#thats not even a joke we're struggling out here

[afc-agitprop]

I've done the math, and if I keep saving up and have no financial emergencies, I will be able to afford ONE year of uni in about 10 years😭😭😭😭😭😭

[ratatatastic]

no im still on maffhew calling the forsymaffhew lovechild a missile

[oxo3xx0]

PART TWO

Okay I lowkey hate this but I'll keep updating it until I finish the show and can come up with a better storyline🙏

Its been a little while since you last met gojo and medumi, during that time you'd moved into the jujutsu high dorms after being forcefully evicted (literally thrown out by your landlord) and secured a position as yuji itadoris mentor. You see, the real reason gojo had wanted you to come back to the school was so that you could help to train and manage Sukunas vessel, when you were first told the news you actually laughed in gojos face, there was really no way sukuna was living inside a 16 year old boy right?

"Just this way" gojo said, smiling as he led you down a set of stairs and into a basement. "You see a while ago sukuna ripped out yujis heart, but he later repaired it" your eyes widen a little at this news, sukuna saved someone? That's actually laughable "your joking right? Why would sukuna ever help anyone but himself?" Your question was rhetorical obviously but gojo replied nonetheless. "Because he needs a vessel now, if he wanted to he could've let yuji die and just waited for someone else to eat one of his fingers." "He ate his fin-" your words were cut off as you reach the bottom of the stairs and gojo slams open the door to the basement. "We're back!" He says with a smile as he beckons yuji to step forward to meet you, however the only thing he's greeted with is your Face that was contorted into absolute disgust. "No way you ate someone's mumified finger.." were your first words to him as he stared at you with wide unblinking eyes.

After that unfortunate first impression gojo introduced you and explained why yuji was hidden down here in the fist place. "So the people in charge want him dead? Thats messed up" you said with crossed arms as you sat on the couch next to gojo and yuji, some weird old movie playing in the background. "Indeed, thats why I need you to look after him for me, not only dose he need help controlling sukuna but he's being targeted too" gojo explains with a stern expression, the tension in the air was thick as you processed the gravity of this situation, however yuji was still struggling to understand. "Gojo who is this weird lady? How's she gonna help with sukuna??" he whispers to gojo as he covers his mouth to prevent you from hearing, however it didn't really change anything as he was basically still talking at a normal volume. "[Name] is a jujutsu sorcerer, well kind of, she's technically still a student since she never finished her training" gojo 'whispers' back to yuji.

You cleared your throat as you turned to look at them with an unimpressed expression before sighing and explaining why gojo wanted you specifically to help him. "My cursed technique, its called spiritual control, you see these tattoos? They were made from the ashes of a cursed spirit, and with my technique I can manipulate them" you explain briefly as you point to your serpentine body art and a look of shock graces yujis face "so.. your a vessel to??" He asks with impossibly wide eyes before smiling widley and grasping your hands "thank you so much for coming to help me! I was starting to think people would only ever think of me as sukunas vessel! But if your also a vessel and a jujutsu sorcerer then it's not that bad right?" He asks hopefully, poor kid, I bet some people don't even think of him as a person anymore. Just sukunas host. "Hold on now yuji, don't forget the cursed spirit who lives inside you is he king of curses, despite being similar you two still have many differences" gojo says as yuji nods in understanding and let's go of your hands to cross them over his chest "I guess I'll just have to work harder then! To become a sorcerer and to let people know they can trust me." Your heart clenches at the sentiment, this poor kid still thinks he'll live long enough to become a sorcerer. Just the thought of his kind mentality being crushed by the countless perils he will endure is enough to make you feel ill. But he doesn't need to worry, your here now, and your here to stay.

After your first meeting with itadori you were informed of the sisters school event which would be happening soon, and that you wouldn't be directly introduced to the other students until the day it began. Well that was the plan anyway, you were walking up to your sleeping quarters when that same boy from when you first saw gojo stepped inront of you. "Its you, why are you here?" He asks with a stern expression, he doesn't seem too pleased to have you living near him.

Thank you for reading

[drdemonprince]

hey, i love your blog & your advice & wanted to seek some of my own if thats okay. i made a friend recently who i think is great - we've been through very similar mental health struggles and we're both autistic and i've had many a time where he's told me really compassionate and helpful things, and he's very accepting of my struggles & seeks me out to hajg out, which a lot of people don't do - but i just can't shake the feeling that he's subtley making fun of me or insulting me? he definitely has a sense of humour prone to teasing, which i am very sensitive to, and i've expressed this to him... but it's just like, these little things, like when he wanted me to come to something with him but i have plans, he'll say something like 'dissapointed you didn't come with me...' or 'well if you were COOL you would have come with me' and it makes me very upset? like i said i've brought it up to him multiple times, but it seems like it's just his sense of humour, but it's beginning to seriously weigh on me. he's said he wants to do better by me and asked me what the line is but i feel like i don't know, sometimes our running jokes about me being a bottom are funny and then they suddenly get too much, and it feels like i'm reacting to the lightest comment (like when he comments that i'm late to things a lot or asks me if im going to be late) sometimes, i don't know how to express what i'm actually getting upset at. do you think there's anything i can do to make this situation better? i really don't want to lose him as a friend, and i want to work on my sensitivity, i just don't know if this is something i can work through

This is tough, but you're doing the important work of communicating about it. I'm a lot like your friend sometimes -- I notice patterns in how people cancel or turn up late to things, and then will state directly that I've observed it, or make predictions based on that pattern, which hurts people's feelings even when I mean it in a completely neutral or even affectionate way. Sometimes when intimacy between me and another person builds, I want to show that closeness by kind of play-fighting with them or making little sarcastic jokes or remarks, which can be wonderfullll when the energy is met, but it can also misfire and really hurt people. I'm putting this out there so that you and any one else reading can feel free to ask about this perspective. For me, it's not intended to be cruel, it's intended to show that I know and accept someone as they are, and find their traits endearing, and I LOVE when people playfully rib me too. it may also be an outgrowth of PDA and attachment trauma -- a way I can feel safe with getting closer is by pretending to keep a distance.

That said, I also HATE when someone guilts me for not being available for something, not wanting to do something, or not showing up. Again, it's the PDA there. I would really really hate someone giving me shit for not going to an event with them, as your friend did, I find that stuff incredibly manipulative and unpleasant, and I personally would be very bothered by those remarks too. So I can understand, I think, both sides of things here!

My question for you would be how your friend responds when you tell him that his remarks have hurt your feelings. I think there is room for a middleground in such matters -- he should work on calibrating his barbed remarks, and you can remember the goodness of the friendship and temper your reactions to some things sometimes, but he HAS to view your concerns as legitimate and be willing to apologize first. Does he freak out and self-victimize or blow things out of proportion when you speak up? Has he stopped making any specific kinds of remarks because you asked? Have you asked? Are you comfortable telling him that something bothers you, even when you can't fully explain why?

I think that if this friendship is going to negotiate both your approaches, it will be done in the gray areas. Sometimes you'll feel triggered by a relatively benign remark, and that deserves talking about! Sometimes he'll say something in completely the wrong way, and he'll need to apologize, and that should be talked about too! It's never inappropriate for you to bring up your feelings, even if you can't give him perfect guidelines as to what he should say or not say. And he should have some leeway to express his care for you in his own way, to an extent, too -- this doesn't mean you should let him do things that hurt you, more that you should try to operate with the base assumption that anything he says comes from his position as your friend who cares about you. That's IF he has actually consistently shown he cares about you and your feelings. If he hasn't, that's another matter.

I hope that makes sense! tldr; keep talking about it. Keep sharing how you feel. Listen to him and watch his patterns of behavior, and if he shows consistently that he does care about your feelings, then you can let that trust help you to process and temper some of your hurt when he accidentally hits your insecurities sometimes.

[smorbee]

iBook Pyramid Behind the scenes!

This is a long one. Also keep in mind we made this a year ago so were going completely off of memory at this point BUT we do have the files. Unfortunately we didn't save specific versions of it really early into its creation so all the blender files close to being finished.

We have an intense appreciation for funky old computers. People correctly identified inspiration from the Thinkpad 701C. Less obvious in the final design but something that almost certainly influenced us as well was the 12-inch powerbook g4.

There is something very satisfying about nearly-square shaped laptops.

Others mentioned the JVC 3100R pyramid TV which, you'll be surprised to learn, we had never actually seen until after working on this project. The resemblance is uncanny and yet, entirely coincidental. Honestly if we had seen this thing, it probably would have had an effect on our design because the way that hinge is set up is beautiful. Our thought process was simply just comically emulating the form factor of a modern laptop but with a giant CRT.

We're pretty sure the idea started out as simply wanting to design a full profile keyboard into a macbook-like laptop because funny, and at some point the butterfly keyboard came to mind and we said Screw it and implemented that into it as well. Heres the keyboard separated into the different sections.

Sorry to say that the keyboard does not actually contain any switches. (You'll see that this computer was modeled to be viewed a limited angle)

Heres the keyboard from the top.

Once we got going with it, the whole thing was turned into a big joke of course, clashing many different eras of technology into one. Such as this massive beige tank of a "laptop" having a single USB C port as its main I/O.

And same with the software. This is the texture for the display, Which was taken from our real (unfortunately not crt based) macbook setup at the time. Except not quite, as the original screenshot was 16:10. We simply edited the image to make it 4:3. This is running mac os 12 with a majority of the icons changed to early osx equivalents.

We'll be real and admit the animation is not very intricate, theres no real "rig" for the model, parts are just parented together because we did all this in about 2 days. That said, we had loads of fun animating it still, trying to imitate the motion of someone struggling to lift the heavy top up before it swings open with an inaudible, but easily imaginable "Thud". Making the whole body shake and the trackball jump slightly was the finishing touch to make it complete.

The wire for the trackball was made using a circle with the screw modifier and then applied to a curve. Here's what it looks like with each modifier applied sequentially.

And then making the trackball itself a handle for the curve, we can have the cable be dynamic. (Yes, we notice that the trackball in fact has no mouse buttons. No good explanation for that, I think we just forgot lmao.)

For the screen, we make use of a location transform on the UV mapping for the satisfying detail of the screen distorting from the impact, which we swear we've seen before but no matter how hard we (safely) bumped our CRT monitor we weren't able to recreate it. Nonetheless even if its not entirely realistic we wouldn't remove it for anything.

speaking of which, an utterly useless detail considering the resolution and distortion of the final renders and yet we added anyways just for our own amusement is that the display has a shadowmask, simply done by just multiplying it over the base screen texture.

Combined with a glass material over the inner part of the screen, it utterly destroys low sample count renders of the screen and makes the project at least 3x as prone to crashing so thats cool! (it crashed on us while we were writing this section)

We've learned since in future projects that trying to optimize polygon count and materials is still very important even for offline rendered content. We can never be truly free from the constraints of memory limitations 😔

the final step was getting a more authentic less "polished" look in the compositing. This step can get very complicated based on the specific look were going for, but for this render its really just basic color correction and some blurring and sharpening steps. We used the default fake jitter node in blender at the time, though in more recent stuff we use the non-denoised image with filters applied to it instead, so its less uniform between images and more uniquely degraded looking.

Though we'd do a number of things differently now were still pleased with the final result. especially in animated form.

Heres an overview of the scene:

This is the bezeled apple logo in polygon form. Its simply an alpha texture with a normal map:

Thats all for now! Thank you for reading!

[fictionfixations]

going through 2.5

2.5 STORY SPOILERS

trigger warning later of minor character death. shown off screen but is described in a way that could sound horrible to the faint of heart

WHAT

i know i joked in my previous post when going through 2.4 that it sounded like the start of a fanfiction but im genuinely disgusted by this ew i was really fucking tempted to just write a fic where jiaoqiu beats his ass (even though i know hoolay is way more powerful then him) but also 2.5 already came out so i gotta get through the story before i get spoiled

the smart choice would be to do 2. but also fuck you hoolay im doing 1. HHH jiaoqiu's voice sounds so like. stressed. like trying to have composure but you can tell hes struggling a little.

also im sorry but hoolays human form looks so fucking ugly (okay maybe im biased but also FUCK YOU HOOLAY) idk ppl might still simp for him but also fuck you im on jiaoqius side >:(

STOPPP USING THE WORD ALPHA like ive heard it so many times in media im DONE i cant hear it the same 😭

"💀 " "None Can Hurt Me" UHHMSOFJFO i sure hope nothing happens to you buddy but

BURN BABY BURN

what the fuck im scared

wait but so i CAN go try to get help? IM SCARED WHAT HAPPENS. uh. uh. uh. FUCK YOU HOOLAY IM DOING IT

wait if i do this will he die. like the the the npc?!?!??!?! GUYSS

AHAHa.. AHgahah.... im. so fucing nervous

im. ohhhh fuck literal chills. im. should i look at what other options i can do to escape or. im so fucking stressed holy shit. logically speaking if jiaoqiu leaves and the ship gets sabotaged or whatever he could die (both him and npc). if he asks him to send a message then the npc will die. guys i hate this what the fuck

I HATE THAT ITS RED TEXT. okay with acheron it was a little startling but we never got like a warning that OUR ACTIONS have CONSEQUENCES. im so fucking scared

me too man. me too. idont want jiaoqiu to die thoguh what if what we choose changes whether or not he dies in canon im

okay ive talked to everyone. and the warning text for everyone is

the skarskiff(?) guy is just an ordinary person the realm keeping person is not prepared for this kind of emergency and that the cloud knight doesnt have backup (has the same choice options as the realm keeping person of borisin are here and introducing ourself)

also that we're being watched. who the fuck

okay the best option would be to cloud knight. but also is it a good idea? no. but. hiusgh. oh my god i hate this.

IM GOING TO BITE THE BULLET. i dont trust that this will end well for me but the logical option even if i get fucked later is to alert someone. a cloud knight knows what risks and responsibilities they're taking on by becoming one and if they die well fuck man but i REFUSE to just not do anything because that'd be like. playing into hoolays hands which 1. i hate him. 2. as a person who very much values my independence I NEED OUT OF THIS SITUATION

and maybe its what hoolay wants, for us to fail his 'test' but whatever. IM REBELLIOUS. (and probably really dumb)

cant wait to see how this affects story in the future. and also seeing how different choices affect things when i watch other people do this. haha. but predicting that they might not talk to anyone out of fear IM going to talk to someone

uhh im going to introduce myself first. its like how you're meant to share your address first in emergencies or something i think maybe? because if the call cuts out then they can find you quickly (i think your phone can be tracked but it takes awhile its not that easy i think?)

okay i did it. wheres the guy who was watching me i cant remember where he was. is he gone? did he disappear? i acnt tell im so fuckings tressed

nothing happened but. but the cloud knights gone now (presumably to spread the news)

i. do i tell other people ? do i. im. okay im

i only talked to the cloud knight. and then im going to do what hoolay asked. thats it. im not brave or reckless enough to tell eVEryone

HIS VOICE IS TREMBLING for the 100th time i hate this

GUH

I FORGOT THEY HAVE OFFICIAL IDENTITIES PRETENDING TO BE--

oh fuck MY DUMBASS

his voice... AGHH JIAOQIUUU

GO FUCK YOURSELF YOURE NOT THE BOSS OF ME

i knew it. i fucking knew it. IM JUSTIFYING IT TO MYSELF BECAUSE CLOUD KNIGHT YOU BECOME IT KNOWING YOU COULD DIE OKAY. id rather have tried to escape then not at all and prove his racist belief 'right'. okay i know im probably in the wrong because they couldve lived if i didnt do anything and i had a hunch that they wouldve died if i asked for help. but. okay at my core i am selfish. and for all i knew there was a teeny tiny chance that it couldve succeeded

and listen. im quoting twisted wonderland now.

"Zero is zero no matter what you multiply it by, right? But if you take some form of action, that zero could potentially become 0.001. And 0.001 has a chance of becoming 100. In which case, there's no reason NOT to do it." (Book 6 - Chapter 48 • A Sequel Cut Short)

i hate these kinds of mind games.

hoolay fucking yapping and i know we're in a tough situation meant to demonstrate how jiaoqiu's kind of powerless but hoolays just talking about how jiaoqiu will eventually crumble and im just. yeah okay big talk. and like i get that hoolay does have connections still and ppl pretending to be foxians keeping a close eye on everything and genuinely wont hesitate to kill someone but okay i just hate him

god he sounds like one of those people who are like. when you refuse their advances and they go 'oh so youre playing hard to get huh?' and keep going with the belief that we definitely want them or some shit💀

i should pretend. but no i cant. thats not the kind of person i am.

oh shit. yeah okay remind me that maybe this could potentially lead to jiaoqiu dying in canon. i mean. its happened in npc stories before right? like that one person in penacony who we could choose to stop her from falling or let her fall

but fucking OW. hoolay talking doesnt terrify me. and maybe thats why im choosing all the dumb options. but ow.

does he have this pose if we pretend to show weakness? i mean maybe its cause we got hurt and hes exaggerating it and showing weakness then. or maybe it actually hurts like a bitch and he cant help but show reaction.

OMG MOZE

okay actually other idea of jiaoqius plan. contacting someone for help and deliberately being caught so its not suspicious if we go along with his demands too easily (but having another plan to get help thats more secret)

like okay i know it was my choice to try to get help and fucking it up but still canon-like right. although i doubt he'd be okay sacrificing an innocent life so um oops

AHHH FUCKING LITERAL CHILLS. we got jiaoqiu flashback where he was like a healer on the battlefield. i dont think im saying that right i forgot what theyre called. but like remember feixiao mentioning in 2.4 how jiaoqiu healed her, and later became her like main healer or something something i forget the wording

and then it goes black and we hear hoolays voice. i have a little hunch that it might be the thing to stop the lupitoxin's effects starting to fade, nad thus the toxin starting to affect him

hh his voice... :(

yeah okay so let us go

sorry did he just bite someone and they turned into a borisin or did it just get rid of the guys disguise

i wasnt paying attention to who it was. i know it wasnt mok tok (different appearance, also it showed jiaoqiu turning away to not see it and mok tok standing there while that was happening)

its genuinely so confusing trying to tell who is a foxian and whose a borisin cause disguises but i assume its an actual borisin who was disguised...

hes talking to moze but all i can hear is monke from ben's stream (aka moze's EN VA LMFAO)

OH IT WAS A NORMAL FOXIAN

what if he does it on jiaoqiu but then they figure out how to turn jiaoqiu back to normal and learn how to cure feixiao. right? right??? probably not but im so stressed

HOLY SHIT JIAOQIU. he sounds so.. wrung out. exhausted.

acting is fucking 10/10 he sounds kind of unhinged but in the slow still exhausted but with emphasis on some of the words?? like. like he still has fight in him. i dont know how to explain this but its really cool

oh shit does he die now

hooly fucking shit literal chills the text appearing on the black screen actually like communicating in a way to us and helping us get an idea of whats going on

okay major manga spoilers for demon slayer. but here is my next prediction: he has poison in his blood that will affect the borisins if they drink it, like how shinobu kocho had like a shit ton of wisteria in her blood (it was also under her fingernails and shit like that, she put it EVERYWHERE) so that when douma (who killed her sister) ate her he'd be poisoned and severely weakened

AM I RIGHT??

I. FUCKING. KNEW ITTTTTT

okay well it was pretty obvious because right before it mentioned the green peppers(?) thing and how to get a picky child to eat it, it re-mentioned that conversation. and then changed it how to get a wolf to something something i already forgot so it was obvious

but JIAOQIU LETS GOOOO i really hope you didnt die

no wait but shit

okay so i cant share any more images i hit the limit on tumblr but okay so if he consumed poison (ist tumbledust. i already forgor. was it like the thing thats like a sedative thats good in small quantities but lethal in large quantities? or was that like yabruh or something)

does that mean he'll die anyway or

i dont think jiaoqiu said it in front of hoolay but anyway im so unhappy that cutscenes lag for me (hoolay immediately clocks on that it was probably jiaoqiu who poisoned him but sdhfuf. this MEANS that hoolay drank JIAOQIUS BLOOD?!?!?!?!? is he DEAD??? )

also i HATE the hoolay fight im struggling so bad ahuisdhdisuad

YANQING LETS FUCKING GOOOOOO (boutta trigger hoolays jingliu trauma)

im sorry for accusing you of being a disguised borisin, sparkle traumatized me ok (and im sorry for pinching your cheeks in 2.4 being cautious of if you were a fake but also i didnt know that was what that option meant)

you were just acting really weird so i got stressed but LETS GOOOO

WHAT WE'RE FIGHTING HIM AGAIN????? YOURE FUCKING WITH ME

oh shit feixiao boss fight

heyy her character. trailer?? i think thats what it was called teased this. like cause she got drunk and couldnt recognize jing yuan and fought him (briefly)

YANQING FUCKING POPPED OFF THIS STORY

i (think) all thats left is feixiao boss fight that we saw in the livestream

some stuff. ill do wardance later. but im gonna end this post here. havent gotten to the end but i dont think ill have anything else to share and i dont have space here anyway so brr

OH FINALLY I CAN ACCESS DIFFICULTY MODES

AND YOU CAN CHOOSE THEM WHILE IN STORY OH THANK FUCK casual mode my precious

okay we figfhting preceptor oh

dan heng: the oath of the alliance doesnt matter to me because im not a part of the alliance anymore *attacks*

me using imbitior lunae dan heng in battle: uh. uh. uh. uhm. YEP

anyway jiaoqius alive (he almost died though)

he sounds so more subdued :(

HOLY SHIT HES BLIND? OH MY GOD thats both better and worse than i thought

OH MY GOD TINGYUN

i was so confused on ruan mei appearance but OH MY GOD

[discoidal]

hi this is one of your mutuals being shy. how did you get into publishing your works with lit magazines?? i dont even know where to begin or how to be organized and Professional

HIIII omg i am not organized or professional at all and dw u can always talk to me<33 esp mutuals omg we're like already friends! just in case u want to stay anon tho, ill get this as detailed as possible under the cut; sorry if it gets long or wordy

anyways so i got into publishing after following jasmine from candied/spit for a long time, and i've found it's mostly a game of knowing your work and finding the right publisher market for it.

there are sites that like collect magazines and presses for ease of submission; i got started with submission grinder, but the most effective and convenient right now is chillsubs.com ! chillsubs has a browse feature with a bunch of filters; u can use those filters to find magazines that are right for u, for example like looking for specifically poetry mags or looking for specific demographics

once you've found smth u want to submit ur work to, u go to their site and usually they have a submit page with instructions on what to submit and how to. there might be some terms that you're unfamiliar with at first; u can always google them or ask me for clarification. if you follow those conditions, you'll get a better chance at getting accepted by that mag obviously. a lot of mags will straight up not read your work if you don't follow the submission rules or whatever.

mostly, in my experience, the mags have you submit by submittable (a site that you sign up to), emails, or gforms. they may ask you for a cover letter, which doesn't need to be detailed or formal; i usually just do a hi im zoe heres my shit thanks for your time peace out. think like office emails or emails to yr teacher; some litmags want it more formal while others are v v lax

they may also ask you for a 3rd person bio; thats the stuff like "zoe adrien is a megahot swagapino" or whatever. usually people take that opportunity to list previous notable publications ot credentials, but esp when you're starting out that doesnt need to be the case! you can put socmed or your website if ever, describe yourself, or you can even just joke. some litmags want a more formal tone; others will literally accept the "zoe adrien is a megahot swagapino" one, so while you can do just a rote one, i usually like to customize it per submission.

sometimes litmags have a "reading fee" which is where YOU pay THEM to read YOUR work; this does not guarantee an acceptance, and i try to avoid paying when possible. some other litmags have an "expedition fee" where you can submit things for free and it might take months, but if you pay the fee your work gets read faster or gets read straight by the editor; again, does not guarantee acceptance, but can be a good way to support a struggling lit mag that you're passionate about or get a quicker acceptance or rejection.

a big term that i remember being confused by is simultaneous submissions. that's the way i usually work, and it's when you have work that you submit to a bunch of markets simultaneously. this makes it faster for you, the writer, since you don't have to wait for markets to get back to you before submitting; otherwise, you'll have to do that, and esp with rlly prestigious litmags (literature magazines) the wait time can be months to years. sometimes though the litmags dont accept simsubs; that means if you submit to them, u submit to only them and wait for their reply before submitting again. theyre dicks if they do this imo but u gotta do what u gotta do

anyways, back on track. once a market gets back to you with an acceptance, you can accept their acceptance (thereby entering into an agreement or contract with them, especially if there's payment involved— note that payment isnt always involved). they might want to do some editing, but usually you'll get the chance to approve or reject their edits before it goes live. typos are common and you can absolutely contact them abt GETTING THAT SHIT FIXED!! (im still listed as zoe adrian in one mag anyway)

if you simsubbed like detailed above, especially if they have an exclusivity clause in the agreement, you'll then have to withdraw your work from the submissions queue of all the other markets. this is to say that that specific work isn't available anymore, as you have found a market for it. if thru email or gform u can just do a quick email like "thx this has been accepted elsewhere thx for ur time" and theyre usually like congrats and thts it

acceptance to publication usually takes months. usually, in my experience, the contract with the litmag will tell you how many months you have to withhold the specific work you've published with them from being published again. for example, i published with foglifter press and agreed for them to have six months exclusivity. if another market agrees to publish it, you have to make sure it's after the six months or the exclusivity period you agreed to, just to make sure no contracts are broken.

you're allowed to publish work you've published before again, usually if they are the first publication mags will ask that you credit them as where that work first appeared . while you are allowed to republish, a lot of mags don't accept "previous publications" so you have to check for that.

a lot of lit mags are online-only nowadays, but i've got a fair few print publications; print pubs will usually send you an author's copy, though in some cases you might have to buy it yourself.

now that i think (?) i've detailed the process, ill tell u smth: u dont need to be professional if u dont want to be! theres prestigious litmags, sure, and they should be paying better, but if you're content with small mags a lot of them are no fucks given. if you go off anon i could help you find some chill mags to start with; im very fortunate to have published with some cool people.

some small mags are my absolute favorites. being smaller, they sometimes only pay nominal author fees to you, or often they cant pay at all, but they can take more risks bc of that. their audiences, while smaller, might be more vocal and supportive. gotta shoutout my absolute fav indie mag, bodyfluids lit; they pay YOU 1 euro per submission and theyre my fav to work with, communication is so quick and easy, and i find almost all the work they publish to be right up my alley

if you can afford to be picky, i would say try to submit your work to magazines you yourself want to or love to read. ive gotten pieces published for relatively a lot of money but felt no joy in it beyond that money; meanwhile, getting published in wrong publishing and bodyfluids brought me so much joy and community. if writing was my main source of income or even a source i was reliant on, i'd have to be working harder for less joy, i feel

a thing i have to say when encouraging people to submit: you're going to get rejected. like a lotttt. it's not about you or the quality of your work, even, it's just that markets have specific tastes or themes and they have limited slots and maybe you mentioned bacon and the editor's hungry right now so they hate you for it and so they throw you in the reject pile. it happens.

publishing for me has been a game of so much luck and wild persistence and, im sorry to say it, thick skin. it hurt a lot when i first started, so much so that i stopped submitting for like 6 months after i got my first few rejections. you gotta keep trucking friens!!!

also im talking like i know sooo much i have like. 11 publications counting one that isnt even available anymore bc the litmag went down lmao i am a little baby! and i am unfortunately so lazy with submitting sometimes like i havent sat down and submitted to a bunch of places in like. 6 months. so yeah i dont know that much el oh el

omfg this is so long but i hope this wasnt overwhelming; theres so much more i want to say abt like readings and submission calls and themes and categories and shit. dont be overwhelmed tho, its usually a pretty streamlined process. again, it's a long game, but it's worth it to me :)) ask me anything any time! and i am SOOOO excited for you!!

[liverpool-enjoyer]

footballers as taylor swift songs

requested by my swiftie in Christ @yudgefudge!! thank you luv <3

leo: you're on your own, kid. ive been associating him w this song way before i knew that everyone else was doing the same lmao. it rlly does encompass his entire journey, from humble beginnings n jus being a little kid playing for fun (from sprinkler splashes/to fireplace ashes), to being the best in the world n all the struggles that come with it (i search the party.../just to learn that my dreams arent rare). the man gave his blood sweat n tears like hed be saved by a the "perfect kiss" which here is a metaphor for the wc obviously. n ohmygosh "everything you lose is a step you take"!!!! BRUH???!?!?! every line, from "i didnt chose this town (ie paris)/i dream of getting out/theres just one who could make me stay", to "the jokes werent funny, i took the money/my friends from home dont know what to say" are all SO leo coded.

ney: anti-hero. i ADORE him n theres a lot of people that like him. but theres also a lot of people who like not liking him. hes one of the best in the world, and as great as that is, he has, unjustifiably so, garnered a significant amount of haters (its me, hi, im the problem, its me/at tea time, everybody agrees). hes rlly endured a ton of it throughout the years, but keeps going (pierced through the heart/but never killed). after facing so much backlash, youd probly worry about the people that still support you and how much longer you can hold on to that (one day i'll watch as youre leaving/and life will lose all its meaning). also, hes a rich person. which makes the bridge pretty relatable for him but like in a funny way.

gavi: nothing new. this one is more based off my inner musings than actual like evidence. i have no idea whats going on this lil dudes head. but i know that IF i were in his position, i'd relate to this song a FUCK TON. its basically a song abt being in the spotlight, n being the shiny young thing that has peoples attention. but what happens when thats not true anymore? (Lord, what will become of me/once ive lost my novelty?) what happens in a few years when an even younger prodigy comes around n impresses everyone? (are we only biding time 'til i lose your attention?/and someone else lights up the room?/people love an ingénue). im not gonna write down the whole birdge but its basically abt the inevitably of meeting your replacement. the song basically asks: "will you still want me/when im nothing new?" he seems like a happy dude who probly doesnt think abt this stuff, but if i were a famous promising young soccer player, this stuff would definitely weigh on my mind.

muller: the story of us. Lord forgive my mullendowski heart. i tried to think of a song that would fit jus him n leave shipping out of it but,,, yeah it wasnt happening. in my mind theyre a package deal. anywho the song's about being around someone youre still in love with after youve broken up (now im standing alone in a crowded room/and we're not speaking and im dying to know/is it killing you like its killing me). ik theyre on good terms n all but in my mindbrain i imagine him them being in the same place for the first time since lewy left him bayern and poor thomas jus "nervously pulling at my clothes/and trying to look busy." and my gosh "but you held your pride like you shouldve held me"??? the AUDACITY. i can go off about this whole song tbh. oh n also even tho speak nows a country album this song is kinda,,, rock/punk-ish kinda??? which is to say, its very loud. much like a certain someone. fun fact i almost put seven for him bc of "before i learned civility/i used to scream ferociously/anytime i wanted" but i figured one line wasnt enough for me to put the whole song.

mbappe: evermore. this is a brooding song. a depression song. so i can definitely see this as a post 2022 world cup final song for him. it actually relates to a sports loss very well. (i used to listen to this song n think a oikawa from haikyuu,,, heh). if theres one thing abt mbappe its that hes dedicated. i can see him "replay(ing) my footsteps on each stepping stone/trying to find the one where i went wrong," yknow, jus thinking abt the final over n over. very "i rewind the tape but all it does is pause/on the very moment all was lost." but at the end of it all, hes young, hes talented, n has more world cups ahead of him. ie: "i had a feeling so peculiar/this pain wouldnt be for/evermore."

klopp: dear reader. this whole song is just advice. its taylor dishing out advice to her fans, most of whom are younger than her. kloppo loves his players, he wants to give them good advice that applies not only on the pitch, but off it as well. (dear reader/bend when you can, snap when you have to/dear reader/you dont have to answer, just cause they asked you) however its no secret that our lovely manager can be pretty hard on himself. so its possible that while he gives advice to those he loves, he feels like hes not worthy of giving it (you wouldnt take my word for it/if you knew who was talking).

again, everything stated is speculation, fueled entirely by my delusional lil mindbrain. as i dont know these ppl.

[timothylawrence]

OKAY.. Ace Attorney Justice for All ep 1-2 (mostly 2) review :)

-okay starting off easy i loved loved loved loved the amnesia plot sorry it was so funny to me. like i laughed out loud. oh phoenix. oh phoenix. oh also one of my fav twists so far has been the british car. that shit was so good. i said WAITTTT !!!!! ALSO ALSO SORRY HIM CALLING PEARL PERALS IS SO CUTEEEEE

-okay sorry i got too excited MAAAAAAYYYYAAAAAA MAYAAAAAAAA. was i probably too dramatic crying over her leaving knowing full well she was a reoccurring character. probably. do i feel a little embarrassed. maybe. WHO CARES SHESSS BACKKKK....!!!this review is mostly about her and im not too sorry. ive said it before she is the soul of this game. truly. she really is. the love she has for pheenie and vice versa... like idk. the game feels complete when she's here. her commentary. her jokes. her interactions. yeah.

-moving on to maya 2.0 CAN THEY STOP TRAUMATIZING HERRR!?!??! i will say i love her writing i love how 3d she feels and i love love her struggles and how realistic they are. shes a kid but shes meant to be a master but she's all alone. no mom no older sister and now no aunt?? like what the fuck. she deserves the world.

-^super fucked up and onto my next point. phoenix being so worried and scared for her that he broke down a huge heavy door on his own. dude . he loves her so much. so much. he literally yells at her when she talks about how doomed she is. he loves her. what the fuck. thats his little sister. i genuinely am the happiest when they're on screen together. pheeny i just need you to get a tad more into your emotional side and give her a hug for me or something i beg.

-sorry one last thing.

I fucking cried my eyes out dude. i fucking sobbed. what the fuck. when the reveal that the nice smell was her sister's clothes??? like are you fucking kidding me. are you serious. i teared up writing this review im not even ashamed i love how the heart of this game is siblings. but especially these two. i know some ppl might feel that mia is a cop out in cases but idc. the whole story is rooted in her. the whole reason we're even here!!!!

-okay. the part you guys (and I) have all been waiting for. oohhhh franziskaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! First impressions, i love her design. i love the way she talks. AND SHES EIGHTEEN YEARS OLD??? HELLO?? THATS A BABY??? sorry i missed von karma and she emulated him a lot so that was fun to.

-well it was fun for three seconds and then um . then i got really sad. you're telling me that dude was her dad?? we saw how fucked up miles got just by being his mentor. can you imagine living under that man's roof? him being your blood? oh my god. if you look at her for too long you begin to just feel fucking sad. like there's a seeping sadness cracking through her perfect mannerisms.

okay. okay. okay. so you're telling me when she realizes she's been caught, she doesn't look angry nor caught off guard like Miles or livid like her dad. she looks fucking scared and concerned? hello? can anyone hear me? hello? "i am perfect I am Franziska" yeah guys we gotta die. oh my god. i am begging that she gets her solo episode like miles did. because i need to dissect her more. that last frame makes me wanna die.

-EDIT*** i forgot this part. but as a woman in a legal setting/office setting her constantly being called sir is such an emulation of my fucking life dude. not being taken seriously and having to go to my male colleagues and/or boss to get clients to take me seriously. ugh. im pissed off for her. and myself. ugh. a good telling of misogyny and what its like to be a woman in settings like this.

-oh my god i got to the end of this review and forgot to mention MILES IS FUCKING DEAD??? LMFAO? sorry for #beingawomanlover. but also um. i dont think a dead guy can have a spin off game so i have a decent hunch (i know) hes probably coming back but the fact i said go take a vacation and he decides to fake his death... girl.... this gay drama is out of hand. also wait i need to add i know i didn't like miles at first and people got the impression i dont like him at all but thats not true!!! i genuinely do like him!!

-okay this is my longest review yet but who cares. i need you people to know im cranking out 7-10 hours on this game a day there's actually something wrong with me. oh and once again no spoilers pleaseee i have zero spoilers moving forward ^^ okay bye bye

[gilly-moon]

[5 Characters & 5 Tags]

Tagged by @harleyshahas (thank you ♡!!!!)

Riku/Sora (Kingdom Hearts) - KH is the game that got me into video games, and inspired me all the way to getting my current job in game dev, and Riku is at the heart of why I love the games so much. But I had to put Sora too, because one without the other just doesn't work. Without Riku, Sora couldn't have his arc of "I want to be better than Riku" to "I want to be better with Riku". And for Riku, his transition from dark & edgy to chosen keyblade weilder all ties back to how he looked down on Sora, then tried to make up for his mistakes, and finally trusted and loved Sora completely. They complete each other and challenge each other to grow and become better at every turn. Also their reunion in 2 absolutely ruins me every time. Sora crying on his knees will be burned in my brain forever.

Zack Fair (FFVII) - Crisis Core was at one point the only game that would work on my PSP lol. But I didn't need any other games because Zack the puppy was everything to me. Watching him struggle with the morality of being a SOLDIER, all while desperately trying to protect his friends and failing at every turn...that shit hurts, and yet he keeps his smile and honor right up til the end. He is THE sunshine boy of sunshine boys and I could gush about him all day long. His scenes in Advent Children destroy me.

Oikawa Tooru (Haikyuu) - the real blorbo of my heart, the bitch I latched onto and will love to the end of my days. His ability to take even a team of strangers and lead them flawlessly within just a few minutes is so admirable. He knows exactly how to bring out the best in everyone on the court. It hurts me to this day that he never got to wreck Shiratorizawa before he graduated (also that moment where he falls and slips in season 2 uggghhhhh) but jokes on them because he's the one who got an honorable position on an irl team!! I get some people call him an insufferable asshole but thats exactly why I like him! Let characters be insufferable!!!!! Its fun!!!!! And besides, when it comes down to it, he's genuinely a good person who wants everyone on his team to be involved and be their best. Love of my life. No Oikawa haters allowed on my blog.

Pitch Black/Kozmotis Pitchiner (RoTG) - basically since the movie came out I have been ready with a "Pitch did nothing wrong" speech at all times. I feel like I don't even really have to explain this one, I mean....yall get it. You know why we're all still here, loving him and the Guardians to the end of our days. I will say, though - idc if it's book version or movie version, my love for this asshole remains the same.

Nico di Angelo (Percy Jackson) - ah, the original blorbo. The queer awakening for so many people even before he was out in the books. This is another "I love him because he's kinda rude" character. His hatred towards other characters is always warranted tbh, because they ostracize him for?? No good reason at all???? No one wants to or tries to be his friend in heros of olympus for the first four books (except Hazel, who practically has to force others to talk to him) and it pisses me off to no end. Percy spent battle of the labyrinth hunting him down, but would he have been so dedicated if he wasn't getting the iris messages??? Doubt it. Anyway. I adore Nico, he deserved better, and I'm so glad he's got a wonderful bf and his own book now. I will never get tired of him and I really hope the tv series goes well so he can finally come to life in live action ♡

Honorable Mentions: Ronan Lynch, Cloud Strife, Roxas, Hiccup Haddock, Sasuke Uchiha, Portgas D. Ace, Killua Zoldyck, Allen Walker, Vlad Masters

I don't rlly talk to many people on here so...if one of my picks was also yours, consider yourself tagged!

[hexcorazon]

v7/v8 made me dislike ruby a lot but v9 made me really side with her. i've been in her shoes, with having to put on a strong happy face for everyone because their problems always seem to be bigger than mine.

but to see yang walk ahead of blake to shield her from ruby really broke me. like?? do you not know your own sister?? do you genuinely think she'd harm her own teammate??

blake doesn’t need protection, and it’s weird how yang tries to shield her like ruby is about to hurt her. i get bumbleby's whole thing is "we're protecting each other"

but that doesn't mean go and protect blake (who has shown she can hold her own in a verbal argument anyway) against your own sister, yang!

sorry for the rant, i just am in shock that this was written and executed this way with no one thinking of how ruby would feel from this. ruby was somehow more effected by jaune's rant (which, while valid, doesn't change the fact that jaune basically held a whole town hostage for 10-20 years) than by yang shielding blake.

as a certified Older Sibling that actually had to raise their siblings, its so wild to me how the writers seem to not want them to be sisters during this volume

:readmore:

like. from rubys seeming confusion at weiss saying "about time" to yang and blake flirting-- bc ruby is the team leader, she should be aware of the interpersonal development of her teammates, and also thats her SISTER ur telling me ruby wouldnt be a lil shit about her sisters crush on blake?-- to the more obvious, egregious issues that yang displays the entire volume about ruby and her mental health, its increasingly obvious to me that the writers of rwby struggle with writing their characters to have multiple different dynamics and relationships with multiple people, either from a lack of skill or an inability to diversify their characters emotional states

thats the problem with a) having all four main girls personalities mimic and mirror each other. there very little between their dialogue (until v9) that distinguishes them from each other; the words blake says could have been spoken by yang, whose lines could have been weiss', whose lines could have been rubys, whose lines could have been blakes, etc etc. until we get to v9 where suddenly blake is this flirty happy "bridge between humans and faunus" who can make plans when rubys unable to, who is more than happy to lead them through a fairytale without a care for the real world. and yang is back to being her quick to violence jokester, who seemingly never learned a lesson about starting fights and relying on her semblance. weiss is literally a joke, her character swinging rapidly between sadness for her fallen kingdom and physical comedic relief thats kinda... odd. and ruby... well. we know what rubys like in v9. but the point of all this is Suddenly all four girls are acting Very Different, not just between themselves but between their previous selves. it makes me wonder if these new personalities (sans depressed ruby who just had to be told her mother loved her and she kinda got over it all) going forward-- but this all means that yang and blakes relationship HAS to take priority for both characters at the loss of their other dynamics. we got half a second of blake and weiss actually talking and working together (which they failed, btw, somehow weiss and blake, the two smart ones, couldnt figure it out) where we get them shyly saying "im glad youre here" as if theyre barely friends, we dont get to see either of them actually find each other or ruby and the reunion-- but blake gets to glomp yang and cling to her and cry and have yang comfort her and hold her tight; weiss and ruby, who are also partners dont get that. RUBY AND YANG WHO ARE SISTERS DONT GET THAT.

which leads me into b) why are the teams even done the way they are. why is there an assigned team leader. isnt the whole point and culture of remnant that everyone is unique, every one has something special they can bring to a team? shouldnt a team of four be on equal footing with each other, where if there is a team leader its due to a vote by the members OF SAID TEAM? not some literal stranger after seeing one (1) fight based off the relics they picked on the first day of school?

idk thats more of just a flaw on rwbys worldbuilding and how frankly its kinda Silly to give ruby this angst about being team leader when A) multiple characters throughout the show have shown not to he happy and cheerful all the time and have never been punished for it, and those characters have only been met with love and support; where is this idea coming from where ruby thinks she cant be upset? she was literally upset a day ago when finding out about the hound and yang actively comforted her. nora was met with love and support with HER suicide attempt, was that why ruby veered to this extreme? idk and B) she spent more time as a member of RNJR and then as a conglomeration of two teams + two adults, and then they were huntsmen in atlas, where we didnt see team RWBY actually be a team at all.

anyways im spiraling off into other issues with the writing bc every bad writing choice in rwby spawns from fifteen others scattered throughout the show lol

as for ruby being more affected by jaunes outburst than yang defending ruby... well if i was ruby, id also be used to yang prioritizing blake and herself over me this point; both of them are basically strangers to me with all the shit they went through and all the shit i went through when we werent in each others lives and neither of them seem to be able to function without each other-- given that yang spent the whole time blowing up at ren and worrying about blake, and blake was unable to kill a single grimm without begging for help from ruby-- and jaune has been rubys best friend since the first day of beacon, and they have genuinely spent more time being partners and working together than ruby has had with any of her teammates. and regardless of what we, the audience, feel about his rant, to RUBY hes right; it IS all about her. the weight of the world is on her shoulders and she thinks shes fucking everything up and jaune just validated those feelings of failure, albeit unintentionally, given his own debilitated mental state

(i dont think i precisely agree the the paper pleasers were hostage but to be fair i think the whole paper pleaser thing was stupid in general bc when they ascend... they just have the same purpose? theyre just made of like gemstones instead of folded paper which isnt much of an improvement in the destructability scale tbh lol i see the paper pleasers as more metaphorical in a meta sense but then again i watched all of v9 blitzed out of my gourd so im not an expert and also everyone is entitled to their own interpretations lol)

sorry for just sort of going off and away from the main point of ur ask which was about the warped dynamic of yang and ruby; like i said, ever issue spirals back and around to twelve other problems and v9 is TERRIBLE WITH IT. v9 is just so WEIRD and not in a cool interesting way but in a... filler ooc way. it confuses my brain the way a tangled strand of a fine delicate necklace compels me; it looks interesting and sometimes i make a breakthrough but mostly its just tangled up in a weird knot that only seems to get worse the more i try and unravel it

[reel-fear]

may I ask you to elaborate on what exactly do u mean by your post about the implications of bee as the one poc in the cast? Like are u saying the characters themselves (ie Optimus) are biased against him or that the writers have an unintentional bias against bee for being a poc?

The thing is I think the writers really didnt have the human designs in mind when doing usual episodes, they arent considered 100% accurate to the characters and if they did really consider them to be super accurate it would make the writing of those characters in other episodes strange. I think the human designs were just kind of thrown together with little thought and the writers didn't think much of it. But specifically I think it makes the way the characters treat Bee [which is admittingly Sometimes treated as in the wrong and esp in the case of Optimus is treated like they are doing the Wrong Thing] seem like it could be racially motivated.

Optimus in particular tends to talk down to and belittle Bumblebee, him and Sentinel seem to see Bee as a rebellious arrogant bot who needs to be put into his place a narrative the show shows is just not right. This usually is chalked up to in the narrative as just being them abusing their power over people who while different than the usual soldier, Are just as compentent and maybe even moreso because of their ability to think differently than others. [Ie, in the S1 finale the story shows Bee as in the right for disobeying Optimus, Optimus is being unreasonable and cruel he wants Bee to obey without speaking out and thats not fair to him]

The story on some level wants us to root for Bee when Optimus is being unfair to him so I dont think the writers were punching down on him for being a person of color, But I do think the writers did not think over the implications of the way the characters treat Bumblebee when they made him the only black person.

Optimus isn't really meant to be written to be bigoted, at least not in the way Sentinel very obviously is. So I dont think the writers entirely thought abt how it may read when the crew obviously punches down on Bee more than anyone else and just so happens to be the only bot in the group who was made black in the human episode. We're meant to mostly sympathesize with Bee, he's still one of our protagonists, it just so happens some of the more mean spirited jokes or jabs directed at him come accross as loaded when hes the only one the writers decided to give black skin to.

It also doesnt help that Bee's need to continuously be shown to struggle to get his teams respect in episodes like home is where the spark is or Meltdown, and then he proves himself as more than what his team thinks of... Tends to be thrown away in favor of the team continuing to treat Bee poorly in jokes or generally being dismissive of him and his abilities. I think the biggest thing is Bee is just meant to be more of a comedic relief character But Once Again, taking in the idea Bee is the only black person in this group their struggle to take him seriously can be read as bigotry from the crew and it's never properly addressed =[

Mostly tho this is just generally problems with tfa bee's story, he struggles to be taken seriously his insecurities are not taken seriously, the narrative doesn't really give him any chance to shine or grow as a person, but when u also have to add to that 'btw hes the only person here who is black' it makes the poor writing he suffers from look... Bad, which is something they should've thought of before making him the only person of color, even if I dont think the writing of Bee was influenced by him being black. [Mostly bc I dont think they Really took the designs in human error seriously]

[thousandheadeddolphin]

Nevermind we're doing this tonight welcome to the lvl.0 lighting round

Actual reviews under readmore, but the tldr is that the quality generally averaged towards generally being kinda good, which I know is probably not gonna be sustained for long

LVL. 0.0: tutorial Level

I ultimately have no complaints, since this is, at its core, just a slightly more fleshed-out version of classic backrooms, which as stated in my introductory post, is good even through a thousand layers of content farm induced irony. I enjoy how theyve pretty much fenced it off from the rest of the levels due to no-clipping being required to progress, allowing it to still stand on it own to some extent. Though I do have a slightly nitpicky complaint about its title, simply because it leans too far into the video game angle, and the grammar feels a bit clunky and stiff at certain points, but at the end of the day, theres a reason this got so big in the first place. 8.5/10

LVL. O.1: Zenith station

This one plays around with the format a little, adding normal prose to the beginning to give context to why theres just a whole ass space station in piss carpet hell (yeah, the article itself describes the carpets as smelling like pee), which is generally better than its parent article, which, unfortionately isnt kept up in the prose of the article itself, which generally matches 0.0s quality. Id actually like this level a lot if it wasnt connected to the backrooms, where its existence doesnt exactly make any sort of sense, mainly from a metatextual perspective, mainly because it just doesnt match with any of the other levels heavy usage of nostalgic imagary compared this whole ass space station. This is likely just a consequence of a lot of the earlier levels just going "Yo what if this thing was in the backrooms" and just. kinda clashes even with other levels of its ilk. 8/10 if it was disconnected from the backrooms, 6/10 as it currently is

LVL. 0.2: Remodeled mess

To be honest, even though its like, bordering on a joke level, at least the jokes actually funny. plus, It genuinely feels like like smaller part of a level, instead of like, a full level that they just crammed into 0.0. The format scew, in this case taking the form of notes between a remodeler and his boss genuinely has a lot of personality and originality that a majority of the other levels of its ilk lack. overall, 7.5/10, not necessarily the most flashy or interesting (sub)level, but it gets its job done perfectly fine

LVL. 0.3: The icy rooms

Another level centering around the backrooms remodeling company, this times its not their fault, and theyre just trying to remodel a part of 0.1 thats just. frozen over for some reason. Another somewhat comedic level, this time exclusively featuring the same kind of notes from the previous sublevel. I do think it overuses the crossed out text gimmick, and the comedy(?) wears a bit thin, but i otherwise have no real complaints. 7/10 cool level

(please note that all levels after are not numbered by the wiki)

LVL O.4: Below Zero

Oops! All format screws! This ones actually got pretty good, though way too purple, prose. Most of the concepts within the level are kinda bare bones, the same kind of hallways as the ones in 0.0, but dark this time, a bog, which is so vaguely described that I dont even know if its metaphorical or not, and the hallway but before with rubble this time. Unfortunately, I cant really say much about it, due to the barrage of dead links, very, very sparce descriptions and the relatively small irritant of it not having any real reason to not be a standalone level other than the novelty factor, so Im gonna have to give it a 5/10.

LVL. 0.5: Echo Chamber

Man theres like, no reason for this to be separate from 0.4. If i struggled to come up with things to say about the last level, this one doesnt even have descriptions of its environment. The story that theyre trying to tell here is actually kinda well executed, though it doesnt really justify it being separate from the base backrooms in the way its implied to be. 4/10 I know its written by a different guy, but at least justify why you should exist as a separate construct from the original sublevel

LVL. 0.6: The Manila Rooms

This one has a plot point within the first paragraph. How can it serve as a meeting point if, by virtue of it being a sublevel of 0.0, it is impossible to find another human. Aside from that, this is functionally just a version of 0.0 with furnishings and actual way to leave without ramming your face into walls for 3 hours. Otherwise, nice set dressing, prose that do a better job at replicating scps style than 99% of the first 100 other levels, and actually makes use of the MEG instead of just having them stand around and justify why every single article is written like a damn court case. 6/10, gets its job done but It doesnt do anything else

LVL. 0.7: The red rooms

Oh hey another format screw, this time being another one were it just breaks into normal prose and overrides the normal text of the level, which though played out, got a bit of a kick out of me. Though, all things considered, the prose themselves flounder a bit, simply due to the author layering too many adjectives, and some inexplicable choices in analogy. But I really enjoy the way the author plays with the formatting especially near the end, and the concepts pretty damn solid on its own. 7/10, would reccomend.

LAST ONE: LVL. 0.8: The torment

Another format screw, this time just with some background stuff about how it just. randomly showed up. It suddenly drops some stuff about spirits and like, again, why did these need to be connected to 0.0. The prose do a good job at replicating the general stylings of scp, and the concept of, agonizing life after death is really, really good, it just, didnt need to be tacked onto 0.0 beyond the context of it just showing up there for two minutes. 6.5/10 normally, 6/10 because this didnt need to have anything to do with 0.0

[jonas-the-jagnificent]

What's extra fun about this whole "narcissism is inherently toxic" is that I am a fairly toxic individual?? But it's never the narcissism.

It's the trauma, baby.

Trauma gave me intense anger issues, trust issues, severe touch aversion, a lack of coping skills, a tendency to lash out and project my pain onto others...and NPD.

Because of trauma, I've been a bully, I've insulted and hurt people, I've struggled at making ANY lasting bonds with ANYBODY, and I even have homicidal ideation on a regular basis.

What horrors has NPD brought on me and my relationships? Well, let's see.

I sought attention from everybody and one of the people I met GAVE me attention, and now we're literally best friends. He's the ONLY person I have an actual emotional bond with, and I can rely on him for supply whenever I need it, and our platonic relationship has helped BOTH of us heal in very important ways. So attention seeking got me my first real friend!!

I'm capable of boosting people up!! I know what inflates MY self confidence and I can use my own intense insecurity as a tool to help other people.

Having a superiority and or god complex has made me confident enough to stand up for myself and others, I don't take shit from anyone anymore.

NPD can absolutely cause or encourage toxic behaviors, and it can be devastating on your life and the people in it. I have negative symptoms too, horrendous amounts of self loathing, anxiety, it makes anger easier to trigger, I feel isolated from people around me because I see myself on a different level from them. Sometimes higher, sometimes lower!

But to say that my NPD made me a bad person would be hilariously inaccurate!

Here's the thing. Trauma can make you toxic. It's called the cycle of abuse for a reason, you learn bad things as a kid and thats what you know now! Unlearning that takes time and effort. NPD is a trauma disorder, yes, but to stuff all toxic survivors under the NPD label takes away from what it means to be a narcissist.

I'm not an asshole because I have no empathy or because I only care about myself, I'm an asshole because I never learned how to be healthy around people.

All this to say, stop using NPD as a target. Trauma of any kind can make you a bad person!!! Anyone of any background is capable of being shitty, what's so special about NPD other than all the cool kids having it? (That last part is a joke. Kind of. Narcs are cool as fuck, lmao)

Why don't we start calling out bad people instead, rather than spreading medical misinformation and harassing people who've done no harm? As a person who's done harm, narc haters can kiss both my asscheeks and stfu forever.

People with NPD can be good people, and people without NPD can be self centered dickwads.

fuck it. I'm a good person BECAUSE I'm a narcissist. I'm fiercely loyal to my best friends because I value them as much as I do myself, I'd protect them to the ends of the earth because they are some of the best people in the world. I'll tell people to fuck off when they insult my little sister because I'm a narcissist and that's *my* blood you're picking a bone with. I do kind things because I know they're kind and it will make me feel better about everything. Maybe my reasoning isnt what youd like it to be. But goddamn I am going to be good because I have NPD

[disenchantingwrites]

If you'd be up for it, could you write a Ryan Ross x reader thats friend's to lovers?? Maybe something where reader is involved in the music business but not famous and they become introduced that way and quickly form a friendship? They/them or she/her if possible. It's rough being a Ryan Ross girlie in 2022 and I'm so excited that people still write for him 😭

Story for a Love Song • R.R

Being a small-time record producer, you're eager to accept any opportunities that present themselves. You just didn't expect that working with Ryan would lead to so many feelings.

Ryan Ross x Female Reader

A/N: okay first off, thank you for the request, i started writing as soon as i read it (also I'm not sure if you wanted the reader to be a singer, so i can do another one if you want). And the struggle is real for Ryan Ross fans in 2022, we're like a dying breed :(

---- ---- ---- ----

(1372 Words)

For years, producing had only been something on the side. You’d spend time with small bands and artists, even friends’ bands, and assemble their songs and albums for a few hours in the studio you’d book. Then the rest of your time was spent going to your primary job, the moneymaker for your borderline bankrupt lifestyle.

“You’re going to burn yourself out,” your parents would say each time you would call. “Maybe you should take a break and catch up on some sleep.”

But those sleepless nights eventually paid off. You’d made enough to focus solely on your producing career. And, although small within the industry, you loved every second you had doing your job. Any project you had, you poured your heart into any project you had, undoubtedly passionate about achieving the perfect sound.

Your passion was what drew Ryan to offer his work to you in the first place. He wanted a fresh sound for the new album he was working on, and hearing what you’d done for others had only solidified you as his top choice. And in sending off the simple email asking for your talents, he’d unknowingly changed your life.

For the days you spent working together, you and Ryan developed a close bond. He was different to the others you’d worked with, both as a person and musically. His lyrics were profound, and his music moved you, touching your heart, causing it to thump until you could hear it drumming in your ears. As your time together bled into months of collaboration, you realised it wasn’t just his music that made your stomach twist into knots.

“If you keep looking at me like that, it might inflate my ego too much,” Ryan joked when he’d caught your astonished stare for the dozenth time.

You’d tried desperately to keep your feelings for Ryan under control, but the closeness between the two of you made it hard. The constant proximity he had with you whenever you were together didn’t help. He was almost always touching you in some way, whether it was pressing his shoulder against yours or instigating a game of footsies while you listened to the songs. 

You had no idea how you’d be after the two of you were finished collaborating. You already knew the two of you would keep talking; the close bond between you had grown so tight in such a short period of time. Truthfully, your only worry was whether you would ever find the courage to admit your feelings to him.

“If you keep working like this, this album will be finished earlier than it needs to be.” Your head turned away from your station at his comment. It was one of the rare days you looked forward to when you and Ryan were both in the studio. He only further surprised you when you felt his hand settle on your shoulder as his body leaned over yours. “I can tell you’ve been working late on this ‘cause of those circles under your eyes.”

His free hand poked your cheek, and you managed to glance at his face to see him grinning humorously at you before he pulled away. Aware of the fact your heart was beating a million miles an hour just from his simple actions, you leaned back in your chair, head turned around.

“C’mon, there’s a little cafe not far from here I saw last time, and I want to try their raspberry muffin,” Ryan urged, and you could practically hear the eager smile in his words.

You sighed, somewhat dramatically, as you turned your chair to him. “Alright, you’ve convinced me.”

--- --- ---

You and Ryan sat opposite each other in the small cafe you wish you could say he dragged you to. True to his word, he’d bought the raspberry muffin and a hot chocolate, only a mild wonder to you. You thought it was cute, much to Ryan’s chagrin.

“They even gave you little marshmallows, look,” you grinned, pointing to the two sugary treats on the side of his plate.

You could see the slight colour that rose in his cheeks as he used his spoon to hide the marshmallows from your view. You could only laugh further at his contrite reaction, tipping your head back ever so slightly, your eyes scrunched.

Your laughter only stopped when you felt something hit your nose. Startled, you silenced and opened your eyes to see Ryan stifling his laughter as he watched you. You looked down, finding one of his marshmallows sitting on top of your food. Diverting your attention back to Ryan, you noticed he’d shifted so his head was resting in his palm, and there was a wide smile on his face as he watched you.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” You murmured, having to avert your gaze as the heat rose in your own cheeks.

“You’ve got marshmallow dust on your nose,” he replied simply. He picked up a napkin and, just as you were about to reach out and take it from him, leaned over and wiped the residue from your face. “There." His voice sounded far away, quieter, and he halted any further actions as he peered at your face.

“I think it’s my turn to ask why you’re looking at me like that.”

“What?” You managed to strangle out, surprised by Ryan’s inquiry.

The singer sat back in his chair, placing the napkin down, a cheeky smile on his lips. “Friends don’t look at each other like that.”

You almost choked on the sharp breath of air you took. Incoherent noises escaped your mouth as you struggled to think of something to say in response. “I—what?”

Ryan let out another short laugh. “I guess it’s lucky I think of you as more than a friend.”

You blinked, dazed by the seeming confession. “More? Are you…?”

“I thought the x’s I attached to my good night and good morning texts were enough of a giveaway,” Ryan seemed to be more bemused than anything by your confusion about his declaration. He picked up his phone, tapped away for several moments, and then showed the screen to you.

“What’s this?” You frowned, accepting the phone from him.

“I realised while we were working together that I liked you, but I,” he let out a soft sigh and ran a hand through his hair, “I didn't know how to tell you, so… I wrote it down.”

You glanced from Ryan to the phone in your grasp, only to realise the note he had pulled up for you contained several paragraphs beginning with, primarily, the same line.

I think I like her because of how she smiles.

I think I like her because of how my name sounds coming from her.

I think I like her because of how she looks at me.

Which slowly evolved into different phrases the more you read.

I think I love her and her laugh.

I think I love her because of how much her messages make me smile.

I think I love her.

You swallowed, pulling the phone back. But before you could focus back on Ryan, a text came through, one with your name followed by a heart, as the sender.

hi.

i love you. x

You managed to gather the courage to look up, finding Ryan with your phone in his grasp, a smile on his face.

“Really?”

“Really.”

Your mouth curled in a broad grin, and, had you not been seated in a cafe with barely touched, you would have launched across and kissed him then and there. Instead, you tapped on the message with your name and typed a text on Ryan’s phone to send to yours.

hi.

did you want to go out on a date with me?

Ryan read the message as soon as it pinged on your phone, then let out a pleased hum.

“Only if we do it tonight,” he replied. You nodded, finally setting the phone back over on Ryan’s side. “Then I’d love to.”

“Brilliant,” you sighed, feeling as though a weight had been relieved from your chest.

The two of you were about to, finally, begin eating again, but you paused.

“Ryan?”

“Hm? Yeah?”

“I love you, too.”

[1863-project]

I've been thinking a bit about Submas and potential Ableism, recently.

I know it is wrong to have them be Actual animals/pokemon, because its kinda insulting. like just, 'this person's not a Real Human' is such a terrible thing to say. (and a unfortunate coping mechanism that I used to have. "Of course people are mean to me. I don't count as a human. I'm not exactly sure why not ,but Clearly there is some sort of Rule/Classification out there that dictates I am Below Human. Everyone else can see that, and thats just what Is. " I'm just sorta. throwing that out there as a potential example for why that trope can be so harmful and vicious. )

IDK. It took me awhile to realize 'oh. Its not Me, Those people just are bad'. I can't say it helped to have people who thought like me/had feelings similar to me, tended to be aliens and stuff. 'oh ha ha look at the silly alien who has rules about how they eat their meals', when it was 'oh, thats how I eat my meals?...why is that so funny?

This is important, and I think a lot of people don't realize how harmful these things can be to others.

I was bullied from...pretty much kindergarten until I graduated high school, and seeing characters who were like me more or less being treated as subhuman didn't help my self-esteem. I ultimately ended up in a friendship in college that became emotionally abusive and it took me two years to get myself out of it because I didn't think I could or should and the person managed to make me feel even worse about myself.

Seeing people similar to yourself being depicted as non-human, or being joked about/seen as "acceptable targets," can massively impact self-esteem. There's many reasons why the average age of death for autistic people at one point not too far in the past was only 36 years old, and this was actually one of them. Between infanticide from parents who were ashamed of a disabled child or couldn't care for them, bullying and suicide, and struggling in the world without supports and accommodations, a lot of us didn't live very long and still don't. I'm only three years away from that 36 and I think about it a lot, and how lucky I was to have supportive parents. Many people like me aren't lucky. Living in a society that actively rejects you takes a massive toll on your self-esteem and health.

Regarding Submas, there's a big difference between doing Pokemon Mystery Dungeon stuff (the whole franchise revolves around humans turned into Pokemon) or giving them fursonas, etc. and actually writing things where they were never human, because the latter plays right into the ableist trope of "autistic people aren't actually human/are changelings/etc." It's a thing a lot of people aren't aware of because it isn't talked about much outside of autistic advocacy circles - like most disparaged groups of people, it can be difficult to get people to take us seriously outside of our own advocacy bubbles. I've spoken at a conference regarding libraries and autism twice (in 2018 and 2019); both times it was fascinating to see the response from the non-autistic people in attendance. They genuinely didn't know so many of the things that autistic people have known and talked about for years - we're just not heard a lot of the time, although I've noticed it's getting better than it was ten years ago when I was starting out as an advocate. Progress is there, it's just been slower.

Basically, you're not hurting anyone if you're playing around with Pokemon Mystery Dungeon AUs, or if you're giving characters fursonas (I mean, I know plenty of autistic furries!). But if you're writing things where human characters who are autistic or autistic-coded were never truly "human," you need to be careful that you don't slip into ableist tropes that hurt people like Anon here and myself.