#the lines I wrote are going to be in this project

[tookishcombeferre]

Can confirm this for writers as well, I'm still working on breaking into writing as a pro as an adult. I still write poems, fan fic, and a bunch of random stuff that's not my main work to "sketch" and grow as writer. Use Tumblr. Use AO3. Play with style. Play with form. It's the best way to grow your poetry and your prose. And you know what? Your experiments will flop. You will write duds. (For artists, you will draw duds.) But, when you're a part of those communities that share your interests? They encourage you anyway! Then, as you experiment more? You get to share your successes, your "bars," your "that line of prose you wrote belongs in a novel" moments with folks. And, that is always a joy. Ride those highs! Enjoy those moments! I wouldn't be where I'm at as a poet or writer without the fanfics I wrote on FF.net waaaaay back when before AO3 even existed. Play, play, and PLAY some more. Enjoy every moment of that playfulness. Successes will come as they do, but don't become a corporate cog and feed the YouTube and TikTok machine. And, when you're stuck on a project, no matter your age, always remember that going back to your communities of play is something you can do!

also we fucked up as a society the moment we started telling teens and aspiring artists to conflate being an artist with building a brand as if the two things are inextricable. the name of the game if you want to share your art is to work a job and sell yourself as aesthetizied content. back in my day we could just POST SHIT. to deviantart! what the fuck!

[melbrewer367]

Cleaning Up San Myshuno with S4S

If you're having this issue where items aren't being cleaned up in San Myshuno, this tutorial can help clean it up!

Crin shared a tutorial over on Bluesky but, it's originally in German and not very straightforward so I've rewritten it here so it's a bit more step-by-step for people who may not have as much experience with S4S.

For this tutorial, you'll need to know the specific item names the game uses so first, here's how to find those. Open S4S, click "Object" on the main screen.

Now you'll filter by Category and Game Pack. I just wrote down some terms on a notepad to use later. Here's what you need to focus on though...all of the items spawned are from base game and City Living. They're all lights, chairs, sofas, and decor. Then there's also plants and food. I'm not going to do all of the different things, I'm just going to do one to show you what you need, they're similar enough you can find the rest.

So say we want the sofa names, we'll filter for Comfort, Sofa, and Base Game. Hover over the item to see it's full name.

The part of the name that I've outlined is what you need to make a note of. If you hover over all of them you'll see that they all have "sitSofa" in common, this is the piece you actually want to write down for later. Some others we'll need are lightFloor, sitLiving, sitDining, lightTable, foodPlate, foodBowl, foodFestival, foodGrip, and PlantBush. (I've only done Spice District so far, there may be additional terms for the other neighborhoods.)

On to cleaning San Myshuno now!

First things first, make a copy of your save file and paste it somewhere else so you have a backup, just in case!!

On the main screen of S4S, click the "My Projects" button. On the selection screen that opens, change the file type to .save in the lower right, navigate to your save folder, and choose your save file, and open.

Now, in the upper left, type in "data" and click filter, and then click the "Type" header to sort alphabetically. This is just to make it easier to find the piece we actually want which is the "Save Game Data" line. Click on it once to select it.

On the right hand side, scroll all the way to the bottom. Next to "zones" click the "Edit Items" button.

Now you need to search for your lot name. This part may be a bit of a trial and error. I chose the apartment lot that I had been playing and it didn't have the data I was looking for. The one I ended up needing was the 20 Culpepper lot. I'll explain how to know if you've picked the right one or not later on. For now, you'll type in your lot name in the filter box, select the line for it, and then scroll all the way down on the right hand side. We just need to copy the "zone_id" number.

Once you've copied this number, you can close the screen and return to the previous screen. Now, where we had "data" in the filter, we now want to paste the zone ID we just copied and filter for that instead. Now you'll select the "Zone Object Data" line that shows in the results. On the right hand side, scroll to the bottom again, and now you'll click "Edit Items" next to "objects" near the bottom.

On the next screen, you should see "ObjectList" on the left hand side. If you don't, this is what I was referring to earlier when I said you may not get the right lot on the first try. Yes, you may have chosen the correct lot that you were playing but, the object data we're looking for might not be tied to it. If that happens, you'll just need to try another lot in that neighborhood and keeping going until you find the one that does have the ObjectList. Once you have the correct one, you're going to click "Edit Items" on the right hand side.

Now this is the part where your patience is going to be tested. This is going to be very time consuming. It has to load a lot of data and therefore takes a lot of time loading the list, a lot of time filtering, etc. Just be patient.

In the filter box on the left hand side, you're going to start typing in keywords to find the items we want to remove from the neighborhood. I highly suggest typing your term somewhere else, and then copy and pasting it because the filter will begin to work as soon as you start typing and take way longer since it's going letter by letter. You're going to filter using the item names we found earlier.

I'm not going to lie, after filtering for my term, I've just been selecting all and then removing them and not taking the time to make sure every single item in that term result list is one of the items sitting in my neighborhood. I'm not sure the full extent of what is affected by this zone data so that's maybe not the best choice but, the apartment zone ID I'm using is an apartment I don't play so even if it's removing items from the apartment itself, I don't care. I also haven't seen this remove any of the world items that are supposed to be there all of the time. This is why we made a backup though! Be smart. Try your own path and then put your backup file back in your game instead if anything breaks. To select all though, just select one line, hit ctrl+a on your keyboard, and then click the remove button. Now, you'll paste your next search term in and repeat until you've gone through all of your terms. Again, this can be time consuming. Just be patient. Once you're done, click "Save" in the lower right.

You'll be brought back to the previous menu, click "save" there too, and then you'll be back to the warehouse screen, click "save" there as well to save your .save file.

Now, cross your fingers, open your game, and load into that neighborhood in the save file you were working on.

So, this is what I got after my first try. Pretty big difference. I was actually able to shift click and destroy the couch and lotus candles.

Before and After:

Here's basically what was left to clean up, I was able to shift click and destroy the crystals though, just forgot to take a new pic:

Played my game for a while so the next set of images don't line up exactly right but, I went back into S4S and removed some more things, and here's what I have now.

Huge difference. I just have some plates, plants, and some to go food left to clean up. I probably just haven't come across the names for those yet since it's just so time consuming. This is waaaaay better though and if your save file got even more built up than mine did, this could be game changing.

Let me know if you have any questions or if you figure out the name for the plants and plates I still need to get rid of!

***Update! I realized I had checked for an Object List in all of the Culpepper lots and the two non-apartment lots but hadn't bothered checking the Jasmine Suites apartments. Turns out 2B had an object list too! I just searched plant, plate, and foodGrip (this is some of the to go foods sims get from stalls) first to see and heck yes! Almost everything is completely gone now! So make sure you check alllll of the lots in the neighborhood. I would just start with one and do all the search terms though, see what's going on in game, and then go try the other lots back in S4S so you only have to search for the remaining items.

Most of the plates are now gone and all of the bushes are gone now but, the veggies from the bushes are still there. So close!!

[butchdiaz]

tagged by @iinryer to do a 2024 fic roundup but i'm adding my videos in too because. uh. its fun to look back! and i want to!

MARCH

american teenager (36s)

my first ever commission! for my best friend bia! to this day i hear do what you want (do more!) everytime i listen to this song.

APRIL

arms (1:02)

this was for seti. and it hurt.

good luck babe! (1:11)

literally never felt euphoria the same since the week of bi buck when i made this. changed the timeline. (although i was so euphoric and excited to post that i cropped in a rush and left a little white line in one of the shots and it pisses me off massively to this day. yes im a virgo thanks for asking)

to open up my arms and give it all to you (2.5k)

my little buck coming out to chris fic with hints of buddie <3 bi buck got me writing again after months of literal Nothing. god bless

one of your girls (3:09)

kirby's vision went OFF. so proud of this one like. its gotta be one of my favs and i feel like it became a bit of a butchdiaz classic which makes me so happy :D

MAY

kill her freak out (1:33)

this video is my little baby. ohhh samia. ouaagh eddie.

scared of my guitar (2:23)

shoutout to the way the dialogue syncs up in this one. rly satisfying to me hehehe. honestly didn't think i'd like this one as much as i do but she hits hard

promise (1:15)

love when people commission me to edit songs im already currently obsessing over yay!!!!!

JUNE

happy to be here (2:16)

julien baker. eddie diaz. aka abby had a mental breakdown making this one.

closed hands, full of friends (45s)

this was my first time editing a song i had Never heard beforehand! 3 cheers for finding new music!!

JULY

l'amour de ma vie (3:26)

ok not to toot my own horn but. this one is good. i feel like i really told a story u know. and about now is when i started to play around with fun/more intricate text ooh ooooh

a burning hill (1:01)

this prompt was designed in a lab to kill me specifically. i wanted to do the whole song originally but i like. could not go on.

my ego dies at the end (2:49)

i reallyyyy like this one. long edits my beloved! i love to build to something. i rewatch this one often tbh. jensen mcrae is everythinggg

AUGUST

north star (2:16)

again, had never heard this song b4 i got this prompt and it got me obsessed with this searows album. this edit makes me feel all soft. rly loved incorporating fleabag into it bc like. fleabag for life. shoutout summerofbuddie for the inspo

feels like (58s)

this song has been on my buddie playlist(s) forever so i was So excited to get this prompt. it was so fun to make something. not depressing and just like. fluffy. fun fact i hand drew all the hearts for this in ps and they were such a pain to work with but i really love how it turned out cause i'd never done anything like that before :')

pink balloon (2:29)

finally made a proper buck amv. after so many eddie ones it was actually nice to switch it up. felt re-inspired! also always so inspired by samia ugh. i am an eddiegirl literally to my bones tho so this was both v hard and v fun to make.

SEPTEMBER

"i want a divorce" / "it was a date" (2:19)

the buckshannon parallels ouuugughhh. this was one of those ones that haunted me so persistently i literally was forced to make it. saw hanna's post and then blacked out and i was posting this.

had a feeling i could be someone (3k)

+

leave tonight or live and die this way (1.1k)

dyke buddie!!!!!!!! these fics are sooooo near and dear to my heart. i love to make everyone wlw! i love to project my butchness onto my fav characters! wrote these so fast (for me) like writing has Never flown out of me like that. i was possessed by the spirit of lesbianism. and. GOD. the response to these fics also makes me want to cry daily. the beautiful art that was created?????? for me and my little fic?????????? i actually can't believe it i love you guys so much. lesbians forever and ever and ever.

did it to myself (1:11)

another one of my favs. i think it slaps so hard tbh. i tried a lot of new stuff and it was so FUN. orla's music is so much fun to edit to i need to do another one of her songs asap.

afraid of heights (2:46)

boygenius wrote this for my friend buck buckley. got entirely consumed by this one. thank u han for being my buckafraidofheights warrior for life <3

headlock (2:23)

i love buck but i remember coming back to making an eddie amv and breathing a sigh of relief. i just Get him. its so easy. this one's underrated i think oop it kinda slaps

OCTOBER

savior complex (3:16)

this one was a rly good challenge and idek why. super happy with how it turned out though i like watching it back

NOVEMBER

funeral bell (2:54)

the buck thesis statement. to me. and such a crazy unique process. loved working w kaitlin on this one and sending her 10 million drafts (she rly got a behind the scenes tour yall and it was not pretty). this was an absolute BEAST to make despite it not even being that complicated. i think i just cared so much about making it perfect for my dear friend who trusted me with her visions and inspiration and that made it all the more special!

you get your dreams for free (14.8k)

drunk cuddling!!!!!!!! my longest fic i've posted to date and i fully thought i was never gonna finish it. i abandoned this last YEAR but im SO glad i came back to it and most of the reason for that is because of the absolutely lovely responses to my earlier fics this year <3 literally hilarious to me that i originally wanted to post this on halloween 2023. abby. abby no.

surrender my heart! (1:30)

post-confessions euphoria + a carly rae jepsen prompt? i was literally in heaven. SURRENDER UR HEART EDDIEEEEEEEEE

DECEMBER

every place leads back to your place (2.1k)

music inspires me soooo much (looks up at this post. no way right.) so i absolutely loved writing based off a song! and a chappell song nonetheless!! so fun to twist a breakup song around to fit Them. i particularly love the kiss in this one <3

oldie's station (3:17)

phew we're almost there! this one is recent but lowkey it feels like another classic to me already. i really really like it. making it felt like cooking a three course meal and watching it kinda feels like eating one :D (thank god) (i spent so many hours in that kitchen)

letter to god (1974) (2:27)

+

letter to god (1983) (1:52)

putting these together bc they are sister songs and sister videos. first time in my life i've worked on two videos at once. it was fun because they kind of grew together and influenced each other very directly. not fun because i ran out of space and my laptop crashed. several times. these felt rly indulgent and raw. kind of shocking to me how perfect both songs feel for both of them. had a lot of fun messing with the voice/video filters to try and place these in their respective eras bc im obsessed with that aspect of the songs. halsey's artistry is crazy yall if u havent listened to her newest album GO. NOW.

the rush of slumber party kissing (3.2k)

posted this literally yesterday lol. also my first time writing smut. somehow. scary! but i did giggle all the way through writing this tbh. when buddie reveal their true nature as silly teenage girls >>>>>>>>>>

SPECIAL SHOUTOUT

fleabag au wip, who saw the light of day again this year. she could be finished in six months or six more years, but she Will be finished. im determined!

<3

ok if u read all that uh. wow congrats fhdhhdh im gonna get sappy for JUST A SEC now cause uh. im actually blown away by the support and love and appreciation this fandom has shown me this past year. you guys have given me so much confidence in my skills as both an editor and a writer and you also quite literally helped me pay my rent. by making videos about gay firefighters. its actually kind of mind blowing to me how lucky i am and i never want to take that for granted <3

to anyone who has commissioned me, or sent me a prompt, or left a comment on a fic, or a tag on a video, or sent me a kind ask, or subscribed to me, or followed me, or reblogged anything of mine this year: thank you.

im so grateful for this little community and all the friends and connections i have made through our collective insanity over a procedural drama on abc (neé fox). yall rock so hard.

<3

tagging @userbuddie @chronicowboy @confessionseddie @try-set-me-on-fire @userautumn @lovelettered @exhuastedpigeon @sibylsleaves @saryasy @team-118 @lemmeaskthedevil @eddiebabygirldiaz if u wanna do any sort of yearly roundup!

[negativepeanuthoarder]

My Favorite Fics I've Written In Each Month Of 2024!

I'm going through my AO3 and picking out each of my favorites from this year. Which will be easy for some months and not that easy for others - enjoy my list :3

January - Height Difference (3.5k words)

Some sfw Dreamnap height/size difference fun! I originally wrote this for @sapitties as a secret santa gift and I still really, really love it!!! :D

February - Every Curse Has A Silver Lining (3.5k words)

Dreamnap hurt/comfort vampire fic! I had a lot of fun with this one, mostly bc I got to play around with @bluefeye 's lore and it was a good time!

March - I Hate You (Or Do I?) (1k words)

A classic dunking-on-opps crackfic :3

April - Snuggle Me Please? (953 words)

This one wins on account of it being the only fic I posted in April for some reason but I still think it's REALLY good and I hope y'all enjoyed it! It's what I used as propaganda for winning the dnapper of the year award! :3

May - The Fog (13k words)

This one was fun to write because I got to play around with horror tropes! It was a pretty good time to come up with my own creepypasta-style lore and work it into a fic like this!

June - Snowstorm (4.6k words)

I like the way I did the Sapnap blaze lore in this fic! I really love writing about him and his abilities and his weaknesses as a member of his species - it was a lot of fun to play with and also. Hurt/comfort = fun :3

June gets an honorable mention for 'I'll Protect You, Because I Love You (55.6k words)' for being finished this month too!

July - Afternoon Twister (2.5k words)

Ahhh good ol' DNF Tornado fic! I loved writing this bc I got to play around with Tornadoes (my weird interest) and I got to make it Dream-centric and kinda hurt-comfort-y (he's worried about protecting George 🥺)!

August - Our Cracked Heart Begins To Reform (Chapters 6-13, 30k words total)

This one MIGHT be cheating but I'm VERY proud of finishing this fic! It's the dsmp which will always have a fond place in my heart so <3333

September - I didn't post any fics in September lol

Turns out I didn't post any fics in September wtf I thought I did 😭 Honorable mention to Just Nesting (1k) though bc I like that one :D

October - Why'd It Have To Be You? (4.1k words)

This fic is a weirdly intense retelling of a kinda insane dream I had about Sylvnap and I LOVE IT! Plz read it if u get the chance it's so weird and I like it a lot :3

November - A Prince of Death (7.1k words)

There were honestly TOO MANY FICS to choose from in November but I'll have to go with this bad boy - the way I did the fight scene here is REALLY cool! Writing an entirely aerial battle is SO MUCH FUN - I HIGHLY recommend it :3

December - Young And Bold And Stupid (In A Six Foot Self-Dug Hole) (42.9k words)

TOO MANY FICS TO CHOSE FROM I WANNA PICK THEM ALL!! :(( I feel like it would be sacrilegious to pick anything OTHER than my 43k word BEAST of a project that ate up 4 days of my winter break and made everyone who read it (including me) just straight up fucking cry.

I really loved writing all these fics over the past year, as well as all the other ones I didn't pick - these were just my favorites out of every month this year! I hope I get to write a lot in 2025 too, and I'm excited for it! :D

[deariemay]

I agree and I think positive representation of homosexuality is really important. Sex that is not reproductive is still a genuine form of intimacy

As a lesbian I have enjoyed reading some ABO because it is cathartic to watch men experience fictional sex-based oppression. Fear of pregnancy, stereotypes surrounding biology, etc. I would absolutely love if these stories were about women instead, and didn’t feature a (usually abusive) ‘alpha male’ they eventually fall in love with, but some of them have been striking and emotional, and women have been overlooked in publishing and literature for so long, I’m sometimes just glad to have them express themselves as artists.

(Low Tide in Twilight had a genuinely fantastic protagonist, it was heartbreaking. I hated the love interest though)

Sometimes it’s for the best that women aren’t featured. I believe the women who write ABO would — if they were told to no longer write heterosexual gender roles in yaoi — instead write ‘dark romance’ along the lines of Colleen Hoover. I really don’t think we need more of that. Some women writing ABO are projecting the misogyny they experience onto dolls and creating a separation to deconstruct it. I don’t think if a woman or teenage girl who has grown up her whole life being told her purpose is to get married and have children, projects those expectations onto a male, that is inherently wrong.

As for the ABO f/f inundation, I have never met a biological woman who has wrote that. It has all been men or TIMs. We can’t even get men to stop raping women on camera, so I honestly don’t even try to stop these freaks cause they don’t care.

ABO doesn’t accurately depict homosexuality because it is usually for straight women. Erotic literature that exists only for straight women is important because they need a safe space to express themselves sexually that men don’t access. Yaoi keeps straight men away, whereas f/m has men infesting the comment section. Seeing as most fanfic writers are teens, predation is a huge concern. However, fanfic has led to a huge spike in girls ‘transitioning’ into men, because they want yaoi relationships, not realizing gay men are *nothing* like the way straight women write them. If we clarify this, I believe ABO can have a place in the world

I would love love love having more female characters. I want women to stop writing from men’s perspective. A lot of ABO is bad and just poorly written, but some isn’t and I value female artistic creation and expression of misogynistic structures. I read ABO before I realized I was gay because I was attracted to the female characteristics of the ‘omegas’ but hated het erotica. Some women struggle with internalized homophobia and coming to terms with their attraction to female anatomy and ABO can be a place to explore that

Outside of fan fiction, gay men just have so many spaces in the way lesbians don’t. Every single corner in my city has a gay bar but there are no lesbian bars. As a lesbian woman, when I go to these places they side-eye me like I’m colonizing. They are so much more visible (RuPaul, Q**** Eye etc.) and there’s lots of incredibly successful gay men all across history. I will always support gay men, but I think there are plenty of places for them to define what their sexuality means to them. I have never met a gay man who reads ABO. It just exists outside of their sphere of influence. It’s usually for women, and with how much women are dehumanized in het erotica, I’m hesitant to tell them they should be writing het instead.

As someone who has been very deep in fandom stuff and has gotten out of the disgusting aspects of it, I wanted to make an overview of the most obvious aspects that are problematic with ABO dynamics, because I only ever see being against ABO treated as a "preference" issue within fandom, when I think it is a political/societal issue. People only ever want to hear the most comfortable point of view on a subject, no one likes looking too deeply into fandom because it is often people's escape from reality. I too use fandom as escapism, but there are lines that shouldn't be crossed, there is a limit after which fandom can become unhealthy, and instill unhealthy ideas within already vulnerable people.

To anyone outside of my followers who might read this, I want to clarify that this analysis comes from the perspective of a lesbian who's tired of misogyny and homophobia in fandom.

So getting down to a basic view of it, a lot of ABO is set in m/m ships, in order to add either mpreg to the mix, or create a heterosexual-adjacent parallel within a same sex ship. It also uses alpha/omega dynamics as an equivalent to top/bottom, and by extension equates top/bottom to dom/sub, as the alphas are always burly, sometimes even mean, evil, dark, and the omegas are pathetic waifs, who only ever bottom, who only ever serve. This is homophobic. This is normalizing the idea that all homosexual relationships are devious or fetishistic.

My main qualms with the mpreg aspect... Mpreg is used to basically remove any need for women in fandom, and it truly shows how fandom just sees women as breeding machines/wives/mothers, so unnecessary they even take away the ability to reproduce from them, giving it over to men, so they don't have to bother writing female characters at all. These men have fully functional male anatomy, but also somehow a working uterus somewhere in the mix, which is just fantastical, but still, these are fully male characters. (Pointing it out because it will be relevant later on).

Both of these examples (mpreg and using alpha/omega as both top/bottom and dom/sub) tie into what I mentioned about the need to fit same sex relationships into heterosexual roles. You know what couples can reproduce? Male and female couples. Aka heterosexual/opposite sex attracted couples. When you take a gay ship, with same sex attracted individuals, and push them into "able to impregnate" and "able to be impregnated" boxes, you are trying to assimilate a homosexual couple into a heterosexual one, and that normalizes that only couples who can reproduce are worthy of telling stories about.

I've talked about m/m ships because they are the overall prevalent ships in most fandoms, and definitely the most common in ABO dynamics alternative universe fanfiction. However, when ABO is applied to f/f ships, something even more perverse can be observed: often, the alpha female characters are granted a penis. At this point there is no hiding that basically ABO f/f fanfiction is actually f/m fanfiction, wherein one of the characters (the alpha) is actually male, with breasts to go along with a fetishistic, unrealistic view of supposedly f/f relationships. This leads to plenty of heterosexual sex flooding the f/f tags. This leads to the idea that lesbians enjoy penis. It leads to the idea that they need penis in order to have fulfilling relationships, with "breeding" kinks, with pregnancy. Like in m/m fanfic, the alpha character has fully functioning male genitalia, even if they might present breasts.

I don't think it needs to be said that fandom often fetishizes and oversexualizes gay ships. That's already fucked up obviously, but at least outside of ABO, usually the fanfiction is actually homosexual. Through ABO fanfiction homosexual relationships are assimilated into heterosexual ones, and we're supposed to let it slide because of... Why?

The alpha/omega stuff translates into fucker and fucked, one must be the one who "wears the pants" in the relationship, one must be submissive, quiet, subservient.... Aka basic heterosexist bullshit.

This particular fanfiction trope teaches young impressionable gay people that the correct way for them to be is actually heterosexual, and it teaches heterosexual people reading fanfic that actually gay people are totally interested in opposite sex genitalia which is just... Not true. It also teaches women we are unimportant, replaceable. It takes pregnancy, this aspect of womanhood which has historically been used to oppress us, keep us down, keep us quiet and subservient... And normalizes that men could go through that too. It coopts our struggles. So you get a barrage of abortion fics, of teen pregnancy fics, of dangerous pregnancy situation fics... And they're all about men. Not a single woman with a speaking role in sight. Maybe they'll have a daughter, though, so the alpha gets to be overprotective, and they get to be seen as soft dads, and she gets to have no autonomy or personality... Bc what woman ever does?

TLDR; ABO is both homophobic and misogynistic/sexist. Drop that gross shit.

[kroosluvr]

part II

i wrote all these notes in tags then realized i kinda want it in the main post JKASHJKDHASJK

also claude knows he cant outwait petra. not in this arctic snowscape where shes the most powerful

small note abt how petra doesnt have the lil misty breaths in front of her like how claude does. bc despite being human shes still a frost penguin

i imagine she has the power to basically 'feel' the landscape, finely tuned to every minute detail. especially since snow and ice is so silent. she just Knows.

claude knows he'll either freeze to death standing there or die in a watery grave if petra breaks the ice covering the lake so thats why he complies

petra's bitter projection at the end: "no one is coming to save you." because no one will come to save her.

in my head claude 2nd outfit is sorta a hitman/secret agent sort of deal..... kinda going off my last krisis comic , (EXTREMELY HEADCANON) after losing his friend claude diverges from his initial cleric path. something about the conflation of love and hate, healing and hurting, poison and medicine... the wires cross somewhere. Anyway idk why he's here in antarctica or whatever i just TEEHE I LIKE DRAWING MY OSHIS!!!!!! idk maybe pechora got too powerful and ~they~ had to send claude to eliminate her. capture her. or something. like the remnants of the research lab want to lock her down or something

petra uses the sword to break the ice (heh) btw. she can also like control icy weather to an extent. yea

also something cool and important abt no speech bubbles. in a cold icy land where the snow muffles everything... petra's voice carries through the frigid air. imagine it. WOAH... also claude having no lines also important in that way. guys idk how to analyze mym own decisions JUST KNOW I DID IT FOR A REASON. OF SORTS

i thought abt this comic at the gym yesterday andwhile i was wokring on these card edits so yea.

[yukidragon]

🎶The upcoming cast members🎶

I'm pleased to finally publicly announce that I'm part of the team working on this fantastic project!

🎶The Phantom of Sunny Day Jack🎶

Coming soon~

[psychomusic]

so. I've been reading some posts on the jedi order tag AND i won't talk about my opinion on "are jedi good or bad discourse" BUT i wanna point out some lore to everyone who's complaining about the jedi taking kids into their order: (in the EU) it wasn't always like this.

if you take swtor era (more than 3000 years before the prequels) there were many jedi who joined at an older age. like, for example there was a guy who broke his engagement to become one. most jedi remember their families because they were old enough when they decided to go.

THEN in darth bane's book trilogy (circa 1000 yesrs before the prequels) there is a passage where two sith lords are talking about taking bane, already an adult, to study at korriban. one doubted him because he was too old, ans the other told him he sounded like a jedi, and that ONE DAY jedi will have to accept only kids into their ranks if they really want to find "pure" people that can learn their lessons quicker.

one day!! so it wasn't always like that!! the ongoing wars with the sith, who corrupted and killed many of them, had pressured them into taking always younger people into their ranks.

also, consider a thing that this video explains super well: training to become a jedi is not like exercising, because there is a transformative lesson at the end of the training that changes everything. you can't just do as much as you can, but not finish.

the transformative lesson, as the video explains, is that through the force, everything is the same - from rocks and ships to life and death. at the end of the training you have to understand this fundamental truth.

yoda says "you have to unlearn what you have learned". during times where they were constantly killed off or corrupted by the dark side (and if you haven't learned this lesson you are more susceptible to this corrupting), younger people were taken in to actually finish their training (a training that was ultimately about being a good person AND that you could leave at any point if you weren't sold on that, too)

(remember that for the sith failure = death. like. that was the alternative for force sensitive kids. it's not like sith had any moral problem with taking kids away without consent. sith don't have moral problems: they believe that them being stronger in the force means they can do whatever they want as long as their strong enough to go and do it. there are MANY passages in many different star wars stories, even in different mediums, that say this out loud)

AND (this is more of a critical thought than just stating the lore) the fact that they started doing it out of necessity doesn't mean it's 100% good BUT you know. the whole set up of the prequels is that we're starting off the story in a period of crisis and decadence all around. most of the systems of the times were about to fall. OF COURSE they had problems. if they didn't, we wouldn't have the story to begin with.

that doesn't automatically mean jedi = bad and sith are better, tho. you wouldn't take the last, chaotic and decadent period to jugde something, would you? it's like deciding that the athenian democracy sucked because people at the times of Demosthenes failed at recognizing the new schemes in which the world was evolving into, and still believed that their city would be important as it had been in the previous century. They just didn't fucking expect the Macedons would conquer half the world known and more, and have the subsequent political power. Still, their experiences in the 5th century with democracy were very good, even better than ours on many fronts, if you contextualize a little. the jedi had flaws, and most importantly, they didn't fucking know the future and everything that ever happened, ever, so they made mistakes. that doesn't automatically make the system ill, or bad, or not-working. systems can have setbacks when the world changes. (just like athenian democracy had one when they lost the empire that was funding the democracy. they even had a tyranny for a while and then fixed the problems. that doesn't diminish retrospectively their democracy)

[northern-passage]

i wrote a 500 word dynamic poem for neo-twiny jam :-)

i rewrote this in a few different ways with a handful of different drafts before settling on just doing a poem; this originally came from a full branching narrative i've had stewing for a while, and i might come back to it one day. but for now i enjoyed channeling that into this poem, which has also been very influenced by the fact that i've been writing hungry vampires for almost 2 months now.... it was also my first time messing with audio in twine, which ended up being way easier than i expected (i'm sure it helped that i only used one audio sample tho)

faith does contain sexual content, and while not super explicit, it is the main theme of the poem.

anyways hope you enjoy and check out the other entries here!

[amrv-5]

in my cutthroat careerbitch era

[veneritia]

find the word tag!

Thank you @the-down-upside-finch for the tag! (You can see their entry here)

My words are: beginning, right, leg, and tired

beginning ;

“I know many things. I know your past, your present—” Her hand trails downwards with every word, from her jaw to around Fenice’s throat, fingers curling inwards as she comes to point at Fenice’s heart— “and your innermost desires. I know of futures, certain and impossible. I know of beginnings and endings and everything in between. But in the end, it is your decision, child, whether you wish to know what I know. And you cannot know unless you ask.”

right ;

He keeps his sights forward—because forward is the only way he can move now—towards the Pontifex Khryso, their officiant who stands at the feet of the three colossal statues of the Trinity. Sitting in a gilded throne to the holy man’s right was that cursed man himself. Dantalion, the butcher, his sworn enemy. That disdainful man who lounged on his throne of corpses, who pillaged and conquered to satisfy his own vanity. 

leg ;

The doe shifted from the momentum of the impact. Its knees buckled, the legs snapping beneath like twigs. Its body crumpled onto the ground with a dull thud, the offending arrow that pierced its heart brandished in the light of early spring.

tired ;

Nike’s chest ached at the memory of his brother. The stiff and tired lines of Isandros’ frame, figure swathed in shadows and harsh reds from the hearth in the dismal old manor they were forced to hold themselves up in. He swung the heavy mantle off his shoulders in a way he could not his burdens, draping it across a chair. The crown—a simple coronet, really; a band of gold free of embellishment, its base still tarnished by the rusted blood of their father—came off next, held in a knuckle-white grip between his hands.

Tagging: @asablehart @elrallin @maddstermind @ulysses-blues @koala2all @thewritersplace @innocentlymacabre

Your words are: hand, window, turn, sea

[astranauticus]

a handful of chinese songs that give me big robit energy

translating cpop songs is like my second favourite hobby so it's frankly surprising I haven't made this post sooner

Him - Floruitshow (马 - 福禄寿)

I've talked about this song on here before but this is the 3.7 song for me

the second chorus is definitely MR-SN but i like to think of the first chorus (Let me take a good look at your visage as we count down the time till the curtains’ close. Forgive me for holding back my voice so soon, do you know, in your graceful escape, all I see around me is disaster?) as VR-LA during the flashback sequence

specifically 'all I see around me is disaster' because yeah not wrong

'This time I’m not here to bring you home' just kills me like the please please take care of yourself because I can't be there with you anymore of it all

'Oh spring, oh warm sun, please come sooner, grant him a smooth and safe journey' same point, just the desperate plea for the universe to protect VR-LA because he can't do it himself anymore

How can I make you stay - Floruitshow (我用什么把你留住 - 福禄寿)

(conveniently I have actually done a full translation of this song!)

definitely one of the Maxim songs of all time

"You’ve believed that you can let your life pass in numbness, but [...] why do your tears fall in the moment of letting go?' YEAH because we've seen so many times how Maxim keeps trying to convince himself that he can stop just caring but it never works

'You say don’t fall in love, yet you’re unwilling to let go' same point, this man is in such denial about how he just can't stop caring

specifically the second verse feels a lot like Maxim waiting for VR-LA to return from Tu'narath

'You stay silent, holding onto starlight as you wait through your darkest hour. Your mind is struck, when familiar murmurs pierce your ears once more' aaaAAAAHH

the bridge (?) as a conversation between VR-LA and Maxim, VR-LA inviting Maxim to see the beauty and wonders of the world ('Do you want to see the sea of flowers blooming?', very 4.5 wedding invite honestly) but Maxim's trauma just would not allow him to take that risk ('If none of them come back, then who should I live for?')

fun fact the second version of the bridge in my translation ('You must stay to see the flowers bloom' onwards) is exclusive to that live performance of the song so it's not in the spotify version i linked here. as for which version you think fits Maxim more.. well.

Borrow - Mao Buyi (借 - 毛不易)

finally banging out a translation for this song was kinda the inspiration for me to make this post actually

the tldr of this song is that it's an unnamed/unidentified speaker asking to borrow various small things for the sake of somebody else (like 'an inch of frozen sunlight' to provide warmth in a cold world) so you can probably see where i'm going with this

'A simple ‘we have plenty of time’ etched into the soul to prepare for the chance of forced separation' ouch ow okay

'Those blown apart by these winds will say that they never loved deeply' / 'There is a sincerity that cannot be blown apart by this wind' DX-TR betraying the old crew vs VR-LA fighting through so much just to get them back

'There are tears that cannot be washed away by this rain' this line just haunts me. like in general

'An acre of land for him to call home, an ordinary life for him to live' as MR-SN watching over the old crew like I can't be there for you but I hope you will find peace and a home...

[sneebles-corner]

true immortality is so fun to think about in the long run

like vampires? you can still kill them. but true immortality is SO incredibly fascinating because the way i see it is that ur no longer an individual organism, youve become part of ur universe. you dont need to eat, sleep, or breathe to survive, im sure your brain would suffer long term from lack of enrichment at some point, but if you are truly immortal (like deadpool getting put back together when you 'die'), you'd exist until the heat death of the universe. i imagine that you'd fade into nothing upon said heat death and if the universe one day collapses on itself and is restarted, youd probably come back into existence.

i wrote a story my senior year of high school about this concept, that a human became truly immortal and was just living through the entire existence of his universe over and over, he spent so much time just trying to find sentient life forms, just for a glimpse at family, companionship, etc for the brief moment they exist before he's trapped in basically endless solitude for inconceivable amounts of time again. in my story he eventually was approached by another true immortal, one that was millions of universes older than him and had in all that time become closer to the universe and 'changed', becoming less an individual and more a small god? i didnt think of this back then but i really shouldve implied that the older immortal was really just the universe itself communicating to him, and it shouldve had a break at the end that showed that the human was ALSO just the universe itself, just a much younger and less connected consciousness within it.

oh did i mention that this story was a comedy and the punch line was that he ended up on a planet in his 8th universe that had a similar environment to earth, but it was flat, and he was inconsolably angry about flat earth happening?

[snifferz]

no genuinely i fucking quit writing novels bc my english teacher always gave me a grade under everyone else bc the plotline was too complex or it was too much

my writing was decent AT LEAST like i poured my heart out into that shit and it was usually a form of allegory for something that i went through

shoutout to miss ayub /s

[sweet-lemonad-rose-sapphire]

Plotting The Beginning

Writing Progress Log: 9/5/24

As of right now I’m trying to finalize the plot points for the first third of Book 1. My goal is to not overwhelm readers by writing info dumps, but that’s hard to do if the first 4 chapters are taking place years apart from one another!

My plan: just make each chapter Link’s day to day activities with some kind of change to routine. This way, I can grow the reader’s relationship with the other characters by having Link interacting with them, while also introducing the people he cares about the most.

[chenziee]

Last Line Challenge

Rules: Post the last sentence you wrote (fanfic / original / anything) and tag as many people as there are words in the sentence.

I was tagged by @katia-anyway! Thank you so much.🥺🤍

Until it snaps off.

Not tagging anyone because everyone I know's been tagged xD so if you want to this consider yourself tagged <3