#and self publishing is so fucking expensive

[ghost-proofbaby]

hahahaaaaa what if i dropped out of college and tried to figure out a way to publish my writing hahahahaaaaaaaaaaa

#i’m sick of the grind bro #sometimes i read popular published books and just go ‘my writing is similar. could i also get published???’ #it’s such an exhaustive process tho 🥲 #and self publishing is so fucking expensive #fuck man #i do Not Know what i’m doing with my life #ive got ONE party trick #and ive got ONE fantasy trilogy id consider publishing that isnt posted as fanfic #who knows #i’m just in a silly goofy mood

[the-sun-is-also-a-star]

one month away from begining the publishing process and i still have no fucking clue what to name the damn thing

#im still debating over self publishing vs going to a publisher #self publishing is really fucking expensive though #so idk #writing #publishing #poetry #anthology

[thatone-churro]

forget the gifted kid burnout syndrome i am THIS close to committing to the “intensive AP high school student” to college dropout pipeline

#fuck this shit and i haven’t even moved in yet 😭 #why’s this shit gotta be so EXPENSIVE?? HOW DID MY SISTER GET A FREE RIDE WITH THE EXACT SAME INFO AND SCHOLARSHIPS BUT I DIDNT QUALIFY??? #man fuck this i’m starting a band a self-publishing books i swear to god #grace being stupid #text post #personal #delete later

[unreleasedwrites]

A Planned Coincidence (pt. 1) (pt. 2)

"Jackpot."

summary: You took a wrong turn into an alleyway and end up being attacked by a group of men in Mexico. You tried fending them off, when a man suddenly arrives and helps you at the expense of an atrocious and gruesome scene you had to witness. He eventually takes you somewhere filled with men that work under him, and you're stuck with him now.

character(s) included: Gitae Kim x fem!reader

cw: very suggestive, lowk yandere gitae?? kissing, slight noncon kissing and touching at first, a gun, blood, mentions of death, mentions of body parts and cartel, cannibalism (Gitae takes a bite out of fresh flesh but spits it out), cussing, reader is fine w what Gitae is doing!!, Gitae broke into readers hotel, Gitae Kim himself is a warning, implied kidnapping, long, implied stalking, mentions but no uses of drugs, i do not condone any sort of treatment like this in real life, this FICTIONAL!! if you dont like it, then just leave

unwrapped on: Friday Evening, April 19 2024

wrapped up on: Saturday Afternoon, April 20 2024

published on: Saturday Afternoon, April 20 2024

“Did you enjoy the show, little girl?” Gitae said as he turned his gaze over to where you were sat; on the hard floor, bruised up from head to toe. Some were from self defense, some from a group of men who attacked you in an attempt to take you to who knows where and who knows why.

You only nervously looked at him as a response, still mortified at the gruesome scene right in front of you.

You learned of his name, Gitae Kim, when he started a conversation with you— whom he saved from actual death by beating up the guys who were originally assaulting you. You were shocked to witness him fighting, as it was pretty much like nothing to him. Gitae just did it so effortlessly and carelessly, getting blood and parts of their bodies all over the place. At some point, a hand was almost thrown on you until he immediately caught it, all the while still tormenting them with his free hand. As much as you were horrified, he looked way too familiar, as if you’ve seen him a few times before.

“Thanks, Mister—uh, Gitae.. I better get going now, it’s already past 11 o’clock and midnight is approaching any minute now. And again, th-thank you so much, Mister Gitae, Sir..” You spoke as you were visibly shaking in fear from what you just witnessed.

“Leaving me so early? That won’t do, little girl. Not after what I just did for your ass and especially the tight little clothes that you’ve got on.” Gitae replied as he looked at you without a clear emotion written oh his expression. You were so scared that you had tears in your eyes.

“Tearing up so soon? It’s not like I’ve even done anything bad to you, yet.” Gitae said with a strange smile on his face.

You couldn’t read his expression or what he wanted from you. But all you knew was, he was definitely even more trouble than the group of guys from earlier.

Then you saw him picking up one of the fresh flesh of one of the men on the ground, and he took a bite out of it. You looked at him with pure disgust and horrification. “Wh-Why—” was what you managed to stutter out from pure disbelief and terror. Then all of a sudden, he spat it out with a clear expression spread among his face, “Bleghh.” What the hell was that about? You thought to yourself as you slowly got off got off the floor and subtly sneaked away while it seemed like he wasn’t paying any attention.

“Man, I thought he’d be tastier than that. Wasn’t worth staining my clothes and body.” He commented as he turned over to you, whom was nowhere to be found. But it’s not like he thought he lost you or anything, he knew very well you were escaping and just let it happen. He doesn’t mind a little mouse chase after all.

“What the hell did I just fucking witness? What was that..? Did he really take a bite out of tha..” You cut yourself off, exhausted from running as fast as you humanely can towards your hotel. Your bag was still at the gruesome scene with Gitae, you couldn’t risk your entire life to try and take it. Problem is that your wallet was there, however you do have your phone with you so you weren’t really worried about that too much— especially with what you just witnessed, that might’ve been the least of your worries.

“Hagghh.. What if he comes for me..? Am I even safe here or what if he’s watching my every step…” You sighed as you tried to dry your tears and got ready to take a very much needed bath.

You got into the bathub you prepared with a nice scent and relaxing setting, trying to cool yourself down. Still crying from what just happened but trying to stay calm with the intent of tending to your wounds later.

Meanwhile Gitae, who was still in the alleyway you were attacked by the group of men in, saw your little purse on the ground. Slightly open and covered in splashed blood.

Normally, he wouldn’t really care that much about it. But he decided to open it, and he saw your wallet in there along with some of your other belongings like hygienic products and your phone charger.

“Hoho, a wallet with her id and all the information I need to know about her,” he smiled as he looked at your id and the deceased morons in front of his eyes. “Jackpot.”

The following hours after the incident, you decided to just sleep and completely ignored your goal of ‘more exploring, less sleeping.’ That was until you felt a pair of strong arms on your waist, holding you close. At first, you thought it was just a dream until you felt a pair of lips making its way to your jawline, pressing somewhat aggressive kisses, and that’s when you knew that it was no dream.

You slowly opened your eyes and turned your head behind you, only to see the same man, Gitae, from yesterday. In your bed. Holding your waist and was just kissing you. Topless with a pair of jeans.

“Gi-Gitae—?!” How and what the hell are you doing here?!” You said, still sleepy and not a hint of fear in your voice, given that you were brave enough to say that to such a man who was barely inches away from you.

“What do you mean? Isn’t it obvious?” He shrugged a brow, “I’m here to claim my payment and take what’s mine.”

“Payment? You want money? You could’ve just said that!” You said. “Silly little girl, I never said I wanted money from you,” Gitae replied as he held your waist tighter and within just seconds, you were now under him. Pinned to the bed by his strong arms and under his piercing gaze.

“The-Then.. What the hell is it that you want f-from me?!” You tried to resist and escape but it was no use, he wasn’t even trying and was just seemingly laughing at your efforts and attempts.

“Isn’t it obvious already?”

“You want me dead?”

“What? When the fuck did I ever mention that?”

“Cmon’ mister, you never mentioned anything about anything, so how am I supposed to kno-” You were suddenly cut off when he raised his arms from pinning you to the bed and simply sat on the edge of the bed and sat you on his lap.

“You’re so naive, it’s just adorable, F/N.”

“How do you know my name..? I gave you a fake name yesterday!” You taunted as you moved around in his lap, causing him to groan. “A-ah, sorry for moving so much!” You suddenly added when you heard him and felt something poking you from his lap.

“Hoho, you’re so sweet too. Apologizing for riling me up? You’ve been at this since yesterday, sweetheart.” He said in a lower voice.

“What? How have I been doing tha— Hey! You never answered my first question!!”

“Oh the first name thing? You left your wallet with me yesterday, sweetie. You must really be a little girl to not have thought about that.” He said as he pulled out an all too familiar wallet with your id peeking out of it. “What a coincidence, huh?”

“Shit. I forgot about that..”

“Now that we’ve got that out of the way, you’re coming with me, F/N. Do me a favor and cooperate so we don’t have to do this the hard way, mkay sweetheart?” He said with a strange smile.

The next thing you know, you were in a car, some other guy with a bunch of tattoos was driving, completely silent and emotionless. You were at the backseat with Gitae, sat on his lap, facing him, tearing up.

He gave you his leather jacket since you were still in thin sleepwear, a sleeveless thin top and some light short shorts. You thought that was surprisingly nice of him, he may be crazy but atleast he was kind of a gentleman towards you, he carried you around so that you wouldn’t have to walk, he brushed your morning hair, and he even toned down the aggression of his rough, calloused hands when you complained about them.

You eventually got so tired that you fell asleep in his arms, and he closely held you.

When you woke up, you were at a warehouse that absolutely reeked of a strange scent. You didn’t see Gitae around though, but you did see a lot of men in the same warehouse as you, all seemingly looked like a gangster or dealer of some sort. You were very confused and scared of what might just happen to you if you tried leaving, but you decided to try it out anyway. Calmly, you headed towards the open door of the warehouse. But before you could even reach the door, a man held a gun to your throat.

“And where the fuck d’you think you’re going? You trying to get us in trouble?” He spoke in an arrogant tone and eventually took the gun away and dragged you back to the boxes you were on when you woke up.

Shit. What do I do.. You thought to yourself as you saw some of the men seemingly talking about you but in a different language. If you had to guess, it was Spanish, since you are in Mexico after all.

Before you could even think about escaping again, you remembered how familiar Gitae seemed and how it felt like it wasn’t the first time you’ve met him. Yet you can’t seem to figure out where do you know him from and who he was. But you’ve already taken a trip in Mexico in the past, so this was your second time. He really seemed way too familiar, you swear that you’ve seen that exact man during your last trip and it seemed like he was everywhere you were. No matter what tourist spot or hidden, unknown spot you were at, he was also there, at a certain distance. And it felt like he was definitely watching you.

Before you could continue thinking about it, you suddenly overheard shrieks of agony from one of the men, who you assumed were doing something related to drugs, given what you had seen when you woke up. You immediately looked to where the noise came from, and saw that he’d been directly headshot with an axe. It was such a gruesome scene, blank faces were all scattered amongst the men and they had stopped what they were doing to look over to where the noise came from. They proceeded to look at the opposite direction, to which you did too, and saw Gitae. Covered in even more blood than yesterday.

He started speaking, in the same language you couldn’t understand from the men around the warehouse.

You just looked at him blankly, thinking about how familiar he really does look. You heard your name clearly being mentioned from what Gitae was saying and some of the men turned to you.

You looked back at them with a hesitant expression, then back at Gitae— who was know walking towards you.

"Everyone, listen up. This is the girl I mentioned a little over a year ago. I was able to track her down the same week I talked about her and I traced her plans of going to Mexico a second time in the following year, which is now the present." Gitae announced and added,

"Because of the last morons I trusted in trying to kidnap her last year, she was able to get away without even trying. So I decided to do the job myself this time. But make it your guys' job to make sure she wont escape or get into any sort of harm. Unless you wanna end up like him over there, of course." He said as he turned over to the guy he had thrown an axe at.

They all nodded while some just looked at you dead in the eye. Guess you're stuck there now, there is no escaping after all. But don't worry, Gitae is nice occasionally. But most of the time, he's as terrifying as death itself.

Because he's told you some of the tiniest details about what he does and the cartel, he absolutely refuses to let you go and feels as though you already know too much. You're his, and it will stay that way till the end of time.

notes: this is so bad im so sorryedjkewkdewbhdshe we dont really know much about him and i wasnt sure what to do but i really wanted to write about him and get something up since im not too busy atm, im so sorruryge im gonna upload another one soon or today hopefully, either about gun or someone else in my drafts.. also not so fun fact this is my ninth post and i love the number 9 so yay ig ALSOOOOOO I will be uploading a like masterlist and introduction or about me?? post basically like characters i write for and stuff yk the basics!! ANYWAY MY RANT IS OVER have a good day!! FEEL FREE TO REQUEST ANY CHARACTER BTW I DO MOST BUT I DONT REALLY KNOW WHAT TO DO FOR THE GIRLS EXCEPT MARY KIM!

- With or without proper credits, please don't try to steal or claim any of my works as your own

I genuinely appreciate opinions, feedback, likes, and reblogs

Once again, I hope this isn't too bad for my a character we know not much about, and i'll be doing more characters in lookism!!

#lookism #lookism fic #lookism manwha #manwha #webtoon #anime lookism #lookism imagines #lookism anime #lookism fandom #Gitae Kim #suggestive #cw suggestive #dark #yandere #yandere gitae kim #lookism 496 #lookism 497 #lookism spoilers #spoilers #foryou #foryoupage #fyp #unreleasedwrites #jake kim's brother #lookism webtoon #lookism gitae kim #gitae kim lookism #gitae kim x reader #female reader #x reader

[olderthannetfic]

I've just read an article (in Gazeta Wyborcza) about a very popular series of books among young teens in my country, Poland, called "Rodzina Monet" (Family Monet). The author gained popularity while publishing on Wattpad lol. The article basically said that it's problematic because these books are read by young girls, even 10 years old, and it glorifies violence. Plus it just isn't well written - there were some fragments in the article and yeah it's not well written lmao. A woman in the comments said that her daughter is reading this book and asked if she should forbid it. Since no one answered her, I replied that I don't think forbidding the book is a good solution and suggested talking to her daughter about it, showing her the article and asking what she thinks about it. But I don't know anything more about that situation, for example how old the daughter is. I don't think I'd worry if my child were to read this book, I read trashy stuff too. But I started wondering if maybe there should be some control in such a case? The thing with the books from what I gathered (I haven't read them) is that they are about a 14yo girl, who suddenly lost her mother and grandmother, is sent away to US from Britain where she starts living with her 28yo (handsome) stepbrother and his 3 (also handsome) brothers. She lives in a beautiful villa since the stepbrother is super rich. He's also cold and distant and doesn't understand that she has issues with food (she has some kind of eating disorder). Some of the things he and his 3 brothers do can be described as domestic violence but they apologize, buy her expensive stuff and are all adult handsome men. Yeah it's a young adult fiction. The thing is that it's just not well written so none of the bad behaviours is commented upon.

--

Sounds like typical godawful id trash that people eat up. Making a rule against it will just make it more tantalizing.

It would be far more valuable to kick any worthless partners out of one's life and demonstrate not putting up with shit to a tween girl than to ban her from reading trashy books.

One could always try buying her something better, but IME, people who try that always do it wrong: they buy books that are better written, yes, but the vocabulary and sentence structure are a thousand times harder, there's zero iddy wish fulfillment, and the plot is something fucking depressing and supposedly edifying.

Readers can smell a tryhard "your taste is bad" gift a mile away.

I think it's also important when trying to find replacement trash to understand what the kink actually is. Why is it age gap? Well, have you seen 14-year-olds? They're awkward and covered in zits. Of course the protagonist is young like the readers and the hotties are older.

More importantly, why is it abusive? Absolute idiots will be like "Because society taught girls wah wah wah wah wah", but the actual reason is obvious if you've read trash romance for adults:

It's so the love interest(s) can be in the wrong.

The self inserty protagonist of this type of story has very little power. Not only is she usually younger, but she's poorer, a fish out of water in a new situation, etc. The way she gets power is by the love interest doing something absolutely horrible, realizing they have erred, and then groveling forever. Their guilt is an effective way to manipulate them. And yes, retail therapy is usually the next step from this particular trash classic all the way back to The Flame and the Flower.

You can try giving a teen girl a book about a teen girl action hero who is awesome and whose love interest likes her because of that... But if the reader doesn't feel awesome, she's still going to prefer a book about a loser with a destined, fated love or a misunderstood woobie whom other characters have to grovel to after not initially realizing she was special.

You can't fix self esteem by handing someone a book they don't identify with and telling them their id is wrong. And if self esteem does improve, that doesn't mean the lizard brain is going to switch trash fiction tastes anyway.

One can try leaving other fun books around, but that's about the most that could be helpful.

[jackyjango]

What are some of your angsty Charles Xaiver headcanons? I love your writing so much!

Hello, Anon! You like my writing you say!!? EEKS! Thank you so so much. 

And as for my angsty Charles Xavier headcanons, oh boy, where do I start? I’m not sure if these are headcanons, or just canons, or something else entirely, but here goes some of them, nonetheless (And this doesn’t stick to much of canon… It doesn’t stick to much of anything really) So, bear with me, for I got carried away.

The doctors and nurses at the hospital are annoyingly kind. Charles hates it. Because behind all their smiles and assurances, and ‘You’re healing exceptionally well from the surgery Mr.Xavier’s, is sheer pity. Days pass in a hospital bed, and so do more faces behind tags. ‘There’s still hope, Dr.Xavier,’ some one says, ‘The feeling in your legs can return over time. Things will get better, you’ll see.’ Hope? Charles laughs bitterly. And how can things get better? Erik isn’t there.

Out of everything, it’s probably the loneliness that drives him insane, the absence of Erik’s bright mind beside his. So Charles drinks. He drinks to make the rest of his body as numb as his legs. Especially his aching heart.

Anger and violence doesn’t come easily to Charles, but he’s angry now. Angry at Erik. He could have, and for the most part has, forgiven Erik for everything - for his legs, for hurting the children. But he cannot forgive Erik for leaving him alone.

The school is thriving. The Children and Raven are there, yes. But it’s not the same. It never has been.

A man named Logan breezes into the school one summer morning biting on the end of a cigar. They call him the ‘Wolverine’. He’s burly as a beast and has the claws like one. And when he asks Charles, ‘Wanna fuck bub?’ from the end of a kitchen table, Charles agrees readily. Whether to prove something to himself, or something else to Erik, or just to feel like his younger self once again, Charles doesn’t know.

Logan doesn’t tease Charles with his clever words, doesn’t gather Charles against his chest like he’s something precious, doesn’t kiss Charles like a man possessed. He doesn’t make love to Charles like Erik. He just fucks like a beast, and Charles is extremely thankful for it. 

Logan leaves as quickly as he’d arrived, promising to bring a few mutants who could benefit from the school. 

There’s only so much Charles can hide in his study drowning himself in expensive scotch. His children need him. Slowly, he eases back into his role of a Professor, and with it, some of the anger and bitterness abates. 

Logan returns a few months later with a girl with healing abilities. With the help of her powers, Charles gets back most of the feelings in his legs. He still has to use his wheelchair for the most part, and his entire body hurts, but Raven cries in delight and says, ‘This is great, isn’t it?’ Is it? Charles can’t say. Even with the feeling in legs, Charles feels just as numb as before.

When Logan asks Charles a few nights later if he’d like a repeat of last time, Charles smiles woefully and says, ‘Good night, Logan.’

Probably the only good thing to come out of this entire ordeal is Charles’ new found understanding of his mother. She drank herself to a stupor in denial of his father’s demise, ignoring Charles in the process. How was Charles any better than her?

Charles wakes one night to the sight of Erik floating into his room through the window. For a few seconds, he thinks it’s a dream. But when Erik starts accusing him of naivety on an article Charles had published about Mutant Education a few days ago, it becomes all too real. He punches Erik in the face like he’d wanted to all those days ago. He stumbles from bed, and his legs ache, but he doesn’t care. They argue, spew insults at each other, and almost tear each other out for two hours straight before falling into bed.

‘Wait,’ Charles says, stopping Erik’s frantic hands. ‘I slept with Logan.’ He feels stupid now that he has said it. He and Erik haven’t defined their relationship in any way. Still, keeping it from Erik feels wrong. ‘And I slept with Emma.’ Erik says. And that’s that, Charles supposes. Erik leaves the next day before the sun or Charles is up.

He doesn’t hear from Erik for 4 months after that. Erik comes in one night sans accusations and assertions, and sans that damned helmet, and whispers fiercely into Charles’ mind, I’m sorry, for … everything. It’s all too easy to fall into bed with Erik then. After all, It’s one of the only things they agree upon whole heartedly.

In the winter, they hire a new teacher for the school. Abigaile has a PhD in Mathematics and Physics, and comes highly recommended. She has lovely eyes and a bright smile, and bats her eyelashes coyly at Charles. The intent in her mind is unmistakable. Charles smiles at her kindly, and calls in for Hank. ‘Please show Ms. Brand to the classes. ’There really can’t be anything between them. How can there be? She doesn’t have large and callused hands like Erik’s. She doesn’t have a sculpted jaw or broad shoulders like Erik. She doesn’t possess a baritone voice that wreaks havocs on Charles’ body. Hell, Charles wouldn’t even fit perfectly against her like he does with Erik. Charles curses under his breath and closes his eyes. ‘You’ve ruined me for women, you Bastard.’

Charles gets a call on the phone in his study at 2 in the morning. The person on the other end is silent, but he knows without a shred of doubt in his mind that it’s Erik. Charles takes in an unsteady breath and says, ‘Please tell me you’re okay, Erik. Please…’ Erik grunts in response and the line goes dead.

To say that Charles misses Erik is an understatement. He misses arguing with Erik. He misses training the children with Erik. He misses their late night chess games, Erik’s teasing smiles and knowing looks. He misses the fire of passion smoldering in Erik’s eyes when he look at Chearles. Hell, he even misses Erik’s smoking. Sometimes, he misses Erik so much that it manifests into a physical pain somewhere between Charles’ heart and stomach. It doesn’t lessen over years, only dwindles into absence for a few hours he’s with Erik, and flares stronger than before once Erik leaves.

When Charles is feeling maudlin beyond reason, which he is for most of the week, he writes to Erik, knowing full well that it’s a moot cause. 

Dearest Erik, I feel like a Regency heroine writing to you….  ……. ……. Bobby froze the pond on the grounds today. Can you believe it? I’m so proud of him, Erik. The poor lad hes been struggling with his control…. ……. ……. I wish you could see it too. Yours Faithfully, Charles

My dear Erik, Ororo threw a fuss today. So much so that it started to rain over the mansion for a few minutes….. ……. ……. Wish you were here with me. Yours truly, Charles

Old Friend, The children threw a small party for my birthday today. Raven baked a caked. And no, it wasn’t as awful as the one she had baked for Alex’s birthday, but it was threateningly close….. ……. ……. Not a day goes by without me wishing you were beside me. Love Aways, Charles

My Love, There was an post in the paper today that a Mutant Experiment lab was destroyed in the East Coast. It reports that the damage was extensive and that the authorities are searching for the cultrip. You know that I don’t agree with your methods, Erik. But I admire your intent. So would all the mutants you saved from that lab. While I know fully well that you can take care of yourself, and your own, I can’t help but worry for your safety, my love. I worry about you constantly. There are more and more scars on your body each time I see you, and how I wish I could kiss it away. Are you eating on time? Do you sleep at all? Please take care, Erik. Yours Forever, Charles

The letters sit tucked chronologically in a box under Charles’ bed, and some of them are still wet at the corners.

Once night, Erik floats into his window with cuts on his face and blood on his uniform. Charles cleans his wounds with blurry eyes, and vows to tear the next person person who accuses Erik of being selfish.

Despite his promises of not looking into Erik’s head, Charles traces Erik’s activities through Cerebro, and refuses to feel one bit guilty about it. It's the only way he'll know Erik is safe. Sure, Erik’s damned helmet makes it all the more difficult, but through the years, Charles has gotten creative. He can pinpoint Erik in a crowd of people even across two states.

‘You should date someone,’ Erik says one night as he sits on the edge of Charles' bed dressed to leave. 

‘Really?’ Charles asks, ‘And why should I do that?’ ‘Because I want you to be happy,’ Erik says, and Charles wants to punch him. How dare he!? How dare Erik tell him to date someone else when he holds Charles’ beating heart in his fist. It’s cruel.  ‘And what makes you the authority on my happiness?’ Charles asks with no less cruelty. Erik doesn’t deign his question with an answer and leaves.

Gone, too, is the box under Charle’s bed that hold the map of his heart.

Erik goes missing for eight months this time, and Charles all but leaps out of bed when the phone in his study rings at 3 in the morning.

‘Erik, please don’t hang up,’ he pleads, and when Erik stays silent, ‘Please say something.’ ‘There’s nothing to say. I just wanted to hear your voice,’ says Erik. Charles knees give away and hot tears fall out of his eyes. But he can do this, he can keep talking. Anything to keep Erik with him. He wipes at his eyes and smiles into the receiver. ‘Do you remember Jubile? The tiny girl with two braids? You won’t believe what she can do, Erik…’ Charles talks into the night and doesn’t stop even when his voice turns horse. And even after that they simply listen to each other’s breaths.

Charles keeps a set of Erik’s clothes in his wardrobe. Over the years, the turtlenecks smell less and less like Erik, but when Charles drapes it over his pillow, and imagines that it’s Erik chest under his ear, he can still smell the sharp scent of Erik’s musk, spicy and clean and fresh.

He also keeps Erik’s favourite bottle of scotch and his preferred brand of cigarettes in a cabinet in his office, and guards it like a dragon guards its gold.

For all that Charles loathes smoking, and has banned it on the grounds, Erik seemed to be the exception to that rule. Hell, Erik has been the exception to all of Charles’ rules.

They hire Jonthan in the fall to teach Mutant History. He’s a tall man with blue eyes and auburn hair. He looks at Charles with a knowing smile and intent in his mind. He would be good for Charles, wouldn’t he? He’s smart, well read and kind. He even holds the same integrationist ideals that Charles does. But... Jonathan doesn’t have Erik’s razor sharp smile, the kind of smile that lights up Charles’ insides and heart. He doesn’t possess the wicked wit that comes so easily to Erik. He doesn’t bear the piercing focus, which when focussed on Charles makes him feel invincible. Jonathan doesn’t even smoke. Charles laughs in exasperation. ‘Good God, Erik! Must you torment me so?’

It’s almost a year later that Charles sees Erik. They fall into each other’s arms way too easily. 

‘Don’t tease me, Erik,’ Charles commands when Erik’s mouth meets the lobe of his ear, ‘I won’t last long.’ ‘Me, too,’ says Erik. ‘That means we’ll just have to go again.’ ‘And whose fault is that? You were gone for more than a year.’ At that, Erik stops, ‘Does that mean that you haven’t…’ he gestures between the two of them. Charles laughs woefully. ‘There hasn’t been anyone other than you ever since you came floating into my room all those years ago.’ ‘Oh,’ Erik says, surprised, ‘There hasn’t been anyone for me beside you, either.’ Charles laughs wetly for a long time. ‘I thought I was alone,’ he says softly. Erik kisses him, and whispers to his lips, ‘You’re not alone, Charles. Not when you I have something to say about it.’

And it sounds equal parts like a promise and a challenge. It sounds just like Erik.

Charles remembers reading somewhere, Like because, and love despite. However impossible, maybe the author had Charles and Erik in mind when they wrote it.

#cherik #charles xavier #erik lehnsherr #anon #thank you so much for your lovely message. It made my day #and if you've made it this far #wow #thanks #also the quote at the end id from 'Half of It' on Netflix #I heard and thought... well it's for cherik #so there you go #jjcherik

[soloorganaas]

giving you two, you can do both or choose one: 1) what ship do you hate most? 2) rant about [pairing] for wolfstar - i want to hear what you don't agree with the fandom on about them

hehehehehehehehe

remadora. no explanation needed. whilst i'm here everyone who hates them too go read a grave mistake

ALRIGHT HERE WE FUCKING GO

atyd it's an incredible story, but it's not the ONLY story, and the way its characterisations have in so many fics and fanons replaced actual canon is infuriating. remus is portrayed as toxic, aggressive, manipulative and cruel; sirius is cowardly, manipulative, over-dramatic, emotionally immature and just plain stupid. this is either completely inaccurate based on the books, or an over-exaggeration of some of their canon traits. the interplay between their individual traumas is so so simplified to become two long decades of toxic miscommunication, and they're just plain mean to each other. if this was just one story, ya know, you take it or leave it like anything else. but the way these characterisations have been exaggerated or simplified even further from canon leads to characters that are literally unrecognisable. if its an AU, okay, they're always going to be different in different contexts. but if you're telling stories that are deliberately supposed to be based in canon, exploring those ideas, and then the characters are literally nothing like the books, then imo thats shitty writing. and the utter refusal of at least some fans (literally the entirety of fucking tiktok) to acknowledge this and produce better work is infuriating

so much of this fandom is mind-blowingly talented. jfc. i have improved my writing tenfold by reading wolfstar fic. so this sort of subsection irks me extra bc of that, when its ignoring the incredible work over the past two decades, and not least the amazing stories being published rn

the bimboification of sirius this is such a knock-on effect of atyd smh

sirius is dramatic as hell. my boy comes straight out of azkaban and his first instinct is to go approach harry late at night as a massive fucking black dog. he tries to kill peter by breaking into the gryffindor dorms and lunging over ron with a knife. he finds out harry's broom broke so he mail orders the most expensive broom on the market with the help of a fucking cat when he is literally a wanted criminal. he finally confronts harry by dragging his best friend through the whomping willow by a broken leg and then leans hardcore into the mass murderer vibes with slightly incoherent rants and attempts to kill a rat as his first intro to harry. he goes on the run on a famously dramatic and haughty horse/bird and spends a year in tropical islands and caves instead of just fucking apparating to his ex's house and hanging out there. his emotions go from 0-100 in 0.5 seconds and he would deck half the order if it wasn't for remus holding him back

i think its pretty safe to assume he was just as dramatic as a teen, albeit in a more cocky rich kid way than traumatised ex-convict way. i think its a fair characterisation that he would be overwhelmed by a gay life crisis and feelings for remus and handle it in a pretty dramatic way

but that doesn't mean, however, that he is (a) nothing but a drama queen and (b) a bimbo. he's dramatic, he's not stupid or shallow or whiny. he is one of the absolute smartest characters in the book, and is so committed to his principles and friends he'll literally die for them. he's incredibly competent and self-reliant, to the point of keeping himself alive for years on end in extremely harsh situations. he's generally either intensely focused on the task at hand or lost in his own head. he's not goddamn whiny, or dumb, or constantly desperate for the attention and validation of remus

remus getting irritated at sirius for being ✨too much✨ yeah honestly im gonna blame atyd for this one again but also the general ableist trait of mocking people for being A Lot when those people are most of the time neurodivergent-coded.

remus fucking adores sirius. this entire fandom is based on this premise lmao. in the books they respect each other so much - remus is the only one sirius listens to, sirius is the only one to whom remus will let his emotions show and be forthright with. remus never gets angry or annoyed with sirius just for feeling a lot - he is in fact the only person to validate him and back him up. he gets annoyed when he's being an ass

he would never be irritated at sirius for being passionate or unconstrained or letting his creativity run wild or spewing out whatever thoughts were in his mind or just being full of life and fire and enthusiasm and daring. considering the kind of person remus is and the dynamic in their relationship, those are the things he would LOVE about sirius. whilst being perfectly comfortable calling him out when they lead him to be annoying or rude or irresponsible

tl;dr sirius being extra doesn't make him the idiot butt of everyone's jokes and remus being reserved doesn't make him judgmental of sirius's larger personality

prongsfoot in wolfstar fics

james isn't just sirius's "best friend", their relationship is essential to who sirius is and the fact he can even become and emotionally open enough person to fall in love. he is just as important to sirius as remus is. i really dont think i've read many wolfstar fics (that delve deep into the characters, i dont mean fluffy/smutty oneshots etc) that show james as more than a 2D sidekick or how his friendship with sirius impacts sirius's relationship with remus. i can understand why the prongsfoot fandom gets so mad tbh lmao

#this is why it takes me 3-5 business days to answer them it's one question and i have a phd thesis #wolfstar #sirius black #remus lupin #atyd #hp meta #ch: we choose who we really are #otp: i'm mental about you #hp #anti remadora

[ehlnofay]

a series of outfit concepts for Pax... I find clothing to be such an interesting part of character design and wanted to explore that more for her. especially since he's one of my more fashion-conscious characters. miscellaneous notes and extra doodles under the cut

the first four of these designs are worn in cyrodiil; the last two are from the shivering isles. I haven't done much brainstorming for cyrod fashion so that was something fun to explore - especially with the challenge of keeping to a similar-ish silhouette and with pax's tastes in mind. most inspiration was taken from byzantine fashion, with some influences from roman and celtic garb as well. there was also a fair bit of simply making shit up. (I also had quite a bit of fun fucking with the saturation and colour values a bit in editing: here's the initial image, minus the increased saturation and also with the finger tattoos on the wrong hand because I got left and right mixed up at first. oops.)

of all my characters, pax is one of the pickiest about how they dress; they don't like fashion at the expense of comfort but they don't like comfort at the expense of fashion, either. he likes bright colours and good quality fabric (ends up stealing and altering a lot of his clothes.) she tends not to wear things with very overt nibenese influences due to her own associations with that style of clothing + nibenese garb tends to have a lot of flowy extra fabric, which she doesn't like. I had a lot of fun trying to explore different ideas, colour palettes, and statement pieces while keeping to roughly similar-ish shapes; for each one I also included slightly different versions of Pax's endless repertoire of jewellery and ways to do their hair.

notes on specific designs: the third one incorporates more of how I picture nibenese fashion, the first one is a reimagining of an outfit i drew them in ages ago, and the second references a piece I wrote and haven't yet published, in which the blades get martin a lot of nice warm clothes, including a long blue tunic (seeing as cloud ruler temple is cold as shit and all he has is a ruined liturgical vestment and some cheap clothes pax stole him during their journey) and pax unceremoniously commandeers most of it. the last two outfits are mostly just self-indulgent - in the state he's in by the time they get to the shivering isles, pax isn't too fussed about appearances, but I wanted to explore what they would wear if they did give a shit. I tried to roughly keep similar elements to the rest of the outfits, with enough tweaks to make it clear that they are very much Of Another Place. I used red as a major tone and colour in both because pax fucking hates it :) (it's the colour of the deadlands, and the mythic dawn robes, and the amulet of kings.)

there were a few more specific things I would have liked to design - in particular a travelling outfit and some concepts for the really fancy garb they take on once they murder their way into a duchy - but those, as well as a breakdown of their armour, are things I would want to give more attention to detail to. so I will do all that separately sometime. however I did do an extra doodle, not included above, of their sleepwear; because it's extremely simple, and because I've never drawn her with her hair down and I really, really wanted to. (even if it's unrealistic; pax mostly sleeps with their hair still up in some finicky arrangement sewn tight enough in place to last for a week.)

#look at my images and rambles. boy #anyway I need to go to sleep!! big day tomorrow!! but all of this was very fun to draw and write out #my art #oc tag #pax #tesblr #the elder scrolls #tes #fay draws #oblivion #the shivering isles #shivering isles #fay talks fashion #cyrodiil

[the---hermit]

Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe

I am not a huge memoir reader, but you can bet that if it's a graphic memoir I will pick it up, plus I want to expand my queer book collection, and this book was an amazing addition, that I know I will reread in the future. The author is non-binary and uses e/em/eir pronouns, which I never had to use before so if I fuck up while writing and editing please let me know. With this being said Gender Queer is a memoir and focuses on the author's journey of getting to know eir own self from a sexuality and gender point of view. But it feels reductive to describe this book as just that. The author does a great job at telling the story of eir life without skipping on all the existential crisis, the confusion and the fear. It's a very raw and honest work in my opinion, and it's amazing just because of that. Em couldn't have done a better job at explaing this complicated journey with all its ups and downs. There's fear and confusion, but also joy in getting to understand yourself more. It doesn't skip on any kind of thought, there's a few points that hit so close to home, ans that will keep sparking thoughts. The way the author talkes about gender and eir way of presenting is incredibly clever. I particularly liked how em used a landscape to talk about gender. It's not easy to put into words how good this graphic memoir is, and the fact that it was banned so much is scary and should be a good enough reason to pick it up. I feel like this could be a great way to let non-queer people understand a little better how figuring these things about yourself is, and how complex it gets. It's a little like being in the author's head sometimes, which is why I feel like this could be a great tool for queer allies to understand some things on a deeper level. As a queer person who is actually pondering a lot of these questions, it was very comforting to read about someone who stuggled just as much, but honestly reminds you of how layered and complicated these things are. Additionally I really liked the illustrations, the colour palette felt nice and overall I just really liked the look of this book (I should mention my edition which is the Italian on wasn't as curated as it should have because a few pages were blurred to a point you couldn't clearly read, which is absolutely unacceptable especially for how expensive graphic novels are. I never had such problems with this publisher, but that was kinda disappointing because I expected a bit more cure on the details, but again that is the Italian publisher's fault).

I read this for the jumbo reading challenge non binary author prompt.

#book #books #2023 book #bookblr #booklr #queer book #gender queer #maia kobabe #memoir #book rec #book review #book recommendation #book cover #reading #bookish #mine #the---hermit

[lollystocks]

To Blossom

Ectoberhaunt 2023 Day 2: Botanomancy (and a lil dash o technomancy)

Sam tends to her houseplants, her mother tries to connect, and Amity feels the effects of its rip in space-time. Words: 5,087 CW: minor injury, blood, self-injury, possession (mentioned), dissociation, mentions of a firearm

---

Her plants were getting grumpy. Again.

Not that Sam held it against them. As much as she had tried to make her dark, brood-perfect bedroom a comfortable home for the waifs and strays she had picked up from Amity Park’s nurseries and garden centers, (and perhaps a private garden or two), she only had so many hours in the day. The best temperature and humidity control money could buy helped of course, but between school, ghost fights, activism, and deliberately spending as little time as possible in her parents’ house…

Well. The grumpiness was understandable.

But Sam had found a rare, spare, afternoon with no obligations. Her homework was mostly up-to-date (she was refusing to do any of Lancer’s reading until the English department unbanned The Bluest Eye); the protest at Axiom was on pause until Tucker had okay’d her security plans; it was a Sunday so there were no new updates for The Grand Speadsheet; and she had already published two blog updates this week with the next one fully drafted. (“The True Amity Park Horror: A Miniature Surveillance State; or, The Bitches in Cheap Bleach Could Do With Being More Subtle When Spying On The Entire Town, part v”)

The irony of calling out the GIW’s spying operation was not lost on her.

And seeing as ghost attacks didn’t stick to a pre-circulated schedule, there was nothing to do on that front except keep the pager on loud, and get on with one’s day.

So, following an oh-so-wonderful lie-in, Sam was playing her favorite kind of politics: horticulture.

Following certain complaints, Sam had abandoned the concept of a general fertilizer and had bought a whole series - one each for tropicals, leafy, flowering, fruit, and cacti. The succulents would have to just put up with the latter. Windows thrown open, a torn up magazine protecting her dark hardwood flooring, a series of expensive and totally unused mason jars usurped from her mother’s kitchen, and a large jerry can of water sat at the ready, she set to work mixing up some please-just-fucking-grow juice for her many, many children.

Or she would have, had her pager not chosen that moment to scream at her from her window sill. A grating, 8-bit version of Ghostbusters (“the most frighteningly accurate depiction of ghosts in any move ever Sam, it’s iconic.”) that served as their “Fentonworks scanners have picked up a big ol’ signal somewhere, perhaps check it out gang” signal. Louder than the beeping was the profound sense of alarm from her plants. Or so she imagined.

Sam leaped up to silence it before it reminded her parents of her existence, knocking the jerry can over as she went. She ignored the chugging spill, slamming the “dismiss” button on the pager and then scrambling to find her phone among her copious bedsheets. By the time she extracted it, there was already a message:

Fanny Dampton: already on it, boxy’s throwing a tantrum at walmart

That would at least save them some time. Accessing the Fentonworks scan system to pinpoint a location always lost them a few minutes.

Sam typed with one hand, and started donning her boots with the other.

Man Sampson: Woodsborough Park or Elm Rd?

Fanny Dampton: elm

Fucker Toe-ly: moms got the car gonna take me a while to get there on dads bike

Man Sampson: I can swing round to get you, meet me at the end of your road, do NOT forget the extra thermos this time.

Fanny Dampton: i think i got it guys!

Fucker Toe-ly: bestie how are you typing and fighting

Fucker Toe-ly: i didnt forget it how dare

Fucker Toe-ly: i was giving it a premeditated and intentional vacation in my sock drawer

Fucker Toe-ly: she was tired

Fanny Dampton: i think i got it guys

Man Sampson: No that’s a good question, how are you typing and fighting?

Fanny Dampton: im not

Man Sampson: So when you say “you got it”??

Fanny Dampton: i ran off to GG and by the time i got back jazz had thermosed boxy. i ‘stole’ it from her so mom and dad couldn’t take boxy for testing. hid it in my leg, will get it out later.

Fucker Toe-ly: bestie im still not on bord with you using random body parts as storage it cant be good for a growing boy its also nasty as hell and also what about ectocontamination from the thermos

Man Sampson: I’m not sure Danny needs to worry about ectocontamination, Tuck.

Man Sampson: It’s also so on brand for you to be able to perfectly spell .“ectocontamination” but not “board”.

Fucker Toe-ly: what are we if not our brands? - francis bacon, probably

Fanny Dampton: look it’s all good guys, just need to focus on the hard part now - the family walmart shop

Fucker Toe-ly: god gives his hardest battles to his deadest soldiers

Fucker Toe-ly: what yall buying

Fanny Dampton: mom wants a gun

Man Sampson: Jesus Christ.

Fucker Toe-ly: aaaaaaaahahahahahahahah

Sam flopped back onto her bed, giving herself a minute - the come-down from “ghost attack mode” would take a sec, even though the problem had solved itself in rather nicely.

Sam nearly cried out when the handle of her bedroom door rattled.

A muffled voice forced its way through. “Sweetie? What have we said about locking your door?”

Sam sat up, slowly. Took a breath, and made her way over. “I said I’d stop re-installing the lock when you learn how knocking works.”

“Samantha Manson you wi-”

Her mother’s impending monologue on respect, rules and roofs was interrupted with a wide open door and a dead expression. “Yes, Mrs Manson?”

Her mom blinked, swallowing her previous tirade. It looked like it tasted sour. “Sweetie, I know it’s a joke, but your dad and I have asked you multiple times to drop the “Mrs and Mr Manson” thing. It’s-”

“A pointed nod to the irony of your formal standards of familial respect, yeah.”

“Samantha, can we please not do this?”

How rich. “Mom, it might help if you tried to actually-”

“-’understand why you do this rather than seek to use the blunt instrument of parental authority to control you’, or something, right?”

Sam blinked. Her mom could barely hide her smirk.

“We do listen.”

Sam kept her face blank and said nothing. Pointing out the obvious would do nothing but lead to yet another argument in a doorway, ripe for door-slamming and possibly injured fingers. These things always happened in doorways.

Breathe, Sam. Your silence will say enough. 

Her mom broke eye contact first, glancing into the room, eyes widening the slightest bit at the soaked magazine pages on the floor.

“Oh Samantha, you really need to take more care in here. The floorboards…”

“It’s just water, Mom, and the paper got most of it.” Her heart rate was ramping up again. Her hands were flailing. “It’s fine, and you know what, why would you assume I wasn’t being careful? Like why is carelessness and thoughtlessness your first thought? I’ve clearly set up precautions against filtered water you can literally see that, but you couldn’t consider that maybe it was you trying to barge in here that could have startled-”

“-I assume a lack of care because I know you Sam, I’m your mother, and as much as I love you even you must admit you’re prone to impulse, undue planning, you take your possessions for granted as you know your dad and I will simply replace them for you at the dro-”

“-What did you want, Mom?”

This time it was her mother who prolonged the silence, maintaining eye contact, breath firmly controlled. Sam made a note of it, but would sooner die than admit who she had learnt her most effective habits from.

“What I wanted, Samantha, was to invite you down to the garden to do some gardening. Together.”

Sam rolled her eyes.

“Why is that such a shock to you, Sam? I’m elated you’ve taken to botany so well. God knows I tried to get you into it as a girl, not that flowers or weeding held any sway over you. But now you’re entering a new phase of your womanhood, you’re developing a sense of aesthetic taste, domestic pride, a new sense of responsibility, shedding your teenage fascination with the gloomy and macabre-”

“Literally what gives you that impression? I’ve got 3 animal skulls right there on my shelf Mom-”

“-Well you’re not wearing that awful makeup-”

“-Because it’s a Sunday and I only woke up an hour ago! Don’t tell me we’re two minutes into our first interpersonal interaction of the weekend and ‘cause I’ve not put my eyeliner on yet you think I’m, what, I’m ‘shedding the goth’-”

“-You are developing more refined tastes Samantha and I don’t see why you would deny that!”

It was taking all her willpower not to scream. She felt that if she turned around now, every plant in the jungle of her room would be giving her a menacing thumbs up. Tear her a new one! 

“Oh my god Mom it’s just a bit witchier! Subcultures have fashion cycles too! Like yeah I’ve put my old band posters into storage and bought an oil painting at that auction we-”

Sam stopped. Breathed. Why did every conversion with her mom get so derailed?

Well because her mom found ways to sneak insults into every conversation, that’s why. Because she could do that. When Sam tried, it got her grounded.

It also tended to derail their conversations even further.

There were two ways to deal with Mom when she was like this. Way one, give her what she wants - a fight. Rise to the bait, throw some back, speak her truth, let the conversation switch between radically different topics at a whim.

Way two was de-escalation, and was far harder. It required a metric fucktonne of self-control, but mostly, just three ingredients.

Ingredient one: Stay On Track.

“Thanks for the offer Mom, but I’ll stick to my bedroom plants, thanks.”

“And while they’re looking lovely - besides that weeping fig of course - we are fortunate enough to have plenty of garden space, where plants can actually thrive. Are you unappreciative of that privilege?”

Ingredient Two: Don’t acknowledge insults that have nothing to do with the topic.

“I just want to focus on my bedroom, Mom. I don’t like the garden that much, you know that.” Not totally the truth - the greenhouse was pretty great. Mostly because it was firmly her territory. The perfect lawn and perfect flower beds were her mother’s.

Mom sighed, and set her shoulders. She was gearing up to say something. Something hurtful, no doubt. Sam braced, and prepared for Ingredient Three - when it gets really bad, disengage entirely. Shut the door. It wasn’t running.

Her mom said, “Well, we can do something about that. What would you change about the garden?”

Sam blinked.

And stalled.

“Samantha?” A nervous laugh. “Anyone in there?”

Sam frowned. “Um. Sorry?”

“You don’t like the garden. That’s a little hurtful as I put so much effort into it, and I think it’s rather beautiful, but I want you to like it too. So. What should we change?”

This was entirely new. Sam had no plan for this, whatever it was.

“Is it that it’s too “neat”? You’re “rewilding” attempts in the greenhouse are far from what I can deal with in the garden, and your father only convinced me to allow it was the greenhouse is mostly out of sight, but perhaps we-”

“Are you being serious?”, asked Sam. It wasn’t said with spite, or even incredulity. Just suspicion. Maybe even hope.

Her mom carefully folded her hands in front of her. She’d understood perfectly. “Dead serious, Sam. I- I want us to share something. We’ve never had something we could do together, except maybe swimming when you were little (but then you wanted to stop), and now that you have this wonderful new hobby, and it’s something I like too! So even if it means ceding some ground, if it means being able to spend some time with you that we both enjoy, even if it’s not really my company your enjoying but I get to see you enjoying yourself with me, then that woul-”

“It’s too much of a monoculture.” interrupted Sam, who had taken a small, defensive step back into her room.

“I’m sorry?”

“The lawn. It’s not just “too neat”, or “too perfect.” Like yeah I think it looks ugl- no, actually, it’s not that, it’s like it genuinely makes me uncomfortable. Those perfect lawn stripes are, they’re like this symbol of America but only in this really gross, plastic-and-fructose-syrup way, you know?”

Her Mom hesitated. She began to speak, but Sam barrelled onwards.

“And it’s not just how it looks, ‘cause like, turfgrass lawns are just such an issue. Like you have to put so much effort into keeping it up because it’s an invasive species and not meant to grow in the US so you have to keep it going with just so much fertilizer and even paint which runs off into rivers and causes eutrophication but then you also have to douse it in pesticide which kills of pollinators and you have to aggressively mow it with that massive fuel-guzzler-”

“Okay you hate my lawn, but you can’t ask me to lose the whole lawn!”

“Why not? We don’t use it for anything - you entertain on the patio, we don’t use it for games or even walking, it’s just there!”

“I won’t have our beautiful land just be mud-”

“Mom you asked for my opinion!”

Her mom blinked, and, for some reason, shut up.

“You can’t do that you can’t come to me with a sob story about bonding and ask me something point blank and get angry at my response without letting me finish the goddamn thought.”

Her mom opened her mouth, closed it, and gestured with her hand. Please, finish the goddamn thought. She folded her hands in front of her again.

Sam nodded. “Thank you. Look I can send you articles, there are alternatives, if you want to do that and if you want to take my mere suggestion seriously. Like, moss, or clover, or wildflowers. Or maybe even do something with all the space? You’ve got the planters crammed up against the patio. You could fill the space with more planters and have paths fill that space if you wanted to do something really cool. And make habitats for the pollinators. Like the botanical gardens.” 

Her mother’s eyes registered that. Their trip together for her thirteenth birthday had been her mom’s suggestion and she hadn’t given Sam much of a choice. Sam had reluctantly adored it all the same.

The small succulent from that trip had stayed on her desk ever since. Alone, until earlier that year. When it suddenly gained a whole host of siblings.

Time to disengage.

“Look Mom, I’ve got to finish this. Mopping up the water. I’ll send you those articles if you’d like, though.’

Her mom straightened, smiled with lots of teeth. “Of course, Samantha. I’ll read them.”

Sam nodded, and went to close her bedroom door. Her mom gently stopped her. “I’ll be in the garden, if you need me.”

A thin smile. “Sure thing, Mom.” She closed the door with a soft click.

Sam liked to imagine the plants were angry on her behalf. They’d seen the whole thing, and obviously they’d be on her side. 

Sam grabbed a dirty t-shirt from her laundry basket and set to mopping up the remaining water. As she worked, she counted all 38 plants her in room and noted their locations, light levels, water levels, obsessively-

God, she just couldn’t make her mom understand. That it wasn’t about looks and aesthetics and beauty, it was about the- the- the inherent sanctity of plant life, the codependent relationship between flora and fauna, the exchange of air and breath, the nutrient cycles, that her own

daughter you are mine the daughter of green the daughter of ultraviolet the queen of roots uncountable through the ground the city the planet

you are ruler you are monarch the flowers the leaves the vines these are your children these are your subjects these are your responsibility

you understand child you understand my daughter that humanity is infection is gnats is too-much-water is invasive grass it must be purged this pest

is yours to feed on to take their nutrients they are flies in the trap you will do my bidding my sweet greendaughter they will do yours you are chlorophyll you are ectoplasm shed your meat dissolve the juices of your flesh you-

…

Sam gasped and clutched her hand. She had somehow managed to find a sharp-enough pencil with which to stab her palm. She looked up, brain catching up to the fact that she had managed to drag herself to her desk, even amid the episode.

That was good. New, but good. Her body was able to act to pull her out, now. Even if she didn’t remember it.

Just another example of feeling eerily disconnected from her flesh body.

She fell into her office chair, and her head fell into her hands. She breathed. Always fucking breathing, like it’s a chore. Fucking oxygen. It never felt quite right, these days.

She needed to center herself. She knew the steps. Couldn’t remember the fucking steps. They were in the notes app on her phone. Where was her phone?

On the ground, by the jerry can and the mason jars and the magazine pages. Okay. Easy.

She sat up, walked, then half crawled to the same spot on the floor. Crossed her legs, sat upright, faced the desk, keeping the pencil in sight. Flexed her injured hand, and reached out for her phone.

She found the list quickly enough - she’d put the shortcut on her homepage.

5 See

Sam spoke aloud to the room. “I can see my phone; my desk; the window with the tree in full bloom. The raccoon skull on the windowsill. And the jerry can, it’s still got a bit of water in it.”

She shuddered a breath out. Unlocked her phone again and read the next line.

4 Touch

Sam closed her eyes and concentrated. “I feel the small stab wound from the pencil in my left hand. It fucking hurts. I feel that my right leg is a bit damp from sitting on the floor. It’s cold. I feel my boots on my feet, because I never took them off. I feel my pajamas on my skin.”

A longer breath in, and one out. She carried on, no longer needing the list.

“I hear the air conditioning, even though it’s not very hot. I hear the odd car on the road. I-”. Sam hesitated. How honest are you meant to be during these things? “I still hear the echoes of the voice. I hear words like ‘daughter’ and ‘queen’ and ‘flesh’ and ‘green’. But not with my actual ears. It’s a metaphor, kinda.”

“I can smell the lemongrass candle I’m burning. I can’t think of a second smell. Maybe my own body odor? I haven’t showered yet.”

“And I can taste my own ass-mouth, as I haven’t brushed my teeth yet.”

Sam sighed, and opened her eyes. A bird chirped from the tree. She furrowed her brows and stared.

“You couldn’t have done that earlier buddy? I had to admit I heard his voice instead, you tardy bastard.”

The bird probably didn’t laugh. But it sure sounded like it.

Before she could forget, she opened the Grand Spreadsheet on her phone, and went to the “SAM” tab. She logged the time, with the note “short episode. Mild self injury broke it, no memory of that bit.” and hit ENTER.

Five seconds later, her phone rang - the screen flashed the caller ID “circuits mcgee 🌱 🤓✌🏾🧑🏾‍💻🍑”

He started talking the moment she accepted. “Ohmygod Sam are you okay??”

“I’m calm enough to have filled in the spreadsheet so let’s say yeah.”

“FUCK. You were doing so well, it’s been weeks, thought we’d left ‘em behind for good. What’s the injury?”

“Stabbed my palm with a pencil. Not very hard, I don’t think? There’s a bit of blood but it stopped already.” Sam opened her hand to inspect the little puncture. A small spec of gray left by the pencil and some dried blood, and it stung to hell, but she had had far worse.

“Yeah but Sam, you know as well as I do that around here, an injury healing fast doesn’t necessarily mean ‘all is well’.”

He had a point, there. “You’re right, but I’m being honest actually, it really is tiny. I can send a pic if you want confirmation I’m not just bei-”

“Don’t you fucking dare send me a picture of your wound Samantha Manson.”

Sam let out an honest-to-god giggle.

The line beeped.

“That’s Danny, wanna-?”

“Yeah add him in.” said Sam, as the texture of the background noise changed with the opening of a new line.

“Oh my god, Sam are you okay?”

“She’s good man, sounds like a small one.”

“They’ve gone down in severity and frequency, I honestly think we’re coming to a close on that.”

Danny’s voice again. “I know you don’t like talking about it over the phone, want us to swing by for a debrief?”

“Honestly there isn’t much to it that isn’t what I’ve covered before. I’m his daughter-queen again, we love plants, we’re eco-fascists, yada yada.”

“It’s not the info that’s important Sam, it’s you saying it.”

Sam nodded, before remembering they couldn’t see her. “Good point. Even so, a full debrief feels unimportant. I can just…” Sam hesitated, then completed the thought. “I can just tell my plants.”

A short, but uncomfortable silence over the phone. She had hoped that comment would land better.

Tucker spoke first. “So no change on that front?”

Sam reached out a hand above the pothos hanging near her desk, and with a slender finger, beckoned it upwards. It rolled, like it was stretching itself awake, and a leafy vine reached up to her fingers. Curling around it, not dissimilar to a cat.

mother, she imagined it crooning.

Her thumb gently stroked a leaf. “No change on that front. If anything…”

“It’s getting stronger, isn't it.” asked Tucker.

Sam didn’t want to answer that. But Tucker’s correct conclusion was unnerving. “Was that a lucky guess, or…”

“...It might be the same for me.” He said, in a small voice.

“For fuck’s sake guys, there’s a tab on The Spreadsheet for this! Why is this the first I’m hearing that you’re both getting… more?”

“Well sorry Dr Fenton-”

“Don’t call me that-”

“-but what with updating it with all the spying I’ve been doing on half of fucking Caspar High-”

“Tucker tracking your symptoms is more important than tracking Dash’s-”

“Guysguysguys, let’s all pipe down, kay?”

The conversation went quiet, again. They all took a moment, planning their words.

Sam broke the silence. “I’ll go first, if that’s okay?”

Their noises of assent came through simultaneously.

“Okay so point one: Danny, you’re probably right about Tucker and I not being totally on it with documenting our developments.” Sam twirled around in her office chair, eyes darting about her room. “I can only speak for myself, but it’s mostly just that not much has changed? Or more that it’s changing gradually? Like I have an episode, I can log that. But ‘I think I’ve got a bit more control over my houseplants this week than last week, and a tree might have tried to talk to me yesterday’ feels like an unimportant update. I dunno. What about you, Tuck?”

There was an awkward silence. Some shuffling. Neither Sam nor Danny stepped in.

It was something of a habit amongst them. Thinking space didn’t always need to be filled with noise, especially when it was obviously someone’s turn to talk.

Eventually, “Ah man. It’s less that, more like, I guess you’d call it denial? Like… okay, skipping a bunch of keystrokes when hacking the GIW and using your brain instead is something I can probably brush under the carpet until I put it into words in The Spreadsheet which is either ironic or fitting I guess.”

That was new. Tucker had been developing… some sort of connection to his networks and cybernetics. At least enough to have rare insight into how those systems functioned, and sometimes being able to intuit novel solutions, or just know when something would bug. And one time, he may have granted his phone partial sentience. But a direct input into his code? New.

“Well that, and, agh. Right okay, full cards on the table. Sometimes, I go to put something about myself in The Spreadsheet, and I get this itching feeling. One high up in my chest that’s too deep to scratch. Not sure what to make of it, but I don’t like it. So I avoid triggering it, okay. Probably just anxiety.”

Another silence. Sam froze.

Danny asked, “A kinda itch that’s like, ‘stop that right there’?”

“Well yeah.”

Sam’s heart rate spiked, all the plants on her desk standing to attention. “Wait, you get that too?”

“Not you too, Sam.” came Danny’s voice. He sounded small, defeated.

“Okay this wasn’t me covering anything up, I’d just never like, consciously thought of it like that before?”

“Okay, you both get an itch that makes you not want to do something - in your case Tucker, it’s when you’re like, compromising your own security?”

“Yeah. Or like, my privacy, or data.”

“Sam?”

“Well it doesn’t come up very often? Can’t even think of a time, just that what Tucker said rings a bell?”

The sound from Danny’s line had changed. He must have found somewhere away from the shopping crowds.

“Okay. Tuck, what kind of feeling do you get when you, I dunno, patch in a new security protocol to The Spreadsheet?”

“Well I feel satisfied, obviously.”

“Yeah but is it a different kind of satisfaction to like, doing well on a test? Is it specific to when you’re hacking something?”

Sam could hear Tucker processing that. She had to process it too.

Tucker eventually managed an eloquent “Fuck.”

“Is it like, like a slight vibration? Feels like a warm cat purring on your chest?”

“Yes, Sam, that is exactly what Obsession feels like.”

“Shit.”

“Shit.”

“Shit.”

“Well I guess we can stop speculating that the denizens of Amity Park are slowly developing ghostly traits, if Sam and I are developing Obsessions.”

Because that was the crux of the whole matter.

For the last year, the three of them had been doggedly tracking the changes in the population of their little town. People acting just a bit stranger, a bit more compulsive. Heart rates and breath rates decreasing. No obvious reactions to blatant ectocontamination in the cafeteria food.

Voices just a bit more distorted over the radio, or tv. Heaters turned down, AC turned up. Tucker had even set up a bot to analyze the blinking rate at Caspar High and some local offices to compare with similar places elsewhere in the state. Unsurprisingly, the citizens of Amity Park didn’t feel the need to blink as much.

Shrugging off the voices in the cornfields, the apparitions in the woods, the shivers down your back when you look at a cemetery sideways. These adjustments had come quickly to the population due to their sheer frequency - The Horrors only hold sway when they surprise you. But the blatant unease the town residents gave to outsiders wasn’t just shrugged off amongst themselves - it was firmly, blatantly, ignored.

“No but you guys are special cases, you both had prolonged, individual overshadowings by powerful ghosts and your obsessions are related to them. Most of the town have either been mass-influenced, or just had quick stints as meatsuits. Like we’ve known for a while something’s happening but it feels like it’s speeding up for some people - Paulina’s never been this concerned with being pretty, or Wes with being up in everyone’s business. Then there’s the school building itself which is a whole ‘nother-”

Sam cut in. “Okay okay, we definitely need a big meeting to talk this through. Today?”

“Probably not, I’ve got mom’s actual normal gun to deal with…”

“I found a weakness in our backdoor to the Mayor’s Office’s security and it’s got me paranoid, I gotta patch it before something happens…”

“Okay, tomorrow after school? Yours, Tuck?”

“Sure thing, I’ve got the car tomorrow too. I’ll pick you up on the way in, Sam.”

Sam scribbled the reminder on a note. “It’s a date, gang. I’ll try and put together like, a report, I guess.”

Danny said, “I’ll catch up with you guys on the school steps tomorrow. Stay sa- Mom Jesus Christ that’s not how you- guys seeyousoon.” and his line went dead.

“Talk soon, Sam!”

“Talk soon, Tucker.” She hit the red phone icon.

The pothos, without encouragement, had continued to climb into and around Sam’s hand, gently holding a leaf against the pencil wound. The rest was clamped tightly around her wrist and forearm. Too tightly. 

With the feeling of being watched, Sam turned her head, glancing around the rest of her bedroom. Every plant had shifted slightly, reaching for her, leaves and stalks fighting gravity to be closer to her. 

mother, she imagined, again.

She extracted her hand, and walked briskly to the door. She strode quickly down the bright hallway, and down the grand staircase, grabbing her father’s set of keys from the hallway bowl. Reaching the front door with the full intention to shut herself in the plantless, steel, diesel and chrome deathtrap that was her father’s car and just drive, she stopped with the door handle in her hand.

A slight tickle filled her chest. An itch.

She turned to look through to the kitchen, and could see her mother in the garden beyond. Her usual hairspray-hard hair had rare flyaways, and a streak of mud marred her perfect neutral makeup. She knelt by a flowerbed, a tray of poppy seedlings on a paving stone beside her. Babies that Sam didn’t know yet. Her mother gently teased aside the soil with her trowel, placing each seedling bundle with care.

Sam’s chest warmed as she watched her mother. It hummed. She let go of the door handle, set her shoulders, and went to join her mother in the garden.

#ectoberhaunt23 #eh magic #day 2 #botanomancy #minor injury #blood #self-injury #possession (mentioned) #dissociation #mentions of a firearm #returns to tumblr with an entire oneshot yeahhh #dp #dp fanfic #danny phantom #sam manson #tucker foley #how does one write pauses without using “breathed” every other line #creepy amity park #Self-harm #fanfiction #long post #lolly talks

[thefallennightmare]

Patreon

Hello again my loves! I've decided to post something a bit different than I usually do. I know a lot of you LOVE my writing and I can't express how much your support means to me, truly. I haven't been this happy about life/writing in a long time.

While I love writing fanfiction here, I also have a Patreon where I have the first few chapters of an original story I'm working on. It's been a while since I've posted anything but I'm trying to get back into it. It's a fallen angel dark romance story. I understand it might not be everyone's cup of tea, but eventually, I plan on writing another story loosely based on Noah. The end goal is to get one of these stories' self-published.

PLEASE DO NOT FEEL LIKE YOU NEED TO SUBSCRIBE! Your support here is enough. Self-publishing is expensive so any help I could get means a lot. Again, do not feel like you need to!

I love you all for your continued support. Y'all fucking rock.

#tina talks #patreon #noah sebastian fic #personal #fallen angel dark romance

[andromedaexists]

It's Been a Week...

Seven days ago I introduced my book baby (Δάιος, you might have heard of it) into the world! On 10/10 Icky baby made his debut!!

So what has happened since then?

Well, my personal life has become a living hell but that's not what we're here to discuss. Today is all about self-publishing a debut novel.

Icarus came into the world on the 10th with a KDP ebook and paperback release. Those were soon joined on the 11th by an ebook, paperback, and hard cover wide release through the distribution channels of IngramSparks.

I have learned a lot with this process. Namely: IngramSparks is a fucking bitch when it comes to covers, Amazon will not provide quality author proofs so I have no way of knowing what my book will look like before it publishes, and that I need to give myself more time to work out the kinks next time.

Before I get too far into details, I want to highlight some numbers here. If you do not want to see publication numbers then you are free to go! Thank you for stopping by, though!

Okay, so here are my numbers so far:

I had sixteen (16) preorders on the Δάιος ebook through Amazon.

On release day, these orders processed. I also received another 3 orders that day, bringing the total number to 19.

Since that first day, I have received a total of 26 orders through KDP.

As you can tell, I had a significant dip right after pub day. This is mostly my own fault, as I am terrible at marketing and by virtue of my life going to shit I haven't even been shitposting about my book.

Of these 26 orders, 5 of them have been paperbacks

This is a lot better than I expected!! I think it's because I am so partial to physical copies that I tend to push those first and foremost before the ebook.

But these are just the amazon KDP numbers, I have also gone wide with distribution!

So how many orders have I gotten through IngramSparks??? None.

Not a one. That's to be expected though, a lot of indies sell through amazon first and foremost. I mostly set up ingram for two reasons: 1. I wanted to hold a hardcover edition of Δάιος in my hands but i really dislike the way that KDP doesn't offer dust jackets for their hardcovers and 2. Consignment

I just finished filling out some consignment forms for my local NE Ohio bookstores, we'll see if I get into any of them.

There is one other place I sell, though: my website. How many orders have I gotten there? 6!!

one of those images is different, because on my website I can offer something that amazon and IS can't. Physical goodies. The books on my website come with a pack of 6 stickers, a thank you card, and my signature! And technically I have 8 orders, but one hasn't come through yet from a friend in person and the other is for Shane bb who is getting an annotated copy of the book (I haven't finished the annotations yet lol)

So now that we have all the numbers out in the open, let's talk about money. How much did it cost for me to publish δάιος? A lot. It is possible to publish for much less than what it cost me, but I went out of my way to commission a cover artist that I just knew I needed to have and that cost me a pretty penny.

All in all, I spent $2,920.16 ($1,703.02 is the cover alone after conversion from GBP)

And how much have I made back so far, just in week one?

$73.46 from KDP royalties and $44.82 from my website ($94.95 - $50.13 for the books alone, not even counting the goodies and packing supplies) for a total of...

$118.28!!! That's a lot!!!

I am very privileged to have a credit card I can put my expenses on as I slowly pay them off, and I do not regret anything I have done in the creation of my book. Even if it makes me cry a little bit at how much I spent.

Now that the numbers are over, what are some positive things that have come of this and some negative things? (pos first)

I have published my debut novel!

There are 4 people who have read my debut novel and liked it enough to rate it on goodreads! (it has a 4.75 star rating atm!)

My book is BEAUTIFUL

Icky baby has been unleashed on the world!

I feel like I've finally accomplished something with my life

DID I MENTION THAT I PUBLISHED A BOOK???

the negatives:

I really don't like that the colors of the cover don't print properly, every copy I've gotten either lightens the contrast so you can't see the title or it darkens the damned thing and you can't see Icarus

I also don't like that IngramSparks doesn't support any letters outside of the basic latin letters on the spine of covers, because that means that my baby is naked under the dust jacket and that's just boring

Amazon Fuckt Up my print proof (i will attach pictures) and I freaked out about it for a good 4 days

I just realized today that I published daios with a placeholder chapter title about halfway through the book... so I fixed that but there are already more than 30 copies of the book in circulation with that error...

Idk if it's just my bad eyes but I feel like the text is too small in the print books. I would like to make it larger when I publish the revised edition next year

INGRAMSPARKS IS A LITTLE BITCH THAT WILL YELL AT YOU AND REJECT YOUR COVER IF YOU LOOK AT IT WRONG

I can order just a regular copy of daios off amazon and it will be here in two days. So why when I order author copies does it take TWO WEEKS TO SHIP

I really hate that the hardcover can't have creme paper. Like, gimme the offwhite. It looks so much better with my cover and the vibes of the story. Lemme use something other than bleach white please i'm begging

All in all, I learned a lot with this!! I had my ups and downs, I think I've done everything in my power to make this book successful, and now I just have to roll with it!

I will check in again at the one month mark, but yeah! That's it! Thanks for reading through this long winded post!!

The pictures, as promised:

And just in case you can't immediately see what's wrong:

The colors are off, the title has like a hard demarcation when it's supposed to be a soft glow and you can't hardly see Icarus down there

My name is brushed up against the edge of the book when it's supposed to have a decent buffer room

The spine is shifted. Why is the spine text partially on the front cover?

The colors are off on the back as well, the text is hard to read and it's too close to the edge of the book when it's supposed to be more centered.

For reference, here's the finally front cover on a regular paperback purchased through amazon (I.E. what a normal customer would receive):

#andi talks #publishing costs #publishing numbers #indie publishing #self publishing #call me icarus #writeblr

[literary-illuminati]

Book Review 64 – Poverty, by America by Mathew Desmond

I read Desmond’s Evicted a while back and found it a really excellent bit of sociology/journalism about the specifics and mechanisms of housing inequality and how modern slumlords exploit the poor. So this has been vaguely on my list for a decent while. Sadly, I found it a bit of a disappointment – more listing of facts and statistics that I already basically knew to support a manifesto than anything new or enlightening to me. Not that it’s bad, but if it was 20 pages instead of 200 I’m not sure much of value would really have been lost. Many such cases, I suppose.

The book is about exactly what it says is, a polemic decrying and investigation into why the United State’s poverty rates, and why extremes of material want are so much more common there than in comparable (poorer, even) western democracies. Refreshingly, Desmond has a clear thesis he doesn’t beat around the bush before saying – self-interest, essentially. The affluent benefit from having an underclass to extract resources from, and from excluding its members from the amenities they share, so they do. The book spends most of its wordcount enumerating and describing what Desmond considers the main problems: direct exploitation (underpayment, predatory financiers, slums, etc), an underresourced and misdirected wellfare state (compare the cost of middle/upper-class targeted programs like the mortgage interest deduction or tax-exempt savings accounts to the cost of adequately ending hunger or providing healthcare) and segregation (both spatial/residential and in terms of access to public or semi-public services).

It’s pretty traditional for a book like this to spend 90% of its wordcount diagnosing problems and then end with some publisher-mandated optimism and a chapter of solutions with a fraction of the care put into them as in the diagnosis. Desmond, to his credit, avoids this – each chapter includes both the problems and he considers the most feasible solutions to them to be. He actually makes a point of it, arguing that having practical, winnable goals that will actually improve things when achieved (and then celebrating them when they are) is a key part of any political organizing with a chance of actually working. Now, what I think of those solutions varies quite wildly, but they’re there and exactly what you’d expect for his politics – and speaking as someone whose been renting my entire life I wholly endorse fucking all the tax benefits you get essentially for having the cash on hand to make a down payment. (Relatedly, the book has a great deal of scorn for comfortable, affluent people whose progressive politics amount to lots of critiquing and zero actual positive action.)

Desmond is clearly writing this from the point of view of a(n inspirational) public intellectual; that is, by writing this he’s trying to call an audience and movement based around it into being. He likes the label Poverty Abolitionist and the central project of the book is basically trying to make it happen as an umbrella term people identify with – especially the affluent well-heeled people who read books like this, and might be persuaded to start boycotting companies for underpaying their employees or union-busting, or campaigning against government subsidies that benefit them instead of the poor. I did appreciate the relative hopeful tone, given the usual coverage of American politics – or, well, is ‘Washington was at least this fucked when it passed the Civil Rights Act or the New Deal” optimistic? Whatever the right word is.

Now, I’m summarized all this in ~500 words, obviously actually making the argument needs more space than that. But it really did not need to be as long as it was – a huge fraction of the wordcount is spent either restating arguments or just throwing around numbers and statistics without really contextualization (anyone who spends so much time comparing expenses and budgets across the decade should be legally required to adjust for inflation imo). There’s a good, well-cited (excessively cited, if anything. The footnotoes are like a fifth of the book) persuasive essay in here, but there is so much fat to cut around it.

Anyway yes, disappointing reading experience, given I was hoping for more sociology and less polemic. But as far as American political polemic goes, it’s pretty decent.

#book review #poverty by america #mathew desmond #nonfiction

[cold-heart-warm-writings]

Ouran Host Club Members and their Personal Bookshelves

*the bookshelves that are not dictated by their families, and are truly just for them* 

Mori: Mori doesn’t strike me as a huge reader outside of studying for school. Maybe a smaller bookshelf with lots of animal care books, a few gardening tips and tricks books, and a few other ecology books. There’s half a shelf on the history of martial arts in Japan and the different styles. No trinkets (his raccoon would steal them or the chickens might eat them). 

Honey: A shit ton of sweets baking books. Not because *he* is particularly interested in baking, but so he can show his personal chef what he wants to eat next. A *big* collector of cutesy blind boxes, so all of those trinkets are arranged by style and color along the various shelves. Maybe a hidden shelf with a few dark romances look read the manga this dude istg he a frea--

Kaoru: Went through a major self help/self improvement phase recently, and that’s reflected on his shelves. A few books in foreign languages. A solid amount of graphic novels. Went through a big super hero comics phase and was also obsessed with The Walking Dead for a while, so those are all kept fondly and neatly. He has some things he’s bought while out shopping with Haruhi at the commoner’s supermarket that he enjoys seeing lined up on his shelves. 

Hikaru: A respectable amount of manga, his favorite action-y and dystopian books, and video games. Messy, chaotic, series are not lined up together, much less in correct number order. They go on the shelf wherever there’s space, at least they aren’t on the floor, so who cares? Spines? Broken. Pages? Dog eared. Text? Written all over. Fucks? Not given. “They’re my books, I can do whatever I want with them.” Protect him from the booktubers/booktokers. Would absoLUTELY rip a book in half. Never let them know your next move.

Haruhi: Extremely curated. There’s not as much space where she and her dad live compared to the other members, plus books can be expensive. Haruhi is a big supporter of her local library and lending books amongst friends. She has a carefully selected collection of her favorite books from when she was younger and as she’s gotten older. There is also one book dedicated to each host member that she acquired in case they ever surprise pop by to help entertain them if she needs to get anything done. She also has a fair amount of trinkets and fun little figurines to decorate the shelves. 

Kyoya: #aesthetic #pristine #myshelvesarebetterthanyourshelves, look I do NOT see this man as having messy bookshelves. They are regularly dusted, spines are NOT cracked, and filled with classics all from the same publisher so the style of binding is uniform. Lots of Osamu Dazai, and even more Japan travel guides.

Tamaki: Gorgeous shelves. Giant, gleaming with polish, any bookworms dream. The shelves though? A bit chaotic. There is an entire shelf dedicated to The Little Prince in as many editions and styles he could find in dozens of languages. There are picture frames full of Odette and his friends and his mother, more children’s books in French, a shit ton of Japan travel guides, autobiographies on famous piano composers, an expansive music collection, figurines, dead plants that he swears are still alive, and any other means of proof that he is living his life to the fullest and having a good time. 

Bonus

Renge: Manga. You know those collectors who have those perfect white bookshelves, rows and rows of manga, maybe some fairy lights, and the funko pops of all their faves? Yeah, that’s her. *And* she has the volumes in Japanese, French, and English. Honestly, maybe a few other languages too if she likes the covers. Some are even signed. Renge also is not about that ~half completed series~ life, nah, she’s a completionist, and has *every* volume, even the volumes that don’t technically come out till next month. I aspire to be her in this regard only. 

Nekozawa: Japan’s largest collection, both of the personal nature and available to the public, of occult books, some of which date back hundreds of years. He was dark academia before it was trendy. Only light through special panes is allowed to permeate the room in order to protect these books. He also has some of those glass stands with certain books flipped open to his favorite pages. Nekozawa also has a substantial amount of occult artifacts which he sometimes lends out to museums. 

#this is aggressively long #i always start writing these late at night when i mean to do something else and then spend way to long writing #imma post this late at night too idc #but look when the idea strikes you just gotta run with it ya know? #ohshc #ouran #ouran host club #takashi morinozuka #Mitskuni Haninozuka #kaoru hitachiin #hikaru hitachiin #haruhi fujioka #Kyoya Ootori #tamaki suoh #Renge Houshakuji #umehito nekozawa #renge #nekozawa #ouran high school host club

[ladytabletop]

My GenCon bookstack!

There's a lot I can say about my first GenCon, but for now I just wanna talk about the cool games I picked up. Starting from the bottom:

Spire: the City Must Fall by Grant Howitt & Christopher Taylor

You got your oppressed elves and your ruling elves and a big ol fucked up city to skulk around in. Anyone who knows me knows I love the themes of this game. @monsterfactoryfanfic just did a fantastic video essay on the game that really highlights the politics and setting, which are what drew me to it in the first place. Grant and Chris signed this one for me, which was unexpected! I picked up Orc Borg for a friend at the same time.

Thousand Year Old Vampire by Tim Hutchings

The ultimate solo game; how could I resist? You are the titular vampire and you live lifetime after lifetime, trying and failing to hold onto memory. This book is so aesthetically pleasing! Very excited to crack it open and play.

Voidheart Symphony by Minerva McJanda

You have the real world and you have the Void, and you gotta try and rescue people from the Castle in the Void. Inspired by Persona! I'd heard of this one in name only - I kept conflating it with other games, though I couldn't tell you which ones. This one's also published by Rowan Rook & Deckard. I was intrigued by the mechanics of this one. Playbooks that change based on whether you're in the city or in the void? hell yeah, I'll give that a try. (also it was less expensive than Heart, which I was on the verge of buying)

Dream Askew/Dream Apart by Avery Alder and Benjamin Rosenbaum

Dream Askew has you playing queer post apocalyptic survivors in a community outside of what remains of society. Dream Apart is an alternate history of an Eastern European Jewish community. This is one I've been eyeing for a while. It felt like the gap in my game design knowledge - defining "belonging outside belonging" online turns into a cyclical discussion, so straight to the source I went.

CBR+PNK by Emanoel Melo

Technically my partner picked this one up, but I was an enabler for it. Love cyberpunk. Do not love six pages of rules for a machine gun (looking at you, Shadowrun). The design of this one is super tight, both in terms of game design and in its packaging/materials design. It comes with dry erasable character pamphlets!

Bang: The Duel by Emiliano Sciarra

Okay so it's a board game, not a book. my bad. I love the original game and my partner and I like playing two player games, so this was a fun find.

Void 1680 AM by Ken Lowery

I can't gush about this game enough. You play a lonely radio DJ taking calls from your listeners. It's a solo game where you build a playlist and it takes me back to my radio days! I was so excited to see this at the @indiepressrevolution booth at the con!

Hunt by Spencer Campbell

This one was also new to me, but I knew I'd buy something at the GilaRPGs booth. I was sold on it as Lumen 2.0, because I already adore the Lumen system. You play a doomed order of knights on a quest to slay a beast. If you succeed, the order is saved, and if not, it's doomed. The design of this one is really tight and modular, so even though it's a self-enclosed one-shot, you could certainly run it repeatedly with different combos every time.

I almost bought so many games, but I did have to be mindful of my spending! Honorable mentions I'll hopefully get in the future: Monster of the Week, Thirsty Sword Lesbians, Into the Wyrd and Wild, Anamnesis, Slayers, Moonlight on Roseville Beach, Cowboys with Big Hearts, Signal to Noise, I Have the High Ground, Apocalypse Keys, and more I'm sure I'm forgetting!

It was absolutely wild to see so many games I've got in PDF in print, and to meet a few designers and publishers I admire!

#the lady rambles #gencon 2023 #perhaps someday i'll shake the feeling of being completely out of my depth

[13tinysocks]

so how can we order the book / actually published version of syg, will it be on amazon or something else? do you have an estimate of the price?

Syg will likely be self pub so unavailable in Brick and mortar stores but for people who like to actually hold the book they're reading well likely sell it on our Etsy. Amazon has kinda shitty author revenue metrics but it does get eyes on it. Self pub is years faster but overall less revenue and marketing power for us. Im likely to query agents and if we're lucky we get bought up by a good publisher. Though I'm very very sure we won't get an agent because who in their right mind would touch ex murder erotica fanfic.

Estimated price for a digital version like 10 bucks or less

Physical paperback 20 because we'd be ordering and laying them out ourselves then shipping out. Hardcover I don't even know they're very expensive to get produced it could go high as 40. If we were to sell that we'd likely throw in stickers or a mini print bc I feel bad charging that much for one thing.

The book is likely to be 150k words so a LOT of fucking pages to pay for printing so these prices may change depending on the final version of the manuscript

#reply #anon #sygre #publishing