#though funny story from when i got my nano

[awkward-teabag]

Was looking at my iPod Nano and thought how utterly BS it is that companies say it takes too much room to have a headphone jack.

I already thought it was BS before but the claim invariably comes down to form factor and keeping the jacks would make the device too big.

My Nano is ~5mm thick with the jack (also it's thinner than that but the glass stands out to make it thicker). That's nearly 3mm thinner than the latest iPhone and even the thinnest iPhone is over 2mm thicker.

You're telling me as components and ports shrink and boards also get smaller, it's unfeasible to do something that was done a decade ago?

It's almost as if it's not that form factor/technology doesn't allow it and it's all about selling proprietary adapters and/or Apple-brand headphones/earbuds/airpods that can be paired without a jack, and removing customer freedom.

[pebblysand]

Heyyyy im dying for an update on castles!! Any hope of getting one soon?😭💗

hi anon! thanks for your message! the tl;dr answer to this is: no.

or, i don't know. maybe? sigh. it's just been a lot lately.

it's a funny one, you know? most of you will not remember this, but there used to be a time when i would share (maybe overshare - is that a word? i've always wondered why that is a word when it's your platform and your rules and people can just choose to ignore you) on tumblr. not just about fics and writing and peaky blinders, but also about me. the stuff i felt. the stuff that was going on in my life. lots of things.

i grew up in an era of blogging and livejournal (seeing dreamwidth make a comeback lately is oh-so-bizarre, btw) where people opened up online - sometimes too much. this was before doxxing, before cancel culture, before it became dangerous to do so. people would complain about their jobs, their mates - the internet was an outlet. and, i don't know if it was better or worse, i'm not here to make value judgements and i've always thought people who say "things were better in my day" sound like absolute twats, but it was undoubtedly different. i've had this conversation with someone on discord lately, about the dreamwidth comeback actually, when this person said: 'people get real personal on there, though' and i was like: 'yeah, i suppose it's just the culture of the place.' a place where, unlike tumblr and everything that came after it, most of the content produced was through words, rather than images. when the internet was still made for writers and you weren't afraid of "clogging" someone's dash with posts that were too long to be digested in less than ten seconds.

the thing is: i like writing. it makes it easier to organise thoughts. and, up to 2020 (2021, even) i used to post monthly updates on my writing, but also about my life, for you. remember how i told you when i passed my bar exam? how i quit my job, found another job, and then another one. i told you about the boy and hinted at my break-up. i told you about how one of my best friends sank into a very toxic relationship, from which i couldn't save her. i told you when my dad died. it wasn't even that long ago. and, i explained to you that for these reasons, and maybe others, i didn't have a chapter out as early as i would have liked. and, you understood. you were kept up with what was going on. it was the pandemic and a different time.

but then, gradually (oh-so-quickly and oh-so-slowly), "you" became "many." i like that word - "many" - it's what my hairdresser said the first time she cut my hair: "they are very fine, but there are very, very, many of them." i suppose that between the first chapter of castles and the latest, my follower count grew into the hundreds and i got - well, scared. scared to share: what i thought, why i wasn't posting, how much or how little i was writing, how i was feeling. because there were too many of you. because i started to hold myself up to higher standards, too.

the truth is that no one wants to listen to anyone on the internet complain. it's not fun. and, specifically, no one wants to listen to fanfiction writers complain. why would they? why would they moan about how busy they are? about how creatively drained they might be? about how maintaining a healthy balance between real life, a job, and writing, is hard, if you do it seriously. because it's a hobby. because it's not "real" writing. because it doesn't matter.

well, anon, i'll tell you something. the voice in my head, it goes like this: why are you tired? it's just fanfiction. stop taking yourself and your little stupid story so seriously. stop thinking this is Important because you're writing about something you feel is important. no one cares. and: you only wrote 80,000 words last year, people write full-blown nanos in a month, calm down. it's not that bad, you don't have children. it's not that bad, you don't have dying parents. it's not that bad, you have money. you're a white cis privileged girl who can afford to spend her free time on writing because you don't have to work multiple paying jobs to foot the bills. so many people do. people who are much busier than you write a lot more than you do. shut up, what are you crying about? why are you responding to this poor anon with anything other than "soon, i hope." they weren't even mean about it.

and, i like the word "many" because it encompasses the realness of it, the repetition of it. many, many, many. it's less theoretical than "a lot". you can't say: a lot, a lot, a lot. it's morning as i write this, irish drizzle blown in by the wind against my window, thin droplets like static and i wonder: could i isolate thirty thousand? count up to thirty thousand little drops of rain against glass and imagine what that would look like as people. that's a small stadium, isn't it? and, it's also almost how many people have clicked on castles, in the past three years. it's also how many people, in my head, are telling me to just suck it up and write the next chapter. it's been a month already, hasn't it?

to tell you the truth, i still overshare with some people. there's a very small discord i'm on which is more like a group chat with my best internet friends. it's a lot of fun. and, i'm not going to tag them here for fear that you might come at them with pitchforks, but after i was explaining this to them, how exhausted and drained and lost i've been feeling lately, i had some, last week, tell me i should just give up castles. just stop, recharge, take care of myself. it's just a fic, it doesn't matter. let it go, you know?

so, yeah. you read that right, anon dearest. people who i really love, and trust, told me i should put your beloved on an indefinite hiatus and move on with my life. how's that for an update? and, they didn't say it in a "this is a bad fic and it's not worth continuing" kind of way, but in a "it's not worth working yourself into the ground" kind of way. in a "fanfiction is a hobby" kind of way.

i typically count years from september to august (i'm still in school, in my head, sue me) and this past one has been long and hard. for reasons that i won't explain because of the "very many" issue i mentioned above. for reasons that i also won't explain because as i also mentioned above, i can't help but always compare myself to people who have it worse. but, the fact of the matter is that whilst i'm not really asking for sympathy, i do want to say this, as i hope it will help provide a bit of context to how i'm feeling right now, in terms of writing.

anon dearest, i'm exhausted. i'm bored. i'm turning thirty in 24 days. i'm sick and tired of putting everything in my life on hold "until i finish castles". i would estimate that right now (and for the past three years) castles has eaten up about 75% of my free time. i think the first couple years, i didn't really mind. because it was the pandemic. because there wasn't much else i wanted to do. but now, when i see my friends, i try to schedule it on weekday evenings because i want to keep my weekends for writing. when i travel at the weekends, take holidays, do anything that will take me more than a couple hours, it's a compromise made against writing time. a compromise i often feel guilty about because it delays the next update and because ultimately, it delays the moment when i do finish castles. when i am able to move on to something else. move on with my life and also maybe another story of my own.

these past few months, i wrote almost every day from late march until last week because i knew i'd be going home to france in august and wouldn't be able to write there, so i needed to get ahead. everything in my life is planned around writing and updating and i'm a little bit burnt out, anon. it's typical summer me, nothing to really worry about, i felt the same last year (those who were already here will remember) but it doesn't make it suck less. and, that's why people are telling me to give up. because i keep getting stuck in this cycle of overworking myself, getting burnt out, taking a month off and diving back in again. it's fanfiction and it's a hobby and it's meant to be fun and it's just not fun anymore. it feels endless and draining and like a vampire eating my "good" years. time my mates are spending getting married and having children. and, even if i don't think that's what i want for myself, precisely, i still don't feel like the life i'm currently living is one i want to be living in five years' time.

i don't want to be exhausted. i don't want to be working all the time. this groundhog day of getting up, opening up my (work, or personal) laptop, deliveroo-ing my meals, working until 9:30 pm, and repeat. i have seven chapters left to go to the end, which will take 12 to 18 months, and i don't think i can go on like this for another year. i don't want to. something's gotta give: my IRL life, my job, or this "hobby", and it is logical (oh-so-logical) that it should be the latter.

and, yet. when my pocket friends suggested this, i came at them with pitchforks. i said: no. no, no, no, no. i can't give up. i don't want to give up. i love this story. it's unnerving and draining and exhausting, but haven't touched it for a week and i already miss it - it's crazy. and, it's true: it's not fun, but writing, to me, has never been "fun". it's: fulfilling, exhilarating, meaningful, it gives me the chills and a sense of peace but it's not "fun". i don't know who the fuck writes for "fun". you can enjoy things that aren't "fun", you know? i definitely do.

and, if i had to pick one thing to give up on that list, honestly, it would be my job - 100%. i'd finish castles in six months, if i could give that up. but, i can't, lovely anon. because fanfic doesn't pay. because writing doesn't pay. and whilst i do have a savings account that i intend to use someday to take time off to write, i don't think i could justify using it for anything other than original fiction. because at least, there would be a tiny bit of hope that the book might get picked up and i could make my money back. i can't, like, quit my job to write fanfiction, can i? even if i did set up a patreon, i doubt you all would want to fund me, lol.

so, i don't know. i don't know what to do, anon. i don't want to give up castles. realistically, i probably won't. realistically, i'm probably going to keep ploughing through and overworking myself and feeling like i'm throwing my youth and my free time away into this project that everyone will most likely forget the moment it is finished. right now, to answer your question, i have about 6,000 words on the new chapter. right now, i'm also taking august off writing. to recharge, to sleep, and only write if i feel like it. later? i don't know. i think i'm in a place where i've just got 30,000 words out in three months and i'm too brain-dead to think clearly. i am acutely aware that this issue doesn't have a solution (or at least one that i like) but i might be more willing to compromise my life again after a bit of rest and holidays.

anyway, sorry for being a debbie downer, anon. and sorry i don't have an update for you. i'm dying for one, too.

[leggyre]

hi all! sorry, this is going to be a bit of a sad post.

I just want to share that Nano passed away today. He was a very old bun at 9 years old and we just couldn't keep it up with his increasingly difficult health issues.

As of right now, I'm not asking for consolation or any words of comfort. It's the first time I'm dealing with a loss of this scale, of something I've loved so dearly for so long, that I'll never get back.

I'm still coming to terms about how I feel about it. There were so many times I felt like meeting him was fate. And to be honest, I still do. I set out to adopt a classic white bunny(because honestly that's the only color I had ever seen in the place before) but between all the sleepy or hungry babies there was a little black mischievous boy hoping around and approaching people who gave my finger little kisses and I just couldn't leave him there. We didn't have any boxes or cages to carry him in so he got to pee on my lap on the way home lol

The first time he licked me after that day, something I thought would take ages to happen after lengthy Bunny Research(tm) telling me so, was maybe within a few days or a week, but what made the moment as special as it was for me was the fact I was sitting on the ground, having a breakdown, crying my eyes out. I have a really hard time using the word love to others because I'm never sure of my feelings and I don't want to say it without meaning, but from then on I had never been so sure about how much I loved him.

I have a lot of other stories like that. He helped me learn a lot about myself. He gave me company at my worst. I missed him so much when I had to stop allowing him on the bed to take a nap with me because one day he just decided peeing there was okay. I laid down on the floor on the most uncomfortable positions for the longest time because he had fallen asleep in my arms. I did that this morning, after I was told he might not make it when we went to see the vet today. It didn't even feel like anything was wrong, really. I kinda thought maybe we shouldn't go and I could keep doing that tomorrow. And the day after. And the next. But every time he woke up and shuffled around it was so easy for me to tell he was uncomfortable, trying to find a way to lay down in a way that would ease the pain. He didn't look any different to most people, but I memorized every single kind of motion he ever did.

And it's funny to think that he knew me the same way. He knew exactly what me shutting off the computer sounded like and that it was the perfect time to beg for snacks and attention. He knew when I was hiding something for him. He knew exactly where I walked so he could leave the god damned piss traps in the way when he was mad at me. He knew that if he kept poking his nose out the fence long enough I'd come back eventually to pet him more even if I had already walked all the way to my bed and laid down. And he knew that he could come to me for comfort whenever he felt scared or in pain. He trusted me so much and that meant the world to me.

Just to add one weird, maybe funny thing that's gonna keep me pondering forever; one day, years ago, I wished that I could be the one to take any pain he'd ever feel. Since then, I kind of took note that we'd have our sickest days together, and often in similar ways. It's most likely confirmation bias, but I do like to think I did manage to take some of his pain from him.

Well. My plan was just to share the news and go on with my day. Think about stuff. Couldn't keep from writing this much, though, so I just decided to let it all out anyway.

Again, I don't want any comfort. I will always love him, the things he taught me, and the memories I'm blessed with. I will be okay.

I want the thought of him to keep bringing joy into my life, because that's the thing he's always been the best at. The second best was destroying specifically videogame related cables.

heres some shenanigans to brighten up the mood :]

and here's a cute pic from years ago as well 🐇💞

[poppyseedoncaffeine]

CH. 4

A/N: I thought long and hard about this, but I wanted some good sibling interactions, well, as well as you can get with two respectable blood hobos, a small child, and a trashcan man to maim. You're welcome. Also cuz I think its funny, trash guys name keeps changing.

2 1/2

        Magic had many uses, ones so great that the author of this story can't even tell you all of them, apparently making some one changes ages and sizes was one of them. To be completely honest, it wasn't Eclipse who noticed it, it Was Harvest. Harvest was the more vigilant of the twins, there were times where the sleepier twin knew when they had taken it to far and did his best to atone for both of them. A shred of humanity residing deep within the bot. Nights where Eclipse lay in pain tucked against the bot, a broken melody playing from the larger of the two. Harvest was the closest thing the child had for comfort.

        Eclipse tugged at the gown, it no longer reached his knees, the exposed skin made him feel uncomfortable, a second gown had been cut and wrapped around his waist in a sad attempt to mimic a diaper. Toilets weren't a thing when all that inhabited a base were robots. Well minus two, but that would change soon... hopefully. Harvest sat behind his twin, watching over the two, nothing too damaging could happen to Eclipse, Harvest was going to make sure of that, if he stayed awake long enough. Eclipse glanced at Blood, what he was doing to that trashcan? man? was none of his concern, though the jumbled up nonsense and breaking of bones certainly didn't help the child calm down.

        "Sibling must you hurt the trash headed man now?" BM paused, a long intestine dangling from their mouth, then resumed, not bothering to answer. Eclipse gagged, berrying his head between his legs, new bowl of food left untouched. Unsurprisingly when one watches someone get ripped apart in so many different ways they tend to loose their appetite. "Penelope! Why?" the odd squelching sound of blood and guts being magically drawn back in was nauseating, "was the beheaded rat not enough for you my love?"

        Eclipse wrinkled his nose, gross, rats were yucky. "BROTHER WHAT IS HE TALKING ABOUT?!"  BM whined pausing to look at their twin, "Penelope, I can give you ALL the rats you want!" Eclipse giggled, BM wouldn't want rats! Waste basket  was silly! Eclipse lifted his head to look at BM's face, a look of disgust coating the nano machines face. 

        There was a pregnant pause, the odd sounding relationship between The tin head man and Penelope, furthering the overall discomfort in the room. The man resumed screaming and Eclipse buried his head between his legs once more.

       3.

 Eclipse was sleepy, that's all he ever felt. Several bowls lay empty at his feet, those bowls were meant to last the week while KC and the twins were gone. He hadn't meant to eat all of them! He was just hungry! He felt around for a bowl, it was too dark to see, he didn't like the dark. His hand brushed one and he immediately got to work on scraping the sides clean, it tasted funny, not as good as it had a few days ago, and it left a bad taste in his mouth.

        His whole body went ridged as the door opened, KC? No to short for KC or the twins, his eyes hurt as they adjusted to the light assaulting his eyes. "Penelope?" the man staggered into the room, the bowl slipped from the child's hands, landing with a clatter. The ashcan turned towards the noise "PENELOPE!" he lunged at Eclipse, picking him up with an iron grip, "why, you are much smaller than the last time i saw you!"

        "NO! NO! NO! NO!" Eclipse screamed, kicking the trashcan with a mighty clang of bare feet meeting metal. The tin-headed man let go, he stumbled for a moment. Eclipse scrambled off the floor, his foot hurt. The door! he could get to the door and get out! the idea left him giddy as he lunged out of the crazy mans reach. He scrambled past the door and was startled by a loud blaring sound, he didn't like that it was too loud, he couldn't hear Trashcan head, and his eyes still hurt. 

        Get out. Get out. He had to get out! Eclipse ran down the hall as fast as his little legs would take him. The blaring only got louder the further he got from the room. His foot caught on an upturned plate of metal and he came crashing to the ground, his body trembled, he hadn't moved for the last few days, only to eat the scraps left behind in the bowls. 

        The floor beneath him trembled as if something heavy was landing on it, Dumpster man? Eclipse whimpered at the thought of the creepy man standing over him. The alarm was almost overbearing. He moved, just to cover his ears, he wasn't able to do much more than that. A loud screech pierced over the alarm, "NO! NO! NOOO-" 

        Eclipse curled into a ball as if that would protect him from whatever was killing Bin man. Seconds, what felt like hours, passed by as he listened to the screams fade under the alarm. Eclipse yelped as he was lifted of the ground, No! he didn't want to be with pail man! Eclipse weakly clawed at the metal chest... wait, Eclipse opened his eye, Meeting a thoroughly soaked Harvest moon, in what looks to be blood. Harvest said nothing, or maybe he did, who knows Eclipse couldn't hear anything over the alarm anymore.

        A firm, sticky hand covered Eclipse's ear, muffling the sound. The child shuddered in relief, nuzzling into the bots chest Eclipse sighed. This was nice. All too soon Eclipse was set onto the cold floor of the lab, the alarm had stopped, when had it stopped. Harvest walked to one of the cabinets scrounging around for something. Eclipse waddled to the bowls, looking at them now he wished he hadn't eaten them, the little remaining food was fuzzy and smelled bad, or maybe that was the blood, who's to say.

        Harvest appeared next to the child, "you know, you grow faster than any child I have seen" Harvest turned Eclipse around and began unbuttoning the back of the flimsy gown, "much too tall than you were a week ago" the cold air hit Eclipse's skin and he shuddered. Harvest laughed at himself, "I have killed most children I have seen, so maybe not the best example" Harvest carefully put the too big gown on Eclipse, the neck bit fell over his shoulder. 

"BIG!" Eclipse swished the garment, it almost reached his ankles!

        Harvest nodded, "has to be, yo-" *Yawn* "you want it to last more than a week" Harvest stood up, bunching the old garment in his hands. Eclipse sat down, exhausted, he grabbed a nearby bowl and looked at the rotted contents. It might not hurt? Before he could even make a decision, the bowl was snatched from his hands,

        "Ah~ Ah~ Ah~" Eclipse stiffened, eye looking up at KC, when had he come in? KC crouched down to his charges height, "that's... icky, you don't want to get sick do you?" Eclipse shook his head. KC smiled and patted Eclipse, "good boy" he turned to Harvest, "go join your Sibling downstairs, clean up that mess you left outside of the room" Harvest nodded and left with little complaint. KC grabbed Eclipses face, tilting it side to side, his hand rested on Eclipses forehead, his smile fell.

        "Stupid child" he lifted Eclipse off the ground, this time under the armpits, and set him against his chest. Eclipse's eyes drooped as Kill code walked out of the room and over to the teleportation pad.

[iantimony]

accidentally back to tuesdaypost

despite my best efforts, shabbat came and went and i did not make my post. oops. trying a new heading template this week as well.

maybe not this week but i am thinking of starting to host images for the making section somewhere else...maybe on gdrive? or postimages.org? imgur? just so that if my tumblr ever breaks the images in dreamwidth won't vanish.

listening

partizan! halfway through episode 12 right now, which means, according to where i was last week-ish, i am averaging about one episode a day LOL. extreme sport FatT speedrunning. also relistening to all is as all should be recently, just scratches a brain itch for some reason. it's very brain-worm-able to me, i've been humming songs from it all week.

reading i was going to say fallow and then went. hooold on. i've been reading SO many things just not, like, books.

wikipedia articles of the week: Naomi Shihab Nye, Rachel's Tomb, Matzevah, Alexandre Cabanel, Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud, Leo Africanus

because it's november and i'm nostalgic for nanowrimo (and considering doing it again once i'm done with classes and therefore homework), i went and reread some of my nano from when i was in high school and WOW. nostalgia!!! some of it is very very bad, unsurprisingly, it was almost 10 years ago, but some of it is actually quite good. very fond of the comments left by a friend on it that were preserved when i downloaded the google doc a billion years ago to save on my external drive, including one that said "your prose is crisp like an autumn apple" or some fucking thing like that. truly delightful. i'd also somehow forgotten that i'd actually hit the word goal? the document is about 60k words give or take, the story was not finished though which is probably why i misremembered. i should start writing again.

in my quest to populate my inoreader with blogs and other such things i've been delving into my bookmarks and re-found this delightful site, their most recent article is just the world's most specific niche horn memes it's so funny. like this is absolutely meaningless to literally everyone else that it passes back into absurdity and probably funny to non-horn players again. i am VERY excited to peruse their pdf library though.

playing pokegoooooo. i am visiting my grandma and going on long night walks around the old people development with pokego is very elite. i am a little nervous that someone will call security on me though because i frequently just stop (often like...in front of people's apartment buildings....) and stand still to catch pokemon if a bunch have spawned in one location...

watching i have not watched it yet but i am VERY excited to start season 2 of the tgcf donghua!!

watched kurtis connor's "deep dive into potterheads" and literally cheered out loud at the end when he mentioned the snapewives. that made me want to watch strange aeons so i also watched her video on msscribe and snapewives.

i wasn't On Livejournal or active in fandom while everything was going down but i remember learning about it a few years after it all happened so seeing comprehensive deep dives now is very, very...satisfying isn't quite the right word, but i am a messy bitch who lives for drama especially when i'm not involved in it. what a mess.

making pottery!!! i have a bunch of stuff coming out from a glaze run that i'm very excited to see but it will have to wait til saturday when i get home from visiting my grandma for thanksgiving. i do however have pictures of this little box i made:

it was a gift for my grandma, and i glazed it all the way back in the beginning of october i think? the kilns got monopolized by some other stuff for the owner's business (which is super fair) which means we didn't get a student project run until literally friday, two days before i was supposed to leave town, so after some texting with her she was able to put it out on her porch around 11pm on saturday when the kiln cooled down enough so i was able to pick it up at like 5:30am on my drive to the airport LOL so all in all it worked out! next roundup post will have pictures of some of my other glazed pieces, i'm very very curious how they do!!!

i've been playing with underglaze because i was like ohhhh i love the look of carving designs into underglaze...and i bought some fun colors when i went to The City a few weekends ago...so i have this mug that needs its first fire, i also have some fun eye-motif ones in the works at the moment! i also added some underglaze color to my dragon carving from last week.

finally this bowl already had its first fire but i painted underglaze on over white to try and get a watercolor-type effect? i put lilypads on the inside and painted koi on the outside (no picture of that yet)

misc not a whole lot else! since my summertime trials and tribulations i have unfortunately become the kind of person who gets tummy issues when my stress levels get too high. i have always become a basket case in the ~24 hours before i have to travel somewhere so that's been less than fun but i'm figuring it out. also trying to switch psychiatrists right now is sooooo fucking aggravating i will not get into it but ughhhhhh.

[stormears]

Get to know you game, aw yeah classic tumblr time. I was tagged by @spacejammie-eimmajecaps.

Last song listened to?

This vicious kickass ominous song with a strong beat and angry eldritch noises by Woodkid, "Volcano", PLEASE listen pleeeeeease.

Currently reading:

"Red Seas Under Red Skies", which is book 2 in the Locke Lamora series. Locke Lamora is a very smart street thief who steals from the rich and has very funny dialogue, he lives in a world where magic is real but only accessible to the ultra-rich and those people currently want him dead. Quippy fantasy heist series.

It's far from my favorite, but still a detailed and engaging fantasy world. My brother bought me book 1 a long time ago and book 2 recently and I kinda feel obligated to finish them. The series does impress me with its ability to actually make me laugh irl with its written dialogue. I think its an accomplishment for any writer to get a reaction out of the reader stronger than the "puff of air through the nose laugh." When I finish, it'll finally be time to tackle the Priory of the Orange Tree!

Currently watching:

Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2, very slowly. I thought about watching S2 dub alongside sub, and I did for a few eps, but Toji's English VA put me off soooo bad that I kind of dropped that...also been watching a few horror films lately.

I finally watched Men which was strongly disturbing and Saint Maud which was pretty good, a bit on the dull and slow side but pretty bleak. I was also pretty impressed by No One Will Save You (extremely socially isolated young woman's home invaded by aliens, it's NOT a dream).

More frequently than that, I watch Game Grumps for a little stupid positivity and a few horse-related YT channels.

Currently obsessed with:

My fantasy au KageHina fic about mage!Kageyama and unicorn!Hinata, which I've kicked around in my head since mid-2020 and am currently planning to make my NaNoWriMo project. My outline is looking faaaaatttt and I'm pretty hyped about it. And I kind of would like to turbo-run this story and get it out of my head and off the WIP table, this bitch is too crowded.

I started Nano last year and had 1 successful week but then got called into my boss's office to be told I would let go in a few months. The threat of upcoming joblessness and immediate need to apply for jobs destroyed my creative drive and simply cancelled Nano for me. This year though, I have a way better job and I work from home 90% of the time! Life is 5x better than it was last year, so I may actually make it through Nano properly!

Not sure if I'll hit 50,000 words though...I'm setting a soft goal to just hit 500 a day instead of the correct 1600. Baby's first real Nano.

Tagging: @mintoche / @spacefinch / @princess-madara /@rogue-crew-ask-blog / @misakiokui / @awritingkay

Get to know you game! Answer the questions and tag 9 people you want to know better!

Thanks for the tag @pabloernesto

Last song listened to?

Don't remember

Currently reading:

Dracula (for the first time) (I'm late to the trend lol) (also I didn't want to wait for emails so I just bought the book)

Also reading Frankenstein, though the original 1818 text version is very hard for me to process so it's slow going lol often have to re-read sentences to understand the meaning

And then waiting on updates for a few different fanfics

Currently watching:

Behind Your Touch, Bleach TYBW, My Perfect Marriage, The Great Cleric, slowly/casually rewatching Soul Eater, very slowly rewatching Stranger Things (with my sister bc she is scared to watch it alone lol), Zom100 (though I'm a few weeks behind), Undead Murder Farce (tbh only watched the first episode and then got distracted with other stuff but I will eventually get back to watching it probably)

Currently obsessed with:

SGB, as always. There is very little room in my brain for anything else.

Tagging: @astrowaffles @wordvomitgenerator @spooky-kakashi @aliresix @axreliono @stormears @wewindondowntheroad @voidpeony @paintbrushyy

[rosedevents]

Story ADHD

As of late, the days I am inspired to write have been few and far between. I can blame it on work being really intense right now, but there's also a little bit of story ADHD happening.

I finished The Enchanted Smutbook and then The Slytherin Toy's Christmas Wish and also a surprise chapter of Breed. So I thought ... great, now I can devote all of my time to finishing my WIPs – The Curse of 100 and New Year's Eve Wedding Week.

It's just ... the thing is ... those aren't truly my only WIPs. I have plenty of other stories I will get randomly inspired to write, but that I haven't started posting:

A/B/O - this is my gift fic for @f1dget-scribbles :) The idea behind it is an A/B/O Dramione where they don't magically like each other just because they're mated. And also filling it with Fidget's favorite things.

Severance - have you seen the show on Apple TV? This will be my take on that with Hermione and Draco as co-workers who have separate memories of work and home. This was my Camp NaNo project in July but I am only about halfway finished.

Soulmate Spell - a coven casts a spell to reveal soulmate marks ... and guess whose names end up on Hermione and Draco's arms??

Memory Loss fic - Draco captures Hermione during the war and she erases her own memory. Five years later, they are living together as a couple in France ... and Harry finds them!

Triad fic - Development of Theo/Draco/Hermione during eighth year with flashbacks to a Harry/Ron/Hermione romantic triad while they're on the run

Slave fic - Bellatrix used a spell on Hermione to make her a slave to the house of Black. When Draco figures this out during eighth year, things get a little dark.

Commissioned fics - Now, this isn't a thing that I usually do, but ArizonaiceT666 reached out and asked me to write a multi-chapter story and I said I would, but we'll see when I actually get to it. We also talked about me writing a story based on "Hermione's Normal Day" and that flowed really easily - I am about halfway done with that two-chapter story, and it is juicy and dark.

Oh, right and the Slytherin Toy sequel - I've got bits and pieces on this one but will have to seriously sit down and write this soon or it will probably never get done ...

It's funny now that I've listed them out - most of them are my takes on different tropes. (That list doesn't include the dozen other Word docs that never went anywhere ...)

You see, I am trying to learn from my mistakes and actually finish my stories before I start posting. And this is why it is a slog for me to post on 100 and NYE (which, at this point, probably won't be updated until it's actually NYE again - whoops).

I have so many stories in my head and they don't always want to come out on schedule. It's like story ADHD, bouncing around from story to story and not getting anywhere on any of them. NaNoWriMo is coming up and hopefully I will be able to focus on something in November - the question is, though ... what story will I focus on next? And ... can I even focus?

[galactic-pirates]

Fandom, Creation and Me

With it being NaNo tomorrow I am doing update posts, and planning posts, and basically sorting everything out. It's also something I do at the end of/start of every year. It's part cleaning house, part goal setting.

This has been a funny year with moving house dominating all of it. I was just going to update my art goals, only to discover I didn't make my customary end of December post because that was during the madness. Then I remembered I didn't think I updated here either. I checked the archive and I did say I'd finally moved on September 13th but as to my fandom plans not a whisper. So I'm going to talk about it now!

Mid-April I made a post in which I said:

SO! My mission, should I choose to accept it bwahaha is to write EVERY SINGLE fanfic idea on my list (that I still want to write when I get to it) before the end of the year. Deadline December 31st. After that the slate is wiped clean. 

This started to go off the rails when I stopped writing in the summer. Some people write more when they are stressed as an escape. I wish I could say I was one of them but alas I unfortunately do my best turtle impression instead and basically very little gets done.

When I moved into my house that was a fresh start in the biggest way possible. I want - no I need - to make the most of that. I had to think about what serves me, and ultimately I decided to make my clean break then. So yeah, no more fanfic from me.

I have a few WIPs on my HD but thankfully due to my policy these days of not posting until stories are complete, that doesn't matter. I do feel... I wanted those ideas to be brought to life as I do like them, but I had to make a choice about what was best for me, and wistful thoughts about what could have been aren't going to change my mind.

So am I quitting fandom?

No.

I'm still co-mod of Saffi Prompts and I intend to help with that if it comes out of hiatus. I'm still running Saffi Bingo, in as much as I sent out the cards months ago but nothing seems to have happened. I'm helping put together the 13th anniversary event for Bering and Wells next April.

I also just signed up for a Leverage Bingo Card because you see while my fanfic days are over, my fanart days are not.

I want to get into art in a big, big way. I feel like fanfic helped me a lot with my writing journey. Fanfic helped me see projects through from beginning to end, helped me produce on a schedule, helped me keep up the practice when my mental health wouldn't permit me to write other things. I owe fanfic a lot. It's my hope that fanart might fulfil the same function in terms of getting me started.

Now I know I've promised I would do art in the past and then haven't done it. For years I have made it a goal to do 1 piece a month and I've never got close. I think the best I ever did was at the start of 2021 when I think I made it to April before I stopped.

That was before though, and the start of my writing journey was a similar tale. I went through a time when I wrote once a year - for NaNo - and didn't write at all the rest of the time. It's unthinkable now but that's how it was. So just because I didn't draw on the regular in the past, despite saying I would, doesn't mean I will always fail at that.

TLDR

No more fanfic from me. Expect fanart - eventually. I want to work through some art courses I have first before I go back to trying to draw what I imagine. Hopefully this will mean when I attempt those imagined pieces they will be better, and not as cringeworthy when I look back later as to how I ever dared post them on the internet.

P.S. What about gifsets?

Nearly forgot about that. Fandom Friday will not be returning. I don't have the time. However, I'm not ruling out making sets when/if I feel inspired to do so.

[nanowrimo]

Taming the Writing Process One Good Habit at a Time

How has participating in NaNoWriMo impacted you? Long-time Wrimo Elizabeth Braughler describes her success at NaNoWriMo as “life-changing” and seeks to share that transformative experience with others: 

“Our library hosts what?” 

I stared at the message I’d received in reply to my inquiry on local writing groups. It had taken everything in me to hit send, to admit to someone other than my family that I was actively writing. Attempting a full fledged novel, no less.

I knew it wasn’t going well. I’d been at the same story for well over a year, with only a few chapters and a million (or so it felt) rewrites. I couldn’t push through and my motivation was lagging. I was only writing when I felt inspired, which meant I wasn’t writing.

Enter NaNoWriMo, and — at the risk of giving away my happy ending — I won my first ever NaNo.

Most of you probably already know why I had that success, because you’ve experienced it firsthand. NaNoWriMo means a lot of things to a lot of different people and, for me, it was the stepping-stone that would formulate my writing process.

I jumped on the NaNoWriMo site a month out from its start and signed up. I was utterly clueless as to what I was getting myself into. I didn’t even get what word sprints meant prior to my journey with NaNo. I was the newest of newbies. I prepped very little, being the pantser I claimed to be, and ditched my old novel to start fresh with a new idea.

I think it may have something to do with my competitive nature, but I thrived. The idea of crushing word counts each day drove me, and you better believe I worked hard to win some of those word sprints, once I actually got what they were.

I had finally found a process that worked for me: sitting down every day and writing. It didn’t have to be perfect or even great; it was a first draft, which I learned could suck. I was taking the time to form a new habit — a good one — that made me go from piddling around on my keyboard to actually producing a full story. It didn’t matter if what I wrote was inspired or just helped me get from point a to point b. Writing daily worked my creative muscles.

Even when November came and went, I kept going. I had more story to tell and I now knew if I could write 50,000 words in a month, then I could certainly reach 100,000 in the span of two. I pushed through those next thirty-one days and finished a complete first draft. I got to the very end of my story. It was rough and messy, but I had done it. 

The funny thing was, I’d expected to feel sated when I wrote that last sentence. Instead, I felt like I’d just begun. As if I’d unlocked a new facet of myself that was ready to be put to work. I wanted to keep writing.

Even just a few months after NaNo, things already look a bit different for me. My pantsing-loving self has taken to at least prepping basic outlines and I’ve gotten connected to a writing group that inspires me and keeps me motivated.

The one thing that hasn’t changed for this novice writer, however, is the practice of working on a project daily. Whatever the time frame I’ve blocked out — a month, two months — I commit to working on the manuscript every day. It’s a really small step in a much larger scheme of the mysterious writer process, but it’s one that’s working well for this writer and I’m sticking to it.

Elizabeth is new to the world of writing, having joined NaNoWriMo in 2020 which led to participation with the online community of Pennwriters. When she’s not working on a manuscript, you’ll most likely find her with a fantasy novel and good cup of coffee. Though she’s had varying vocations from barista to birth doula, she finds her role as a full-time homeschool parent to be the most rewarding. Elizabeth lives in northwestern Pennsylvania with her husband, two daughters and bernedoodle.

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash.

[leggyre]

Evening! (Night, actually) I hope today hasn't been a bad day for you. We've been out for kind of long walks today. A big cloud rained over our heads and then moved away. Has been sunny and hot for the rest of the afternoon. No flowers on trees anymore, but trees're still greening at a different pace from one another. Nice to see the different colors. I also got my hands on a second NDS and have been sort of distracted. I wish you well, and for everything that might not be ok to soon be better!

heyy its been kind of a mixed bag. my a/c broke again this weekend so my room is a furnace but hopefully it'll be fixed tomorrow =w=; im less dizzy than yesterday but by the end of the day i started feeling like i had to lay down again. still worrying a lot about nano but as of right now there really isn't anything i can do aside from wait,, hes still energetic and mostly well but i can read his body language like a book basically so every time something is off the anxiety sparks up again 😔 buut i was still able to get a few things done today so it wasnt all that bad

maaaaan i wish i could get a second NDS...... specifically one with the GBA slot because the one i have is a dsi and you cannot IMAGINE the disappointment younger me had when i found that out because i was dying to get all my pokemon from sapphire and emerald into a game that is actually Mine(although looking back my sister has this habit of saying things she owned that she doesn't use anymore but i do very frequently are still *hers*. these games have been mine for ages)

but i do have them with me still! in my Y cartridge i think? though i kinda decided to let go because pokemon bank is basically a scam -- but anyway the story of how i got them is very funny. it was extremely rare for me to find Fellow Gamers(tm) at school, BUT my brother made a friend who had an older DS and it had the GBA slot(also his savefile on HG had like maxed out game hours. the madman) and one day when he came over he brought the DS and i basically kidnapped it for a whole day because pokemon diamond(the only game i had) has this daily cap on how many pokemon you can transfer from GBA. HOWEVER he had a heart gold cartridge and that one doesn't. so i had my DS up with my pokemon diamond catching a whole load of bidoof, starly and etc and his DS transferring the gba mons to his game. then i traded everything i caught in my game for my transferred mons in his game. that took an ENTIRE day because i have a hoarding problem(and tbh i got some extra for the pokedex). that includes releasing every single fodder i caught afterwards. it was a little adventure, kinda

[saiilorstars]

Ch.4: The Mind Intruder

Chapter summary: The mind is a very tricky thing but Mamoru seems to have the right abilities to get in.

Fandom: Sailor Moon (Crystal)  – – [Rewrite of season 2, AU-ish in that there’s new OCs and the fusion of plots from the manga, crystal and the og series]

Pairings: Eventual OFC x OMC, Usagi x Mamoru

Taglist: @ocfairygodmother @anotherunreadblog @maaaaarveeeeel @stareyedplanet @perfectlystiles

{If you’d like to be added to this OC’s taglist, let me know!}

// Story Masterlist //

~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 0 ~ 

"Miss Keena?"

"Hm?" Azula looked up to find her teacher, Miss Nano, standing impatiently in front of her desk.

Azula sheepishly hid her notes with an arm and watched as her teacher put down her last math exam. She nearly fell out of her seat when she saw the ugly red '30' at the top of the paper. "WHAT!?" she picked up the paper and nearly crushed it against her face from how close she looked at it.

Miss Nano went on to continue handing out the class exams back. Azula kept blinking as if the grade would go away in one of those. This had to be a mistake!

"Miss Nano, please!" she trailed after the tall blonde teacher around the classroom after school, begging for a second review of the exam. "I don't know what happened…" Well, actually she did know. She had been focusing on Sailor Hemera, Senka and the Shadow Crystal mystery…but Miss Nano didn't need to know about that. "I know I can do better!" Azula followed the teacher towards the door and quickly scurried outside first to block Miss Nano's way.

"Well you really should have," Miss Nano said like she really lamented having to grade the exam. She knew Azula to be a well studied student and couldn't understand what happened. "I expected better than this. I thought you understood the material-"

"-but I did!" Azula exclaimed, though she stuttered to give a reason on her poor work. "I-I just h-had a, um, a th-thing that I had to do that, um-" she gasped when the teacher returned to her classroom and shut the door. Azula blinked and stared down at her exam that really seemed to be burning her fingers the more she held it. "I don't get 30s!" she said just a tad loud for the passing students to hear.

"You got a 30? In Nano's class?"

This was truly the last thing she needed right now. She turned to Mamoru and violently pointed a finger at him, forgetting for a moment that he wasn't used to her usual behavior when she was upset."I don't need this right now from you!" she went up to the closed class door and continued to call for the teacher. "Miss Nano, please. The only way I'd get a 30 in my life is I was...dead!"

"Then I suppose you're the walking dead," Mamoru remarked smugly.

"Oh my God!" the red haired girl whirled around in his direction. "You're still here!?" Azula was very used to their old sibling-like relationship that the words and sarcasm just tumbled out of her mouth. It most certainly did not help that she was possibly at her worst moment right now.

"I was on my way out," Mamoru, surprisingly, remained calm and merely pointed at the doors at the end of the hallway. "But then I saw you shouting and I figured I'd like to see how this plays out. Heard Miss Nano can be difficult."

"You're not funny, and I'm not laughing," Azula stood with a straight face.

With such a straight face it would be impossible to feel anything. But then again not everyone was a reincarnated Earth prince.

"Usagi, c'mon, this is simple math!" Azula rubbed her face in frustration. The blonde in question had let her head fall to the table, over her math book to be precise. "Get up, c'mon!" Azula gently hit Usagi's foot with her own under the table.

Usagi slowly raised her head off the book. "Why do I need to know this again?" She was startled when Mamoru lowered himself beside her, having just entered the cafe. He put an affectionate hand on Usagi's back.

"So that business people like her-" he shot Azula a look, "-don't take advantage of you."

A sarcastic smile spread across Azula's face. They always joked Azula would end up taking over her family's business, except she didn't find it amusing. "You're not funny, and I'm not laughing."

Azula recognized that remembering face on Mamoru's face and was tempted to slip away before he came back to the present. Besides, Miss Nano would have to see her tomorrow anyways. But just as she turned away, he called out to her.

Crap! she thought with eyes shut before she turned back. "Yes?"

"Th-the blonde girl who was...who was with you the other day…?" Azula was sure that not even he knew what he wanted to say. It looked like he was still trying to process whatever he saw.

He probably means Usagi. She's the only blonde I know. And Azula severely doubted he meant Minako. Though that would make it easier...

"What was her name?" his question pulled her back to the present.

Azula cleared her throat and whispered the answer so low it almost seemed as if she didn't want to answer. "Usagi…"

"Have you ever tutored her at the Fruits Parlor Crown?" Mamoru seemed afraid to even ask the question.

"W-well, yeah…" Azula wasn't sure what the hell was going on but she knew he was starting to remember things. She had tutored Usagi on several occasions on her math in that cafe and many times Mamoru had come in to see how things were doing. Azula thought it was more to distract than to help. Usagi was all for distractions.

"Okay, I-I…" Mamoru rubbed his face, frustrated with himself. What the hell was he doing? Was he really asking a random girl about another random girl?

"Are you okay?" Azula felt the need to go check up on him. Whatever was happening to him she was sure wasn't meant to be happening. She walked up to him and reached to touch his arm. As soon as she did they both saw something.

"Here," Azula set a pink milkshake in front of Usagi and sat down right across from her. "It's exactly what Mamoru would order for you right?"

Usagi whimpered and buried her face in her hands. Azula sighed when she heard the small sniffles.

"If it's not right then I can ask Unazuki for something else, or…" but Azula trailed off knowing this wasn't the problem. She rubbed her forehead and stared at Usagi for a moment in silence before speaking up. "Look, Beryl might have taken Mamoru but he will come back, alright?"

"How do you know?" Usagi lowered her hands for a second, her sparkly blue eyes now red and glossy. "I couldn't save him…"

"Give yourself a break, Usagi, you just realized who you were in a previous life. You're not God. But you are a fighter and even though you spend half your days crying over something as petty as a broken cup, when the going gets tough...I have confidence you get tougher."

"You think I can be strong?" Usagi's lip quivered, doubt etched all over her face.

"Mamoru does," Azula said softly. "And though I like to purposely disagree with him just to annoy him, in this case he's actually right. You are a strong girl and I know you will get through this."

 Azula gasped deeply and pulled her hand off Mamoru's arm, the latter quite stunned by what they saw.

"How did I…?" but he didn't get to finish the question because Azula began to back away, and fast.

"I-I have to g-go!"

"Wait!" Mamoru called in vain. Azula was gone in a flash and all he was left with were strange feelings and new images in his mind.

~ 0 ~

"No you don't understand - he was in my mind!" Azula flopped on a park bench. Luna and Artemis hopped the bench and each rested on one side of the girl. "I-I felt him actually in my mind! I didn't even know he could do that!"

"Well, Mamoru isn't a Sailor Scout but he was the guardian of Earth and thus given powers he might not have developed yet," Luna said, rather reasonably and calm too. It was nothing to how Azula was reacting.

"He's remembering," she said, truly destroyed just by the thought. "You two said they wouldn't remember anything."

"Minako and the girls remain the same…" Artemis said thoughtfully, "...but none of them have the psychometric abilities that Mamoru does. Rei does, in a sense, but she's another story-"

"Not helping, Artemis," Azula cut him off. "So you think because of Mamoru's powers he'll be more likely to remember?"

"He's connected to the Earth because of who he was in the past and so by extension he's connected to everyone on the planet. This memory wipe works best on humans, specifically…" Luna trailed off, leaving Azula to make her own conclusion.

"Sailor Scouts," Azula finished with a small sigh. "So, basically, because Mamoru was the prince of Earth back then he's more likely to figure things out. That's just...great," she gritted her teeth together.

Luna affectionately pawed at Azula's uniform coat. "Don't fret, Azula, please. You are taking this far too serious-"

"Luna you don't understand," Azula calmed somewhat. A despondence slowly took over her facial features. "Back when Sailor Moon and the Scouts were active my only job was to look at the perimeters, stay on the computers...I couldn't help them out there. When they went off to fight Beryl and Metaria I had to stay here and just...wait. My job was to literally wait and see if they would come back alive."

"That wasn't your fault. You would have put yourself in grave danger if you accompanied Sailor Moon and the others…"

"It doesn't make me feel any better," Azula said glumly. "I was useless to them. I thought - I thought that now since everyone lost their memories and Usagi wanted to be normal...that this could be my job now. I would make sure they were all normal and safe. It's stupid, I know, but...it was my job this time to protect them." Azula paused for a full minute, her sadness overflowing. "But now Mamoru is beginning to remember and...now there's a Sailor Hemera and a stupid shadow hellbent on getting a crystal no one knows about."

"Azula," Artemis hopped off the bench and turned to look up at the girl, "Luna and I can keep an eye on the girls and certainly on Mamoru, but you can start to live your normal life as well. You shouldn't burden yourself with problems that we can solve. You just live a normal life..."

Azula snorted at the idea. "Normal? I'm at the park talking to cats - yeah, that's normal."

"Azula-" Luna began but Azula had gotten overwhelmed and rushed away.

"I'm going to go check on Minako," Artemis said after a couple of seconds. "And maybe we should patrol the other girls tonight just to see if any of them are remembering anything too."

Luna acknowledged his idea but preferred to stay back a little while longer. It was crazy to think that even now things still hadn't gone back to normal. Usagi was living her life as she wanted but outside of her blissful bubble things were beginning to get worse again. This time there were no Sailor Scouts to defend the planet from the evil trying to find the Shadow Crystal. Sure there was a Sailor Hemera but they still didn't know who she was and what her intentions were. Luna didn't know whether to feel grateful that Mamoru was remembering little by little because then that would mean he would be able to help a little...or should she be further concerned because now a second person had managed to avoid the memory wipe - it was still a grand mystery how Azula did it first.

Luna thought about this as she hopped off the bench and started her way back to Usagi's home. Usagi had been questioning lately where her dear old cat kept wandering off to and Luna didn't want to jeopardize her close position with Usagi. It was simply a challenge having to act like a true Earth cat all the time. It was why she often found Azula to keep conversation and her personal mind stimulated besides Artemis.

As Luna went off, a tall girl with long, brown and straight hair walked up to the bench where Azula and Luna had been. Her dark brown eyes glimmered golden for a second. "So you know where the Prince is…?" a smirk tugged at her pink lips.

~0~

Azula shivered as cold wind drew into her room from the open window. She went over and closed it then turned back. There were various newspaper clippings on the grounds with her own notes attached to it. Sailor Hemera and Senka needed to be stopped at all costs. Azula felt like she didn't have the luxury to get emotional. She took a seat on the floor, in the middle of the papers, and began sifting through them to reread what she already knew.

One hour later, her step-sister Keiko opened the door. "Hey, Azula, dinner's read - woah," her green eyes landed over the mess of papers around Azula. "What are you doing?"

"Homework," Azula supplied the excuse quick as she reached for another clipping.

Keiko caught site of some of the headlines and made a small whistler. "About that weird cloud thing and the Scout? What class is this for?"

"Communication - uh, intro to communications," Azula glanced at her sister with a small smile. "Journalism might be fun."

"Though you always wanted to work in something related to space, or something...?" Keiko left the door open so Azula could follow her out. "Sorry, you talk a lot sometimes and I tune it out so-"

"-Dad?" Azula blinked at the sight of her father already sitting at the kitchen table. "What are you doing here?" he was usually tied up with the business that he was rarely home for family meals. Kaito Keena was a man of business, and since he owned the Game Center Crown which was very popular in the neighborhood...he had a lot to do.

"I live here, remember?" came the black haired man's answer. His sarcasm made her playfully roll her eyes. "I'm also the one who pays the rent, so..."

"Okay, okay, I get it," Azula took her usual seat at the other end of the table. "I just didn't hear you come in, that's all."

"You never hear anything when you get into your work," Keiko pointed out.

"Oh, a lot of homework tonight?" Kaito asked.

Before Azula could answer, Keiko cut in with what she'd seen. "She was looking into that creature and the mysterious Sailor Scout who've been making appearances around the city."

Kaito's eyebrows shot upwards, making Azula dread what he would say about it. "Really? Well, makes sense since you always talk about the galaxies and whatnot. You think they're aliens, then?"

"Um..." Azula cleared her throat and put both her hands on the table. "I mean, the Scout looks humanoid. But that shadow thing probably is."

"Oh, but you know what I learned today?" Keiko excitedly asked. "It's actually funny what they name themselves. Hemera is a Goddess of day and light while Senka means 'shadow'. Can you believe that?"

"No, I...I hadn't considered the etymology of the names," Azula blinked rapidly.

"I just wonder where these aliens come from," Keiko went on, "And I'd definitely would love to know what a Shadow Crystal was."

"Yeah, that would be nice," Kaito agreed. "It would certainly help get the two out of the city before anyone gets killed."

"I should have asked that cute little fortune teller at the shrine…" Keiko said wistfully.

Azula raised an eyebrow. "What fortune teller?"

"Oh from the local shrine," Keiko leaned away from the door. "What was her name? Hino Rei? I went in to ask whether or not I'd get the school secretary job I applied to a couple days ago."

Azula blinked. Rei. How could she forget about Rei and her mind abilities? Mamoru wasn't the only one with mind tricks - Rei could sense danger! Sure Rei's mind was cleared of anything Scout-wise but her ability had come way before she awoke as Sailor Mars.

It was a stretch, but Azula would take it.

[heavenjadwiga]

Elite Spoilers

Okay so having my fair share of watching season 2 here are my thoughts.

1. Cayetana is a real one. I don’t necessarily like her character but she actually went swimming for Polo to get that trophy. Just by her doing that was crazy. That was what Polo wanted from Carla. That loyalty. That sense of protection. Which is funny that Carla even tried to give Polo a handjob to get him to confess/turn himself in. Polo looks like he’s done messing around being nice. I’m curious to see where this will go.

2. Samuel in season 1 was eh for me. I didn’t really care about his character. I found him annoying and just bothersome. But in this season boy got hot. Like idk the no longer good boy thing really worked for me. And as surprising as his relationship with Carla was, I think I was on board for it. There was something intriguing and sexy there with the whole ‘I’m gonna find out the truth and end you’ and the 'Go ahead and try. We both know I’ll never go down’ vibes they were giving each other.

3. Is it crazy that I think Carla was really falling for Samuel? I know it’s her thing to make men think they have her love when she’s just toying with them but it really looked as if she wanted a relationship with Samuel. Breaking at the thought of him dying. To me, Polo for her is just someone familiar. They have history and care about each other but she doesn’t love him. She’s bored. Christian, she wanted him to be her sex toy and puppet. The minute she couldn’t control or bribe him she had him handled. (I really wanted my ot3 to be team darkside together while Christian was actually working with Samuel on the down low but oh well).

4. Lu and Valerio was weird but I’m proud of Valerio at the end. He can be redeemed. I really liked his friendship with Nadia until he ruined it *sigh*.

5. I don’t know how the story will continue for Nadia and Guzman. They’re wonderful together but this is allot for both of them. Guzman finding out there are snakes in his circle and still grieving his sister. And Nadia my baby. Her dad’s change in character was nice to see though. Still he has a long way to go before I can forgive his treatment to his children.

6. Ander. Damn. I understand he was placed in a difficult position but the way he was treating Omar was shit. I loved Omar standing up to his asshole father. My Omar was so happy at the Halloween party only for Ander to keep on being a dick. Also, I found it amusing how many times people wearing Money Heist (La Casa de Papel ) costumes showed up on screen lol. We get it. Y'all have Rio and Denver on the show.

7. I hope we see Christian and Nano again soon. Rebecca was cool. I really liked Guzman and Samuel working together and being friends. Such a sky high moment. Enemies to friends. Cute.

[sushiandstarlight]

“Feather Duster”: NaNoWriMo 30 Days of Prompts

Today’s Prompt from @hellandholywater

Personal note: the first ~800 words are in Crowley's perspective while the rest is not. This was not a stylistic choice. I literally wrote that much of the wrong perspective before I realized my mistake. But, as this is nano, I've decided to leave it as is. *narrowly avoids the editing abyss*

Rated G

Summary: Your home is my home because my home doesn't have you.

Read this story on AO3

They spent most days following the failed apocalypse at the bookshop. Aziraphale was always happy to be amongst his books and Crowley was just happy to be where the angel was. There were countless hours spent there before the world didn't end and, when the bookshop was miraculously restored in the aftermath, they saw no reason not to enjoy it. So, dinners out. Theater, sometimes. Museums by day (to critisize the assumptions on the plaques- it was hard sometimes watching humans piece together history when they had been there, but mostly it was funny). When the sun dipped low and places of interest and amusement closed, they found their way back to the bookshop for a drink or seven and a good laugh.

Most of the time, Crowley didn't even go home. His eyes would droop and he would eventually stop laughing. He would wake in the morning to find a tattered throw blanket draped over him and an angel that didn't even mention it.

It wasn't that he hated his own flat, really. It was nice enough: modern, with amenities. Minimalist. He did visit it to water and threaten his plants. It was just that... it was cold. He hadn't furnished it to be a home, not really. It was a base. He put some of himself in it, sure, but not a lot. The other demons were constantly dropping into his life and the idea of having himself laid bare for them to see was not appealing.

The bookshop, on the other hand, was like being surrounded by Aziraphale. 

The books- “in a very particular order, Crowley, honestly!”- and the trinkets collected- “there's nothing wrong with keeping material objects that remind you of things!” all around. Everything was imbued with meaning and memory and knowledge. It was an extension of himself. For Crowley, there was nothing more comforting than being with Aziraphale, surrounded by all the things Aziraphale loved. It made him feel like part of the collection, something treasured and sat on a shelf all his own. He felt worn and used and a bit dusty, but here he was wanted, treasured even, for those things.

“Why don't we go to your flat today?” Aziraphale didn't even look up at him, peering through the tiny spectacles on his nose at the book in his lap.

“What for?” Crowley tried to keep his voice flat, but incredulity crept in anyway.

“Well, we've spent plenty of time here and I've enjoyed that immensely... But, it doesn't have to be all about my comfort. We can spend time in your home, too. Surely, there are things you have been neglecting there to be here with me,” he glanced up and met Crowley's eyes and then back down at the book, “unless there's some reason you don't want me there. I wouldn't want to intrude on your space.”

“Neh, no. There's not- Angel, you're always welcome in my spaces,” the sentence, if it could be called that, came out wrong. He could make sentences, really he could. Just. Maybe not always with his angel. His. Hmm. And, that was part of the problem, wasn't it? It was all good and well to dwell in Aziraphale's world. That's how they had always done things. Crowley visited Aziraphale's life. Popped in and out. He was a fixture there. But, Aziraphale rarely visited his world. That had once been a purposeful choice on his part, to keep the angel safe. There was no real reason for that, now, was there? It made Crowley wonder if he'd had other reasons all along, buried under all that protective instinct. Though really, he admitted to himself, he didn't need to wonder. His home might not be quite the extension of himself that Aziraphale's was, but it was still his home and it would speak about him, he was sure, in ways he wasn't even aware.

“That settles it, then,” Aziraphale smiled down at the book, eyes still scanning as he spoke, “we'll head over after lunch. A little bistro opened up just down the street from there and I've been positively dying to try their soup- I've heard such good things!” He turned the page, absolutely unaware of all the turmoil going on over on the couch across from him.

“Okay, Angel,” because when had he ever had an ounce of will to deny him anything he asked for, “after lunch then.” Crowley sunk down into the sofa cushions and wondered when he'd last even considered cleaning his flat.

-

Normally, Crowley would be watching him enjoy his soup. It seemed a strange thing to miss, but here he was missing it. Crowley was preoccupied with staring at the table between them, somewhere between the salt and pepper shakers and the napkin holder. Aziraphale had tried to draw him out a few times, mentioning how good the soup was. What was in it that made it so good. The yelp reviews that he had read. The one he was planning to write tonight. Usually Crowley hung on his words, but he wasn't right now. It seemed a selfish thing to want, but it was their normal.

“Ready to go to mine, then?” Still, Crowley smiled at him as he dabbed his mouth with his napkin. Maybe he was just having a quiet kind of day.

“Yes, of course!”

-

The trip from the bistro to Crowley's flat wasn't long- less than five minutes- but the quiet was a bit strained. Aziraphale sat with his satchel (full of a few choice books to pass the time) clutched in his lap and wondered, for the first time, if Crowley really didn't want him in his home. But, surely he would have said when Aziraphale asked, right? Maybe not.

The elevator up was just as quiet and he followed Crowley down the hall from there, watched the demon wave the locks open and then went in when he was ushered with a hand on the small of his back.

“Er, make yourself at home, Angel,” Crowley shifted from foot to foot for a moment, “tea? Something stronger than tea?”

“Yes, perhaps a bit stronger,” Aziraphale put his satchel down beside Crowley's sofa and sat, deciding immediately that it was chosen for it's looks and not for comfort. In for a penny, he thought, he would make do. He was becoming stubbornly fixated on making Crowley feel accepted in his own space.

The demon returned with two tumblers of whiskey and handed one to him, taking a gulp from his and wincing as it went down.

“Should I come sit with you here, then?” Crowley didn't look very enamored with the idea. Perhaps, Aziraphale thought, because he was absolutely aware of how uncomfortable this sofa was. He wiggled down into the unforgiving cushions and smiled.

“You can if you like, but I can entertain myself. I'm sure there are things you need to tend to, yes? You're not here much. You sit on my furniture while I organize my books. Just... do whatever you would do if I wasn't here.

Crowley stared at him for a moment and then nodded slowly and shrugged, downing what was left in his glass and then turning and walking out of the room. Aziraphale listened and heard the sound of spray bottle in the other room. Then some disgruntled grumbling about leaf spots. There, see? They could cohabitate in Crowley's space. He reached into his satchel and pulled out a book. Turning to the page with a ribbon holding his place, he slipped on his spectacles and started reading.

-

He heard Crowley putter around the atrium for a while, and then further away in the kitchen. For a time, he heard nothing and wondered if the demon had crawled into bed for a nap. That would certainly be acting like no one was there. But then he head more puttering in the atrium and Crowley reappeared.

He had changed his clothes. That was something Aziraphale had not been expecting. A deep blue hoodie and a pair of worn, black sweats. And he'd removed his shoes and replaced them with fuzzy blue socks. They looked ridiculously soft. Aaaand, he realized he was staring. Dragging his eyes back to the book in his lap, he pretended to keep reading. No reason that Crowley should know this move had made him... what, exactly? Nervous? Excited, maybe? Confused, certainly. Curious, yes.

Crowley never let anyone see him- even Aziraphale- in less than impeccable clothing choices, the kind that somehow looked both expensive and also thrown together. This was Crowley being actually comfortable. How... how was seeing LESS of him somehow more fetching than when he wore the skin-tight trousers and shirts?

He turned a page, thinking it would probably be good timing for that. Really, he hadn't read any of it. He glanced up just in time for Crowley to cross in front, back turned to him. His eyes were immeditatly drawn to the feather duster that was tucked into the top of his joggers. It... wiggled when he walked, making the feather sway with his hips.

“Alright there, Angel?” Crowley was plucking up the feather duster and flicking it along the painting on his wall.

Aziraphale just stared. He could feel his jaw hanging down, but there didn't seem to be a thing he could do about it. Crowley stopped when he felt the silence and walked back over to him, standing over the sofa.

“Whatcha thinking about?”

“... fan worms.”

Crowley was staring at him blankly.

“They're, uh, well they're oceanic filter feeders. Nice big fans that spread out and catch little things floating around in the water. Very clever way to keep the oceans clean, I think...”

“Did you miracle your glass full while I was cleaning the other rooms?”

“What? No!”

“I mean it's one thing when I'm spouting off about kraken and dolphins, but what are you going on about filter feeders for?”

“I'm a bit nervous!”

Crowley stared some more then, “since when do you talk about- wait, what have you got to be nervous for?” He was standing with his hands on his hips, feathers still floating around the hand holding the duster.

“Well, right now it's that you're towering over me asking me lots of questions!”

Crowley looked struck for a moment and then he laughed. He sat down on the other end of the sofa, angling towards him, feather duster now laying across his right thigh. He ripped his eyes away from the feather duster and back up to Crowley's face.

“Is this better?”

“Is what better?”

“Are you absolutely sure you didn't fill the glass a few more times? It's okay if you did, I just need to catch up.”

Aziraphale shifted uncomfortably. Maybe this was all a terrible idea. He wasn't sure how he could have seen it going this way, but he should have. Somehow. He shook his head slowly.

“Do you just... not like it here?”

“What? Of course I like it here.”

“Aziraphale, here is nothing like the places you enjoy inhabiting.”

“It is, too!”

“Angel, it's uncomfortably warm in here for anyone who's not me. It's spotless and I'm making it moreso at the moment because I clean when I'm nervous- nono, this is about you!- it's spartan, to say the least and the only books in sight are the ones that you brought. What is it about this place that would make you want to be here? I hardly want to be here and it's my home.”

“Why wouldn't you want to be in your own home?” Aziraphale watched Crowley as the man looked away from him.

“I asked you first.”

“Well, I asked you second.”

“That doesn't count!” Crowley picked up the feather duster and shook it at him.

“I just...” Aziraphale sighed, “I'm not used to seeing you in this state of undress.” He could feel his cheeks heating up and he tried to suppress it. His capillaries would not listen.

“My...” Crowley's jaw worked for a moment, hanging open and then closed and then hanging open again, “I'm wearing more than I usually do when we're out, though.”

“Yes,” Aziraphale toyed with his own fingers nervously, “but you look so comfortable, dear. I'm not used to you looking comfortable, I think. Your fashion isn't built for it.”

“I could change.”

“I wish you wouldn't.” The words were out before he could stop them. He kind of wished he could grab them from the air and eat them. His face was flaming now and his ears had joined in the game.

“Hmm, you're not nervous because you dislike my clothing,” Crowley leaned toward him, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, “does that mean you do like them?”

“Oh, stop.”

“You like me dressed down?”

“Crowley, really.”

“You're always so layered and buttoned up, I wouldn't have thought.”

“You look... snuggly.”

There was another stunned silence in which Aziraphale was sure his face found a whole new, heretofore unknown, shade of red to turn.

“You want to snuggle with me?”

“I didn't say that.”

“You're also not denying it.”

“... no, I suppose I'm not.”

“You could, you know.”

“Co-could do what?” The air was getting a little thin, he was sure of it. Definitely not enough air in this room.

“Snuggle up with me.”

“You,” Aziraphale chanced a glance at him, “you would like that?”

“From you? Yeah, I think so. You pretty much look snuggly all the time.”

“Well, that's... something.”

“Maybe not here, though.”

“Oh, you really don't like me being here, do you? Do be honest with me.”

“Already told you, Angel, I don't much like it here. I would rather be at your shop with you.”

“But it's not as warm.”

“You have blankets.”

“And it's dusty and cluttered and there's a television but it's decades old. I don't even have the internet.”

“I mean, I'm pretty much used to all those things... But the things aren't why I like it there better than here.”

Aziraphale stared at him. He could feel the shoe about to drop, he just wasn't sure what brand it was.

“You,” Crowley said, “I like it there because you're there. And it's your space. You're happiest in your space. I'm happy if you're happy.”

Aziraphale continued to stare, digesting that.

“Also, you're furniture is way more comfortable to use than mine.”

“This is a dreadful couch.”

“Hey! It looked good in the magazine.”

“Crowley, would you like to take me home? And stay... with me?”

“Will there be snuggling involved?”

“If you want.”

“Yes, Angel,” Crowley's smile was lopsided and filled with warmth, “I think I'd like that. I'd like that a lot.”

Previous Ficlet Prompts:

Scarf / Family / Hearth / Frosty / Ribbons / Wrapping / Cardinal / Coal / Unwrap / Blustery

[teriwrites]

2020 Writing Wrap-Up

Something that I do every year on the 1st is go back through absolutely everything I’ve written throughout the previous year and compile it into one massive word document. Everything from outlining notes to unfinished short stories to my NaNo project wind up in that file, where I like to read back and reflect on what I’ve gotten done through the year. 

Every year, I end up having written more than I expected, and this year was no different! 

Total for 2020: 203,119!

This is the first recorded year (I think it’s year 4 that I’ve done this for?) in which I’ve cracked 200K! It’s also the first year I’ve ever actually followed through on my resolution to share some of my writing online! So as rough as 2020 has been, I still somehow managed to break some personal records in writing. Which probably has everything to do with the fact that I joined this community earlier this year, and it’s been incredibly encouraging and supportive!

I also branched out a bit more this year in a few ways. I worked on some poetry and prose, which is not something I’ve put a lot of time into before so tends to be a challenge. It’s nothing that I’ll be posting anytime soon, but it was fun to work on in the moment, which is especially important in such a wild year as 2020.

One snag that I definitely hit was the fact that I have a lot more unfinished work than most years. A majority of the short stories I started working on never got finished. But I can’t even be too upset about that, because I totally loved being able to read back on even the fragmented pieces I ended up with. And while I do think a large part of that (for me) is discipline over inspiration, I’m willing to accept that, sometimes, things will remain unfinished. And it’s okay to stop working on them. 

My overall focus shifted a bit this year, too, which was interesting. I worked more on longer things than most years - started out the year by finishing my first draft of Castle on the Hill, continued making some edits and reworking its outline, did a large part of Beneath Alder Creek’s first draft in November. Right now, I’m working on what I expect to be a novella by the time I’m done with it. It’s a big contrast to the usual, short and snappy short stories that fill most of my previous wrap-up files. But I still definitely write those sometimes, and it’s nice to be able to try stretching and testing my own boundaries. 

This is the part of my wrap-up where I go ham throwing in some of my favorite out-of-context quotes from a variety of different things I’ve worked on. Some of them might be familiar, a lot probably won’t. I’m going to post it beneath the thing so this doesn’t become even more absurdly long!

Some of the ~highlights~ of 2020:

First Thoughts in the Morning: wow the sexual tension between me and the alarm clock right now. Later Reflection: wtf? (a literal note on my notes app that I included because I Cannot remember writing any of this and it made me laugh)

Edriele’s gaze trailed down to the woman’s armor, and her stomach twisted. “Where did you find your attire?” The woman glanced down in surprise, as though she’d forgotten she was wearing it. “It was fitted to me when I gained my ranking. I suppose it draws attention, but after my confrontation at… you mean to ask me whether I’m impersonating a Knight!” “The thought had crossed my mind,” the Sister replied dryly. (novella WIP)

“Do you need to make a stop at your house before we head to the chapel?” Leslie asked as they started off. “What for?” Winnie asked. Leslie looked pointedly at the tip of her galoshes poking out from beneath her dress. With another roll of her eyes, Winnie sighed. “Oh, I suppose so.” (Beneath Alder Creek)

When the third meeting for the Society of the Hidden Immortal Tribe was called for the decade, I knew heads would roll. Gathering the entire society together took months. Everything had to be hush-hush; that was the entire point of spreading ourselves out. Plus, every time a letter arrived in the mail, it was a reminder of the idiot who had decided we needed a name change. Everybody agreed that being deemed the ‘S.H.I.T.’ was humiliating, but nobody could agree on a better title, so it had remained the same for nearly a full century. That was the problem with living forever. You always had more time to make decisions, and, in the end, nothing ever got done. (S.H.I.T.)

When she leaves, I’m not sure I remember a word of what she’s said. But as the stresses of the semester wash back in, and my mind clears like being pulled out of a dream, I suddenly understand how one could crash upon the rocks without realizing they’d ever changed their course. (A Modern Siren)

When Georg arrived later, he found Klaus leaning forwards onto the table, staring vacuously at one of his textbooks. "Studying hard?" he taunted as he approached and dropped into the seat Ingrid had been occupying. "I talked with Ingrid," Klaus explained. Georg's eyebrows shot up in genuine surprise, but he quickly recovered and looked pointedly at Klaus' posture. "Go that well, then?" "She said I'm arrogant and completely self-involved and that I never take what a girl says into account whenever I'm on a date." With a haunted gleam in his eye, Klaus stared up at his friend. "I think she's right." "Well then it's a good thing somebody pointed it out," Georg offered, and he turned to his work. (Castle on the Hill)

Takemoto Hana rested a hand over her face. She couldn’t see the swirling of darkness over her head, but she heard the whine behind its words. With a wry smile, she asked, ‘Do you not know how to brew tea?’ ‘Of course I know how to brew tea!’ The dark spirit’s voice boomed with a defensive defiance that rang false in the funny little woman’s ears.  (The Funny Little Woman)

“None of us want to be here right now,” Edgar called out to the hall. “None of us want to go back through the handbook and listen to the steps of proper etiquette in immortality. But it seems that, once again, it’s necessary.” “Dammit, Dave,” muttered the man next to me. I said nothing, but I couldn’t help but agree with the sentiment. Dave was… how do I describe Dave? To call him an idiot would be underestimating his craftiness. To call him a genius, I’d have to ignore all of his dumb antics. Cruel was too strong. Misguided was too innocent. Mischievous fit best, but even that fell short. Dave was a trickster god, if ever one existed. (S.H.I.T.)

Ridiculous, he told me with a self-conscious laugh of someone who didn't expect to be believed. I smiled, but I didn't join in. (The Little Roads)

“Hey, where did Alina go?” Lorelai asked. Zoe shrugged, but Jaiden cleared his throat. “I think you crossed one of her boundaries, Lo. She specifically asked not to involve her girlfriend in this, and then you did anyways. I know we needed the help, but friendships have to be built on mutual trust, my dude. You should’ve at least let her know your plan before you went behind her back.” The two women stopped and shared a look. “Hey, Jaiden,” Zoe asked. “Do you know the capital of Canada?” He shook his head. “I dunno, Ontario?” “Amazing.” (Mirror, Mirror)

"We had a bet going over whether you'd make it in time," Hans told him. "Did you win or lose?" Josef replied. Hans flipped a 5-Deutsche Mark coin over to Peter, who grinned as he pocketed it. "I'm glad you have so much faith in me." Josef's voice dripped with sarcasm. (Castle on the Hill)

Taliesin reached over his head and grabbed at one of the low-hanging bows, picking leaves from it. “I’m not sure.” Winnie stopped. “What do you mean?” “I mean that I don’t know.” (Beneath Alder Creek)

While she attended to these, the man beside her began to stir. Ella could see him out of the corner of her eye, attempting to push himself up into a sitting position. ‘You may want to lie back down,’ she told him, scrubbing uselessly at her skirt. The man continued to sit up anyways, pressing a hand against the side of his face. ‘Am I killed?’ ‘No, but your savior may be.’ Ella threw her skirt back to the ground. ‘When the Madame sees the state of me, I’ll be spending my future afternoons off making a new dress out of the fabric scraps.’ A frown crossed the man’s face as he considered her words, followed by a scowl of understanding. ‘You work for them. The bourgeoisie.’ (Cinderella)

Ingrid took the seat and began digging through her bag for a book. As she did so, she explained, "There were no other tables open in the building - even in the quiet section upstairs - so I figured that I would just ask the first person I recognized if I could sit with them, and well... here we are." "Don't worry about it," Georg answered when Klaus found himself dumbstruck again. "Just ignore the oaf, he'll leave you alone." Ingrid shot a grin at Georg, and Klaus suddenly wondered whether it was a good idea to have the two of them sit together. (Castle on the Hill)

Up ahead, I could see the glass walls of the bus stop. Usually, I waited for the bus leaning against the metal frame of the stop, leaving the seats inside open for children on their way to school. But the seats were empty now. I still avoided them. (Flo’s Magical Emporium: The Pandemic)

Now, I ask that you do not feel too much self-pity. For as easy an error as it may be to mistake a visiting aristocrat’s son for the hired help, the true talent in such a display causing his immediate departure lies within you alone. And to think that the meeting was the work of your father’s tenuous sway over the court! Well, I am sure the time away will do him some good, lest you begin to consider that you’ve ruined his position as well as your prospects. (Dearly Detested,)

Edgar was at the front of the lecture hall, and standing beside him was Dave, smirking as though at some private joke that only he was in on. He was wearing sunglasses, despite the dim lighting of the room, probably because he thought he looked cool. I rolled my eyes. What a tool. (S.H.I.T.)

 The work is different now. Countryside pathways winding through the forest lie forgotten for years without the familiar steps of a traveler. Off beaten paths in the city are never unknown for long, and sometimes streets that were once crossed by thousands a day fall back into obscurity. (The Little Roads)

“How much time will you give me to think on it?” she asked suspiciously, wrapping her arms around herself as though afraid they’d reach out to him if not kept in check. “You have all the time in the world,” the golden man said. “The boy’s, however, runs out with every passing second.” He extended his hand. (Beneath Alder Creek)

You ever met a rich person? Not comfortably wealthy. Not ‘my Uncle Kenny is a lawyer’ rich. Not even ‘widow answering the door to her manor on a hill dressed in fine silk’ rich. No, I mean proper, so-much-money-you-literally-can’t-spend-it-fast-enough rich. They say it isn’t worth Bill Gates’ time to pick up a $100 bill off the floor because he’ll have earned more in the time it takes to grab it. That kind of rich. They seem to be bred for times like these. Their houses are a source of endless entertainment – movie theaters, bowling alleys, personal gyms with a view of the sprawling landscape they overlook like cruel dictators. There’s no need for them to leave during a pandemic; they have access to the equivalent of a luxury resort most families have to save up month to visit. Necessities can be stockpiled in one of the useless extra spaces in the house. I mean, I once had to hide out in a luggage room for a contract. That’s right. An entire room dedicated to holding luggage, bigger than some of the apartments I’ve rented. I thought their residential labyrinths were my greatest source of grief. But social distancing? I’m one bad contract away from retirement. (Bounty Hunter During a Pandemic)

Shaking his head, Detlef pulled a new sheet from his notebook. “Look, I’m just saying, if we can get the satire right, we can be a modern Jonathan Swift.” “I don’t want to be a modern Jonathan Swift, I want to be a student actually passing his debate course!” Peter snapped. (Castle on the Hill)

Moonlight illuminated the German’s fair hair and pale skin, the effect more malevolent apparition than man. (Face on the Other Side of a Dark Window)

Back then, he’d been known for commissioning the exact same portrait of himself every hundred years, hanging them in a hallway in his manor and trying to pass them off as his line of ancestors to any of the locals. It had been a far less skeptical age, and Dave had earned himself a small band of worshipers before Jeff Goldblum himself had been forced to intervene. (S.H.I.T.)

Clara stood before the board of advisors assisting with her thesis. She was one, very intense paper away from her M.A., and she wasn’t about to risk it all by being too proud to ask for help. When she’d made the appointment to meet with them, she expected a series of questions surrounding her topic. Instead, they’d opened by offering her a job. “You want me to steal from the school?” Dr. Pye wrinkled her nose at the suggestion. Next to her, Dr. Pritchard said, “Don’t think of it as theft, dear. It’s merely redistribution.” Clara hadn’t amassed tens of thousands of dollars in debt to be lectured on the definition of robbery. “Either way, it involves me sneaking into the Chemistry department and taking a huge risk to get you some new toys to play with.” (Origins: The Ghost)

“Why is undermining Pryderi so important to Queen Ceridwen that she would risk breaking a timeless alliance just to dismantle them?” Her stomach twisted into a knot, protesting against the answer. “There are few members of the Dusk Court that we know by title.” A shadow passed over Enid’s expression. “The Lord of the Undernell is second only to the Queen.” “Great deeds build the reputation of one in their own court. Cruelty builds it in both.” Taliesin buckled under Winnie’s weight as she suddenly leaned against him. (Beneath Alder Creek)

“Why are all my friends so quick to endanger themselves?” I muttered as I packed up Midas’ crate. Natalie swiveled around from the candy aisle. “So you’re finally willing to admit that we’re friends?” “Save it.” (Flo’s Magical Emporium: The Pandemic)

[dajaregambler]

HeliosR - Ren Kisaragi Card story ‘‘Cookies are sweet’’

Translation of Ren Kisaragi’s 4* ‘’Gothic Halloween’’ card story from ‘Helios Rising Heroes’.

Marion: Ren. Make some new dough using the ingredients here.

Ren: Eh… Why me…?

Marion: Don’t you get it by looking around. Jacqueline, Jack and I have our hands full already with throwing out the burned cookies and cleaning the oven. 

Ren: ….I’m not saying I'll help.

Marion: What was that?

Ren: N-nothing…

Gast: I opened the window. Think it can help with airin’ out...

Gast: The room’s decorated all nicely, it’d be a waste if the burnt smell kept hanging in the air

Marion: Gast, you join Ren and make some batter. Cut out the dough too when it’s ready.

Marion: We’ll be handing these cookies out to the public, so it doesn’t matter how many there are. Work your fingers to the bone. 

Gast: Y-yeah, understood… It’s kinda like some awful factory in here.

Gast: Alright! Let’s give it a shot. I’ll use the utensils over there, Ren you use the stuff that’s here...

Ren: ….

Gast: Hm? Ren, what’s up?

Ren: These cookies, how do you make them?

Gast: Aah, haven’t done it before? That’s fine, watch how I do it and we’ll try it together then

-

Gast: That reminds me, you’re not fond of sweets huh. Which is prolly why you don’t make ‘em

Gast: You okay with the smell? Sometimes there’s people that can’t handle it

Ren: Finished mixing the eggs. What should I do next

Gast: Hm? Aah, next is this… put in the bread flour and mix it. It’s easier to mix if you put it in batches instead of all of it at once.

Ren: Got it….

Gast: Say, is there a reason why you don’t like sweet stuff?

Ren: …..

Ren: Don’t have any real reason in particular. I ingested enough sweets for a lifetime worth of it, which is why I never get in the mood to eat some

Gast: A lifetime worth of sweets? What’cha mean?

Ren: …… When I was a kid, I ate pancakes made by Will for me and Akira as a snack

Gast: Will? And aren’t pancakes supposed to be sweet?

Ren: That was anything but close to the level of ‘sweet’. Even calling it ‘sickly sweet’ won’t cut it 

Ren: Back then I noticed his senses weren’t normal but had no idea of how to tell him….

Ren: Will was happily smiling and looking at us expectantly, so we ate about 10 pancakes stacked up while crying in front of him

Ren: Since then I’ll feel full just by seeing sweets in front of me, I end up refusing to eat

Gast: Ooh, that’s why huh… Kinda close to being traumatic isn’t it

Gast: Dunno how tough it was for you guys but hearin’ about it is funny…kinda pleasant even. 

Ren: Funny?

Jacqueline: Hey hey, what about pancakes?

Gast: Ooh, Jacqueline. You heard that just now?

Jacqueline: I only heard ’pancake’ being mentioned. Marion-chama seemed to be interested, so Jacqueline went to ask instead!

Marion: J-Jacqueline! Stop it!

Gast: Ahahah, now that you mention it Marion does love pancakes. Couldn’t help but start droolin’ at the thought of a sugary pancake?

Marion: Hah? Just because it’s about pancakes it doesn’t mean anything, don’t make fun of me

Gast: Owah, my bad. No need to frown at me like that...

Marion: Don’t bother talking about nonsense, concentrate on making cookies. Jacqueline, let’s finish up cleaning the oven. 

Jacqueline: Yes-nano~♪ 

Gast: What a hot-headed factory boss. Don’t work seriously and you’ll get beaten by his whip

Gast: But should be fine if our hands are moving, feel free to tell me more stuff, Ren

Ren: ….Hah?

Gast: It’s totally not like you to talk about yourself like that. And I mean, well, it being about old memories with Will and Akira is even more rare….

Ren: ….

Gast: Besides, Will having no sense of taste… Thought he was the type of serious guy to do anything flawlessly, so this is a bit unexpected

Gast: Though I’ll keep it to myself since telling him about it will 100% sour his mood.

Gast: Also... I remembered ‘cuz of the oven but, seems that Akira has a knack for makin’ the microwave explode too. I knew he was bad with electronics, to think it went that far though...

Gast: Haha. Will has no sense of taste, Akira sucks with electronics, and then there’s you with no sense of direction.... You guys are a funny bunch.

Ren: …….

Gast: Eh, Ren? Why the silence?

Ren: I’m done talking

Gast: Could it be that upset you? My bad, it wasn’t my intention to hurt your-

Ren: Next…

Gast: Eh?

Ren: I mixed all of the ingredients. Tell me what I should do next. 

Gast: A-aah…. And here I thought we were minglin’…

Ren: Don’t be selfish. I don’t have the slightest bit of intentions to socialize

Gast: Haah, cold… Anyway, it’s whatever for me, but shouldn’t you give these cookies at least one shot?

Ren: ? ….Why?

Gast: Think it’s Marions way of trying to communicate with you

Gast: Eh, nothing but a guess though… Even going out of his way to decorate the room, can’t help but have that kind of hunch about it....

Gast: But, it’s fine if you can’t try ‘em out since you don’t like sweets

Ren: …….

Gast: And…hup. Gimme that baking sheet over there. We’re gonna roll out the dough and let it rest in the fridge for some time

-

Victor: -Welcome. Help yourself to some coffee while waiting until the preparations for the inspection are ready. 

Ren: ...Yeah.

Victor: Oh? ...What is that?

Ren: Cookies made to hand out on Halloween. Right now Marion is making a lot of these back at our room.

Victor: I see. How nice, seems they’d go along with coffee.

Ren: You can have them. I don’t like sweets

Victor: It’s alright for me to have them? I’m awfully grateful that it’ll be appropriate while I’m in the middle of preparing but...

Ren: …..

Ren: I’ll only take one cookie. You can have the rest.

Victor: Alright then, thank you very much. ….Is it to your liking?

Ren: …………………..It’s sweet

Victor: Fufu. Showing that you don’t enjoy it while eating, that is quite curious.

-

Notes:

ren + akira + will = triple baka?

[fang-wolfsbane]

Transformers Generation One: A Seeker's Triangle: Chapter 04: Meeting

Warning: Gender misappropriation!

Screaming. Pain. Cold. Heaviness.

Those were the first memories that surfaced the moment her optics onlined. At first everything seemed like a blur that cleared within a few nano seconds. The space above her was dark, a beautiful midnight blue that she hadn’t seen since before the Decepticons boarded the Autobots ship, the Ark.

Something lapped at her frame. Something cold. In a way it was strangely comforting. At least she knew now that some senses were still functional. Shifting her optics, she took in more of her surroundings. A night sky on some distant planet, probably. An organic planet from the feel of it.

In the distance a couple of buildings stood tall. Strange, they all seemed like they were only tall enough for a bot to go into, but barely move. Perhaps her perspective vision was malfunctioning. She’d have to ask Shockwave to take a look at it when she got back to Cybertron.

Turning her optics a bit further, she saw him; something she could only describe as an organic, for lack of better vocabulary. His helm was a similar black to her own. His optics however, she had never seen the colour as an optical variation before. Optics were usually either blue or red, sometimes green, yellow, and orange, even purple if you were lucky enough to come across a bot with those coloured optics, but brown? She would have marvelled at the sight if the organic didn’t yelp and scramble back in surprise after registering that she had onlined.

One moment it had been standing upright, the next it fell back in the fluid she was laying in. She would have found it funny if it weren’t for the splitting processor ache she currently had. Groaning from the discomfort, Starlit Meadow moved her arms, bending them at the elbow joints to push herself upright. She must have crashed and gone into stasis lock the moment they entered the planet’s atmosphere. Looking at the rest of her surroundings, she frowned. Where were the rest of the bots? The Ark? The Nemesis? Surely the ships couldn’t have crashed too far away, could they?

“Where… where am I?’ she asked, her optics drifting behind the visor she never removed from her helm, not unless Shockwave asked – well, more like ordered – her to when he had her do one of his tests that required looking at her optical sensors.

“At the beach,” the strange organic piped up. Starlit Meadow blinked, her attention snapping to the strange creature. From the low depth of what her auditory sensors picked up, she would have classified the creature as a mech, but considering that it didn’t seem Cybertronian, or technological in any form, she held off on her data analysis.

From what she could see, the creature did have some similar mode to it. It had what seemed like peds, legs, a torso, a surprisingly flat chassis, arms, a neck and a helm, the latter of which seemed to have moveable strands. She would have called it fascinating if it didn’t seem so easy to… squish.

“The… beach?” she repeated, finding the most surprising part that this creature was capable of speech, even more so a language native to Cybertronians. Granted the language she currently spoke was the secondary one on her home planet, yet most found it easier to communicate in the language, and thus Cybertronian as a language had drifted off into more of an ancient language, one only the old and rusted really communicated in.

The creature nodded, cupping its servos in the fluid, and holding it up towards her, some of it dripping back down through any gap it could find between the creature’s digits. “Yeah.”

Not really understanding what it meant, Starlit Meadow looked to the fluid and copied the creature’s action, watching another organic swimming about like a sharkticon within the fluid. The organic within the blue-ish fluid seemed far more worried about being held by her than it did about her worrying if it might try to tear her apart. Lowering her servos back in, she watched it swim off. Out of the two organics she had met so far, the far smaller one seemed to be the smarter, or at least less curiouser of the two.

“Beach,” she said once more, committing the word to her memory banks as she focused her attention back on the creature, “tell me organic, which planet am I on?”

This time it was the creature’s turn to repeat her words with an oddly shaped optic ridge. “Organic? I’m not wheat you know.”

“Wheat?” Starlit Meadow frowned. She had heard of planets with pretty ridiculous names before, but this one took the high grade energon right off the shelf. “What a strange name.”

The creature shook its helm. “No, no. You… ah, you’re on a planet called ‘Earth’. And my name isn’t ‘Organic’ either. It’s Zett. Zett Oakwell.”

Under different circumstances she would have questioned the creature’s need for a name but considering how similar it was to her in terms of frame building, she supposed it wasn’t really all that surprising. Where the rest of its appendages were though, she didn’t know. She wasn’t going to ask either in case it – in case Zett – became offended by her misinterpretation of its frame like she had done with its planet.

Earth. Zett had pronounced it to sound like ‘erf’, but the name seemed to be easy enough to remember. Zett didn’t take its optics off her, save to temporarily shield its optics behind a layer of whatever metal its protoform was covered in. She hated it whenever Shockwave probed and prodded at her, so she spared Zett her curiosity in trying to feel the texture of his protoform, the little she could see of it. The armour Zett wore didn’t seem all that strong either, but if Zett wore it, then it must probably provide some form of protection, shock absorption at the least.

“Hey, what’s your name?” Zett asked, sitting itself up by crossing its legs beneath it. A sitting position she herself was familiar and quite comfortable with. She copied it, her movements sending a small wave of ‘beach’ crashing into his chassis.

“Starlit Meadow.”

“Heh,” Zett smiled, revealing a set of dentals that seemed divided with small lines in between, unlike the straight line of metal that Cybertronian dentals consisted of. “Your name is kinda funny.”

Despite the lack of some of her vocabulary, she knew enough to know what the word ‘funny’ meant. Her frown seemed to be enough to encourage Zett to be wary of their obvious size difference.

“Ah, sorry. Sorry. I just thought you’d, you know, have a cooler name or something like the rest of the Autobots.”

That caught her attention.

“What did you say?”

Zett’s optics rolled on their white canvas-background. “Yeah, I know, I’m not supposed to make fun of other people’s – or robots –”

“No, not that. What did you say about the Autobots?”

“Uh, that they have cool names?” Zett said, not sounding as certain of itself as it eyed her before something seemed to dawn on it. “That’s what you are, isn’t it? An Autobot, right?”

Naturally her first thought was to protest the very thought but if Zett knew about the Autobots then that meant that it possibly knew more than she thought. Was this Earth some kind of remote Autobot planet that she didn’t know about? The energon in her fuel lines went cold at the thought. If the Autobots had claimed the planet, then what did that mean for the Decepticons? Were any of them even still online? How long had she been in stasis?

Perhaps if she went along with Zett’s assumption, she could try and find out more about just what the Autobots were up to. If she were lucky, she could stay under their radar until she could plan her next move.

As much as it pained her, Starlit Meadow nodded. “Yes. I’m… an old friend, that got lost on the way here.”

That seemed to be enough to convince Zett of her story. Zett nodded as well and got onto its peds, the fluid they were both sitting in clinging to its armour, absorbing into it. “I’d offer to take you to them, but I don’t know where their base is. I could ask Carly though…”

She had to stop Zett. “No! No. I… I’d rather not have my… comrades see me in this state.”

“Why?’ Zett questioned, arching that strange optic ridge once more. “They could help… repair you, can’t they?”

Well Zett wasn’t as ignorant as she originally thought. She couldn’t reveal too much in case Zett struggled to keep information private. She’d only give the basics, enough to get information of her own.

She sighed. “Technically, yes, but you see my… components are slightly different to theirs. I just need somewhere until I can collect my thoughts. If the Decepticons find out about me, then my mission would be compromised.”

“Mission?” Zett’s optics temporarily covered themselves with their strange, elastic protoform stretching over their optics. She tried not to flinch at the sight. “You mean like a secret agent?”

Perhaps Zett was as ignorant as she originally thought. “Yes.”

“I guess that makes sense. Alright, but we’ll have to get you out of here first. Someone might see you out here. Do you think you can transform?”

She would have questioned how Zett knew about her ability to transform, but then again, the Autobots were apparently something this Zett and Carly seemed to know something about. Pushing herself up to her full height, Starlit Meadow took some pride in how Zett gawked at her height. Usually she was one of the shorter bots when comparing herself to her real comrades, so to have somebot – someone – looking to her as if she were as big as Primus himself, well, she’d be lying if she said that she didn’t feel somewhat happy about that.

“Give me some space,” she said, and once Zett was out of the fluid, she looked around for something on the planet to try and scan. She would have gone with the last form she could remember scanning, but she needed to stay stealthy. In the distance she watched a four-wheeler racing past on a distant road. Concentrating, her optics memorised the vehicle’s form, her processor putting the image to the rest of her frame.

Another groan escaped from between her lips as the stiffness in her frame worked on transforming for the first time in who knew how long. Within a matter of nanoclicks she was driving out of the fluid and onto the strange, crunchy surface beneath her, the metal that used to serve as her wheels now some strange, squishy substance, but enough like the metal she was used to in order to try and keep control of. With her optics connected to the headlights at the front of her new form, Starlit Meadow looked to where Zett was standing, mouth agape. She didn’t like the look she was getting.

“What?”

“You can turn into a Porsche? That is so cool!”

She supposed Porsche was simply the form of the vehicle she had scanned. She only hoped that the Autobot she had scanned hadn’t been aware of what she had done. It could also have been the name of the Autobot she copied. Why Zett referred to them as an object, she didn’t know. Perhaps Zett didn’t know that Cybertronians had subsections within their species.

“Lead the way.”

Zett’s optics did that temporary protoform shuttering once more. “Aren’t you going to let me in?”

Those words were enough to cause her to worry. She had been inside other Decepticons before when they transformed into their alternative modes before, but they had all been bigger than her. She, on the other servo, had never had another bot within her, sitting or standing.

“I have to let you inside me?”

“Uh, yes.”

“Ugh.”