#then the discord call lasts 9 hours

[whumptober]

Whumptober 2023

Welcome to Whumptober 2023 — the sixth year running!

COMPLETIONISTS/PARTICIPANT BADGES CAN BE FOUND HERE

To those of you who participated last year, welcome back! To everyone joining this year, welcome!

Please make sure to read the Event Info carefully, as most of your questions will be answered there already. For everything else, you are welcome to come to our ask box or ask questions in our Discord server here.

This year’s AO3 Collection can be found here.

And this years playlist can be found here.

There are 139 prompt options in total this year - this is including the alternatives list! A special thanks goes out to those who took part in our trope vote back in July. From the 1526 responses to our list of 223 tropes, we looked through the popularity results, as well as your honourable mentions, and were able to produce this years prompts list. Stay tuned, as we will be posting some of the results at a later date!

We’re very excited to see the community come together once more and be a wild, chaotic bunch of creators and consumers of whump. Go wild with the prompts, and support your fellow creators - we wish you all the fun!

Best of luck and happy whumping,

Mods Vanne, Yenn, Kitty and Surro

(All 31 Themes + Prompts, Event Information and FAQs are posted below the cut!)

Whumptober 2023 Prompt List

No. 1: “But now this room is spinning while I’m trying just to fill in all the gaps.”

Safety Net | Swooning | “How many fingers am I holding up?”

No. 2: “I’ll call out your name, but you won’t call back.”

Thermometer | Delirium | “They don't care about you.”

No. 3: “Like crying out in empty rooms; with no-one there except the moon.”

Journal | Solitary Confinement | “Make it stop.”

No. 4: “I see the danger, It’s written there in your eyes.”

Cattle Prod | Shock | “You in there?”

No. 5: “You better pray I don't get up this time around.”

Debris | Pinned Down | “It's broken.”

No. 6: “Do or die, you’ll never make me; Because the world will never take my heart.”

Recording | Made to Watch | “It should have been me.”

No. 7: " “I paced around for hours on empty; I jumped at the slightest of sounds.”

Alleyway | Radio Silence | “Can you hear me?”

No. 8: “I’ve got soul, but I’m not a soldier.”

Overcrowded ER | Outnumbered | “It’s all for nothing.”

No. 9: “Learning everything ain't what it seems, that's the thing about these days.”

Polaroid | Mistaken Identity | “You're a liar.”

No. 10: “Can’t you see that you’re lost without me?”

Broken Phone | Stranded | “You said you'd never leave.”

No. 11: “All the lights going dark and my hope’s destroyed.”

Animal trap | Captivity | “No one will find you.”

No. 12: “I haven't slept in days but who's counting?”

Red | Insomnia | “I’m up, I’m up.”

No. 13: “It comes and goes like the strength in your bones.”

Cold Compress | Infection | “I don’t feel so good.”

No. 14: “Feed me poison, fill me ‘till I drown.”

Flare | Water Inhalation | “Just hold on.”

No. 15: “I don't need you to help me I can handle things myself.”

Makeshift Bandages | Suppressed Suffering | “I’m fine.”

No. 16: “Would you lie with me and just forget the world?”

Gurney | Flatline | “Don’t go where I can’t follow.”

No. 17: “You’re the lump in my throat and the knot in my chest.”

Collar | Touch Aversion | “Leave me alone.”

No. 18: “I tend to deflect when I’m feeling threatened.”

Blindfold | Tortured For Information | “Hit them harder.”

No. 19: “I’ll take one final step, all you have to do is make me.”

Floral Bouquet | Psychological | “I’m not as stupid as you think I am.”

No. 20: “People don’t change people, time does.”

Blanket | Found Family | “You will regret touching them.”

No. 21: “See the chains around my feet.”

Vows | Restraints | “Don't move.”

No. 22: “They never saw us coming, ‘til they hit the floor.”

Glass Shard | Vehicular Accident | “Watch out!”

No. 23: “It’s gonna get me by the end of the night.”

Shadows | Stalking | “Who’s there?”

No. 24: “I’ve got a head full of chemicals; mouth full of ridicule.”

Goodbye Note | Neglect | “I thought they were with you.”

No. 25: “You’re not delivering a perfect body to the grave.”

Storm | Buried Alive | “They’re not breathing!”

No. 26: “Sometimes I get so tired; I don’t even know myself.”

Seeing Double | Working To Exhaustion | “You look awful.”

No. 27: “You drew stars around my scars; But now I’m bleeding.”

Matches | Scars | “Let me see”

No. 28: “We might not make it to the morning; so go on and tell me now.”

Bloody Knife | Sacrifice | “You'll have to go through me.”

No. 29: “I only sink deeper the deeper I think.”

Scented Candle | Troubled Past Resurfacing | “What happened to me?”

No. 30: “It’s okay, just to say, ‘I’m not okay’.”

Borrowed Clothing | Bridal Carry | “Not much longer...”

No. 31: “I thought that I was getting better.”

Emptiness | Setbacks | “Take it easy.”

Alternatives List:

Betrayal

Aftermath of Failure

Brass Knuckles

Decoy

Body Modification

Playing Cards

Examination

Hunting

Drugging

Shaking

Panic

Broken

Miscommunication

Lab Rat

Reluctant Whumper

Event Info & Rules

~ Please read our extensive event info posts before sending us an ask ~

WHUMPTOBER is a month-long, prompt-based creation challenge (think: Inktober, but whumpier). There are 31 official themes this year - one for each day of the month - which can be used, skipped, or combined in any way you’d like. The 'theme' of each day is the line of lyrics.

The prompts are merely to serve as inspiration without being taken literally (e.g. you don’t have to include the exact wording of prompts into your work). Feel free to run rampant on interpretation. For example, if the prompt is "flame", you could create something with reference to a candle/campfire, your character could have suffered a burn, or the flame could be related to the 'spark' of a relationship. It's truly up to you!

In total, there are 4 prompts for each day: there's lyrics, an object, a trope and a line of dialogue to choose from.  We want to give everyone as much creative freedom as possible, as well as increase event accessibility for folks with triggers and squicks.

Creators can PRODUCE work in any media they choose, including but not limited to: writing, visual artwork, photo/video/audio edits, paper crafts and elaborate recommendation lists (not just a list of links). Creators can PARTICIPATE as much or as little as they want (i.e. you don’t have to do ALL the prompts if you don’t want to) and prompts can be used in any order. They are also free to use even after the event ends.

When uploading Whumptober content to your blog, be sure to tag the with:

#whumptober2023 …..(the event tag)

#no.1, #no.2, #no.3, …..(day number)

#lyric, #bruises, #stabbing,  …..(the theme or specific prompt you chose)

#fandom or #OC, … (ironman, originalcontent, oc …)

#medium …..(gifs, fic, podcast, art, etc.)

#teeth, #gore tw, #etc …..(trigger warnings & any additional tags. Add "tw" AFTER the trigger/content warning. )

#nsfwhump …..(only for nsfw content)

#your own tags go here

PLEASE BE DILIGENT WITH YOUR TAGGING. Only properly tagged posts are considered for archiving on the official @whumptober-archive blog. They must be tagged in the order above. An elaborate post about our tagging system can be found [here]

Unfortunately, due to the sheer number of participants in recent years, we cannot guarantee your work will be archived. A random selection of properly tagged posts from all genres will be reblogged each day.

Whumpers who produce content for 31 total theme days are considered event completionists and will be tagged in a masterpost at the end of the month. A form will be published at the beginning of November asking you to tell us if you completed the event. You do not need to post anything you have created, we rely on trust and we will not check this.

Questions not addressed in one of our many event info posts can be directed to this blog. We will not answer any questions that have been answered in the FAQs or rules already.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. How does this year’s prompt list work? What do I have to choose?

You can create something based on:

The overall theme/lyric of the day

Prompt 1, 2 or 3

One or several of the alternative prompts

A combination of the above

Q. Is [specific anything] allowed?

When in doubt: JUST DO IT!

Q. Do I have to do all 31 days?

Participate as much or little as you like! Just be sure to tag your posts properly (ex. #no.7, #radio silence). If you create works for 31 total theme days you will become a completionist. But apart from that, there are no repercussions if you don’t fill prompts for each day.

Q. Can I post early/late?

Yes, you can post whenever you want. We will only reblog posts during October, but you can use our prompts all year round. The day you post will only affect your probability of being reblogged.

Q. Will you reblog my post?

Due to the sheer number of content posted during Whumptober we can’t promise to reblog every single post. We will make a random selection trying to capture a wide variety of content. The following will increase your chances at being reblogged:

tag your post properly

post within 2-3 days of the theme you want to fill: if you fill the prompt for Day 1 your chances of being reblogged during October 1st to 3rd are highest and will go towards zero afterwards.

Q. What if I don’t understand a prompt/theme?

Send us an ask! We’re happy to help with wild, unhelpful clarifications or brainstorming. That being said, the themes are entirely up for interpretation. Don’t take them too literally. For example: You can be choking on a cherry, someone else can choke you or you could be choked up on emotions, etc.

Q. What kind of content can I make? Can it be NSFW?

This is a MIXED MEDIA event! You can write fic, post meta, doodle or paint, create a gifset or photo edit, link a song, or get crafty with video - anything goes. As for NSFW, make what you like, we just hope that you’ll tag your work accordingly so that others participating in the event can stay safe.

Q. Can I combine Whumptober with other creation challenges?

Absolutely, as long as the other challenges allow it too.

Q. Can I upload/repost my Whumptober content to other social media platforms?

Of course! You can post your own content wherever you like (or you can opt to not publish it at all). Additionally we’ve created an AO3 Collection to archive any fics posted there. It can be accessed here. The tumblr blog @whumptober-archive is the official archive, so please respect the boundaries of any closeted whumpers in your social circle.

Q. Can I use prompts to write a new chapter for an existing fic?

Yes.

Q. An existing fic I am currently writing contains many of the Whumptober prompts, can I use it?

If you are actively writing this fic at the moment with the Whumptober prompts in mind, yes. If you’ve previously posted something that checks the boxes, we ask that you not include it retroactively for this current year. You can, however, add new chapters relating to one or more of the prompts.

Q. What kind of characters can I write for?

Fandom characters, OC characters, human, furry, alien, cyborg, RPF, whoever you like. You can use the generic “whumpee” character or have specific ones.

Q. Does it have to take place in a specific fandom?

No, you can create works for your own worlds or for fandoms or for both. You can also create more generic or pan-fandom works. You can do cross-overs or use OCs, whatever you want.

Q. Can I use a prompt multiple times?

Yes, but it only counts once towards being a completionist.

Q. If I’m not comfortable with one day’s prompts can I use a prompt of a different day as a substitute and still be a completionist?

No, you can’t exchange prompts for different days. However, if all four prompts of a specific day make you uncomfortable, we have created an alternate prompts list that you can draw from. You can exchange any prompt with these, but please make sure not to use them twice.

Q. Where can I post my work?

Post where and how you want. You don’t have to (cross)post it to Tumblr or at all. Just keep in mind if it’s not on Tumblr we will not be able to add it to the blog archive.

Q. Can I start posting early?

You can, but this is an October event and wouldn’t it be more fun with everyone doing it at the same time? That being said, you can post early, but we won’t be reblogging any work predating October 1st.

Q. Do I have to finish a fic I started/can I post WIP’s?

Yes you can post WIPs. And you’re not obligated to finish it in October for it to count towards being a completionist.  

Q. Is co-writing allowed?

Yes, absolutely, and it would count towards being a completionist for both/all of you.

Q. Do I have to create 31 standalone pieces to be considered a completionist or can I write one continuous story?

One continuous story is fine.  The challenge is to write something for 31 prompts. If that’s spread over 31 fics or just one, you are still considered a completionist. (The same goes for every other media you choose.)

Q. Is there a min/max limit on word count?

There is no limit.

Q. Can I combine prompts? Is there a limit on how many?

No limit and combine as many as you’d like.

Q. Is a hc/angst/emotional whump focus ok?

Of course! We are not going to establish a threshold for whumpiness. If you think it’s whumpy enough, then it’s whumpy enough. It can be physical, psychological, emotional, or any combination of the three.

Q. What’s considered nsfw?

See this post

Q. What is whump?

Typically the genre includes situations where a fictional character is hurt, be it emotionally, psychologically, or physically. Fanlore provides information here.

Q. My interpretation of the prompt isn’t whumpy at all, does that count?

If you don’t think your interpretation is whumpy, then it doesn’t count for Whumptober. Remember that whump comes in many forms, though, and that we don’t have a whump-checker or a threshold for how much whump needs to be included. If you think your interpretation contains enough whump to count, then it does.

Q. Can I start working on the prompts before October?

Absolutely! That’s why we post the prompts a month in advance. We recognise how difficult it can be creating for 31 days in “real time” so feel free to start creating early!

Q. How do I tag triggers?

tw at the end of the word, ex. #gore tw

Q. Do I have to use your tags?

Yes, if you want your work archived on the blog. If not, feel free to use whatever tags you want. 

Q. Does combining prompts count towards completion?

Yes

Q. Can we @ you?

Yes but we mostly rely on the #whumptober2023 tag.

Q. Is there anything we are absolutely not allowed to write?

There are no rules, but please make sure to properly tag your trigger warnings. And keep in mind Tumblr’s policies if you are posting it here (or the policies for whatever site you use).

Q. Where can I go for brainstorming help?

Here on Discord or come into our ask box.

Q. My characters are minors, is that ok?

Yes, but as with everything else, use clear and descriptive tags.

Q. Can I cross post on other blogs?

Yes, multiple platforms and blogs are perfectly acceptable. You can also post different works to different accounts under different names, without posting them everywhere at once.

Note: This is a creation challenge, please don’t repost your old work under our tags (unless it’s been changed or edited for the event).

Thanks for reading, and happy whumping!

[lace4forest]

The Chains Ages in Linked Universe.

I saw people talking about the Chains age in Linked Universe, and I have my thoughts on them.

I've done a LOT of research on the Links and how old they were, I even tried to figure out how long Legend was in Koholint for. (We go with old Canon because new Canon doesn't make since,(Footnote 1) but basically that's the last time we see Legend in normal Zelda Canon)

Anyways-

This is from Jojo's QnA doc on the Linked Universe Discord- ^^^

And this is my thoughts on their ages. Side note, I'm not going off of looking up their ages through google, I'm going off info you can find in game and cross referencing it with other games and the Hyrule Historia and Encyclopedia. Time was 9 in his game and that's about 20 years later so he would be 29. (Unless if we counting Majora's Mask, then he could be 30-32)

Twilight was a "Late Teen" (Also it does state hold old he is) so 17 making him 21 to 22.

Warriors is also "Late Teen" (He was a trainee at the beginning of the war) making him 22 to 26

Sky is also stated to be around 17 making him 18 to 19

Wild is 117 and this would make him either almost 118 or just turned 118.

Legend just became "Of age" in ALBW and that's 16 in his era making 17.

Hyrule we know is 16 making him 18.

Four is 15 or 16 in Four Sword, but he isn't "Of age" so probably 15. making him 17.

And we know Wind is 13 almost 14. (He said it himself)

I just find it very funny the Toons are the youngests. Age explanation and footnotes below cut.

Time - He is 9 at the beginning of his game and becomes an "Adult" 7 years later at 16. This is one of the times it proves that 16 is "Of age" in the Zelda series. We aren't sure how much time has passed between Oot and MM, so we can guess he's 29 to 32 (Making Link in MM 10 to 12 as a good guess.)

Twilight - It's stated in a guide that he is 17. His game also was originally supposed to be a continuation of Oot and MM in the Wind Waker style, with Time all grown up and living on his own. But they changed it to what it is now. So it's just 17+4 or 5 making him 21 to 22.

Warriors - There is no official age and you do NOT need to be 17 to wield the master sword. All we know is that he's "Late Teens" making him between 16 to 19. Making his age in LU between 22 to 26.

Sky - He is stated to be around 17. Making him 18 or 19 (Even if we say he's 16, then he would be 17 to 19.)

Wild - he is 117 years old. We know this. it's been "Less than a year" so he could be almost 118 or already be 118, he probably doesn't remember his Birthday, so there is no saying exactly. (His Zelda should know though. Maybe.)

Legend - SO. I feel like people are gonna fight me on this, but I got the math and hours of research to back it. At the beginning of ALTTP, some guards say that Link shouldn't be out here or that he's too young to wield a sword (Or even start learning to) In BOTW Wild got the Master Sword at 12-13. And people said he was still very young and a prodigy, which means he was already learning the sword by that time. and we also know that in BOTW they think of "Of Age" as 17 instead of 16, meaning they probably make them learn stuff when they are a little older. There's also the connection to Oot, In Wind Waker its stated that Wind is the same age as Time when he Defeated Ganon (Making Wind Canonically 16) And Twilight is the age of what Time should have been when he decided to settle down, making him 17, which leaves us with Legend's age. Most likely taking Times age from the beginning of his game. LONG STORY SHORT- In ALTTP Link is between 9 to 10. NOW. The Oracle games, Link is still a CHILD, so before "Of Age" (Aka less than 16) A LOT of people call him a CHILD and wonder why he has a sword! making him most likely around 11 or 12. Same things with Link's Awakening. (FOOTNOTE 1). Then we have ALBW. Link has a job now and is learning to become a smith. so most likely after his return home, as well as he needs to learn this stuff before becoming a full adult, but then again he lives alone, so we could accurately say 15 to 16. SO LONGER STORY SHORT. We can say 16 and be GENEROUS. Making Legend 17 in LU (but probably closer to 16).

Hyrule - It's literally a plot in his game he is 16, making him 18 in LU.

Four - He is a Child in Minish Cap (So less than 16) and same with Four Swords. He has to be older than 12 because he was given a sword willingly. So between 13 to 15, but we can be nice and say 15 in Four Swords, making him 17 in LU.

Wind -

I do want to say, it's literally stated in his game he is the same age as Time when he KILLED Ganon as an ADULT. It's just the art style of the game.... He JUST turned 16, so people are still calling him a child. (Like how people call 18 year olds children in rl) But also he does look 12 in game... ART STYLE WHYYYYYY (also thats what Twi was supposed to look like lmaoooo)

---

FOOTNOTE 1 - The Encylapedia has wrong information that's easy to disprove and I want to throw it out a window. It also switched the order of the Oracle games and Link's Awakening, even though Oracle of Ages LITERALLY ENDS With Link taking the boat out to sea to head home, and LITERALLY Transitions to Link's Awakenings Opening. ITS THE SAME BOAT. I'm Gonna Cry- NINTENDO WHYYYYY.

[live-laugh-lenney]

omg i’ve just had the sweetest thought😭

arthurtv letting his gf sit on his lap during their streams together and just playing video games together and being all cute

please, this is adorable! i think i have a small blurb on here somewhere that has a really small scene where she goes and sits on his lap during a filming session...

newbie.

that's what her friends called her whenever they were on a stream on discord during a gaming session. even though she'd been streaming and gaming for a few months now, and knew the ropes on when the best time was to stream for her followers and what games they would enjoy seeing her play, the nickname stuck.

before she met arthur, she worked a normal 9-5 job in a local shop that was a short walk away from her london flat, getting up early in the mornings with a routine planned out for her entire day. but the more and more she was seen in arthur's videos and the more she was featured in his vlogs and the more she appeared on their friends' youtube channels, the more people wanted to see her doing her own thing.

so she took up streaming, where she held gaming nights with the two arthur's and george and chris and where she held nights where she would just waffle about her life to the camera, just to get a feel for it. to see whether she enjoyed it. to see whether it took off or whether it wasn't worth the hassle in changing to her career. coming home after a busy day at work, having dinner, before she disappeared to sit in front of her computer for a couple of hours.

george let the nickname slip.

once.

during a game of fortnite because it was a game highly requested by her followers to play in a squad match with her friends - to the point where she would even venture out of her circle and play with some of her followers who requested a chance to be in her team. and she was terrible at it; she claimed any form of shooting game or games that required skill were never her forte and that she was simply doing it for the entertainment factor as people loved to see them all in a joking manner with banter being thrown around.

and it stuck.

she couldn't shake it off, months later. not that she minded, at all. she found it quite endearing and sweet how she was loved and welcomed into arthur's circle with wide-open arms by his best friends, like she'd always been a part of something special, as if she'd known them her whole life. because the last thing she ever wanted was to be placed as an outsider by his friends, know as just 'arthur's girlfriend' who led her own life and never involved herself as a part of their group or was never included in their plans.

they loved her, and respected her, and that was all that mattered.

and they'd been her biggest supporters from the moment she chose to make streaming and content creation her new career path. they were with her the moment she quit her job, they helped her to create her own gaming setup in her spare room, and they gave her tips and pointers on making videos and editing, giving her as much help as they possibly could to kickstart her new start. and she was incredibly thankful for all of them.

there was something she loved about making money off of having fun with her friends, her boyfriend and her followers. and, as time passed, she felt lucky to have been given the platform she had been given and never took it for granted.

"i'm going to save the last two episodes of this story for the stream tomorrow," yn says to the camera propped up before her, suddenly feeling the hefty weight of the headphones sitting upon her head and she could feel her ears getting hot from the padding, "i think we did good tonight, we completed almost all of it in two hours."

she watched arthur play a couple of episodes of lego star wars on a stream, not too long before, and she found something therapeutic about re-completing a game that she had already played before. how she used to love playing it when she was younger and that it was something nostalgic for her... so she'd asked him to show her how to stream herself playing it which he had no issue with doing.

"i can smell dinner, i think arthur's cooked for me," yn grins at her screen's monitor, her belly rumbling from the wafting scent of some form of seasoned meat in the air, "he's a cutie. in case you haven't realised, this isn't my usual setup."

she took a look behind her and, if people were clever enough, they'd see arthur's setup just behind her in his own spare room.

"arthur created a little space for me in his office so we can game and film videos together sometimes," she grins widely, reading all of the sweet comments that came through on the screen; some vibing with her and how cute arthur could be to others sending in games for them to play together, "he said he had a surprise for me when i came over tonight and he showed me this. i could have cried on the spot."

her eyes glazed over the comments, flowing in constantly, and it was hard for her to keep track of what people were saying.

"maybe we'll do a little setup tour for my youtube," she suggests and shrugs at the camera with a nonchalant grin on her lips, "maybe it'll be with you guys in the next couple of days. maybe not. you'll just have to wait and see."

she closed the game from her monitor and let a blank screen fill the space, her own face appearing in the bottom corner as she prepared to close down the stream for the night.

"same time tomorrow, troops. i'll see you then. love to you all," she blew a kiss to the camera and waved, "bye!"

she made sure everything was closed down before she stood to her feet, sliding her headphones off of her head and hanging them up on their little stand beside her screen, stretching out her back from the aches and the cricks that were forming from her hunched position over the last couple of hours. she tucked her chair back underneath her desk and grabbed her water bottle before leaving the room, into the open space of his living room, which was filled with the smells of something delicious.

she noticed the table was set with plates and cutlery before she saw him standing at his kitchen island, dishing everything into bowls so they could help themselves to however much they fancied that night, pan in his hand as he scooped beef strips into a ceramic bowl.

"good stream?"

"the best," yn grins widely as she took her seat at the table, "we hit 2k viewers about an hour ago."

"oh, that's brilliant," arthur gasps proudly and he supports the most genuine smile on his lips, looking at her as she grins proudly, "i told you you'd get there eventually."

"they loved the setup, too," she smiles, watching as he set the pan down in the sink before he picked up the plate of wraps and the bowl of beef strips, leaving behind the salad on the bar that he was going to go back and pick up once he set his full hands down on the table, "i might have to stream here more often now."

"that was the plan," he admits, setting the bowl and the plate down before he went back to the breakfast, not without passing her by and pressing a kiss to the top of her head, "i'm really proud of you."

"couldn't have done it without you," she says.

he sits down at the table beside her, both of them in a position to see the sun setting over london, painting the surface of the thames with oranges and pinks, the last of the sun shimmering on the windows of the buildings opposite.

"i've got a video to film tonight, do you fancy being a part of it? could do a watch-along together," he suggests, filling up a wrap with beef and some salad, wrapping it all up with a fajita-style fold before he took a hearty bite from the top, "people have been asking for you to make another appearance."

"only if you're fine with that," she says, following his actions as she filled her own wrap up, "what are you watching?"

"it's just a short video from reddit about nature and animals," he says and she laughs softly, "what?"

"nothing, i just love your little fascination with the animal kingdom," she admits and he blushes, looking down at his plate, "it's cute. i find it fascinating when you talk about anything like that. all the facts you tell me. it's like having my own walking, talking encyclopaedia."

and when it comes to filming, she finds comfort in sitting closer to him as they watch the reddit videos together. she's wrapped in one of his throw blankets, in her comfiest clothes (which was a tee from his wardrobe and a pair of black cycling shorts peeking out from the bottom), settled on his lap with his arm wrapped around her waist to keep her steady on his thighs.

"an orca slapping a dolphin straight out the sea," he reads from the screen and, as the two of them watch nature take its course, they're both completely enamoured by the scene before them, "oh, jeez. the amount of air that thing gets is insane."

"they're the bullies of the ocean," yn adds and she remembers arthur saying something like that previously, when they'd been cuddled up in bed with a documentary about the ocean playing as they wound down for the night, "i bet that was an incredible thing to witness happen though. being that close to a dolphin seems amazing but to be that close to an orca, too? it's a bonus, a two in one special."

"have you ever seen a dolphin?"

she shakes her head and cranes her head to look at him, "never. it's on my bucket list though. that and to see the whales off the coast of gibraltar."

"maybe we'll take a trip," he says, "one day. i think i'd love to see that, too."

she leans back a little more comfortably on his lap, her back resting against his front as she brings her knees to her chest, tightening the blanket around her body to keep her from being too exposed to the camera and to keep her a little warmer, his arm helping to bring her closer to him.

"that was probably his killer instincts coming out though," yn explains and arthur cocks an eyebrow, confused, at her, "what?"

"they don't eat dolphins?"

"they do," she nods and he's genuinely surprised by her little bit of knowledge on orca's and their food chain, "they don't just eat seals and penguins, arthur. they eat dolphins and other sea creatures, too."

"look at you, eh?" he teases softly and, in that moment, they forget the camera is rolling and that they're actually filming a video for his second channel, "you're just as nerdy as me when it comes to the animal kingdom. my interests are rubbing off on you."

"i have my surprises," she grins and brings a hand up to poke a finger into his nose, "i know it might not seem like it sometimes but i am interested in your interests, silly." xx

[shco-ss]

URGENT PINCH HITTER CALL

Hey Sherlock & Co fans! Someone has had to back out of the Secret Santa due to family medical emergency last last minute, which means I need a last last minute pinch hitter.

I need someone who can get me a min. 700 word fic by Wednesday the 15th of January 11PM GMT/3PM EST/6PM EST/Thursday the 16th 9:30AM ACDT. (APPROXIMATELY 47 HOURS FROM NOW)

This fic should include at least some of the following: (T4T) Johnlock, past Viclock, Love confessions, cuddling & snuggling, hurt/comfort, hand-holding, and/or jealousy. There is also a more specific prompt along these lines that I will provide upon contact.

Please reach out via DM at one of the following locations ASAP if you can fill this position:

@shco-ss on tumblr

@shco_ss on twitter

@artqueen02 on discord

[heyybaejjk]

SAU, LA'U TAMA AULELEI ! - PT. 2

pairing: teen miguel o'hara x fem samoan oc

summary: I suck at writing summaries, js read it man 😞

warnings/notes: smoking?? dk if that counts, profanity, dry fucking humor, no miguel x reader yet

series masterlist | prev chap | next chap

It was two hours before school started. Meaning, that Miguel had two hours to freshen himself up before meeting Manaia today. He woke up at 5 and brushed his teeth hard. So hard that the bristles were at different angles. He then settled at his friend's house, Sione, and texted him that he was waiting outside.

M.Ohara_99: Open the door.

mahi_sniffer: good morning to you too 😔

M.Ohara_99: Sione, it's six in the morning and it's freezing out here. Open the door.

aluaigioukae: can you not text the gc, you have private msgs for a reason stupid asses

mahi_sniffer: @aluaigioukae fuck up period clot n go back to sleep boi

[ M.Ohara_99: Sione, it's six in the morning and it's freezing out here. Open the door. ]

mahi_sniffer: ^Replied to M.Ohara_99's message^

: does that mean ur nips r hard

M.Ohara_99 is typing...

mahi_sniffer: does that mean ur nips are hard

read by M.Ohara_99

mahi_sniffer: HEY WHYD U LEAVE ME ON SEEN 😞

mahi_sniffer: IM KIDDING ILL OPEN THE DOOR MAN

Sione rushes out of his bed, running to the door and opening it. Laughing to himself as he sees Miguel's 6"9 standing there with his eyebrow raised. Sione's eyes lowering down to Miguel's chest. "So they are hard."

That was half an hour ago, now Miguel and Sione were both at Kiuga's house. Both were sat on his bed, Sione facing the wall with his arms crossed.

"So after Kiuga gets ready, we're going to go to David's house?" Miguel asks Sione, face to face with his back. He watches as Sione shrugs his shoulders nonchalantly.

"Don'know," he responds dryly.

Miguels laughs to himself, pushing Sione from the back. "C'mon, it wasn't even that bad."

"What's he sooking about?" Kiuga asks, adjusting his ie lavalava that wrapped around his waist.

"I tapped his cheek because he was looking at my nipples-"

"Wroooong! You slapped me, idiot!" Sione whines, throwing a glare Miguel's way.

Kiuga chuckles, finally finished getting ready. Ruffling Sione's hair, wrapping an arm around his shoulder. "David's meeting us at school, he went early to have a personal fufu hour sesh in the school bathroom with his missus."

(a/n: fufu hour is this discord chat with a bunch of polynesians, its just straight up nudes, cookie calls, and sex☠️)

Miguel's face cringes while Sione pushes him away, "Can you not, cunt? Oh my fuck," He makes a gagging face, trying to shake off the image of one of his best friend's and their girlfriend having a quick root.

It was time. Time has gone by and now the performances were ready to be showcased. Everyone was to sit inside the wide and large hall, face the stage while sitting in a cramped space next to others. This led Miguel to start freaking the absolute fuck out. Where should he sit? Next to her? Behind her? Or should he purposely sit in front of Manaia so she can gawk at his back muscles? Where was she even going to sit?

He pauses at the hall door upon seeing her sit down front row, along with other two girls on each side. Miguel mentally facepalms. Of course, she'd be in front row. She was performing.

Miguel nervously rubbed his sweaty palms and speedwalks outside the hall, making his way to the men's changing room. He sees Kiuga sitting down on one of the benches, huffing out a puff of smoke, throwing away the blunt instantly at the sight of him walking.

"Fuck, I thought you were Mr Smith," he chuckles, standing up to dap up Miguel, "He caught me last term, the rents were not happy with me... You got the thing I told you about?"

Miguel nods, pulling out a small box and showing it to his friend, smiling proudly.

"Okay, how much did this cost you?"

"Like $15 for one, I got another as well, so.. $30 altogether," Miguel smiles innocently, holding a dark red and blue flower and a purple flower together as a father would with a fish after their successful catch.

"The hell? Miguel, what sei shop did you go to?"

( a/n: A sei is a fake flower worn on your ear. Traditionally, if a sei is being worn on your right ear, it means you're single. If it's on the left ear, then it mean you're taken. Or can just be used decoration. I personally wear one for fun!!)

Miguel's smile falters slightly, "The one you told me to go to! Sialei's Boutique."

"Se aikae ia, that's the one I told you not to go to. Sione told you to go to that one. And we've learnt to never listen to Sione," he rolls his eyes at the mention of their friend, "The one I told you to go to only sold sei's for $15, but in a pack of 10. You only have 2."

"Oh fuck- Sorry. I didn't-"

"It doesn't matter now. Just remember the plan, okay?"

"Yeah, yeah! Right, I know."

"And that is?" Kiuga questions the latter, patting his back to comfort his nerves.

"Wait for everything to finish. Ask her if she's free to speak later, and then ask her out on a date?"

"Ia malo lava, great job, now go find us a seat inside, I'll be there soon."

"But where are you going to be?"

"Right beside you, I need to chuck a quick piss before it starts. Now go!"

An hour and a half went by and the main event was coming to a near-end. Miguel sat in his seat uncomfortably, his legs sore from sitting in the same spot for so long, but he held on staying just to see you dance. However, the temptation of walking out the hall doors was getting to him.

"Fuck me," Miguel whispers, annoyed at the bicker he was stuck in between with. He sat in the middle of Sione and Kiuga, who were visibly arguing, spitting all over Miguel's face without care.

"Yeah, but I told you to pack the flag so we can run around with it!"

"No the fuck you didn't, cunt. YOU said you were going to bring it, you never told me to bring it!"

"Sione, I literally remember what you said. You, Miguel, and David were at my bloody house last night! You can ask Miguel. Right, Miguel!?"

Both heads turn to face the poor boy, he ignores them as the crowd around them starts to cheer at the MC walking on stage. "Kia Orana, everybody!" The loud voice echoes through the mic, a tall Kuki boy with slight pale skin held a bright smile, ushering for the audience to quiet down for him to speak. "Before the day ends, we have two more performances to finish us off! A couple dance then that will be followed by a group performance, so don't be afraid to give them a big cheer!"

He walks off the stage as another guy walks onto the middle of it, his head bowed down and muscular arms behind his back, the guy on stage had a similar build to Miguel's; only difference being he had a traditional tattoo run across his shoulder blade and down the right side of his chest.

The song had started and everyone had already started cheering, especially Kiuga. David, who was beside him, took out a big Samoan flag and started waving it around while cheering. Miguel laughs as Sione and Kiuga glare at David.

A minute into the dance, Miguel leans over to his right, "Who's that?" He whispers to Sione, his annoyance gone down as the two other boys had stopped arguing.

Sione goes silent for a while before answer, "The guy dancing?" he asks warily.

"Yeah, him."

The audience grows louder as they watch another figure walk onto the stage, locking hands with the other. His eyes refuse to avert, his breathing heaves at the sight of Manaia making her way on stage, her hand holding the latter. Miguel watches in disbelief as her smile, showing her pearly white teeth, winking at the audience. Her curly hair reached the back of her knees, complimenting the black and blue dress you wore. The sei she wore matching with the guy's ie lavalava.

"That's Manaia's ex, Seth..."

( a/n: for reference, here's the dance !! )

prev chap | next chap

this chapter is v boring, this was more of a filler im sorry guys

[rubistella]

MUN MONDAY: GETTING TO KNOW YOU!

Respond to the following prompts out of character, then tag others you'd like to get to know a little bit better!

ROLEPLAYER NAME: Milky! Though my gamer pals insist on calling me "Chrollo" because that’s my go-to in video games. ROLEPLAYER PRONOUNS: She/They. MUSE(S) NAME: Astarion Ancunin, the one, the only, the fabulous! 🌟 PREFERRED COMMUNICATION: IMs or Discord. Though let’s be honest, “preferred” might be a strong word. I try to keep up 💪🏻 (which is not to say I’m any good at it). EXPERIENCE: Roughly 16 years of literate/written RP experience and a bit longer mucking about with LARP and tabletop RPGs. I officially started larping/tabletops when I was 9! I’m 30 now, so do the maths. My buddies quit the LARPing/Tabletop scene when they moved on to other hobbies, so I started written rp because of it. 💔 PREFERRED ROLEPLAY TYPE: I don’t do short. I don’t even know what short is. Multi-para is my minimum wage, and apparently, @fiendishfinesse has dubbed me a “biblical roleplayer” as opposed to “novella roleplayer”. There’s no going back from this.🧍🏻‍♂️ PET PEEVES & DEALBREAKERS: Assuming my character's reactions or trying to script them without asking. Look, if your muse wants to throw Astarion around like a ragdoll, go for it. But if you think he’s going to sympathise with your character, or want to drink from your character just because your BG3 run made him “nice”, then we’re gonna have to have a chat about your expectations and godmodding. 🧓🏻 PLOTS OR MEMES: Plots are the express train to my attention span, whereas memes... well, memes are at the mercy of my sporadic “ask reply sprees.” These sprees occur roughly as often as lunar eclipses and with a similar air of chaos. If patience is your virtue, then sure, send memes! I’ll get to them eventually. LONG REPLIES OR SHORT REPLIES: Give me long replies or give me death. Toss me those sprawling epics, or odysseys if you will, and I’ll love you forever. BEST TIME TO WRITE: Either immediately after waking up, fuelled by caffeine, or at unholy hours of the night when my sleep schedule has waved its last white flag. ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSES: NO LOL The more different they are, the better I write them. I like my characters as far removed from my actual personality as humanly possible... that’s just how I thrive. Go figure?

yoinked this from @dvilsdesire ❣️ yoink it from me.

[valiantstarlights]

Omegaverse Lore: The Crucial Hours

I originally posted this omegaverse lore on @mr-sadman discord, but I'm gonna post it here as well for easier access. 😊 Feel free to use this in your omegaverse stories, as long as you give credit/tag me. Thank you! 🙇‍♀️ I'm looking forward to seeing all the hurt/comfort/spicy fics inspired by this. 🥰

Note: I have rewritten most of this to sound like something you would read in a medical brochure for fun, and then I went ahead and made an actual medical brochure (cover) for it. 😂

The Crucial Hours during Heat/Rut Cycles: A recommended reading for alphas and omegas who have reached their majority

--

There's no need to feel overwhelmed when your cycle comes! It's a natural part of life, and we here at (redacted) Hospital believe that the more prepared you are, the smoother your cycle will go. So, here are the most important things you need to know about your cycle, grouped by hours.

--

Hour 1 to 3

You feel fine, except you're sweating more than usual. You know that feeling when it's humid? You feel like that, except it's worse, because nothing you do alleviates the feeling of stickiness.

Do not ignore or power through this stage when you start to feel the symptoms! Immediately call your partner if you have one, or a heat/rut agency if you don't, as soon as possible.

Hour 4 to 6

You're still sweating, but now you also feel confused and forgetful. During this time, your body's temperature also increases, and you may even experience having hallucinations.

Again, it is very important that you secure for yourself a partner as soon as possible. So if you haven't done so already, do it now.

Hour 7 to 9 (with partner)

Your heat/rut will proceed as normal, depending on how long your cycle lasts.

A regular heat cycle for omegas has a duration of 3 days, and it occurs 4 to 6 times a year. A regular rut cycle for alphas has a duration of 1 week, and it occurs 2 to 3 times a year.

There are alphas and omegas who have irregular cycles. If you're one of them, please be especially vigilant and either always have a heat/rut partner ready, or have the number of a heat/rut agency on speed dial.

If you have not had a single cycle for a year or more, please consult your doctor that specializes in secondary gender cycles and schedule a general check-up.

--

Hour 7 to 9 (without a partner)

During this stage, you will find it difficult to speak coherently. You will also forget how most things work and what they're called.

You will feel hostile towards people with the same secondary gender as yourself, even if they're your family or friends!

You will also feel extreme affection for people with a different secondary gender than yourself, so for everyone's sake, it would be best to remove yourself from a public setting, return home, and isolate.

Without a partner to help you, you will feel an increased, almost frenzied need to mate, and you would have difficulty regaining a normal body temperature on your own.

Should a heat/rut partner arrive during this time, extra mating sessions (that preferably ends with one of you knotting the other) must be done in order to help you regain your verbal communication skills.

The duration of your current heat/rut cycle will see a 50-100% increase as well. For example, if you are an alpha with a regular 7 day cycle, then expect this cycle to last 11 to 14 days.

Hour 10 to 12 (without a partner)

You will have increased animal-like behaviors, as your body starts to overheat. You will have also totally forgotten how to speak. (There are cases where alphas and omegas retained enough coherency to speak 1 or 2 syllable sentences, but they are considered very rare.)

Should you reach this stage, you must be isolated so you will not hurt others. You will be very hostile to people with the same secondary gender as yourself, highly possessive of people with a different secondary gender than yourself, and irrational and violent if you think you're being forced to separate from who you think is your mate.

Healing from this stage can take months, and will require medical professionals and extended hospitalization.

One important note to make is that heat/rut agencies do not accept cases that have reached Hour 10. For the sake of their employees' safety, it is best to just call nearby hospitals that specialize in illnesses specific to certain secondary genders.

(redacted) Hospital is one such place, and we pride ourselves with the quality of our care, and the dedication and professionalism of our staff.

Hour 13 upwards (without a partner)

Your body has overworked itself, and as a result, you will either have lost most of your mental faculties, or died from overheating.

For people who have reached this stage and lived, long term (and sometimes even life-long) care is needed. There is only a very small percentage of people who recover from this stage, but for the sake of your loved ones, we will do our best to care for them, so they may one day recover and be able to enjoy life once more.

--

About Us

(redacted) Hospital provides qualified medical care to people of all secondary genders, and has a wing dedicated to the long term care needed by alpha and omega patients who have unfortunately reached Hour 10 and above without the help of a partner.

--

If you have any questions or concerns, contact us using the number listed below. Our friendly and very understanding customer service representatives will help you as best they can, and will also recommend nearby heat/rut agencies, should you (or someone you care for) have need of it.

(redacted)

[kaoharu]

Since you mentioned jerboas like *checks post* 9 ish hours ago I'm taking this as a chance to explain a funny lil thing that happened last night. So in final fantasy 14, we got these groups called free companies that players can join. Some friends of mine decided to start their own free company (technically they used to be one a while ago but then some irl stuff happened and it disbanded but now they're back) and they were discussing the name of the free company in a discord we're all in

I'm also in the discord but I wasn't planning to discuss the name very deeply myself bc even though I'd love to join their free company, I literally couldn't bc im on a free trial (you can check out final fantasy 14 on a free trial but it comes w some restrictions when it comes to interacting w players to prevent botting). I still like lurking and chatting tho so I just start watching em talk about the name of this free company.

The creator of this group kinda wants a cute name for it. At some point, someone suggests naming the free company jerboa which the creator didn't want bc they were looking for a name that's a location (it's a personal preference). So then I pipe up and jokingly suggest jerboa town.

Aaaaaaaand now the free company is called jerboa town. My Influence.

rhis is literally amazing. i want to be you in this scenario so bad jerboa town.... stares longingly

[theroseceleste]

Pilot Miguel - Part 11 - My Hero

Miguel seems to be in a bit of a mood and a celebrity passenger only seems to worsen it. However, all problems have to be put aside in an emergency situation.

Buy me a coffee! (And gain access to my discord)

Word count - 4172

Minors DNI

If you don't want spoilers, don't read the 'contains' bit below.

Contains : Jealous behaviour, flight incident - bird ingestion / engine failure, emergency landing - no casualties. Smut : Fingering, mutual masturbation, penetrative sex.

Enjoy! xx

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10

There’s excitement in the staff lounge at Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas airport. A celebrity is going to be on your flight and obviously, you’ll be serving him in first-class. Sergio Velasquez, who is only just the handsomest actor in the film industry; nominated for many Oscars and seemingly the nicest man in the world.

You and Miguel turn up in the staff lounge, on a rare occasion where he flies you back to Nueva York after having flown you to Madrid just a couple of days before.

The last forty-eight hours have once again been magical and you have enjoyed spending time with your man, wandering around the city and making mad, passionate love together in your hotel room.

“Oh my God, oh my God…” you mutter under your breath excitedly when you hear about Sergio Velasquez.

Miguel looks down at you, as he thrusts his phone into his pocket.

“What’s the matter?” he asks you, looking slightly irritated, but not at you.

You stare back up at him.

“Sergio Velasquez… You know; charming actor, famous, really nice guy…”

Your tone almost sounds dreamy as you imagine what meeting him is going to be like.

Miguel huffs in a disinterested manner.

“So what?”

You blink at him in surprise, but it’s clear that Miguel really does not understand what all the excitement is about.

“Just another passenger to me…”

Rolling your eyes slightly at him, you scoff.

“So what? He’ll be the first celebrity passenger I’ve ever served, and the one I’ve been most keen to meet.”

“Ahh, well, you know what they say, (Y/N). Never meet your heroes,” Peter interrupts as he steps into the conversation.

“Peter!” you cry out happily and give him a hug.

So much has happened since you last saw the co-pilot and you’re thrilled to see him. He always makes your flights interesting and full of good humour.

“Hey Migs, how are you doing? Good to see you again,” Peter says as he holds his hand out to the Captain who audibly groans upon hearing the name ‘Migs’.

He reluctantly takes Peter’s hand and shakes it.

“Let me guess, Lyla told you that nickname?”

“Sure did!”

“Here’s some advice – forget the name.” Miguel replies as he lets go of Peter’s hand and adjusts his tie.

Despite having an amazing time with you for two days in Spain, it seems his mood has plummeted even lower than normal. You notice he’s received a few texts which you feel troubles him.. And now his mood has worsened at the mention of the celebrity. Is he… jealous?

Peter shrugs and moves on to say hello to another member of the cabin crew, leaving you alone with Miguel once more.

“You’re not - jealous are you babe?” you whisper quietly so only he can hear.

He scoffs as he raises an unimpressed eyebrow at you.

“Jealous? Why would I be jealous of Sergio Velasquez?”

He’s totally jealous…

“Okay, so Migs is a ‘no-go’ for you, so what can I call you?” Peter asks as he takes his seat on the right of the cockpit.

Most of Miguel’s attention is on the weather report. Decent conditions are forecast until approaching Nueva York in the evening.

“Checks, Parker.”

“Checks? That’s an odd name-“

“Tch…” he tuts, “not my name! Do. Your. Checks!”

Peter goes red in the face, partially out of embarrassment but also frustration. No one struggles warming up to him, so why is Captain O’Hara being super prickly?

Without another word he does his once-over checks on his side of the controls. Everything looks in good working order.

Miguel is now reading the plane’s log-book. Once again, a squeaky clean history. No issues or malfunctioning equipment. Feeling satisfied, he stuffs the book back where he found it.

“You can call me Miguel,” he finally responds to Peter, unable to shake off feeling a little bad about his outburst earlier.

Since his recent contact with Xina, and her persistent pestering, he feels a little on edge most of the time.

“Miguel - nice name,” Peter replies with a compliment, but it doesn’t match his usual warmth.

The Captain frowns. He’s finally managed to shut Flight Officer Parker up, but at what cost? Then he casts his mind to you while he does his equipment checks. He wonders what you’re doing and if you’ve met Sergio Velasquez.

“Good afternoon Mr Velasquez, such an honour to be serving you today,” you stutter ever so slightly as you greet the actor you’ve liked for quite a while now.

After taking a look at his ticket you show him to his seat and offer him a glass of champagne. He gives you a weak smile and he continues to wear his sunglasses despite being inside the plane.

“Thanks,” he mutters to you quietly as he takes the glass and makes himself comfortable.

Your immediate thought is that he’s probably faced a bunch of fans at the airport and simply wants some time to himself, which you can understand, of course.

There is a slight delay as it takes a while to get all passengers on board. Some are running late and have put everything on hold. During that time you check on the pilots to see if they need any quick refreshments before they’re committed to takeoff. Peter asks for water, but Miguel just shakes his head in response.

After a quick trip into the galley you return with a cup of water for Flight Officer Parker as the last few passengers come on board and put their bags in the overhead lockers.

“How’s Sergio?” your boyfriend asks with mock interest.

“Awww, you do care,” you tease Miguel, ruffling the back of his hair as Peter looks away to get his checklist ready.

“He’s alright - quiet. Not quite like how I expected.”

“Never meet your heroes,” Peter repeats from earlier, but you sense he’s in a mood now, too.

Silence fills the cockpit as you look at both of the pilots with a concerned frown.

“Is everything o—“

“Hello?”

You hear someone calling out near the entrance to the cockpit, grabbing your attention immediately.

“Shit, that’s him…” you mutter.

As you step away, Miguel opens his grumpy mouth to speak as he smooths over his now messy hair.

“Yes, you go deal with him.”

His words make both you and Peter look at him with a stunned expression. This is unlike him when you’re around…

Stepping back towards Miguel, you allow yourself to wrap your arms around his shoulders in front of Peter - you trust him. A quick, soft and tender kiss is delivered to his cheek, making him freeze on the spot, eyes fixed on the apparatus before him.

“Be good,” you whisper against his cheek while your hand strokes the other, immediately causing his heart to pound hard in his chest.

Pulling yourself away, you give a flabbergasted Peter a wink before leaving the cockpit to deal with Sergio.

Miguel can feel Peter’s eyes on him.

“Don’t even think about saying anything…”

Peter raises his hands placatingly.

“Absolutely. Staying out of this one.”

Despite not saying anything, he wonders just what has happened between the both of you since he last saw you in Acapulco. He hopes that Miguel treats you better than how he just did too.

“We need to start pre-flight checks…” Miguel mutters quietly in hope to get out of this awkward situation.

Despite still feeling your kiss on his skin and the sound of it lingering in his ear. An unignorable and uncomfortable squeezing around his heart continues. Jealousy is an ugly feeling and he hates the fact he’s behaving the way he is. It’s suffocating and heavy in his chest. He trusts you, but despises the fact that another man that gets you excited is receiving your attention right now…

You sigh as you finally strap yourself in the jump seat. Sergio has been giving you the runaround, whilst not being particularly pleasant about it either.

He asked for a new glass of champagne as his first drink was ‘too bubbly’ for his liking, and insisted that the cabin was too dark despite you telling him numerous times it was because he was still wearing his sunglasses. It’s safe to say you’re not looking forward to the rest of the flight, but feeling thankful for this respite as the plane begins its journey to the runway.

As you wait for the plane to take off, you hear the usual sound of passengers talking to their neighbours, a calm and peaceful atmosphere until the engines start to roar. You get thrusted forward a little more than usual out of your seat as your back faces the front of the plane.

You might be a little paranoid, but you can’t help but think Miguel’s foul mood is reflected in how the plane behaves. Perhaps he’s a little overzealous with the thrusters today?

The air above the runway shimmers in the heat as the Boeing-747 tears its way along it, engines screaming as all four of them push hard to get 397 tons at the right speed to take flight.

The familiar dropping sensation in your stomach tells you that all wheels have left the ground and the back of the plane looks like it’s at the bottom of an incredibly steep hill.

Inside the cockpit, both pilots are silent as they monitor the equipment. Miguel presses a switch that calls back the landing gear, stowing them away in the plane’s belly. A clunking sound indicates that the automatic doors have shut the wheels in.

Everything seems completely normal until the two men hear a loud bang, shaking the whole plane and making them flinch. Lights on the cockpit dashboard illuminate, highlighting that engine three is in total shut-down.

“Mierda!” (Shit!) Miguel yells as his mind runs rapidly, remembering the emergency landing procedure.

The bang is heard throughout the fuselage, followed by panicked screams and yelps of shock on the right hand side of the aircraft. Some passengers witness one of the four engines suffer a catastrophic failure. Flames burst out of the back, spurring chaos.

Your heart pounds as various thoughts rush through your mind all at once. What the hell has happened and if Miguel and Peter are okay?

If there is ever a time to panic, now is not it. After the initial shock, both pilots revert to their extensive training that got them here in the first place.

“Mayday, mayday, flight AA-1610 has suffered what we suspect is a bird ingestion in engine three. Requesting priority to circle round and land immediately.”

Peter sounds calm and collected as he radios the air traffic control tower. As he does this, Miguel levels the plane out to stop it from climbing any higher.

“Understood flight AA-1610, can you confirm you still have control of the aircraft?” a man in air traffic control asks.

“Yes, we can still control the aircraft,” Peter answers plainly.

“Okay, I will be advising all flights in the air and on the ground to hold until you land. And I will request the assistance from airport emergency services.”

Miguel has been given the all clear to land. He banks the plane in a gentle turn to loop back and approach the runway for an emergency landing.

Back in the cabin, you hear Miguel inform the passengers and crew of the emergency landing and suspected bird ingestion resulting in the engine failure. To your relief, he sounds unphased and calm. Unlike Sergio who has suddenly gone very pale and begun whimpering. You’re starting to see him in a new light, and it’s not very flattering…

Passengers try and peer out of their windows to try and see the engine. Thankfully they’re not screaming or yelling. It seems Miguel has done a good job not to incite panic with the passengers with his announcement.

You feel the plane tilt as it makes its final approach. As it lines up with the runway, other planes loop around higher in the sky as they wait to be cleared to land.

Another clunking sound is heard through the fuselage, causing the already nervous passengers to worry even more, but you know that is the sound of the landing gear lowering and locking into place.

As Miguel brings the plane lower towards the runway, he can see emergency vehicles poised to roll along after the aircraft, ready to assist if needed. Some of them are fire trucks and a few others are ambulances in case there are any casualties should things become dire.

Despite being down one engine, the plane is flying exceptionally well. It still handles perfectly to get them back down on the ground safely.

The landing gear connects with land as smoothly as he can make it. Flaps on the wings extended at the fullest setting to slow the plane down before taxiing off the runway.

Cheers and applause are heard throughout the cabin as passengers feel great relief to be back on terra-firma. You spot Sergio blubbering, pressing his hands together as if to thank God for surviving a traumatic experience.

Despite rolling your eyes at him, you, too, feel like crying, but out of sheer pride for Miguel and Peter for dealing with the situation so professionally and efficiently. Everyone is safe on the ground thanks to them and their ability to fly and remain calm in an otherwise stressful situation.

Thankfully, there is a spare gate for the damaged plane to park at. It is safe to go near the terminal as the flames on the engine went out on their own after it died completely.

All on board are going to have to re-enter the terminal to wait for another plane to be organised by AracnAir for their flight to Nueva York. Some passengers feel thankful to be alive, others know this is the beginning of a painful wait in the airport while things are re-organised.

You itch to see Miguel but you have to do your duties of saying goodbye to all passengers and assisting those who need help. Sergio takes his time to leave as his phone is blowing up after tweeting about nearly dying on a flight. It seems the drama extends beyond the films in which he plays… Yes, what happened is serious, but the plane can fly pretty well with one or two engines out - it’s just not advisable.

Finally, everyone is gone, including Sergio. You’re glad to see the back of him. Peter is right and you begin to wonder if he’s ever run into his hero and regretted it.

You loiter in the galley, pacing it with anticipation while your other colleagues have already left. You know better than to interrupt the pilots when they’re completing their final checklists, shutting the plane’s systems down safely.

Eventually, the cockpit door clicks open, and the brave pilots emerge. The Flight Officer holds up his hand for a high five but you plough into him for a friendly hug, surprising both him and Miguel.

“Well done, you,” you mutter to him, giving him a squeeze with your arms.

Peter pats his hand against your back, obviously touched by your sweet gesture.

“Thank you (Y/N),” replies as you release him and then turn to face Miguel.

“And you too…”

Your man catches you in his arms, holding you close in his embrace. Finally, a smile breaks across his lips.

“You both did amazing and I’m so proud of you.”

Peter can’t believe what he’s seeing. He’s not entirely sure he’s seen a smile that wide on Miguel’s face, he pinches himself to see if he’s dreaming - nope, definitely awake.

“I’ll uhh, leave you two to it…” Peter begins, but Miguel steps forward, still holding you with one arm.

“Wait.”

Flight Officer Parker glances back up to the Captain.

“Thank you, Peter. I’m glad I had you with me today. And…” he pauses for a second as he puts you back down. “I should probably apologise to both of you. I was being a dick earlier and, I’m sorry.”

“Water under the bridge,” Peter replies, he’s not the type to hold grudges.

He extends his arm and pats Miguel on the shoulder.

“I’ve got to go and call my wife - excuse me.”

The Captain nods and then looks down at you as Peter makes his way off of the plane. Miguel wraps his arm around you, keeping you close.

“Come on chiquita, I guess we have at least one more day in Madrid,” he whispers to you, despite you two being the only ones there.

As you both walk into the terminal through the gate, you’re completely alone. The rest of your colleagues are way ahead of you.

Miguel holds onto you tightly, his arm firm around your waist. There is no longer any care for if anyone does see the two of you. He wants people to know that you’re his, and he is yours. Sergio Velasquez’s presence did make him jealous, he admits that now - to himself. But also, before he knew it was the engine that got destroyed, his first thought was you after hearing the concerning sound that shook the aircraft. For a split second, he thought something awful happened to you. It seems strange that he felt relieved it was a catastrophic failure of an engine instead. In that moment, his mind prioritised you over four-hundred passengers and cabin crew.

He looks back through the large windows of the gate at the giant, wounded, metal bird. A darkened, charred engine hangs under the right wing. The damaged turbine, missing blades, while the remainders are twisted and warped. It reminds him just how much worse things could have been and he’s thankful that he and Peter worked together like a well oiled machine to bring the plane safely back to the airport.

There’s a bathroom ahead along the corridor leading back to customs. After what has happened, he’s left feeling the urgent need to shower you with love. To make up for his jealous behaviour earlier.

With a quick glance around to check that you both are truly alone, he pulls you into the bathroom with no warning. You squeal at the sudden change of direction but you don’t complain when you find yourself shut in the room, alone with him. His lips against yours in a matter of seconds and his hands roaming your body as though he has never touched you before.

“Necesito tenerte, ahora,” (I need to have you, now) he whispers against your lips, his breath shaking with overwhelming need.

He takes your breath away with his urgency. You feel the bathroom door press against your back and you hear him sliding the lock into place.

“People will hear when they walk past,” you gasp out as he pulls the hem of your skirt up over your hips.

“I don’t care…” he moans as his fingers massage your clit through your panties.

Your moan follows soon after as you open your legs slightly to allow him better access.

“Lo siento chiquita…” Miguel groans against your lips.

“What for?” you ask breathlessly, brows knitting together as pleasure rushes around your body.

Eventually his fingers find the edge of your panties and pull them to one side. Running the tips of his digits against your aroused entrance.

“I lied,” he pauses to kiss you on the lips. “I was jealous.” Another kiss is planted on your cheek. “I trust you.” Another kiss against your neck. “I just didn’t like that Sergio was getting your attention.”

Now it all makes sense. You’re not mad at him. He was rude to you, yes, but he’s apologised for it. You can even understand him, remembering the times when your female colleagues were practically salivating over him. It feels like a punch in the gut, even though he never entertained the thought of being with anyone else.

His fingers plunge inside of you, making you tip your head back in pleasure and almost cry out at the sensation of his warm fingers massaging you.

It’s irresistible, you can’t help but grind yourself against his hand, seeking more contact against your clit and a deeper reach of his fingers.

“Ride my hand, that’s it chiquita,” me murmurs against your lips again as you hear the clinking of his belt buckle.

“I want you nice and wet for me.”

His fingers reach deeper, as the heel of his palm rubs against your swelling, sensitive bud. The words he uses and his actions always get you aroused - without fail.

As you remain pressed against the bathroom door, you see that he’s unfastened his belt and unzipped his pants. Reaching forward, your fingers tug on the taut hem of his boxer briefs and pull them down, his twitching cock springs free, pre-cum already beading at the tip.

“Mmmm… touch me there, por favor…”

His hand guides yours to his length, wrapping your fingers around it and pulls it up and down to get you started.

“Like that baby, sí…” he moans as his hips thrust forwards gently.

You feel his digits pump into you harder, desperate to get you ready, although he doesn’t think you’re far off.

The bathroom is soon full of yours and his moans of pleasure as you mutually play with one another. He breathes deeply as if he’s trying to control himself. Champing at the bit to take you, to fuck you, to make love to you.

Your lips part wider as a gasp escapes your mouth. He pulls out of you, leaving you feeling empty before he grabs you under your ass and lifts you up. There’s a thud against the door as he presses you against it, preparing to fill you with his throbbing shaft.

“I need to be inside you, baby…”

His words are practically spoken into your mouth as he kisses and talks at the same time. Feeling fogged with need, he doesn’t know what action to stop and what to start. All that he does know is that he needs to feel you wrapping around him, clenching on his dick.

He lets you slide down the door slightly until he’s able to thrust into you, filling and stretching you instantly.

“Miguel~!” you squeal before covering your mouth.

“Say it, say my name, I don’t care who hears us…”

The door bangs as he pumps into you. At first, you’re on edge; worried who might hear, but when he starts hitting the right spot inside you, all your worries fade away. Care and concern seeps out of you as all you can think about is him panting in your ear, fucking you harder as each minute goes by.

“Fuck! So good!”

He grits his teeth and grunts into your ear. His fingers dig into your flesh as he holds you under your thighs.

Your hand finds the door handle for something to hold onto. His thrusts are beginning to push you over the edge.

“Baby - I’m gonna…” you gasp as he pumps even harder, those bangs getting louder.

“Yes! That’s it. I’m not far behind-” Grunt.

Your world comes crashing down, in the best way possible. Ecstasy consumes your body, washing over you like a tidal wave and you tumble along with it, following the flow it pushes you in. You’re lost to the feeling of him inside you, to his sounds vibrating in your ear and his hot breath against your neck.

Finally his body shudders hard as he groans, the ultimate pleasure overwhelming him too. He slows his movements and rests his head against yours.

“Two days with you isn’t enough chiquita,” he mumbles, trying to catch his breath.

“I need more…”

You nuzzle against him as you recover. Your legs wrapped around him, holding him still inside you.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, chiquita, I want us to go away on holiday. Where I can have you all to myself, somewhere sunny and warm so I can see you dressed in nothing but bikinis and pretty dresses.”

Your teeth bite down on your lip as you listen to his answer. A retreat sounds perfect.

“Where do you have in mind?” you eventually ask as you feel him prepare to pull out and lower you to the floor.

“I hear Tenerife this time of year is great.”

The both of you get yourselves cleaned up and fix your clothing.

“So, was it good to meet Sergio?” Miguel asks, as he does up his zip.

You give a shrug while you roll your skirt back down your thighs and smooth over the material.

“Peter’s right. Never meet your heroes.”

A quizzical eyebrow raises at your response. He can’t deny feeling a lot happier hearing this.

“Besides, I have a new hero now.”

The quizzical eyebrow is joined by another, completing a more surprised expression on his face.

“Oh? And who might that be?”

You lean into him, pulling on his shirt to get him down to your level.

“You’re my hero…”

I hope you enjoyed part 11!

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[caradecema]

Under The Dragons Wing// HOTD

PART 1

Summary: °°°·.°·..·°¯°·._.· Viserra Targaryen, the granddaughter of former Princess Saera Targaryen, begins experiencing prophetic visions of House Targaryen's downfall.

With Silverwing as her dragon, she warns Rhaenyra and Daemon of the impending chaos. Traveling to King's Landing, she infiltrates the Greens' ranks, spreading rumors and sowing discord among their allies.

Viserra manipulates key players like Tyland Lannister, Otto Hightower, and even Alicent's children, ensuring they are divided. Secretly rallying support for Rhaenyra, she surrounds the Greens with powerful armies before King Viserys's death. As Rhaenyra takes the throne, Viserra's schemes secure a fragile victory, though the Dance of Dragons looms ahead. ·._.·°¯°·.·°·.·°°°

(Oc x IDK)

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10

┏━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━┓

10 moon of 128 A.C.

For days, she prowled the skies above Dragonstone, her silver form gleaming in the pale moonlight. She did not rest, did not hunt—she only flew, circling the island with restless energy, her cries ringing through the night like a mournful dirge.

The keepers whispered of her distress. Even the other dragons took notice, growling low as she passed overhead, sensing the strange agitation in one of their own.

Daemon watched from the high walls of the DragonStone, his sharp eyes following the dragon's endless flight. She was searching, calling—but for what? Or whom?

Hours passed, the moon high in the sky, when suddenly, she stopped.

With a final piercing cry, Silverwing turned westward, toward the open sea. And then, without hesitation, she flew.

She did not look back.

Daemon's grip tightened on the stone railing as he watched her disappear into the darkness, her silver wings swallowed by the night.

A presence stirred behind him. Rhaenyra.

She stepped beside him, her gaze fixed on the same empty sky. She had heard Silverwing's cries, just as he had. Perhaps she understood them in a way he did not.

Daemon exhaled, his voice edged with something unreadable.

"Shall I send the keepers after her?"

Rhaenyra did not turn to him.

"No," she murmured. "Let her go."

Daemon studied her for a long moment, but there was nothing more to be said.

And so, as the waves crashed against the cliffs below and the wind carried away the last echoes of the dragon's call, they let her be.

✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼

12 moon of 128 A.C.

News had reached Saera of a dragon sighted near the beach. She had immediately sent men to investigate, to observe its movements and report back. When they returned, the description they gave sent a chill through her. She recognized the dragon they spoke of instantly—it was Silverwing, her mother's dragon.

Saera's heart sank, but she said little in response. Instead, she quietly ordered her guards to keep a close watch on her granddaughter, Viserra. For days, Saera had noticed the dark circles forming under the girl's eyes, the subtle signs of sleepless nights and unease. And now, with Silverwing's sudden appearance, Saera could no longer ignore the sense of foreboding hanging in the air.

Viserra, for her part, had been plagued by dreams—visions she could not escape. Each night they showed her fragments of ruin: the downfall of House Targaryen. She had seen it, felt it, and knew it would begin in a matter of moons. But what could she do? Viserra pushed the dreams aside, choosing to dismiss them as mere figments of her imagination, and prepared herself to break her fast with her grandmother, Saera.

When Viserra arrived in the dining hall, she greeted her grandmother with a kiss on the cheek before taking her seat. Silence fell between them as Saera pored over the monthly expenses from one of her many brothels. The scratch of a quill was the only sound until Viserra broke the quiet.

"Muna, Saera," she said softly, her voice laced with hesitation.

Saera looked up from her papers, raising a single eyebrow in question.

"May I go collect herbs?" Viserra asked.

Saera nodded. "Take two of your guards."

Without another word, Viserra rose and made her way out of their home, heading toward the outskirts of Volantis, near the shores. The air smelled of salt and earth as she began searching for the herbs she needed, her movements swift and practiced. But as if summoned by some unseen force, a shadow passed overhead. She did not need to look up to know what it was. The familiar silver dragon, Silverwing, soared above her, its presence palpable.

Viserra, as always, ignored the beast. She focused on her task, her fingers deftly plucking the herbs for one of her teas. The dragon lingered in the skies, circling as though watching her, but she refused to acknowledge it.

When her basket was full, she handed it to one of her guards. On the way back to the city, Viserra made an unexpected detour, slipping into one of her grandmother's brothels. The establishment was as lavish as expected, filled with the murmur of voices and the clink of goblets. As she entered, all eyes turned to her.

The lords in the room drank her in with their gazes, their desire thick as the perfumed air that clung to the silken drapes and velvet cushions. Many would have parted with heavy coin—fortunes, even—for just a single night in her company. But they all knew better. Viserra was untouchable, and not just because of her lineage. Any man foolish enough to reach for her would face the wrath of Saera herself—a punishment swift, brutal, and final. Her grandmother ruled this establishment with an iron hand beneath her velvet glove, and Viserra was the crown jewel no one dared attempt to steal.

She moved through the brothel like a queen among commoners, fully aware of the power she wielded in this space. The sway of her hips, the curve of her smirk, the flicker of amusement in her lilac eyes—all of it was a performance, a game she played to delight herself. She took full advantage of her untouchable status, weaving through the crowded room with a grace that was almost otherworldly.

Viserra had danced through the night, teasing men and women alike, reveling in their longing. Her beauty was rare even for a Targaryen, a striking blend of dragonspawn and something more fey. They called her the Dragon in the east, a title whispered in awe, an encore to her singular appearance. Her hair, silver-gold like molten moonlight, cascaded down her back in soft waves, gleaming under the glow of candle and lantern light. Her lilac eyes, sharp as cut amethyst, seemed to pierce straight through a person's soul, searching, assessing, knowing.

But it was her fangs that entranced them most, small and sharp, peeking from behind her full lips whenever she smiled—dangerous, enticing. Some men fantasized about those fangs pressing against their throats, a sweet sting before the bite. Others shuddered at the thought, unsure whether she would take a lover or devour them whole. And her ears, delicately pointed, set her further apart from her kin. The whispers about her were endless. Some claimed she was touched by the Old Valyrians, their blood more potent in her than in others. Others swore she was no mere woman at all, but a dragon in truth, wearing human skin for the amusement of mortals.

She let them wonder. She let them want. That was the fun of it.

✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼

Viserra awoke once again in a cold sweat, her heart pounding as the remnants of the nightmare clung to her like a suffocating shroud. The visions of House Targaryen's ruin were becoming more vivid, more real, as if they were a prophecy woven into the very fabric of her existence.

The sight of Silverwing soaring through the skies—its mighty wings flapping with the weight of ancient power—was no comfort, but a reminder of the inescapable legacy that haunted her bloodline.

She tried to shake off the lingering terror, but the nightmares persisted, always returning when she closed her eyes. The weight of them was suffocating, and after several nights of restless tossing and turning, Viserra could no longer bear the silence. She slipped out of her bed, her feet light but urgent as she made her way down the dimly lit corridors of their Volantis home.

Saera was sitting in her usual chair by the fire when Viserra entered, her grandmother's sharp eyes lifting to meet hers without surprise. The older woman had seen the signs—the sleepless nights, the disturbed murmurs in her granddaughter's sleep—and knew that this was coming. But even so, when Viserra spoke, her voice trembled with an emotion she did not fully understand herself.

"I... I can't take it anymore, Grandmother. The dreams. The visions. Every night... they won't stop. It's like they want me to do something, but I don't know what," Viserra confessed, her hands gripping the sides of the chair as if the nightmare's claws were still digging into her flesh.

Saera studied her for a long moment, the flickering firelight casting shadows over her features. She sighed, her voice low but steady. "You have to do what you believe is best, Viserra. The path is yours to walk. No one else can choose it for you. But if it were up to me, I would let them all burn in hell."

Viserra blinked, her gaze narrowing as she processed her grandmother's words. "Why? Why do you hate them so much? The Targaryens... I don't care about Rhaenyra or her cause, but I've always wondered... why do you despise them? What happened?"

For a long time, Saera didn't answer, her eyes lost in the flames. The silence was thick, heavy with memories that had been buried for so long. Finally, she spoke, her voice almost a whisper.

"Because they took everything from me, Viserra. Your great-grandfather, Jaehaerys, struck a deal with the Faith. He bound his children to their rules, to their gods, and denied us our birthright—our dragons. He betrayed our bloodline, the very essence of what we were meant to be. The Targaryens of Westeros, with all their talk of power and inheritance, sold us out. They let the Faith control our destiny, and in doing so, they made us weak. They made me weak."

Saera's hand clenched into a fist, the anger still raw despite the years. "I tried to claim a dragon once, you know. When I was young. I thought I could defy them, break free of their chains. But they caught me. They sent me to the Faith, Viserra. And it was there, in their cells, that I realized what they had done. They stole my future from me—our future. Your great-grandfather, Jaehaerys... he sold us all out for peace, for safety. But all they did was imprison us in a world where we were nothing but shadows, puppets of the Faith."

Viserra stood frozen, her heart pounding in her chest. She had never heard her grandmother speak of the past with such venom, such hurt. "And after that... after they tried to break you?" she asked quietly.

"I escaped, but the damage was done," Saera replied, her eyes hardening. "I saw the truth of what the Targaryens had become. They had forgotten who they were—forgotten the dragons, forgotten the power that ran in our veins. All for what? To appease the Faith? To play their games of politics? I had no part in that. And I'll be damned if I let them drag you into it too."

Viserra was silent, the weight of her grandmother's words settling over her like a heavy cloak. She didn't share the same bitterness that Saera did, but she understood it now, in a way she never had before.

Her grandmother's hatred was born from betrayal, from the loss of something precious, something powerful. And Viserra... Viserra was caught in the web of it all, trying to carve her own place in a world that seemed determined to take everything from her.

But the choice, as Saera had said, was hers. The path she walked was hers alone. And perhaps, just perhaps, there was a way to defy the chains of the past, to make her own future—even if that meant walking a line between loyalty to the Targaryens of Westeros and the legacy her grandmother had taught her to despise.

✼　 ҉ 　✼　 ҉ 　✼

The days dragged on, and Viserra's dreams grew more relentless-visions of fire, blood, and faces twisted in agony. She had always been haunted by strange sights, but these dreams felt different.

They clung to her, pressing against her skull like an iron vice. She awoke with her heart hammering, her body damp with sweat, the screams of the dead still echoing in her ears.

Frustration and unease churned in her gut, so she did what she always did when plagued by restless thoughts-she sought out distraction.

The brothel was alive with music and laughter when she arrived, the air thick with perfume and candle smoke. Viserra had wrapped herself in silk, her lower face veiled in black lace, leaving only her piercing lilac eyes visible. She moved through the crowd like a shadow dipped in silver, a storm contained within the delicate frame ot a woman.

The lords, eager for her attention, gathered close as she danced, their hands aching to touch what they could never have. She toyed with them, twirling just out of reach, letting them drink in the sight of her. It almost worked-almost. But then she saw her.

Across the room, standing by the low-burning hearth, was a woman with the silver-gold hair of Old Valyria. A Targaryen, draped in black and deep red, her face eerily pale against the firelight. Viserra's breath hitched. There was

something wrong-terribly wrong. Blood bloomed across the woman's breast, spreading like ink in water, dark and glistening. Her lips parted as if she wished to speak.

Then she screamed.

Viserra stumbled back, her body cold with dread. But no one else reacted. The music played on, the lords and courtesans laughing, unaware of the horror before her.

The woman's scream still rang in her ears as she turned and fled, shoving past startled guests, ignoring the calls of those who sought to follow.

She didn't stop running until she reached the safety of her chambers, the heavy doors slamming shut behind her. Her hands trembled as she poured herself a drink-amber liquid spilling over the rim of her cup as she brought it to her lips. She drank deeply, desperate to silence the visions clawing at the edges of her mind.

But as she sagged onto her bed, exhaustion weighing her down, another specter awaited her.

In the dim glow of the hearth, a boy stood at the foot of her bed. He was young, no more than ten, his silver hair matted with blood. His lilac eyes met hers, hollow and knowing. And in his small hands, he cradled his own severed head.

Viserra gasped, the cup slipping from her grasp, shattering against the floor. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing the nightmare away.

She did not see the folded riding leathers resting on the edge of her bed, waiting for her.

When she awoke, her head ached, her throat dry from drink. But the leathers were still there-deep black, stitched with silver. Saera's work. A silent command.

She did not question it.

By the time the sun had begun its descent, she had already left the city behind, her horse carrying her deep into the forest. The same place she had been before, when she first saw it.

Silverwing.

The great dragon had circled above Volantis for days, and Viserra had felt the pull-the call-but she had ignored it. Even when she had stood before the beast last time, it had felt like a mistake, a trick of fate she was not ment to partake in.

But now, as she stepped into the clearing, she was no longer alone.

A great gust of wind swept through the trees as the dragon descended, silver scales gleaming in the dying light. She landed with a soft, deliberate grace, folding her wings against her body. Her golden eyes locked onto Viserra's, unblinking.

Viserra felt her breath hitch. She had dreamed of this moment— dreamed of this dragon, of its warmth, of the weight of destiny pressing against her chest. But standing here, under Silverwing's gaze, she felt none of the triumph she had imagined.

Only fear.

The dragon exhaled, a gust of hot breath ruffling Viserra's hair. Silverwing lowered her head, waiting.

Waiting for her.

Viserra's hands curled into fists. She didn't understand why this was happening. She had never longed for a dragon. Had never thought she would have one.

And yet.

Her feet moved before she could think, carrying her closer. A voice whispered in the back of her mind, soft and familiar, though she did not know whose it was.

You are hers, and she is yours.

Viserra reached out with trembling fingers, brushing them against the warm, scaled hide. The moment her skin met Silverwing's, something inside her cracked open. A rush of heat flooded her veins, a presence curling around her mind, vast and ancient.

Silverwing huffed, satisfied.

Viserra swallowed hard, her knees weak. But there was no turning back now.

With a deep breath, she climbed onto the dragon's back.

┗━━━━━༻❁༺━━━━━┛

[naviculariis]

Okay so. Serious post time. I'm gonna put this entire thing under a cut, but I'm also gonna post some TWs here: medical malpractice, uncertain diagnoses, family trauma / drama, grief, anxiety rambles???

But I am gonna take like. A semi-hiatus, just so I can catch up on what I owe.

I haven't talked about this over here, or on Tumblr in general. Only one person who follows me here knows about this bc we're friends on another platform.

So.

Y'all have noticed, my days don't follow a set schedule. I've been unemployed since my campus suddenly closed with very little warning back in '22. Immediately after that closing, we took a small trip to MS to be with family for Christmas, and that trip was... Bad. And on the 1st of last year, I had an accident- i was taking down Christmas lights and fell and busted open my head. I had an untreated, late diagnosed concussion thar no one really... followed up on, and have had slight memory loss even now from it.

So I couldn't work until my head healed up from that.

But that's not the medical thing. That is my mother. In October 2021, my mother went in for a routine stint placement that resulted in loss of almost total blood flow to her left leg for 36 hours. They almost had to amputate, she almost died on the table twice, she was hospitalized for a year. ( we've tried the legal route, but because the doctor never admitted fault on paper, he cannot be held liable & suing hospitals is... Difficult. Even though she has permanent damage, can no longer feel anything below the knee, and has to wear a brace to walk. ) My mother already had a weak heart to begin with due to years of smoking + cardiac disease. This was the first nail, essentially. This damaged her heart... a lot.

Back to the concussion. 4 days after my concussion, she had a massive heart attack that nearly killed her. She flatlined twice on the table. It was after this that we got confirmation that she is in congestive heart failure. My grandfather died from it. It's

... It's hard. We don't know which stage she's in because her cardiologist won't tell us, but we think she's in stage 2, or maybe 3. We don't know. But because of this, I am the one who takes care of 95% of everything around the house & outside. I do lawncare, I do the planting, I do the garden. She can do a lot, still, but when her heart gets going- it's painful. So I've been her caretaker since 2021 when the initial accident happened.

My grandmother is nearly 90 and has... Many health problems but somehow is also doing better than most folks I know. She's a mystery. And my aunt had a double knee surgery but somethings wrong with her knees, and they think the surgeries rejected, so she can't get around well or drive longer than an hour away. My grandmother no longer drives & isn't renewing her license. My mother can drive, but we don't want her to unless ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY.

So I'm the only one who can drive them around.

I have my own medical issues [ anxiety, depression, type 1 diabetes, cracked tailbone that never got treatment & is giving me hell for that- ]

So. Basically. A lot of my time isn't my time. And when I do have free time, I do try to write and chat as much as I can. At night, after I get mom to bed, I call my partner warner and we get a few hours together and then we have to go to sleep bc we're in a ldr & their timezone is an hour ahead of mine.

... I'm rambling.

It's just. It's hard sometimes. And a lot of the time I sort of sit on my back porch and cry because I'm doing this- physically- alone. Literally everyone else is 4+ hours away across the state. Or 9 hours south on the Gulf Coast, or 7 hours south in Louisiana.

I do try to stay on top of things the best I can, I really really do, but things slip through my fingers. I'm gonna try my best to get all caught up over this coming week, I think. But if my responses are delayed for threads, for discord messages- chances are, I'm busy with one of my lil ol' ladies.

On top of all of this, I live in a town of less than 900, the nearest city is 45 minutes in any direction, and the nearest BIG city is 2+ hours in any direction. Finding a job that isn't in Healthcare is impossible. And I have nothing against those who are in healthcare- I applaud you. But all of my trauma can be tied back to hospital ERs and any time I step foot into a hospital, I immediately have anxiety & can only hear the night we learned about my dad. So I physically cannot force myself to go into that field.

Which is... a whole other thing, this is getting too long. But I've been searching for a job for the past year and a half, have had 5 interviews, each one ended with "thanks for interviewing! However,". It's hard.

So I just.

My plate is a lil bit full. But I love writing. I love the rpc. It'sa comfort and a joy and I love meeting new friends and making new connections and I want to do this as long as I can but sometimes things get a little slow. That's all.

... anyways yeah. Semi hiatus. Cool.

[shco-ss]

URGENT PINCH HITTER CALL (hopefully for the last time)

Hey y’all! Crossing my fingers and hoping and praying that this is the last time I need to to this, but I need another pinch-hitter for the Sherlock & Co Secret Santa event

This time, I’m looking for either a writer or an artist who can get me either a min. 700wd fic or a min. lined artwork (or equivalent) by THURSDAY, JANUARY 16TH at 3PM PST/6PM EST/11PM GMT/FRIDAY JANUARY 17TH at 8AM JST/9:30AM ACDT (APPROXIMATELY 42 HOURS FROM NOW) - I have reached out to the receiver of this gift and they have said they don’t mind waiting a little bit extra, given the lateness of this call

This work should include at least some of the following: John Watson, Johnlock, Marijohnlock, cane-user John Watson, POC Sherlock Holmes, Medieval AU, Fluff, Whump, First Confessions

Please reach out via DM at one of the following locations ASAP if you can fill this position:

@shco-ss on tumblr

@shco_ss on twitter

@artqueen02 on discord

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

Soooo I might actually find it physically impossible to be at ur first staged stream 😭. In lisbon with the orchestra from last week & apparently facing a pre-scheduled "long day" which is NOT gonna include a 3h discord call from 5-8. Also I left my earphones at home

NOOOOOO MARZIPAN WHY. BUT GOOD LUCK. The rest of you maggots, Staged livestream with your favourite dumbass (am I your favourite dumbass? *squints suspiciously* I better be) in around... two and a half hours. So that's 10:30 pm IST...

Right 9 am PST! Wahoooo! The server is different from the good omens livestreams because this one is 18+, but @thescholarlystrumpet is still hosting it! So again any doubts or if the link doesn't work (Discord and I have a blood feud don't worry about it) feel free to ask Strumpet or me for help!

[damagedintellect]

Craig Tucker x Fem!reader

💌 Craig Tucker is a mother fucker: Chapter 9  💌  

Summary:  You want to say that it wasn't your fault buuuuuut it kinda was. You didn't think much of it as you casted your joke vote for the "Hottest guy in school" and in hindsight you should never listen to Clyde but it was pretty funny at the time. Craig just wanted a peaceful junior year and you can't blame him for that however waking up the morning after a party, in his bed, being told that you two were dating wasn't exactly your definition of peaceful either.

Notes:  I was always too scared of the fandom to post it back in the day but I wrote this before Creek was made canon so let's just say Craig is bi for my sake because I've had a huge crush on him since forever. My S/O pointed out that Craig is just Trafalgar Law but with a guinea pig instead of a polar bear and I haven't been the same since I have a type and it's them.

💌 Word count: 3,372 💌  <= Previous | Chapter 10 =>

You and Craig didn't get a chance to talk after that, I mean what could you even say to him? It was already Monday and you hadn't heard from him since that night. Normally you and the guys would either be on discord playing League or you would meet up at Clyde's and play smash but none of that happened this weekend. It didn't seem like anyone in the gang was particularly busy and you did see Craig blip online for a second or too but no one made any effort to hang out the rest of the weekend. You felt uneasy about the whole situation at hand but you were too anxious to call or text him. It's not like you both needed to talk to each other every single day and it wasn't too strange that he was being radio silent.

You stood outside your house tapping your foot. Does this make you guys friends with benefits now? This shouldn't change anything between you two right? You peered at your phone wondering if he was going to pick you up this morning. If he was, he was already a little bit late. Should you just leave without him? You looked at the time as another minute passed. You couldn't wait anymore, you started walking to school without him.

Maybe he was sick again? Whatever the case it was weird not being around him for once. Since Clyde's party you both had been connected at the hip for one reason or another. Actually it was more like you both just got comfortable with each other's company to the point you happened to be together a lot.

Walking into class you looked over at Craig's desk he wasn't there and it remained empty for the whole period. You should have called him or something but you didn't want to be the one to say something first. You curled your head into your hands. You should have never slept with him, god what were you thinking. You just got used to the way things were and then you had to make everything awkward again. You cringe thinking back to the morning after.

* You were slightly cold which should not have been the case. Patting around the empty air around you, your eyes shoot open. There was no sign of Craig in the room. Sneaking around you found that all his clothes from the night prior remained discarded on the floor, his jacket and hat were gone but more importantly his parents has already left for the work. Tricia's room was still closed which probably meant that she was still sleeping and with good reason it was too early. You quirked an eyebrow as you made your way back to his room. Where the heck could he have gone at such an hour. You didn't have any new messages from him on your phone either which wasn't weird per say but the fact that he went somewhere and didn't leave a note started eating at you.

Was it that bad last night? You didn't know what to do. Should you just wait for him or did he leave so you didn't have to wake up next to him? Was he trying to avoid the awkward next morning encounter? There were so many questions running through your head on impulse you gathered the rest of your things and left.

You were too embarrassed*

You shake the thought from your head staring up at the clock. Maybe he slept in, it was Monday after all, no one ever gets anything done on Mondays. All the class periods were pointlessly too short to start anything important and it's not like the teachers seemed to care about absences on Mondays. The bell rang and you walked to your next class. Your hand was fidgeting the entire time. You would normally be holding Craig's hand during passing and you couldn't help feeling like you somehow fucked up. Technically you had. The whole point was to avoid the stupid rumors but you underestimated the student body and their weird obsessions with gossip. You try not to make direct eye contact with any of the squad giving you the thumbs up. Bebe and Clyde both greeted you as you rushed in. You slumped into your seat.

"Well good morning to you too." Clyde pouts while Bebe poked your arm "So~" she giggles at you as you groaned. You did not want to be having this conversation with her. Not right now, not ever really but especially not when there was still no sign of Craig. He wouldn't say anything would he? Knowing Bebe she probably already told Clyde and everyone knows Clyde can't keep his mouth shut. Mulling it over you figured Craig probably wouldn't confirm anything even if he was questioned.

"So, what." you said flatly as class started hoping that if you sounded irritated enough she would just drop it. Bebe was cut off as the teacher started to explain the project for this week and you have never been more thankful for a group project in your life than at this moment right now. You would be looking after an egg, something about being a responsible parent and all that jazz. Normally it would be a flour sack baby but apparently eggs were cheaper and raised the stakes since they're more fragile. You were no longer thankful for the group project. Honestly this seemed like it was going to be more of a hassle than anything else. As people were being pared off you got nervous. There were only a small handful of people left to choose from and the number of people you would be okay partnering with were drastically declining.

"Let's see," your teacher scanned the room looking for her next victims "Stan you will be partners with (Y/n)" You tensed up at the names that were called. Stan was in your class? Since when? The teacher motioned for Stan to grab your egg and sit next to you in Craig's empty seat. Part of you wondered if Craig would have ended up being your partner if he was here but the thought left your mind when Stan sat down. He didn't say anything to you he merely took out his phone and paid you no mind.

Your teacher continued pairing people. Clyde and Bebe lucked out being the last complete partnership. Apparently Jenny, who was Lola's best friend was the last one without a partner. That's when Craig walked in. Instead of his usual stoic stature he looked kind of out of it, disheveled with bags under his eyes, and you couldn't help but snicker lightly yourself. He probably slept in by accident. You perked up smiling at him relieved that he wasn't trying to avoid you but something felt off. He was glaring at you as the teacher motioned for him to sit and as he walked past he flipped you off. Needless to say you were taken aback at the gesture. Out of all the scenarios that you created in that stupid little head of yours, this was not what you expected. Bebe quirked an eyebrow at you clearly confused.

"Did you two get in a fight or something? What was that all about?" Bebe asked. You felt a pang in your chest.

"I..." you trailed off "don't know" you stare at Craig from across the room as he assumes his usual disinterested persona. It wasn't until you made direct eye contact with him that you noticed he started acting oddly chipper. Was it to spite you? You feel like you missed something here. Actually you feel like you missed a lot.

"So what do you want to name our egg." Stan pulled you back to reality finally looking up from his phone. "Oh uh," you weren't egg-xactly thinking straight ultimately biting your tongue before you could say Shelly off of impulse. You inwardly cursed yourself remembering that's his sister's name. "UUUUUUUUUUUUh how about Egbert?" Stupid, so stupid, why were you so stupid. Stan didn't seem to care, only nodding checking his phone and frowning again. You could hear him say "Wendy" under his breath but you didn't ask him about it. You just wanted to talk to Craig about this morning and what happened. It seemed both you and Stan were in a slump. Neither of you spoke for the rest of the class period.

In fact when the class was over you almost forgot about Egbert as you tried to catch up with Craig. Curse your short legs, is this how fast Craig normally walks? Was this how fast you'd normally walk while holding hands? As you finally caught up with Craig he suddenly came to a stop slowly turning to grab your wrist pulling you into another hallway. You flailed around a bit trying to keep Egbert from slipping out of your hands. He didn't say anything immediately just looked at you with cold dead eyes. Now Craig wasn't really one to wear his emotions on his sleeve but it was weird that his eyes felt empty.

"What."

You swallowed hard you were thrown off and didn't plan what to say to him. "We don't have to talk about it, it doesn't change our arrangement." He glanced at you like he was expecting an answer and when you didn't give him one he grit his teeth. You looked down at the floor still at a loss for words.

"Clearly it didn't mean anything to you anyways."

Craig pushed passed you clenching his fist as he walked in the opposite direction of your next class. He didn't look back at you as he walked away. You didn't want to go to class but begrudgingly you needed to, you needed something to get your mind off of this.

Wendy gave you a concerned look as you walked in but you waved her off. As you expected Craig was skipping class and to your surprise Stan's seat was also empty. You wonder what happened with him and Wendy but you didn't care enough to ask about it. Instead your head was plagued with what Craig had said to you.

"Clearly it didn't mean anything to you anyways."

Out of habit you made your way to the usual table once class ended. As you were aimlessly walking over you saw Craig with Jenny probably to talk about their egg. "Hmmmp" you grunted as you sat down with your arms crossed as everyone followed your line of sight.

"Whatcha guys think? Is it Craig? Or is it Craig." you heard Token say as you roll your eyes "Yeah, she's just jealous that she's not Craig's wife for the egg project."

"Fuck off Clyde!" You didn't mean for it to sound as biting as it did so you slumped down in your seat trying to calm down. "One, our teacher never said we were married to our partners and two I am not jealous." He tried to put a hand on your shoulder but you lightly swatted it away.

"Why would I even be remotely jealous of Jenny? She's Lola's best friend and we all know how much Craig fucken hates Lola." Everyone kind of glanced over at Tweek for some reason and you tilted your head as he spoke "I don't know if he's forced to be in this ACK fake relationship with Jenny he might accidentally fall for her like he did with me."

You blinked a few times "Wait, what?" everyone else nods "You dated Craig?!" you blurted out surprised. "I'm sorry, I didn't know!" He laughed at your reaction "Relax we were in the fourth grade at the AHH time, but I'd say Craig still falls in love fairly easy." Tweak blushed at the memories.

Clyde rubbed his chin thinking back to their grade school days "You know come to think of it that might be why he always keeps everyone at a distance but who knows." The bell rang after that and you went to your next class. You were pretty much in your head for the rest of the day until you got into the theatre. It turns out that Cartman had asked if he could have the class perform his new screenplay and your teacher unironically said yes.

"So once upon a time there lived two princely brothers. The older prince had a magic mirror that will tell him stuff if he asked. He wanted to know who was the fairest of them all, but the older prince was really mad to find out it was his younger brother. So the older prince went to the mountains to harvest a poison apple, while his brother washed laundry by the river. Then a giant poison apple just floated right on by! The apple gave birth to a pretty princess. Then the younger prince, with seven dwarves defeated his brother with a spindle, and everyone who wasn't maimed lived happily ever after." As Cartman quickly debriefed the plot of his play everyone was dumbfounded. Honestly it just sounded like he mixed several fairy tales together but whatever you didn't care too much. That was until he started casting people "I want Craig and Stan to play the two princes and (Y/n) to play princess poison apple!"

"WHAT!?" You and Craig both exclaimed but glared at each other before turning away however you caught him glancing back at you as he skimmed through the script "Yeah no, ain't gonna happen dude. Why are there several pages of the prince and princess making out?" Cartman grinned at Craig "Oh Craig you wouldn't be playing the younger brother you'll be playing the evil prince."

"But-" Craig looked back to you then at Stan and scoffed.

"No you know what? That's fine but I should get a princess too." He grabbed Clyde by the arm "Clyde will be my princess." Clyde was just as confused as the rest of the class but nobody questioned it at this point. The plot was weird enough as it was. Cartman only thought it over as he started to have an epiphany "Yes, why didn't I see it before the evil prince should also have a princess!" Cartman passed out the scripts. You rolled your eyes as you stood next to Stan who was being awfully quiet. He was still on his phone just staring at the screen.

"You in there Stan?" you waved your hand in front of his face "You haven't really said anything since this morning." Stan glanced at you with a forced smile before sighing.

"Wendy broke up with me."

Murmurs started around the room. You thought that they definitely had a fight but you didn't expect Wendy to completely break it off with him. You opened your mouth but closed it. This is awkward you have no idea what to say, so you just let him talk.

"I don't even know what I did wrong, am I just unlikable?" He gripped his phone tighter "(Y/n) we're friends right? Be honest, would you date me?"

The class got quiet. Stan knows that you and Craig are dating. You didn't know how to answer that question mostly because it sounded like he was asking you out instead of if he was date-able. You stare around the room it seems everyone stopped what they were doing to listen in on your conversation. You glanced at Craig and as soon as you made eye contact with him he turned away storming out of the room. There was a beat before you followed after him. Leaving Stan and the rest of the class in an uproar.

"Craig wait up!"

He let you catch up but he still had his back turned to you.

"We should break up."

You froze as he continued, "We were only supposed to be together until the rumors stopped and they did."

Many things were running through your head and it took everything you had to hold your tongue and just let him finish. "We don't have to be dating anymore and you heard what Marsh said, it seems like he's interested too-" you couldn't let him finish that thought you had to cut him off "Oh? Does that mean your admitting defeat? Am I hearing this correctly? That this was in fact too much for the great, Craig Tucker, to handle. " your words were hollow you just needed to play it off like this doesn't bother you. You feel hurt in a way seeing as how he just assumed you'd jump ship because of Stan. Stan who you haven't even thought about once since you guys started "Dating" but he didn't know that.

"You win, okay. Fine. Do whatever I guess, make me the bad guy I don't really care just play along and both our lives can go back to normal."

Clyde stumbled out of the room shortly after to see Craig walk away as he caught up to you "Hey what was-" Clyde stopped mid sentence when he saw your face. "Whoa (Y/n), what happened" you hadn't even realized that you started crying.

"I-I think Craig just dumped me."

---

Clyde followed after Craig he was going to get to the bottom of this.

"Craig what's your deal you've been acting strange since this weekend and I just saw (Y/n) crying in the hallway." However Craig didn't answer him. Clyde tried to grab his shoulder but Craig pushed him off "Dude what happen between you and (Y/n)?" Craig kept walking ignoring his annoying friend as they ducked into another hallway to avoid the main one since the bell would ring soon.

"Are you jealous of Stan?" Craig didn't answer him he just stopped in his tracks and looked at the ground "Fuck off Donovan."

"Oh. My. God. I can't believe it," Clyde paused because the bell rang "You're really jealous of Stan!" Craig rolled his eyes at Clyde "You're delusional, For what fucken reason do I have to be jealous of Marsh." Clyde threw his arm around Craig's shoulder as the meshed in with the crowd heading towards their next class "Well for one you two have always had this little rivalry thing but in this case it feels like something to do with (Y/n)." Clyde waited for an answer but Craig stayed silent.

"Don't you have class to go to?" Craig growled at his friend who was honestly too emotionally attached to his fake relationship with (Y/n). Clyde smiled "Yeah, don't you? Come on bro talk to me." Craig turned around and sighed they were in an empty hallway near the gym. (Y/n)'s class was on the other side of the school and he trusted Clyde to keep this to himself or he would kill him.

"How did you know that you loved Bebe?"

Clyde blinked it was an odd question coming from Craig "Ah well," he blushed a little bit "I kinda just knew. Being around her just made me really happy ya know," Clyde scratched the back of his neck "I kept thinking about her all the time and I wanted to make her smile. Plus she's like way outta my league." Craig looked away. "What would you do if-" He bit the inside of his cheek he didn't want say anything. He didn't even know if this was love. This was stupid. He just wanted to make (Y/n) happy and if it didn't happen to be with him well then.

No.

Craig shook that thought he needed more information to make his mind up. Things had always been so simple why is this the one thing that is confusing to him.

"When did you say "I love you"?"

Craig grimaced at his own question while Clyde was as taken aback like before "I think I said it a few days into us dating? I really wasn't thinking about it."

Craig's eyes hurt he could feel the water making it's way to his tear ducts but there was no way in hell he was going to let a single tear fall not in front of Clyde.

"What would you have done if she didn't say it back to you?"

[lord-of-the-nemaverses]

It Was A Good Run, Everybody: An Open Letter to MTG Cardsmith

With the exception of this small segment here, and the occasional bracket making it clear I'm talking about MTG Cardsmith and not Tumblr, this post is, verbatim, a copy of a post I am making on the MTG Cardsmith Forums. I hope there's room for resolution, but I understand that may not happen, so I would like to keep this copy of my statement so that, if it's deleted over on the Forums, what I say can still be heard.

It's been years since MTG Cardsmith has received any significant front-of-house updates. When Grant left, he left a legacy that may not have been perfect, but the Forums crafted a tight-knit community that I eventually grew to call friends. [The] wonderful community has helped me through my hardest times, and despite several hiatuses brought on by personal struggles and writer's bloc, I still tried to hold [the] site close. Even after I stopped using the tools on the main site, I still ran Sagas and engaged regularly on the Forums. Unfortunately, it didn't last forever, and soon, things went silent, eventually leading to a monetization of the site, a change of ownership, and radio silence.

A few years pass. Many of us had moved on; we still kept in touch, but it was nothing most of us couldn't do offsite. It seemed like the main site was as good as dead; we still used the Forums, but we cared about MTGCS less and less, mainly using it to get more attention for our cards. Sagas steadily died, community projects were abandoned, and a lot of us branched out. In my case, I started a Discord server for my sets, starting using mtg.design (then MSE) for card design, and joined multiple other communities outside the site. I even began to contemplate making my own card game as the excitement towards MTGCS (and as a result, MTG itself) began to die, replaced by a feeling like no one was listening. And then, it happened. Suddenly, the site went down for maintenance. Despite nearly derailing the most successful Saga on the forums, the site was back, and changes were being made... but whoever's in charge now isn't here for the community. Despite engaging with them, that engagement has been... less than ideal, to say the least, with a major community member getting scapegoated by them to argue in favor of AI stealing from human artists. To add, my very first attempt to bring this to light resulted in my voice being silenced.

What did I do? I posted this message on the main site, a message from the official Discord mod, as well as a link to more context. Quite frankly, this wasn't even one of the more damning things said, and more just the specific instance where the member in question, Ranshi, was used as an example.

So, it's with a heavy heart that I do something I should have done a while ago. I don't have to be on [the] site to be with the community and express my creativity, and quite frankly as an artist, my talent doesn't belong on a platform where its community will be mistreated and suppressed. It does not belong on a site led by someone that believes reposting art for personal, nonprofit use only and crediting artists is comparable to stealing from thousands to train an AI, profiting off of it, and providing no compensation to the artists. That being said though, I'm not here to talk about if AI belongs in society, as that debate has not true answer; the facts stand, and that's as follows:

The mod in question singled out a member of our community to try and make them look bad, rather than trying to have a mature discussion or just letting things be. (Shown above)

The mod in question does not care about the moral implications of AI stealing from artists.

The mod in question disregarded a vocal majority to implement the new AI generation feature less than 24 hours after its announcement. (7+ people at the time [9+ total] argued against it before it was rolled out, and only 3 came to defend it besides the mod [2 of the people that made arguments for AI were still against it].)

The site is using a variant of Stable Diffusion. Stable Diffusion was shown to have been trained on art without permission, and made money off images generated based on that training.

If you would like to spread this message in case it's deleted, I'm sharing everything (that I can legally share) about this situation on my Tumblr.

Unless the [MTG Cardsmith] site lead releases a formal apology about this incident, makes amends to those impacted, and ceases the operation of AI on the site permanently, I am leaving the site. If I am removed or do leave, I would like all of my cards, images, and discussions from both of my [MTG Cardsmith] accounts (Tommia and AddGG) on both the main site and Forums to be permanently deleted from both the site itself and any local storage related to it. This especially includes anything of mine relating to Artful August or Stitia.

Now, given the nature of this situation, I know people certain people are going to try and pull a "gotcha" on me, to trying and find some fallacy to get me on instead of admitting that facts are facts and having a mature discussion about this. I also know the possibility of that discussion not being an option and this being instantly deleted is also an option. So, in addition, here's some added context.

AI actually isn't the main reason I'm leaving. However, the extreme stance taken on it and the use being for profit is certainly a factor.

Yes, I have used AI before. However, I changed my standing on it after factual evidence proved artists were being stolen from. I have deleted all local AI art on my system, scrubbed the AI art off any cards I've made locally, and avoid using AI when possible, even cancelling my plans to start using Photoshop.

There is a DMCA form on the site for any artist to fill out and have their art stripped from the site. With AI, this process is far harder; if someone discovers their art was used by it without their permission, it can't be dealt with so easily because the art is baked into the AI's training.

[clevercatchphrase]

2023 Year In Review~

at the time of me writing this, it is 8:11pm on tuesday night, january second. Let's see how long it takes me to type this entire thing. I expect no less than two hours. This is gonna be a long one, so I'm gonna put it under a read-more. Proceed only if you dare!

So! Another year down, another begun, and this is my.... 5th? time looking back on my year and assessing what I accomplished and what I did. Lots of changes and new things happened to me this year! Not nearly as many good things as bad! But first I'm gonna dig up my old resolutions list and see how well I did on them. Let's see... for 2023 I had 9 goals, six of which were serious and 3 of which were more casual. those goals were;

Read 12 new books in a year (one book a month)

Finish the Snowdin Arc before Ghost Switch's 5th birthday

Rewrite the 3rd draft of my Nanowrimo project from 2021/22

Write 4 one-shots for BSaPT

Solidify the details of the waterfall arc

The one secret goal

Finish writing the last 4 chapters of Clemency and finally post the dang thing

build a comic buffer of 8 pages, and finally,

write the crack fic

Of these nine goals, I achived... 4 of them, those being reading 12 books, finishing the snowdin arc before june 18th, rewriting my 2021 nanowrimo project, and finalizing the waterfall arc for Ghost Switch. All of these were serious goals, which I am proud of! but it was still less than half, which was a little disappointing. As in past years, I'll go into more detail below:

Read 12 books I BLEW THIS ONE OUT OF THE WATER! the grand total of books I read this year was THIRTY-SIX! three times as many! In fact, I forced myself to stop in order to have more books to read for 2024! Most of the books I listened to this year were through librivox, and mostly on my commute to work. Great way to pass the time! I wrote short little notes about the books I read on a personal discord with only me in it, so let me see if I can just copy and paste all of that here... (all of my original notes will be italicized, while additional thoughts on it now will not be)

1) Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Short, cute! Inspirational. About self actualization. Read by richard Harris. People call this a demonic book?? Apparently a fourth part added in 2014. Look it up later. (Edit; I never did look it up later. there's an audiobook for this on youtube, and while the voice is nice, there is, like, a solid 10 minute segment with a single violin note playing in the background and it is GRATING) 2) fire bed and bone. Ok. Middle of the road. Too focused on people and not the dog, but I get that's the point. it's ~symbolic~. Like the use of no dialogue and no name for the main dog 3) dogs of the spires book 1: reads like fan fiction (derogatory). Sentences go on for 4 or 5 words too long. Used the word orbs for eyes 3 times. Duke is ALWAYS FUCKING GRINNING. Half-brother reveal makes no sense and comes out of nowhere. How… Big/old is Step? Talks waaay too mature for a kid. What happened to Twig? Very tell and not show. Pink foam pink foam pink foam. Why are dogs separated? Hoe do the packs work? Why training? Not given enough to care for characters. Feels like a warrior cat reskin. Too rushed and yet nothing happens at the same time. (I was very curious about post-apocolyptic xenofiction this year, and this was one of the books I could find on the matter, but it's very childishly written and just... bad. Surprisingly, there seems to be a very tiny but dedicated fandom for it on youtube? the series has a fandom wiki anyway...)

4) old granny fox. Very cute! A little repetitive, but passable for a children's novel. Great introduction to xenofiction for kids. Wonderful audio book. 5)the adventures of Sammy Jay. Short sweet also a lot of fun. Both books are Definitely of their time with their usage of the word "queer" as a synonym for "strange/odd"

Now, this is a little known fact about me, but I'm secretly a massive furry. yeah, who could've guessed, right? Anyway, i'm always on the look out for good xenofiction, and when I searched through the "animals" playlist of the librivox youtube channel and stumbled across the books by Thornton W Burgess, I was INSTANTLY enamored. Old Granny Fox, and The Adventures of Sammy Jay were the first two I read/listened to, and was immediately captivated. I MUST give extra props to the narrators of these audiobooks, with some of the more frequent readers for this series doing unique voices for each character, which really added to the charm (Jude Somers and John Lieder particularly come to mind). I WISH I had these books as a kid. I love the way they describe animal behavior and reasoning. While it is anthropomorphized, it never crosses a line into "too" human, if that makes sense. There's another book on this list that is very similar to Burgess' work, with talking animals, but in that book, the animals make and read signs on the doors of their houses, and go to animal tailors to get their clothes fit. this doesn't happen in Burgess' work. Sure, they talk about their homes and the coats they wear, but it's all very intentionally conveying their natural states and habitats in a slightly more human way for us to picture them. Sure, the art on the covers of the books may say otherwise, but it's never depicted that way in the actual text. All their behavior is very animalistic, too, explaining their thoughts and actions in a way that would make sense for a wild forest creature. These books are a little gentle when it comes to the cycle of life. While the predator characters do need to hunt, they are always juuuust out of luck when they are the main character, and the prey characters juuuust manage to escape each time they're the focus. I will definitely be reading more of Burgess' books this year (the man wrote over 170 of them!), but expect quite a few more titles of his to pop up on this list.

6) adventures of jimmy skunk 7)adventures of paddy beaver (not much to say on these two. both were charming, but I feared I would have sounded repetitive if I just kept writing "cute!" in my notes) 8) my father's dragon Short, cute and silly. Listened to the audiobook. Does the physical have pictures? Not really so much about the dragon. Wish there was more after the ending, like what became of the dragon? (I also watched the netflix movie adaptation of this book. I.... could not stand the dragon in the movie. I'm sorry, he's annoying as hell) 9)adventures of buster bear

10)adventures of old mister toad.Favorite one so far. Puts toads in a positive light and describes them as beautiful instead of ugly or gross. [Burgess] Really appreciates all animals and their unique abilities and traits

11) The tale of freddie firefly. Ehh, okay. Not as great as Thorton Burgess' books, but still enjoyable. Not the same 'voice'. (this book was written by Scott Bailey) 12) The adventures of Chatterer the red squirrel. Fine~ Fun. 13) The Fox That Wanted Nine Golden Tales. Funny, short. Would make a good 22 minute short film 14)tale of master meadow mouse. Alright~ why do the animals know what groundhogs day and February are? How does mouse know how to write, and fox to read? Do they wear clothes? Mention a tailor frog. Oars for a raft. Don't like the animals being described as "(color) person". Feels like it's missing an adjective, ie "feathered" or "furred". (This is what I was talking about above. Scott Bailey wrote very similar stories to Burgess, but something was just... off about is writing style. ) 15) the adventures of reddy fox. Okay. Feels like an earlier book. Not as kind as the other ones. (I later looked it up and confirmed this was one of the earlier books in his series, and this one was, like, his tenth ever published one)

16) the adventures of jerry muskrat

17) the tale of doctor Doolittle. Fun! Kiiiiiinda racist in the africa parts, but an overall good time! (I'm more familiar with the Doolittle movies, but was surprised to learn that Doolittle's ability to speak to animals was something he learned with effort and practice, and not a magic power or weird innate ability of his. It was an interesting read!) 18) Nomads of the North. Fun animal romp. I Flinched at the use of "fat" "tar baby" "half breed" and "Indians". First half is mostly about the bear, then a sudden sharp turn to mostly about the dog. Kinda meanders, has no over-arching through-line, conflict or plot. (Apparently a movie was based off of this book, but focused more on the humans than the animals. Eh, it was the 1920s. what can you do) 19)falcons of nerabedla; short sci-fi novella about a bodyswap time traveler. Its… Fine. Not the greatest. A little too confusing and kind of wish they explained things more earlier on. Not really about the falcons. Even for a sci-fi, still pretty sexist in the future.(honestly I don't even know if I should count this as it's own book. I'm pretty sure it was a short story inside a bigger magazine?) 20) south American jungle tales. Enjoyable! Very strong jungle book vibes with a South American flare. The story with the racoon was pretty dark, though. 21) a gryphon's journey. Too fast pace. Characters have a habit of spilling their entire backstories onto arias without prompting. Not enough show, not enough explanation of how the gryphons work. Some aspects completely pushed to the sides, like the satyrs and naugi until the end. Very rushed. The skyhaven arc could have been its own book, the stygagryph arc could have been it's own book. The heron gryph arc could have been it's own book. Not enough time to get to know the characters or care about them. Arias speaks far too maturely for his age, I feel. (Still on a gryphon kick from the last... two years now? Mostly I'm waiting for the fourth book in the Griffin Ranger Series to come out before I read the third. The author said it would come out before the end of 2023, but that date came and went and it still isn't on amazon at the time of writing (which is now 9:26pm, jeez...) I want to read isthmus so bad, but I don't want to wait on a cliffhanger) 22) myths and legends from Alaska. Okay. Feels very white washed and overly simplified. missing nuance. Reader is so deadpan and monotone that the audio book was a slog to get through (One thing I was determined to do for my own enrichment this year was to read more legends and mythologies from other cultures. There are SO MANY cool creatures and monsters and ideas out there, and I just feel so LIMITED by the small amount I know. We humans come up with some of the craziest shit imaginable!) 23) the white czar; a story of a polar bear. Bad, boring, incredibly racist. Barely about the bear at all! 24) the twins of buster bear. Another thornton w. Burges book. Its middle of the road. Certainly not bad, but my least favorite so far. Just kinda dull, and the audio book was horrendous. (honestly if the audiobook wasn't so bad, I wouldn't have disliked it so much, but it was a CHORE to listen to this one. I mean, thank you librivox for doing all this work for free, but is it too much to ask for some sort of vetting process for your volunteer readers??) 25) the wishing stone stories; BEST thornton w burges book so far! I would have been obsessed with this book as a child. Transforming into animals to learn about their ways. Not super PG like the others. The animals hunt and kill and get killed. 10/10

26) lightfoot the leaping goat 27) Toto the bustling beaver. Both alright. Nowhere near as charming as thornton Burgess, but endearing none the less. A little more 4th wall breaking. Toto audio book fun with silly voices, but I don't like the description of "tramps". A little too humanized for me. Lightfoot audio book fucking trash. Almost gave up. (Both of these books were written by Richard Barnum, another children's xenofiction writer of the time, but I quickly came to realize that his writing style is just not for me. I listened to a handful of his books too, this year, but they left me feeling uncomfortable more often than not because common attitudes of the time period reeeeeally show through his work.) 28) the adventures of poor misses quack. How do these qualify as adventures. She lands in a pond, dumps her backstory for 60 percent of the book, finds her mate and lives happily ever after. Not very strong, not very adventurous. 29) Mother West Wind "When" Stories; a lot of fun, charming, Aesop fable-esque. Fun mythology for children. A little too much peter rabbit, but I understand why he's there 30) the adventures of tamba the tame tiger. Yeahhhh, this series isnt my thing. A little too humanized, and the audio book is fuck GARBAE. (Pretty sure I meant to say "fucking garbage" there, but "fuck garbae" is funnier)

31) joust 32) alta 33) sanctuary All really good! All revolve around dragons and their usage and care. The books are a liiiiiitle too serendipitous, with the right thing always happening at the right time. Vetch/kuron doesn't "fail" enough. Second book is the best so far because the magi are a legitimate threat and it feels like time is running out so they must always stay one step ahead. (All written by Mercedes Lackey, all about dragon husbandry with a nice Egyptian flare! Check them out! But... maybe skip Aerie, the last in the series. It's not really worth it.) 34)aerie weakest one. Ahketen was absolutely unbearable and I didn't like the literal deus ex machina at the end with the actual gods coming down to help. Final ranking in order from best to worst; 2)alta, 1)joust, 3)sanctuary and 4)aerie. 35) the adventures of johnny chuck. Fun, average. Simple but doesn't need to be complicated. First of the thornton books ive read where the main character forms a family with children as the main focus 36) blacky the crow. Fun and charming as always. Feels a little simpler than the others with only 3 main mini stories, two of which involve stealing eggs. I wonder if I can find a box set of these books. (Aaaand that wraps up all the books I read this year! 15 of them were from thornton w burgess, and I hope to read even more from him this year! If you know of Burgess' books, tell me your favorites! I'd love to discuss them with someone~)

2.WHOO! the time is now 9:50, and I am just starting on talking about my second goal, which was to finish the snowdin arc of Ghost Switch before its 5th birthday. I did this! I did this exactly on june 18th! (for public readers, anyway. Anyone on my patreon got the page early, but a one week difference isn't much in the grand scheme of things.) I also get to say that I passed the Snowdin Test this year! "What is the Snowdin Test," you might ask? well, it's something a mutual acquaintance of mine, from the Fan Fic Paradise discord I lurk in, made aaaaall the way back in 2018, right when I was just startin' out with Ghost Switch. (Hi, Vikingaspoke, I don't know if you follow me on tumblr, or even have a tumblr for that matter, but I want you to know I thought about your thesis every single day since you first posted it, and have been determined (har har) to succeed where so many other undertale stories have failed. I did it once with my Epic-long fan fic, You Monster, but to do the same in comic form was a new and unique challenge. it took me almost 5 years, but I got there in the end! Cutting out the memories, I've officially concluded snowdin and started waterfall just this year!) I've also got to mention that I think my estimation on how long it will take me to finish Ghost Switch is slowly unfolding to be oddly accurate. I've never made a comic this long, but back in 2019, when I made an anniversary comic for Ghost Switch's 1st birthday, I guestimated that it would take me roughly 11 more years to finish the story, meaning it would take me 12 in total from start to finish. Well, we are rapidly approaching the half-way point of the comic, and if I haul ass it get to 312 pages out by the 6th birthday, we very well might actually hit it. I haven't drawn up to page 312 yet, but it's strangely close. Granted, my guess didn't account for the length of the flashback segments, which may push it back, but the sheer Idea that the "vibes" I got on how long each arc would take just by roughly judging the time it took me to finish ruins as a baseline to compare... it's just weird, man. I just "felt" that snowdin would be 1.5 times as long as the ruins, waterfall 2 times as long as the ruins, and hotland+New Home also 1.5 times that of the ruins. I have no metric for this since the final scenes were not written out yet. It just... feels like it should be that, and I'm kinda scared at how on track it's been.

3. Third goal was to Rewrite my Nanowrimo project from 2021/22. I did this as well! It's still no where near a final draft ready for beta readers or anything, and towards the end of the year I got distracted writing the second book in the trilogy because this is an epic fantasy story so it just HAS to have three books. Maybe I'll self-publish these stories one day. it sure is the most passionate I've ever been about something original i've ever written, but I want to make sure the entire rough draft of all three stories is done first so I can easily go back and add hints in previous parts without having to retcon anything later down the line. I've already had to do it once, so no doubt in my mind I'll have to do it again when I start trying to wrap things up in the final book. Speaking of the sequel, that was my nano project for this year! I won, but much like 2021 and 22, I didn't finish the book. my 21/22 project ended up being roughly 80k words, and I still expect to add about 10k more when I add some missing scenes and flesh out some description. I don't think that will happen with the second book. If anything, I expect it to barely stick around 50k in total because I just know I wrote a lot of filler and junk and repetitive stuff in the first draft this year because I was STRUGGLING with nanowrimo this year. Idk yet if I'm going to make a rewrite of book 2 my nano project for 2024. we'll have to wait and see how I'm feeling once september/october rolls around.

4. My fourth goal was to write 4 one-shots for my fic collection of Blankets, Socks, and Pillow Talk, over on AO3. I didn't do this, mostly because I was too distracted with my original fiction this year. i DID write one one-shot, hilariously during nanowrimo when I was suffering from writers block. Hopefully this year will be different. I would like this fic collection to at least hit 50k words so it could be a full novel of short stories all on its own. I think I can do it, I just need the time and inspiration.

5. My fifth goal, and last one I achieved this year was to finalize the details of the waterfall arc. I'm sure I've said it before in the past, but all the major story beats for Ghost Switch were planned out well before I even drew the first page, but the scenes connecting them were filled in more as I went. Rest assured, I make sure the entire arc is scripted before I start it, but my dirty little secret is that the snowdin arc wasn't completely written until I nearly finished drawing the ruins arc, and I was well into the snowdin arc before the final scenes of the waterfall arc were written down. It is now, and has been for at least 10 months. This was a goal I always knew I would achieve. Sometimes the resolutions I make are things I know are gonna happen whether I want them to or not. Sometimes you just gotta give yourself a guaranteed win to boost your self-confidence, you know? (now I just need to do the same for the Hotland arc. I think it's gonna take me 3 years minimum to finish waterfall, just like it did snowdin, so I got time, but the sooner I figure out the dialogue, the better. Will I make that a goal for this year? Ehh, probably not. I just wanna focus on building a buffer first)

6. The one secret goal was not achieved. If it was, this post wouldn't nearly be as long and you all would have heard about it as soon as it happened. Idk if it will happen this year, or anytime soon. A vicious combination of anxiety, the economy, and the uncertain state of the world make me hesitant to even attempt this goal.

aaand those were all my serious goals for this year! the time is now 10:37, I am tired and dizzy. I'm gonna save this as a draft and get back to it tomorrow~ nighty night~

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OKAY! IT'S JANUARY 3RD NOW, 8:34AM! LET"S CONTINUE!

my three casual goals, none of which I accomplished, were;

7) Finish writing clemency. While I didn't do this, I did think about the story a lot. If you've been around since late 2022, You'll know that when AI writing generators started gaining popularity, news broke that the internet was scraped for data sets, including fan fiction websites like AO3. This extremely pissed me off because Fan Fiction is... well, I guess there's no better word than "sacred" to me. The unadulterated desire to write, create, share and expand on media that has touched us, inspired us, (hell, even angered us!) and to do this all purely because we can and we want to, just to make connections with other people who were fans of the same media, people we may never meet, thousands of miles apart from us, who we can touch and inspire in turn... Fan fiction is a gift. it means so much to me, from the professional writer who writes ficlets as an exercise, to tweens just starting their creative writing journey by imagining themselves hanging out with their favorite characters, to the hobbyists who wanted to imagine how things would change if just one thing happened differently, to those who feel underrepresented in media, and want to see themselves be the hero. People working through shit, people who are just bored, people who love a story so much they will retell it a hundred times over so it never has to end. Young, old, girl, boy, fluent writers, to writers in fandom where english is not their first language. It's an amazing, nearly incomprehensible melting pot that can connect us all... and some CEO jerkoffs just wanted to steal all this heart-felt work and feed it to a machine to make a quick buck. I was so enraged, so violated that works of passion could be abused this way that I locked down all my fics on AO3, and you now need to be logged in to read any of them, and I didn't write a word of fan fic in over a year. Every time I thought my anger had cooled off, more news would come up about "AI" generated stories appearing in the kindle app, or authors having works published under their name without their consent because thieves are trying to make a quick buck with their identity to trick fans, or hear that tv show and movie writers being told they are worthless and replacable, and I would get mad all over again. I'm still mad just remembering it, and until actual laws are in place regarding the use of "AI" in art and writing, I'll stay mad, and my stories will be under lock and key. If some good has come out of it, I focused a lot more on original fiction this year, which I haven't shared online at all, so no fear of that being stolen, but I do miss writing fan fic more regularly, yet I can't stand the thought of something I make for fun being taken and used by someone else to line their pockets. It's like... the antithesis of the purpose of storytelling to begin with and makes me sick to my stomach.

WOW! That sure was a rant! Let's move on! My 8th goal and second casual one was to make a comic page buffer of 8 pages. I almost did this one! At one point, (like, the second week of december) I had a buffer of 5 pages because I was finishing up Memory 5 of ghost switch, but then I realized I could line up the end of the memory with the end of the year, and I ended up posting all of my reserve pages in, like, a week! During those weeks, though, instead of making more pages to keep the buffer supplied, I played a lot of video games instead, which I hadn't done since... october? because I didn't touch my PS4 at all during november while I was writing for nanowrimo, and I missed playing Horizon Foridden West and wanted to get back to it. Maybe this year, though? I'm dead set on trying to get to 312 pages before Ghost Switch's 6th birthday, which is, like, 30 pages away, so I gotta improve my output process regardless.

And the 9th goal of mine and the last of the casual ones, was to write that crack fic. This goal has been on my resolutions for a couple years now, but I still haven't done it. I'm gonna blame my AI hatred grudge for this, since it made me not to want to write any fan fic at all this year. I'll get to this someday, but maybe now I should put it on the back burner for some newer goals and projects~

Okay! The time is now 8:57! if you're still reading this stream-of-conscious ramble of mine, it's time for me to list off my goals for this year!

IN 2024 I WOULD LIKE TO...

Read 12 new books this year (one book a month)

Reach 312 pages of Ghost Switch by June 18th (the 6th birthday)

Build (and maintain!) a comic buffer of 8 pages

Go walking on 3 new greenways around my neighborhood

Go camping by myself

Make at least one new song comic

Finish 4 video games to as close to 100% as I can (currently looking at Horizon Forbidden West, the original Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Blue, Carto, Alba, Stray, Journey, Unraveled and The Talos Principle 2, as these games currently entice me the most, but I still want flexibility and options if one game ends up not clicking)

Finish the first rewrite of my 2023 nanoproject (this will probably end up being my nano24 project, if i'm being honest with myself)

Write 4 one-shots for BSapT

-- These 9 goals I want to be serious about, but like last year, I have some casual goals i want to do as well. They include...

10. Get reacquainted with Neocities and make a personal website

11. Learn to code to improve said website/learn to make games

12.Listen to the entire royalty free youtube library for reasons

13. Research every d.o.n.g. ever featured on VSauce, for neocities reasons.

I feel like I had a couple more off-handed things I wanted to do this year, but these 4 casual things are the only ones I can remember at the moment. Maybe I'll come back and add to this list later.

Alright! The time is now 9:37AM, and I have to go run some errands/do some house chores! Saving this again as a draft to come back to this later!

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Okay! Done with errands, and it is 11:30am on the nose! Time to resume my inane ramblings and hopefully finish this thing within the next two hours.

One thing I mentioned in my recap/review of 2022 was that I never actually felt like I was looking back on the year in depth. So much was forgotten or blurred together with other years because I didn't keep track of it. Well, this year I kept a monthly diary, again in my personal discord of 1, and wrote in it whenever I felt anything of note or significance happened to me, or whenever I had reoccurring thoughts or feelings. i managed to write in it at least once a month, often times twice, that being every two weeks. I found the whole experience quite therapeutic, frankly, and I'll share snippets of it now, though I will cut out the more personal entries. Be forwarned! A lot of the following text is straight up copied and pasted from my diary entries, so there is a lot of misspellings and short hand. I'll try to fix some of the more obvious ones, but these paragraphs are just as stream-of-concious writing as the rest of this massive post. Anything in parentheses with A/N is me adding context right now on the present day!

january 5th, two very close coworkers of mine quit due to upper management being petty. These two employees had worked here for nearly two decades. They were married to each other and were the mom and dad of the work base, with everyone else relying on them, looking up to them, and going to them for their problems. Them walking out scared everyone lower on the pecking order, because we felt that we were no longer protected from manager bullshit with them gone. I was off the day they walked out and didn't get to say goodbye. the grief I felt upon learning they left caused me to have my first ever anxiety attack that night. It was one of the worst experiences I've ever had in my life. I try to keep in touch, but we don't talk much due to our age gaps and busy work lives.

in January I also had a body-horror nightmare that still makes me squirm just thinking about it. I dreamt no one in the world wore pants, but we were all cool with it because we had pockets built into our legs. Not like... fabric sewn into skin, mind you, I mean naturally evolved extra flaps of flesh over our thighs like the pouch of a cartoon kangaroo. flesh pockets. even in my dream I could feel them. the insides were surprisingly dry and smooth- no sweat or hair in there, but the sensation was uncomfortably irritating, like when you rub your knuckles too much and it feels sore. worst part of this dream was, I woke up, thought "thank god I'll for get this in a few hours", but then watched cartoons later that day and saw a... tom and jerry(?) short where tom also had built in pockets on his body which made me remember everything, and now I can't forget.

February 8th. Watched The Flight if Dragons. Good, campy 80s feel. Drags in some parts, rushed in others. Some aspects feel like they have 0 explanation. (How did peter separate from gorbash? Did peter know that denouncing magic would vanish him from the safe haven? What happened to the princess's parents? EVERYTHING with the wolf and whatever was going on between the huntress and knight. I also Watched 1996 dragonheart. Slow start, but good fun. Pretty decent cgi. Acting is downright TERRIBLE in places, but it was good campy fantasy fun in the end.

On february 14th, I dreamed of a haunted house, but the house wasnt malicious. It felt like a friend that worried for your safety when you left, because it was rooted to the spot and could not come to you when you were in trouble. I did not stay long, and felt melancholic when I had to leave. Once outside, I turned around and said "goodbye house" and waved it farewell. Then, in all the curtains and windows, dozens and dozens of shadowy human arms waved goodbye to me in return, wishing me well and safe travels. It would miss me, but not keep me prisoner, because a house is only a home if you had the freedom to leave and return when you wished.

March 18. I got recommended a video on YouTube about screen savers, and it reminded me of one that our family computer had in the early 00s. After searching for a while, I rediscovered it; the createacard screensaver pack. So many buried memories unearthed. The sense of wanderlust and inspiration and not over such beautiful art came rushing back to me; https://youtu.be/zFPKmnegK0c

I was generally tired for all of march, not having much energy for any project outside of my comic, and even that was starting to wear me down.

I played a lot of kingdom hearts 1 in late February/early march. Synthesized the Ultima weapon for the first time. Cried farming sniper wilds and stealth soldiers because they unsettle me. I'm trying to grind to level 100 before the game is over. Debated on doing a kh song comic this year (A/N: This did not happen)

I want to redo my personal website. Wix added an image file size limit, and my whole site currently surpasses that twice over. The wix site editor is slow and finicky any way. Looked into blogspot and WordPress. I want to start a xenofiction book review podcast. Are solo podcasts popular? I Looked into neocities. Felt an overwhelming sense of nostalgia and child-like wonder. Made my own account/basic website, but haven't edited anything yet.

I got hit with the seasonal depression late February/early march, watched some home gardening videos on youtube and got inspired. The videos I watched were about people building actual massive scale pond and lakes, but I just went to home depot and Lowe's and Wal-Mart, bought, like, 12 different kinds of vegetable and flower seeds, 3 long rectangular planters and 2 massive bags of dirt. I also bought some peat seed starters, a plant heating pad (which I might just give to my cat) and a plant light. I spent over 150$ total.

My cat turned 5 years old on the 15th this march as well!

In late april I got really into analog/digital horror args and unfiction realities. Been watching a lot of Night Mind and similar analysis videos (I'm too lazy and dumb to try and solve them myself).

April 28th. Maternal grandfather might be passing soon. He's been in and out of hospitals since late January, needs around the clock assisted living, and my mom and her sister are constantly having to take time out of their lives to help him. I hate it. It's stressful and aggravating to mom, the assisted living people are incompetent, and my mom is stretching herself thin, running ragged trying to do everything at once. It's not fair to her. It's not fair to anyone.

May 11th. Mom's computer has a solitaire program with hundreds of versions of solitaire, most of which have gone unplayed. Ive been trying new games and learning them through trial and error (the "rules" tab doesnt work because it accesses a file that is no longer installed on this computer). Ive found new favorites in "twenty" and in "carpet". It makes life just a little bit more interesting.

June 4th. Been really into watching blind lets plays of undertale from 2022/3 lately, as well as dissection/discussion of undertale's music. Also into shayy's undertale mods. Glad the fandom is still having fun with this game. Got interested in pokemon infinite fusion. Downloaded it, but havent played yet. Getting back into PMD, though I have to grind now for leveling and evolving mons I cant recruit. Took a break from listening to librivox books, but might pick it up again. Same with checking in on flight rising. This year will be it's 10th birthday iirc

Looked at my ao3 recently and noticed I havent written anything in over 6 months. Still mad about the AI data scraping. I didn't stop writing entirely though. I spent all of October, November, January and February writing an original story, and still really proud/excited about it. Finished typing the rough draft on Wednesday, taking a break before I start edits.

All my flowers I planted in February are dying. Has a lot of rain this year. I think they're getting over watered.

June 6th. Been thinking a lot about Hawaii recently. I miss my old school and house. Went to Google earth to look at it again. I think our old neighborhood of [REDACTED] was razed and rebuilt becuase the streets dont look the same. This makes me feel… Not quite sad or bitter, but hurt none the less. I knew ever since we moved here chances of going back would be slim, but knowing my most nostalgic childhood home is gone forever…

Saturday June 17th fucking sucked for everyone. Two coworkers got seriously injured at work. My car battery completely died and couldn't be jump started. Had to call for a tow and wait 2+ hours for it to arrive. Wanted to cancel but they told me I would be charged even if the tow never arrived. Got charged 80 extra dollars for a "wench fee" I didn't need, but they talked to fast for me to think about it. Massive accident on the 4-lane highway home put all traffic down to 1 lane, and we were stuck there an extra hour. Dairy Queen's lobby closed early, going to drive through only, sonic was OUT OF ICE CREAM, and the local grocery store was almost sold out too. Did not get home until almost 10pm. Both my car AC and my mom's car a.c. don't work. I FUCKING LOVE OWNING A CAR. IT'S SO MUCH FUN AND SO FREEING.

June 28. Been playing a new video game recently; horizon forbidden west. Price dropped by 50% on Amazon and I had a 10$ gift card so I got the game for 1/3 the launch price. It's okay so far. Been slowly exploring and uncovering the map, ignoring the main story and discovering secrets. There is definitely A LOT more to do in this game than in the first. Dont really like a lot of Aloy's line deliveries. Some of the controls are different which throws me off. Robo enemies cool as ever, though noticeably fewer dinosaur ones.

Mom continues to take care of her dad. Aunt does too. All of mom's free time and energy this summer has been stolen by him. She keeps insisting she won't have to look after him as much when he gets better. I don't think he's ever getting better.

All my flowers I planted back in March have died. It's just too damn hot for them. It's too hot for everyone. We have just hit ten straight days with weather in the triple digits. I'm miserable.

Might have to replace my laptop soon. It's almost 12 years old, the battery doesn't work anymore, it overheats, and it's super slow. Looking into gaming laptops.

June 29; grandfather passed away last night. All I feel is relief.

July 11th. I got gifted my grandfather's bed, but had to switch it back out with my old bed because it was too soft and fucking up my back. No lumbar support.

July wrap up: month went by sooo fast I can hardly believe it. Its too fucking hot. Texas is stuck in a heat cyclone. Havent played solitare in a while, or listened to audio books. I managed to do 7 jigsaw puzzles this summer, and hope to do one more. each one has been 1000 pieces minimum, with two being 2000 pieces, and 1 being 3000. I should have taken more pictures of them finished, but it's fun to know we finished one puzzle per week this whole summer.

August 5th; Wish I recorded some smaller details throughout the year, not realizing id want to recall the last time I did something. When was the last time I intentionally watched a movie or listened to a specific song? (but then again, how will I know I'm going to think the exact thought; "when was the last time I did X specific thing?") I rewatched wolf children 2 months back for the first time in years, same with relistening to HeyHiHello songs. Been having a lot of lower back pain lately. Stretching helps, but I can no longer sit or sleep in my favorite position without cramping up. I need to be perfectly straight and i hate it. (A/N: The very next night I pulled a muscle in my back so bad I thought I was paralyzed. for the first time in years, I had to call in sick to work because I could not physically move from my bed)

August 19th. Went to a chiropractor. No pinched nerves or slipped disc, just a pulled muscle. Stretching helps and have been wearing a back brace. Finally had grandpa's memorial on the tenth. It was nice to learn he made friends at his community center. I'll try to be out going when I'm old too. Doctors would not sign his death certificate for 7 weeks because they just didn't give a shit, and we finally threatened to call a lawyer. He finally got cremated.

August 30th- recently had to go to pepboys to get my car fixed again. It was "stuck" in neutral. Grandma came and picked me up to let me go home. She said she doesnt plan to be driving much longer and intends to give her car to me. I dont know how to feel about this. Grateful for the future gift? Sad that she is getting older? I had to have my car towed and had to leave work early, which I hate doing because it makes me feel like I'm leaving everyone else to do my work, but I did not want another repeat with the towing situation that happened in june.

September 19th. I finally put on my brave face and ordered a new laptop for myself earlier this month (the 5th to be precise) and today it finally arrived. I bought myself an HP omen gaming laptop. It's so nice, but also different and a little scary trying to adjust to all this new interface. I went from using windows 7 for the last 11 years to jumping into windows 11. It'll be an adjustment. Gotta re-download all my old programs and transfer my files. Hope my drawing tablet will still work on this laptop. Might have to buy a new one of those as well. I already hate the subscription model being used if you want to do ANYTHING with the tech YOU BOUGHT nowadays. Goodbye microsoft office! It was fun while I knew you! I got libreoffice now! Fuck off adobe! OpenShot and Shotcut are my video editing programs now! I still need to learn my way around OBS, opentoonz, and pencil2d, but I gotta say there's something.... rustic? homey? about having a desktop full of opensource programs made by people who want to help other creatives free of charge. I miss the days where you buying something meant you own it forever, but free homegrown programs updated by community feels friendlier than just owning a shiny "offical" big named piece of software, I gotta admit.

The new laptop is wonderfully fast and silent. It cost me 2 grand so I hope it lasts just as long as my old one. There is no removable battery from what I can tell, which is sad. Also no disc drive. The keys light up rainbow which is cool (but I had to turn that feature off to improve battery life). I customized the desktop background to some concept art of the videogame RiME. (I thought I had saved the default bg pic from my old laptop to my external hard drive, but I guess I hadn't?) Funny to me that in the 10+ years of owning my second ever laptop, I never changed the wallpaper because I liked the default art so much. Might add more art to a file and have the wallpaper rotate. I want to replay RiME again too. Love the simple gameplay and strong colors of that game.

October 4th. So much has happened in 2 weeks, it feels much longer than that. I pretty much completely switched to using my new lap top ad my main computer, transferred all the files, downloaded a bunch of open source software for writing documents, video editing, streaming and animation. Fuck you Microsoft. I shouldn't need an account to use basic microsoft word. Hope to bring back page making streams next year for patrons~ ive even been playing some steam games that my old laptop just couldn't run, and quite a few new ones as well. Candleman, carto, so many fun and charming titles~ replaying snakebird because all my progress was lost 🥲I'm not mad. I love snake bird.

I have so much desire to do so many things, but not enough time to do them. I need to queue up my november posts for tumblr before I go on break. I need to get my oil changed soon. I want to go back on steam and play more humongous entertainment games. I want to write, I want to draw, I want to animate, I want to learn how to quilt and crochet and garden. I want to do it all right now all at the same time. I want to go on a nature walk. I want to see my friends.

Its finally starting to cool off. We still get in the 90s easily, but it rained last night for the first time in weeks, and we havent hit 100 degrees in a couple of days. Been reading a lot of webtoons lately. Been having the urge to start my own with my original storylines, or at least use webtoons as a backup/mirror for my fan comic. So many unique stories there all ready. So many fun art style and worlds to get lost in. I love stories and the people that tell them. The joy of creating a tale and sharing it with the world is humanity in its purest form.

November 1st: youtube is cracking down on adblockers. Havent had any problems yet on desktop, but on this day, my default youtube app on my lg smart phone started showing me ads for the first time in the 8+ years I've had it. I was so mad that i forced stopped the app, and logged into youtube through an ad block browser app instead. Some of the app's features will be missed, like being able to watch a video and search at the same time, but these little annoyances are nothing compared to the fury I felt at being shown ads. I didn't write nearly as much as I wanted to for nanowrimo today because of this.

November 6th: I turned 31! Both my friends forgot my birthday, and I wasn't able to reserve a camping site for the April 8th eclipse next year! 🙃 ive been writing like mad for nanowrimo, but I'm still falling behind.

December 17. Has it really been a whole month since i last made a diary update? Thanksgiving came and went. No drama at our house but my mom and I watched an argument unfold in the yard of our neighbors. The one mobile game I play, dragon's world, officially shut down for me 4 days ago. I'm a little sad I could never 100% it, but glad I got as far as I did, and even managed to buy some dergs so it didnt feel all my hard earned gems went to waste. Havent uninstalled the app yet out of nostalgia, even though I only played this game for a year and a half. I made the mistake of reinstalling the google play store to look for a new dragon raising game, but none had the same appeal, and the reinstall caused my discord app to update and hate it ):< I kinda want to learn how to make a mobile game of my own like dragons world, but with gryphons instead and a focus on rescue/rehabilitation and zoology angle. (I mostly just dont like how common fighting is in these kind of games.) Finally been playing horizon forbidden west after a few months away. I'm not progressing the story, just trying to max upgrade all my gear. It's a fun challenge~

December 26, 2023. Got bit by a dog at work on Christmas. Right on the nail of my middle finger. He broke my nail but not my skin. Its odd. Thankfully I can still draw without much issue. I got a tetanus shot and flu shot just to be safe. Mom got me a tent for Christmas because I plan to go camping by myself next year, even though I wont get to see the eclipse on my outing.

The fan game undertale yellow came out on the 9th… Which was before my last journal update? I've been enjoying the game play but the story is just a little... eh. the sprite work is phenominal, though, no complaints there. I hate that it's making me want to write my own AU version of it already to "improve" it, since I think the story loses its way pretty much once you leave the ruins. (maybe I can try to shove it into Clemency in stead since i still haven't finished that either).

I watched a documentary on kangaroos on netflix this month. I had to play it at 1.25 speed because I swear they slowed down every single clip for the film to get it to a certain length. I also watched "dog gone trouble" which had terrible voice work and awful character design, and then "back to the outback" which was surprisingly well made even if the characters stumbled sometimes, but I'd easily recommend it. I want to watch more Christmas movies before the year is through. (A/N: this also did not happen).

Finally uninstalled dragons world today. My phone's been acting up. Hope I don't have to replace it soon. I don't like how, nowadays, the technology I pay for, I don't actually own, and features are being removed left and right. I'm afraid any "new" phone on the market offered now won't nearly last as long as my current one has.

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Aaand that was a brief glimpse into my year! The time is now 1:10pm! I already have one other post going up today, so I'll queue this one to go up on thursday instead~ if you managed to read this far, thank you so much, i guess! I hope my ramblings don't make you see me differently as a person. It's odd reflecting on where I was in my life over these past 12 months, remembering my state of mind and the feelings I felt as I wrote these entries. I'll be sure to do it again this year.

Overall, did I learn anything?...no, I don't think so? I did come to the realization that at the end of every year, in multiple youtube videos and tumblr posts, people mentioned how hard the year was for them, but like... after june, for me, everything improved quite a lot. it doesn't feel right to say that 2023 was hard for me. It was unbearably sad for me at the beinging. annoying and (physcially) painful half way through, but once august hit... everything slowly started to get better, despite the small petty things I complained about in my journal entries above. youtube ads, car troubles and discontinued apps of games I enjoyed still feel like small potatoes when compared to what I accomplished. Finished writing a draft of personal fiction, finished a major arc of a fan comic, got a new laptop to stream and share art with others, played a bunch of new video games, and generally enjoyed life for the latter half of this year.

And it almost feels selfish to say that... I'm happy.

I hope I can stay happy in 2024 as well.

Thanks for reading~

Have a safe and joyous 2024~