#anyways have another thing i wrote in september last year | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

remy2fang · 3 months

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I wrote about this on Twitter, but I might as well post it here too and elaborate.

M. Bison’s hat is in the new SF6 Ed stage and it’s missing the golden Shadaloo emblem. It’s because F.A.N.G took it and wore it as a necklace. For those who read the Feb 2018 three-parter story TOXICITY, it’s been stated that F.A.N.G wanted to revive Shadaloo and M. Bison, in which he thinks the former leader of the organization is not truly dead. He tried to find resources to fund his efforts. Fast forward to late September 2023, F.A.N.G’s plan still tracks as seen from A.K.I.’s arcade mode and by talking to NPC “FANG” Fei in World Tour. F.A.N.G wearing M. Bison’s emblem around his neck is a reminder that he has a purpose to fulfill.

Now you might notice something different with the emblem between the two F.A.N.G illustrations, even though both are supposed to depict the same time frame where F.A.N.G first met A.K.I.. The 2018 version has the emblem clearly drawn with the Shadaloo skull and wing (I don’t know where the other wing went). The 2023 version from the A.K.I. memory art, although highly detailed, the emblem looked simplified. The necklace doesn’t look like a Shadaloo emblem anymore. It only has a vague shape of it. I only noticed this after seeing this gorgeous A.K.I. and F.A.N.G fanart back in the beginning of December of last year:

https://twitter.com/yoooou_know_who/status/1730868640214561227?s=46&t=iEGeYIIN_aP028wRnoVcUQ

I take it that the fanartist probably used the A.K.I. memory as reference to draw F.A.N.G. I don’t know if the artist read the Toxicity story. Most people didn’t read it anyway considering how many people thought F.A.N.G died until the A.K.I. dlc dropped.

Anyway, there are some conjectures why the 2023 version is like this. Maybe the artist just wanted to simplify the shape of the emblem because “so and so” reasons, maybe laziness, despite the entire artwork being super detailed in everything else. Another reason could be that they retcon the emblem and have F.A.N.G wear something else.

What do I think? I think the art direction of the 2023 illustration wanted to obscure the image of the emblem because they don’t want to give everything away story wise, which seems most effective towards those who never read Toxicity. The devs probably wanted to save more storytelling for later. That is why in the base game we don’t hear much about Rashid, A.K.I., Ed, nor Akuma, because that’s a story to tell when these characters come out. And from the sounds from the A.K.I. dlc, not everything has been said about F.A.N.G either. A.K.I. didn’t mention about her master’s Nguuhao dagger even though is was written to be a big deal in the Toxicity story. She didn’t even mention about Shadaloo nor Bison in her memories…that is until the avatar has to do a mission for her because she got a message from FANG to look into Shadaloo. Still, she never said Bison’s name. She seems to view these things as tasks for the job. Hmm…it might be no wonder that the emblem looked blurred. All A.K.I. could think of is her life story and F.A.N.G lol. But F.A.N.G for sure likes Bison and OG Shadaloo.

With the reveal of this new stage, it gave people hope that Bison and/or Seth might return in SF6. I don’t doubt that. There are indications for their return and it’s great that people are excited for it.

For me, when I saw Bison’s hat without the Shadaloo insignia, it all comes full circle from the F.A.N.G-centric Toxicity story. F.A.N.G indeed took it and wore it around his neck. It’s only a matter of time when either he or someone else explains about the missing insignia. Because of Bison’s hat on the stage, I now have Sign #14 that F.A.N.G might return playable lololol.

Now let me pour more of my running thoughts here. I have a feeling that F.A.N.G had something to do with the ruined Shadaloo lab. He must’ve placed Bison’s hat on the chair after taking the insignia. The lab equipment seems to be working too. Remember, F.A.N.G was trying to fund the revival project as mentioned in Toxicity. I think this is the result of it.

Sure, it could be someone else who placed Bison’s hat on the chair, but I don’t know who else is as passionate about Bison and Shadaloo other than F.A.N.G himself. Balrog only cares about money and even worked for the Illuminati during SFV. Vega doesn’t seem to care about Shadaloo either and Sagat doesn’t want anything to do with the organization anymore. The Dolls are free and want to live ordinary lives. There are some Shadaloo henchmen that are loyal to Bison from one of Rashid’s missions. Since these lackeys were targeting Rashid, they might be affiliated with F.A.N.G because he’s the one character who has a major grudge against him…but who knows, they might be JP’s allies instead. Though, one could say that Juri Han might’ve set the entire thing up. Revive Bison and finally enacting revenge against him. She always wanted that anyway lol.

#street fighter #sf6 ed #f.a.n.g #m. bison #m bison #a.k.i.#a.k.i #ed street fighter #street fighter 6 #sf6 #shadaloo #art by others #sf6 thoughts

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bronzetomatoes · 1 month

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Sorry I would like a second opinion on a personal issue from people who had no involvement in the situation so. Sorta long post ahead

Ermm so there's this girl in my band class. And like at our school that means we've all been in the same class with the same 20-some people for both band and English for 2-3 years now, so we're a pretty close group as far as full high school classes go. But yeah there's this girl I've sorta known in passing the past couple years

When we got to school for the new year in September, this girl (gonna call her Alice, not her real name) had just come out as trans, started growing her hair out, was very skittish and socially awkward. Last year she had a friend group, this year none of them seemed to be talking to her. After chatting with us for a day in October, she asked if she could start hanging out with us at school more often. We all sorta went 👍 ofc you can

We really did not have anything in common, but we could tell she needed friends and like. It's fine, ofc, and our band teacher spoke to us privately about how great it was to see Alice have friends + the impact she could see it having on Alice.

After like a month or two, the early awkwardness and stilted conversations had... not gone away. But like I thought That's okay, being socially awkward isn't a crime, not everyone is good w that shit. We still very much did not have Any common interests, and honestly? We didn't even seem to enjoy each other's company that much, she just sorta hung around us bc she needed friends. We didn't find each other funny either, which sorry if that seems stupid but like thats kind of a big deal for me and my friends

One thing I started to notice was that she seemed... overly familiar? Like she started laying on pretty thick with flirting and sexual jokes in a way that kind of just fell flat. I kinda pinned it as social awkwardness + not taking hints, but my friends and I had known each other for YEARS before we started that shit, not. 3 months. And like it wouldn't have been a problem if Alice would like, stop when we asked her to.

On the one hand, I feel like some of my friends were a little harsh in the way they started icing her out, but on the other hand I had been fighting off a Bad Gut Feeling for months at that point and didn't much feel like going to bat for Alice? But anyway

I missed a lot of lunch hours for extracurriculars, which is when most of this shit goes down, so apparently Alice had kept on full sending it w the heavy flirting and sexual comments. Literally asked one of the more reserved guys if he was circumcised out of fucking no where. Asked one guy out, found out he had a gf, immediately moved onto another guy. Asked someone if his friend was single, guy said "no, but I don't think he's looking for anything rn," Alice replied "lmk if he gets better," kept making weird ass fucking jokes (including an incest joke about her REAL LIFE LITTLE BROTHER) until it was just like. This shit has gotta stop

And THEN. Alice's old friends told us that the reason they all fucking dropped her was bc she a) wouldn't quit it w invasive questions abt their sex lives (non-existent) (we're in high school band get real), b) went to someone's house to hang out and READ THEIR DIARY. And c) wrote. self-insert porn about herself and one of their friends and then showed it to them. ANYWAYYYYY we had had ENOUGHH but I feel really bad bc she really and truly got dropped by like 20 people all at once. And like some of us had a free period together so it was like we had been chatting for an hour a day from October to February and we all kinda just dropped her. But on the other hand what the actual fuck

And the thing is, we did give her a chance to apologize. We explained everything that had been making us uncomfortable and asked her to stop, and rather than, idk, deciding to stop hitting on all our friends, she tried to explain why she should be allowed to do it 😭😭 and like at that point I couldn't keep giving her the benefit of the doubt. It ain't misreading social cues if you're being told directly and you refuse to change your behaviour

This all went down like a couple weeks ago but I had to get it off my chest. Don't blame the band teacher or anything her heart is always in the right place but WOO BOY was it misguided 💀

#look anika's talking!

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thatastrobae · 1 month

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ＷａｉｔｉｎｇｔｏＥｘｈａｌｅ (Beta) 🌻🪻

I wrote this fic back in September, but I refuse to post on a03 until I have ch 2 written. This might be my next multi-chapter flowerbyte fic after 'Into You' is completed

“I’ve just got so much on my mind y’know…” the sixteen year old mumbled as he carefully steered the car. From the passenger seat, Captain Jeff Morales let out an understanding hum. He peeped that Miles was a bit tense that morning so he extended a listening ear. He always wanted a chance to bond with his son more and the second Miles turned sixteen back in August, he took him to the DMV to get his permit. Driving lessons commenced as soon as the kid got the piece of plastic. They drove around every Saturday and Sunday at 7 a.m. when the streets of Brooklyn 1610B were quiet and empty and neither Jeff or Miles had to put on their uniform/mask to protect the city. At this specific time, they could simply be Miles and Jeff: father and son. Not Spiderman and Captain Morales. Neither Jeff or Rio were shocked to discover Miles’ secret identity, in fact, it was a missing piece to the intricate puzzle that was their son. They had many discussions regarding their meta human child and ultimately decided two things: Number one being that they’ll continue to love and support him through his dangerous job and number two was that they’ll do everything in their power to keep him grounded (not that kind of grounded). Rio, being the fiercely protective mother she was, would be damned if Miles’ responsibilities as Spiderman stripped him of every ounce of normalcy in his life, so Jeff thought of this because what’s more conventional than a father teaching his son an important life skill such as driving?

“I hear that, yeah. So tell me what’s going on?” Jeff urged calmly.

“It’s just like…homework, girls…well one girl.” He looked to Miles and smirked.

‘A girl huh?’ Jeff thought, but then he felt a sense of dêja vu wash over him when he saw a blush coloring the top of Miles’ ears. He remembered having this same conversation over a year ago; back when Miles was falling behind in school and he couldn’t figure out why, back when the then fifteen year old was battling some inner demons and hiding a whole other part of his life from them. It was crazy how so much could change in a year.

“Another girl, son? I remember the one from last year.” The police chief joked. Miles’ jaw tightened and his Adam’s apple bobbed at the mention. Upon seeing this, Jeff masked his laughter with coughs. It may come off as insensitive, but he knew straight off the back things weren’t gonna last with the previous girl. Jeff knew all too well that at Miles’ age, romantic feelings for someone are strong but fleeting. Him being Spiderman didn’t except from this rule. Obviously ‘Gwanda’ was still a touchy subject. He wasn’t sure if Miles still kept in touch with the girl- last time he saw her was that catastrophic day after he got sworn in as captain. While Jeff wasn’t a fan of the emo? Alt? whatever; Miles seemed to care a lot about her and he felt bad that his son’s first love broke his heart- even though Miles has yet to tell him how. But that was in the past and the only way to help the boy heal was by bringing him to the present and instilling hope for a better future so Jeff opened the conversation again.

“Anyway, this new girl…what’s her name?”

Miles hesitated at first, the way someone with conflicting thoughts would hesitate. Truth be told, Miles was feeling conflicted, it was just recently that he decided to acknowledge his not-so platonic feelings for the fellow spider person.

“Margo.” he said, his ears still a deep shade of red.

It’s almost as if she was a genie because every time he says her name out loud, she makes an appearance. As soon as Miles got home from his driving lesson, he began to pack his bag for the week ahead. He shook the habit of waiting til last minute a while ago. It was only a thirty minute task and he was able to spend the rest of his Sunday’s not worrying about. As he gathered his clean laundry and art supplies, the topic of discussion from his earlier talk with Jeff began to materialize from a collection of pixels. The way her avatar was dressed- in a Minecraft midriff t-shirt and cargo pants-indicated that her physical self was dressed in the same attire. The intricate bubble braids on the other hand was most likely CC, still she looked cute as always. Miles smirked at his blue and purple friend.

“Y’know, one of these days you might end up catching me butt ass naked.” he joked.

“With the amount of times I pop up unannounced, I’m surprised that day hasn’t come already. It’s all good though, I’m very patient .” she gave Miles a smirk of her own as she sat knees-crossed on his chair. Upon seeing the pile of clean clothes on his bed, Margo rolled herself closer.

“Mind if I help?”

Miles gave her a grateful smile and nodded. He hated folding clothes with a passion. Not only was it tedious, but he was never good at it, unlike Margo who folded his white Oxford shirts with precision and ease.

“So…did you get it?” Margo asked cryptically. He knew what she meant by ‘it’ but the way she whispered her sentence made it sound like he was to obtain a bag of drugs or something so he decided to mess with her.

“Hmmm..get what?” was his clueless response as he sloppily folded a pair of slacks. When placing them down, he lifted his gaze towards Margo and almost busted out laughing at her narrowed eyes and pursed blue lips. She snatched up the khakis and refolded them.

“The Gotham Nights Deluxe Edition game. Y’know the one I cashapp'd you forty-five dollars for? Ring a bell?”

“Oh you mean this?” He asked reaching into his nightstand and pulling out the mint condition, unwrapped video game case. The gapped tooth grin that always warmed Miles from the inside-out split across her face.

“Also, I keep tryna send that forty-five back. You really didn’t need to go half with me, I was gonna buy it anyway.”

Even if he wasn’t gonna purchase the game anyway, he probably still would have gotten it for her to enjoy. One of her many favorite things to do in his dimension was play video games with him and Ganke on their shared PS5. Miles thought it adorable and began to chuckle, earning a playfully suspicious glance from her.

“What’s funny?”

“It’s just that…you come from this super advanced dimension where you have access to a whole entire virtual world…”

“Mhmm..” she urged him to continue, picking up a polo and folding that as well.

“…but you’re geeked about a mundane video game. And not only that, do you not realize that you’re playing a video game through the lens of another video game?”

“That last part is where you’re wrong, Miles.” she said breezily. He raised his an eyebrow, interested in what she would say to correct his perception.

“Yeah?”

“The VR in my dimension is a whole nother type beat. By putting on our headset, it’s more like we’re…extending our realities. People earn their living, build their craft, fall in love, etc. via virtual reality.” Even when she was correcting him and being informative, Margo was mellow and soft-spoken. He found himself never missing a word she uttered because as soon as she began speaking, his attention was like a moth to her flame. No one else (especially by voice alone), could put him in a trance like this.

“Take me being Spider Woman for example. I wish that I had the option to just turn off my system and turn it back on again if I ever screw up, but I can’t. I mean don’t get me wrong, I can’t really die while in avatar form which is pretty sweet. Still though, the safety of my cyberspace depends on Spiderbyte. You feel me?”

“No…yeah…I feel you. What I said before sounds really dumb now that I think about.” he awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck, a habit of his that Margo clocked when they first started hanging out. Normally she’d tell him to stop being so self deprecating, but she couldn’t help the giggle that escaped her.

“Not at all. Even I have trouble wrapping my head around our way of life. It’s definitely not a grounding experience and sometimes I’m scared that…” Margo trailed off. She’d never shared this deep, irrational fear with with anyone, but Miles was intrigued so he used his foot to nudge her into finishing the thought.

“I’m scared that one day we won’t even have the option to go outside and experience real life. Movie theaters and arcades aren’t a thing anymore, game stores will probably be next to go. Our basic needs can be met without even leaving the house and everyone seems ok with that…?” she looked down at her blue, holographic hands.

“I guess I feel like a weirdo for finding an issue with our remote way of living.”

“Nah, I bet there are tons of people in your dimension who feel the same way. Still though, I know how depressing it is to feel so disconnected from everyone so if you ever wanna talk more about it without being judged, I’m always here to listen.”

The grin returned to Margo’s face and Miles’ gave himself a pat on the back for being the one to put it there. Margo’s voice was timid, but tender as she uttered her next sentence

“Being able to come and see you is probably the best thing to come from this technology takeover.”

Her words caused his brain to short circuit. This isn’t anything new though. Margo would often say little things that had him blushing and kicking his feet- internally of course. They’d gotten close over the past nine months and it all started one random Tuesday evening as Miles attempted to complete an essay.

There was a sharp rap on his dormitory door, briefly drawing his attention from his laptop.

“It’s open!” Miles hollered out, not wanting to break focus on the paper due tomorrow afternoon. A few seconds of silence passed and he assumed whoever it was didn’t need anything for real. Then there was another hesitant knock. Miles let out a sigh of frustration before getting up and aggressively opening the door. The breath was immediately knocked out of him for two reasons. Reason number one being that Spiderbyte (who resided in whole other dimension) was one of the last people he expected to pop up out of the blue and speaking of ‘blue’, she wasn’t. She wasn’t glowing or pixilated either, in fact she blended in as a Visions student in this dimension so seamlessly. Dressed in a navy blue sweatshirt with the school’s name across the chest, leggings, and some sneakers — she looked like a classmate visiting another classmate to ask for some Ramen. So instead of pulling her into the privacy of his room as he probably would if she was in her spider suit, he just stared- astounded.

“Hey.” Margo said casually- too casually if you asked him. She peered behind him into his shared dorm room. “I hope I’m not interrupting.”

Miles quickly gathered himself and moved to the side, allowing her to enter before closing his door.

“N-nah…it’s just…you’re actually here right now. In the flesh.”

With his essay almost forgotten, Miles couldn’t take his eyes off of her deep chestnut complexion and neatly plaited hair. Perplexity flashed across her face before realization took over.

“Oh no no. I made sure to turn my graphics card up before projecting myself here. I’m still very much…

Margo glitched and a pixelated bubble appeared in thin air in front of him, revealing the teen girl with her VR headset firmly placed on her head, dressed in the same attire as her avatar.

“At home, chilling in my gaming chair and eating Fritos.”

He saw her actual person pop a crunchy corn chip in her mouth before the projection disappeared, allowing her avatar to stand before him once again. A slight smile appeared on Miles’ face, for the similarities between their first meeting and now wasn’t missed upon him. Only difference was that her parent’s weren’t screaming at each other in the background.

“Oh. It’s just that you look so…” stunning was what the word that instantly came to Miles’ head, but he refused to go down that road. Instead he finished his sentence with “…natural.” An odd save, but a save nonetheless.

“You’re dimension has Visons Academy too? And you go there?” He asked oh so intelligently. Miles didn’t know why he went with that when there were way more important questions to ask such as why she was here? How was she? Did they blow anther hole in the multiverse?

“Yes, but it’s nothing like this.” Margo responded, gesturing to his entire room “Once upon time, there were dorms and in-person classes. Now everything is-

“Online.” He finished for her. While Miles would love to attend school virtually, he refrained from voicing his sentiment. Something about the way Margo looked longingly at his and Ganke’s decorations made him feel like she would trade places with him in a heart beat. After a minute, Margo collected herself and focused solely and the boy she came to visit.

“Yeah. But it seems like your style and your roommate’s style don’t clash which is good.”

Now that they got the ‘how’ out of the way, Miles was trying to gather some words together to politely ask ‘why’ she was here- in his dimension- in his dorm. As if she read his mind, Margo chuckled and casted him a look of understanding.

“I was a little bit hesitant to come, but I really wanted to see how you were.”

“Are you sure that’s all?” He didn’t mean to sound so wary, but the last time a girl from an alternate universe ‘stopped by to say hey’ she was also on a top secret mission to capture a mephistophelian villain who got more powerful as time progressed. If something similar was happening here, he didn’t wanna waste any precious time. Miles eyed his spider suit hanging from his top drawer, preparing to gear up if need be.

“Aye chill, we not gettin’ active tonight.” she assured placing her hand on his shoulder to refocus his attention on her “It’s just that…it’s been three months since any of us last heard from you. Hobie said to give you your space...so we did. I guess I just came to relay the message that we’re thinking about you and whenever you’re ready, you can put your watch to good use.”

“All of you still keep in touch.” it wasn’t a question.

“Well it’s not like we host group meetings every week, but I tend check in on Hobie, Pav, or Peni often. Maybe they pop in on each other as well, but that’s about it.” She also spoke to Gwen before the blonde got super busy a month ago, but she refrained from saying so.

“That’s very kind of you to do.”

“Look man, you already know how lonely life get's for people like us- especially in an isolating society like mine. And now that we aren’t apart of the task-force any more, we need each other. As allies, supports, friends. My reasons for keeping them close aren’t unselfish.”

“I still respect you for it and for coming here.” Miles’ leather colored eyes were locked onto her ebony ones, both were unmindful to the fact that they’d inched a bit closer together. The young Spiderman meant what he said, he hadn’t known Margo Kess for long, but taking that kind of initiative aligned with the basis of her character. He didn’t need to know her for long to see that she a was a remarkable individual; who else would defy their psycho boss and extend their loyalty to someone they met for fifteen seconds? It wasn’t Miles’ intentions to neglect his friends/allies though. He and his family needed those three months to recuperate so he locked the watch Hobie had gifted him in a drawer and somewhere over those twelve weeks his friends: Peter, Pav, Hobie, Peni, Ham, even Gwen were stored in the back of his mind. Margo was interesting though, she was the most surreal out of the bunch so she snuck her way into his dreams once in a while. There were times where he would be tempted to draw her and as much as he tried to refrain, he failed. He had a few sketches of the virtual girl, but he told himself repeatedly that as an aspiring artist he had every right to want to draw such an aesthetically pleasing avatar with a bomb ass color scheme. Miles raised his eyebrow curiously when Margo began laughing.

“I was a bit scared coming here, i'm not gonna lie. I felt like I was pushing a boundary by showing up here uninvited... so thank you for that sentiment.”

A thought popped into his head and while he could have internalized it, he wanted to share it with her so she knew how much her being here meant to him .

“Around this time a year ago, I prayed for one of my cross-dimensional spider friends to show up. Hell, I would’ve even been ecstatic to see Ham.”

That last part caused them both to chuckle. He thought briefly about how different it would’ve been if Spiderbyte was also displaced to his dimension all those months ago. Would she have come to see him? Probably so, considering that she didn’t need Miguel’s tech to travel dimensions nor did she ever take his theory of canon events with a grain of salt.

“So it actually means a lot..you coming here, helping me out the way you did after the Spider Society…” Miles trailed off and peered out his window, the blatant rejection he experienced at the hands of all those other spider people still stung even after the apology and olive branch was extended.

“I’d do it again in a heart beat.” The conviction in her tone forced him to look back at her “..for you at least.”

Her sheer devotion to him had Miles melting like butter on a tender steak straight off the grill. ‘Why am I like this?’ He thought to himself.

Margo- aware of the serious atmosphere she created- attempted to shift the mood by gesturing to the open document on his laptop.

“I see I was interrupting something.” She joked “When is this due?”

Miles blew a raspberry, surprised at himself for allowing the paper to completely slip his mind, even if it was just for a few minutes.

“Tomorrow afternoon. It’s for AP Psych and I’m short nine pages.”

Margo sharply inhaled at how stretched thin on time her friend was. Despite being a genius, the girl was no stranger to finishing assignments on a time crunch. Being Spider-woman ensured that would be her new normal. She glanced at the title that was written in bolded sans serif font letters.

“Anxiety and Sleep Paralysis: How Individuals with Anxiety Are Likely to Experience Sleep Disorders” Margo read out loud. “That’s an interesting topic. I’m sure we can knock this out by midnight.”

“We?” Miles regarded her with a perplexed look to which she tapped her index finger on her chin as she pretended to think.

“If only I had the ability to locate and synthesize relevant sources via the internet in less than a minute.” she stated sarcastically before fixing him with a sly grin.

She did in fact stay with him until 11 p.m., feeding him information that he could stuff his essay with to come up with the required ten pages. He expressed that he wanted to see her again and sure enough, she kept coming back. Now nine months later she still managed to have him wrapped around her virtual finger whenever she said something sweet or flirty and looked at him through those long, feminine eyelashes like she was doing right now. When she says these things, he knows she means them and it’s a clear indication of her not-so platonic feelings for him. It made Miles feel like they could actually fall in love with each other.

And that was a problem.

Miles wasn’t the same man he was last year or the year before that. His hopeless romantic fourteen year old self would’ve been so receptive to this beautiful girl’s subtle displays of affection, but after everything he went through, he didn’t know if he had it in him to love anyone the same way he loved Gwen Stacy. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to. He knew that hurting him wasn’t Gwen’s intentions and that she was going through a lot personally, but it didn’t soften the sting. His best friend banded together a whole force to save him and apologized within an inch of her life so of course Miles forgave her. He low-key blamed himself as well because in hindsight, he idealized her for a whole year- basically falling in love with a memory of this awesome GhostSpider who understood him. Drawing her every day and getting lost in fantasies was the perfect way to set himself up heartbreak. Miles hadn’t seen her in a year—not because he held any ill will, but because despite all his good memories of her, he couldn’t stop reliving the embarrassing moment that was their last interaction. It was only thanks to Hobie and Margo— who actually visited her on the regular — did he know that Gwen was safe back at home with her father, taking a hiatus from being Spiderwoman. Back to the beguiling, blue baddie that was currently flipping through one of his sketchbooks from the eighth grade that he’d granted her access to. Miles was a naïve little boy who lacked self control when Gwen was the object of his affection, but now he knew better. Despite Margo being nothing but loyal to him since he met her, Miles refused to instill all of his trust into the girl. He refused to fall in love with her, giving her the opportunity to break his heart (unintentionally or not). If there was one thing in his life that he could control it was this. Once Miles realized the pure contentment he felt watching her doing something as simple as lounge in his room and look through his art- he knew he had to put an end to it.

“Yo i’m actually heading to the store with my mom in a bit so you should probably…”

Margo’s blue cheeks flushed violet as she shut the book.

“Oh yeah! Of course. My bad.”

He felt immense guilt at her innocent response to his frankness. Margo was so precious and he was usually relaxed around her, but lately it’d been getting more difficult being in her presence without wanting to hold and caress her. She got up from her sitting position and placed his old sketchbook neatly back in the spot she’d retrieved it from.

“I’ll see you guys tomorrow night?” Margo asked gesturing toward the video game case.

“6 p.m. sharp, girl. That is if I don’t run into too much trouble during my patrol, of course.”

Margo gave him a closed-mouthed smile of mild contentment before turning away to leave, but Miles didn’t want to part ways on such a lukewarm note. Worried that his previous abruptness offended her more than she was letting on, Miles called out to the avatar before she could depart.

“Margo, hold up.” he rushed the words out causing her to look back at him with slightly raised eyebrows.

“Yeah?”

“Your hair looks really good. I didn’t get a chance to tell you earlier.”

“Thanks! I actually did it myself…with some help from my mom, but still.” She proudly fiddled with one of the silver cuff decorated strands.

“Either way it’s fire.”

Finally, her gapped tooth grin made its appearance at his compliment. Miles considered it a mission completed and pat himself on the back.

“I’ll see you later.” And with that, she was gone in a blink of an eye. Miles let out a sigh, but it wasn’t one of relief. Quite the opposite actually. You know the feeling pure bliss as the late spring sun shines down on you, providing you with a pleasant warmth and vitality? Then eventually a cloud looms over to block the sun, causing you to feel…deprived and you have no choice but to wait until the cloud passes so you can experience the beaming sunlight again. That’s probably the best way to describe Miles’ discontentment at Margo’s departure. Although to be fair, he did basically shoo her away.

‘I need to get goddamn grip.’ the lovelorn boy scolded himself as he plopped down on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands. With his laundry already folded and his plans to go to the store with Rio not til this afternoon, Miles decided to pass some time by sketching a little. He unlocked his nightstand and hidden in plain sight amongst a bunch of miscellaneous objects were the dimensional travel watch Hobie had given him and a sketchbook he’d gotten at Marshals. Miles plucked the sketchbook from the drawer and went to sit at his drafting table. This particular sketchbook was different than his others. It had a silvery, rainbowish holographic cover and when opening the book, one can expect to be met with a portrait of a smiling Margo Kess with her low afro puffs and blue skin. If you turn the page there was another sketch of the avatar…then another…then another and so forth. Miles flipped to the last few pages of the sketch book and picked up his navy blue colored pencil to create the outline of intricate bubble braids. His tendency to put people- specifically girls- on pedestals contributed to his downfall last year and he was too grown to make the same mistakes, but old habits die hard and Miles shamelessly sketched his avatar friend with the rationalization that

‘As an artist, it’s my right to capture what I find aesthetically pleasing.’

#miles morales #margo kess #miles/margo #flowerbyte #across the spiderverse #spiderman atsv #spider man: across the spider verse #cyberflower #jefferson morales

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folklauerate · 5 months

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20 questions for fic writers

thanks for the tag @bad-surprise and @ladykettlechips

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

71 under my name and a few on anon!

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

796,982 which is kind of insane to think about. I started writing creatively for the first time in years in January of 2022. To have published this much is kind of crazy to think about. I'm likely going to hit 800k this year which is... Just wild. Lol.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

The vast majority of my fic Bridgerton! I've written a two for The Rings of Power (Haladriel), one for Shadow and Bone (Darklina), and one for The Hunger Games (Everlark). I have plans for a few more Haladriel and Darklina :)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

(NOTE: I actually have never looked at my fics by kudos, I only know the set up is the most kudos'd one because well it's over 1k and none of my other fics are. So going through this was interesting!)

The Set Up — My Kathony royals au where Anthony is the King of England and Kate is a world famous actress. This is my most popular fic by far, I'm not sure how it ended up that way! It's a mind boggling amount of kudos (1,769 as of right now) and I know a lot of folks have much larger kudos counts, and it's hardly the most kudos'd in the fandom lol, but it's pretty big for me and I'm not sure if I'll write something else that'll get more lol. I do love this fic a lot, it feels like they're my own characters and that's likely because I've taken plenty of liberties and whatnot. Anyway. I could do talk about it for ages so I'll move on!

Hold Onto You -- A oneshot of Anthony holding babies--his own and his siblings. It was one of the first things I ever wrote for the fandom! Looking back it's a bit of foreshadowing for how I started to write lol--it was a pretty long oneshot written in less than a day which I've done multiple times since then. I haven't revisited this one in a while and don't even know if I can--writing regency is not my strong suit and my earlier writing is still hard for me to read these days lol.

leave the light on — A twoshot where Kate and Anthony are roommates and fall in love. It's set in NYC and is very rom-com-y! It has some of my favorite things to write; domesticity, people growing with one another and around one another, descriptions of the sky, descriptions of the subway, descriptions of NYC, a big wedding, a love confession. I recently finished it lol! I'm actually surprised this is up there!

Office Hours — I wrote this in September of last year in an attempt to get better at writing smut! I actually posted this on anon first because it felt too revealing to post this lol. I was actually really uncomfortable writing smut back then and I think I've improved a lot since then. The response was wild, I really was just so in the weeds with this fic that I couldn't even tell if it was hot or not lol.

lost in your current like a priceless wine— this is my prof au! And an age gap au :) writing this was wild and special. It was a lot of texting Kara and being so very thoroughly enveloped and possessed with this idea that was taking shape. I wrote this over countries and continents and on planes. I wrote all 40k of it in far less than a month and just! I dunno! It was so immersive. It's one of my favorite things I've written. It's crazy it was just this year.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I do! Lol that being said--I have quite a backlog right now. Responding to comments takes a lot of energy and time from me and I usually figure that people want me to write fic as opposed to responding to comments. I do want to say that I honestly sincerely appreciate every comment. I think all fic writers do. We love hearing what you loved and love hearing your thoughts! I'm sure my not responding to them is likely not encouraging so I'm sorry. Know that I want to respond to them and I am quite literally in the process of doing so right now lol. If you commented on Bridgerton, Actually (my Love, Actually AU from last year) then I've been responding to you lol!

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

This fic isn't finished but my daddy warned me about men like you lol!

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

I'm a sucker for a happy ending! I'm not sure what my happiest ending is, but the vast majority of fics have a happy ending :) Feel free to lmk what you think the happiest ending is.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Yes. I've gotten some really inane hate comments that are just... dumb and easy to brush off. I've also gotten really intense hate comments that are so long they've required multiple comments, with people reposting exactly what they wrote after I deleted it. It's been really tough to deal with and I think I have some mild anxiety around comments in general as a result. Anyway, it's tough! I think hate comments tend to stick around the most in my brain and so I do appreciate all the nice comments because the gut clench from negative ones never really goes away :,)

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I do indeed write smut! I'm not really sure if I can describe what "kind" or how you can tell what your kind of smut is? I write plenty of dirty talk and smut with and without feelings. In general, I think that smut does need to do something for the story if it's in a fic with plot--if it's a fic that's just smut then it doesn't really matter. If it's a fic with plot, I like to make sure the smut actually helps the plot along and works to carry the reader through what the characters are feeling and their journeys.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I haven't but I will enjoy adding celebs or pop culture things in fics!

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yeah.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope but if anyone ever wants to, lmk! Translation is an art form and tricky and time consuming and I'm happy to work with anyone who wants to :)

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

I have and I have LOVED doing it!!!!! I was so thrilled to write the West Wing AU with Rama, whose Tumblr @ I simply cannot find, and @grantairesbottle and I wrote in our perfect park together! Both AUs will be getting follow-up fics :) I truly adore both of their work and getting to write with two dear friends and incredible writers was just so lovely. Even more fun than that was just getting to freak out over this shared idea together! It was just such a lovely joint venture.

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

I could not pick one! I love James/Lily from Harry Potter, Katniss/Peeta from The Hunger Games, and Kate/Anthony from Bridgerton. I'd honestly say they're my OTPs! I love them so, so much. I've read so many Everlark and Jily fics growing up, too, those I've had for so long. It's kind of hilarious how those three have so much in common, like it's not like I went around looking for ships like that but it just happens. You like what you like, I suppose :)

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

I honestly do want to finish all of them but I don't think I'll finish my Gilmore Girls AU, simply because the characterization is so far off from what I think or how I understand those characters now.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Creating really immersive worlds through specific details. Doing research to make worlds lived in. I write a LOT of modern AUs for a book/show that takes place in regency England so I think world-building is one of my biggest strengths. Being able to transport characters into new worlds and understanding how they'd respond to that specific world and situation of the fic is another strength. I think my banter is pretty good? I also like to think I have a pretty good pulse on what my audience will like and what seems to be the thing du jour in the fandom. I usually don't end up writing to it lol but this is a strength as a reader, I'd say, not as a writer.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

PATIENCE lol! If I spent more time perfecting, editing, and letting things percolate, I think my works would all be better for it. Instead, I largely write and write and write and then hit publish the moment I'm done. With a few fics (specifically the royals au) I will have someone beta for me and then I at least have another level of editing and another pair of eyes for a vibe/gut check before I publish. I do think, however, that if I was brave enough to actually face my work and sit and edit, it would all be better in general. I'd also then be able to finish a fic before posting, which I've simply never done.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I do plenty of this for Bridgerton fic because I usually try and include Marathi or Hindi for Kate and her family. Idk if i'd count it as another language but it is another language in the sense that it's not English!

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Harry Potter lol! I wish I still had my old HPFF fics :,,) that website sadly went down and I don't know how to use the wayback machine to find that. But yeah!

20. Favorite fic you’ve ever written?

Oh, I couldn't pick just one! The Set Up is def one. I've done a lot of work with world building and research for that one. Sweet Like Honey is another favorite fic. I wouldn't even say that it's really a great example of those characters because I did a lot of work to bend things to make stuff work for this particular situation. I maintain that it's true to the characters for this specific situation which is a p bonkers one. I mean, I wanted a step-father fic so I wrote one! It turned into something a bit more involved. lost in your current like a priceless wine is another fav. This one is just... it's special to me. It was really different from the other fics being written at the time and I hadn't seen or read an age gap like that for these two or a fic where they don't have that initial bickering/fighting vibes, which was a result ofc of Anthony being a bit older and the characterization I gave him for the AU, so it felt really scary putting it up for people to read. The response was really overwhelming and wonderful and so kind. That fic also marks a sort of turning point in my own writing, for me at least. I think I got braver after that one.

Thanks for the tag! I hope this is fun or interesting to read :) tagging @grantairesbottle @amalinwrites @somethingclearandtrue @tinacentury and Rama whose @ is not coming up !! Also tagging anyone who would like to do this :)

#fanfic #writing #ask a fic writer #some questions and thoughts on my own fic

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dopedoopey · 8 months

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(Okay so hear me out. I wrote this on 15th August and it’s 1st September today. I’ve got some things to say. I initially didn’t wanna post this because I’m delulu but let’s just say things have escalated.)

Guys.

We’re halfway through the season. Max is practically steam-rolling all drivers (including his teammate) at this point and he will keep doing so until he wins the championship this year. Zandvoort is gonna be his, we know that. But if there’s anything that could potentially break his win streak, it’s Monza. Not because of the so-called curse the track supposedly carries, but because it bleeds Ferrari. There’s no better win for Ferrari than Monza. We unfortunately couldn’t have the Imola GP this year because of the floods in the Emilia-Romagna region. Another important race that Ferrari could only hope to win back then. (They didn’t have the upgrades until the Spanish GP, so they would have performed poorly at Imola anyway)

Now that we’ve seen some improvement in strategy, pace and overall performance, Ferrari doing a lot better than they were at the start of the season. (Hopefully will they continue to improve). With Charles’ P3, P2 and P3 in Baku, Austria and Belgium GP respectively, he’s had some consistency and is now 5th in WDC standings.

Carlos however, I wouldn’t say the same about him. Yes he’s been quite consistent, finishing in points almost every race with only one DNF but he has yet to score a podium. And I think that very thing needs to change in Monza. I want Carlos Sainz Jr to be the Ferrari driver winning in Monza this year. The haters are gonna come at me with knives, frankly idc but it’s something that needs to happen. And here are my reasons-

1) Carlos could be leaving Ferrari for Alfa Romeo (Audi) or possibly Alpine for the 2025 season as his contract with Scuderia Ferrari expires at the end of the 2024 season. Personally I think he would want to stay and sign a similar 2+3 contact Charles has allegedly signed. (It’s silly season so I could be completely wrong but those are the top rumours/news so heh~).

2) I will spend forever highlighting the fact that Monza is literally the most important race for Ferrari (which they continue to bin with shit strategy) and winning in Monza is every Ferrari driver’s dream. Charles has achieved it in his debut year at Ferrari and with the great Sebastian Vettel as his teammate which makes it iconic. Carlos also has that very dream. It’s evident, he finished 4th last year (uneventful safety car period robbed a podium as he had the pace)

3) He has the car to do it. We know that ex Ferrari team principal Mattia Binotto specifically had SF-23 designed to cater more to Carlos’ driving style and technique than Charles’. Yes the SF-23 is a shit tractor that can only manage to bring nothing more than 4th place in constructor’s championship this year. But I’m getting the feeling that Ferrari might get this shit together for Monza and at least manage a podium finish for either drivers. (I’m delulu)

1st September

HOLY SHIT CARLOS SAINZ P1 IN FP2 ON HIS FUCKING BIRTHDAY IM CRYING

WILL UPDATE SOON

Update 2nd September

CARLOS FP3 P1 AGAIN

LETS HOPE FOR A GOOD QUALI

CARLOS QUALI P1 IM CRYING

Carlos p3 and Charles p4 I’m okay

#carlos sainz jr #carlos sainz #f1 #dutch gp 2023 #monza 2023 #charles leclerc #delulu #i’m scared #hope it goes well #gosh #ferrari #scuderia ferrari #god help us all #italian gp 2023

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woodswolf · 4 months

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14 and 23 fic asks!

end of year fic asks

14. a fic you didn't expect to write

UM. definitely my current wip that i've been working on since like the last week of august or something. 37k and counting and it's still only about half done. like okay! literally the longest fic i've written since high school and everything of comparable length i've written is shit!

23. fics you wanted to write but didn't

uhhhhhh do the multiple planned sequels to my current wip that i cannot physically justify writing before i finish it count

otherwise there's like 4 other things, in order of likelihood that i'd actually work on them:

another pikmin fic entirely unrelated to my current wip. i actually have some of this written but i haven't touched it in like 2 months for no particular reason. basic premise started out as "Hm what if there were long-term consequences to The Events of p4" and then turned into midsommar lmao.

Manhattan, a tribute one- or two-shot to one of my favorite fic series of all time, The Station Sequence (Wells Street Station / The Ellipse / Promenade / Narodnaya) by Marquis Carabas. Fucking INCREDIBLE takes on Coraline and the kind of trauma that would naturally arise from her circumstances, but also an excellent example of She Who Fights Monsters and the impact that that has on herself and other people. I have a lot of very specific headcanons regarding parts of this series that I would have wanted to turn into a ten-year-anniversary tribute or whatever but unfortunately I didn't think of that until both the "series start" and "series end" anniversaries had long passed. But I'm absolutely going to write this anyway at some point - there are just too many specific ideas and some of them are already partially written.

the ninjago AU longfic that i've been planning... definitely since i finished crystallized, possibly since the s15 finale (but i don't think so, i remember the early concept was much more "this is an AU of crystallized" than "this is an AU of ninjago in general" so it was probably when i finished crystallized). the concept has Evolved a lot since then, but the basic premise is that sea!nya and a weird version of zane that i invented whole-cloth out of implications... they don't really "team up" as much as "orbit around each other for a billion years" in a way. julien is heavily involved, because you KNOW i can't resist that shit, and so are echo and harumi. i've already done a lot of Figuring Out with this universe or whatever but it'd take a Lot More and frankly DLD has much higher priority.

a few miscellaneous sciadv fics that i wrote a little bit of but which unfortunately did not go anywhere, and then amadeus wasn't nearly as important in A;C as i was hoping she'd be RIP. these are probably dead unfortunately the motivation is basically gone. ironically i might circle back to writing something for O;9 at some point instead - going in i thought it'd be horrible from what little i knew about it (unfinished VN/light novels and Breasting Boobily: The Anime), but actually i watched the anime back in september. aside from the pacing in the first few episodes feeling like i got infected with radical-6 and then started watching a normal show, it was LITERALLY fantastic and i am still fucking thinking about it. but! no plot bunny, fic needs a plot bunny. maybe something would come to me on a rewatch though.

thanks for the ask! :D

#my posts #asks #end of year fic asks #dogs leading dogs

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gobbluthbutagirl · 8 months

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sorry if this is weird but as someone who hates their hometown and wants to leave it's very inspiring to see your posts about hating south carolina/wanting to get back to la...gives me hope that one day i will also escape lol. anyway hope you're doing well i'm rooting for you from afar

thank you! not weird at all don’t worry! and you WILL escape one day i believe in you!

also i know you didn’t ask but number one piece of advice i can give for Getting The Hell Out is once you do Get The Hell Out do NOT compromise about where you live. if there is virtually nothing you like about an apartment do NOT move in there! you will NOT magically start liking it at a later date! and it’s one thing if you hate where you work because you don’t live at your job but if you hate where you live too? you’re pretty much screwed because that’s what you have to go home to every night. that’s the main thing i did wrong because i was kind of in a beggars can’t be choosers type situation(no credit score, no rental history, no current income and my last job in sc had paid me like $4 below what LA’s minimum wage was at the time) and i didn’t want to keep airbnb hopping, i wanted to start my life in la NOW so i moved into the first place that would take me and that place was an old ugly dirty tiny shithole studio with no oven and a one-legged florida man landlord named dave who still had a “stop the obama agenda” sticker from 2010 on his wall and it cost $1,425 a month. SAD!

and then the other big thing i did wrong was, because tipped workers in LA make the same minimum wage as non-tipped workers, i applied for retail jobs instead of serving jobs. and obviously it depends on where you’re trying to go because that’s kind of an LA-specific thing and if you move somewhere where tipped workers make $2.13 an hour it obviously does not matter nearly as much. but i could have been making waaaaaay more money that whole time had i not gotten so caught up in the triumphs and defeats, the epic highs and lows of World’s Worst Target.

but yeah. live and learn! and the great thing about the way it worked out for me(getting so fed up with that apartment that i decided to go back to my hometown temporarily instead of staying there for potentially 6+ more months while i found a new job and accumulated the 3 months of paystubs i’d need to move to another place) is i still have all the money i had managed to save up while working at target. which is enough that i can literally move back at any time. and i have a temporary “job” that i’m doing right now that will probably last until mid-september (it’s a process that i’d estimate is about 65% done currently) which coincidentally happens to be the “ideal” time to look for a job according to some guy buzzfeed wrote an article about who’s worked in hr for like 20 years. so probably september/october i’ll start doing some WFH customer service job and between january and march i’ll have been at that job long enough to have 3 months of paystubs and will therefore be able to move back to LA & into a non-shithole apartment. so ultimately at the end of the day i do believe it’ll all work out for me. And also that, as a wise episode of 30 rock once said, sometimes the way back up is down

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kimmiessimmies · 1 year

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Hello?? Anyone still out there?

While I seriously doubt anyone is still following KimmiesSimmies, I wanted to post anyway, just in case someone is. I have some plans, and would like to share.

First let me tell you where I’ve been and why it’s taken so long for me to post here again.

My last post was in 2018. Right before I got involved in renovating my new house. In september 2018, my son and I moved to our new place. There was still lots to do and on top of that, in April 2019 I fell pregnant with my second child. Very much planned, but still lifechanging. On Christmas Eve 2019 my daughter was born. Life with two kids is wonderful, but also very busy. Considering it takes my game at least half an hour to start up and then it’s always bound to crash again sooner rather than later, finding the time to play, and then edit the pictures and writing the stories for KimmiesSimmies is nearly impossible. However, my love for my Simmies is everlasting. I missed them dearly, they’re like family to me. Even though I couldn’t play, I was often thinking up stories and making future plans for them. Will Henry succeed in greenifying Honeycomb Valley? Where is Martha? Does Daniel and Sadie’s relationship survive the distance? How does Morgan handle her co-parenting situation? What does Susie and Luke’s wedding look like? I have the answers, and many more, but they’re all in my head.

However, I’m dying to share. These stories, that have been building up in my head for five years, need to get out. So I started writing. And even though I don’t think KimmiesSimmies still has much of an audience left, I still decided I want to share these stories. Now the only question left was, how? My site has always been heavily picturebased, as is to be expected of a Simblog. This has always been my style as well, at one point I even said it: I don’t play to write, I write about what I’ve played. This was already shifting slightly within the last few stories I’ve written. Because even then, with one kid, the time I had to play was far less than the time I had to make up stories, I started to use my play time to play out the stories I had set up in my mind. While playing I took pictures and when I wrote the blog post I made up the text but the main story line had been clear even before I started up the game.

To tell the stories I need to tell now, I will take it one step further: the stories are already written, in detail, and when I get the chance, I will start up the game to take the pictures I need to emphasise the words. I won’t play out these stories in their entirety, but I will set up the scenes I need so the stories get that little bit extra. I couldn’t even play the stories out fully even if I wanted to, because the way I’ve written them now, my characters sometimes perform actions impossible in a Simuniverse. My “no poses” policy however, will, mostly, be maintained.

The stories in itself are also slightly different. While I was writing, I realised I often focused more on the emotions involved in the moment, sometimes making the stories more serious. At the same time, writing this way, gave my characters more personality. So, more text, less pictures, but also a lot more depth. Another consequence of writing first is that the subjects of my stories have changed a bit compared to before. When playing, it’s easy to show an event, or a casual Summerday where not a whole lot really happens, but it’s still fun to witness and be a part of. When writing without playing first such situations make for a less interesting storyline, so those will occur less.

Long story short: if you are still following KimmiesSimmies and stuck around for 5 years to see how their lives continue, you will get your answers. In a different way than you’re used to and I can’t make any promises about frequency. But yes, things will happen. I for one am very excited about this. 🙂

My first story, evolving around James, is already up on the site, but more on that later.

#kimmiessimmies #the sims 3 #ts3 #honeycomb valley #i'm back

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piracytheorist · 9 months

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💖

What made you start writing?

Tumblr. I had been coming up with ideas for stories since I was a kid. Yamato from Digimon was my very first inspiration, so I was at least 8 when I started coming up with fanfic ideas. I never wrote them, though. I made my first attempt to write down original fic when I was about 14 but it sucked so hard lol, even then I found it so cringe that I threw away the pages! Maybe, somewhere in the backlogs of my files, is a forgotten word document of that time I tried typing it down. Maybe.

Then I made a half-hearted attempt to write a tiny bit of other kind of fanfic when I was 16, I think. Of all places, I wrote it on the last page of my Geometry book. I found it some years back too, lol.

But anyway. On the fall of 2014 I joined tumblr to talk about my then favourite show and blorbo, Killian Jones from Once Upon a Time, and I was surprised to find out how popular fanfic writing was. Then I realized I had my own ideas, and had been having such for years, but I was too uncertain of my writing abilities and not being a native English speaker, it took me a lot of time to actually post something. I did, on ffnet, it got one single review and it was a negative one too, so I deleted it. But then I went like, no, fuck that reviewer, and I ended up posting another fic, which I call my first "official" fic on September of 2015, and I haven't looked back since.

It's been almost seven years since, and I've developed so much and found the things I like and am good at writing, and I'm so happy I've discovered this form of expression. It probably won't reach anywhere outside fanfic writing, but it's enough for me!

Send me an emoji!

#spencerisdead #ask and ye shall receive #ask meme

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sumire-no-nikki · 2 months

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「Murakami-san’s Place」 Advice Column Translation

Answered by Haruki Murakami Illustrated by Masaru Fujimoto

Entries #006 - #010

#006: I’m nearing my thirties.

◎ My thirties is right around the corner but I don’t feel like I’ve accomplished anything. When I was a child, I thought being an adult is a wonderful thing, yet as I am now I feel so far away from that. And my heart breaks when I think about that reality. Just how am I supposed to live from here on out?

— Jo& Maca, F, 28 y.o.

◉ This might come off as rude but I think it’s incorrect to think that “being an adult is a wonderful thing.” What you make of it is your own responsibility. Accomplishing things is not easily done. It all starts by putting a little bit into it. You’re not even that much of a grown up yet at 28 years old. That’s because you’ve only just begun.

#007: Sex

◎ I’ve been looking forward to today! Mr. Haruki, who I haven’t met despite living in Japan, I’ve been a big fan of yours since high school. What I sincerely want to ask you about is regarding my sex life with my husband. He doesn’t have that much sex drive. How do I make him want to do it?

— Human Snoopy, F, 31 y.o., office worker

◉ Excuse me but I cannot possibly know anything about the circumstances of other people’s sex drive. Even I don’t fully understand my own. I’m sorry but please figure it out yourself.

#008: Iceland Love

◎ Hello, Mr. Murakami! Last year, I went on a trip to Iceland for in August for around 8 days. I’ve loved Icelandic artists like Sigur Rós and Múm from the very beginning, and from there I embraced my interest in the country. I looked up all sorts of things about it and thought I definitely want to visit it at least once, so I took up the chance to go there for my honeymoon. I thought the streets were clean, the food was delicious, the people were kind and the scenery was even more beautiful than I had expected. I became an Iceland fan through and through. If I’m not mistaken, you wrote about your trip to Iceland on an essay. What were your impressions of the place? There are plenty of bookstores and cafes in town and it’s easy to spend time there. If you venture out of the city, you can see countless of your beloved sheep. There are also a lot of hot springs. I don’t often go overseas and think to myself “I’d like to live here,” but I thought I’d like to live in Iceland. Anyway, as you love Iceland as well, I just thought I would ask.

— Papiko, M, 28 y.o., office worker

◉ I certainly love Iceland. But if you don’t go there at least once during the wintertime, you wouldn’t know if it’s a place you would like to live in or not, don’t you think? I went there at the start of September. There was some sort of literature festival and I was invited. I got a rental car and went all over the place. I’m going to be putting out a Travel Journal in the later half of this year and there is an entry in it on Iceland as well. Have you seen the movie called “Cold Fever”? It’s a very interesting movie set in Iceland. It was directed by Fridrik Thor Fridriksson, starring Masatoshi Nagase. It’s often said that there are more ghosts and spirits of the dead than there are people living in Iceland, and that movie certainly made me think that. Jules Verne’s “Journey to the Center of the Earth” is also set in Iceland. For one reason or another, it’s a very mysterious place. I’d like to go back there again.

(Administrator’s Note) The Iceland travel journal entry is published on “What On Earth Is In Laos?”

#009: Any young rock bands?

◎ Hello! I love rock. I started listening to Western rock music some years ago and I’ve come to love 60s and 70s music. Do you have young rock bands that debuted after the 2000s that you love and listen to? Thank you for your time!

— Glasses Idiot, M, 32 y.o., office worker

◉ I haven’t really listened to the music of young people recently. I’m sorry. But I do like music from Black Eyed Peas and Gorillaz, though they’re not really considered new. Which reminds me, I went to a Suga Shikao concert the other day. It was really fun. But my ears hurt a bit because of the volume.

#010: What kind of place is heaven?

◎ At the end of last year my uncle suddenly passed away. Two years before that, my aunt passed away (due to breast cancer). With my grandparents having died when I was a child, I have lost most of the people who have been important to me up until this point. Of course it’s only natural that that happens, but sometimes when I think about how someday, my still healthy parents will also one day pass away—I just get sad. I encountered your novels when I was an adolescent and I can remember feeling relief and shedding tears over them. Recently, I feel my beloved aunt who passed away is talking to me in her voice, and I would think, oh, she would probably say such and such at a time like this. (I'm most likely just making this up.) So, I have a question for your Mr. Haruki. Do you believe in heaven? If you do, what kind of place do you think it is? If not, what do you think happens to souls and such after we die? Thank you for your time!

— Mountain Goat, F, 34 y.o., housewife

◉ I think I might be disappointing you with this but personally, when I die, I simply want to sleep peacefully. I don't need heaven, or hell, or a hostess bar. I just want to sleep quietly, undisturbed by anyone. Though I do think I would like to try eating deep fried oysters from time to time.

[ translated entries masterpost ]

Please Note: This is an unofficial translation. I do this in my spare time and at my own pace. This is for my personal use. Please do not repost or reproduce this without my permission.

#haruki murakami #japanese literature #literature #murakami-san no tokoro #translation #sumire-no-nikki

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drawnaghht · 11 months

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more thoughts on ship names (leosagi, sliderbunny, yuileo etc) - more is not bad

So I'd like to suggest a thought - multiple ship tags and names are not actually bad - it's more like a way of detecting what flavor the ship and resulting fanworks will be. let me explain more below. if this sounds a bit dated, that's because I wrote this back in january-march but noticed I hadn't archived it properly and that it needed a bit more writing to finish some thoughts so I'm posting this now, lest I forget it lol. maybe i have also already posted it before but... i cannot find this old version, so i guess not ^^;;

If you like the Yuichi x Leo ship, are annoyed at Leosagi being used as an umbrella term or are just curious abt another fan's thoughts on ship names, here-a we go. Some thoughts on the leosagi and leochi/leoichi ship names in general ^^

Some things are a bit more outdated: namely, transfem!12yuinardo has now been steadfastly used as a ship tag for transfem Yuichi x 12Leo, so kudos to that person! Thank you for making this unique tag more common!

resources used:

https://fanlore.org/wiki/Pairing_Name https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/IdiosyncraticShipNaming

Anyway, more under cut.

so, being in the rottmnt fandom for a bit longer this time (or being longer in a tmnt phase this time) and browsing the leosagi and leochi tags since august last year... has made me realize again that I really enjoy/prefer genfic most times? i like writing romance, but I enjoy writing action a lot more + exploring character writing in general, so that’s probably what my own crossover works will try to feature more too now.

being in tmnt fandom longer this time around, I thought that it was nice ppl still remembered leosagi, but I didn't expect a "new" version of it. Now, seeing thru the history of it (the RabNerd video on Leosagi felt like a nice refresher on TMNT fandom history in general and it’s nice to listen to) and going thru the tumblr tag (that and ao3 being sorta the only reliable archives on fanwork, with the exception of authors deleting their own work and tumblrtags not working as expected at times/finding hidden stuff), I think it's good we have multiple tags. Now about the tag I made up in september, "yuinardo" (I believe I already made two tagging-related posts thinking abt this tag/name way back in autumn 2022)

this YuiNardo ship name was mostly made as a portmanteau to make tagging and finding easier - for the ship Yuichi x Rise!Leo bc I wanted to differentiate it from Leochi/Leoichi but also the old Leosagi ship, because to me that was a bit different. at first I thought people would use the numbering system (03 leosagi etc per tmnt series airing year), but I started to notice that there was a lot more fanon with the ship this time than before. So when Netflix suggested the show to me one august evening after seeing the Rise movie, I started watching the series proper out of curiosity. as I’ve written before in a few places publicly (i think), the series was a bit slow and boring for me at first. But as I kept watching, I suddenly saw where the writing was going and what interesting things about its characters it was telling us. I got invested in the series for it’s strong family themes and how it handled its characters and story arcs, but also the music was something holding it all together for me emotionally. So I became a genuine fan and started reading more of the original Usagi Yojimbo comic too

one commonality I saw in many fanworks is that Yuichi is often changed a lot to fit a fan's own idea of who he should be as a character in relation to Leo or the fan's own setting/AU. This is fairly normal in fandom in general, esp for smth like TMNT. After all, why not play around in the sandbox given by canon? I also noticed fanworks often ignore the canon or worldbuilding set in his own show, and even the other prominent SRTUC characters get ignored/rewritten more than not. Or people make their own new versions with the same name. Which is fine, fanon!Yuichi and other fanversions are interesting. I usually like seeing redesigns in other fandoms and here they are interesting too, but I actually like the character as he is! He's funny to see fail but also fun/funny to watch/listen in general, especially interacting with other characters, whether main cast or one-off characters. He's a blorbo for me now who has taken up permanent root in my fandom/artist brain. I felt like he'd be fun to write in a shipfic or genfic with Rise!Leo bc their personalities are both so similar and so different. They feel like a strangely matching set, despite the shows never having a crossover (and despite Yuichi technically being a whole new original character for the show from the crew to avoid messing up the og Usagi cast too much). I want to write some genfic and Chizu and Kitsune centric fic one day too if I got the time.

Now after becoming a fan though, it’s honestly a bit sad to see people eschew his personality and writing completely - it feels fine that other fans are making AU and fandesign versions based on him, but this just means that when I open the Yuichi Usagi tags or search - I only find these fan interpretations but no versions where another fan is also a fan of the series. Which isn’t to say, that there aren’t other fans posting fanart, but that it’s just a lot less common that people tagging him as “TMNT usagi” or “Rise Usagi” etc. Some fans have said this is disrespectful to Sakai and the Samurai Rabbit crew - some even go on to hate the character (???) which like - it’s a cartoon. why are you angry at it. And these are often the older fans who are around my age (30+) or older, who are fed up with the younger parts of fandom - which I kinda get. I’ve even seen people make stuff up about the series, but I’m not really interested in pursuing that further because you know what. People have grievances about fandom stuff all the time. It’s pointless and a little mindless sometimes. There are so many bigger problems going on in the world. Fandom is something we are all supposed to enjoy. So to argue with another fan - I don’t have the energy to do that anymore. I might correct factual errors here and there, because that feels like it can be a courtesy sometimes. But I’m not interested in laying down blame or building some sort of longer discussion around things that should be fun, if they’re not fun anymore. Honestly, it would be nice if for once, the older and younger parts of TMNT fandoms could respect each other and get along. Like I’m not feeling hopeless about that but it’s just annoying to come back every 5-8 years and see people fighting and arguing about similar things. But that’s another topic entirely.

I don't honestly quite get the dislike of the character either, but I guess when I was younger, I would have been annoyed by a character like this too. (Foster’s Home comes to mind...where I hated Bloo because of his personality sdfsdfs but I was a very picky child with cartoons in generally) Personally, to me it seems ppl ignore the show and its writing bc of various aspects: besides simple dislike, it's easy to look at a newer cartoon show in a surface-level way; many still have this stance on cartoons that a "dumb kids show" can't be interesting or have substance; the show falls into many concessions to fit what netflix ordered of the crew. + audience tastes have changed over time - and no, not even talking abt just spiderverse, tho thankfully that has changed what more "general" audiences expect of both an 3D, animated film and a superhero/action flick. (cinemas here even listed it as a 2D animated film a while ago lol. it's a complex bag of factors but audiences + specifically distributors/studios are becoming slowly more receptive to 2D animation again. slightly.)

What may have been fun to see 10+ years ago for a 3D tv cartoon then, would not fly for viewers now. Even if we ignore internet-posting fans who do like it (who seem to be primarily teens and young adults up to age 24), and how popular the show was at it's premiere (3rd in the UK among kids?), there might be those in the target audience itself as well who do not like it for various reasons. Additionally, viewers are fickle about cartoons in general. So there are probably many more reasons people have to dislike the character and show that are related to other things. Again, this is just how fandom sometimes works. I’ve been in a lot of other fandoms before where I’m the only one who likes canon or likes writing canon-adjacent, exploring theories in canon etc and this to me started to feel like a similar situation. So I understand when people say the SRTUC fandom is kind of non-existant, if so much of the “fan content” relies on a ship. But saying as someone whose seen sort of “worse” at least there are other people at all and the tags mostly have fanart/fic and not other kinds of stuff, like spam or worse.

Whatever us fans' view might be however, he is still a valid character in the Usagi-verse, AU or not. I've read and listened to interviews with both Stan Sakai and the show crew, and seen artist portfolios with work from the show. The overall experience on the creators' side seems to have been positive. That, and I primarily view the show as a sort of transmedia storytelling venue... almost. It never takes away from the og comic and it adds an interesting alternative future to it, similar to Space Usagi, but as a fun cartoon. It becomes a sort of "gateway tent" for Usagi media and kids who watch this might be inclined to open up the comics, rifle through their parents old books and discover the world of Usagi Yojimbo proper. Like the comic, it also becomes a vehicle for learning for those willing to look things up later after the show, i.e. the yokai lore, customs in modern japan etc. So to me, the show is a net positive and Yuichi Usagi an interesting take on a Usagi descendant. The show is also interesting for me for it's casting (all asian-american cast. hello???) and staff choices as it seemed that everyone was on board with anything Stan Sakai wanted +they tried to put Miyamoto Usagi into the series as much as they could despite Netflix giving them a full limit (or almost a no?) at first - but the series writers and artists included him in an interesting way. So to me the series is good and as a fan, I can see it have interesting crossovers (a lot of the crew also seemed to be big TMNT fans and big UY fans at the same time)

Yuichi is headstrong, openly friendly and impulsive, but also the only one who notices things "outside of the box" more often than the rest of his team. He relies almost entirely on his trained sword skills and complete chance to get out of almost any situations. Leo is sorta painted as a "team clown" and "team faceman", (s1) always trying to make things more lighthearted in stressful situations, which starts to contrast his more strategic nature as we go on in the series. He wonders why he's not trusted (s2) but the thing is, most times he does not tell them his plans, even if they work, so he's seen as impulsive. Together in any shipping or genfic scenarios, I feel like they would feed off each other's lighthearted natures and impulsive instincts, but also work well together bc of how many things they notice, but also, rabbit brain empty, and Leo would be more cautious. That was what I initially kind of imagined for them when I first watched through Samurai Rabbit.

I had a big "mega-crossover" fic idea back in august which would also feature the 03 ship Leosagi, where I could both have a tmnt crossover, write fun action-adventure with the TMNT + Usagi kids and write some sort of neat continuation to what 03 Leo and Usagi might have been going through in a 13-year timeskip. But for that, I thought the tagging would be easier with og tags vs just trying to number leosagi again. Since Rise started in 2018, we often tag it as TMNT 2018, but Usagi Chronicles aired in 2022, (even if production started in 2020) so any attempt to tag it as "2020s leosagi" has just left me more confused. So a unique tag was needed for my own tagging use. I’ve helped make some smoosh names before and this just seemed like a fun thing to do in a fandom I was sort of new to (the ship and SRTUC fandom)

Oh also, I read thru the fanlore article linked above on pairing name conventions and I had totally forgotten some of the ways to make ship names bc I've become so accustomed to portmanteaus and "_shipping" rather than x (used both in general ship names as well as slash pairings) + (preslash or platonic) or even / (slashfic) just bc those sort of conventional ways to tag are harder to find on tumblr bc of its tagging system (special characters make tagging unorganizable or harder to use)

+ I've been more active in modern fandom spaces for only 13+ years, while stuff like ff.net was maybe confusing to use as a young teen. So again, some pairing naming conventions have sorta escaped me over time lol. So it would be interesting to see what else people start to use for this newer ship of Yuichi x Rise!Leo

Different kinds of names for one pairing are fairly common in any kind of fandom. Pokemon and YGO fandoms have put these on vote for example (thinking of doing this out of curiosity) but that would have to mean a more unified fandom I suppose? Having both a smoosh name (leosagi) and _shipping name (katanashipping) have stuck with the old ship and imo that should be respected because the ship conventions were there way before this newer ship or these newer series came about. I’ve seen many posts now where ppl complain about the tagging, especially the character tagging and the leosagi tag itself, because technically again, totally new ship. So to be a bit upset at that imo is totally understandable. imagine your favourite old ship you’ve been tagging the same is suddenly overtaken by a new, only vaguely related one? I also like the online shipping-related analogy: if you’re looking for a specific game in the store, why would a pair of shoes be tagged? or a different game? you’re only at the store for that one game, but now other stuff is being suggested to you because of other users’ tagging.

Considering those slash-ship naming conventions, I suppose I made the ship name to be more Yuichi-centric a bit - starts with his name, tho again, this was just one way to "flavor" the ship for me - but also specifically for the Yuichi we have on the show, because I enjoy the show and understand why Usagi is written the way he is on it. Mainly that he is given "annoying teen" traits to contrast the changes he goes through in the short time of the 2 seasons + he seems be written with intentional ADHD-coding. + I wanted something more lighthearted and funnier-sounding, so Nardo was added bc that is Leo's nickname on the Rise show that his family uses teasingly, mainly by Donnie. I thought that would make it unique. (And, this is more subtle, but I also thought it was more funny that Nardo sorta sounded like "Naruto" and that Usagi Chronicles has a few Naruto influences in its art and design, so, slightly matching in coincidence.)

But also Yuinardo just sounds fun and easy to pronounce + I cannot find any other tags that it overlaps with. Main use for tags after all - easy to find and unique - which I think is why the og Leosagi tag prevailed among the other names that popped up back then when the Leosagi 2003 ship first became popular online. I have no idea however if there was a ship for this before this, since I never went looking really (and there weren't much leosagi fic on ff.net then to get any impression of previous fandom activity)

If you want to continue to use Leochi or Leoichi as a tag, that's still fine bc its a big tag and more popular for this ship. But if you also like the Samurai Rabbit show, feel free to use the Yuinardo tag as well, depending on the the use ^^

Going through the fanlore article, I also realized that hey, actually having multiple tags/names is normal in fandoms! It's to make searching/naming for different flavours of pairings easier. I forgor. Let me explain.

the Leosagi as well as the Leochi/Leoichi tags sorta blew up in august after the ROTTMNT movie bc of new or returning fans rediscovering an old ship that's been a constant since the 03 fandom. and ppl posted fanart of the two versions in the tags before this too, but there was a notable uptick in those new fans after august 2022. I think when Samurai Rabbit aired, ppl posted fanart then too.

The SliderBunny tag existed already for people's own teen!Miyamoto Usagi x Rise!Leo versions and honestly, this could continue as an umbrella tag for any Rise!Leo x Usagi ships going forward, as "Rise Leosagi" has built up more as a tag. or "2018 Leosagi" whichever do you prefer

For 2003 Leosagi, Katanashipping exists bc it's unique to them (the katana-gifting scene in the 03 show) + it is a more specific name and tag, which helps to find it easier or make it more specific. + it just adds the extra flavor of knowing what went on between the two in the show. That was their last canon interaction as far as we know.

I want to also add here that the 03 version of Miyamoto Usagi is specifically very different. I remember reading an article somewhere which mentioned that Stan Sakai had been a bit upset w the 03 team that they made Usagi so young and different from his comics. I'll repost/add the link another time, but the main point is that the 03 pairing/friendship is quite different from both the existing canon comics and the 12!tmnt iteration of their friendship.

someone pointed out that the yuinardo tag could be for the ship Yuichi Usagi x 12!Leonardo but I do not see it that way for the above reasons. But what could be the name for that then? That's for the shippers of that ship to decide. I've heard some variations of smashing the names together for this like Luichi and YuiLeo (I kinda like that 2nd one myself), but they both sound a bit too much like real names to be tags/ship names.

I do not know the Yuichi x 12Leo name, but I suppose it could follow common convention of adding 12 in front, since that has been done before for people's own versions of 12leosagi as well, so thir's world and see what happens! so it'll be interesting takes off more. There is potential for both angst and comedy in this one. 🤔 what people will start tagging this onnce coed be 12leochi or 12yuinardo maybe even. I do not see it honestly, but I also did not continue watching much of tmnt12 after season 3 bc it was hard to see Leo go through Stuff(tm) again and I did not like how the show approached writing its female characters. So I don't quite get the appeal, but I think if fans see opportunities to write it in interesting/fun ways, why not. I headcanon 12!Leo as a transfem lesbian, and Yuichi reads slightly transmasc for me, so maybe that's why I don't quite see it bc my fanon ideas are a bit different for them ^^; + it feels like they are from different times from a "when it was made" perspective, the shows' vibes are different (12 is more horror-genre scifi a lot of times while SRTUC does not lean into its horror thematics as much as it could be the name for that then? That's for the shippers of that ship to decide.

the transfem sapphic version I know one person calls Blue Sapphics, which is cute, but idk if there's a common name that every shipper uses? let me know in the reblogs or comments.

anyway, larger point also; it's not so bad to have multiple tags (as long as you use them according to what's in the post) and multiple names - so that one tag (leosagi) doesn't have to do all the heavy-lifting and that fans who only want one flavor, can have that. tagging is more like a courtesy but it helps to make finding fanart/other fans of the same thing easier, but they often also follow what becomes commonly discussed and used among a fandom.

Sorry if this is super-duper long, I haven't been able to write normally since discovering the internet and that I could post on it and things just happen to get this long when I finally finish a writing ^^;

crunches my brain a lil as I make this post bc i have other stuff cooking in my brain

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star-sim · 3 months

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hi vanyasaurus 🤗‼️

the moment i saw apocalypse being mentioned i literally RAAANN to tumblr 😭 i love cas so much and im proud to brag that i got to see them live in september it was so good 🤧 im currently in my missing cas era

but anyways moving onto more important matters this fic was so good(as always because all you do is write good stuff) so happy you wrote a heesung fic with a cas song idk why but i always associate him with cas in a lot of the fics i read and apocalypse was just the perfect song

i dropped my medical term hw for this and you didnt disappoint(i saw that you were talking about school and how stressful it is and i just gotta say we just gotta make it to the end of the week and then do it over again until the next break alsoo since u answered my very unserious serious question last time i have come with another is cereal a soup 🤔)

~🎀

HAI BOWSAURUS REX

HEESEUNG IS CAS EMBODIED like in EVERY WAY POSSIBLE

i should def do an enhypen as bands/music groups bc heeseung is cas, sunghoon is SO wave to earth, and jungwon is straight up men i trust, imagine niki as TV girl, jay as muse or maneskin, and jake as the vamps?? SUNOO AS THE MARIAS?? sorry i love all these groups sm

GIRLLL DO NOT DROP YOUR ACADEMICS FOR FANFICTION!!!! GET BACK TO WORK!!! >:((( actually i cannot be talking bc i've been not studying for any of my tests because all i wanna do is just write silly stories about sunghoon

i need this week to end NOWWW, especially because the 10th is lunar new year and this is the one time of the year where i actually get my shit together.... i cannot disappoint my ancestors (not even in a joking way, if i don't get my shit together everyone in my family will have a year of misery... thank you vietnamese superstition)

is cereal soup.... hmmm

according to oxford languages, a soup is defined as 'a liquid dish, typically made by boiling meat, fish, or vegetables, etc., in stock or water.' i don't think cereal is made of any of these things, especially because the connotation of soup is something savory, rather than sweet. i do believe that cereal can be SOUPY, as in that cereal has characteristics similar to that of a soup, but it is not a SOUP.

#star-sim #vanya-talks #★: 🎀 anon!!

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lordstormageddidnt · 4 months

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Alfie's End of Year Rec List 2024

Out of 447,090 words and 141 total fics, this year I wrote a whole 224k and 78 fics, which is a lot more than last year. I wrote for 10 different ships this year, including 3 new ones. Yay for progress, I guess.

Anyway, to celebrate a rather productive year here at the_oncoming_stormageddon's AO3 dashboard, I've decided to compile a list of all of my favorite fics that I would reccommend :D number three will shock you!

In a shocking turn of events, I lied, sorry. This is about my graphs. It's always about my graphs. All graphs are up to date as of 12/21/2023, and there isn't even a missing word somewhere that has to be accounted for!

(Did I type all of this up, realize I had another fic to post, and then have to go back in and fix everything? ...perhaps)

Anyway. Let's start with Taylor Swift.

As always, "Other" corresponds to fics with titles from other artists, "Non-Album" refers to titles from Taylor Swift songs that aren't on an album or are unreleased, and "None" refers to titles that weren't from any lyrics. Orville Peck and Maisie Peter were the big contributors to the "other" category this year. The second graph shows the percent of the number of fics, while the first graph is the combined word count. Also, I did have 1 fic with an If This Was a Movie title, and I categorized it under "Speak Now TV" instead of Fearless TV. Yell at me about it in the comments if you really care, since it's technically incorrect.

Last year, I had a big Fearless slice because of the Hey Stephen series, and it was kind of surprising to me to see how much I slowed down in doing those, with Fearless only having 4 fics to its name. The disparity between the number and word count of the evermore was a little odd to me, until I realized that my longest fic ever (Tuesday Night at Olive Garden, a destiel murder mystery) was named after an evermore song. One thing that did not surprise me was folklore only having 1 fic, because that is my least favorite album.

So...the destiel thing...

The SPN hyperfixation took hold of me in Feb/March of this year and has not let go yet. Looking at my all-time graphs (where its about 33%/40% destiel/solangelo for word count), I didn't think it was that bad, but plugging in the numbers for just this year...uh, yeah. It's that bad. Sorry.

I had a really strong streak of posting solangelo every month until March hit. Again, destiel hyperfixation in visual form. This year, I wrote lokius (L/MMM, from the show Loki) and sterek (DH/SS, from the show Teen Wolf) for the first time. I also posted destiel (C/DW) for the first time (the bad destiel fics of middle school alfie are staying in locked docs where they belong).

As expected, I had a bit of a drop-off in the summer months, but it was surprising for me to see that it never went back up after school started again. Last year, I had a huge spike in September, October, and December, but this year stayed relatively mellow. Next year, I'd really like to see which trend I follow monthly.

Anyway, that's the end of the graphs I have prepared for you (I will spare yall from the more complicated ones). Next year, I'd really like to start finishing up some of the unresolved fics and series I have (mostly solangelo ones that got drowned in the destiel flood). I'm doing my first ever big bang (for the Professor Layton fandom), so katriana (KL/EP) will make it onto my graphs for next year, as will destiel and solangelo.

Thanks for reading & I hope you enjoyed :D congrats on making it to 2024!

#alfie #alfie fic #alfie graph #fic recs

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madeofcc · 1 year

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JANUARY 2023 UPDATE

Hello everyone and happy new year to all of you ♥

As a new year is starting I wanted to let you know a bit more about all the things I’ve planned for this year and also how my life could affect those plans. Feel free to read or skip this. But remember ...

Thanks a lot for being here and take very good care of you ♥

Blog update : As a new year is coming, I might change my theme but this is not my priority. You can see it above, those 3 stories are my main goal for this year ! As Another Side started last year, I really want to give you the entire story. The end of 2022 was quiet hard and I couldn’t work on it as much as I wanted to and you’re still here waiting for the next parts so I also feel like I have to end this story properly. This should take the first months (I think at least until february/march for sure) as the first part of the story is still not done and I’ve planned 4 parts for this ghost story. Are you enjoying it so far ? What do you think might happen ? Do you already have any favourites ? Don’t hesitate to tell me everything through asks and comments :)

After Another Side, we will finally get back to Destiny Harbour with the part I wrote the entire story around. Like, this 3rd act is the first one I wanted to developp but decided to include more background story first with DH1 and 2. So here comes the Britechester arc, which also is the end of teenagehood for our characters. This arc will be cut in two parts : a special musical episode called Melodia (I’ll tell you more about it on the next post) following by DH3 that will takes place 6 months after Melodia. This arc will be as light as very dark and will explore a lot of young adult theme such as : harassment, male toxicity, civil rights and the discovery of ourselves. All the characters will face some of the darkest issues of their lives and you will also know more about most of them (even the main ones like Leïla or Destiny). DH3 will also be a tribute to Wes Craven’s Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream, so if you’re a horror fan, this part should really be for you ♥

As Melodia and especially DH3 are pretty long (DH3 is the longest season so far with 12 episodes) it should take the entire year so are you ready ? If everything goes as planned, I can already tell you that 2024 will be focused on a new Another Side story, a DH LGBTQIA+ spinoff (that will take place several months after DH3) will start as well as DH4 if my life doesn’t get pretty impacted.

I guess that’s all for the blog update. I guess that now I have to be more intimate with you all and tell you more about the shitshow going on behing the making of sims stories ! Feel free to skip this part if personnal stuff isn’t your thing.

Personal update : So as most of you know, I lost my job in September and I’ve been struggling to find a new one since. What most of you don’t know though, is that I live with my ex for a bit more than a year know (after 6 years of relationship) and that has been affected both our lives. It’s not a nightmare, we’re both adults who also do our best to have a peacefull life, but it could be better (how many years would you live with your ex even though you’re friends? think about it) so we’re both kind of focused on moving on this situation.

As you can imagine, this has become a priority for me, especially since I got fired (it’s waaaaay harder to find a place when you don’t have a regular income - no I won’t do any patreon shit and will rather be homeless again than taking advantage of kind and poor people who want to help because they understand how it is while rich ones don’t give a single fuck anyway). So, between all these, life drama and death also came around lately so more stuff to deal with and guess what ... I’m still using a broke laptop on Windows 8 (which is kind of dying this year) so I’m facing some kind of issues with more and more software I used previously (no more Topaz Clean T_T / Good bye Gshade ...thank god Reshade still works) and I’m a bit scared it’s some kind of planned obsolescence that will ruin my computer and all my writting plans (it’s litterally one of my biggest fear. It’s the only computer I have and I won’t be able to buy a next one if it breaks for good U_U).

Thankfully, you’ve been around ♥ Seriously, I know I always thank everyone a lot and always say that you’re a strenght but you really are. 2022 has also been awesome because of you all and I will never thank you enough for all the support you’re giving by simply enjoying my content. I mainly post here to escape and also to practice my writting skills so it’s been a real joy and it always cheers me up a lot to see I actually have some readers who are interested about my stories or characters’ fate. You are also a true daily inspiration when I’m discovering my dash everyday like a kid in front of a new episode of their fav anime ! So, thank you for being awesome and being that creative my friend ♥

I wish you all the best for this new year. Let’s make 2023 an epic year of content ! It has already started on my dash ♥

#blog update #January 2023 update #it's been a while #sorry I wasn't active more #let's make 2023 an epic year #but for good reasons #not the end of the world #anyway a lot to say this time

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 7 months

Text

Matt Davies

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

September 30, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

This afternoon, the House of Representatives passed a continuing resolution to fund the government for 45 days—until just before Thanksgiving—by a vote of 335 to 91.

The maneuver was a huge blow to the MAGA caucus that was demanding dramatic cuts to the government, the embrace of their border policies, and elimination of Ukraine aid in exchange for keeping the government open. The measure the House passed had almost none of that. It was a clean continuing resolution to fund the government at 2023 levels for another 45 days…with two important exceptions: it added disaster funding, and it stripped out additional funding for Ukraine’s war against Russia.

House speaker Kevin McCarthy’s move was enough of a surprise that Democrats had to scramble even to read it, but it essentially means that McCarthy had to turn away from the MAGA Republicans to whom he has been catering and turn to the Democrats for the votes needed to fund the government.

All but one of the Democrats voted in favor; the lone “no” vote came from Representative Mike Quigley (D-IL), the co-chair of the Ukraine Caucus, whose district has a high percentage of Ukrainian Americans. The unity of the Democrats is notable and a sign of their strength going forward.

In contrast, the Republicans remain divided, but after months of catering to the extremists, today the rest of the conference asserted itself. One hundred and twenty-six Republicans voted in favor of the measure; 90 voted no. That 90 included all the usual suspects on the far right. The vote to pass the measure was a clear rebuke to the MAGA Republicans who had forced their colleagues in swing districts to vote for dramatic and unpopular cuts in services and then refused to fund the government anyway.

House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said, “The American people have won. The extreme MAGA Republicans have lost. It was a victory for the American people and a complete and total surrender by right-wing extremists who throughout the year have tried to hijack the congress.”

McCarthy, explaining his sudden about-face to work with the Democrats, also blamed the extremists. It was very clear he had done all he could to work with them, he said, but “if you have members in your conference that won’t let you vote for appropriation bills, doesn’t [sic] want an omnibus, and won’t vote for a stopgap measure so the only answer is to shut down and not pay our troops, I don't want to be a part of that team. I want to be part of a conservative group that wants to get things done.”

More colloquially, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) wrote: “Here’s what went down: we just won a clean 45 day gov extension, stripped GOP’s earlier 30% cuts to Social Security admin etc, staved off last minute anti-immigrant hijinks, and averted shutdown (for now). People will get paychecks and MTG threw a tantrum on the way out. Win-win[.]”

Still at stake is funding for Ukraine, but members promise to make sure that happens. “We will get the Ukraine funding next,” Representative Eric Swalwell (D-CA) wrote. “This is a 45-day bill to make sure government is open and troops/cops/air-traffic controllers etc get paid. With the same leverage we used to bear back MAGA, we will keep Ukraine in the fight.”

The issue of funding for Ukraine is not a small one. Former Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) noted that it was on September 30, 1938, that British prime minister Neville Chamberlain announced he would not stand in the way of Adolf Hitler’s annexation of the Sudentenland, a key move in Hitler’s rise. “Members of the House and Senate who are voting to deny Ukraine assistance on the 85th anniversary of Neville Chamberlain’s 1938 “peace in our time” speech should read some history,” she wrote. “Appeasement didn’t work then. It won’t work now.”

The votes should be there for Ukraine aid. Just two days ago, members of the House voted 311 to 117 for Ukraine funding, and the Senate, too, strongly favors Ukraine aid. But there is no doubt the removal of this funding signals that Trump and the MAGA Republicans favor a foreign policy that helps Russian president Vladimir Putin.

The biggest loser in today’s vote was former president Trump, who had urged his loyalists to shut down the government until they got all their demands. He is an agent of chaos and recognized that hurting the nation—including our credit around the world—would make voters more likely to turn against the sitting president.

Getting himself or someone like him back into the White House is becoming his only hope for turning back his legal troubles, especially now that a judge has decided that he, his older sons, a number of associates, and the Trump Organization engaged in fraud that requires the dissolution of many of his businesses. That is a psychic blow as well as a financial one, and he cannot afford either.

The biggest winner is the American people, not only because Congress has agreed to do as the vast majority of us wish and fund the government. It’s far too early to say Republican leadership might really be breaking away from the MAGA crowd, but for today, at least, we can see what’s possible. It is clear at the very least that McCarthy cannot hold the speakership without Democratic votes.

Tonight the Senate also passed the continuing resolution, by an overwhelming vote of 88 to 9. The nine were all Republicans.

President Biden is expected to sign the measure. Tonight he released a statement saying that the agreement would prevent “an unnecessary crisis that would have inflicted needless pain on millions of hardworking Americans. This bill ensures that active-duty troops will continue to get paid, travelers will be spared airport delays, millions of women and children will continue to have access to vital nutrition assistance, and so much more.” “But I want to be clear,” he continued: “[W]e should never have been in this position in the first place. Just a few months ago, Speaker McCarthy and I reached a budget agreement to avoid precisely this type of manufactured crisis. For weeks, extreme House Republicans tried to walk away from that deal by demanding drastic cuts that would have been devastating for millions of Americans. They failed.” Biden noted that despite the bill’s lack of aid for Ukraine, McCarthy and the overwhelming majority of Congress have been strong supporters of Ukraine. He said, “We cannot under any circumstances allow American support for Ukraine to be interrupted. I fully expect the Speaker will keep his commitment to the people of Ukraine and secure passage of the support needed to help Ukraine at this critical moment.”

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Heather Cox Richardson #Letters From An American #Government shutdown #House GOP #Ukraine #aid to ukraine #Kevin McCarthy

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