#second life single

[hiveswap]

[willowcrowned]

in europe and made the fatal mistake of trying to order nachos at a restaurant and look. europeans. I say this with all the love in my heart. but what exactly do you think nachos are

[housederiva]

[shirozora-draws]

mustard on the beat, ho- MUSTAAAAAAAAAAAAARD Someone make it stop, make it fucking stop. I spent all week hyping myself up to gather up all my work sketches like a scrapbook and clean it all up to post here, and then Kendrick had to surprise drop on a Friday morning and ruin my work day and my headspace all weekend long.

Anyway, here's a dangerous dreams sketch dump.

It's been a long quiet, but RL had taken such a fucking toll that I had a real hard time finding the fucks to get creative. Who knows how much this past US presidential election will fuck up the entire rest of my life, but I'll take solace in finding community and in the little things and in Andor Season 2 and in the telling of The Stars.

Now that I got this out of the way, guess it's time to go fucking write some fucking words.

[iced-souls]

Uhm, possible spoilers i think for Marble Sky [made by @somerandomdudelmao in which you should go and check out if you haven’t read rn cause they be very cool very cool and very cool]

but—OMG I LOVE THIS BIRB AUUUHGHGHHGUGHUHURHUEHGI—

IN WHICH THEY ARE PERFECTLY FINE AND WE SEE SO SO MUCH OF THEM NYYYGUUH—

Guys guys guys — please trust meee she is A-OK and she is gonna be a teacher to Oscar as they make a pacifist alien befriending club

I am not in denial i have no clue what you’re talking about—

I ain’t got a clue what these so called ‘jars’ even look like yet but i sketched a thing out immediately and then at that point my intrigueness started to fade, and then the ref came out and for some reason that boosted my interest even further. But i know what a bird’s brain looks like now so thats something.

I just think she seems very cool

I may have also did some other doodles a week or 2 ago that i didn’t post cause the social of anxiety was kickin in high those days but I’ll put them under the cut if thou wishes to see

That is all ok buh byyeeee go see marble skiessssss

[a-hazbin-reader]

Imagine you and human!Alastor meeting and having an instant connection, leading to a one night stand. Only to find out a few months later that you're pregnant.

So then you two meet again years later, and you have a little kid who looks just like him. He's not stupid, so Alastor insists on being in their life, and he ends up being an amazing father.

To make things worse(better), you two still have that connection and crave each other. Your kid picks up on that and does everything they can to play matchmaker with you two.

[bird-inacage]

They're going to be utterly INSUFFERABLE - I'M SO READY

How's everyone holding up? Is anyone truly prepared? I know I'm not.

[t8oo]

[superkitten-poison]

is helluva boss allergic to doing anything interesting with stella at all or what

[gideonisms]

Perhaps one of my main flaws is I would rather be a Girl forever and retain my independence than deal with the financial instability of being too gnc in the workplace. To me it feels less offensive to cosplay heteronormativity for 8 hours a day in a place where I am already going to be masking my natural, correct reaction to being around other people 8 hours per day (hissing like a cat) than to be too genderweird and have to move in with other people who will also hate that I am too genderweird. Difference between doing a bit for 8 hours a day and having everyone question my every action 24 hours a day

[kacievvbbbb]

Look I like Roger enough, I understand what he represents and I generally don’t think he was a bad dude. I do however think he was shit at interpersonal relationships because, what the fuck. Whitebeards crew is infinitely more well adjusted and I’d say he arguably had the more traumatic death.

Like what even, what kind of planning leads a 53 year old man to sire a child knowing he is dying of an incurable illness and is about to turn himself in to be excuted by the marines where he will cause so much chaos it is literally still turning the world on its head 22 years later. He knew he was going to cause so much of a stir that he literally disbanded his crew and told them to spread far and wide to keep them safe. Because he knew the marines would hunt them far and wide But yet he still brought a baby into the world. Babe. What the fuck? What even is that? What was the thought process. I sincerely hope it was an accident and not a deliberate attempt to bring about a new era.

Because if so babe I need to see the recipe or I’m afraid we can never let you cook again

[whetstonefires]

Do you have any opinions on Scholomance?

I do! I like it a lot. I really enjoyed all three books, blitzed through them easily and was much more excited to see how the plots unfolded than I'm used to these days, as a jaded adult, and I also really appreciated them as works of craft.

Especially the first one, I spent the whole time being all 'wow!' at how simple it was. So easy to read, but no waste. You really need to know what you're doing, to get that kind of pared-down elegance of form to work and still fit so much content in.

Like these are dense, there's a fantastic stylistic minimalism that allows El's character all the space it needs to breathe by making absolutely every other thing and person in the whole novel also do character work for her, which is exactly where the first person voice shines.

Also great use of character perspective to make the pacing feel really natural, so the fact that the first book takes three weeks, the second book takes one year, and the third book is like. Five or so incredibly stressful days spread out over the course of a few weeks? Doesn't feel imbalanced.

I actually got distracted from the story a few times by noticing the strength of Novik's technique. 😂 This is a me problem, in itself it's the opposite of distracting. Very low-profile.

I think the Scholomance is a great example of how far you can go in specfic when you aren't cringing from the label 'derivative,' because the Scholomance books feel very fresh ad clean specifically because nothing in them is concerned with standing out as 'original,' whatever that's supposed to mean, only with being well-executed and suitable to its task.

Hm, maybe that's where Liesel was born, the intersection of the efficient narrative style and the vast proportion of the story that concerns the maximization of utility and the instrumentalization of persons by themselves and others, and the forces that incentivize these behaviors. Or maybe she's just the narrative counterweight to Orion 'Head Empty' Lake lmao. How's that for a principle of balance, Galadriel?

I really did enjoy how beautifully it was laid out, over and over, in dozens of shades of humanity, how no matter where you go in an exploitative system almost everyone is being driven by the same survival instincts.

Because I don't think I've ever seen made so cleanly clear why you just can't expect any person or small group of people, no matter their level of goodwill or status, to unmake one of these systems from the inside; how it's not a matter of people being bad but of every single person being very...small.

And then not retreating into the idea of a person who is Big coming and breaking the cruel system from the outside as some kind of panacea, because 1) that is terrible, even if it's necessary and done in the best way possible and 2) that's not a sustainable answer to anything. Getting a balance between the protagonist being able to effect change and not subscribing to the great man theory of history can be really tricky!

Also did I mention, I love El, and I love most of the cast, even the dreadful ones. How am I going around with this many feelings about Li Shanfeng who doesn't appear until the actual climax?

The romance murdered me a bit, but it took up no more space than it absolutely needed to do its job, and I respect that. Also I appreciated Orion as a love interest; Novik has a slight record at this point of a version of that style of male love interest who's like a caricature of Mr. Darcy but old, which was shaping up to be my least favorite thing about her body of work.

...Orion is kind of like if you took the human king from Spinning Silver and gave him an alignment flip come to think of it, so he's not coming out of nowhere. Lmao.

Which reminds me (re: romance character typing) I've heard Novik didn't want it to be known she was astolat, which this series has renewed my sympathies if so. Because if I were a published novelist I wouldn't want people going 'you know, that resolution was really emotionally satisfying! reminds me of that fic she wrote where optimus prime and megatron get stuck in a hole underground and hatefuck about it.'

I don't even like Transformers. That fic almost made me cry. Actually I suspect it reads better if you don't like Transformers because I'm sure it does not give a shit about canon.

Anyway, whoever pointed out that one of the things El has going on is she's Enoby (and we're going to sit down and explore what the true reason to put your middle finger up at preps is, and what are some constructive ways to channel that socioeconomic wrath, and what it means that there is no ethical consumption under capitalism) was right and I'm not entirely over that either.

Fucking love El's mom as a character. Spectacular level of parent relevance and usefulness. A+.

Aadhya and Liu are also characters who fucking delivered.

Re: minimalism though, I laughed at the start of The Golden Enclaves when I realized that none of the enclaver characters who'd gotten development in the the first two books were from London, the enclave El was theoretically shooting for when we met her.

[kkoct-ik]

part one of my big requests bundle! and a cobbed together bonus panel. as a treat

[wildsaltair]

on my knees begging this man to save me from the clutches of desire

[insomnya777]

joel etho single dads au .........

[jayktoralldaylong]

Imagine being the most powerful person in the world, but every time you draw your weapon and use it to fight, your life force diminishes.

That's why Chinese torture remains unmatched, their imagination is out of this world. Ain't no one does suffering like them. I do be gagged when I read their novels.

And yes I'm thinking of Yue Qingyuan! And how he became a pacifist and always fought for diplomatic solutions. Then threw it all away when Luo Bingge basically announced he was going to execute Shen Jiu. How he literally gave up his entire life. 😭😭 All his achievements, his title, his wealth, his power.

And how Shen Jiu only realised this....when Bingge scattered before him the broken shards of Yue Qingyuan's sword. And Shen Jiu realised he'd lost the one person that he sacrificed all his happiness for.

All that time wasted because these mfkers couldn't bring themselves to fking TALK!!!