my suit. Did I tell you me and George decided we'd wear full suits at the shop? Like real businessmen. Anyway, you'd pick out my tie and straighten it for me before I leave because you know I always leave it wonky."

He tiredly mumbles out more of his dreams and secrets to you in the still, dark room but you don't hear them, having fallen sound asleep, comforted by the sound of his voice as it acts like your own personal lullaby.

[amiserableseriesofevents]

Wherever you find love (it feels like Christmas)

24 Clegan Christmas drabbles for 24 days!

Prompt from here (but randomized)

[Day 1] [Day 2] [Day 3] [Day 4] [Day 5] [Day 6] [Day 7] [Day 8] [Day 9] [Day 10] [Day 11] [Day 12]

[Read on AO3]

Day 13: Carols

Modern AU, wc 1484

On Christmas Eve the town center is packed with people who are making some last minute presents runs — these include one John Egan, who’s always doing things at the last possible minute “because he thrives under pressure, Buck” and definitely not because of his undiagnosed ADHD.

And as it is well known it’s almost impossible to see John Egan out and about without his best friend Buck Cleven — is best friend the right word? When are they going to finally cave and admit the feelings they have for each other? Jury’s still out on that — who of course has already done his Christmas shopping well in advance especially to avoid the Christmas Eve’s crowd.

So here they are, marching around the town center, John speaking a mile a minute seemingly without ever draw breath and Buck — who’s actually Gale, as he never tires to repeat, but everyone seems to have forgotten it — right by his side in silence, holding John’s shopping bags for him when the other’s too busy gesticulating. He might look annoyed to the untrained eye but those who know him are able to read the deep affection in his eyes, an amused expression in the curve of his lips where he keeps his toothpick, a fondness that goes well beyond friendly feelings in the faint blush that blossoms on his cheeks whenever John slings one arm around his shoulders or grabs him from one arm to drag him towards this or that shop.

“I think I’m done now!” John exclaims satisfied as they step out of a bookshop with two more wrapped parcels in the bag. It’s almost dinnertime, he needs to hurry back home for the family meal his mom’s spent the whole day cooking for if he wants to be alive to see Christmas tomorrow.

“You sure? D’you have one for your mom?” Buck asks.

“Yes, that jumper we bought earlier.”

“Your dad?”

“We got him that fancy inkwell for his fountain pen.”

“Sisters?”

John shakes the bookshop’s bag. “We just got those, Buck!”

Another imperceptible smile graces Buck’s mouth at that. “Hey, I’m just making sure you didn’t forget about anyone. Remember that time you left your mum without a Christmas present?”

“I do,” John says shuddering at the memory. “But I swear, this time I got everything right on time. Yours I got it weeks ago,” he adds with a wink.

“You got me a present?” Buck asks, surprised and delighted. “You shouldn’t have.”

“Hey, you mean you didn’t get me one?” John shoots back to which Gale responds, almost offended, “Of course I got you one, it was the first I got.”

“See? You get me a Christmas present, I get you a Christmas present. That’s how it works when people love each other Buck, they exchange presents,” John says, hoping he hasn’t been too forward. He knows he loves Buck, definitely as more than just a friend, but he wants to be sure the other’s on the same page before risking ruining their friendship.

He doesn’t know how his words warmed up Buck’s heart, he misses the spark of unchecked hope in his eyes because a sound makes him turn around: there’s a small crowd forming in the square, everyone stopping to listen to a group of singers. They’re all dressed in red, with Santa’s hats or reindeer’s antlers on their heads, and their voices are in perfect harmony as they sing Christmas carols. With a silent nod John grabs Buck’s hand once more and drags him closer to the choir, a wide smile on his face as he listens to the music; it reminds him of his childhood, when he would walk around town with his parents and sisters and they would always stop listening to the carolers, or sometimes it was the carolers who came to their house and John would stand at the door in his mother’s arms, his head against her shoulder as the songs went on.

He turns to Buck to tell him, it’s a story he’s sure he hasn’t shared before, but he’s taken aback when he notices that his friend looks sad, that particular kind of melancholy in his eyes John’s always ever seen there when it’s something to do with Gale’s childhood. He leans in closer, just enough to whisper in his ear. “You ok Buck?”

When Buck just nods, John pushes further. “You wanna leave?”

“Not if you wanna listen,” Buck answers but John shakes his head. “I’ve heard them thousands of time and I’m running late, let’s go,” he says.

When they’ve walked far enough from the crowds that Buck feels comfortable speaking, he says, “I used to love carolers, they came to all the houses down our street on Christmas Eve and it was so nice, they were so good. I was always the one answering the door because I knew my dad wouldn’t like them, but one year I didn’t get there in time. He was drunk, obviously, and started shouting at the carolers before they could even start singing. I think he even threw an empty bottle of them, I’m not sure, the only thing I know is that they never came back to our house after that year. They would go down the street and avoid us like the plague. I can’t blame them of course, but I wished they understood and came anyway.”

“I’m sorry, Buck,” John says mortified. “I promise I had no idea you hated carols-”

“It’s not that I hate them,” Buck interrupts him. “I miss the way they made me feel, that’s it. But don’t you worry about me, John: I have many happy Christmas traditions now, with you and our friends. I don’t need carolers anymore,” he adds with a reassuring smile, but John’s mind already forged a whole plan.

So later that night, Gale’s sitting at his living room table writing the last of his Christmas cards when someone knocks at his door. He wonders who could that be since all his friends are busy with their family, they’re not supposed to meet before lunch tomorrow, but since the knocking continues he stands up sighing and walks to the door, ready to send away whoever’s come to disturb his peace on this fine evening.

He almost chokes on his own spit when he opens the door and sees John standing in front of him with one of his obnoxious Christmas sweater and a Santa hat perched upon his curls. “I only have ten minutes before my mum notices I’m gone and starts hunting me for sport,” he says pulling out his phone.

“What are you-” Gale tries but John shushes him, frantically scrolling on his screen until he finds what he’s looking for. Tinny piano notes come from the speaker, filling the air, and John starts singing a very off-key rendition of All I Want For Christmas Is You.

Gale’s never heard anyone sing worse, he’s offbeat, rushing to catch up with Mariah Carrey’s voice, breathless and increasingly red in the face as the song progresses.

Gale’s sure he’s never loved anyone as much as he loves John right now.

When the music stops, John takes a few second to catch his breath as Gale keeps staring at him in awe. “You watched Love Actually too many times,” he finally says, unable to hide the smile printed on his face.

Still panting and made brazen by the performance, John grins. “Why, you need a sign to know that to me, you are perfect?” He asks and then, catching the shocked look on Buck’s face, he panics. He scrambles to find something to say that wouldn’t sound too much like an actual love confession but his mind is completely blank, and to be honest Buck doesn’t look offended by what John said, he just looks surprised, hopeful even. Can it be…?

They stare at each other, faces flushed and with shortness of breath. John reads in Buck’s eyes the thing he’s hoped for for so long and decides, I am gonna kiss you now.

But before he can act on his words, his phone starts ringing loudly and when he checks what’s going on he blanches. “I think my mum found out I’m not home anymore,” he says. He has to run back, but how can he when he was so close to kissing Buck?

“Buck, I-” He starts, distraught.

“Go,” Buck tells him. “Go back before your mum kills you. Come here a little earlier tomorrow, though? I need to, erm, tell you something.” He adds, blushing even deeper.

If he wasn’t so afraid for his own life, John would be hollering. “Sounds good Buck, see you tomorrow. And merry Christmas!” He shouts, running back home.

Now alone in front of his house, his heart a thousand pounds lighter than usual, sure that no one’s gonna see him, Gale fist bumps the sky.

[lasi-nariyoyoreads]

hi, can you please do “who would date a foreigner” with Seventeen?

Hi everyone, it's been a while :') Life has been particularly sh1tty these past weeks both on a professional and personal level so I had to take a break in order to focus on my mental health and elaborate what was happening. But I think I'm better now.

Professionally, things will still be sh1tty because I'll be busy so I don't think I'll be able to be super active here, but I hope I can manage to drop a reading once in a while.

I hope things are going well for you all!

Disclaimer:

My readings are made for fun and you should read them for fun too. So don't take them seriously. 

S.Coups, 6 of wands [Yes, why not? it’s possible especially if they are someone like a co-worker who lives and works in Korea.]

Jeonghan, rev ace of pentacles [I think it’s more no than yes. He’d have a rational approach and wonder if a long distance relationship can actually work or if they can understand each other properly.]

Joshua, knight of pentacles [Yes. I guess it’s easier in his case since he’s a foreigner himself, he might be interested in people with a different background.]

Jun, rev page of cups [I think he might be hesitant. He’s not totally against it per sé, but he’d rather date someone who can speak his language for example or that can understand his culture.]

Hoshi, 8 of wands [IDUBILY is basically what he thinks about the matter.]

Wonwoo, 9 of pentacles [Yes, to my surprise he doesn’t seem to have anything against it. If there's love and willingness to make the relationship works then the origin of his s/o isn't important.]

Woozi, rev queen of pentacles [No, it seems the strongest no so far, he barely leaves his room do you expect him to date someone that comes from the other side of the world?]

DK, king of pentacles [Yes, I don’t think he would really care about the nationality of his loved one.]

Mingyu, rev 6 of swords [No, I’d say it would be too bothersome to him, it's easier to date someone with a similar backgroun as his own.]

The8, rev 8 of swords [It can be yes, similarly to Jun ig. If he falls in love with a foreigner he’ll just date them, but he isn’t particularly interested in foreigners and his preference leans for people that belong to his country/cultural area]

Seungkwan, 3 of cups [Yes, he doesn’t care at all, if there’s love there’s everything and I think he is kinda interested in learning new things so he might naturally show interest in foreigners regardless]

Vernon, rev 4 of swords [He doesn’t give a f*ck about these things, if he likes someone he likes them, end of the story.]

Dino, rev king of wands [More no than yes, he’d rather date a Korean person.]

[skylinx2o]

Admittedly, I've been feeling terrible lately. I didn't even finish my weekly drawing and broke my now months long streak. I thought I would be able to do it, but my emotions weighted me down too much. I might go back to drawing one art every two weeks.

Anyway, I feel like I should do more fun things. I mean, drawing is fun, and I love creating stories for my OCs, but I do have a lot of other interests. And tho I'm sticking to talking about LEGO today, I want to talk more and get out of my shell. And maybe give you more insight into me as a person.

So today I'm going to talk about my favourite LEGO themes and why I love the series, plus how I personally got i to all of them. It's not a normal review whatsoever, just an excuse to ramble about my interests freely. Just remember this is my experience and my feelings.

(And it's not at all like I'm making this post because I need all of this to prepare for a speaking class and the only way to motivate myself is by making a post about it o _o Come on, I'm killing two birds with one stone here!)

Okay, so, my all-time favourite themes are (in chronological order to when I found them):

1. Bionicle

Honourable mention: Hero Factory

2. Ninjago

3. Legends of Chima

4. Monkie Kid

5. Dreamzzz

1. So. Bionicle. I have a weird history with Bionicle. My dad's friends used to get movies for us, and one day it just happened that my dad's friends gave us a pen drive with Bionicle: Legend Reborn on it. I think I would be around... Seven or eight when I watched it I've seen fans say that it was a pretty weak film, but I didn't know Bionicle back then, and I really enjoyed it! That movie was a soft reboot of the series, and as someone who started their Bionicle obsession with that movie, in my opinion it worked really well as a standalone supposed to capture new audiences. I really loved the sense of mystery that was probably lost on new fans. It wasn't exactly explained what or who Mata Nui was, besides him being a warrior who lost his people. And the ending... I really thought there would be a sequel to it, and was really intrigued by whom the great beings were, and what happened to the world, why Mata Nui knew them, what the giant ahh robots were supposed to do.

Of course, when a few years later in middle school I looked for the sequel, I didn't find it. And to be honest, the ending was disappointing to me. However, there was a whole other storyline in Bionicle to catch up on! And so one faithful summer was spent reading all the comics I could find, reading wiki pages one after another, playing Mata Nui online game obsessively, refusing to use a walkthrough. Believe me when I say I was obsessed!

And then out of nowhere in 2015 g2 came out, and I was stoked since I missed out on practically the whole g1 as it was being made. (I mean, it's understandable, I was born the same year the first Bionicle movie came out.) I mean, can you blame me for being excited? A dead franchise that I just started becoming a devoted fan of is suddenly revived from the grave. I felt like the luckiest person on earth that day. Honestly, g2 was a lot simpler than g1, but I really like it, even if most people said it sucked. Sure, it wasn't exactly like g1, and even I cringed a few times when watching the g2 show, but for what it was, it was cool in my eyes, and loved finding all the g1 references. And there were quite a few of them! The story of g2 was simpler, but for little kids I think it would've been fine. But alas, LEGO did a crap job promoting it, and it died early, with an ending that was so bad even I can't defend it. It just didn't make sense, and it was rushed as hell. But I still wished it would've continued.

I love both generations for different things, and I'm sad I didn't get any g2 sets when they were out (Lewa was my favourite one). But years later I managed to get a promotional anniversary set of Tahu and Takua, and you wouldn't believe my happiness when I was building it. It's strange being a relatively new fan compared to others I see online, but I still remember seeing Bionicle commercials, and even have a very vague memory of seeing a Phantoka commercial on our ancient TV. I mean come on, I was so into it, I even learned the Matoran alphabet! My mom had to listen to my countless rambling, and if I ask her about Bionicle today, she still remembers some answers, that's how much into it I was. Hell, this blog started as a Bionicle blog before I moved fully to Monkie Kid content.

Okay, this Bionicle ramble is getting a tad long, so I'll wrap this up. Would I recommend Bionicle to anyone? Well... Not really, unless you like long lore researching adventures. The story is so convoluted, with many sides stories, and it went on for so many years, that despite my obsession I still probably missed like, 40% of the lore. G1 at least, wouldn't vibe with casual audience probably. G2 might be easier on the brain, despite it having some deeper lore too. Plus, there's the cultural appropriation issue, that I'm not qualified to talk about, but others already made pages long blogs and articles about. Plus the weird gender situation. But, it's still a good story in my eyes, despite its many faults. But that's just me, and if you didn't catch on yet, I'm already deep in this hole and there's no getting out of here now.

Honourable mention: This brings us to Hero Factory. I watched the first few episodes at around the same time as the first Bionicle movie. Came from the same source as before. I think it deserves a mention, because I still loved it, and did some lore digging, but I wasn't as obsessed with it as the other positions on the list. I didn't like the later stuff as much, tho some concepts were really cool too. But the story of the first episodes was really well done, and worked great as a movie. The fights were tense, and when watching it for the first time, I couldn't really know if the characters would be okay. Honestly, it got me really excited and invested. A factory of heroes is a unique concept, and I always found it intriguing how they made the robot society work. But, I don't think it needed more time than it needed, unlike Bionicle, where I didn't like the ending of either generation. I think it wrapped things up quite well with the first episodes, and the later ones just feel like cool side stories, and it works in my opinion.

This one I would definitely recommend, because I feel like it's underrated, and it's not long. Like I said, the version I got was just a one movie like compilation. I checked and there's just 11 episodes. It would probably take 1–2 hours to watch it, not counting the later movies and all.

2. Next one is Ninjago! I started watching it almost from the start. I must have been around ten or so... The episodes aired on TV, so I had easy access to it! I almost never missed an episode, and watched even the reruns. And believe me, I was hypnotised when watching it. Tho, starting from rebooted I watched the episodes online, first in my native language, then in English since I started getting too impatient to wait. This was my first obsession. For the longest time, when people asked me what I wanted to do, I said I wanted to be a ninja. One of my oldest OCs is Mika, and she grew up with me. Whenever a new season was to come, I would design a new suit for her. I have a whole dedicated blog to her, I wonder if you all can find it lol. Anyway, for a kid's show, the first seasons were really well written, and the show could be dark when it wanted, but it didn't lack jokes, and most were very funny. And honestly, Ninjago had a really big impact on my life. It taught me not to give up, and it made me want to make the world a better place. Grade school was a horrible time for me, and Ninjago was like my escape. Tho, I might have daydreamed about it too much at one point...

I started distancing myself from Ninjago around hands of time. I didn't watch the show as regularly, catching up on seasons long after they aired. I think that's also where the writing quality started dropping… I just didn't like it as much any more. But it should've been expected with a series that went on for so long. I'm not one of the people who think old Ninjago was better than anything. It wasn't perfect at all. But I didn't like the short format of newer seasons. But then secrets of forbidden spinjitzu dropped, and i as a person started getting better too, so I went back to Ninjago, and while it wasn't still the best and people had a lot of issues I loved those few next seasons. I mean, they somehow hit right into my interests with those seasons. First the adventure movies like atmosphere with the Egyptian like tomb, then they get sucked into a video game, then the very DnD like feeling Shintaro. It was right up my alley. My love for Ninjago was back in full force by then. So you can imagine how sad I was when the word that Ninjago was ending started going around. The series has been with me for half my life. My friends even knew how much I liked it, my best IRL friend even bought me a Ninjago set for Christmas one time. But you know, I thought it was probably Ninjago's time. Nothing can last forever after all, and it had a very good run. Why not end it when the story was still quite alright? And then… Crystallized happened. I didn't watch Crystallized. I heard the spoilers, and I wasn't… thrilled. Especially with Harumi. And people hated that season. It left a bitter taste in my mouth. It didn't feel like a send-off Ninjago deserved.

So you can imagine how damn happy I was about Dragon Rising! And surprise, it's the best Ninjago has been in a while! I absolutely loved the first season. The new characters are wonderful, and that change was certainly what Ninjago needed. And the fact that it's merged with one of other of my beloved LEGO series only makes it better. And that's probably my cue to move to it hehe

So, would I recommend Ninjago? Yeah. Its story is easy to follow, you just need to watch the show. If you're ready to watch sixteen+ seasons that it! Even the worse seasons have some value to them I'd argue. But I may be biased with how close to my heart that series is.

3. Yeah boy, Legends of Chima! I started watching Chima around the same time I started watching Ninjago, and I was equally hooked. And yes, my mom remembers this one as well, I watched it every time it was on too. Actually, I think the first fanfiction I've ever written was about Chima. With a pencil on paper. I think that, while the other series captivated me because of magic or the setting or the action, in Chima it was the characters and their dynamics mostly, despite there being plenty of magic powers and action too, plus a unique setting. The main characters all have distinct personalities, and it's fun to see how their personalities clash or work together. I think it's cool because the conflict between lions and crocodiles takes the main stage in the first season. Later seasons are great too, and they shake things up to make things interesting quite well. The lore isn't as broad as in other series, but it's pretty cool and interesting either way. There were some unique concepts there. I can't explain my love for this theme as well as with other series, because I don't think there was anything big that made me like it. It's just a cool show. I think what there was has been satisfying, tho young me was really sad and angry it ended anyway. But it's great for what it was. But I can't say I'm not happy that Chima is now merged with Ninjago, and it works so well together, and I absolutely love Lord Ras.

I would absolutely recommend it. It's a fun show, and only three seasons long. It can be both fun and serious, and I definitely had a blast watching it.

4. Now one of my newer obsessions! Monkie Kid! I watched the pilot in Chinese when it came out, then I promptly forgot about the series and binge-watched it all when season 3 came out. I was reading about Journey to the West long before the series was announced, since I have a liking for old stories and legends and myths and stuff. And Asian cultures fascinate me. I blame Ninjago with its Japanese influence and all the martial arts movies that were on the TV all the time. Plus Mulan and Kung Fu Panda. Anyway, I can't say much about how accurate it is or anything since I'm not Chinese, but I think the show is great. I noticed a lot of references to Journey To The West. No shocker here, it's inspired by it. But being in this fandom made me learn a lot of new things about China, tho I still have a bunch of things to learn. I'm no expert yet. Tho, I try my best to be respectful.

Umm... Like I said, not much to say about how accurate the story is. But I really liked Journey to the West, so naturally I like Monkie Kid too. Plus, MK i really relatable to me. I feel like my personality is really similar to his, tho I'm more introverted. For some reason, I relate to this portrayal of Macaque and Wukong as well.

I dare to say that from all the series so far, I find this one to be the most well written. I just find the writing to be the most impactful. Plus, the artstyle is very different from other LEGO shows. Action scenes are really fun. The artstyle definitely works in its favour. And yeah, I would recommend this show 100%.

5. And finally, the newest addition to the LEGO series, Dreamzzz! The show is really new and just starting, but I love the concept and the writing! Plus again, I really relate to Mateo. The characters feel like real people you would meet, and how they interact feels realistic. And I found myself liking even the characters that annoyed me, because their personalities were the realistic type of annoying, one that you might find out in the wild. And the concept of a dream world just really speaks to me. And it gives the creators a lot of creative freedom. All wacky things can happen in a dream after all. One thing I didn't expect in the show was the secret agency, and I think it's a clever addition to the story.

I would recommend this series. I hope it'll have a bright future, and that the writing will stay this good.

Well, time to wrap all of this up. Whoever suffered through this whole ramble deserves a juice and a cookie 🍪🧃 For a few finishing thoughts... I noticed a lot of the series I like blend magic powers and technology together. I just thought it's interesting. And I wanted to mention that the songs for Bionicle, Ninjago and Chima absolutely slap. I used to listen to them on repeat all the time lol Even my mom really enjoyed those songs

Yeah, I don't know what this post was for, I just felt like writing all that :v

[domoriu]

i have some questions and i was wondering if you could answer them because you’re one of my favorite writers on here. plus you’re stories and vibe are very similar to mine so i’d love to here your POV!

do you have any advice and this on how to start a fanfic writing account? (on tumblr!)

how to make write good as in flow, wording, better sentences, etc? ik for this one it’s going to take practice but since i write a little already i was wondering how to make my writing actually sound good? (because urs is amazing!)

tips on motivation to write and post?

how is it as a writer on onedoorblr? (fics for bonedo) in terms of like the space to be able to post “different” stories. (hybrid, abo, freakysmutlol, femdom, dark as in tragedy’s and horror.) plus interactions, notes/likes?

sorry if this is a lot but i didn’t know who else to ask and you feel like a safer option to me of that makes sense? anyways we all love you and your stories a lot! 🩶 i hope the rest of your week is amazing (*^_^*)

OKAY I HAD TO GET ON MY LAPTOP TO ANSWER THIS ONE SINCE ITS A LOT!! also sorry if my advice is a little weird ive genuienly been in the fanfic scene for like 8 years now since i was 11 so i dont even know the answer to these myself (not my proudest moments btw...) so i'll try to give the best advice i can <3

1. i think... start off by finding a username that you think suits you a lot, and then worry about theme and all that just so your account looks good to your own eyes i think that'll really help with getting motivated to write (for me at least) and also really just have fun with it !! figuring out what you want to do on your page is also important so you can set those boundaries for yourself as well as the people engaging in your content but also always remember its your page so you can really do whatever you please. and dont be too discouraged by numbers because once you feel like its not fun and you're putting too much pressure on yourself it gets hard to make content.

2. for word building/flow all that kind of stuff... really imagine the scenarios in your head (maybe even act them out if you can, to make sure everything is flowing properly) if you're writing smut, what helps me is i look up sex positions or look up porn to get a good idea on the positioning and how to write things out. for word flow, i always have a thesaurus tab open that way i'm not using the same basic words repeatedly (this is probably the most helpful piece of advice imo, i love the thesaurus super bad) and also if you ever feel like the work isn't good or needs a little tweaking id say read it over, try to read it from the pov of someone who's reading your work for the first time or even get someone to beta read for you and give suggestions for any errors or anything that needs a bit of tweaking

3. for motivation, write down the gist of any idea you have down immediately because you might forget it or you'll just never have the motivation to really finish it. i have so many fic ideas locked away in a vault because i started writing the idea when the excitement for it died down or i completely lost motivation to write it because my brain wanted to move onto another fic idea.

write on your own schedule. just because you have a following doesn't mean you need to put out a new fic every single day, give yourself time to recollect your thoughts and work on a piece where you can put all of your attention into so you can be truly proud of your work !! because what's the point of writing something if you yourself don't even like it. and a lot of us have lives outside of tumblr, so don't pressure yourself to constantly write because soon you might get burnt out. i think having people who actually like my works is a lot of motivation as well as not feeling rushed to put things out so its like a little treat when i post something big

4. i love the people on onedoorblr !! the community isn't super big but she's growing a lot since i joined this fandom in april... and id say the range is pretty good with the people on here and everyone has their own unique things going on. i think its a pretty safe space here to write about "different" stuff, a lottt of my mutuals are all on the femdom kick when it comes to bonedo and there's a good balance of smut writers and people who write more fluffy things, i'm not sure how common the abo/hybrid/dark content fics are on onedoorblr since i don't tend to read fics in those categories but i have seen a couple hybrid bnd fics in passing !

since bnd tumblr is still kind of small you might not get a lot of notes upfront but it definitely builds up, unlike nct/enha/riize tumblr where you can basically get around 500/1k+ notes on a post within a couple days it might take a week or two also depending on who you write about. but don't get discouraged by it !! some members are just more popular in the fanfic world than others

i hope this was helpful and dont be afraid to ask any more questions >_< thank you soso much for liking my works and im glad u feel like my page is a safe space for questions that means a lot to me !! i hope your week is amazing as well <33

[triptychgrip]

If the Katsuki-Nikiforovs ever took GQ Magazine's Couples's Quiz game...

...it would be an utterly sappy and unhinged rollercoaster, as I cover in Chapter 7 of my post-canon, Olympic-Games-focused Yuri!!! on Ice fic (which only has 4 chapters left until completion!). Yuuri, understandably, feels the need to profusely apologize to the GQ production staff for putting up with him and Viktor (plus the friends they'd invited to watch the filming, which includes Yurio and Christophe, among others).

Indeed, as I note Reddit user r/OohYouMakeMeFeel_369's reaction: "I laughed my ass off when I saw Yuuri's tweet a few hrs ago where he tagged the filming crew and promised to buy them some strong sake for putting up with them. And then, omg Viktor followed up by inviting them to Yutopia. My fav Russian continues to be #NumberOneHasetsuTourismAmbassador"

If you've watched any of the actual Couple's Quiz game series, you might note that they usually end the quiz with some form of the question: "What does your partner love most about you?"

Even though my fic is currently over 200K words, this scene is definitely in my top 3 favorites I've written, because it allowed me to try to capture how Yuuri and Viktor -- who, at this point, have been together for over 5 years, and married for nearly three -- perceive the other's love.

In particular, it allows you to see the traits that they've come to appreciate about themselves by way of the other's vantage point: something that was particular gratifying to create headcanons around as it pertains to Yuuri's increasing confidence through canon, which continues to grow as he and Viktor face life's challenges together. All in all, this chapter will give you the warm-fuzzies, and I believe you can still enjoy it even if you don't want to read the larger fic (though I do hope you'd give it a chance, especially if you are interested in seeing how their relationship might have evolved).

Below is an excerpt that I hope piques your interest in checking the story out. Note: as it gets closer to completion, I'll probably post more excerpts from the first 10 chapters, because I sort of sucked at promoting this fic when I first started posting it to ao3 back in November...lesson learned!

------

“Never mind their gross kissing,” Yurio loudly complained, throwing them a look of disgust as if they’d just insulted Potya. “What I want to know is what the score is now that Katsudon got all 3 right.”

Jamie answered almost immediately.

“Ok, remember: there’s still a final question for you both, which are big multi-pointers,” he called out, flipping a few pages of his clipboard. And, since neither of you have used your three hints, you could each get an additional three points when everything wraps up, if you decide not to use them. So with that disclaimer, Yuuri is currently in the lead, up by 1.5 points.”

Before Yuuri could outwardly celebrate his small leg-up, Chris piped up with a predictably suggestive comment. 

“Hmmm, I wonder if dear Yuuri will be able to maintain his lead? I believe he can, he’s always had such excellent stamina, after all…”

As his voice trailed off, Yura turned to face him with a pronounced scowl on his face. 

“You need new material, Giacometti. These two have been together for years: it’s time to show some damn evolution.” 

He then began to mutter under his breath, saying something that sounded like “resting on his fucking laurels, what a waste,” which made several people nearby laugh. The Ice Tiger had a bit of a point: stamina jokes were so 2017.

While Yuuri was pleased with his lead, he was slightly nervous around what Jamie and Tarneka had selected for their final questions. There had definitely been some bizarre ones nestled within the ‘bank’ of options the two co-producers had emailed them a few weeks back. As he’d filled out his answers and allocated the points for the thirty questions he was supposed to submit – having to eventually move to a different room away from Viktor, as they’d kept distracting one another with their snickering – he remembered barking out mildly hysterical laughter at a few of the options in the last category. 

“What might your life be like in a parallel universe?” had stumped him, and he wondered if his husband had been brave enough to pick that one out; it was the kind of wacky, philosophical question he adored.

“Only 1.5 points behind…that’s nothing,” Viktor spoke up, with a gleam in his eye. “Don’t get too comfortable, Mr. Katsuki-Nikiforov.”

“Sure thing, Mr. Katsuki-Nikiforov,” Yuuri lobbed back, only a split-second later, before slipping into focus mode and reaching for the last notecard.

Before he could lay a hand on it, however, his spouse called out to Tarneka and Jamie.

“Are you able to dock points for intimidating the competition?” he asked, sounding put-out. 

Yuuri blinked, unsure as to what he was insinuating.

“You have on your very eros nothing-can-stop-me face, and I won’t be able to concentrate if I’m too distracted by how hot you look,” Viktor continued on in Russian, furrowing his eyebrows, cutely. 

Powerless against the giggles that burst forth, he clapped a hand over his mouth as he watched his love’s eyes begin to narrow. 

“You can’t be serious, Vitya,” Yuuri wheezed, following Viktor’s lead and switching to Russian. “This is just my face! It’s not like I’m doing anything on purpose.”

Yuuri missed the ensuing retort amidst the sound of Tarneka’s ask to Yura for a translation of their back-and-forth: a request the Ice Tiger very firmly denied.

“Trust me, you’re better off not knowing,” he griped, before marching over to stand near them, just out of the camera frame. 

“Get a grip, old man!” he hissed in Russian, staring daggers at Viktor. “This thirsty idiot act may have been acceptable a few years ago, but the time is long past for you to realize that the person you married is just a man. For fuck’s sake, Katsudon isn’t some god.”

Viktor visibly bristled at these words, and Yuuri mentally prepared himself to intervene.

“I resent that, Yura,” his husband replied, loftily. “My Yuuri is divine; he’s not ‘just’ anything! Did you even see his Sports Week magazine cover? When I saw the final proofs, I almost fainted: all the blood in my body began to rush straight to m– ”

“Mmmmmph!”

[chattercap]

Future Plans for Actala

Sorry for the kind of sporadic updates, I do need to be better about posting here! I post devlogs on my itch page monthly, and I've decided to crosspost the latest one here since it has some important info about Actala's future development! A copy of my latest itch devlog is under the cut!

Hello, happy June!

It's been another month (time really does fly)! 

No Actala updates this time, as I ended up increasing the scope a bit on my Otome Jam project so I had to divert my attention to that (please look forward to some EXCELLENT voice acting)! Karamu will release sometime in the next couple of weeks!

But although I don't have any updates for Actala, I do have a bit of an announcement. As you might know if you played through the demo, I originally planned to illustrate the story 100% with CGs and mini-CGs. This was...unrealistic (as basically anyone with half a brain could have told you, I imagine). 

This was something that became EXTREMELY apparent as I worked on Karamu. I thought I scoped very realistically (a simple scene with 2 characters and only 10k words), and I hoped to finish the game within a month. However, while I finished the script in a week, I've spent almost 2 months on the illustrations. (If I extrapolate that out for Actala, where the current script is 250,000 words...I won't finish the thing for another 4-5 years...)

Part of that is that I've been experimenting with more complex/highly rendered CGs, and taking more care with the color and compositions (you can see a sample below). For Actala, I adopted a more simple coloring style because of the high volume of illustrations, but I was never really happy with them. Rather than putting out a ton of illustrations that I'm not happy with, I'd prefer to put out a smaller number that I'm more satisfied with.

If I'm being honest, I didn't adopt the "CG only" strategy for any deep reason in particular. It was mainly a snap decision based on insecurities with my own art, as I felt like my art couldn't really stand on par with other VNs (so I decided to create value with quantity over quality). However, ultimately I think it's detrimental to the project. The amount of work required for the art just dwarfs everything else, to the point where I put off the other tasks to make a SMALL dent in the art (for instance, I really want to improve the GUI, which looks a bit clunky and not super elegant...) 

So from now on, I will most likely adopt the sprite format for Actala, instead of utilizing exclusively CGs. Those sprites may or may not be animated; I'll try it out and see how I feel about them. You can still expect a lot of CGs from me, but not exclusive! Interestingly, I actually planned to do sprites in the early stages of development, and I finished almost all of them. These are over a year old at this point, so they will be completely redone, though! 

I hope that this isn't disappointing to anyone (it probably isn't; I'm just stubborn as an ox when it comes to my impulse decisions...) But from a projection perspective, it's just 100% impossible to get Actala out on any reasonable timeline with the approach that I was taking. This way, I'll be able to get the game out a bit faster (with nicer illustrations, just fewer of them)! And it will give me a little more time to polish other aspects of the game, and perhaps work on a few more side projects ;)

For the rest of this month, I'll be finishing out Karamu. Then at the start of July, I'll take a bit of a game dev break before tackling the sprites! Expect to see some sketches in the next devlog~

If you read this far, thank you! See you next month :)

Chattercap

[iantimony]

tuesday!

listening: like everyone and their mother i listened to the new hozier songs this week. they're fine! i dont have any particularly strong feelings about them either way yet, i think i need to relisten to them a few times for it to really get processed, but they were good enough that i'll certainly listen again. i also went and relistened to wasteland, baby because of it and that album still slaps. also, this cherry wine cover:

is very good. i also relistened to the staves' album dead & born & grown because i realized i have windows facing west hehe. what else...my partner's citypop playlist was my music for driving home from the airport on sunday? i wont link that one i'm not sure if it's public or not. and then gym playlist this week was just one of the spotify-made mixes that kinda slams tbh, very early-00s to 10s metal/emo music lol

i've also gotten back into twilight mirage after a bajillion years. it's good! none of the characters really stick in my head besides tender sky and fourteen fifteen unfortunately but hopefully as i listen more they'll become more distinct entities in my head.

reading: i finished the birthday of the world while i was visiting my grandma for spring break!

"solitude": hmmm. this one was interesting. it left me with a lot of questions but i think that might have been the point. 6/10.

"old music and the slave woman": i think i might have benefited from more background, i was mostly able to piece together the factions but i definitely had to puzzle over it a bit. apparently there are a lot of links to stories in another collection, four ways to forgiveness, and i'm thinking that i might have wanted to read those first. 4/10.

"the birthday of the world": title story! felt very different from all the other stories in the book, probably because this one and the following novella are the only two set outside of the hainish universe. i liked it. no strong feelings in any particular direction, i don't think. 5/10.

"paradises lost": the novella! i LOVED this one. i dont know if i was somehow exposed to it as a kid, or i learned about generation ships as a story concept from somewhere else, but i often thought about writing a short story about what religion on a generation ship would look like and turns out what i was envisioning already exists. the concept of the cult of bliss felt very realistic and almost obvious in hindsight as something that was bound to happen. i know it's left open on purpose but i reallllly want to know what happened to the ship after it left. i really loved the themes of this one. 9/10.

watching: i watched an episode of the mystery show 'vera' with my grandma when i was visiting lol. it was cute! very kitschy, genre fodder! i liked it! i was very confused because the closing quip/shot seemed to be about the titular character...shoplifting a jacket or something???? like she asked her coworker if she looked any different and he was like ? and she was like ok great and the final shot is her sitting in her car seat and annoyedly ripping the tag off her jacket, so like, ???? not sure if that's a Thing that people know just from watching a lot of it but shrug.

making: iiiiii did not work on my knitting project at all LOL but i did make my neocities site! here she is! still very in progress but hey :D

misc: trip to visit grandma/s and family went fine! everyone is doing well. back to the grind this week.

oh so the gift from my SO: he likes metalworking and similar things so he made me this necklace!

it is, apparently, titanium with embedded sapphire ball bearings! the ball bearings glow in the dark after UV exposure and they're the prettiest shade of teal, it's also a very satisfying fidget texture-wise. he asked me a few months ago what my favorite constellation is and i went "......cassiopeia i guess?? why???" "oh no reason" this was the reason. it's very nice i love it so much

finally, ive started noting down my workout stuff on my dreamwidth page as well! i thought it could be cool to keep track of what weights i'm using over time, what exercises i like and don't like, etc. so that's on there tagged as gains. huzzah

[vickytokio]

Lúcia Já-Vou-Indo [Lúcia I-am-Coming]

I had this book when I was a kid and I read it many times. It's been on my mind a lot lately. It's funny how something theoretically so small can leave a mark and impact your life so much for so long.

I was a pretty slow kid. As far as I'm told, I developed all the expected skills very early, but I took my time performing activities.

I was slow to eat (apparently, it was common for my plate to need to be reheated in the middle of a meal). It took me too long to follow games with my cousins. It took me too long to copy things from the board at school. I took too much time to do my homework, to clean my room, to complete tasks… I never even necessarily realized it, I just did.

One thing that's important to say about my family is that everyone in it seems to be a damn powerhouse. No one can wait even a second for anything, ever. My mother can read 700 page books in two days, she and my aunts clean up an entire house in less than two hours, cook a full meal in 20 minutes, it's scary...

This week, I wanted to make a special dinner, I really wanted to eat a Mexican chilli with quesadillas. I found out a couple of years ago that I don't like to cook. This came as a shock to me as well, because most of my family has a passion for cooking and I love food, but cooking simply takes too much time and work to be worth it. But I wanted the damn dinner, so I started cooking at 4 pm so I could have dinner at 7 pm. That's probably not a reasonable amount of time for a regular person to spend making this meal. It's definitely not the time I would have available with my family.

When I worked at translation companies, we usually had goals to hit. If the goal was that a person could do 50 pages a day, my best, in general, was around 20 to 30.

The thing is, people always thought I was quite smart and capable. As I said, I even developed all my skills earlier than expected, so I don't know if in their minds they thought I was unwilling or what, but there were so many people my whole life disappointed that I was not “reaching my potential”, and so many people around me doing things so quickly and "easily" that I started to convince myself that I must be doing something wrong after all. 

Maybe, there really was some lost magical potential out there that I couldn't reach...

This book that I mentioned in the beginning, Lúcia Já-Vou-Indo, I think it could be a really cool book for children with ADHD, autism, learning difficulties, among many other things that make them, like me, a slow child.

The story is about Lucia, a slug who, as expected of her species, is quite slow in getting things done. Because of this, she always misses parties and important events with her other insect friends, because she is very late and cannot arrive on time.

The book's narrative, in my opinion, is a bit unkind, (but I might be biased and I'll explain why), but overall, the message is nice. Lucia is trying her best all the time, she's not negligent, she doesn't miss her friends' parties because she doesn't care, on the contrary. When she's invited to the dragonfly party, she starts getting ready a week before and even so, she only arrives at the place the day after the party, when everyone has already left.

In the book, the other insects "encourage" her to go faster along the way and feel sorry for her when she doesn't make it, but still, the ending is cute, because the solution they find is to have a party at Lucia's house so that she will definitely be there this time.

I think I liked this book the first time I read it. Maybe even a few more times after that, but it developed an increasingly bitter taste for me over the years, to the point where I wouldn't be able to see the cover or name of this book for decades without having an intensely emotional and, from an outside view, disproportionate reaction. And why, you would ask me?

The thing is, the book itself was already a little difficult for me to deal with because, despite having a "happy ending" it also has a lot of frustration and Lúcia suffers a lot with something that I also did (and do). She spends that entire book doing everything she can to get to her friend's party and it's not enough, she doesn't make it. 

And the fact that she got a party all to herself in the end isn't going to change that. That party that was "the greatest ever" will be forever lost, as will the wedding of a couple of her friends to which she arrived so late that they had already had a child. Those things are gone and won't come back. Why didn't anyone think of helping Lucia before? Why didn't she have the necessary accommodations?

And the other thing, and certainly what most impacted my relationship with this story, was the way the rest of my family "understood" it. I don't think any of them got the message because I spent the next several years of my life being called Lucia in a derogatory tone every time I was slow to do something. If I took too long to do something, I would hear my cousins, my aunts, my mother saying "I am cooooming".

With that, a story that could have been about acceptance, became a reinforcement for ridicule and I spent years hating Lucia and thanking God this book wasn't very well known and doing what I could to keep people from knowing it, lest I have more people using it to make fun of me. 

I've been thinking a lot about all this. Part of accepting the fact that I am a disabled person is accepting the fact that I. Am. Slow.

That's not a bad thing. I don't need anyone to tell me I'm not, I don't want anyone to tell me I'm not. It took me a long time to come to terms with that fact and I'm still trying.

I don't know where I'm going with this, but today I think I wanted to apologize to Lucia. You didn't deserve the contempt I had for you throughout the years, you deserve people who understand you, respect you, and want you around enough to make an effort.

[thevindicativevordan]

Comics this week?

Superman #4 - How? How is this so good? How did Williamson go straight from Dark Crisis into writing this? Is it just because he and Waid are talking regularly per separate interviews with the two of them, because the rise in quality here is enough to give me whiplash. It's like Williamson has read my blog because he's making moves I've been begging to see get made. Tying Silver Banshee with the Phantom Zone! Giving Metropolis a personality of it's own by making it obsessed with the future and contemptuous of it's past, to the point there are ruins of old "Cities of Yesterday" underneath the current city, which perfectly connects with the Moonlight plot thread of her being the ghost that haunts it! Jimmy Olsen being relevant and useful because he's a native Metropolitan unlike Lois and Clark, so he knows the history of the city in a way they don't! Plus he's dating Banshee who isn't even in the top 5 weirdest dates he's had, but might be one of the hottest. Wasn't sure if the first arc was simply beginner's luck, but now that the quality hasn't dipped in the second arc I rate Williamson's run higher even than PKJ Action. And I still greatly enjoy Action! What a nice experience to have where both of the mainline Superman books are worth reading.

World's Finest #15 - Coming down off my high from Williamson, this remains fine. Feels like Waid is on autopilot with this arc, "Newmazo" is a terrible name. At least next issue promises more Supergirl/Robin interactions which will hopefully liven the story up.

The Brave & The Bold #1 - Got this mainly for the Superman story but the other three weren't bad. King described this Batman story as "burgers and fries", what you see is what you get. If you want a dark, gritty Batman vs. Joker story, that's what this offers. Stormwatch has great art, Jeff Spokes reminds me of Ryan Sook, but I don't love the team. Needs more proper Wildstorm characters, and seriously who the fuck cares about Peacekeeper anymore? Kill him off ASAP. Mora's story had great art of course but the plot was just an excuse for him to do cyberpunk Batman art. Finally the story I actually bought the book for was the strongest of the four which was nice. Cantwell has a good handle on Superman's voice, I was surprised to see this takes place in mainline continuity, but the real draw for me was always seeing Javier Rodriguez draw Superman. Glad to share he does not disappoint, loved the page where Clark and Lois are examining the decoder ring.

Vigil #1 - Less of a superhero book and more of a spy one, but no less enjoyable for that. Ram V said he was drawing on Wildstorm and Planetary for this book and that is seen in spades. Morally ambiguous anti-heroes whose goals aren't mainly concerned with saving people, and who don't shrink at lethal force are exactly the kind of protagonists you'd expect to see in a Wildstorm book. I like this team, they feel like a group that could be different enough from the Justice League to justify their existence, unlike quite a few other teams.

Cyborg #1 - Ok first issue. Hampton is a relative newcomer to comics and that shows in some places like the clunky dialogue from the kids. Raney's art isn't a favorite of mine, and the cover being so different from the interiors is going to turn some folks away.

Superboy #2 - Cosmoteers are assholes, not sure if Porter will be able to win me over into liking them, but it makes for funny interactions at least. Superboy resolving to TTK punch his way through an enemy fleet is the most like his 90s self he's been since he came back wearing that look.

X-Men #22 - Was on the fence about dropping this too, but Duggan bought himself a stay of execution by finally moving the ORCHIS plot forward. Makes sense that ORCHIS would move on the wider superhuman community after the mutants when you remember that ORCHIS is just a front for the machines to take over. Speaking of which, Omega Sentinel returns! Are they finally going to address that turning Moira into a villain means we now have two characters who are functionally the exact same on ORCHIS? OS and Moira are both former X-Men allies turned enemies, both have transitioned from organic to robotic bodies, both founded organizations to prevent the futures they lived through from coming to pass, etc. Hickman worked hard to make OS into Moira's opposite for the machines, yet now that the two are on the same side we've never even seen them interact! Fall of X needs to change that.

Hulk Annual - Meh main story, but the epilogue pages got me pumped to finally get my hands on PKJ Hulk in a month.

Avengers #1 - For all Aaron's efforts, this feels more like Morrison JLA than anything he came up with. Everyone is competent and contributes to the fight, the art is great, and the tease at a larger plot with Kang sounds fun. First time since Hickman that I'm planning on reading the Avengers regularly again.

Fantastic Four #7 - Another fantastic issue, this time finally featuring Doom. Hickman was my entry run into F4 and made me a sucker for "Doom's ego is so great he would rather destroy reality than lose face" stories.

[thepolymathexcuse]

Weeklies: Onwards

Good day, learners!

First of all, this will be our new schedule for posting a "Weeklies" entry, since we've decided to make Tuesday our "creation day." I'll explain more of our ideal week in future articles.

Just like last week, we progressed with multiple areas of learning, while still maintaining a balance of productivity, rest, and play. I don't know what's happening but I think balance is becoming more of a mainstay in our life since we started our journey to becoming a polymath—the balance between having the power to learn anything and the acceptance of our limited time to do such a feat. 

The BF Project

Last week was the beginning of another one of our projects, the so-called BF Project or Building the Foundations Project, where we build a self-learning curriculum to re-learn foundational knowledge and learn new ones that will help us in our future endeavors. This will become our "more formal" approach to learning.

We started with an online course from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology OpenCourseWare (MIT OCW, for short) called 18.01SC or Single-Variable Calculus. [1] This is our first foundational course where we re-learn the concepts of college mathematics as a preparatory step for our future pursuit of graduate studies. Of course, this journey is supplemented by various books and online worksheets for their practice problems.

We also started taking the Google Certificate Course on Project Management from their YouTube channel. [2] The certificate will have to come for later, since we currently cannot afford it.

Finally, as part of this project, we conducted our first weekly review and evaluation during the weekend, where we identified our wins and hurdles. With this, we were able to come up with evidence-based solutions in order to improve our learning journey.

Other personal projects

Another one of our projects allowed us to dig deeper into the origins of the concept of curiosity and we've finished one paper detailing the philosophical origins of this virtue. We finished a paper on its philosophical background [3] and we’re currently reading how a curious mind develops in a psychological manner [4]. 

The novel I started reading last September was still a few pages to completion (a hundred or so). This shows how slow of a reader I actually am. Nonetheless, we learned a lot about the character of Lewis Benedikt as his past slowly unfolded. From this, we learned the connections of faith and spiderwebs, as well as a critical understanding of the different elements that had been building up to the present-day character of Mr. Benedikt. It's just a hunch, but this barrage of information about Lewis might signal the end of this character's journey within the novel. His death should be expected at this moment, since it was foreshadowed in the earlier chapters; it was, after all, a "ghost story."

Another one of our newly-undertaken projects was the establishment of a financial tracker, which is our first step to being financially literate. This will, in turn, lead to wiser financial decisions. I tried this before, but to no avail, because I was too focused on "goals" when a system is all I really need. We strengthened our existing knowledge on budgeting and investments, but it's still a long way to go. We can only hope for the best.

My continuous search for jobs led me to multiple career options, but ultimately, while building my resume for one of the positions I'm applying for, I realized that I should be applying to roles which are closer to my previous experiences. Again, this is not a novel idea. I was just so focused on the career shift that I completely ignored my previous employment and academic background. This realization came from multiple rejections from roles I wasn't really knowledgeable about. There's still a lot to learn with this journey, but again, I'm hoping that the breakthrough might already be close.

We also made progress in writing for our digital product. I can't wait to get this out on my set deadline!

Finally, our project on Scripture reading led us to the most profound, and most of the times confusing, realizations about faith and spirituality. This undertaking continues to enrich our humility, and I would definitely keep this project in the longer run until the habit sticks.

Media consumption

Here are some of the notable social media content we encountered this past week:

A Kurzgesagt feature on weed detailing the latest evidence on its long-term effects and responsible use;

A FEATR video of a non-profit organization in Siargao island called Lokal Lab, that aims to bridge the gap between the island's farmers and the market which caters to its tourists;

A Facebook group on UI/UX developers that arouses my interest in the field;

This newly discovered species of wild berries atop the highest Philippine summit;

Free online learning resources for the Geographic Information System;

Tons of lessons on bridging policy and science from the featured scientist Ms. Cathy Manalo and her NGO Ulirat PH focused on counter mapping and human rights in the Pinoy Scientists IG and Facebook page;

The different laboratories from UP Diliman's National Institute of Geological Sciences, the nation's leading center for studying earth processes;

An IG reel that implies what it must feel like to enter a chapter in your life after a difficult season;

Another IG reel that highlights a research study of how uncreative thinking is learned as we grow older, and that we're all actually born creative geniuses;

Multiple subreddits that account methods of how we can help as individuals in combating climate change and if it's too late, help mitigate its effects and adapt to its impacts.

We also spent a lot of time reconnecting with family members, my friends, and my pets. Most importantly, we spent a lot of time getting intimate with nature through our quiet, barefoot afternoon wind-downs and study breaks. We also listened to a lot of new music, and I can't wait to write about some of them soon! It's not a promise, though.

Again, that was a lot of words for a single week. Although there are moments where we feel like we might not be going anywhere, this weekly accounting of what we're doing helps in giving us vision on the necessary steps closer to a life we aspire to have. 

Thanks for keeping up with us, and as always, keep wandering and chase what excites you.

[withloveilya]

books i read in october

So I started my internship in October and I was worried that I might not be able to read as much. However, I managed to squeeze in some time to read during my lunch break, after work, and during the weekends. I managed to read five books and they’re mostly short novels because they’re easier to read when I am swamped with work.

1. To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara

I love Hanya Yanagihara’s writing style and I am currently in the process of reading all of her works. I got this book a while ago but was too intimidated by the size to start reading. Once I do start reading the book, it took me two weeks to get through this it because while I enjoy the writing, it is excruciatingly slow and I just didn’t feel excited to continue reading. I persevered and I ended up quite liking it.

There’s three stories in this book and each story is set in a different time period: 1893, 1993 and 2093. Although the character names are similar in all of the stories, they are not related to each other at all. Each story has different genres, but the message is similar which is love. I know love is such a vague and general message but it is more complex than that. Out of all the stories, my favourite is the last one because I grew attached to Charlie.

2. Our Tethered Skates by Naadhira Zahari

I finished this book in 30 minutes or so because it is very short. It only has 100 pages and the writing is fairly easy to digest as it more suitable for kids and young adults. The premise is similar to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Alice in Wonderland because the protagonist is transported to a magical kingdom called Verglas and she is declared the warrior Verglas had been waiting for.

There’s a lot of missing plot points because of the length of the book but I enjoyed it nonetheless. The shortness of the book also made it hard for me to formulate my thoughts about it. I think this is definitely a book that younger me would have appreciated more.

3. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

I am in the quest to read all of the books that have been adapted into my favourite films and Bridge to Terabithia is the first on the list because I remember the pain I felt watching it as a child a little too well. I was curious to see whether the book is better than the film and I have come to the conclusion that I love both of them equally. I love the film as it is a part of my childhood. I love the book especially because reading from Jesse’s perspective made me understand more how he navigates his loss and grief.

I have always loved reading children’s books that deal with heavy topics, and while I have never experienced the loss of a dear friend, Jesse’s narration of the tragedy made it easy for me to understand the depth of the pain he felt. His disbelief, denial, anger and eventual acceptance is what made the book authentic.

4. Minor Detail by Adania Shibli

Yet another short book but it left such a profound impact on me. The book is a fictionalised account of a real life tragedy in which a Palestinian Bedouin woman was captured, raped and murdered by Israeli soldiers in 1949. After reading this books, I was left astounded and grew obsessed with this minor detail so I looked up the article about this crime on Haaretz. “I saw fit to remove her from the world” is what the platoon commander wrote in his report about this incident and I am just angry by the way he decide on things as though he is God.

The book has two different parts and they’re told by different narrator from different times. The first part is told from an Israeli platoon commander’s perspective during the 1949 tragedy. I find it fascinating the way the author writes from his perspective because he narrates his daily routine and the atrocities he and his squad committed in such a detached and indifferent manner. The second part is set in present day Ramallah. The narrator is haunted by the report on the crimes and ventured on a long and dangerous journey, driving past checkpoints to the place where the atrocity was committed. This part is fascinating to me because of the way the narrator describes life under occupation. She tells of the checkpoints and the regular bombing as if they’re minor details in her daily routine. For Palestinians, that is their reality.

This book was definitely hard to read but it was important for me to read it so that this minor detail is acknowledged and remembered. So that the minor details Palestinians have to live through is understood.

5. Mornings in Jenin by Susan Abulhawa

This was certainly one of the most heartbreaking books I have read. I felt all kinds of emotions while reading but the most prominent are hatred and sorrow. Yes, I have been passionate about the situation in Palestine but I had little to no knowledge about the Nakba and the subsequent conflicts afterwards. This book didn’t just educate me. It also made me understand what it is like to be a Palestinian. I’m not saying I understand completely what it is like to be in their circumstances, but reading from these characters’ perspectives has made me realise their reality.

The story revolves around the Abulheja family and what their life had been in the village of Ein Hod, how their lives changed when they were banished by Israel and had to live at a refugee camp in Jenin, and the subsequent conflicts that alter the Abulhejas’ lives. It was a difficult read, as I expected, but I enjoyed reading it nonetheless.

[dashawfrostart]

These Three Weeks in "Time & Again" #25: More Cover Arts, More Thoughts, More Everything - But NO MORE Legacy Editions! ☝

It's been a while since I posted the last update on how things were going with "Time & Again". A lot has happened. First and foremost, prep for GPop Culture Fair. Damn, I'm looking good I'm excited. Truly. I've never done anything like that before, and I'm beyond happy to be presented a wonderful opportunity to let everyone know about my crazy kiddos 😱. I want to make them famous!!! Because prep to GPop has been one of the biggest chunks of my artistic activities lately, there's not much to report on the matter, because, well, it's self-explanatory. The booth setup, decorations, designs, etc. I might post some photos later on if possible.

Now, friendly folks, here's the biggest news for today:

The Clean Cut Editions of "Time & Again" are finally available on GlobalComix and Itch.io to read and buy! 🥳🥳🥳🥂🍻🦆

(why is there a cute duck? I dunno. Because Frosty is a bird nerd, that's why 🙃 I have 4 birding apps on my phone; how many do you have? 😁)

Just a quick reminder: Clean Cut Editions of "Time & Again" are updated, slightly expanded editions of the graphic narrative that has been proofread anew, as well. Each chapter now comes with a special section of commentary, which is optional to read, for those of you who want to go down the "completionist" route and 100% all of these tiny little easter eggs and mysterious interconnections within the chapters 😁. It also contains some insight on the chapters' development. Here's the old announcement post for the Clean Cut Edition, if anyone's interested to refresh the memory.

Also as a quick reminder: legacy editions are no longer accessible. They're gone. Forever. And that makes me incredibly happy 😁 Because the Clean Cut Editions are definitely superior.

Might be necessary only to the most dedicated fans, but to clarify what kind of metamorphoses the chapters have undergone for the Clean Cut release, here's a little improvised list:

As already mentioned above, "Notes, Commentary & Hints" for every chapter as a part of bonus materials;

Chapter 4 has been expanded and now includes 2 extra pages of purest shapeshifting idiocy craziness (more about how I worked on that addition is in this post);

Chapter 4 now has a completely different epigraph that better matches the idea of the chapter and sets the tone for the story that awaits ahead (yup, I most certainly do not miss the old ridiculous one);

Some bonus materials have been rearranged or partially swapped to ensure the reader's enjoyment (especially in Chapter 4);

Extra SFXs have been added for the better impression and consistency;

The placement (and sometimes design) of certain speech bubbles across all first 4 chapters has been corrected to improve the looks; the text arrangement within the speech bubbles has been corrected accordingly, as well;

All the dialogues have been proofread, and the shameful typos are now removed (hopefully all of them);

Minor tweaks to art (unfilled pixels filled, missing detail added/modified, artist's epic fails corrected 🤦‍♀️, etc.);

... And some other, super minor stuff that was important to me to correct even though the readers might not even notice.

As you might've guessed, YES: that was a lot of work for me this year. And it was 100% worth it. I am happy.

The next important announcement for today is that I have completed the cover art for Chapter 6.2.

I cannot show it just yet, because it contains major spoilers to the story - so you'll have to wait a bit 😁

Now, onto a somewhat sad part. With all my life endeavours, and the fair preps, not to mention THAT TIME OF THE YEAR approaching (you know, the time that most retail workers as well as the buyers themselves seriously dread, lol!), it is becoming quite clear to me that it's very unlikely I will be able to finish my work on Chapter 6 this year. I probably will be lucky to finish up the lineart alone by the end of December... But as I said before, I don't exactly have them deadlines. And timed levels are my worst nightmares. Screw timed levels. So I'll simply do whatever I can 😁

My next objective in "Time & Again" Chapter 6 development is to draw all the panels and to arrange all the text boxes and speech bubbles properly on every page.

So, basically, the main body of work on the chapter starts from now on. And that is going to be... an adventure. Yup. Because Chapter 6 will be different. Oh so different. I truly hope it's gonna be the most creative chapter of all in the series.

And before I wrap it up for today, I want to expand on some techy stuff that I touched in the previous post. I mentioned that creating a timelapse video through Krita Recorder produces an odd flicker in random moments which makes the video highly unenjoyable. When I checked out the folder containing the snapshots, I've noticed that there are some files that are solid white with no art on them. Just empty white spaces. Manually deleting the weird white snapshots forces Krita to fail the conversion of the video; it doesn't automatically skip missing frames, it simply gives an error and, well, gives up on life. While I found no clue on the genesis of the empty white frames - seems that it's just a glitch in Krita for now - I have indeed found a resolution! 🥳 Unfortunately, it's not super straightforward and, to make it even worse, it requires some extra work on the artist's part (and the artist is already busy enough, but whatever will you do?.. everybody knows that the artist's life is very hard, lol). But it works!!! And let me tell you how! I came across this post on the forum that described the exact same issue I had. The comments below have a link to a GitHub repository that contains a handy tool called Rebecca's Krita Tools. What one must do is to simply follow the instructions to install the plugin (BTW, I've never installed plugins directly from GitHub before! That's super handy!). After that, you head directly to the location of your recording snapshots, and you have to manually go through all the snapshots to remove the white empty files. After that is done, run the script called Reorder Image Sequence in Krita, select the folder that contains the snapshots - and MAGIC HAPPENS! The frames are all renamed, and you can create a timelapse now! Without flicker and epilepsy warnings!

... So I manually went through all the 11300 frames of the recording I made when working on Chapter 6.1. cover, and then I did the same for the next one.

My workspace for the manual clean up looked approximately this way:

Cool, eh?! EH???!!! I will repeat again: there were 11300 frames that I had to manually look through, with my very own set of eyes. I will brainstorm a way to automate this process somehow in the future. That's why, I think, we need help of AI - for the situations like that that require little to no real creative involvement, for techy stuff that might be difficult to do programmatically and/or manually. To help the artists deal with annoyances faster, so that they could create more art in the meantime!!!

And I was finally able to create a good video. And I will be able to optimize it to be posted on YouTube in the future. Sweet!

I should write a feature/ bug fix request on Krita forum concerning the issue. I hope that Recorder glitch gets a fix in one of the new versions of Krita. But for now, we have a perfect - although a bit time consuming - solution 😁 But that will do for now.

Time to wave good bye. See you next time! 👋 And that will be after GPop 🎨🤪🤩

P.S. Before THAT TIME OF THE YEAR, Halloween is approaching fast. We're already prepared. Das ist gut. Alas, this time I will not produce light not produce a new Halloween artwork. I've noticed I already have plenty. I have ideas swirling in my head, but I don't think I have enough time to fiddle with that on top of everything that's been happening lately.

But I've been playing some little horror games to stay in the mood - and to discover my new sparks (well, in some cases to improve my Spanish, too, because ¿¡por qué no?!). Amongst all, Harvest Festival 64 and Feet In The Snow especially stand out. Those were very different from one another, very captivating short adventures, very well worth experiencing. I highly recommend.

P.P.S. Oddly for me... not many references to music and video games in this post. Hmm. Something is surely off... I blame Lothar. It's always Lothar's fault after all. [that urgently requires a comedy one shot]

P.P.P.S. Added a couple more references to enforce the stylish continuity of my blog posts. Yaaaay! 🥳

[televinita]

How many library items do I even have out? Let's find out together!

Books ready to return: 2

Books I need to review before returning: 3 (Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands; Carrie Soto Is Back; The Lily of Ludgate Hill)

CDs: 1 (1989 Taylor's Version. I'm not ready to hear it yet. but I would like the option to do so without Spotify ads. or streams tbh)

Aaand that makes 13 items left, very good. In absolutely no order because I'm just trying to make sure I know where they all are...

1. Cheap Old Houses - Elizabeth Finkelstein: a beautiful coffee table book, apparently based off an Instagram that I (per usual) have never heard of; I am almost done but have been simply luxuriating in the photos. Currently gazing at it on BookOutlet like "$15 is reasonable for a brand new copy of such a large and 5-star book I definitely have space for actually."

2. Another Good Dog: One Family & 50 Foster Dogs - Cara Sue Achterberg: I got about 60 pages in and am loving it, but it was SO GREAT! that I had to pause and put more middling books in front of it to process; been trying to get back for 2+ weeks. That said, when I finish it...

3. One Hundred Dogs & Counting - Cara Sue Achterberg: ...when I finish the above it'll be on to the next one! (maybe? or maybe I'll want to save this 2nd shot of joy for the future)

4. The Break-Up Tour - Emily Wibberley and Austin S.B.: this has taken WAY too much time and effort to get my damn hands on. And then I didn't even read it fast! I started and then got distracted, and only yesterday managed to get up to the halfway mark. At least the request list has cooled off so I will be able to renew it.

5. The Haunting - Natasha Preston: just stocking up some reliably good YA horror for when I really crave those in the summer. This is literally an I-love-cheap-thrills situation.

6. The Joy of Falling - Lindsay Harrel: a random impulse checkout because the cover was pretty and it's about 2 widowed sisters-in-law training for an ultra-marathon in New Zealand that their late husbands had been planning to do. Thought it might serve as exercise motivation.

7. Malibu Rising - Taylor Jenkins Reid: will this suck me in as fast as Carrie Soto did? I dunno, but this is the one I was originally more interested in, so let's see if this is the year we find out.

8. Heirloom Rooms: Soulful Stories of Home - Erin Napier: Speaking of coffee table books I was looking at on BookOutlet, this popped in the "you may also like wheel" and I saw the library had it instead. "a collection of essays walking us through every room in her home, telling the story of a family’s life, of the days that made their home the place she longs for when she’s away. We learn about when they became the new owners of Erin’s dream house from childhood in downtown Laurel, Mississippi, and explore the beautiful homes of family, friends, and projects past in photographs." YEAH!

9. The Wishing Game - Meg Shaffer: I forgot to re-freeze this hold so it came in at the WORST possible time. I've been waiting on this since January and refuse to be rushed or read it if the timing isn't Perfect, so instead I'm gonna be the jerk who keeps it 3 full weeks just in case I get to it; the waitlist remains at 50+ for 7 copies. My ace in the hole is that certain books are WAY less popular in the county next door, where we can dual-register, and they also have 7 copies but only 14 people waiting.

10. Homeward Bound: Why Women Are Embracing the New Domesticity: nonfiction from 2013 that I've been vaguely meaning to read someday. There's only 1 copy left in the system so I checked it out while I was at that branch, but 99% sure I will NOT be getting to it this round. 20 days til my renewals max out.

12. DVD: Northanger Abbey: the JJ Feild spiral I have been trying to find time for since March is clearly not happening right now because WOW Ryan Gosling spiral time instead. But I can't stop believing until my renewals run out, in 3 weeks.

13. DVD: Third Star: see above. somehow holding out more hope for this one, if only because Survivor has hella reactivated my Male Friendship radar, despite these being extremely different types of men. ...just noticed my renewals on this max out in 4 days, oops.

14. DVD: Ghosts (UK), season 3: I was on a hot watching streak and then I abruptly shifted gears to watch the U.S. version's third season instead (because I was too lazy to fight with our Blu-Ray player that throws a fit every time we tell it to play a DVD instead of its favorite format), and now I don't know how to get back in the groove. But I won't give up until they make me! (9 days from now when my renewals max out)