#sometimes i want to publish a real book so bad it hurts

[kingthunder]

got a bookmark tag on ao3 that annoyed me so much that I am tempted, for the 8765848th time, to simply delete my ao3 account

[n0thingbutlov3]

need you now

in which an impulsive voicemail leads to some secrets being spilled.

pairing: spencer reid x fem!reader. warnings/tags: angst (sorry i’m incapable of being nice lol) hurt/comfort tho!! lil bit of fluff too because i AM capable of being nice, alcohol consumption as a coping mechanism (i’m literally just a girl…) spencer and reader are broken up :( but they’re still sooo in love and it’s soo obvious so it’s fine!! (also it kind of gets fixed at the end-ish. you’ll see *evil smirk*) reader cries a lot (real) spencer is a cutie (as always) spencer and reader sleep together…no like literally, not in a funny business way, some swearing, no use of y/n!!! wc: 3k a/n: hihihi!! so this is my first fan fiction i’ve wrote and completed ever (gulp) it’s also my first time publishing one (gulp) my writing could definitely be better and so could my grammar tbh but i HOPE if you choose to read you’ll enjoy…feedback is always appreciated (plsplspls) also like requests?? if anyone’s into that—id love to write more but inspo is difficult sometimes. if there’s any spelling mistakes im sorry, eye am very tired!! it’s 5am *eye twitching* okay i’m going to sleep, gootbye IF U SAW ME EDITING THIS 5 TIMES NO U DIDNT (i’m bad at tumblr ok..)

“Hi. This is Doctor Spencer Reid. I’m not available right now, but leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can…”

His tinny voice cut off to make way for the signature beep of the beginning of a voicemail recording.

You could hang up now��you should hang up now, save yourself some dignity and go drown your sorrows in alcohol like a normal person instead of calling your ex-boyfriend.

You should, but your mouth was opening before your finger could reach the hang-up button, and…and it was a losing battle from the moment you clicked on Spencer’s icon.

“Uh—hi, it’s…it’s me.” You huffed out a sad laugh.

“So, um, I…I tried calling, but you didn’t answer so…” The static buzz of silence hummed through your ear, just inches from where you held your phone with a shaky grip. “maybe you’re on a case or out with friends, or someone else—“ You let the implication hang in the air—the thought of Spencer potentially being in a relationship bringing a lump to your throat.

You swallowed it down.

“I just…I just had an unbelievably shitty day, Spence.” You sniffed, wiping the moisture that had escaped from your eye with your sweater sleeve. “I know you’ve never read A Series of Unfortunate Events but I think I’d give those kids a run for their money.” You tried to laugh but it came out as more of a sob.

You inhaled shakily, trying to collect yourself and remember why on earth you thought it would be a good idea to call Spencer when you’d been broken up for months. Hell, you hadn’t heard from him at all since you had parted ways—except from the odd text about returning each others’ things. It was obvious he had moved on, and here you were, filling up his voicemail with blubbering messages and making references to adolescent books.

“God, sorry about this.” You breathed out a watery chuckle. “I just…didn’t want to be alone, I guess. But that’s-um-not your problem anymore, so I’m—I’m sorry. Have a nice night.” Your voice cracked and you hung up before you could start weeping down the line. You didn’t need to look even more pathetic.

You pulled your phone away from your ear, looking down at his contact photo through blurred vision. He was smiling—not the tight, closed lip smile he gave other people, but a full, bright smile that had his dimples showing. One of your hands was wrapped loosely around his neck and the other was holding your phone just far enough away to capture both of your smiles. Your head was rested on top of his shoulder, tilted just slightly to the left so your temple was brushing against his.

It felt like looking at a vintage photograph—you knew those people and their happiness existed at some point in time, but it wasn’t tangible; you couldn’t verify it was real.

When you were with Spencer, you never doubted how real it was. All you had to was look at him across the room and he’d flash you a smile identical to the one in that photo and you’d just…know.

It felt like forever ago now that you’d been on the receiving end of that grin and it killed you. So much so that before you could consider the repercussions, you were trudging through to your kitchen and grabbing the bottle of whiskey that sat unopened in your cabinet. It had been a present—from Rossi, actually. When Spencer had first introduced you to the team, the older man had given it to you as something of a welcome gift. Of course, he couldn’t have known you weren’t much of a drinker, and since you wanted to make a good impression (and because you were sure it had cost more than all the alcohol you had consumed in your life combined) you accepted it—deciding to save it for a rainy day.

You think this qualified.

You grabbed the bottle, a glass, and padded back through to your living room, slumping onto your couch. You filled your glass up a little less than halfway before gulping it down, enjoying the burn in your throat—it was better than the constant thickness.

You poured yourself another glass before turning on the TV. You weren’t sure what was playing—it didn’t really matter anyway, your vision was already being obscured by tears again.

You thought the pounding was in your head at first—serves you right for drinking half a bottle of whiskey. Only, it wasn’t, because moments later the pounding subsided and instead, your apartment door was opening, casting your pitch-black living room in a yellow glow which temporarily blinded you.

You squeezed your eyes shut, your mind hazy—again, serves you right for drinking half a bottle of whiskey. Someone was calling your name, but there was too much sensory input for you to make out who.

You certainly hoped it wasn’t a paramedic—maybe your neighbour had heard you sobbing for the last four hours and decided you needed a wellness check. Then there were hands on your face, and that had you flicking your eyes open, because you recognised those hands—impossibly soft, with a callus on his trigger finger being the only thing to mar them. Spencer.

“Spencer?” You slurred.

He sighed in exasperation (or relief) and tucked a stray strand of hair behind your ear.

“Are you alright? You weren’t answering your phone, I thought…” He trailed off, worry evident in his voice.

You sat up then, trying to compose yourself even though the room was spinning. Fucking whiskey. You rubbed your eyes haphazardly, blinking until you could finally see.

You should’ve stayed bleary-eyed. Because nothing could prepare you for the way your breath hitched when you finally saw him. After months of not seeing each other, Spencer was here, sitting on your couch, and he was looking at you like you were something fragile, and—God, you needed another drink. You turned away from him, reaching for the neck of the bottle as you spoke.

“I’m fine.”

Before you could lift it up, Spencer gently pried your hand away from the bottle with his own, and then slid it across the coffee table with his other.

“You���re drunk. No more of that, please.” His tone wasn’t unkind, but he left no room to argue. You probably would’ve objected anyway, if it weren’t for the way he kept his hand clasped around yours, rubbing soothing circles into your pulse point almost absentmindedly.

You glanced up to him—to stop yourself from staring at your hand in his and how natural it felt, more than anything—but that proved to be a mistake too, because he looked just as beautiful as thirty seconds prior and it felt just as natural for him to be sitting next to you on your sofa, but it wasn’t natural anymore.

“How did you get in?”

“My key.”

“Oh.”

Right. The key that he still had because you refused to meet up with him to let him return it. He tried for weeks to contact you, but you ignored him, because getting the key back meant things were finally over. You supposed he could return it now—maybe that’s why he came in the first place.

“Why did you come?” You asked, your voice impossibly small.

“You called.” He replied—as though he was talking about something as simple as the weather. You call and I come.

You searched in his eyes for any sign of a lie, but of course, there was none. He was being completely genuine—as always. You were the awful ex-girlfriend who left concerning voicemails on his phone and had him travelling to your apartment in the middle of the night only for him to look completely okay with the situation—like there was nothing he’d rather be doing than making sure you were safe.

You couldn’t help the way tears sprung to your eyes or your lip began to tremble as you lolled your head back onto the couch, pulling your gaze away from his.

“Angel, what’s wrong?”

You liked to consider yourself to be a strong person. You had been through things in your life that were objectively worse than your breakup with Spencer, but something about the gentleness of his tone and the way he had let one of his many (past) petnames for you slip had your throat tightening and you ducked your head into your one hand—the other still seized by Spencer’s—to try and muffle a sob.

“Hey,” He trailed his hand that was wrapped around yours up your arm, all the way to your shoulder blade before lightly guiding you towards him. You don’t have enough energy in you to fight his magnetic pull, so you shuffle over until you can bury your head into his shirt. You inhale his scent; vanilla, neroli, and so him it makes you ache.

Stopping your tears is futile—you’d know, they’d barely ceased all night—so you just let them fall, seeping into Spencer’s tie as he rubs one hand softly up and down your back, the other cradling the crown of your head.

His breathing is quiet and slow—the exact opposite of yours—and you try to imitate it—forcing air into your lungs. When your sobbing has turned to shaky breathing and the occasional sniffle, he speaks up.

“Do you want to talk?”

Talk about what? About what had happened today—what had led you to calling him? Talk about how for the last few months, he had been the only person you had wanted to call?

“No.” You hated how pitiful you sounded.

“Okay.”

Spencer didn’t say anything else for a minute—your synchronised breathing being the only thing to stop the room from falling into dead silence.

“You need to rehydrate.” He murmured, smoothing down your hair.

You hummed into him, in no hurry to unwrap yourself from his body. You probably wouldn’t get to be this close to him again, after all.

He moved both of his hands to your biceps, pulling you back slightly so you could look at him. He knitted his brows together in a silent plea which had you rolling your eyes petulantly, your lashes still damp from tears.

“Fine.” You peeled yourself off of him, pushing yourself into a standing position. Horrible mistake. You were still incredibly drunk, turns out, and everything was spinning a little bit and come to think of it, you were also nauseous and—

“Careful, lovely.” Spencer placed his hand firmly on the small of your back, keeping you upright.

and—actually, you were fine now.

He stood too, moving his hand just slightly over to your waist so he could guide you to the kitchen. When he knew you could stand upright—even if you were relying mostly on the counter behind you—he grabbed a glass from your cabinet, moving around effortlessly to pour you some water. The sight was so domestic you almost wanted to cry again. Maybe in some alternate timeline, where you and him could’ve worked, this would be an every day thing—minus the drunk sobbing part, of course.

He handed you the glass of water, watching as you took a few sips. He raised an eyebrow, nodding his head slowly.

“Whole thing, please.”

You let out an exasperated (affectionate) sigh and gulped the rest of it down, setting it on the counter behind you.

“Happy?”

“Very.”

You smirked, trailing your gaze down his body. He was still in his work clothes which, at the very least, meant he wasn’t on a date before he came here. He always changed before dates—well, for you, anyway. You wondered if he had been on any dates since the breakup—you certainly hadn’t. It had been long enough now that it wouldn’t be weird for you to start seeing other people—but you didn’t want to. You weren’t sure you’d ever want to, to be completely honest.

The more you thought about it, the more the whole thing seemed stupid. You didn’t want anyone else, you wanted Spencer. You had tried to get over him but if tonight was any indication—it clearly wasn’t working. You can’t even remember why you broke up in the first place—it all seemed so insignificant now. No amount of pain you had ever experienced in your relationship had come close to that of living without him.

You met his eyes once more and it was like he could see the question brewing. He tried to stop you, calling your name in a quiet warning, but you ignored him.

“Why did we break up?”

He frowned, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth with his tongue in that maddening way he did.

“I—you know why—“

“No, but I don’t! I know things were difficult sometimes but that doesn’t mean it didn’t work. It worked—we worked.” Your eyes were stinging again.

Spencer pressed his index and middle finger into his eye, furrowing his brows.

“I know, I know we worked, angel—but you were sad all the time, remember? I was gone so often and it wasn’t good for you.” His true emotions were indecipherable but his tone was soft, and you wished you could be as calm about this as him. Did he just not care as much as you did?

“But It’s—It’s worse now—“ You choked out, tears falling freely now. “I was sad when you were gone, but you always came back—you don’t come back anymore.”

Spencer removed his hand from his face, flexing it at his side like he was uncertain what to do with himself before taking a stride towards you. He brought a hand to your face, wiping the tears from under your eyes delicately—like you were made of porcelain.

“Listen, sweetheart—alcohol affects your ability to regulate your emotions and I know right now it might feel worse but that doesn’t mean it always—“

“Spencer, stop! It’s not the fucking alcohol, I miss you! I miss you all of the time! Even—even when I’m having a good day—I still want you—and especially when I—when I have a bad day—“ You choked out through heaving breaths.

“Breathe.” He urges, cupping your cheek. And you’re so, so angry, and sad, and tired that you have no choice but to shut up and listen to him. When you’ve adequately calmed down, he moves his hand to your jaw, tilting your head up to look at him.

“I don’t think we should talk about this tonight but I—“ You open your mouth to protest.

“I promise we can talk about it tomorrow when you’re sober—if you still want to.”

Your lip trembles of its own volition and you frown.

“Of course I want to.”

“Okay,”

“Okay.”

He gives your eyes a final wipe before he’s—rather unexpectedly—pulling you into a hug. You all but melt into him, your head finding its home in his sternum and your arms wrapping around his middle. He tilts his head down, kissing the top of your head—and you’re certain you can’t let this go again. You will chain him down before Spencer leaves this apartment again.

Everything is wordless from there—mostly because you’re so, so exhausted that even talking seems like too difficult a task. Spencer helps you find something more comfortable to change into and you pull out an old t-shirt of his and a pair of plaid pyjama pants you had kept here for him. I guess your keeping them ‘just in case you needed them in the future’ had come in handy, after all.

As you washed your face, Spencer snuck through to the kitchen, refilling your water and grabbing two aspirin in a not-so-subtle attempt to help the inevitable hangover you were going to have in the morning.

You caught him placing them on your bedside table and mock gasped.

“Trying to drug me in my sleep so you can make a run for it in the night?”

He grinned lazily—exhaustion creeping up on him as well.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

You smiled, flopping yourself onto your bed rather ungraciously. Spencer looked at you like you were something fascinating before biting his lip, clearly deep in thought.

“What?” You let out a self-effacing little chuckle.

“I was just…wondering…if you’d like me to sleep on the couch?”

You probably should’ve been more careful in your facial expressions considering you were still broken up but your thoughts about that offer were obvious.

“No, stay.” Stay in your bed, in your apartment—stay anywhere that was close to you.

Maybe you were coming on a little too strong.

“Unless you want to, I mean—“

“No, no—I’ll stay.” Forever, preferably.

He walked around to the other side of your bed—as he had done so many times before—and sat down, pulling the covers over his legs. You mirrored his movements before flicking your bedside lamp out, turning to face him.

You were a little thankful you were so out of it, because this had the potential to be very awkward otherwise. Spencer shuffled down so that he was at eye level with you, turning to face you as well.

You just stared for a moment, committing him to memory. The moonlight had a way of highlighting all the high points of his face, and the twinkle in his eyes, and—God, you were so glad the moon existed and that Spencer was in your bed that you couldn’t help but giggle.

“What?” Spencer laughed along with you, even though he had no idea what was so funny.

“Nothing. You’re pretty.”

“You’re drunk. Go to sleep.”

“Don’t wanna.”

“Why?”

“Scared you’ll be gone when I wake up—like I made it all up.”

Spencer’s smile faded then, and he looked at you with something that seemed so much like the one thing you had been willing yourself to stop doing the whole time that you’d been broken up, that it almost took your breath away.

“I won’t. I promised, didn’t I?”

You nodded.

“So there’s nothing to worry about. Now get some sleep, lovely.”

You smiled, feeling Spencer’s hand inching towards yours. He intertwined them and gave yours a squeeze.

“Just in case you make a run for it in the night.”

You chuckled, your eyelids fluttering shut. Yeah, you could make it work.

part two!

[coloredincrayon]

Sdv bachelor(ette) headcanons

*SLIGHT PROFANITY WARNING*

-after a long day of writing Elliott likes to wind down by just laying in the middle of the floor, and because he’s used to living alone he still gets pleasantly shocked when you lay/cuddle next to him

-Elliott sometimes has meeting calls with publishers/editors or whatever. though he prefers to not be disturbed while on these calls, it’s not because he thinks he can’t work with any distraction, it’s cause he doesn’t want you/any other spouses seeing him gush about his significant other(s).

(For context I use the multiple spouses mod and always end up marrying Shane and Elliott.) -being married to two alcoholics has helped the farmer become unreasonable amounts of buff (from hauling them home) the farmers significant others, however, were not as aware of this as you’d think. So it’s only when the farmer beats Alex in about five arm wrestles at the luau do Elliott and/or Shane realize how absolutely horrifying this guy could be (or the opposite)

-Elliott swooned when the farmer was leaving the saloon with a drunken friend slung over their shoulder.

-though he won’t admit it, shane loves it when you come home all sweaty and dirty ‘n shit, then just bear hug him. He loves feeling that you’re real, all of this is real, and he loves that feeling coming from you.

(From my own personal experience) -penny has tried alcohol exactly one time. It was on her 21st birthday, and she had a single sip of wine. She immediately threw up, so with the combined rocky past and low tolerance, she then swore of alcohol.

-penny loves going back to the farmhouse after a day of tutoring Jas and Vincent and just sitting quietly in her little book nook. After a bit she is always pleasantly interrupted by the sound of the door opening and heavy boot steps walking in.

-after a bad day in the mines, Harvey refuses to leave your side. Though your wounds have healed he wants to make sure you don’t get anymore hurt in the foreseeable future. At nights he always seems to be grabbing for you, and near never letting go. Almost like he doesn’t believe you’re really there and okay.

-Sam once caused a power outage. Don’t really know how, just know he did.

-Alex loves to pamper you. Whether it be trying his hand at cooking, or coddling you ‘til nightfall, he loves to see you look relaxed and comforted.

-at some point soon after marriage, Maru asked for help bringing her ‘children’ from the mountains. Robots. They were robots.

-Leah was the only villager capable of beating Alex in an arm wrestle until the farmer arrived.

-Shane has gotten sick multiple times from falling asleep in the coop with the chickens.

Apologies for any typos, this was written on my iPad

[nfumbewalk]

How to Cast Spells, My Way 💀

Rodolfo's altar looking cool. We both enjoy the purple!

This post is about how I cast spells. I figure, hell, they work - why not share a little? Everyone is different.

I cast my very first spell at 12 years old. I had Laurie Cabot's first book, "Power of the Witch." I loved that book - still do! I have a copy. Learning how to go into alpha with the Crystal Countdown is something that I still use for my students, but modified for death work. Lol! Sounds weird. Ha!

She had information on casting spells, so I followed her instructions to a "T." Within a month, my spell worked! I got what I asked for. I was all in. Never looked back. Her technique with spell casting is very exact and careful, which is true for most Wiccan spells, because God forbid the Threefold Law! And yes, I was Wiccan for a few years!

It is very important to be exact with spells. Some may argue with me because they say you shouldn't enforce your will onto other ppl. I call bollocks here. It doesn't matter. All magic is manipulation of some kind. If something goes awry with your spell and it hurts someone, you just have to take it as it comes. You simply cannot avoid all possible bad outcomes. Shit happens, deal. Lol!

That isn't to say that you shouldn't be responsible with your spell casting. Before any spell you do, divination should be consulted first. This can help avoid negative results. If you are unsure, have a friend or even an online reader divine for you.

The way that I cast spells is very simple. I divine first. If its good, I gather items, though I do check my books, not websites, for correspondences. I figure out who I want to go to for assistance which is usually Rodolfo. I set up the altar correctly, with the right amount of glasses of water and as many candles as well - plus what shape they need to be in. For the rite, I invoke Rodolfo with my Baston de Muerto using the Earth Siphoning technique, make the Muerteria opening the veil sign and start my spell. I raise energy my chosen way and release. After that, I read Rodolfo passages or psalms from his Bible. I meditate and smoke with him, then I say goodbye and make the Muerteria closing sign.

Items for spells:

You don't need fancy accoutrements for spells. Ligature magic (tying knots) is very powerful and all you need is a shoelace type of cord. Candles are great but they are so cliché. Witch peers into dancing flame! I adore candle magic, just did some today. But I'm moving toward non-flammable magic currently. With a lot of gestures, movements and signs as well as using parchment for written spells - which is right where I began with Laurie Cabot. Words mean a lot too.

So, during your next spell, come up with a short 2 or 3 line chant. Make it flow as best as you can. It doesn't need to be lyrical or poetic. Shoot from the hip and keep it real. Share it with other Witches/magic folks. I have a really good one that works very well for ppl who use it. Its been published in a book of spells. Its for unblocking and road opening.

"All of my roads are open. All of my blocks are unblocked."

How easy! Almost dumb. But it works! Sometimes the most simple drivel can be amazing. 😅

Well, I hear that some folks out there put timing on their spells. If it works, fine. But to those who are thinking about doing it, don't. Magic is like a wild creature - don't try to tame or control it. Why? It will eventually kick your pretty Witch arse! It may be cool to think you have magic in your hand - but ya probably don't. Nature will fix ya. Think about the end of "The Craft." Lol! When magic goes rogue on teenage witch bitches...love that movie! Thank God I was in college when that movie came out! 😂

Techniques of spell casting & tips

There's tons of things on the interwebs. There's just a few things that I like to do. Here:

I trace sigils (I usually say firmas) with invisible blue or orange flames. Blue is for cooler energy, calm spells. Obviously, orange amps things up.

I make sure to add blood to my spell oils.

If I cast some type of circle, I make sure that I carry each element around the perimeter to represent balance (i.e. carry incense for Air, etc)

Use crystals in spell casting! They are so empowering! And they hold all of that wonderful energy you raised for your spell. You can carry them after the ritual.

To raise energy: Chant or spin in a circle. Those are the two fastest physical ways that I know. You can build a cone of power and send it off into the cosmos with your pure intent.

Burn herbs that relate to the spell. Another quick intent motion.

Don't say things like "my spell will come true." Say "my spell IS true, and so it IS." Not "will be." See the difference?

Eh, just a few. Could update! Pls share!

M.M. 💖💀💖

[isadorajaneschaos]

so recently i got very excited and was animatedly talking to my dad about how i had read an 100k word fanfic in a day, specifically because that is the equivalent of reading a 400 page book in a day which i felt like i could never do. he generally doesn’t mind my ramblings but he made a comment that kinda hurt my feelings, which was “if only you could turn that into reading real books”. i didn’t respond at the time but did eventually complain to my mom about it and she told me to ignore it, as long as i was enjoying myself, what i was reading didn’t matter. but i had a thought i want to share

what is the difference between me reading a trashy, smutty romance novel and me reading fanfiction?

how is reading a trashy romance novel more “high bar” than reading a well written fanfiction?

really? i feel like people think fanfiction is poorly written with bad grammar and bad plot and bla bla bla but it’s not. sometimes it is that but mostly i reads well written, good quality stories. the difference between it and a novel is that it’s just done by an independent author in an already made universe. plenty of fanfiction has been re-published into “real” books. plenty of good books are published independently. so why is what i’m reading any worse than reading “low-bar” books. which i am not trying to shit talk romance novels, all types of writing has a place in the world, but that’s exactly what i’m saying, why is fanfiction not “real” reading?

anyway, that’s my rant.

[hackedmotionsensors]

i didn't reblog the post but I do agree that the terminology for zines has gotten completely twisted.

ON THE OTHER HAND I don't think that selling them for say 20$ (which is what i sell my sketchbooks for) is unreasonable or unfair to still call a zine. I need to cover my costs of printing and the time I put into putting them together. yeah I can TECHNICALLY get a printer and print them myself but with the cost of printer ink and the lack of space its easier for me to just pay for someone to do it professionally but I'm also NOT making them at like....the HIGHEST QUALITY, LIBRARY BOUND, HARD COVER, IT COMES WITH A THOUSAND DOO DADS AND GIFTS. its just sketchbooks ofpreviously existing doodles and a few new sketches or sketches that I had before and colored in. Its essentially like selling a full print but in carryable size with some notes from me.

Its a zine but I call it a sketchbook because the idea of zines has changed for a lot of consumers. Thats not their fault bc those zines or anthologies DID start out in the "lets make a big ol book together because we are all horny for Reigen" kind of thing. A lot of times they're projects made from passion. I HAVE noticed that there's been a turn in the whole process of making them that both stresses out artists, requires kickstarters, and all sorts of shit that should be considered Artbooks. ARTBOOKS have always been on the higher end of things. There's nothing wrong with considering an anthology thats proper bound, and for a certain amount on a kickstarter you get extra things like stickers, charms, whatever.

But zines SHOULD go back to being simple little things. The cost to buy them shouldn't be lost UNLESS the artist wants it to be. If you print at home or using a schools printer and just print a bunch of cute little zines yourself then that should also exist and you can set your price point for whatever you want.

Its all semantics and personal preference at the end of the day but I do think that...yknow it wouldn't hurt if we could start calling the big project 50$ range books that often get run into the ground from bad leadership (or fun stuff like the organizer of the thing runs off with the money to play genshin) ...something other than zine. Like Artbook or Anthology. Or even Collection lol

Zine should be a small thing that you collect for fun and doesn't require a committee, a new discord channel, and a contract to make sure your organizer doesn't run off to play gacha (I'm sorry it still makes me laugh)

ALSO another thing about zines is that often times they were originally made to be alternatives to really closed minded book sellers. Like...its where a lot of the OG star trek fanfic/porn came from. Its a place to have your ideas put down. To explore narratives. Essentially Doujinshi can also be considered A TYPE of zine in that it literally means self published (not NECCESSARILY that its...yknow...bl or waifu porn lol Sometimes its just manga that artists put out before they can get published)

But lately there are a lot of zine projects (again...more actually like anthologies or art collections) that are REALLY REALLY closed minded even when the subject is SHIPPING.

So even the nature of CREATING the zines has changed a lot.

So yeah I agree with that post that I forgot to reblog. My only REAL gripe is that it doesn't mean that you should undercharge your work because you didn't print your zine at home or hand craft it like a youtube diy video. I did enough of that at art school I am not gonna bind a book or try to cut pages ever again if i don't have to lmao. CSP even has a zine preview so I can see the pages in 3d as if they were bound before printing lol

[iamamythologicalcreature]

Can I be real for a second?

I’ve gone back and forth in my head about whether or not to post about this very real side of me online or not. There’s nothing shameful about being disabled, but I don’t want to be known as my disability, either. I don’t want that to be my identity.

But I’m hoping to post some of my writing tomorrow for Six Sentence Sunday. Post something I’ve written, albeit just a small bit, online where anyone can see it. It will be the first time I’ve done so since the car accident three years ago. And the truth is, the terrible truth is, my writing is what hurts the most.

Stories have always been a part of my life. They have always been my motivation, why I slogged through everything else - my reason for existing. I wrote novels and hoped to publish, and I fell in love with the writing community and made it my home. I volunteered and organized events. I created an extremely successful and fulfilling teen writing club where I taught creative writing. I was in love with stories, and writing them. I have never not been in love with stories.

(Before I was a writer I was an artist. I’m not going to go into that part of my life in detail, but it was just as heavily affected.)

At the beginning of 2020 I was in a car accident. The driver at fault was pulling out of a bar parking lot in the middle of the day. Make of that what you will. The accident he caused left me with more than a few issues, but for this post I’m focusing on the vision impairment.

Because of COVID, I wasn’t able to seek any diagnosis or treatment until June. I didn’t even begin physical therapy until August. Due to a myriad of issues and unfortunate reasons, I couldn’t complete my treatment. That meant a year and a half of work and struggle went down the drain.

This continues to affect me in many ways. Sometimes it’s things that you might expect - I can’t read Tumblr, or books, most days. Some limitations are less obvious, like how I’m afraid to ask questions (e.g. “what kind of car did Fiona drive?”) because the resources to find the answers myself are out there. Why don’t I just google it? Or reference that amazing spreadsheet someone did? Why am I asking other people to do the work for me? Am I just lazy?

People don’t mean to judge (and I’m sure there are plenty who don’t). But my issues aren’t apparent, so they won’t know unless I take the time to explain it. Able-eyed people should be able to find these simple answers. Just look in the book.

So I don’t ask. Or I apologize a lot for asking. Because it’s just too hard to explain why I need such basic help. (And sadly, some people still don’t believe me and treat me as thought I’m making excuses.)

I lost most of my friends simply for being unable to chat online, particularly during lockdown. I kept three people in my life - the three people willing to break with their comfort zones and talk to me on the phone instead of via text or chat. Those people probably saved my life. I know everyone went through isolation issues in 2020. But I went through them unable to even use a computer or read a book.

Since I’m typing this, you can guess that I’ve recovered somewhat, or made some accommodations that help. Yes. I have. Both of those. But I still have more bad days than good. Typing too long, or playing a phone game, surfing Tumblr - anything done for too long can break my eyes and send me back into total isolation for days.

I was a really good writer. I would regularly write 10-20k every weekend, and I wrote well. I wrote great stuff. (Rough drafts are always rough drafts, but I felt good about what I wrote.) I would sink into a character and go for hours.

Here’s the part that’s relevant to me now: I can’t do that anymore. I can’t write for hours, I can’t take the time to slip into character. I’m doing really well if I can pound out a speedy 1k in 30 minutes and have it not break my eyes. (It usually breaks my eyes.)

If you’re a writer, though - or any kind of creative - you know that the need doesn’t just go away.

(I have tried to record notes on my phone, but I just cannot dictate writing fiction. Only my fingers know how to speak well, and in character. And no, I’m not going to learn braille. It would not be helpful.)

So I’m going to try to write. It’s going to suck, because the things I did to write well before are things I can’t do anymore. I will cry. And then I will wait a week or however long it takes for my eyes to chill the fuck out, and I’ll try again.

(I’ve also started treatment again, just this month. I have to start at square one again, which means it will get worse before it gets better. It will take time, and money - lots of both. Like years. But I can’t give up.)

Anyway. This is why I chose the Simon Snow fandom to try again, for the first time in forever. Because that’s the story, and those are the characters, and these are the people. I know it. So. Hi.

[joons]

Top 5 villains in the real life story of Elvis's life/legacy?

Tom Parker / Andreas van Kuijk

Everyone else pales in comparison. It's hard to convey the extent of his cruelty and control. He stymied Elvis professionally, creatively, and personally, sabotaging his opportunities, relationships, and interests. He knew how to make Elvis doubt himself, and absolutely everything that went wrong in Elvis' life can be traced back to Parker and the very deliberate way he isolated and undermined Elvis. There are no words. Bottomless hatred. Every day a new revelation.

Hal Wallis

Wallis was the producer of Elvis' films for Paramount. Despite being one of the first people to recognize Elvis' acting talent, Wallis made a choice to keep him in horrible roles because he didn't believe audiences would ever take him seriously. In a public interview, Wallis told the press that Elvis films were terrible but that he had to keep making them because they made enough money to finance artistic films for Paramount. It broke Elvis' heart. Wallis also impressed upon Parker that Elvis gaining any amount of weight was unacceptable, thus leading to Elvis developing an eating disorder where he would starve himself for weeks at a time.

Steve Dunleavy and the Bodyguard Book

In the last year of Elvis' life, his dad fired three of his close bodyguards/members of the Memphis Mafia: Dave Hebler, Sonny West, and Red West. Feeling hurt and disrespected, the three agreed to do interviews for a tell-all book by Steve Dunleavy. The three of them would later claim they only went to the press to douse Elvis with cold water about how bad they thought his drug habits had gotten, but even if that was the case, they had no business agreeing to work with someone like Dunleavy. Dunleavy was a favored reporter of Rupert Murdoch, who, I kid you not, hated rock 'n' roll so much that he commissioned a takedown of Elvis while he was still alive. Murdoch believed that taking Elvis down would generate enough discourse to keep some of his struggling papers in business, turning Elvis into a symbol of the lower classes who wasn't worthy of serious consideration as an artist or compassionate understanding as a human being. The bodyguards were paid for their interviews, and Dunleavy proceeded to use their quotes to write what Murdoch wanted: a scandalous, seedy tell-all that turned Elvis into an object of ridicule. Worse, of course, was that Elvis' friends were party to it; it led to so much stress, grief, and anger for Elvis in his final months. He worried constantly about it, afraid of what Lisa and his fans would think of him afterward. Elvis: What Happened? was published two weeks before his death and set the tone for a genre of Elvis muckraking that continues today.

Dee Stanley and Sundry

Dee was Elvis' stepmother, who married his father Vernon shortly after the death of Elvis' beloved mother, Gladys. There was always going to be friction between the two just based on the speed of the remarriage, but it didn't help that Dee had originally tried to seduce Elvis (nothing doing) before turning her attentions on his dad. Elvis never liked Dee, and the feeling became mutual. After his death, Dee published a memoir that was a near-complete fabrication, writing anything that she thought would disgrace Elvis. The worst claim she made was that Elvis and Gladys were incestuous. Several of Elvis' friends nearly punched her when they appeared in a room together for a television interview. Her sons were heavily influenced by Dee's perspective and have kept up the same escalating, baffling claims to make money.

Alanna Nash

Unfortunately a widely cited and respected Elvis researcher, Nash has such a willingness to entertain "new" stories about Elvis that she falls for hoaxes and lies on a regular basis. Sometimes she escapes criticism by presenting her books as "oral histories," essentially raw interviews with people who knew him, which at least mostly allows the reader to decide the veracity of each account for themselves. But she bolsters her other books with sketchy psychoanalysis and innuendo intended to smear her subjects, or at least generate some rumors that will grab headlines. For instance, she claimed to have unearthed a theory that Col. Parker left Holland because he committed a murder there. Sounds exciting and even plausible given his reputation, but digging into it, the evidence is so slim and sketchy that it could really only be published by someone like Nash, and only after his death. Another example is how credulously she treats Byron Raphael, a serial liar who claims Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley (who spoke for a total of three minutes in their lifetimes) had sex (which Byron got to witness, of course!) and that Natalie Wood had sex with Byron in the next room after Elvis couldn't "do" it for her. When a longtime Elvis researcher questioned the article Alanna wrote with Raphael for Playboy, she said, "If Bill Burk was critical of [Raphael's] integrity, I'd say that's because Bill was jealous he didn't find Byron first." Uh-huh.

About gossip involving Parker's possible murder, she said, "I want to be clear in saying that there is no hard proof that he committed this murder, [but] in my heart of hearts, I believe he did." In another interview, when questioned, she snapped that anyone who says she "accused him of murder can't read."

The biographer Albert Goldman is a lot worse than her, like, on every level, a truly vile, insane person who wrote screeds (they are not biographies, they are a cry for help) against both Elvis and John Lennon. But Alanna loves Goldman and cites him a lot, and she irritates me more because she has a better reputation than she deserves, while Goldman is widely considered to be a disgusting hack.

I could probably include a few others, but as much as I might dislike other people in the Elvis story, they get the benefit of the doubt from me because at least they aren't these folks.

[brw]

What current X-men comics are you going to continue reading? I’m definitely dropping NYX but I have mixed feelings about everything else

I'm definitely keeping up with Exceptional X-Men and the Abjectiveless X-Men series! I'm pretty here for both writers, and I'm excited to see MacKay continuing developing this team dynamic. I know people aren't sold on the art, but I honestly don't mind it. The colouring isn't my favourite, but the art feels reminiscent of early digital comic art, which I find kind of charming. I'm a fan of the issues functioning as single stories, as opposed to large multi issue arcs, but that's purely a personal thing in how I prefer to read.

Exceptional X-Men I've been really excited by, I especially love the character Bronze and can't wait to see her develop. It feels unfair to compare it to Uncanny X-Men at this juncture, because we're only on issue 2 of Exceptional, but I like this group of kids more, they feel more grounded and like kids I could meet and get to know more. And I'm definitely excited to see how Eve L. Ewing will write Emma and Kitty as a black woman, I think that's a perspective that's really needed on both characters, so I'm really looking forward to this series! It's probably my favourite of the lot currently.

Uncanny X-Men just isn't for me, and that's fine. I'm not much of a Gail Simone truther (she's like Dan Slott to me where I just think deleting Twitter off her phone for even a month would do a lot of good) and none of those characters are really ones I particularly want to keep up with so it isn't something I'm keeping up with, but that isn't because it's bad, I'm just not the target demographic.

I think I'm probably gonna stop reading X-Force after this issue, that's how upset I actually am at the treatment of Nuklo. It feels incredibly ill-considered, which is shocking in a 2024 comic. Comics published in the 80s, while often difficult to read, at least have that excuse that information and tact around these things wasn't quite there, but having a bunch of heroes beat up a high support needs autistic man is genuinely really upsetting to me. We can do better. We deserve better. I know they're X-Force, and aren't meant to be standard heroes, but there wasn't even an acknowledgement that Nuklo is a high support needs autistic. And given the very real world experience of some autistic people getting attacked and sometimes killed by police in the middle of meltdowns, because of the complete lack of empathy towards us (which goes double for black autistic people), I find it really distasteful and upsetting that this was written, to be honest, and I feel really let down by Geoffrey Thorne by how poorly handled this was. I might give it one more issue to see if there's any acknowledgement of this, but I'm feeling pretty negative towards this series right now, and I feel let down by how few people seem to be bringing up Nuklo's autism. There was a chance here to do better than the past and try and be more empathetic to high support needs autistic adults, which is so often lacking, and that was ignored in favour of having a big adversity our heroes could hurt.

NYX I'll honestly keep reading out of morbid fascination, it feels so egregious it feels like it has to be leading up to some dismantlement and critique of Sophie's behaviour, but considering who the writers are, I won't hold my tongue for that either. Definitely on a "never buying a copy of" pile (although I can really only afford buying two of these consistently)

Not reading any of the 1000 Wolverine books ❤️ I don't care ❤️❤️

I wouldn't say I've been enjoying X-Factor but the reaction against it has been so over the top from certain people I'm honestly reading it out of spite. I'm gonna let them cook, I'm a little interested to see how things pan out. Hope Warren comes back but I like seeing Frenzy and I find that suicidal Grandmother really funny as a character concept, tbh.

Oh man, what else is there. Don't really care about Phoenix, it honestly just feels like various power feats than any actual character introspection work and I really don't care. I liked seeing Cosair but I'm not charmed enough by this take on Jean to bother reading on, to be honest. Dazzler was honestly disappointing, but in a boring way where I don't really have any larger complaints to make. Just kind of mid. I haven't read Sentinels yet but I've really liked the work of the writer on the current X-Men Infinity Comic so I'll probably read the first issue and decide if I want to keep going. I liked Storm. People kicking up a fuss about the Orchis shirt is honestly so silly to me, like Storm in this current iteration is not the character to be expecting bloody violence and revenge from. Read Wolverine instead chief. It's only the first issue, but I had fun!

I think that's about everything! A mixed bag, but there's so much that I think there's something here for everyone, which is the one positive of how bloated this lineup is, but I guess after how many damn X-Men titles we had during Krakoa it makes sense to keep the numbers high if they're selling.

[problematicfactive]

hi. im a dahmer factive. im here to talk about halloween. sorry if this ask is too mean or too blunt. i just don't have a place to put it.

i hate people who dress up as me for halloween. it feels gross to me. it feels disgusting, and to go out on a holiday that involves candy and kids dressed as a real serial killer fucks me up so bad. you never know where people who are affected by these things will be. you never know if theres someone related to a victim out there and yet they parade around dressed as me as if its a sick joke.

it just makes me so mad the lack of respect some people have.

- dahmer.

It depends sometimes I think. I have a friend who just happens to be blonde and wear glasses. He wanted to be a prisoner for Halloween.

I did make an attempt to warn him "Hey, people are going to think you're Dahmer" but he'd already gotten the costume so there wasn't really a lot that could be done for him. After thatit was just a point of assumption. Someone would ask him "what did you go to jail for" and occasionally the answer would be murder. I think the other answer he said he would give was arson but. To the people he answered murder, it's very plausible that they went on to think he was trying to be Dahmer. And you could argue that maybe it's that kids job to draw a separation if he knew he could get confused with Dahmer. I'd argue that it's Halloween and if a kid wants to say he went to prison for murder he should be able to. It's kind of on you to not make assumptions about people

Last year (I was not allowed to front) the host was on a quest to take as many pictures with as many people as possible. We got one with a guy. Just some dirty blonce white guy with that was a prisoner. I don't even think he even had glasses. The host was later told "that's Jeffrey Dahmer" and now that kid is like memorialized in most of our friends minds as the guy that was Jeffrey dahmer for Halloween that one year. But was he really or were we just making assumptions?

Of course, that's just the people you make assumptions on and I'm sure there are people who are loud about it. I've never met one though.

Ted asked me the other day how I felt about people being us for Halloween and I told him I'd never seen anyone dressed as him, but I never really answered the question. And I guess my answer is I don't think those people can be blamed. Between Dahmer, My Friend Dahmer, Dahmer: Monster - The Story or whatever it's called, and every single other story people have made to capitalize on Dahmer, the life of Jeffrey Dahmer had been rinsed, repeated, and shoved in people's faces over and over again.

I don't think the people who dress as Dahmer do so with intent of harming the victims or their families. I think they see him as this. Popular character. They don't have enough of a grasp on whats going on around them to see how people even today are still hurt by dahmer. Or any of those other serial killers that media companies have just turned into money makers.

I read something from a victims family member. She's tired of the adaptation after adaptation of Dahmer. She's tired of reliving her truama every time a new Dahmer story comes out. At this point, these adaptations aren't spreading awareness, they're grasping for money. They've almost normalized showcasement of serial killers through that, not just Dahmer, all of them. These halloween kids. They're just a product of that.

I think, in my opinion, I don't mind too much what people dress up as, I don't want to police that. But there is undoubtedly a lot of disrespect in costumes like these. These kids don't really realize the affects of what they're doing and that's where I blame the people who are writing these books and publishing these movies. They need to stop, they've done enough. And do say that as an introject of a serial killer formed from a movie just like those ones. I like that movie cause I like to see myself.

I'd rather it didn't exist and I didn't exist then have to putthe families through the truama they go through.

That's my opinion on it, it's still totally valid to not like those people and yk, you could say "well, other people who saw dahmer know better so these ones should too" and that's true. But there's always gonna be someone. Had that most recent dahmer show not released though, I don't think a lot of people would recognize someone being Jeffrey Dahmer.

People might confuse someone being Gacy for a clown. But if a new movie about Gacy came out and got Dahmer popularity, people might start confusing EVERY clown for Gacy.

Its a shitty circumstance to be in,definitely, especially if you're introjected from him. Hopefully by next year there won't be any more dahmer hype

[magicalyaku]

Hello and welcome to another reading year! Following the devastation Dark Heir cause in my heart at the end of 2023, I didn't really feel like reading much for about two weeks. I did catch up on a few manga series, most notably 8 volumes of Yona of the Dawn by Mizuho Kusanagi. While it's still very good, I think binge reading helped quite a bit to keep me invested. :'D After that, I read one book that will definitely go into my worst books of 2024. Refer to the later half of the post if you want to know more. Let's focus on the good ones first!

Cursebreakers (Madeleine Nakamura): This one was really good! I was positively surprised. The world is magical, not medieval but futuristic! The story around the conspiracy is interesting and intense and the main characters are difficult people that might be hard to like in real life but they complement each other so well and it's so nice to see their relationship grow (no love story here!). I also really liked the way it is told. The protagonist has bipolar disorder which is a huge factor in the story but he recounts the story from a later perspective, so rather than being right in the moment with every dramatic and sometimes questionable decision we get a little bit of distance and insight into his actions and thoughts which works really well.

Twelve Bones (Sixteen Souls 2) (Rosie Talbot): The first volume was a already a little dark but all the bad stuff involved a limited circle of people (most of them ghosts), this one takes a full dive into the swooping dark threatening the entire city, living and dead! The stakes, my dear. Ugh! Based on that I wouldn't call it fun ... would I? I liked reading it, though! The cast of characters is really endearing. The story is good. The struggle felt warranted. The ending is kinda mangaesque but I like manga, so I don't mind. xD I wonder if there'll be a third volume. If not, I'll look forward to the author's next work. :)

The Necromancer's Light (Radiance 1) (Tavia Lark): I picked up the set of the trilogy which has a much better cover than the indivual books. :'D This one is very simple and straightforward, it's cute. The characters are likable. The hurt/comfort in here is indeed comforting. I think I like the first part with the pining best. This story's animal is a horse! (I read half of the auther's Perilous Courts series and there's friendly animals in every volume there as well. Nice touch.)

And now for the first book of 2024 I did not like. Heir to Thorn and Flame (Court of Broken Bonds 1) (Ben Alderson): I read the author's self-published Darkmourn series last summer and quite liked it despite its issues with the writing. Now this one has a tradtional publisher so I wanted to know if that made any difference. On a whole, the writing feels a little bit smoother than Darkmourn. But it's still long, repetetive, and tries to hard to sound fancy by exaggerating a lot. The premise of the story isn't even that bad. Boy finds out he has magic, accidentely kills the prince, has to take his place and political stuff occurs with two countries on the cusp of war over him and his magic. The first thing that annoyed me: The story feels unnecessarily cruel. It literally starts out with attempted rape which is already the second time protagonist Maxiumus is assaulted in his life. People are killed right in front of him, he is forced to shoot someone he cares for. People violently dig through his memories and still don't believe his story afterwards. And the villains are just caricatures. They have the balding hair, yellowed teeth, bony fingers, stinky breath, and leering eyes. They're ugly and evil! It was so over the top that I couldn't care at all. The other characters have nothing going on for them either. I don't like Maximus at all. He's whiny and indecisive and only worries about his parents. He does have that superstrong magic he uses to rip people apart when he's angry, wow. He also has two love interests and I don't see the chemistry with either of them (I suppose it tries to be Slow Burn but not very good). But they're so good-looking, the strong arms and nice smell, so tall! (eyeroll) The second one of these guys is named Simion. He's the only one remotely nice to him in the beginning, so Maximus likes him. Then he hates him. Then he likes him, then Simion reveals stuff and Maximus hates him again (even though he's just the messenger). But then he's suddenly attracted to him again to the point they even kiss … but oh no, Maximus can't kiss anyone, because he is married to the other guy by magic (against his will)!! And everyone treats it as this big thing "oh old magic you are bound to each other now for life" etc, but nobody explains what the handfastening (as they call it) even does for 80% of the book! Until Maximus kisses Simion and the magic causes him pain because he's cheating!!

Here my mind went on a tangent. The magic seems to have a conscious in this story, alright, but I want to know it's moral values then. Does it only detect kisses and sex? Physical acts? Can it differentiate between consensual und non-consensual? Who is doing the touching? Does is only clock sexual attraction or romantic attraction as well? What if he has a crush and never acts on it? Would it still cause him permament pain? What's with platonical kisses? Now you ask, do we have to explain all of this in a book like this? No, we don't (there's also two sequels), but I sure hope the author thought about it when he introduced a complex thing like this. Oh, also Simion forces his way into Maximus's mind via telepathy several times. Such a nice way to get to know each other. And speaking of the morality of the magic, it counts how many people are killed with it. On the wand. As tally marks. How does it know? Why does it only count humans, not animals? Why does it care?

Two more things I found annoying (there's more, but this is long enough already): First, the parents. Everything happening in the story hinges on their whereabouts, it's back and forth and very tiring. The Red King has them so Maximus has to stay with him, then the Blue Prince has them, then they get kidnapped so Maximus follows, then it turns out they've never been kidnapped and the Blue Prince kept them all along! In between he freaks out over his father not being his father and when they're reunited, but before they can talk, the father dies. Yay. Tragic. Not. The same thing happened before already. The one lady Maximus was forced to kill? She survived! She was saved and he goes to meet her, they talk for 30 seconds and then she's eaten by a dragon. :D I was pissed for wasting my time.

Which is a sentiment I kind of share about the whole book, but also not. It made me angry but sometimes it's good to have an outlet for the rage. :'D

[poorasdirt]

Real Talk

Okay, normally I just scroll through Tumblr for the memes and maybe a writing prompt to slay my creative demon for a while. But for the past month my life has been so up in the air I legit couldn’t bother to even put a pen to paper.

See, I was living at my dad’s house for the past ten or so years. It was all cool because despite being close to retirement he was pretty on the ball with stuff. But he retired and life got, real? I’m not sure how to describe it.

I was taking care of my dad’s house for him, as best as I could, while we waited for him to finally be able to retire. That was all good and dandy really. But I have a little sister who does stupid shit sometimes. I love her, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes I want to put her in a barrel and send her down Niagara Falls.

She’s wrecked three of my cars, could possibly be blamed for wrecking a fourth car, and basically had me stuck at my house for the better part of eight years. I had a revolving door of neighbors that were as intrusive as the weather and I live far enough north that on average my area gets roughly five feet of snow on average.

So, I was dealing with that, but I was dealing. I had ways of getting by without imploding. Then back in April I found out that dad forgot to pay the land taxes for three years and our house was foreclosed on. We had to scramble to find a place to stay, pack up the house, and all around figure out life again.

Don’t worry, I’m mostly in a good place now. I’m not completely on solid ground but there is light at the end of my tunnel that isn’t an oncoming train.

I mean it was so bad that just looking at the fanfics I’ve been writing on Ao3 for fun just made me want to bawl. I’ve contemplated deleting it all, given how fresh everything still is. But I won’t, because I still get comments on those fics about how much people love them.

Then, I saw another author, posting on one of the stories I bookmarked, say that they were deleting the fic because it reminded them of a shitty time in their life. I don’t fault them for that, they can do as they feel best for their mental health. But at the same time the fans of that fic are faced with the thought of losing something that means something so different for them.

I mean why can’t they just orphan the work so they don’t have to deal with it but it can remain as testament to it existing. I’ve followed fanfic sites for a long time at this point and it sometimes hurts to think of a great fic, or scene, or OC and go hunting for it. Only to find that the fic no longer exists.

This brings me to something I always struggle with when it comes to writing. See, I’ve always wanted to write my own novel. I have ideas and even sketch out possible scenes, writing feverishly to capture those moments. But I’ve read blogs and books and watched youtube videos all about writing.

I find the one thing keeping me from taking the plunge of writing an original work is the question of an audience. Every bit of advice when it comes to writing a novel comes with the caveat that it’s being written for someone. I get it, publishers want the work of fiction (or otherwise) to resonate and get sold so money could be made.

But it brings me to the question of how much of my fanfic writing was made for myself, and how much have a written for Ao3 (or any other fanfic site I casually was part of over the years). Have I, this whole time, been strictly writing for myself or the community of fans that also occupy the fandom I enjoy? How many times have I continued a project not for the fact that I wanted to, but because of a thoughtful comment or review made me keep going?

Is the reason writing an original work so daunting because I don’t know who my audience would be? Is the built it audience of a fandom a crutch that I’ve been leaning on for years? Or have I become so isolated due to circumstances beyond my control that I can’t quite name a group of people that could enjoy what I want to write?

I’m sure there is an audience out there, but every time I contemplate who my target audience could be I draw a blank. Every time I look at my ongoing fanfic projects I wonder if the passion I have for them is for myself, or those reading them. Am I having a creative crisis or is it just self awareness finally kicking in?

Or maybe I just need a break from writing, somehow. It’s a little hard because my brain won’t shut up about a new idea or working on a new chapter in a fanfic. Otherwise, aside from needing to rant somewhere, I’m doing well.

Thank you for getting through this brain vomit if you made it this far. I hope you have a wonderful day. I’m going outside to take a walk and touch some grass.

[ginnyzero]

If you want to see what the algorithmification of writing looks like, go look at indie publishing on Amazon, or just go to wattpad. This is what turning books which can take at least 6 months to a year to write into "content" for "popularity points" ends up being. Under a read more because this gets long.

On Amazon, if you want any "success" you have to publish every 3 to 4 months to keep your name on top of the algorithm pile. I think you're name, because it's a seller system, not a 'we care about your book series system.' Though a series might help with consistency for your readers. (Then your books may or may not need upwards of 50 reviews and long term sales. It depends on what the algorithm is doing this week.) Amazon is also flooded with no content/low content books which are published upwards of 1000 to 1500 books a year and use the same tagging/meta system as the rest of the books.

The tagging/meta system on Amazon is awful. People put full on sentences in the tagging/meta system to try and get the most 'keywords' they can. (Also throwing keywords into title spaces and littering up the summary. X meets Y has been a thing on Amazon for at least 5 years if not longer.) No one is checking the categories to make sure authors are putting their books in the correct ones. (Hint, they aren't b/c they're trying to get that coveted bestseller gold ribbon so they'll deliberately miscategorize.)

So, what's happened leans towards one of 4 things. There are authors like me who sit on books. I'm sitting on 5 right now. I need at least 6 to feel comfortable publishing ANYTHING on Amazon to give myself a year or two cushion to write more. And I'd prefer those to be in a series, which means I'm 3 short of catgirl mysteries.

There are authors who will underpay and exploit groups of ghost writers and may or may not inadvertently end up plagiarizing other authors. (Yes, this happened and the ghost writer was very upset. They were working with scenes the "author" gave them. They didn't know. The "author" was only upset they got caught. Don't plagiarize Nora Roberts. Yeesh.)

There are authors turning to "AI" Language Learning Models and Generative Art Models to help write/illustrate their books. Yikes. (now against Amazon TOS or at least you can't make money off it and if you don't declare you use these things, they'll delete your author account. And using these in nonfiction spaces could get people seriously hurt.)

OR my least fave, authors will write a bunch of books, put them up on Amazon, when the sales fall, they take them down, SELL them to another author who repackages them with new covers and maybe titles, and SELLS them again. Thus hurting customers who end up buying the same books 2 or 3 times.

This doesn't include authors who drastically change their novels due to reviews. Authors who buy reviews. Authors who split a book into two to offer one free and the next paid as an enticement for you to find out how the 'cliffhanger' ending resolves. I don't know if "changing the item but keeping the old listing" scam has hit books yet, but I wouldn't be surprised. Scam artists who are pumping and dumping essentially with books of gibberish. Robo stuff for Kindle Unlimited. Authors who have faked their own deaths. (That was a doozy.) And the whole "Sponsored Ads" plastered all over the listings being the real service as authors have to BUY those.

Sometimes, and I do mean UNICORN level style of sometimes, an indie author will get a bunch of sales because of a booktokker finding their book and promoting it. This is as rare as an author getting a bunch of sales b/c someone random on twitter (X) promoted it.

This isn't me getting into the content/writing level/editing level of these books. This is JUST the mechanical end of it.

And if you think that's BAD. Wattpad/Royal Road/Reddit are WORSE. There you have to update from twice a week, to every day at different HOURS just to try and get attention. All of this is a recipe for cookie cutter books and burn out. Oh yeah, and Amazon has VELLA now. A Wattpad/AO3 like service. (Are you scared yet?)

Also, the wrong lesson learned from Iron Widow. Or any youtuber who gets a publishing deal (cough Lindsey Ellis.) Also, the story behind the publication of Lightlark. Also Amazon owns goodreads making goodreads useless. Also, many authors now 3 or 4 pen names because they want to write 3 or 4 genres and author names = brands. (Ugh.)

Look, there's a reason why an archive format like AO3 is a holy grail if you're indie or you're looking for books even if they're trad published. The closest you can get is a library. And even then, like I have a 30 library system, but my librarian isn't packing my already published books up and shipping them to another library to put on display for a month. They don't talk to each other unless the computer system is going down it feels like. So, I would have to take the books and go to the other library myself which is a hassle for me b/c the libraries might be 2 to 3 hours away. (And the library has a van that goes around and delivers books between libraries, so, I dunno. I really don't.)

Hey, if you can write that fast, and you like pulp tropey novels, then, good for you. I mean that. But it leaves a LOT of us buried (literally) in what feels like a HUGE pile of SLUSH. And with tiktok becoming even more popular, it means unless you have a schtick (and I don't really) you are stuck in this pile of slush without a shovel. I treat my youtube like a fireside chat because I have 2 choices, I can be an influencer or I can write and I prefer writing!

So, I've got a vampire romcom trilogy to finish, and then 3 more books to write in catgirl mysteries. Then MAYBE I can get back to writing urban fantasy biker werewolves. This is why I don't talk about my books b/c I have no idea when I'll be able to publish them because of the algorithms and I hate getting people's hopes up. (I'm Ginny O. on amazon and youtube in case any of that sounded interesting.)

me making sure i shake my head in disgust as i walk past booktok tables in bookshops

[amythystraine]

Tarot for Grownups ~ that's what it means, it's not for kids

I have authored three tarot books, and these three tarot books are very different, each one uniquely focused on an aspect of the tarot that sets it apart from the other books.  One of these books is apparently somewhat controversial:  Tarot for Grownups.  I remember offering a copy of this book to a woman who is in the new-age magazine publishing business, anxious to get her opinion on it, and when she finally messaged me back, the email was one sentence that said:  "I don't get it."

That was disappointing, as well as a little confusing, as my intentions for this book were quite clear.

I had read an astrology book titled "The Dark Side of the Zodiac", and wow, was it ever.  I loved it!  We all know that Libra isn't always about beauty and love, sometimes she's a whore; and Aquarius isn't all new-agey and quirky and unique, sometimes she's a cold bitch.  It's true, with all twelve signs, there is another side we were ignoring.  I loved reading this book, it took reality and threw it all over the pages so it spilled out in recognizable personalities -- the good, the bad, and especially the ugly.  It was refreshing!  

So I decided to do the same thing with tarot, and I must say, I thought I was actually pretty gentle about it, because I could've been way more blunt -- way more. Yes, really.

Now, the negative side of the tarot is not usually a subject for focus, it's actually discouraged.  It's mostly glossed over and ignored in the fluffy bunny white-light feel-good tarot community, but the tarot has a dark side, and so do we.  I was tired of all the hoopla and attention being put on always being positive and upbeat and avoiding anything even remotely negative connected to the querent or the cards.  Well, this attitude doesn't begin to approach real life, and this isn't doing your querent any good.  Sometimes people need to hear the truth, even if it's nitty-gritty, kind of like a napkin with coffee stains on it.  At least they can clearly see where the issues are and what needs attention to straighten out their energy and their lives.

People don 't come to have a reading when their life is all hunky dory and their world is coming up roses.  They come for a reading when they are in trouble, threatened, confused, vulnerable and sometimes hurting.  They come for a reading when they need help, and they need some honest advice.  They want answers, they don't want shiny new-age euphemisms.  

So, voila... Tarot for Grownups.

I can always tell when someone has written a book review without thoroughly reading the book, especially when they get all high-horse and blunder the review.  Case in point:

There was a ranting review left at Amazon complaining about the book being "all dark".  The reviewer stated:  "...it's all very well selling this book as a no nonsense, cut-and-dried kind of book but I felt that the author had a very negative approach with no positive traits in her descriptions of people."

Excuse me, Sarah.  You didn't read the book, did you?  Come on, you can tell me, you glossed through it, didn't you?

On page 95, paragraph two:  

"In the section of this book identifying the court cards, my intention was to concentrate on the dark side, because it's this side that we so often need more insight into and it's this side that causes all the problems; but for the purpose of choosing a significator, we also have to recognize the positive aspects of our own personality, and I'm going to give you a brief description here of the lighter side, the softer edge, to the court cards."

And then I do just that. 

[zreflections]

A black lump burrows from the inside, out in my chest. The CBT workbook told me to picture bad thoughts as objects. Make them "silly and ridiculous". Name them strange concepts.

No one bothers to explain being intelligent generally just makes you want to die all the time. That maybe life is the virus in the eco system.

My boyfriend never thinks about things. He is from one thing to the next, zinging around like tiktock filed redbull shots. He eats hot peppers on everything. I am one of roughly fourteen thousand people who are allergic to caspasien.

All day I made an effort to keep the voice quiet. The one that tells me, you suck. You. Are stupid. He hates you. He will get sick of you. Your ideas are stupid. Just die already.

A few days ago I almost walked in front of a car. My life is good right now. I never want to lose it. Everything is new.

If I could marry him I would.

If I could kill myself I would.

I remind myself the moral of the story is that life one any planet is a wonderful gift. That suffering is the status quo and the happiness is the in-between. A soilder said so in a support group.

My suicidal friends arm won't stop bleeding. Her house is full of mold. She doesn't sleep from the illness. No one is helping her and she is stuck in helplessness.

Everyone who makes me bite in humanity never learned to arm themselves with thier teeth like I have.

I use them without meaning to.

They often lately land into myself. While I try to jot hurt anyone. Nothing good can come from me. The voice says.

Therapists like to say thoughts are like a computer and you just need reprogramming.

Studies show affirmations tend to not be helpful woth ptsd or cpstd because it resembles gaslighting.

I want to burn out.

I want to stop feeling.

Friday, I swam at the pool and thought about drowning. It seemed too much effort. Might as well stay.

So I pack bags. Eat lunch. Hate myself. Argue.

I admit it someone had a handful of drugs I would take them no questions asked.

Run a block if your bored.

My writing sucks

My videos suck

I hate the way my chest is constantly caving in even when I'm fine.

Friends and books say-

Don't make the bad feelings worse by having yourself for having them. Sorry noone gave a shit about me before.

His face crushed when I said, it's because those scars are new.

People all like me. My hair. My clothes. I'm polite.

If you askeda I successful, well. Maybe. I have a steady job. It's relatively low stress. The pay isn't great but the benefits aren't bad.

But I jerk and every sound hyper aware. I flinch. I want to prove my boyfriend to abuse me so I don't keep waiting asking when will the show drop?

I am always compressing myself into those space-saving bags. Trying to. But then ripping them open. Again. Again again. At every notion. Sprining back after ripping the airmask like on a plane.

I have never don't a real or true thing.

She lies as she has self published five books with bad grammar and spelling. And a collection of photos. And a heart full of regretful ashes.

There are things I should write about but they are all sad. I am the first in my family to say, I've had enough of this abuse.

People say I'm strong but I'm just broken China.

Nothing was handed to me.

I.

I wish I could breath better.

I still have no solutions I'm years of research.

Projects. Deadlines. Stupid. God. I'm so. Stupid.

He played out a fantasy I hate admiting I have recently. A sexual one. I just want to chase down his chin and stroke him into thoughtlessness.

I'm a freak. My brain prompts.

Make your goal to be yourself. He told me. I'm trying but...

Why can't being myself feel like something good? And not just a curse I need unicorn tears and griffin blood.

My brother quit caring the moment I left.

I hope a stray bullet gets me.

Sometimes I want to live forever. But mostly? Mostly I want time to stop.

Stop moving and let me adjust.

Fuck.

It's always the same shit from my mouth.

Useless.

[bookio]

Thoughts for the Day: Manual for a Kinder Life (2018) by Bob Hansson

Picked up randomly at second hand so i could have something to read under the Midsummer sun. It's a collection of mixed observations, thoughts and poems by this author Bob Hansson. Some chapters resonated very well with me, when it came to human interactions and the typical Swedish public social "rules", but then some political and religious beliefs of him were springled throughout some pages that just felt like listening to a grandpa make no sense at the dinner table. I didn't care for his poems either, but overall the book was simply... just fine? 2/5 stars

"One of the most common questions we ask each other, leads to the most common lie. The question is: >>How are you?<< The answer is: >>Fine.<<

Sometimes this question should only be seen as a polite gesture. But sometimes we want to take it seriously, and give an answer that is longer than four letters.

I think there are many of us who long for a moment where we can feel welcome and be perceived in the exact condition we are in. I think we live in an age that has grown tired of lying."

- - - - -

I Hope You Die, You Fucking Bitch (2023) by Linda Jonsson

In the first half, Jonsson recalls memories from her childhood, growing up with an alcoholic mother. The good days but also the recurring bad days. She's stuck in a loop of worry (very similar to my own childhood) and angst. One night her very very intoxicated mom asks her to take the dogs even though it's her turn, after an otherwise fantastic day between them. It becomes the last straw for Jonsson and she shouts "I hope you die, you fucking bitch!" before running away to her sister next door. The day after, they find the mother dead by an overdose.

This trauma haunts Jonsson growing up but is tucked down deep inside her. She becomes a young mother in the second year of high school, and births another child with a new partner soon after finishing school too. Somewhere between the third child with another new bf she starts horseback riding, where she one day falls off a horse and hurts her back. She gets morphine tablets for the pain and realizes it takes away her anxiety as well. Jonsson gets viciously addicted, and goes into desperate lengths to get these pills (pays $800 for express delivery, digging in garbage when accidentally thrown them out, buys from shady kids on the street) when doctors sets a warning sign in her health journals.

It doesn't end however until she suffers an epileptic episode in front of her kids, that she's finally sent to rehabilitation. During this time her kids are allowed to speak out of what they feel and witnessed with their mother's addiction and Jonsson can finally see she's repeating the steps of her own mom. Finally being able to heal for real.

Even though there were some grammar issues, spelling mistakes (I think this was self published?) and some of the dialogues felt unrealistic and theatrical, it was an interesting insight of another human's struggle and growth.