#take 2 after formatting problems

[ham1lton]

EVERYTHING IS EMBARRASSING ?

pairings: max verstappen x podcaster!reader

faceclaim: taylor russell

summary: you run the number one podcast on spotify, agonyauntie, and your dream guest is max verstappen. too bad for you that he hates podcasts.

or the one where your podcast is max’s guilty pleasure.

author’s note: clearing out drafts.

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liked by yourbestfriend, alexandrasaintmleux and 1,837,892 others.

yourusername: after a month long hiatus, agonyauntie is back with bigger and better stories. i’m excited to share the newest episode with you on all of the available channels.

please tune in so my mom won’t regret letting me drop out of university to pursue airing people’s dirty laundry on the internet. thank you xoxo

view all comments

user1: WE WON WE WON HELLO!!!!!

user2: will you ever top mango man? i don’t think so.

-> yourusername: trust me user2. we will.

user3: the way during the hiatus the podcast was still #4 on the spotify chart is crazy.

-> user4: WE COMIN FOR THAT NUMBER ONE SPOT YUP!!!

user5: prettiest girl ever. you need a youtube channel so we can see that facecard.

-> user6: she said she prefers podcasting to making videos because she’s awkward asf 😭

-> user7: real omg

-> user8: she’s so me.

user9: who is this 😻

-> user10: yn yln! she’s the creator and host of agonyauntie, which she started back in university. it was originally a radio show in which people would email her their problems and she’d tell them advice. it went viral when she did the episode of ‘mango man’ (just google it, it’s hilarious) and then she moved to a podcast format so it was more accessible. it went to number one and she’s halfway through s2. it’s so good!!! honestly you need to listen to the episodes.

landonorris: SO EXCITED YESSSS 🤩

-> user11: always at the scene of the crime

-> user12: how many fandoms is this guy in? 🤨

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AGONYAUNT! season 2, episode 7.

[soft jazzy intro music fades out]

yn: okay, this next email is… wow. honestly, when i read it, i had to sit back, take a sip of tea, and whisper, “what the actual hell?” to myself. so naturally, i had to include it in the episode.

let me just read it for you.

[mock-serious tone as she reads aloud]

“hi yn, first off, i love the podcast. you’re literally the only person i trust to handle this because everyone else would either call me crazy or tell me to dump him, and honestly, neither of those options feel right (yet). anyway, here goes: i think my boyfriend is trying to become a bird.

i know that sounds like i’ve lost the plot, but please hear me out. it started small—like him watching a lot of bird documentaries and casually saying things like, ‘owls are the wolves of the sky’ (which i didn’t think about at the time because men say weird things constantly). but then he started doing… bird things. he whistles now. a lot. not cute whistling, yn. it’s more like he’s calling for backup.

then last week i caught him eating sunflower seeds—not out of a bag, but cracking them open with his teeth and spitting the shells on the carpet. the carpet, yn. he’s also been spending suspicious amounts of time sitting on the windowsill ‘for the breeze’ and called a pigeon his ‘mate’ the other day like they’re friends now??

but the final straw? he built a nest. like, an actual nest. i came home from work to find him on the couch surrounded by twigs, string, and what i think might’ve been my missing socks. he said it was ‘just a joke,’ but when i asked why there were eggs in it, he got all defensive and said i ‘wouldn’t understand.’

so now i don’t know what to do. do i confront him and risk him flying away (literally)? or do i just let him… become whatever he’s becoming? pls help me yn. i miss my normal boyfriend who used to just binge-watch love island and occasionally make me toast.

cheers, girl who might be dating a parrot.”

[pause for comedic effect]

yn: okay. wow. first of all, thank you for this email. genuinely, it’s given me a lot to think about. like, this man has gone full National Geographic, and you’re just… casually living with it? incredible. i’m so glad you came to me because i don’t think your friends would’ve taken this seriously enough, and frankly, neither will i, but we’ll do our best.

so. is your boyfriend trying to become a bird? honestly, yeah. sounds like he’s halfway there. whistling, befriending pigeons, eating seeds like he’s at a football match—this man is leaning in hard. and i have to say, the nest? iconic. horrifying, but iconic. he built an actual nest in your home. he didn’t just think about it; he did it. that’s commitment.

but here’s the thing: you have to ask yourself, are you okay with this? like, if you imagine your life five years from now and you’re still with him, is he going to be perched on top of the fridge, squawking about how you don’t appreciate him? or is this just a phase? because maybe it’s temporary. maybe he’s stressed, and this is his way of coping—some people journal, some people go bird-mode.

what i suggest is this: sit him down for a chat. calmly ask, “babe, are you going through something? or are you genuinely preparing to molt?” like, we need clarity here. and if he doubles down on the bird thing, you have a choice to make. either support him and start buying bulk birdseed, or set him free—preferably in a park, not near any major roads.

also, maybe keep your eye on those eggs. i don’t know where he got them, but i’d be concerned.

anyway, good luck with your pigeon-man. i wish you nothing but the best, and if it escalates, please email me again. i have to know what happens.

[transition music fades in]

yn: right, let’s move on before i spiral into a full TED talk about men and their inability to handle hobbies normally. honestly, this man saw blue planet one time and said, “that’s my personality now.” unbelievable.

[music fades out, next segment begins]

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liked by landonorris, ynsfanpage and 1,727,908 others

agonyauntie: our newest episode is out next week, here are three clues about what it will include.

(hint: the middle one is that our host will be involved. spoiler alert! 😉)

view all comments

user1: omg it’s MAX VERSTAPPEN

-> user2: who tf is that

-> user3: exactly like yn said celebrities as guests

-> user4: he’s literally famous? he’s a formula one star???

-> user3: okay congrats

-> user4: ??

-> user3: girl idk what u want me to say idgaf abt that man 😭 good for him getting the krabby patty formula one or wtvr

user5: OMG MAX AND YN…

-> user6: new ship name needed asap

-> user7: new job application needed ASAP!

user8: omg what if yn and max get together? he’s her dream guest and she seemed a little into him om the live she did watching the f1 race.

-> user9: um he’s literally gay i just googled it…

-> user10? HUH?

-> user9: his fiance is charles leclerc i just read how they met on this gossip website called ao3. very cute. it also told me more about obama’s secret lover, some guy called harry styles. you should check it out.

-> user10: u grown as hell and u can vote. the world is a scary place.

user11: AND NEXT GUEST WILL BE LANDONORRIS LETS PRAY TOGETHER 😎

-> user12: lando we know it’s you take them glasses OFF!

-> user11: 🥲 🕶🤏🥲

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author’s note: hi :) just looking for some feedback. send me an ask with what sort of fics u guys like. idk what to post. have a lot of drafts. also idk this will get a pt2. i just want it GONE! sorry <3

[jooyeonsvape]

gym games: seungcheol smut

w/c: 2k

pairing: idol!seungcheol, female!reader

genre: smut

summary: seungcheol challenges his lazy girlfriend to workout. every level completed, a reward will be given.

a/n: i didnt know how to put the ‘keep reading’ link on my posts but now i do, i apologize if that annoyed anyone lol

your bed was your favorite place to be after a long day at work; unfair wages, annoying employees, nagging customers. when you're in bed, watching your favorite drama, all the problems go away.

"[Y/N]!!" you hear a distant voice shouting and look up to see your sweaty boyfriend, seungcheol, waving his hand to get your attention. "are you dissociating again?" he asks with his arms crossed and a mischievous smirk on his lips.

he's trying to get you at the gym more because after work you just lay around, and you promised him you'd be his workout buddy. "i'm sorry baby, but not everyone enjoys working out like you." you defend, crossing your arms to copy him.

"i know you don't like working out, that's why i came up with an amazing idea, hoshi, bring it in." you stare at the man coming in with a white board, raising an eyebrow. "what...is that?" you ask confused and seungcheol stands on the otherside of the board.

"this, my dearest, is the motivation to inspire you to work out." he proudly smiles, grabbing a hand pointer and slaps it against the board, making you jump.

"level 1, warmups, you get a kiss for every warmup you complete. level 2, cardio, run 1 miles on the treadmill, i'll give you a sexy hot oil massage. level 3, dancing, you complete a whole seventeen song, of your choice, you get head. finally, level 4, weightlifting, if you can lift 100lbs, you can pick the reward." seungcheol points to each level as he talks and you hide your blush away from the two men.

"hoshi, did you come up with this?" you ask and he laughs, looking at the board proudly. "i helped, the hot oil massage was my idea." you roll your eyes out of embarrassment, glaring at seungcheol. "okay, i accept your offer, i'll go through all the levels," you confidently nod your head and start the warmups.

"20 pushups, 20 squats, and 10 lunges." your boyfriend commands, acting like a personal trainer. you try to hide your laugh at his stern demeanor, you were usually the one telling him what to do so you found it cute.

"thats all? this is gonna be a piece of cake." you get down to a pushup form and seungcheol walks to you, hovering over your smaller frame. "i forgot to mention, its 2 sets of pushups."

you groan loudly at the thought of doing 40 pushups and plop on the ground, hearing hoshi maniacally laughing in the back.

"come on baby, kisses are in store when you finish." you roll your eyes again at the offer and get back in form. "with this many pushups, i better get a full makeout session, not just a peck." you hear your boyfriend hum in agreement, watching you start on the warmup.

when level 1 was complete, the last thing on your mind was kisses, you were sweating profusely and chugging your water until it was almost gone.

seungcheol goes to the white board and puts a checkmark by level 1, looking at you with satisfaction. "take a 10 minute break and start level 2." he commands, you instantly dropping to the ground in a starfish formation, groaning to yourself loud.

"man, how is she going to get through the other levels when she's dying on warmups?" hoshi asks, doing pullups in the background. "she'll make it, she's just dramatic." your boyfriend answers and you lift your head up. "i'm already plotting my revenge, don't make it worse for yourself."

level 2 starts with the treadmill, and it was quite easy considering this is the only machine you use when you want to stare at seungcheol work out. "i've done 5 miles on this before," you brag to your boyfriend when he hops on the one next to you.

"have you done it on 12% incline and 7 miles per hour?" he asks with another cheeky smirk, and you gulp. "i-is it hard?" you chirp out, scared of the pain you'll be in tomorrow.

hoshi comes up and presses buttons that were foreign to you, but you read 12% and start going at a jog as he heightens the miles per hour to 7. you whine when it starts burning your calves and never keeping your eye off the mileage. "i'll do it with you," seungcheol smiles at your cuteness, running beside you.

the more you run, the less it hurt, and it was actually making you more energetic. "i'm halfway done!!" you proudly shout to your boyfriend, breathing heavy and he looks over at your machine. "good girl, don't give up." he cheers for you and your cheeks turn red from blushing.

when it hits the 1 mile mark you turn off your machine, slowing down with the motor, and stepping off with shaky legs. "that wasn't bad at all." you announce to the two boys and hoshi gives you a highfive, holding a stereo with the other hand.

"good job, now level 3, dancing to one of our songs, which one do you choose?" seungcheol asks, getting off the treadmill as well.

you think hard about what song you want to choose, then stick your finger in the air. "i got it! 'very nice'." the two boys start laughing and you slap your boyfriends arm. "it's my favorite, leave me alone."

hoshi plays 'very nice' on the stereo he had earlier and you begin the choreography, hitting every beat. they look at you with wide mouths, not expecting you to know the entire dance, "go [Y/N]!!" hoshi yells out, doing the dance to himself while he watches.

when you finish you blow your boyfriend a kiss and he catches it, putting it to his heart. "level 3 complete, i'm impressed [Y/N], seriously." he says and gives you a hug, rocking the both of you back and forth.

level 4 was to lift 100 lbs but after all you did, seungcheol decided to go easy on you, and change it to 50 lbs.

you easily lift the weight above your head and cheer to yourself, setting the weight on the ground, dancing around. "i get kisses, hot oil massage, head (sorry hoshi), AND pick my own reward."

seungcheol lifts you up and waves to hoshi, "thank you for helping, i have to go fulfill my promises." he puts you over his shoulder and you feel a slap on one of your butt cheeks, making you squeal. "bye hoshi, sorry you had to be involved with his perverted behavior."

hoshi waves and laughs, watching seungcheol run out of the private gym under your apartment complex, with you still on his shoulder.

at the apartment, he lays you on the bed the both of you share, and spreads his arms open to welcome you in his chest. you curl up comfortably on him, rubbing circles around his cheek. "level 1 prize please."

seungcheol leans down and kisses your nose, making you huff. he chuckles and goes down further to your lips, kissing gently until you open your mouth so his tongue could enter.

the kissing lasted only a few minutes before your hands roamed his body but he pulls away, "uh-uh, we need to do level 2 now." you pout but change your mood when you see seungcheol bringing in the massage oil, him smiling from ear to ear.

"get undressed, i'll warm the oil up." he tells you and gets the warmer, while you take off the athletic ware you had on. you put a pillow at the end of the bed and lay belly side down, anticipating the feeling of seungcheol's hands on you.

the feeling of him straddling your waist from the back made you let out a deep sigh at his weight. "am i too heavy?" he asks, hearing your breath hitch but you just shake your head. "no honey, im good." you whimper out and he laughs, getting off your butt, kneeling on the bed next to you. "i forgot you're half my size." you giggle and lean your head up to kiss his lips, admiring his compassion for you. "i'll get started now." 

he pours the oil on your back slowly, the pain hitting your skin instantly but you old it in until you're used to it. seungcheol massages your shoulders first and you let out a low lingering groan which made him start laughing, but you ignore it. his muscles flexed as he rubs every knot that was in your shoulders, continuing to make unnatural sounds at the massage. 

"flip." he whispers so he didn't ruin your zen state, and you abide, turning over so you were now on your back. he gently rubs your shoulders from the front with the oil, dragging his fingers up your neck in the process, making chills run down your body. 

he moves his hands down to your boobs and you smile with your eyes closed, squirming around when he squeezes them tight. the oil wasn't as hot anymore so when he poured more on your chest it didn't hurt your boobs. 

seungcheol admires your body and hums, pinching your perky nipples so they could get hard. you blush and watch him take one of your now hard nipples in his mouth, your head thrown back when you feel him start nibbling on it softly. his tongue swirls around you and he looks up at you with a smirk, "do you want to move on to level 3?" 

you nod and buck your hips gently in the air, signaling you needed him. he kisses from in between your boobs to your belly button and rubs your inner thigh gently. "good girl." he whispers and kisses down to your pelvis, just swiping his tongue over your clit. you whine at his teasing and buck your hips again, "i need it." you whimper out, seungcheol listening and flicks his tongue over your clit in a fast pace. 

you let out a loud moan at his tongue and grip his hair in your hand tightly, looking down at him pleasuring you. he pulls away so he could spread your legs open wide, his tongue sliding through your folds skillfully, then back up to your clit. his tongue pace never lessens while he lifts your legs up to your knees so he could see more of your pussy. 

he slides his tongue in your hole, feeling the inside of you with a moan and rubs your clit with his thumb. the sensation of him inside you made your legs shake and you buck your hips fucking his face. "you have a magic tongue baby." you moan out and feel him chuckle, sending vibrations against your wetness. 

you throw your head back again, arching your back and push his face closer to you while you cum in his mouth, yelling loud for him. "fuck..." you whimper when he sucks up all your juices and kisses your now throbbing clit. 

"thank you my angel." you breathe heavy and he goes up to kiss you on the lips, rubbing your arm softly. "anytime, i love you." he mumbles, wrapping an arm around your naked body. "what do you want to do for level 4?" seungcheol asks after you catch your breath and you hum, cuddling up to him close. "watch my shows naked, eat, have sex, watch my shows, eat, have sex, repeat, until we fall asleep. if we fall asleep." 

"deal."

[twistedpink]

nsfw below the cut! 2 1

The format is Character/Length (in inches)/Bedroom Skill

Rook Hunt - 4 - 6/10

-His only sexual education is very much “Rabbits make more rabbits” but his romance is to die for!!! You won’t even have to ask to be indulged- all you have to do is say yes :)

-Rook is astonishingly well groomed for someone who works on their feet. The spare hours of self care he gets between his beauty sleep and people watching does wonders for any sport-stenches (I mean, unless you’re into that kind of thing). He’s always doing something with the “presentation of his undercarriage”, and isn’t afraid to let you cop a feel in public!

-He’s all about experimentation with your pleasure, and it’s not that he refuses online resources, but isn’t it so much better naturally? Where’s the sense of adventure if some stranger on the internet is telling you where to touch him? After lots, (loads, really) of trial and error, he’s sure you’ll get a sense of rhythm. It’s never too early to start exploring!

Idia Shroud - 7 - 3/10

-Everyone can agree that Idia is too big for his own good. Massive, really- And he hates it. He’s been perma banned from the most comfortable thing on earth! How’s he supposed to enjoy going commando when his tip’s out in the open??

-He does NOT know how to use the monster in his pants, but he’s not objecting to a teacher :) When you first start getting “active” he’s painfully professional about it. No eye contact, no problem! You’ll wear him down eventually, but it’ll take awhile for anything truly intimate,,

-The worst thing about sex with Idia is the need. White-hot and throbbing, but so infrequent!! His libido is SO high, always pawing at you after school, but he can’t hold back for the life of him :/ Ten full minutes of rest for another three of penetration? Oh no, your only option is to overestimate him,, whatever shall he dooooo

Malleus Draconia - 3 - 7/10

-Two words. FUCKIN MARATHONS!! Malleus is comically bad at anything sexual- and you’re the one who has to initiate most things, but he can go hours without any pain between the two of you! And the AFTERCARE?? 10/10. Imagine playing with his scales while you wait on breakfast in bed <333

-Malleus is far too big for any usual quicky spots, but nobody can compete in forced proximity! It’s so easy to drag him into a broom closet between classes- Everyone avoids him anyways, and because he very rarely slouches he has to in the confines of your rendezvous, so it’s a completely new angle!

-He’s a little (lot) inexperienced, but he’s learning so much with your help! Nobody questions that he keeps his nails short or demands chapstick whenever he recalls the time, because nobody questions Malleus Draconia. He’d like very much for you to change that- order him around, kiss him bloody! So long as it’s you he’ll be happy :)

Lilia Vanrouge - 5 - 8/10

-Lilia’s a believer of “it’s the motion of the ocean - not the size of the wave”, and he KNOWS his ass has motion. All these years working on his core and arms only to be reduced to some petty slut :/ It’s all he’s ever wanted!

-Doesn’t bother shaving, nothing on him grows quickly enough for regular maintenance, and that does include his sex drive :( He wakes up sweaty and shaking whenever he ignores his rarer urges, but he’s lucky enough to have you! You’ll indulge him for a little biting, won’t you? Not his fault if you want more,,

-He’s a MASSIVE whiner, but he knows you loveeee it <3 All these years muffling his voice for colleagues and kids, it’s a miracle to have soundproof walls! With his little bouts of energy, you won’t be leaving bed anytime soon- lay back and let him cook for you! Or maybe you’d rather he just eat?

(no full proofread until tmr, we die like Malleanor)

[catboybiologist]

I'm 3.5 months in progesterone. Did it make my boobs grow? Let's look at some data!

So. This data has problems, of course. I've added disclaimers at the bottom. This isn't science, this is personal curiosity.

But anyways.

My HRT progress has been in three distinct stages:

1, sublingual pills, with on and off spiro. Suppressed T, E struggling to get up. Month 0-7

2, Injections, no progesterone. E goes to appropriate levels very quickly and fluctuates within cis female ranges. Month 7-13.

3, all that plus progesterone. Month 13-16 (current).

For the purposes of simplicity, lets look at breast growth only.

Let's take a look at some of those sublingual numbers:

All in freedom units, bc I hate myself.

I mean hey, not bad! There was absolutely some growth and breast bud formation as well. I pretty clearly got to tanner 2 here. But there's an obvious, clear plateau in growth. We can see it graphically as well:

Ignore the blue line, that's different data (waist:hip)

So what broke the plateau? Well.

The blue measurements are taken when I'm on injections and good levels, and the green one is as well (it was my progesterone start date). Apologies for the data jumping around, there were gaps. Also worth noting that I was ~20 pounds lighter on that final measurement.

So after plateauing with sublingual, my E around 100, the only thing that broke through that barrier was dropping spiro, switching to injections, and keeping my E at 200-400.

It is at this point I added progesterone (data in green).

holy FUCK

I genuinely would not have believed it myself if I didn't have pictures, as well as measuring myself now, and also y'know. Lived all of this.

Lets see that graph, shall we?

You can so clearly see the three stages here. The sublingual plateau, the injection bump upwards, and the progesterone fucking moon rocket. The gap in data is when I was backpacking- on injections, no prog. I think the drop in my W:H is also because of the weight I was losing.

Also yes, linear regression is kinda stupid here. I was just curious.

Anyways. I think I might be plateauing again, just based on how my breasts have felt a little less sensitive recently, which is also what happened on my sublingual plateau. But its absolutely wild to see what progesterone (probably) did in such a short time.

So in conclusion:

Yes. Absolutely. And so did injections, and proper levels.

When I encourage people to take an active role in their transition, this is what I mean. Keep track of your levels. If you're plateauing, think about what might be happening. Make sure to coordinate closely with your doctor. Amazing things can happen because of it.

Disclaimers and admissions of data sloppiness below:

This data is sloppy, and rounded to the nearest half inch most of the time. I've also fudged it based on what I reasonably thought was error in retrospect- eg, at one point I thought my underbust had shrunk a tiny bit due to variation in fat and coastal cartilage, but it's all just flickering between 35.5 and 36", so I just put it all at 36 bc that's likely more accurate.

The measurements don't really cleanly correspond to clothing measurements- I've been doing it wrong since the beginning, and kept doing it wrong for consistency. don't infer my cup size based on this lol. This is for internal comparison and trends.

The rounding also makes it more susceptible to "jumping", and there's several instances where a rounded down data point to a rounded up data point makes a more dramatic leap than it would in practice.

And of course, I'm measuring myself, this is one data set, yadda yadda. It's gonna be sloppy.

But yeah. The trends are clear enough that I hope they can be taken as trends at least, even if they're not exact numbers.

[malwaredykes]

well. here she is. miss Leigh Stasik.

trans woman. stubborn, incorrigible, eccentric. communist; she has leftist in-fighting with herself on the regular. a cannibal; she has no moral qualms about this, and its both a bit of a spiritual thing and a bit of a pragmatic thing. medic (not a doctor. no medical license). she knows for sure she had some kind of significant personality change from being shot in the head, but she doesn't remember what she was like exactly before it happened, it all became this kind of distant memory soup. shes originally from west new cali, but she grew very attached to the mojave. and has a lot of contempt for the ncr. She Will Serve Crack Before She Serves This Country. thank god the army discriminates against transsexuals etc. zero tolerance for the legion, obviously.

she firmly believes she is not nice, or kind, or compassionate, but instead her actions and her general sense of justice stem from her simply doing whats the most logical and objectively beneficial. it may be true to some extent, but she might also have a wee bit of ocd of the "i am a horrible person whos at all times like 2 seconds away from committing atrocities" variety.

shes a SCIENTIST. unofficially. she doesnt have a degree nor a chosen field of study. she makes her own hrt and other mysterious concoctions, including designer chems. which she claims she ingests injects etc not for recreational purposes, but to Enhance Her Powers And Possibilities. she reads old world books about psychology so she can manipulate people better. and makes weird contraptions and doohickeys while high. shes a HACKER of course and hacks terminals and systems for fun and just to see if she can.

her stats are out there due to implants and intense training, originally they were rather average. in-game she wears combat armor mk 2, but i see her having spruced it up like this. her main weapon is the ycs/186, the unique gauss rifle, but before that she used a modded plasma pistol. which she very much enjoyed the silly appearance of. because it was so small and with so much shit tacked on and she could just hold it in one hand like a mutated revolver like Hands up motherfucker bang bang bang lol. her melee weapon of choice is the machete gladius, but she's been training to be able to wield a thermic lance.

in my head the trajectory of her actions and the fate of the mojave that follows is different from what you can do with the game, because leigh could only go for The Secret Leftist Route Which Was Supposed To Be In The Game But We Were Robbed Of It.

boone was the first friend she made after leaving goodsprings and their relationship is particularly notable. they are Comrades, Siblings-In-Arms, Worsties (like besties but fucked up). theyve seen each other at their worst. they annoy each other on purpose. theyve had serious ideological clashes with each other and some ways in which boone perceives the world drive leigh absolutely nuts. they're ride or die for each other. theyre the kind of comfortable around each other where she'll be on the toilet and smoking a cig with the door open and talking to him, while he's naked sitting on the floor removing stitches from his leg. she's done surgery without anesthesia on him. he's projectile vomited blood on her from being poisoned by cazadores. she strongly encourages him to become a traitor to the ncr and to take part in the revolution and the formation of the new independent mojave alliance. somehow, it works on him in the end. shamefully they kinda like snuggling... boone bro come to bed man its nighty night man its beddy bye time.

shes in love with lily bowen. i havent decided yet whether she actually makes a move. but she thinks lily is sooooo dreamy. and shes right. if you dont think the enormous 203 year old blue mutant woman is dreamy thats your problem. outta her way

[zeropro]

Skywarp: Origins - Chapter 2

https://archiveofourown.org/works/63945331/chapters/164272084#workskin

Skywarp was with the Decepticons before Starscream joined, and now we get a follow up to Thundercracker:Origins from Skywarp's pov. I'd love to know what you all think! I quite like with how this one turned out so I'll post it in its entirety here too haha:

-vvv-VVV-vvv-

Chapter 2

Thundercracker was Starscream’s friend, and that is the only reason Skywarp puts up with him. 

Why a cool guy like Starscream would have a friend as lame as Thundercracker is beyond him. The two couldn’t be more different! Where Starscream exuded confidence and charisma, Thundercracker was reclusive and brooding. Where Starscream could charm an entire room with only a few short words, Thundercracker always kept to himself.

When Starscream first joined the Decepticons, he had impressed Megatron with a huge speech in Vos and then walked right up to Skywarp and declared the two of them should be best friends!

Thundercracker spent his first night having a panic attack.

Skywarp did try to be nice at first, he really did! Might have even felt sorry for the guy. He thought maybe Thundercracker would eventually get over himself and come fly with them after a few days, or at least not just sit by himself in the rec room. Skywarp had no idea why the sad sap even joined the Decepticons in the first place. The mech was miserable, like, all of the time and never stopped worrying over pointless things like “making the right choice” and “doing the right thing.”

The worst part was: normally he could just ignore mechs like Thundercracker, leave them to their miserable self-inflicted processor ache, and move on with his life. Unfortunately for Skywarp, he liked Starscream, and Starscream liked Thundercracker, and he for some reason had decided to take responsibility for the soft-sparked moron.

Even then, it wouldn’t have been Skywarp’s problem if Starscream wasn't constantly complaining to him about it.

“He’s a loser,” Skywarp pointed out helpfully. “Just ditch him if it’s so much trouble.”

“Ha, yeah I really should,” Starscream would say. And then he doesn't.

-vvv-VVV-vvv-

Skywarp gleefully launches another missile into the burning streets below, the light from the explosion glinting off the black jet’s wings, painting his purple stripes an ominous gold. Flying through the smoke, he pulls out of his dive at the last moment, laughing as mechs scramble to get out of his way. He isn’t exactly trying to hit anybody, but he isn’t trying very hard not to either.

The Decepticons were going to drop a big bomb on Praxus tonight, and Megatron wanted as many of the civvies cleared as possible before that happens.

Watching the last of his bots escape, a warning from Skywarp’s chronometer pops up on his hud, reminding him of the approaching launch time. A few of the other Seekers start leaving the blast zone, having determined their sectors cleared. Skywarp wonders if he should do one more quick sweep before calling it quits. It had been a lot more fun when there were still law enforcers putting up a resistance and actual people on the streets to terrorize. Flying around over empty highways and sidewalks was much less exciting.

A larger number of jets are now leaving the city, and with nothing left to do, he flies up to join them. He would have loved to stay and get front row seats for the fireworks, but he’d promised Megatron he’d watch from somewhere safe this time. 

One Seeker didn't seem to get the memo, however, flying against the formation back into a cluster of buildings. Skywarp growls in annoyance when he recognizes the broad blue wings of Thundercracker.

“You've got to be kidding me.”

Skywarp’ll never hear the end of it from Starscream if Thundercracker got blown up. He swings back around to follow the blue Seeker.

Scanning the airways, his sensor net picks up movement below, but instead of Thundercracker, he finds a black and white Praxian with a red head crest dodging behind some rubble. A police bot, wounded and unarmed but still kicking, and as far as Skywarp is concerned, that makes him fair game!

Without landing, he switches to root mode and aims his last missile at the target below. 

The air around him suddenly explodes with a deafening sonic boom, throwing him sideways into the nearest building. Shattered glass rains down around him as he rolls into a rough landing inside. 

“Khaaa…augh, what the slag,” Skywarp groans, his audio receptors still ringing with static. Giving himself a few good smacks to the helm, he shakes out the last of the fuzz before glaring up at the mech responsible for the assault. Thundercracker had followed him in through the broken window and was wringing his hands in the most pathetically apologetic way possible.

“Sorry! Sorry, are you alright? I wasn't…”

Skywarp didn't bother picking himself off the floor, instead opting to teleport behind the blue Seeker and spin kick him in the back. Thundercracker lands with a satisfying crunch, the shards of glass making a mess of his plating. “There,” Skywarp says with a huff, grabbing Thundercracker’s arm to haul him back up, “Now we’re even.”

“Ugh!” Thundercracker shoves Skywarp off of him and stalks back towards the opening in the wall, miserably picking glass out of his hands. Skywarp bounces after him. 

“You must be stupid or something. Didn't you see everyone leaving? We’ve got, what—ten breems before Shockwave launches the bomb!”

“But what if there are still people down here? Mechs that haven’t evacuated…”

“Who cares? We got most of them! Hey!”

Thundercracker was already flying away from the building, still not leaving the city. Skywarp stomps his ped in frustration and seriously considers abandoning the mech to his suicidal quest. A new message on his hud distracts his thoughts. It was a comm from Megatron asking where he was, and then eight additional comms from Starscream pop up in quick succession. It got him thinking.

Was Thundercracker ignoring his comms?

He could respect a mech willing to flirt with death, even if it was for a geeky reason. Plus, it'll be really funny to watch Starscream try to hide his concern when he berates Thundercracker for being stupid again. Less funny if Thundercracker actually dies. Skywarp flags the messages as acknowledged without bothering to read them and kicks off after the blue jet.

As long as he’s there he can teleport them both out in time, so why not have a bit of fun?

He finds Thundercracker trying to move an entire building’s worth of rubble away from the entrance to some high-rise. He could hear muffled voices shouting from inside. “You having fun there?” Skywarp jeers, crossing his arms.

Thundercracker bites back a curse as his hand slips, a trail of energon smearing across the surface of the wall. “Why are you still here, Skywarp?” he grouses, stepping back to reevaluate his options. 

“Boo!” Skywarp pops into existence on top of the rubble in a pink cloud of quantum mist, making Thundercracker jump back in surprise. Lowering himself into a crouch, the teleporter cocks his helm to the side, fixing Thundercracker with a toothy grin. “Why do you think, numbskull? I’m here to make sure you don’t get your sorry aft blown sky high!”

Thundercracker’s optics widen for a moment before narrowing in frustration. “Then help me get those mechs out of there!”

“Why don't you just use your big boom to turn this rubble to dust?” Skywarp supplies helpfully.

“That’ll bring the whole complex down!” Thundercracker snaps back, voice raising with stress.

Skywarp plants a hand on the ledge he was perched on and lazily swings his legs up into a handstand before flipping himself down to the ground. “Why do you care so much? They’re just civvies. Nobodies! Besides, it’s their own fault they didn't get out in time.”

Thundercracker looks horrified. “How can you just say stuff like that?” Pushing Skywarp out of the way, he starts prying small pieces off the blockage one crumpled slab at a time. 

There is a desperation in his movements that Skywarp just doesn’t understand. “You don’t even know them,” he mumbles, starting to feel annoyed.

“That shouldn't matter.” Thundercracker replies, heaving a large chunk away. Energon drips from his fingertips. Skywarp notes the lack of progress being made. “It's the right thing to do.”

Aaand there it is. Skywarp rolls his optics and gives Thundercracker a hard shove, once more sending the mech to the ground. For a Seeker his size, he sure does fall easy. 

“You’re a sap, you know that?” Skywarp says with disdain, turning to the building. Starscream was still blowing up his comm unit with pings, and another new one came in from Megatron. If Skywarp wanted to not get blown up for some lame bot like Thundercracker, he might as well help speed things along.

-vop-

Skywarp lands with a splash. The ceiling had caved in, making the inside of the building more dark and more cramped than it should have been. Liquid cleanser spews all over the floor from a cracked pipe in the wall. Huddled by the blocked entrance, Skywarp counts seven bots: three minibots of some kind and the rest an assortment of four wheelers and science nerds. Upon his arrival, someone screams, “Oh Primus it’s a Seeker! ” and another starts banging on the jammed door, wailing, “Help! It’s gonna kill us!”

Skywarp licks his lips. This is going to be fun.

With a menacing growl he lunges at the group, most of whom scramble over each other in a panic to escape his claws. He manages to get ahold of two of them and with a -vop- deposits them outside.

Skywarp gives the speechless Thundercracker a cheeky wave before teleporting back in. He immediately loses his footing on the slick floor and falls backwards just as one of the larger mechs holding a lead pipe takes a massive swing at where his helm had been. Skywarp laughs, catching his fall with one arm and windmilling his legs around to sweep the big bot off his peds. 

The other big guy pounces on him, grabbing Skywarp’s arms and forcing him down. “Ow! hey!” He yelps as the one on the floor throws himself on top to help hold him down. Seems like the civvies can fight after all!

“Skywarp?” Thundercracker’s muffled voice can be heard calling from outside. Skywarp decides to make this his problem and teleports outside with both bots still clinging to his frame.

Thundercracker is ready with his blaster and fires two warning shots, close enough to scorch armor. Realizing they are now outside, the smaller of the two bots immediately bolts, running for his life. The other one drops to the ground, shaking and crying in a disgusting heap. 

“Woop! Thanks!” Skywarp laughs. “Have fun with that .” He gives the cowering mech a kick before leaving Thundercracker to deal with the mess.

Back inside, he’s curious to find the room completely empty. Skywarp hums, deciding on how he wants to play this game. Slowly, emphasizing the heaviness of his footsteps, the Seeker begins stalking the parameter of the destroyed lobby. “Come out little things,” he calls out in a sing-song voice, “I just want to plaaaay!”

In one swift motion he grabs the edge of a counter and forcefully pries the entire thing from the ground, hurling it loudly against the opposite wall. His sudden violent outburst is rewarded by a startled whimper, identifying the minibots’ hiding spot.

“Ah ha! There you are!”

-vop-

Cackling victoriously, Skywarp descends on the screaming minibots as they scatter. Snatching up one in each hand, he heads back outside and launches one at Thundercracker’s head while the other gets rolled down the street. Thundercracker, to his credit, reacts fast, fumbling to catch the living projectile as Skywarp vanishes from sight.

The final minibot sat in the middle of the flooded room in tears. “Last one!” Skywarp crows, grabbing her from behind and jumping them both straight up high over the city. 

With a quick spin, Skywarp throws the bot as far away from him as he can manage! After a moment of terrified screaming, he watches her finally transform into some sort of drone copter and whizz away as fast as her little rotary blades can carry her. Skywarp almost cries from laughing so hard; this had definitely been worth sticking around for!

His mirth is cut short by a firm smack to the helm. 

“Hey! What gives?!” Skywarp whips around, expecting to be confronted by Thundercracker’s annoying kill-joy attitude. He is instead greeted by a very irate Starscream. “Oh! Hi Screamer!” he says, smiling as sweetly as a newspark who’s never done anything wrong before in his entire function.

Starscream looks ready to hit him again, clearly not in the mood. “If you're quite done, Skywarp, we have exactly one breem to find Thundercracker and clear the blast zone! You two are the only ones that have not reported in!”

Skywarp clasps both his hands against his cheeks and makes an exaggerated gasp sound, “Starscream! Don’t tell me you were worried about me!” 

“Oh for crying out—!”

Skywarp laughs as Starscream makes a grab for him, diving back down to where Thundercracker had been.

It didn’t take long for them to locate their third, still scouring the streets for energy signals.

Skywarp had been correct: the poorly-concealed concern wracking Starscream’s frame as he berated Thundercracker was hilarious! The normally unflappable Seeker’s wings were hiked so high up on his back it looked as though they might fly away without him! As for Thundercracker, it was as though a switch had flipped in his processor the moment he saw Starscream rushing at him. Soon, he was the one insisting they should get to safety while Starscream wouldn’t stop going on about ignoring his comms and putting all three of them in danger in the first place. It was unfortunate that the show had to be cut short. They had run out of time.

With a contented smile, Skywarp slung an arm around each mech’s shoulders and warped all three of them away.

That night, Praxus fell. The explosion was spectacular, and the Decepticons all got charged on the city’s high-grade. Thundercracker sat by himself as always, and Skywarp didn't pay him any mind. He was Starscream's friend, after all.

[dduane]

Process for the new DEEP WIZARDRY International Edition cover

(rolls up sleeves) Right. Writing work (and recurring health issues) have repeatedly pushed these pieces of work to one side for the last year and a half. Time to take a brief break from ongoing work in other universes to rectify that.

Here's the template that I'm building on: the international edition cover for So You Want To Be A Wizard. (Available only outside North America, if you're wondering what makes it international. These paperbacks use the New Millennium Edition texts—except for the international edition of Games Wizards Play [when it comes out later this year], which was written to fit into the NME timeline to begin with, and will go into its international editions with that text.)

The cover concept's straightforward. Relatively dark, desaturated backgrounds: one glowy (or somewhat glowy) thing in the foreground, in a color that pops, or in lighting that makes it stand out.

For Deep Wizardry, things get slightly complicated by the fact that so much business happens underwater. But there are some things we can work with there. A scene in which two pivotal characters square off seems like a fair bet.

So: background first. Underwater lighting...

The sea floor: sand.

Sunlight from above the water.

But naturally that's not how the bottom would look, because there are ripples on the surface...

And naturally the sea bottom isn't going to be featureless, so we need some weeds and rocks.

The distribution's not ideal on these, but that comes under "fine tuning." That can happen over the weekend.

Now for the main attractions. Nita...

...and Ed. (ETA: There are some scale issues here. Properly speaking, Ed'rashtekaresket is significantly bigger, in comparison with Nita, than he's being framed in this shot. But Nita had to be big enough to actually show on the cover... So some liberties inevitably get taken.)

Now, while this is all promising enough so far, there's a bit of a problem. Nita's not terribly visible at this point. So, time to engage in some visual jiggerypokery that will both help with that problem and do something to hint at the connection between these two.

IIRC, Nita was wearing a wizardly forcefield in this scene to provide her with air and other necessities. So let's exploit that.

In the render, I can apply to her figure what in Daz Studio parlance is called a "geoshell": a kind of skintight digital overskin to which special effects can be applied: such as light emission. (And Nita's hair will get one too.) Since everything else in the scene is cool-colored, this light is going to need to be warmer, in (at the very least) a golden range. (Or rosy. May be playing with that for a bit.)

...But obviously we can't leave her looking like that. So what I get to do now is lose the rest of the scene and render Nita separately, in the same position but with different, less blued-out lighting...

...then add her figure back into the scene, over the geoshelled version (which can be clone-brushed out later).

...So when we slot that imagery into the paperback cover template, after some tweaking, this is what we get.

...Still some things to correct or refine here. (Such as the main body of back cover text, as I haven't written the new copy yet. And the quotes may want tweaking: the NYTimes review [which the WaPo picked up] had some lines that might work better.) Colors, composition, etc etc, can all use some final touches. But I think we're most of the way there.

With any kind of luck, this edition will be available online in paperback and ebook formats for the non-North American audience this time next week. (I'm still considering whether I want to offer hardcovers on these as well.)

(sigh) Now I want some tea. And then, tomorrow maybe, on to the int'l edition of High Wizardry...

ETA 2: off @softness-and-shattering's question:

If I may ask, is it not your publishers job to do this work? Is this a continuation of the thing where authors now seem to be expected to do their own marketing too, or are you doing the new millenium editions 'on your own' or similar?

I'm doing them on my own. While there are numerous foreign-language editions of the original YW books, the only publisher to use the NME texts so far (for books 1-3) has been Lumen éditions in France, and I'm not clear whether those editions are still in print.

Whatever their status, that still leaves me with a lot of countries where I can publish. And if that job's going to get done—lacking other publishers' interest, which my agents would handle—It falls to me to take the work forward. Such are the wonders of our age that I no longer have to wait for a publisher to turn up. And should something suddenly happen for publishers to get interested (like a TV series or whatever) then i can easily withdraw my own editions and let my agents do deals with them.

Meanwhile, why (as we say) leave money on the table? There are other English-speaking countries on the planet where the YW books can be marketed (and more countries still where—when there's cash to spare to hire the necessary creative talent—translations might not do too badly). So I might as well get on with it! I've got groceries to buy and bills to pay like everybody else... :)

(And just pausing here to point at the page pinned to the top of my feed. If you want to help with those groceries, there's a good place to start: the ebook bundles are still at their pre-holiday sale prices! ...Unless you're in the UK. [I'm so sorry about Brexit, folks, but there's nothing I can do about that...])

[k-hippie]

k-707 2025 BOLD UPDATE INSTRUCTIONS

Hello everyone :)

The new k-707 is going to be released in the coming days :D but as it is a kind of new experience, we have some kinda instructions in order to get everything working fine.

Step right up, folks, for the grand unveiling of our biggest project yet! The K-707 isn’t just a mod—it’s a green revolution. Taking on almost every flower, patch of grass, bush, and tree makes this even more massive than the K-505. And trust us, our brains are already feeling the strain! :D

But before instructions, let me tell you the k-707 story ;)

We really hope you'll enjoy it. We worked hard on it with 5 rules :

Replace EVERY tree of the game

NO overrides with crazy high polygons amount

Follow as much as possible the Maxis directions ( trees style )

Decrease amount of polygons where it is possible

No trees defying gravity and laws of physics

It took long for few reasons ...

At first, we always knew the first version was a vast experiment. When ea made its direct x11 update, it was time to make a bold update ... but we didn't want simply remove the non-strictly-dds-x2 images and replace them ... we wanted more. We always wanted more, even we are not kinda ea gurus :D ( hey EA ! don't you want hire some true creators with a long term vision of your game ? ) <- poll : would you like k-hippie as maxis creators or not ? :D

Joke apart, it was difficult. Almost 1 year long, we searched and searched solutions to get rid of all problems we met when replacing foliage on a debug tree, or modifying anything on a debug tree ( for info : we are not blender gurus nor sims 4 core users )

All we knew was few lines :

When cloning a tree, you cannot lose the any of the vert color data. I suspect whatever tool(s) you are using to do the cloning is losing this data, since this setup is somewhat unique to trees.

The vertex color layout for trees is as follows. Green and Blue are ignored for channels 1…4 : Color 0 RGB Surface color tint Color 1 R Rustle direction X Color 2 R Rustle direction Y Color 3 R Rustle direction Z Color 4 R Rustle phase ( game generates two wind scales that change over time, this term interpolates between the two )

The pipeline keeps the rustle information in a vertex color format for what the game engine will load, which means it’s in the range 0 and 1. The shader remaps this into a 0.5 to -0.5 range before scaling it and applying the offset to the leaves. Note that these directions are clamped but not normalized ( they’re allowed to be different lengths ) The WindMagnitude material parameter acts as a scaling factor.

So, we started with this information, begging in vain for some help, both inside the Sims community and outside ... but nobody helped us. And frankly, it interested no-one except us and our beloved followers :)

We found multitude of tutorials ( funny how many they are as soon as it is clothes related ) but nothing related to our specific target. We paused our research many times, made direct x11 updates for our other k-mods and so on. Until ... zaceitorius in July 13rd 2024

Who is zaceitorius ? We do not know. A simple member of sims4studio with 6 posts who gave us a simple bright clue which seems obvious after all, but yet very very precious indeed !

And here we are today. 300 trees and numerous plants later ... <- another reason why it took a long time :D

We made a lot of vertex experiments, we lost data colors, remade again and again some other experiments and well, we are still experiment, remake small details which seem important to us and so on ... And for now, it works :D And now you are warned : the k-707 is far from perfect.

And now, the instructions :)

The k-707 covers both trees & plants, both debug and lot trees & plants

What's new ? No more than usual. We tracked all the non-strictly-dds-x2 images, reshaped some trees ( such as the multitude of oaks ), added some flowers ( where we removed them in 2021 ) but kept many foliage we already did. We tried to simplify many details but added some others and replaced some plants.

How many stuff it represents ? We do not know. Many indeed. We stopped the count :D

Because of its size ( and our love for our sanity ), THE RELEASE WILL ROLL OUT IN PARTS ( not slowly but piece by piece ). If we waited until it was all perfect, you’d be seeing it around ( maybe ) September 2025 ... Let’s not tempt fate—or burnout! :D

The K-707 is neatly organized for your convenience :

Each DLC gets 2 folders : one for plants, one for trees.

The base game gets 4 folders ( a bit different since most of the greenery is drawn from there ) divided into lots and debug folders.

Expansions which have very few greenies ( City, Get to Work, University ) get the same folder named : k-hippie-k707-multi-greeny-2025

IMPORTANT :

Leave them in each of their folders ( or create your owns based on a similar methodology )

If you merge files : we can’t help troubleshoot if it doesn’t work anymore, so be smart ;)

You’re free to do as you like, but we strongly recommend keeping this tidy folder setup. If you need to troubleshoot down the line, it’ll save you a major headache.

And for the mavericks out there who love merging files—go for it, but know this : we won’t be able to help if things go haywire.

Now, we could wax poetic about how stunning the K-707 is, how every leaf, petal, and blade of grass is crisper, richer, and beautifully integrated into your worlds—but hey, we'll do it later, inside the release post :D

We could do more, more realistic trees and so on but we do not want integrate crazy high poly models. We do not want an unplayable game isn't it ? ;)

The k-707 is not yet finished. We got some more work to do on it, shape the last details, and some re-checks.

But here is what is new compare to the previous version : we kinda cracked ( a bit only ) the code. Trees swinging in the wind like it’s a dancing contest ? No more. Trees defying gravity and laws of physics by groveling into the ground ? No more. Just remember we do not have the hands upon the worlds construction, so, when trees are not into the ground, well, call your reseller aka EA itself ...

[derinwrites]

Do you have any advice for writing in a web serial format?

Let’s look at this in two sections – the business part, and the actual writing part.

The Business Part

1. Consistency. Consistency in updates. Have a schedule and STICK TO IT.

If your schedule is too hectic and starts affecting your health or otherwise adversely affecting your life, change the schedule; update less often. Don’t update in spurts and then randomly stop. The audience will far more easily tolerate a slow schedule than an inconsistent one; an inconsistent one will lose many readers. You’re not Andrew Hussie and you can’t get away with that bullshit.

There may be times where you need to take a hiatus due to some emergency, life event, or health condition. This is fine – your wellbeing is more important than your story. But you need to be up-front with your audience about this; tell them you’re taking a hiatus and tell them exactly how long it’s going to be. If you can, you should tell them in advance (this isn’t possible for things like a car accident, but is very possible if you’re planning to, say, move house in a month). If you’re taking too many hiatuses, then it’s better to slow down your schedule and update less often. Audiences prefer fast and consistent, but if they have to choose, slow is better than inconsistent.

The #1 helper to consistency is having a big buffer – that is, have several weeks’ worth of unpublished chapters. The length of your buffer is personal taste, but I like to keep mine as long as possible so that if there’s some problem that stops me from writing for several weeks, it won’t upset the schedule. It keeps my stress down to know that I have that leeway. Other writers prefer to only write a week or two ahead, though, so different things work for different people.

2. Decide on your monetisation system early and prioritise it.

The most popular and most effective method for monetising a web serial seems to be the patronage method, which is the one I use. You set up a patreon, ko-fi, or whatever sponsorship system you prefer, and offer rewards to those who support you. Having their names in a credit list and getting access to advance chapters are very common rewards. Some people also lock access to their discord behind a paywall, or offer extra stories or let supporters name story characters.

This model is not the only way to make money from web serials. Some people make money via advertising, or selling merchandise, or use the web serial itself to advertise stories that they sell. You can of course use several revenue streams – you can have both a patreon/ko-fi and run ads on your website (I don’t because I hate ads, but you can), or start selling merch related to your story once there’s a demand for it. Many web serial authors (including myself) sell their completed works as books. But the important thing here is that one of these systems will be your main system, and you need to know what it is and behave accordingly. If you run ads AND have a patreon, are you more focused on ad revenue or patreon revenue? You’re going to have to put your time and attention into one of them over the other. You’re going to have to make decisions that will help one and harm the other. So know in advance which one is most important to you.

You don’t have to monetise your story at all, of course. Plenty of people write fiction on the internet for free every day with no thought to making an income at all. But if you’re serious about this, I would recommend monetising it, because that makes a better and more consistent product. The reason I’m still able to keep writing these year after year is that my supporters pay my mortgage; without Patreon and ko-fi, I’d have to get a different job, and wouldn’t have time or energy to write consistently. Also, the reason I can write and update even when I don’t feel like it, and the reason I always push to make my stories as good as possible even when I’m not interested, is because I owe it to my supporters who are paying me real actual money to read my work. If I didn’t owe my readers anything, none of these stories would ever get finished, because writing is only fun about half of the time.

3. Don’t expect to be able to turn this into a career.

This advice sounds silly coming from me, who has through sheer luck, as well as the generosity and passion of my readers, somehow turned this into a career. But I need to emphasise that that luck is not typical. Most web serial writers will not be able to support themselves solely with their writing. It can make a good side hustle, but if your primary goal is “low barrier to entry work-from-home career where I don’t have to answer to a boss and can support myself comfortably,” then web serial writing is usually all of those things except the last one. There’s no harm in trying to turn this into a career – I did it, as have many other web serial authors – but don’t expect that result, is all I’m saying.

Still, if you can do it, it does have a lot of advantages.

4. Don’t expect to make money fast.

I remember when I finally started making an entire $100/month on Patreon. It was a fantastic day.

It was when I’d been writing web serials for four years.

5. Your most valuable resource is your readership.

Your readership will grow and gather momentum over time. The best business decisions you can make are those that grow your readership and allow your readers to participate in community, even if you have to give up opportunities to make money to do it.

A good example of this is discord. Some people have private discords that only their patrons can access; while this is a useful anti-spam and anti-harassment tool, I don’t recommend doing this if you don’t have a major spam or harassment problem. Some people will pay for discord access, yes, so you might get a handful of extra dollars per month that way – however, you will also get a far less active discord. When it comes to readers, population density is critically important; the more activity, the more people talking about your work together (or talking about anything and bonding with each other), the better. Plenty of people have joined my free discord just because it was there and only read my stories after seeing people talk about them there. Then they go and get their friends to read the stories. Enthusiastic readers are inherently valuable, and the best thing you can do is give them the resources they need to talk to each other and share their interest.

This principle applies to a lot of things. I have a lot of free stories on my website that aren’t the usual web serials, and more than once I’ve considered whether they should be paywalled. The answer I always land on is ‘no’; I couldn’t tell you how many readers have been roped into my web serials because they liked Copy <|> Paste, or The Void Princess, or Drops of Blood. These readers may or may not then become monetary supporters, but even the ones who don’t will increase activity and discussion about the stories, have fun and tell jokes in the discord, and may even produce fanart. A thriving community is always going to be more valuable to you than a few extra dollars; make sure to support them accordingly.

Your readership will start very small. In terms of marketing, this is your hardest time. A big readership does the majority of the marketing for you, but when you’re on your own, it takes a lot to convince anyone to give your stories a shot. It helps if you have an existing readership to leverage, which is what I did – I’d been writing Animorphs fanfiction on AO3 for years, and many of my first readers followed me over from there. If you have such a community that already has faith in your writing, leverage it. If you don’t, you can gain one my writing in a place where people go to read stories similar to your work, such as an appropriate subreddit, or a web serial site like Royal Road or Scribblehub. You are looking to gain as high a number of enthusiastic, engaged readers as possible.

And now, the fun part – the actual craft!

The Writing Part

1. Always remember that you are writing for two audiences

A web serial author has to keep two audiences in mind; the serial readers, and the bingers. You are writing a story that needs to be fun and engaging when read very slowly, at the pace of whatever your update schedule is, but that also needs to be interesting when read all at once.

This is not an easy task.

It’s something I fucked up pretty significantly with Curse Words, which was my first attempt at this. Curse Words has a lot of complicated political stuff happening throughout pretty much the whole story, as well as a complex save-the-world plot that’s reliant on a lot of secrets, mysteries and extremely speculative information. With so many wheels spinning, I decided to make the protagonist not particularly smart and move him very slowly through the plot to make sure that the reader would be able to keep up.

This was a mistake.

‘Pretty slow and simple’ at a novel reader’s pace is torturous at a web serial pace. Readers got a full week to discuss the mysteries and implications of each chapter with each other, doing the detective work of ten chapters between each one. The frustration with Kayden’s slow pace was clear, and he came across as an outright idiot rather than an average teen. Personally, I think this lesson was one of the biggest reasons for the difference in quality between Curse Words and Time to Orbit. Don’t slow down for your audience; they’re already slowed down by your update schedule.

At the same time, though, you don’t want to move so fast that you lose the bingers. You can’t assume that your readers will have time between chapters, or that they will discuss each chapter with other readers, or that they will go back over previous chapters looking for clues. Interested people reading update by update will do this, but bingers absolutely will not. So you still need to make sure that everything is comprehensible on a binge read with no backchecking or outside investigation.

My advice on this matter is to move as fast as possible, but take care to make sure that readers are reminded of everything important a few chapters before it comes into play. That way, both audiences can keep up. If you have to make a decision, it’s best to favour your update readers; they’re your most active community. They’re doing the up-to-date discussion, and probably doing the most word-of-mouth and fanart, although binge readers will do that too (I have plenty of dedicated readers who wait five or six weeks to binge a bunch of chapters on purpose, just because that’s their preferred reading style, and they’re still very engaged). But if you plan to publish your story later as a complete work, you also need to keep in mind how it’s going to read as a binge – and also, new readers will binge the earlier chapters of your story to catch up to the current one, so make sure it’s a good experience for them or they won’t get a chance to become update readers.

Two audiences. Mind your pacing and information reveals accordingly.

2. Chapter length

The general rule of web serials is that the more often you update, the shorter your chapters should be. The generally agreed ‘sweet spot’ is 1-1.5k words, 3 times a week, but this depends heavily on individual style. I update once or twice a week (depending on what stories I’ve got going) and try to keep my chapters between 2 and 2.5k words. If you update once a month, your sweet spot is probably about 10k words.

Don’t hold religiously to what other people tell you the ideal word count is – this will vary drastically with genre and personal style – but it’s best to try to stay fairly consistent. It’s not always possible to stay exactly on target because the best break points between chapters will vary (I’ve got 1.8k chapters and 3.5k chapters), but readers like to be able to predict about how long an update will be and they like it to not vary too wildly too often. As with choosing your update schedule, choosing your chapter length will depend on what suits your personal schedule, and what suits the story you’re writing.

“The shorter the chapter, the more frequent the updates” is a good rule for attracting the widest audience. Short, infrequent chapters will have a lot of readers losing interest between updates; long, frequent ones will have a lot of readers feeling overwhelmed. But the most important thing is finding something that you can consistently output year after year (remember, it took me 4 years to make $100/month; this is a long game).

3. It’s a TV show, not a movie

This advice is less useful in our age of Marvel movie franchises and made-to-binge Netflix series, so pretend I’m talking to you in the year 2010 or earlier. If a novel is a movie, a web serial is a TV show. What I mean by that is that a novel is shaped primarily as a complete experience, whereas a web serial is shaped as a chapter-by-chapter experience.

It’s best, in both cases, to have a well structures and paced story that is made of well structured and paced chapters. But sometimes you have to choose between the structure or a chapter and the structure of the story as a whole; making one better will cheapen the other. When you’re writing a novel, you should choose the structure of the whole, but when you’re writing a web serial, you should choose the structure of the chapter. Web serial readers will prefer a chained series of excellent chapters, over a beautiful story of chapters with mediocre individual structure.

In fact, whether you want a structure to the overall story at all is personal taste. My stories have strong overall structure and move towards a planned conclusion because that’s how I prefer to write (and it also makes the story bingeable, since it’s basically a novel being released really slowly), but plenty of web serials out there have no real planned ending and will wander about for years and years in no obviously consistent direction, occasionally throwing in a big twist or major change to freshen things up. These would make absolutely horrible novels, but make very popular web serials. Whether you write like me or like them, the rule is the same – the experience of each individual chapter takes priority.

Come to think of it, this might be why people call my stories “ADHD crack”…

4. Okay, so how do I structure a good chapter?

I generally try to do three things in every chapter.

- Hit the ground running

- Give them something new

- End on an open question

Hit the ground running – Unless it’s the very first chapter of the story, you don’t have to be coy getting into the action. Open the chapter as if it’s the middle of the chapter; start at full momentum. Catch the high point of the last chapter before it falls. It your last chapter ended with “We checked the fingerprints on the candlestick. It’s Colonel Mustard.” then you can start this one with “But he was in the library at the time!”, you don’t need to recap or slow down or anything.

Give them something new – Every chapter should give the reader at least one thing to talk and think about. A new choice, some new information, a shift in perspective, whatever. People are reading these updates one at a time so it is vital that they feel like they got something out of the experience. A chapter in which nothing is learned will make readers feel like their time was wasted, and they have all the time until next update to reflect on that.

This is also true of a novel, but it’s much more critical in a web serial. A novel with nothing chapters in it is just frustratingly slow-paced; a web serial with nothing chapters in it leaves the reader feeling cheated for long stretches of time.

The thing to talk about doesn’t necessarily have to be a big plot reveal or major advancement. An incredibly cute scene, or sad scene, or funny scene will work just as well. But you have to give them SOMETHING. If you’re giving them nothing, consider cutting the chapter entirely and integrating any important foreshadowing or whatever into the next chapter.

One major hurdle of mine with this rule is recap chapters. If you’re writing a very complex plot over a long period of time, you need ways to occasionally take stock and make sure everyone is on the same page and nobody’s forgotten or misinterpreted anything important. This information can be recapped or conveyed in the middle of an action sequence or something, but I personally find that putting other stuff in the scene makes it too distracting and therefore less effective. I like to literally just sit the heroes down in a room and have them go, “okay, we’re spinning a lot of threads at once right now; what do we know, what are we trying to figure out, and what are our next steps?” This is the literary equivalent of the save point or room full of health packs right before a boss battle. Game designers don’t put that room there to be nice; they do it so that they know exactly how much health you’re going to have going into the battle, and can structure it accordingly.

You can make these chapters entertaining with character banter, but you can’t really introduce new threads to talk about, except possibly as a twist right at the end. Introducing new information mid-recap distracts from the recap and makes it pointless. You might have something similar in your stories, chapters that are essential but don’t give the reader anything new to work with.

My advice for these is to just bite the bullet on this one. Release the chapter with nothing new to talk about. You can get away with doing this occasionally, if the chapter has a clear purpose (I get a lot of readers tell me that they appreciate my recap chapters). Readers who get nothing out of the chapter will shrug and talk about older stuff instead, so long as you only do this occasionally. But a chapter with no new information has a cost in opportunity and in reader patience, so only pay it if the chapter’s worth it.

End on an open question– End the chapter with a reason for the reader to come back. You want them to think about the story afterward and be eager to read the next chapter when it comes out. Adhering to this principle is probably why I have such a reputation for cliffhangers, although truth be told I don’t use nearly as many actual cliffhangers as people say, I just try to end by opening a question. By that I mean, the audience should always end a chapter asking a question, which can be something that will span dozens of chapters (“How can Colonel Mustard’s fignerprints be on the candlestick? Is he being framed? Does this mean that the candlestick was in the library and isn’t even the murder weapon?”) or span a single paragraph (“How will the narrator react to learning that Colonel Mustard lied about never touchign the candlestick?”) This could be the emotional height of a scene, or the point at which new information recontextualises everything. It could be the moment where the stakes are raised or an important assumption turns out to be false. Anything that makes the audience eager to learn what happens next will do.

There should always be at least one open question in your story, more if it’s thematically appropriate. You know how mmorpgs and crafting games and suchlike keep you playing for hours and hours by making sure you’re always near the end of an activity – keep playing til you reach the next level, oh but now we’re nearly at the end of this quest so we should complete that, oh but now we’re just 20 gold short of being able to buy that cool new armour so we should just… same trick. Readers should always have at least one ‘quest’, an open question that they’re following, and should always be close to an answer.

You don’t have to dramatically introduce an entirely new question each time; you can end a chapter by reminding the reader of an existing open question. I tend to be a fan of the Big Dramatic Reveal On The Last Line method (cliffhanger reputation), but you don’t have to do it that way. Indeed, it’s a good idea not to do it that way every single time, lest you get stuck in a rut; every chapter ending doesn’t have to be incredibly tense and snappy. Somebody mentioning that they wish they knew how they could get enough food to make it through the winter before a full paragraph of cuddling and falling asleep in their mother’s arms works just as well.

5. It will help if your story is good, but it isn’t required.

You don’t have to be very good at writing to do this.

It helps to be good at writing, of course, and I assume that since you’re asking me for tips, you’re the sort of person who wants to be as good at writing as you can. But there is some true hack garbage out there doing absolute numbers in the web serial circuit. I try not to harp on about this too much because Curse Words fans get really upset at me when I do, but I think most of us can agree that Curse Words kind of sucks. And that just sucks in an ‘author is still learning how to do this’ kind of way; there’s much worse writing, real bullshit Ready Player One-level writing, trucking along out there brilliantly.

The point I’m trying to make here is that this isn’t an industry where there’s any value in hesitating and wringing your hands and asking yourself if you’re a good enough writer to do it yet. You are. You can just start writing a web serial right now and so long as you consistently update, you’re probably already above average for the market. And your first one probably will suck (mine did), but it’ll teach you how to make a better one. I think that Time to Orbit: Unknown is passably okay, and it absolutely would not be passably okay if I hadn’t written Curse Words first. Just go for it. Try to write a quality story if you can, but if you can’t, it’s honestly not that big of a deal. What matters, truly matters, is that you are committed to improving your craft. And that means actually practicing your craft. Which means writing some chapters and setting up a release schedule.

Good luck.

[ang3lofdivinity]

⋆｡‧˚ʚ 𝖲𝗐𝖾𝖾𝗍 𝖳𝗈𝗈𝗍𝗁! ɞ˚‧｡⋆

Relationship(s): Slightly Yandere!Sprout + GN!Toon!Reader

Genre: Fluff, some angst eventually

Format: Short story + headcanons

Warnings: Mentions of injuries, yandere/possessive behavior, otherwise none!

A/N: Sorry for such the long hiatus! School is CRAZY rn. + my life overall :’)). Take this Sprout stuff because I LOVE Dandy’s. Also, do note that the reader is a bit clumsy! Along with the fact this is a bit self indulgent.. (I promise, I’ll make Cosmo x Reader x Sprout stuff soon… trust)

Part 1: current | Part 2: In the works..

Now, this is an interesting circumstance you’ve gotten yourself into!

I wanna guess that you’re a toon that works in the diner along with Sprout, and Cosmo.

Maybe you’re a kinda dessert food item? Like, a Milkshake?

I also wanna say that you’re kinda like a waitress for the diner. Someone who runs out the food, rings in food, assigns people to different tables, etc.

You’re a hard-worker, someone who overachieves in their job. Working extra hours to help Sprout and Cosmo, and so on. You love your job, and you love your best-friends!

You and Cosmo’s friendship came before you and Sprout even knew each other. Sure, you’ve heard him be mention by others, especially Cosmo, but never really met him in person before. Well, up until Cosmo asked if you wanted to work with him and Sprout in the diner, given your experience working within the food industry before and such.

And after your interview and background check: you had officially started working as a waitress for the diner!

Cosmo was your only friend for a while, though you were cordial with Sprout- you just didn’t speak to him as much as you did Cosmo.

Though, that was until you had kitchen duty for the night.

You hummed along to the sound of the song that was playing in your headphones, washing dishes in the back of the kitchen while being oblivious to your surroundings. Placing the wet dishes and silverware on the drying mat in their respective places, you felt pleased with your work today and were in a decently good mood: no rude customers, you didn’t have to clean up most of the diner today… it was all going well!!

Well, that was until afterwards.

You checked over everything, making sure every little thing was in its proper place for the night so you could finally clock out for the night.

See, your job here at the diner is simple: serve as a waitress for the costumers, do any extra work such as doing the dishes after closing hours and sweeping the floors, and then finally clock out for the night. Simple as ever, right?

You enjoy your job. You like living here with the rest of the toons in the neighborhood! Sure, you have those bad days that always get you in a sour mood- but everyone has that problem eventually! It’s not just you. Besides, your friends are always gonna be there to help!

Finishing up your business in the kitchen, you sighed. Today was a busy day, and it had DRAINED you! So now, it was time to go home and relax, eat something, and then pass out for the night. It’s a routine that you enjoy. And on the days that you have off from work are pretty uneventful, but still enjoyable in the long run.

Turning on your heel, you began walking towards the corridor so you could head off and grab your stuff to clock out, before you suddenly stopped.

..why does it feel like you’re forgetting something.

Your brows furrowed, trying to make yourself move forward- but you couldn’t. You physically couldn’t move forward anymore and you have no clue WHY.

Taking a deep breath, you turn to look behind you where you see you’ve left one of the cupboards open! (You swear you closed it, but I guess you just simply forgot to and convinced yourself that you did).

So, you do what you were supposed to do: close it.

But the moment your foot lands when you’re so close to it, though, you feel yourself slipping. Your arms flail wildly, reaching for anything solid to latch onto as the world blurs and spins around you.

With a very futile attempt, you tried to stop your fall by grabbing onto the nearest— ….

…

Something just grabbed you.

Instead of the inevitable crash, you’re caught.

Though, with your eyes screwed shut with fear, you’re too nervous to see what happened. Your breath comes in short gasps as you cling tightly to whatever—whoever—has kept you upright. Clinging onto whatever you can to keep you from getting any more bruises than your clumsy self gets on a normal basis already is better than nothing.

If staying like this means you’re safe, then you’re willing to stay like this for—

“..You good?”

A voice spoke up. It’s.. rather closer than you would’ve thought, it’s almost as if it was right next to you kinda close. This doesn’t sound like someone you know like Cosmo, but it does sound familiar in some way that you can’t put your finger on.

Slowly, your eyes open up.

And what do you see?

..Sprout!

Your best guess is that he probably came into the kitchen while you were walking back, and you hadn’t noticed him until now. Or something banal like that, like in those silly rom-com movies.

To describe Sprout himself… : He’s strawberry that only wears a white scarf with pink stripes wrapped around his neck that also drapes over his back. He has five mint green, simple leaves, three of which rest atop their head while the other two cover his forehead like bangs. He has dark, red blush with three black freckles on each cheek. His limbs are a vivid shade of light red with white gloves covering both hands. You can’t see anything other than that- but you know that he was white and punk striped socks, and a friendship bracelet to match with Cosmo.

Cosmo’s excited look when he showed you his.. it still replays in your mind.

You pop yourself out of your reverie, blinking repeatedly as you focus back on Sprout.

“Oh—yeah—sorry!” You squeaked out, attempting to gather yourself. But you were still too stunned to move, body frozen in place due to the shock. Realizing you weren’t going to get up anytime soon, you sighed, feeling a little defeated.

Sprout didn’t hesitate. “I’ll get you checked out. Here—” he said, scooping you up in his arms before you could protest.

Your face IMMEDIATELY flushed a deep pink as he lifted you bridal style, causing your heart to race even faster.

You opened your mouth to say something, but no words came out. All you could do was wrap your arms around his neck, your embarrassment overwhelming her as you held on tight to him.

It wasn’t meant to be such a romantic gesture, simply just trying to help you!

..right?

“Thank you, Sprout..”

That was your first ever meeting!

Cliché, no?

But: you were safe, alive, and your injuries all got healed up (which were a couple burns on your hands from using water which was too warm, and a few cuts here and there).

You found out the reason that he even caught you in the first place is because he had rounded the corridor when you just started walking back over into the kitchen! He had come to check up on you and your work so far because it was late at night.

You thanked Sprout tenfold, offering to do nearly anything as payback for helping you.

Which he then.. forced you to take some baking lessons with him.

He needed more bakers, after all!!

You wondered how this would turn out��

TO BE CONTINUED..

A/N: IM SORYRYRYE. This is such a bad drabble. It’s 1 am as we speak bro.

[thewertsearch]

Ask Comp 13/04

@bladekindeyewear submitted: You've noticed something important: Everyone seems to have come down with the SAME items that John gave them on their birth meteors. That means that excluding some incredible shenanigans, the ectobiology that created the kids only happened ONCE, and we're unlikely to see some weird repeat. John did it. In his session. Before the Scratch. Have you noticed the problem yet? In the Trolls' session, all of the ectobiology was done by KARKAT. In a session we now know was a POST-SCRATCH one. p=4053:

The Pre-Scratch trolls were forced to invoke the Scratch to even be BORN. And Lord English is somehow responsible. And this is apparently Lord English's "calling card". Utterly terrifying.

Yup. English's 'already-hereness' applies to more than just his physical presence, it seems!

Anonymous asked: I believe I sent an ask some time ago, regarding my eagerness towards seeing you take on my favorite character. At the time, I noted that their introduction was still a ways off, but now the moment is just about at hand and I couldn't possibly be more thrilled. Happy blogging, and welcome to Act 6! ^u^

Thank you! You're presumably talking about one of the new Players, and their introduction has certainly been a lot of fun for me so far. For the first time in forever, we're getting a new set of protagonists!

@sanctferum asked: seems like nobody has mentioned it yet, but 10/25, the day Cascade came out (and one of Homestuck's arc numbers, with 1025 being what you get when adding 413 and 612 together), was christened "Gristmas" by the fandom. Intermission 2, meanwhile, was (very fittingly) a Halloween upd8. Act 6 started on 11/11/11, so the arc number there is various configurations of 1 or 11. Truly the most important thing to happen on 11/11/11 and let neither man nor tod say otherwise.

Gristmas is pretty great - and thank you, I'll keep an eye out for long strings of ones. I imagine that we'll be seeing one on Jane's Cruxtruder, at the very least.

Anonymous asked: I'm surprised that no one pointed out that Hussie describing the story of the Troll Ancestors as Fanfiction is actually an accurate accusation In-Universe. As after, Doc Scratch took the trolls' original story, and rewrote it into how he wanted it to go. Anonymous asked: If you think about it, since Scratch is responsible for Alternia being such a hellhole when it originally wasn't, it is technically his "troll fanfiction".

Oh, I like that. Scratch is, after all, both the instigator and the narrator of the Ancestors' fucked-up lives, which does indeed put him in a position akin to that of a fanfiction writer. This Scratch-as-author stuff has layers, huh?

@manorinthewoods asked: If it was Bec's put-Jade-to-bed instincts that caused her revival, then Vriska's abuse of Jade to practice her powers on humans was the reason Jade survived Act 5. ~LOSS (9/1/24)

Good point, actually - but fucking hell, don't tell her that. You already know how insufferable she'd be about it.

Anonymous asked: Unsure if it was simply not mentioned, but in case you missed it there are two other messages on Jane's computer: Submit and Cease Reproduction

So there are.

CEASE REPRODUCTION, in particular, makes a lot of sense, now that I think about it. After all, I doubt the Condesce actually wants to rule over humanity; instead, she probably wants to exterminate them, so that they can be replaced with a brand-new cohort of trolls.

@joyfulldreams asked: Detective Pony is absolutely a masterwork of fanfiction. It has the original version on AO3, an equally excellent podfic by NakedBee, and then the podfic was later adapted by NakedBee into a full feature-length film. It has basically Legend status and in some ways has been partially(???) canonized because of how widely regarded it is by the fandom at large to be Legit. There is also a similar fic called Theatre of Coolty, a fanfic written in the format of a play, which I believe was written by the same person who voice acted DS in the Detective Pony podfic (DuckFace, I think) which NakedBee adapted into a short film. Recommend watching Theatre of Coolty before touching Detective Pony, tbh, it's much shorter and more easily digestible. (Both are EXTREMELY DENSE TEXTS.) Also you probably shouldn't touch either until you've finished Act 6, unfortunately. Theatre of Coolty has a minor spoiler for something pretty late in Act 6, and while Detective Pony doesn't TECHNICALLY have any REAL spoilers as-is (the movie has visuals that could be considered more spoilery), the entire thing is basically a deep dive into DS's character and you really ought to understand DS better before getting into it. (You don't even know his name yet!) @creamcloud0 asked:I don't know if it's what you were implying in your tags but i would absolutely LOVE seeing your dissection of Detective Pony. @heliotropopause asked: since we're doing this, The Serendipity Gospels should now also be spoiler-free, though i haven't double-checked, nor read the unfinished act three that's only available on tumblr. and yeah, very much seconded on sonnetstuck's Detective Pony- it'd spoil DS's name if you read it right now, along with maybe one other thing that'll get revealed soon, but it should be fine to read quite soon, and is one of the absolute best fanworks i've ever read. there's also a very high quality hours-long puppet theatre video adaptation of it made by someone else, but the visuals there contain spoilers up to pretty much the very end of the comic. ben-guy asked: The detective pony fic is absolutely still full of spoilers, if only for later kid bro characterization @pechikka asked: Im gonna be real. I don't even think of Detective Pony as a fanwork. To me it's just part of Homestuck's extended quasicanon to the same degree the epilogues are, and a crucial part of how I read kid bro as a character. It's THAT spot on to the characters and themes of Homestuck itself and it's a fascinating read. For obvious reasons tho that does means I absolutely cannot recommend anyone read it until kid bro has been introduced and has had a long while to be established as a character. @publicuniversalworstie asked: Seconding the Detective Pony recommendation as hard as I can, but I'd recommend saving it for after you finish the main comic at least. It's essentially a D-Stri character study. @hussianphilosopher submitted: There's really only one Hussie quote that matters.

(Thirding or fourth-ing or fifth-ing the Detective Pony recs, though I would argue that you need to wait a while before you read it - you need to meet teen-Bro and have seen quite a bit of him to actually get what it's going for.) Hussie's commentary is really interesting and deserves to be read if you like the comic, but the most recent and (in my opinion) most enlightening parts pretty much assume that you've read the Epilogues. If and when you're ever interested it's all wrapped up in the Homestuck Unofficial Collection.

I'm moving Detective Pony up on the list, because this all sounds amazing. We already know from the Auto-Responder conversation that Kid Bro is a pretty weird dude, so a deep dive into his character via a horse girl parody sounds like a hell of a time.

As for The Serendipity Gospels, if I can vet it completely for spoilers, it might finally be time for my first fanfiction analysis. After all, I've been waiting for this one for years.

Anonymous asked: How many doomed timelines have Sally and Sahlee made from their continued insistence on trying to break the Incipisphere even after seeing how utterly fucked they'd be from attempting that?

Less than you'd think, honestly. They'd definitely make a few, especially in the first days of the session, but once they start to understand how Doomed Timelines worked, they'd probably try to ensure their experiments were less destructive.

That's not to say they'd stop trying to violate the Alpha Timeline - but it does mean they'd be smarter about it, potentially abusing systems like the Scratch to create some additional non-doomed timelines. I can't tell you where their experiments would lead, though - not until I'm more familiar with Sburb's deeplore myself.

@elkian asked: Obviously Jake types on the coat sleeves, Power Glove-style xD @thelegendofgreg-2 asked: "Jake, for god's sake. How are you typing on a coat?" I am choosing to believe right now as of this very moment that every single one of the rainbow flashing boxes on the lining of his coat is a teeny tiny computer screen, and he has a keyboard hidden under one of the arms of his coat It's very practical

I do think that the sleeves are the best choice here - but I also like the idea that his clawed slipper is an integral part of the setup, with buttons on the soles that he needs to shift his weight to press. A shift key, perhaps?

This thing's just so awesomely impractical. Grandma Jade was a real one.

@library-seraph asked: "Michael Cera's a strange choice for one of these portraits. He's neither a harlequin, nor a gentleman, and thus doesn't really fit Dad's normal aesthetic." This is a fandom injoke, actually. So many people joked that the guy wearing the groucho glasses in the egbert house's hallway looked like michael cera despite it not being him, that Hussie decided to shout out the meme

Ah, that makes sense.

Sometimes, I wonder how many of the comic's 'confusing' moments are actually fandom in-jokes that I don't have the context to understand. To get that context, I need these messages, so keep 'em coming!

Anonymous asked: it truly is like, the greatest jape of all that your blog popularity is coinciding with the tumblr fanbase popularity of homestuck

No kidding? I wasn't aware there was an uptick in the fandom's Tumblr presence, but I'm happy to hear it!

The last thing I want to do is finish the comic, stroll into the fandom, and discover that it died before I was ready to engage with it. Not that that wouldn't be kind of funny.

@elkian asked: Possibly one of the funniest things about the Alpha Reboot here is finding out Jane, of her familysquad if not the humans as a whole (depending on how sincere Rose was about her taxidermy Jaspers rage) who has a problem with embalment. Everyone else has been involved in the taxidermy or other preservation of some kind of corpse; I was gonna exclude Bro but then remembered the horsebib.

Jane, Homestuck's primary cast is all weird as fuck. You need to get with the program.

@abysswarlock asked: AR to Jake: “Here’s your problem”

Jake's response:

Anonymous asked: while not that big of a deal on the grand scheme of things, the revelation that rose gets her eloquence and wordiness from her father is perhaps my favorite revelation in all of hs.

I like it too! Based on what Bro was like with Dave, I expect his kidsona to be the strong, silent type, but - assuming he's as chatty as AR - I really like Hussie's decision to make him a yapper.

It feels right, somehow - and I hope it means that he's the one who wrote this session's GameFAQs guide.

Anonymous asked: One of my favorite bits of the Auto-responder's replys to Jake is the % of how close the responses are to Bro's goes down as Jake catches on, dude is having the time of his life messing with him

This guy really is hilarious. He's honestly going to be a pretty tough act for the real Little Bro to follow.

Anonymous asked: ive sent an ask like this in the early days. but il say i have never been so extraordinarily possessed by a 2014 era fan of homestuck in its UPD8 era than i have been waiting all these days for the D Stri inteoduction chatlog. for reasons i am almost betting many may have expressed in this inbox already Anonymous asked: Every update you post convinces me harder that you're going to absolutely love kid bro Anonymous asked: So fucking excited for you to start analyzing kid bro it has me twirling my hair. I barely even have enough hair to twirl this is a high compliment. So excited

...that said, people have pretty high hopes for the impression he's going to make!

I'm sure that whatever vibe I get from him, one thing is already clear: he's clearly recognized as the post-Scratch kid, the Vriska of his team. His introduction is getting the most hype of any character outside of Hivebent.

Anonymous asked: "Though we adore Him we shall never enjoy His beauteous croak. We spill our blood on acres of black and white so they may cross the yellow yard. At last in Skaia's reflection through broken glass He may find the pond in which he's meant to squat." - A Prospitan book in [S] Seer: Descend.

Hey, you're right - this passage does make a lot more sense in retrospect. I guess the implication here is that Jade's frog might still be the designated Genesis Frog in the post-Scratch session...

This gels well with Umbra's earlier statement implying that Jade & co. will be slotted into the new session as Players. It also means the post-Scratch humans might not need a Space Player, since Jade can still fill that role as before.

...yeah, it's looking more and more likely that Jane's team will wield completely different Aspects to their predecessors. I honestly prefer this to the alternative, since it'll allow us to get up close and personal with four Aspects that we've previously only seen in the abridged Hivebent session - or, potentially, four Aspects we've never seen at all.

Anonymous asked: "Poppop in the attic" is a reference to the TV show Arrested Development. In one episode, Michael Cera's character is harboring his fugitive grandfather in the attic of his home. He attempts to inform his dad but he misinterprets "poppop" as a euphemism for sex or masturbation. @skelekingfeddy asked: ‘the mere fact you call it that tells him youre not ready’ is just reference to arrested development lol. basically the kid michael cera plays is hiding his grandpa/‘poppop’ in the attic away from the feds. later he tries to tell his dad but due to earlier misunderstandings he thinks ‘poppop’ is actually referring to having sex with his girlfriend. and so he tells michael cera ‘the mere fact you call making love poppop tells me youre not ready’ the auto-responder's line ‘since we've already shot that wad's eventuality on so many dry runs of flustered ambivalence’ is also an arrested development reference, albeit a much more subtle one (the original line is just ‘i prematurely shot my wad on what was supposed to be a dry run if you will’) @random2908 asked: Maybe others mentioned this already, but the stuff about Poppop and the attic is a quote from the tv show Arrested Development. There's a bit where Poppop is hiding in the attic, only Michael Cera knows he's there, and his father is trying to give him a sex talk and misinterprets "poppop" as a euphemism. It's been a while, but IIRC Hussie makes a few Arrested Development references in early Act 6; fans speculated at the time that they must have just watched the show for the first time.

Ah. I've never seen Arrested Development myself, so it's kind of wild to see a teenage Michael Cera for the first time. People say he has a baby face now, but he actually was a baby, here.

Anonymous asked: The dads aren't clones their eyes are completely different colors :P

Turns out one of them's left-handed, and that's literally the only difference.

@wickedsick asked: RoLal my beloLal @morganwick asked: "Huh, we're approaching the halfway mark of the comic and I haven't met Roxy yet. I mean, I'm pretty sure it's Mom Lalonde's name, but it hasn't come up. How could she make such an impact that I'd have heard her name before starting Homestuck despite only really appearing in half- oh. That's how." @abundantchewtoys asked: You try to control yourself and not overhype Roxy, but the S-tier on your tierlist… it beckons. @necrowyrm asked: So hyped for you to get to know Roxy, the greatest character in homestuck by a mile @elkian asked: God I'm so excited for you to meet Roxy. I'm pretty sure you'll love her for multiple reasons.

I can't wait! Like I said, I think she's very likely to be one of my faves. Hackers play with with an unfair advantage in the Sally Sweepstakes.

@manorinthewoods submitted: https://www.tumblr.com/darks-arts/757253456235053056/got-inspired-by-this-post-n-made-a-new-troll?source=share ~LOSS (1/15/25)

Don't get it twisted - this is who the Condesce picks as her VP.

@mrjocrafter asked: Any Bro Strider (and to some extent every Strider) analysis needs to be tempered by the acknowledgement that that's just what Texas is like. Like, one time I saw someone hold up a self-driving taxi at sword point. Texas is just like that.

Apart from a three-day childhood trip to New York City, the USA is a closed book to me - but I've heard enough wild shit about Texas that I don't think you're kidding.

@carcinogeneticist-writes-fanfic submitted: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuNgQEWgjwk Submitted for your approval: a full orchestra cover of Sburban Jungle. Possibly my favorite fan work of one of my favorite homestuck songs. Really captures that epic feel of the original song.

Dang. This fire burns hotter than the Green Sun.

@dedicatedfollower467 asked: i'm sure lots of people will have told you this, OR you will have figured it out yourself by the time you read this, but where DNA uses guanine, cytosine, adenine and thymine to represent information, its counterpart, RNA, actually uses a base called uracil in place of thymine. Meaning that uranianUmbra manages to both break the troll/kids naming pattern AND fit in it, in a slightly different way. UwU Anonymous asked: Concerning UU: Uracil (U) is a nucleotide that replaces Thymine (T) in RNA, which makes UU an -- at least in theory -- valid base pair. Compare this to how their chat symbol is a caduceus, and the constellation Ophiucus (traditionally, Apollo battling a pair of serpents) is sometimes considered the thirteenth Zodiacal sign. Anonymous asked: Fun Biochemistry Fact: (Almost) All the players using a combination of GCAT in their names is a reference to the 4 amino acids found in DNA (guanine, cytosine, adenine and thymine). The exception is John (EB), but who originally used GT only to change due to the trolls' interference. However, RNA, which 'reads' DNA to perform biological functions, uses Uracil (U) instead of thymine. I hope this helps your theorizing about UU! @3dgftw asked: belated congratulations on making it to act 6! from biologist to coder- the letter “U” is almost as important as GCAT in biology, and for a related reason! while G, C, A, and T are the most common nucleic acids, they’re not the only ones around! uracil (U) replaces T when RNA is transcribed, and this substitution is one of the reasons why it’s so unstable, comparatively. that, and the fact that RNA is a single stranded polymer, while DNA is double-stranded. it’s quite the headache for me- sometimes it feels like my RNA will degrade if I look at it wrong!

Huh. So the pattern arguably does still hold, for now - but since uracil is a component of RNA, rather than DNA, there's still an implication that UU is 'different' from our GCAT heroes in some fundamental way. What the hell is up with this girl?

Anonymous asked: The symbol that was similar to the Rod of Asclepius is the Caduceus, the symbol of Hermes (who I think is Asclepius' father?). Interestingly enough, the symbols are often confused with each other, which has led to medical organisations using the Caduceus instead of the Rod. I'm sure you already know, but if you don't, Hermes was the Messenger of the Gods, and patron of a lot of things, most notably travelers and thieves. Anonymous asked: Caduceus anon here. Small correction on my last ask, Asclepius was the son of Apollo, not Hermes. @likelyvampirical asked: Although both have been used in the medical profession, that symbol is actually the Caduceus, a symbol of Hermes, rather than the Rod of Asclepius. Although, the origin of the use of the Caduceus as a medical symbol is also thought to be mistaken symbology, so I suppose it's fitting.

It's possible that Hussie intended it to be the symbol for medicine, and simply got the reference wrong, but it's impossible to say for sure.

The thing certainly looks more like a caduceus to me, but I don't know what it would mean for UU to be Hermes-themed. Maybe she's a Player, and Hermes is her Denizen?

@skelekingfeddy asked: ok, some context on UU: basically, for more than a year the fandom had been theorizing about a SECRET 13TH TROLL. it started out as people pointing out that there were 4 kids and 12 trolls, so a 13th extra troll would make it so that it’s 4/13. then people realised, oh shit, there actually is a 13th extra zodiac named Ophiucus (one of the proposed symbols for which is the caduceus)! people even decided that their handle’s initials would be UU (because of Uracil, the fifth nucleotide base). the theory got so big, Toby even made a theme for UU as a bonus track in his Alternia solo album… …and now, in late 2011, here she is in the comic itself!!! she has the name, the zodiac symbol, everything. what’s her deal? you’ll just have to wait and see :)

That's good context to have, but I still have no idea what the implications are. It really doesn't feel like the trolls could have had a secret thirteenth Player stashed away somewhere, and we already know the pre-Scratch Alternian session was a twelve-Player one, too. Curiouser, curiouser and curiouser.

@aceotaku asked: random: it's only natural PM and Jack Noir were fated to be archenemies of sorts. After all, what is a dog's natural enemy according to cartoons without any real reason?

lmao, does this mean Jack's going to defeat PM by biting her ankle off?

@spiddermen asked: fun homestuck fact: shortly after homestuck ended, hussie came out as clowngender. everyone assumed this was just a bad joke for a while but it was not, hussie is nonbinary and one of the things I like about this second half of homestuck is that you can see them starting to critique the idea of gender roles a lot which I think is interesting. once they stopped working on homestuck they wrote psycholonials which explores these ideas and their thoughts on online society a lot more, it's really good

I heard about this recently, yeah! Apparently the official What Pumpkin press releases have switched to they/them for Hussie - who, if I'm not mistaken, uses any pronouns. Kind of based, honestly.

I'm surprised that this hasn't come up before, given how much the comic likes to delve into gender. I guess I just don't talk about things too much from an out-of-universe perspective, except to offer Doylist explanations for otherwise confusing plot developments.

@aceotaku asked: Your theory of Doc Scratch's Omniscience being based around meta knowledge of the author is incredibly clever and interesting and works really well especially with what we see of Scratch and Hussie after you made that theory. I also wanna bring up how he's my favourite villain in homestuck (I like his dark charisma and tendency to manipualte people while being upfront about his motives, goals and nature which i find unique) and am saddned by the many livebloggers who seem to genuinely hate him.

Oh yeah, I think Doc Scratch is great.

I kind of love to hate him, if that makes sense. He's totally awful, of course - but he's awful in a really fascinating way, that I haven't often seen in fiction. Above all, he's always entertaining to read.

@abibeur asked: One thing I like with the Betty Crocker propaganda is the obvious They Live reference, even if I didn't get it at my first reading. Jane Nada would be really funny… Even if there's another likely candidate to play a character with cool shades!

I picked up on the reference to They Live - but since I haven't seen the movie, I'm not really sure about the exact mechanics of the movie's iconic propaganda-revealing shades. One for the watch pile, for sure.

@abibeur asked: "Apparently his goofy lil' wave is a universal constant." This reminds me of another master of the wind…

Now that's a real Breath Player.

@calcamity asked: im rereading your liveblog for fun since youve reached act 6 (which features my favorite character) and i just have to say you have a great understanding of the characters. all of your pesterchum screenshot bits are (terminally funnily) in character. you could write some baller hs fanfic

Well, thank you very much!

I'm definitely going to at least write a fic involving my 'sonas, when I'm done. If I do have other ideas, though, I could easily end up writing some more canon-adjacent fiction, too. We'll see!

Anonymous asked: is jake english in the newtonverse called hass, just to tie this whole joke together? maybe the newtonverse is where the felt is the varnish instead, and hes like… hass brusher or whatever

Hass Brusher is too good. That one's 100% canon to the Newtonverse now.

@carcinogeneticist-writes-fanfic asked: New reader here who just caught up, congrats on making it to the EOA5! What was your favorite song of the four featured in Cascade? Savior of the Dreaming Dead is a top-tier personal favorite of mine, not just here or even in its album but in the entire Homestuck discography, and one of the songs I was most hoping would make it into the comic proper (not that you have to worry about that, I can def respect not wanting to hear any of the songs 'out of context' beforehand). Good luck with Act 6!

It probably was Savior of the Dreaming Dead, to be honest. It really sells how triumphant Jade's big moment was.

I also loved the section of the track that played during the Perfect Mendicant's transformation. The scene was already epic, but those chords knocked it into twelfth gear.

@krixwell asked: Curiously, as its card was stamped in the punch designix and used to alchemize a worn old hat, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias was "Oh no, not again."

Oh, that is a great pull. I need to reread the Hitchhiker's Guide series again sometime soon.

Anonymous asked: I never made the connection that Aradia's voices could have been coming from the Haidmaid before, but that fits so perfectly. I'm just imagining her summoning up a bunch of ghosts to constantly haunt Aradia and whisper exactly what she "needs" to hear.

That's pretty much what I'm thinking! I don't know if she'd have revealed herself in person, but she was absolutely behind that particular plot.

@aliceoverzero asked: I discovered this blog just before New Years and it's been an incredible binge-read. You've probably noticed by now that Homestuck is one of the most extreme cases of "you can never repeat the experience of reading it for the first time" due to the structures of its mysteries, and this was further amplified by the original reader experience including maddening wild speculation in between each wait for new pages to drop. Your deliberate pace with this liveblog and your willingness to slam the brakes to hyperfixate on details is the closest a returning reader can get to recapturing that feeling, and it's been a good reminder for me about why this comic has been so impactful to me. Thank you for doing this. Now that you've cleared Act 5, it's worth bringing up that while not present in the original panel where the declaration is made, the "most important character in homestuck" moment is expanded in Cascade to show that it includes both Lil Cal and Gamzee. This has prompted a lot of debate about which of them is actually being referred to as the most important character. Also now it's possible to talk about my favorite detail about Doc Scratch. His repeated use of the statement "I am an excellent host" has finally revealed its double-meaning. @leo60228 asked: so, what do you think about the alternate angle we saw the "The most important character in Homestuck fondly regards the miracle of a new beginning." panel from? @elkian asked: You may have received such a comment already, but during the "most important character in Homestuck" scene, Lil Cal was in Gamzee's lap. Either way you slice it, it's correct, but it's interesting to speculate which is meant. (Though ig one also requires considering Cal as a CHARACTER which is a bit unsettling…) Anonymous asked: Jade's laboratory falling seems to mirror Lord English's arrival. Also, in [S] Cascade you can see that Lil' Cal is also watching this happen. Does that make him the most important character in homestuck? @morganwick asked: In light of Cascade and Intermission 2, you might want to consider whether, now that you've seen the "miracle of a new beginning" moment in fuller context, the "most important character in Homestuck" might not have been referring to Gamzee after all…

Thank you!

And... uh, hang on a second. Do you mean what I think you mean?

...ah, fuck.

[twistedpink]

DND/Fantasy Au! 1/2

I’m just scratching the surface of my dnd rediscovery, and Ofc I have to make it hot lolz,, Hope you enjoy! (I’ll make the other parts depending on my motivation. Expect freaky Riddle.) You’ll find the format is:

-How he joins the party

-What he does on your adventure

-How he keeps the captain happy ;) SUGGESTIVE

Half-Orc!Trey Clover

-Whether he’s some mayor’s son, or the blacksmith’s apprentice in town, even the milkman, you can’t remember. Trey Clover is your very best friend, and you can’t imagine setting off without him! He’s the most average man you’ve ever met, and you’re begging him to join your party. It’s just so tough being a beginner adventurer- No one’s willing to hire anyone less than meat shield size, and you’re far too poor for guild advertisements,, Isn’t Trey such a pal for offering to sleep in the woods with you? Just like old times, right??

-Trey doesn’t spend his time on the road just lounging, not when you have so much to do! It’s a once in a lifetime experience for a “vacation” like this for the two of you small town fish, and he’s determined to make the most of it- He wakes up early to cook, and carts your tools around until sundown. It’s exhausting, but he wouldn’t have it any other way <3 If you really need to make it up to him, you should try your best and have fun! This trip’s mostly his way of saving up for a home to fit the two of you in, but you don’t need to know that :D He’ll tie you down someday, just you wait!!

-He’s just SO big now in comparison to his awkward youth, it’s almost overwhelming,, You gawk at him being the team pack mule, and even if it’s just the two of you for now, it’s still a lot to carry. His biceps strain with effort- Sweat races across his brow, and you’re done for. You’ll forever be thanking gods above and below for not giving him eleven hearing, as it’d be impossible to explain away how many times you’ve casted “mirror image” in the night,, You can’t help wondering what the real thing tastes like, and he can’t wait to let you take a bite <3

Tiefling!Cater Diamond

-You’re ashamed to admit it.. But you, pretty boys, and alcohol don’t mix- Rather, they mix a little too well,, You’d left Trey at camp after a minor disagreement, he keeps jumping in front of you during battle, and it’s starting to become a problem without the presence of a healer. He really is too sweet for his own good,, The last time you saw him bleeding out, you were terrified of losing him. So you may have hooked up with a miscellaneous tiefling for comfort,, You’d always been into tails. When Trey came with you into town the next day, he was desperate for your approval, and you used it to move some coin around for hiring Cater Diamond- The “Lyrically devious arcane genius - The bard that doesn’t disappoint”. Today was a good day. NOT for Trey, mind. He famously doesn’t get along with the playboy type, and that’s exactly what you’re going for :)

-It’s a little underwhelming to watch Cater’s performance at camp, especially in comparison to Trey’s maximum effort philosophy. Sure, he’s handy in a fight and entertaining around the fire, but you’re totally getting the vibe he wants to jump your bones- Not that you’re opposed, but a certain half-orc certainly is.. In an attempt to rationalize using Cater’s sensitive horns for a “tactical advantage”, you indirectly neglect your best bud :( He can handle you having other friends, but nobody likes feeling abandoned,, He’s cheered up with song and dance soon enough, and they’re a bonded pair in no time! Nothing could ever disturb that balance, right?

-Cater, an everpresent plague on your life and party, gets the two of you “sex-pollened” at least every couple gigs- If you thought Trey didn’t like your group stray before, he sure as hells doesn’t like the damn gecko after having to feed your asses around the fire when he knows you’ve been sexed up (Magic Mushroom Style) the entire time he’s been training. You guys suck and he’d get better pay somewhere else- but seeing his captain smile’s the best feeling in the world :D Please stop inviting him for group sex in the woods. You can’t handle all of that.

Cleric!Leona

-You’re woken up at the swanky inn you’re staying in to a murder mystery in town square- Cater and Trey follow groggily behind you, guided by your insistence to catch the killer. A local temple offers to pay for your detective work, and give you a cleric for the road! He’s standoffish, and a little intimidating, but you’re no stranger to breaking the ice,, By the end of the ordeal, the killer is caught, and Leona is bequeathed to you- As a reward. You look him up and down, all ornate jewelry and lithe muscle. You’re going to have fun with this :)

-Every day, you wonder how this guy ever payed the bills without you. And every day, you’re reminded he didn’t have to. Fucking nobles. He sunbaths for hours at a time- Leaving everyone else to set his tent up and cook his dinner, and he’s such a brat about it! “Well, I didn’t ask you to do that” “and if I didn’t?” “I.. Wouldn’t like you very much, cap’.” Have you even mentioned his robes? Because god, the robes. He’s barely dressed half the time, and what’s worse, is that he’s a trendsetter. You barely see Trey with a shirt on anymore.. Not that you’re complaining, but it’s unprofessional!!

-You’re so, so lucky his service doesn’t require a vow of chastity, lest your healing stick (tm) be banned from use.. He’d be impossible to resist anyways, and you’re certain he’s used those swaying hips and skimpy robes against countless others- What his sweet, stupid captain doesn’t know though, is how much more effort he’s been putting into his appearance on the road. He’s never been ugly by any measure, of course, but he gets a wicked pleasure out of squashing the hopes and dreams of your “creepling” whenever the opportunity strikes.. He’s tired of the brat getting special privileges around camp, and Leona’s more than ready to show him just who’s top dog. That’s his captain, and he wants everyone to know it <3

@bju3c0re @echosofmortality

[milliumizoomi]

Hi, I was thinking Armando Ateras x Reader. So let’s just say that Reader is half human and half vampire and she controls her thirst but she still needs to feed but the hospital is closed down. When Armando came home, he noticed that the house is completely quiet and he saw Reader on the bed back turn and was breathing heavily. He walked towards her and he noticed that her eyes were brown and dark and has dark circles under her eyes and he asked what is wrong and told him that she needs to feed but the hospital is closed down. So Armando offers her to feed off from him but she says no quickly but still lets her feed. :)

𝐉𝐔𝐒𝐓 𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐁𝐈𝐓𝐄

☆彡SUMMARY.; You’re so thirsty, and yet you can’t take the help he’s offering.

☆彡FEATURED.; ARMANDO x HALFVAMP!READER

☆彡TROPE.; ESTABLISHED RELATIONSHIP

☆彡FORMAT.; ONE SHOT

☆彡GENRE.; SLIGHT CRACK + ANGST (if you squint) + FLUFF

☆彡WARNINGS.; Mentions of Blood, Mentions of human testing, Child Abandonment, Mentions of Death, Biting, + Mature Language

☆彡NOTES.; Thank you sooo much for the request and I’m sorry it took so long, it took me 3 days to edit this🧍🏽‍♀️,, it was kicking my ass fr but I had fun writing it since I don’t think I’ve ever written something like this before. I hope yall enjoyyyy!!🥰🥰

REBLOGS ARE APPRECIATED🧛🏽‍♀️.

🎧FOR THE BEST EXPERIENCE, YOU CAN LISTEN TO SORROWS by BRYSON TILLER🎧

Death.

So this is what this dreaded thing feels like.

It had felt like years, centuries even you’ve been at home feeling pain beyond what you believe to be normal.

Put it simply, you’re thirsty as shit and the only thing that you can drink to ease it a little you have nothing of.

Blood.

With you being half vampire and all, it’d make sense that’d be the only thing you can even think of drinking.

The backstory of you being or becoming a vampire is definitely not a pretty one. You were tested in from an early age. Your shit parents sold you off for a couple grubby dollars because they could. They just didn’t want to take care of you, so what better way to get rid of a kid than selling her off right?

God bless the world now though because they’re dead, and they never get to bring another kid into this world. It took years of being prodded, poked, scanned, and lasered until Miami Department came and got you out of there. Only the people on this mission was even aware of your situation and what exactly you were.

Your situation was made top secret, which meant not many should even know you’re the person rescued from this place. Only the people in the mission, which was AMMO, and the captain, that was it.

That being said you had to be kept in a facility for a while to be monitored before they let you go. They didn’t want to risk anything so they had to make sure you were good to go to be let out. And with you being so top-secret, that meant you had to stay in a place with someone that already knew your secret. Marcus decided to take you in, after many, many… many talks with Mike. They made sure you got what you needed and you even got the chance to integrate back into society.

However, this isn’t the matter at hand right now.

With this all being said, the fact was that you were not full vampire. With that in mind, this sheer thirst you have for blood right now is absolutely ridiculous. You’ve never had this problem before.

You don’t even know why you’re feeling like this in the first place.

You were usually able to control yourself, control your desires, your urges, your thirst. But now, it felt like you could rip the walls off hospital just to get inside for even a drop of blood.

Stones felt like they were piling higher and higher into your neck.

You were so fucking thirsty.

It had been god knows how many hours, close to about 2 days since the hospital closed down and you could feel the hot sensation of burning in your insides, along with fatigue and pain all over your body. You could curse the damned hospitals for putting you through this. You could control your thirst, you knew you could, but for some reason these last couple days, you had been completely insatiable.

And the people who could help you right now had been gone for almost a week. One of them being your boyfriend of 11 months.

Armando.

You had met him at the department, where you usually had to go for routine inspection of the state of your body and your abilities. He had been let out of jail for sometime, and with him being on AMMO, his father informed him of your situation.

Apparently he trusted his son with your secret.

He was weary of you at first, but that quickly died when he saw how you carried yourself. What led him to become so drawn to you was your raw strength and mental fortitude. He was impressed (and partially terrified) not only of your speed and strength, but also your ability to keep your thirst for blood at a minimum.

Granted nobody else in the world was like you.

Still though, he half expected you to react in the ways he’d seen vampires in movies would, unarticulated and flat out greedy for blood. Your personality is what sold him though, but that’s a story for another time.

Right now, the man you were currently silently begging to come home was nowhere to be found, as he was busy on a mission, and only god knows how long it’ll take him, or anybody else who knows about your situation to come back, You wanted him to be back so badly so he could just hold you as you went through this, not wanting to be alone. You were laying on your side, back facing the door and breathing so hard you were feeling severely lightheaded, even when laying down.

The after what felt like another hour had gone by, you heard the front door open and could’ve screamed for joy if you weren’t so damn thirsty and borderline passing out.

“Baby..?”

You heard his voice as his smell was enough to make you feel like you could get through this.

Armando, on the other hand, was on it.

Immediately, when he neared the bedroom after putting his stuff down, he could already sense something was wrong. When he saw you laying on the bed, back facing him and breathing hard, he immediately was on full alert.

He came over to you and slowly turned you over in your back, trying to assess the state you’re in.

“Mama? Talk to me, tell what’s wrong, what do you need?”

You looked at him, barely able to form words, you were just so out of it. He noticed your usual brown eyes were so dark they were border-lining black now, and under your eyes were dark circles. You looked like you haven’t slept in days.

“Mama talk to me please.. I need to know what to do to help you..”

“..thirsty.” You barely manage to answer him, practically gasping as the single word left your mouth.

“Where’s your blood baby? You don’t have any more?”

You shook your head no. And you already knew what his next question would be, so again, grasping at straws for the words to rip themselves from the back of your burning throat, you managed to say, “..hospital’s closed.. can’t get more..”

He tsks at the information you just told him. He quickly kicks off his shoes and climbs onto the bed, lifting your head slowly to rest and on his lap as he brushes your hair, trying to find anyway to alleviate the pain he knows you’re in right now.

Judging by your state, you could very well die without getting blood somehow, and of course he could go get it for you, but he doesn’t want to leave your side.

He can’t risk that.

“Mama vamos... bebe el mío, no puedo dejarte así...”

At this point, you felt like your head was splitting and your ears were ringing, so you swore you had heard him wrong. You gave him an incredulous look, which he picked up on. “Baby I’m not kidding.” Quickly, but carefully, he pulled your body up so you were in a position where you were sitting in his lap, face facing his.

“You look like you’re about to pass out, you need to drink some of mine, now.”

You shake your head immediately. Weakly, you respond, “Hell no.. I’m not doing that. I’m not gonna hurt you.”

“No te lo estaba preguntando.”

He shoots you a look, and if you could, you’d muster up the strength to roll your eyes. You swore you’d never drink directly from a person, it just felt so wrong to you, wrong to even think about. It would make you feel less human, and it already took you months to start ingesting blood.

“Woman drink, now!” Still being stubborn, you didn’t budge. So he had to take matters into his own hands. He guided your head from the crook of his shoulder to look at him.

“Listen to me mama.. I can tell you’re fucking exhausted and tired, so I need you to listen to me and drink, I’ll be damned if I lose you to your stubbornness. I’m not playing with you. Drink.” You start shying away from the intensity of his gaze and words.

You knew very well what you not listening to him would do. Sighing, you sucked it up and looked at him, nodding. He leans back a bit and takes off his shirt, then cranes his neck to one side, fully surrendering himself so you can start the process.

You swallow nervously, the dry feeling scraping at your insides. Slowly, you lean closer, your fangs slowly growing as your face draws closer to his face. You stop momentarily, not sure if you want to go through with this. “Go on baby, está bien..” he rasps, rubbing your back gently.

At his reassurance, you come close enough to his neck and open your mouth, your sharp fangs coming into view and bite down. He groans at the intrusion, his body momentarily tensing at the feeling.

You on the other hand felt as if you were in pure bliss. The sounds you were making at the taste of his blood would have the neighbors sharing some questionable looks. You felt so energized, and you couldn’t get enough. His blood felt like crack to you, it was so addictive. Armando swore it would hurt more than it did. It felt.. pleasing.

He liked it.

Maybe he should let you do this more often.

Finally, you pull back from him, dazed. He too is a little whipped from the situation. He holds the back of your head as you pull back, studying your face. Your eyes were already beginning to glow, reverting to their original color. “¿Mejor?” You nod yes, bringing a hand up to wipe the access blood and the corner of your mouth. Your body had felt like it was buzzing with pure electricity.

It felt so much better.

“See.. that’s why you need to listen to me mama.”

You nodded in agreement. “Yeah I know.. thank you baby.”

He smiled at you. “De nada, mamá...now can you wrap this up for me so we can shower?” Gesturing to his neck.

You laugh a bit and smile. “Sí, vale.”

[GLOSSARY]

“Mama vamos... bebe el mío, no puedo dejarte así...” —“Mama, let’s go... drink mine, I can’t leave you like that...”

“No te lo estaba preguntando.” — “I wasn’t asking you.”

“. . . está bien..” — “. . . it’s fine..”

“¿Mejor?” — “Better?”

“De nada, mamá. . .” — “You’re welcome, mama. . .”

“Sí, vale.” — “Yeah, okay.”

ミ★

{TAGLIST} :: @armandosbabymama @ghettogirly @tinys0ftie @shurisgf @radioloom @butterflyybabe @dyttomori @nuggetnat888 @yeahnobyehoney @urbanlovestory || if you’d like to be added to the taglist just let me know in comments or dms🤗💕.

ミ★

©2024 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED — MILLIUMIZOOMI. Do not modify, repost, plagiarize, translate or claim any work posted on this blog without my permission.

[accio-victuuri]

all the cpn : xiao zhan’s 33rd bday 🫶🏼

this could be part one of many, who knows. but i’m starting with this compilation post to keep track and enjoy the sweets. it’s the weekend and some people may be celebrating gege’s bday offline so people have a hard time looking at cpns. plus we got content too!

again, happy happy birthday to xiao laoshi 🎂🎈 this post is for fun only & not meant to take away from the celebration of xz’s life. feel free to scroll along if this is not your thing.

now let’s dive into the candies!

1. in the video post and greeting sent out by xz studio, there is a word/phrase their that they used explore new spaces which is kinda like exploring the unknown. this is not the first time this was cued and why it’s sus to us. well i just hope they get to explore new places together next time! there is also a whole conversation on how the “letter”/greeting for xz has some bits to it that is similar to wyb’s bday letter — but i’m not even gonna go there. 😂😂😂

i think it’s just gonna be one of those mysteries and if you believe it then you do, if you don’t - you don’t.

2. the post he made on his own account, people have pointed out that the format is similar to the well wishes sent out by lrlg. it’s so xz of him to also wish people well on his own bday!

3. and in his caption is 我们 ( wo men ) us/we is written. we also see that in his bday post when yibo was included. oh! how we have missed the times that they could freely greet each other!

4. having their backs facing us for their bday post by their own studios.

5. I think we will see the true details of this photo once we get more content from this shoot. but this is interesting.

who could it be? 👀👀👀

is it a self portrait or is he drawing someone else?

6. The big “paper plane” on the right. 🛫 it’s a recurring symbol between them and it’s nice to see a huge version of it here.

7. How yibo-official’s usual post for exploring the unknown was usually shared at 10:00 for the past few weeks. but today it was delayed to 10:30, probably giving way to GG’s bday timeslot of 10:05 and a bit after that. I always believe that they give way to each other.

and also how the photos shared by xzs was staggered. they have no problems sharing 18 in one go but for some reason they released 9 and then another 9 after. it has to be 18 = yibo.

8. not really cpn, but how something bjyx related trended on both of their birthdays. just goes to show how relevant and active the fandom is. whether it’s a good or bad thing is up for anyone’s interpretation. those who hate us and what we stand for as cpfs will continue to hate on us so whatever 🤷🏻‍♀️

just enjoy all the content the boys gives us and clown among ourselves.

9. THIS EDIT. and how the two look like they could have been two related videos! the streamers as decoration and the messy setup.

END.

that’s all for now, more to scream about later. hopefully. anyway, i hope everyone has a good day!

[wonysugar]

self indulgent drabble because 1. writer’s block is truly eating my ass and 2. i just got struck with an idea as i heard an audio and i need to get it out of my system before i lose my motivation.. AND WHAT BETTER WAY TO DO THAT THAN WITH BELLEEE?!?

cw!! cheating(??) just to be safe, fem!reader is dating someone that’s amab! mentions of threesomes, lots, lots of dick mentions and dick sucking, if you don’t like dick at all this isn’t for you i’m really sorry</3

psst, by the way, p/n stands for partner name!

you and your partner have an amazing relationship, and an even better sex life, that much was obvious. although you both were content, you couldn’t help but feel the desire to improve your technique in certain.. aspects, of your love-making, mainly in terms of oral sex.

google was definitely not helping, and you were a bit too embarrassed to go and ask your significant other on feedback after having sex with them (despite how normal that actually is, contrary to popular belief.)

so, naturally, receiving your friend annabelle in your apartment a few days after having scheduled a, in her wise words, ‘important meeting’ wasn’t at all a surprise for you, especially since you made sure that p/n wasn’t at home at that time.

“hii!” belle stepped foot into your home as soon as you opened the door, immediately giving you a warm hug, thankful you even called her in here in the first place.

after politely offering her a cup of water and a bowl of snacks as thanks, she quickly got to work.

“alright, you were too nervous to explain it through text, so go ahead. what are the specifics here?” she asked, comically very serious about this whole thing.

you sighed, feeling the embarrassment leaving with each breath you exhaled, “it’s just— i think i have a problem when it comes to… you know.. my gag reflex, and all.”

“ah, i see..” she hummed, “‘problem’ is definitely a strong word though, no? oral sex isn’t a requirement, you know that better than anyone else, considering you’ve been with your partner for a while with no issues. i’m assuming you just want to learn to get them more riled up, huh?”

you stared, almost innocently, then nodded at the words.

“have you ever sucked dick before?” she continued, speaking as if this were a real professional appointment.

she chuckled upon seeing you reluctantly shake your head, “don’t worry sweetheart, by the time that we’re done, you’ll be able to take cock better than any porn star has.”

reaching for her large, seemingly filled-up backpack you had noticed her holding whilst walking in before digging into it. after a few seconds of anticipation, you saw your friend pull out a medium sized dildo, a slightly longer one and a much larger and more girthy than the previous ones.

“y-you brought stuff!?”

noticing how your blood rushed to your now fully covered face, she giggled, “of course i brought stuff y/n, i don’t think you realize how serious i’m actually taking this.” proceeding to pull out one more interesting looking item, “come on, you asked me for help, right? no need to get embarrassed now, girl.”

so you listened, and watched as she finished up preparing the materials, placing them in a line.

“alright, listen up.” she zipped the bag closed, threw it somewhere on the couch you two were sat on and sat up straight, motioning for you to do the same, and pointed to the first thing, “this is throat relaxant spray, like the name suggests, it relaxes your throat and your gag reflex, making it easier. now, i don’t really use it considering my gag reflex is practically non-existent,” you nodded at her words, your eyes fixed on said spray.

“but i did bring it thinking you’d maybe wanna start off slow just to be safe? maybe get used to the feeling of it in your mouth before going in raw and everything, but it’s honestly all up to you and what you wanna do.”

several minutes of her overexplaining the reasoning behind bringing each sanitized and differently sized dildo later, you eventually chose the format you found most similar to your partner’s and decided to opt out of the relaxant spray, much to annabelle’s pleasant surprise.

it didn’t take long before she stuck the phallic object to your wall and instructed you to suck on it the same way you would any other day. “don’t be nervous, i’m here to help.” she said, and that was somehow enough to put you at ease.

you began to do what you were told, fully aware that her attention was set on you, and you only. your lips wrapped around the head, you sucked and left gentle kisses whilst she watched you work your magic on the dildo. you heard occasional hums from beside you as you kept your mouth around the same area of the dick.

“you’re doing good, but, aren’t you spending a little bit too much time on the head?” she placed, making you pull away from the object before you, “i know you’ll gag, but try to give some attention to the entirety of the dick. here, let me show you.”

she scooted towards you, and you simply stared at her, “oh— we’re using the same.. dildo?”

“..yeah? it’s just a little spit.” her lips formed a smirk, “just watch me, okay?”

you nodded and sat there, watching her demonstrate her blowjob technique and feeling yourself get… weirdly turned on by the sight, instead of feeling ‘taught’, in a sense. the way she slowly worked her way up from kissing and licking the head to fitting the entire shaft into her mouth, almost effortlessly, got you thinking about how she’d give your partner head, guiding you on how to pleasure them further than you usually do— alright let’s not get ridiculous, you internally scolded yourself, leave the dirty fantasies for later, when you aren’t trying to learn from her.

“see how i did that? you can’t just focus on the head forever, that’s why i like to slightly pump the shaft with my hand whenever i’m not throating.”

“honestly just sounds like you’re just trying to brag, at this point.” you joked, faking an annoyed expression. that earned a laugh from her.

then, after a constant cycle that consisted of her explaining things and you doing them, annabelle had taken the dildo off of the wall whilst wearing a mischievous expression on her face. “now, let’s kick things up a notch; get on your knees.”

your eyebrows furrowed and eyes widened ever so slightly at her words, you stuttered, “excuse… excuse me?—“

“i said, get on your knees.”

and despite getting no further explanations, you still, for some unknown reason, did exactly as you were told. now sitting on the ground facing the sofa, you waited for further instructions.

“you need to get immersed.” she paused, then held up the dildo, “so, i’ll hold it for you and thrust it into your mouth while you suck it, alright? i won’t go fast or anything, so don’t worry about that.”

and of course, you obliged.

upon her signal, you immediately applied everything that she’s been teaching you throughout this entire session onto your technique, fueled by her occasional praise.

“remember to use your tongue, y/n.” she reminded, thrusting the cock in and out of your mouth, slowly, watching you as if she could feel it.

“suck the tip and—“ you bobbed your head down onto the shaft, taking in as much length as you could without gagging. “—work your way down, that’s it baby, slowly.”

oh man, that pet name definitely elicited a reaction from you that you did not expect; you felt butterflies in your stomach, almost certain that a pool was growing in between your legs.

she definitely noticed it, too. how could she miss it when you’re looking up at her like she was the one you were sucking off?

“awe, you’re getting excited, aren’t you?” she bit her lip as she tucked your hair behind your ear, “such an eager girl, suck on it baby.”

she let out quiet, airy moans as you worked your magic, in hopes to get you more and more immersed, and while it did, it also did nothing but get you riled up to a great extent. hell, you were practically drooling onto her— the cock at that point. “look at you, not even a few hours in and you’re already doing so good. mmh, you look so pretty taking it, too.”

that went on for a while, and what she didn’t tell you was that that dildo in particular, was an ejaculating one, you found that out by yourself later on.

needless to say, you felt especially different when you eventually walked her out of your apartment an hour later, and she couldn’t help but notice how still visibly embarrassed you were from that weirdly intimate interaction, but she found it amusing, endearing, almost.

“next time, you’ll invite p/n to tag along, won’t you?”

[legal-poppy]

how to study in (and survive) law school, from a 2L who almost failed both 1L semesters

you may be asking, "why would i want study advice from someone who clearly doesn't know how to study?" but that's the point- i'm a first-gen law student. aside from my siblings, nobody in my extended family has even been in grad school since the late 90s. i didn't know how to study last year, and definitely didn't know how to study for law school classes and exams. i ended my 1L year with 3 Cs and was placed in a remedial course last semester for the bottom 25% of students. i worked, changed, and tried different study methods throughout the semester, to figure out what works best for me and the classes i was taking. and it showed--i got an A and 3 Bs and my GPA jumped from a 2.5 to almost 2.8.

#1- do not try to do anything else during class. no social media, no reading, no shopping, no games. seriously. pay attention to your prof, your classmates, and what you did and didn't understand correctly from the reading. make corrections, note additional questions, read and re-read the book and your notes to make sure you can follow along with any questions or hypos.

#2- nothing is optional. do all of the extra readings, practice problems, and hypos. go to your prof for feedback on what you did well, what you didn't understand or apply correctly, and what you can do to write a better answer next time.

#3- go to your prof's office hours or ask questions after class. in high school and college i was told to never bug a teacher outside of class and never, ever go to their office hours. but law profs love when students ask questions and seek help. it doesn't have to be some profound theoretical question- my business law prof learned my name just from asking her about stories and problems my family had with businesses/services recently. my evidence prof learned my name because i kept asking her evidentiary questions about crime shows i was watching. in addition to the typical questions about a subject i was confused on or misunderstood, those fun questions helped me better understand and apply both the law and practical effect of the law to questions on the exam.

#4- start your outlines early and ask your prof for feedback. this was my biggest problem last year because i was paralyzed just figuring out how to format and organize my outlines. instead of going for pretty or aesthetic or perfectly detailed, just start writing. make a mess, write everywhere, scribble and erase and tape things together if you have to. it will still help you relearn and cement your understanding of those subjects. ask your prof if they would prefer to email your outline to look over ahead of time or just pop in for their office hours, and ask them if you got anything wrong, if you're too focused on the wrong details, or if there's anything you won't need to know for the exam. they won't judge if your outline is a mess, it just shows that you're trying and really want to get better.

when i studied for my evidence exam (my A last semester), i had so much trouble with my word doc that a week before the exam i just took my reading notes, my class notes, and my casebook, and spent days filling out an entire whiteboard with every bit of info on a rule. i ended up with 14 photos of that whiteboard completely covered with rules, advisory opinions, cases, and hypos. rather than wasting more time to type all of that up and send it to my prof, i sent her those photos. she knew i was struggling to stay organized on my traditional outline and saw how much better i was able to conceptualize the whole class without touching microsoft. i apologized for my horrible handwriting but all she did was send back notes on every single photo- what i had wrong, what i didn't need to know, and what i needed more detail/clarity on. no judgment for the incorrect parts or my handwriting or that i used a whiteboard, because it worked!

#5- revise your notes after every class. i didn't literally have time right after class, but every day when i went home i tried to revise my notes before i forgot what happened in class. i wasn't successful every single day and often spent a few hours on the weekend rewatching lectures and trying to remember details, but it was more effective than waiting until november to even start revising and outlining.

#6- don't follow the crowd. a lot of "gunners" and people with superiority complexes will tell you to follow their perfect notetaking format, study method, class structure, or reading style. and it might work great for them (or they're probably lying about how amazingly smart they are to look better than everyone else and make you feel worse about yourself), but they're very clearly a different person than you are because i hope you aren't trying to subtly wage psychological warfare on your stressed classmates. if you need a place to start, try to utilize those resources, but you can and should make adjustments if it isn't working for you. take a different class, join a different study group, use a different study supplement, do whatever is most helpful for you, and ignore anyone who suggests you're going to fail if you don't follow their instructions.

#7- don't listen to the noise. there's always someone with their superiority complex and intro-level psychology class and jedi mind tricks or whatever. they want to brag about how smart they are, what amazing grades they got, how easy the exam was that everyone else cried during, and that they got the best internship opportunity because of all of that. odds are, they're (1) lying and (2) exaggerating. they're probably struggling and stressing and crying just as much as you. or they're just not self-aware. you're never going to escape them too, unfortunately. but don't fall for their trap. don't study with them, don't sit by them, don't ask them for help unless you have exhausted every other person and resource in the building, take everything they say with a grain of salt and throw it over your shoulder to keep the demons away.

the other noise to avoid is the worriers who want to vent to everyone about how stressed, stupid, worried they are about the class or exam. and this isn't to say that you can't vent to your friends about it--that's your safety blanket people who will feel your stress and try to help you manage it. but if you see that person that you barely know and don't really talk to and they want to randomly start venting like that, take a step back. leave if you can, and if not, try to keep your head. don't stress because they're stressing, don't start second-guessing yourself, and don't share your own feelings of stress with them because they just want to see how miserable other people are so they can feel like they're doing better than you. if you're one of those people that everyone wants to vent to, do not do that for every person or repeat offenders who only seem to talk to you about their stress. take them to the dean, academic support staff, or on-campus counseling staff if they really need someone to talk to and help them. it's not your job to mother-duck your classmates so don't let them distract you from what you're there to do.

i had a classmate who caused drama with anyone who so much as looked at him the wrong way. accused people of cheating, violating the honor code, sleeping around for study help and good grades, or just being generally stupid. he wanted to seem so much smarter and better than those people (out of the 2 people i know who suffered his bullying, one was because she took too long to respond to his text and the other asked him too many questions about materials from a class). he just wouldn't shut up about how he was going to do way better than them and they were going to fail and drop out because they have no other career opportunities (pretty accurate paraphrase too). but to nobody's surprise, he ended that semester with a D, C and 2 Bs. no judgment to him for his grades because clearly i'm not much better, but very much judging for his attitude. people like him caused me to lose 20 lbs and half of my hair between April-September 2024 because i was so stressed about what he would think if he knew my grades or saw me in our remedial course, which he took in an earlier semester but also referred to as "the stupid class" full of students who couldn't care less about their futures. don't be like me, don't listen to anybody's judgment--focus on yourself and doing the best you can.

#8-the moment you start to feel anxious or panicked or spiraling down the drain, shut it down. talk to your professor, advisor, academic support center, dean of students, school counseling center, or even a friend--anyone that you know has your best interest at heart and will do what they can to help you. tell them that you're overwhelmed and stuck on something. law school staff, especially professors, do not judge students who reach this point. i almost cried in a prof's office because i was so worried about our mock court debate with actual lawyers and judges serving as our judges. my prof didn't judge or scold me for being so emotional at law school, she asked me why i was so worried and told me something she hadn't told the whole class: none of our mock judges actually knew anything about our assignment or the case law. they had no idea if we were misstating something or even found the right cases, they were only judging our presentation and advocacy. another professor, took me off of the cold-call list for an entire unit when i told her i was having a hard time reading the cases and didn't think i would be able to answer questions in class about them because of the personal experience i had with that topic. if you don't think a prof will listen to you or it's something more serious like accommodations or certain behaviors, you can talk to higher-ups like the dean/student services office/accommodations office for better help. those resources exist to help, so use them and don't feel bad for doing so.

#9- seek opportunities even if you don't meet the requirements. i got an interview with a federal office as a 1L, with my mediocre grades, because i applied. i didn't think they would be interested in me because i have no lawyer family members and am not the smartest candidate at our school, but i was one of 10 (TEN!!) 1L interviewees and ultimately got that (paid) internship last summer. they never even asked about my grades, but i did use it during my interview to show how hard i was working to do better and actually put in the work to do that. ignore the firms that say they only want the top 50% or 30% and apply if that's what you're interested in. if they don't want you because you don't have the grades they want, it's a sign that they're also not going to be accommodating when the bar exam comes, and you maybe didn't pass the first time, and they decide to fire you rather than hire you as a first-year associate after 6 more months of studying for the next bar date.

#10- take breaks every day and every week. personally, i take 30 minutes after back-to-back classes before i start studying, i stop studying at 6pm on the weekends unless i have a serious deadline, and i try to go out at least once a month with a non-lawyer friend to touch grass with the regular world and bring myself back into perspective. having law-school goggles on all the time throws everything out of whack. mountains and molehills and all of that. talk to regular people, let them slap you back into shape to see the whole puzzle of what lies beyond law school. and don't forget that you are more than your brain. go outside, take a walk, do some yoga, meditate, pet your goldfish. cry if you feel it and stress if it's stressful, but it's not the end of the world--no matter what happens.

good luck on the new semester, whether you've already been back for a while or are starting soon. be proud of yourself no matter what your grades look like when you get them. pause, evaluate, and set a plan to do better this semester.