#only neil gaiman could bring those fandoms together

[agent-snowflake]

The world is so cruel

But then I think about the support the good omens fandom gets from pretty much everybody on tumblr, the supernatural, our flag means death and heartstopper fans, even the Sherlock fans

I love how everyone is trying to make a third season possible because they wanna give us the happy ending they never had

Neil Gaiman knew what he was doing to us, writing that scene

#only neil gaiman could bring those fandoms together #i love you guys #so much !!!! #good omens #aziraphale #crowley #aziraphale x crowley #michael sheen #david tennant #neil gaiman #our flag means death #ofmd #supernatural #sherlock #bbc sherlock #heartstopper

[trulyhopelessromantic]

for the fic asks !!! 4 6 7 14 34 :)

FANFIC ASKS LIST HERE

4. Are there any writers that inspire you?

Depending if we're talking about inspires my fanfics or my professional/fun writing. No one really inspires my fanfics but icons that inspire me generally are (in no particular order and not a complete list coz I can’t think of everyone haha):

Neil Gaiman

Susan Cooper

Nancy Springer

J.K. Rowling

Cornelia Funke

Gail Carson Levine

6. What element of writing do you find comes easily?

Characters seem to be fairly clear to me and generally plot

7. What element of writing do you struggle with most?

remembering to add in details of descriptions of setting and sometimes physical people’s descriptions. Also sometimes I get lost in dialogue without describing actions much.

14. What’s your favorite fandom to write for?

oh geeze um... I’d have to check my list of one-shots and drabbles to remind me of all I’ve done that was inspiring but off the top of my head I like writing for Marvel and BBC’s Sherlock. I also really enjoy doing Frankenstein one-shots

34. Copy and paste an excerpt you’re particularly fond of.

This is a fanfic ask meme so here we go: Since I don’t have many fanfics and a lot of one shots it’s hard for me to recall one specific fav coz the one-shots generally are full of emotion that is when I think I’m doing my niche so let’s go with from a larger fic and well... Yay an opportunity to gush over The Haunted Manor! Go ahead and visit my tumblr for the story @thehauntedmanor or go to the story itself: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8384762/1/The-Haunted-Manor

Here’s the kinda long excerpt: (which is kinda spoilery since it happens towards the end of the story so read at your discretion. If you’ve seen the movie The Haunted Mansion then you won’t be too surprised by what’s going on but... yeah this is my spin on that part of the movie):

"Before I do this," Elizabeth stated softly, "I just want to tell you how wonderful and courageous you truly are. You are a remarkable, kind and loving man and I am grateful to have made your acquaintance Jamie Evers. I hope you'll do well to see the strength inside of you which I so clearly witness and to remember it."

Jamie felt humbled by her words but when he looked up into her face and saw Sarah's green eyes staring back at him he lost his feeling of reassurance. He simply nodded as he tried looking past her and offered Elizabeth a thankful smile.

He stood on the edge of a precipice; one which he dreaded with all his might –but one which he was going to fall or jump into no matter what in the end. He tried not looking down it; not imagining ahead. He had to take it as it came.

"It would probably be better if… I sat down at least. I don't want her to use unnecessary strength from standing."

Jamie agreed and the two knelt down together on the polished ballroom floor. They adjusted their positions and moved closer into one another so that Sarah would come to rest in his arms once Elizabeth left her.

"Thank you for this," Jamie told her softly.

"There is no need," Elizabeth answered humbly. She gave him a small smile before closing her eyes.

"Sarah?" Jamie murmured as he searched with his eyes for her and the change which was to occur.

With a sudden burst of light, Elizabeth's spirit alighted away from Sarah's body and Sarah collapsed into her fiancée's embrace.

"Sarah?! Sarah!" Jamie exclaimed anxiously as he gently caressed her cheek.

Sarah's eyes fluttered open and connected with his. "Jamie?" she whispered.

"Oh God Sarah! I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry!" he apologized; shaking his head back and forth in regret, "This is all my fault! I shouldn't have brought us here! I shouldn't have left you alone in that room… I should have fought harder to get back in here and found you… I–"

"Shh Jamie! It's okay," she assured softly; "It's not your fault. Don't blame yourself."

"Sarah I love you so much," he told her –a sob escaping his lips as he did so.

"I love you too Jamie," she reciprocated with a sad smile.

The two kissed for a brief moment but as Jamie pulled away he couldn't resist kissing her nose and her forehead softly.

"For Evers and Evers," she joked softly in a whisper.

"For always, Miss Allways," he replied, tears now falling freely down his cheeks; his tone extremely unsteady as another sob made its way into his chest.

"Jamie," she started, using as much strength as she could to form one last request, "can you promise me something?"

"Anything for you; you know that. Anything," he whispered, trying to smile for her; trying to be brave.

"Promise me you…won't end up like him," she begged gently as she looked over at Alexander Gracie who was doing his best not to take in the scene before him. Jamie looked over briefly and turned back to her to hear her appeal, "Promise me you'll live your life. Promise you'll go on and…you'll learn to be happy again…you'll…" Sarah's strength was failing fast and her breathing was becoming more laboured; her tone growing quieter as she went on, "you'll love again…"

Fresh tears made their way into Jamie's eyes. "I promise," he vowed quietly, "But… I'm not sure if I'll love…You're…You have my heart –always have. I promise to try," he whispered and she smiled at him.

"Good," she mumbled. "Remember you promised me… Don't be afraid to…try."

Jamie could see she was struggling to remain conscious and it broke his heart. 'Stay with me Sarah; just a bit longer' he wished he could beg. But he couldn't bring himself to ask for that. He loved her too much. "Sarah, it's okay," he reassured softly as he tried to withhold any more tears, "I'm right here. I'm staying right here with you. Just relax." He stroked her cheek gently and tried to smile for her. "I love you…"

Her eyes slowly fluttered shut as she finally stopped fighting the fatigue that was weighing her entire body down. Jamie kissed her cheek as she gently drifted out of consciousness.

He pulled away and looked at her one last time. The pain hit him immediately and sobs escaped from his lips unhindered as he pulled Sarah to him and began to cry freely.

He was aware that Elizabeth had once more taken Sarah's form –but he ignored it.

His partner through all things; his fiancée; his one true love Sarah Allways was gone from him. And it truly felt as though something inside of him had been torn away. He sobbed with all the strength he had left at the pain that he'd never imagined he'd have to face like this. He held her in his embrace as if it would keep her there with him. And for those few moments, with Alexander Gracie, Emma and Ezra looking on, Jamie clung to the one person he'd have spent his entire life beside if fate had only given him the chance.

THANK YOU FOR THE QUESTIONS <3

#lumiereandcogsworth

[joi-in-the-tardis]

It’s my experience with any emotional issue I have that resolving it is 75% figuring what on earth it even is that I’m upset about (which usually requires going to the pain of actually talking it through with someone; hello I’m an extroverted feeler) and 25% actually working on the problem.  In other words: figuring it out is the hard part.  Actually, a lot of the stress and angst evaporates once I pin down the problem.

That doesn’t mean it’s all resolved just from understanding myself a little better.  There’s still work to do.  But clarity brings a lot of peace, you know?

Good Omens was released a tiny bit more than two months ago.  It’s hard to believe it’s been that long... and also hard to believe it’s only been that long.  I watched it all in one day because I wanted that first viewing to be mine- I didn’t want to share it.  I knew, even then, that I was going to be a bit... touchy... about the shipping of the main characters.  Not because I felt that anyone was wrong to ship them, but because they’re a pair I ship very specifically.  (Which is not something I do overly much, I tend to be pretty open about my ships.  Not just in a ship-and-let-ship way, but in the way that I multi-ship, myself.  Tenth doctor, for example, I ship with four different characters.  Even though the main one I blog about is Rose.  I have two anti-ships, but only one of those actually bothers me to the extent that I have the tags blocked- and that’s more because the other character disgusts me than an overt problem with the ship itself.)

And, not just that, I ship them as being a similar kind of queer to my own.  So, they’re dear to my heart.  I see them as ace, as I am myself.  I see them as nonbinary, like me.  As beings somewhere outside the human realm, I don’t think they have to follow human friend/romance rules, and that’s a relief to me.  Because I have an incredibly difficult time understanding where all those lines are.

I have a lot of myself tied up in these characters, okay?  I related to The Doctor, yes.  I’ve related to a lot of characters.  But... not like this. 

And I have felt, predominantly, unwelcome in the fandom.  In the fandom’s defense, a lot of my emotional reaction was from the initial round of “you either ship them or you’re homophobic” that was aimed at not just other members of the fandom, but the author of the story himself.  But, in doing so, people alienated aces, aros, and nonbinary folks.  It’s not just me.  I do understand that this was not everyone’s opinion, and that even if it was it wasn’t intended this way...  But, it was a loud enough message that I shut every related tag down for over a month, and still have them filtered.  I’m one that’s pretty stable in my identity, but I felt banished for it.  I felt I wasn’t queer enough for a space that I wanted to occupy- one that was supposed a queer space, itself.  

And, I let it fester.

That festering bled over in to my tumblr home fandom: David Tennant.  I dunno if anyone noticed, but I haven’t celebrated Tennant Tuesday in weeks.  I mean, a lot of it was tied in with GO, anyway, and I was trying to avoid that.  But, the constant barrage of how slutty he and all his characters are... just grated me to the point that I wanted to find a hole.  That hole was pulling out of it almost entirely.  I’m trying to rally, it’s just taking time.

But still, there was more to it...  I was getting increasingly frustrated with myself because of how upset I was.  And how much that upset was spreading in to other fandom areas that I love.  I didn’t understand it as I have always been a “don’t like, keep scrolling” or blacklist kind of person.  And, my goodness, I do want fluff from this pairing!  But every time I put my toe in the GO fandom sandbox it was akin to being lit on fire.  And not in a slow burn, this is fun suffering kind of way.

It occurred to me a week or so ago what it was that was bothering me: I am assumed to be courting whoever I’m friends with.  Sure, laugh it up, but I’m serious.  I’m assumed to be in a romantic relationship with my married best friend nearly every time we have a day out.  From clerks in stores to kids on the street to waiters at restaurants.  I’m not insulted by the insinuation.  My best friend is my best friend for a reason- she’s a phenomenal person and I’m very lucky to have her in my life.  We don’t even correct them most of the time, anymore.  That doesn’t make it any less exhausting sometimes.  It doesn’t do anything to make me less paranoid about, not just our friendship, but every friendship I have.  In my first years at my workplace I was assumed to be sleeping with multiple married women.  How people came to that conclusion, to this day, perplexes me.  Here I was going home to tea and TV and I was supposedly out dallying with these women behind their husband’s backs!  Even now, I’m hyper aware of some of my friendships with married friends... Because their SOs have made comments... maybe joking, maybe not... that nice things I’ve done for them is me coming on to them.  Please, I’m just a genuinely nice person who likes doting on people I care about.

It really fucking sucks that my friendships are misread.  I have spent a large portion of my life just not understanding romance.  Not knowing how to engage in it.  Not knowing where the lines are.  Not understanding what might be expected of me- worrying about that.  I haven’t really had those kinds of connections, guys.  I’ve been in love, yes, a couple of times.  But, it’s never been more than a confession that’s either rejected outright or... a slow dissolution of what used to be a cherished friendship.  I feel an enormous amount of love for the people in my life, but when it comes to expressing it in any kind of romantic way... I am just at a loss.  I’ve always kind of chalked this up to being queer and having a late start, but sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever figure it out.

But if there’s one thing I know, I know how to love my friends.  Or, at least, I think I do.  And my friends don’t seem to mind.  It’s the way that it’s labeled from the outside that bothers me.

And, that brings me full circle to my point: the thing that bothered me was that I saw these two romantically challenged ace/enby characters and I thought “omg that’s me!”  Then I saw people shipping them sexually and that was okay!  Ship whatever you want.  But, then I saw that if you didn’t ship them that way it was homophobic.  It was wrong.  How could you see it anyway but gay?  Yes, QPRs have their place, but this isn’t it (something I actually saw in someone’s tags!).

I was gutted.  I understand why now.  People ship me and my close friends together all the time, friends.  It makes people really happy to do so.  They’re getting rep in public.  They think it’s sweet.  It makes them smile.  It makes them engage socially with us when they might not otherwise.  It gets us nice tables at restaurants so we “can see one another better.”

But we’re not romantically involved.  No matter how much the public may enjoy imagining us being so.  We have always been and will always be the best of friends.

Am I right to be mad at the whole fandom for how much this hurt? No.  Absolutely not.  And I have not, at any time, been mad at everyone.  I can separate my own feelings from the situation.  To be honest, I don’t even remember who made some of the comments that hurt me to begin with and I’ll never try to find out.  I’m not in any of this to start arguments or sling mud.  I’m in the fandom life for fun, to escape from real life for a bit, and to make friends if I can.

I say all of this mostly for my own mental health: I want to share it.  I want to be understood.  And, if there’s anyone out there who feels like me: I want them to know I understand them, too.  It’s not just you.  You’re not alone. 

And I also want to explain that coming to these conclusions and talking about them has made it a bit easier to pat at the sand in the Good Omens sandbox.  I’ve been poking and prodding as I feel like I can.  So, you’ll likely see some GO stuff on my blog.  I’ve still got everything filtered at the moment because I’m letting it in, as I said, as I feel like I can.  All at once feels like it might squash me again and I don’t want to ruin the progress I’ve already made.

I guess I’ll end this by saying that I loved GO the book.  I loved the series.  I’m eternally grateful for Neil Gaiman and how he’s continually put his foot down that we can all make of it what we like: that’s the fandom’s toybox.  The only things that are cannon are the words in black and white and that’s all he’ll comment on.  They can continue to be your romantic gay ship.  They can continue to be my ace/enby QPR.  We can all play in this massive sandbox together.  Just... pardon my bandaged wounds and my being a bit shy.  It’s taken me a while to get up the nerve to be here.

#joi rambles #fandom life #good omens #asexuality #romance #i really don't know how else to tag this! #just... please be kind

[hedgehog-o-brien]

(hopefully not too late?) 9, 14, 23, and 39?

Not too late! If anything, I’m (again) too late in answering this but here we are XD 

9. What are the bestthings about your current fandom?

So this one goes both forGood Omens (current) and Leverage/The Librarians (less current, but still verymuch there, don’t worry, and that is: Creators that are very enthusiastic, kindand encouraging towards theirfandoms! Because I’ve been through the Moffat era and Moffat… did not do that.At all. He pretended to do that, butthen we got to see what he apparently reallythought of his fans during the third season of Sherlock and that was just.Hurtful.

Both Neil Gaiman/MichaelSheen/David Tennant and John Rogers/Dean Devlin are very different. Theycelebrate their fans, and the weird things that they bring, they activelyengage in conversations (to the extent they’re comfortable with, of course,although Michael Sheen, bless him, seems to be comfortable with quite a lot)and they never ever talk down to fans or make fans feel weird for liking theThing

And I think that’spretty gosh-darned cool of them.

14. Go on, who areyour BroTPs?

Good Omens: TheIneffable Husbands and the Them. Although I do live in terror of the thingsthey could wreak together when left unsupervised with either of the Husbands,without the other one being there to provide some much-needed balance.

Leverage: Parker andNate protective our drunk disaster of abroken ex-insurance cop suddenly gets

Librarians: Basicallyanybody and Jenkins

I just love my teddybear knight a lot OK.

23. Name a fic you’vewritten that you’re especially fond of & explain why you like it.

*Looks at 117 fics onAO3* *gestures in despair*

Alright, there’s acouple I like more than others, but one that I do really like because it givesme the warms and fuzzies everywhere (and which still gets read and kudo’ed on aregular basis too even though the Librarians fandom is all but dead, soapparently I’m not the only one), is:

Love If Thy Tresses BeSo Dark/How Dark Those Hidden Eyes Must Be

I still really don’tlike the title all that much though, it’s way too pretentious for this kind offluff-fest. But I also don’t have anything better to change it to, so here weare

39. What is yougreatest strength as a writer?

Errrr… I’d saydialogue and finding a rhythm in my sentences that sounds/reads good? Idk, that’swhat I try to focus on most in any case, as nothing turns me off more than baddialogue and clunky sentences that don’t flow along in my head.

#writing #ask #answered #personal #thank you! #distinctivelibrarians

[bugheadfamily]

This week the spotlight is on Anna ( @writeradamanteve )! Click the read more link below to get to know our member!

Spotlight by Mila, @jughead-jones | Graphic by Katie, @betty-cooper

Anna | @writeradamanteve

Name: Anna 

Age: 40

Location: New Jersey

Any other languages aside from English people can contact you in?: Filipino.

Favourite Riverdale characters and ships?: Aside from Betty and Jughead, I do love the awfulness of Cheryl Blossom and spitfire that is season 1 Veronica.

Cheryl Blossom is unapologetically terrible, and in real life, I would absolutely HATE her, but there’s something to be said about a woman who just goes all in. I get that hardness in her, and I like it that she admires others for it, too. That Toni brings out her soft side is a plus, but I would prefer that she stays true to her character outside of her romantic relationship. 

Season 1 Veronica Lodge was a champion of women. I loved that about her. I may not have bought the whole “Betty is my best friend” assertion, but I did like that she was doing it to make amends for her past. S1!Veronica wanted to do better and she looked at Betty and thought Betty was a good person to hang out with to further that. Veronica as a person is methodical. Deliberate. And those are characteristics that can be both good and bad. I like it that Veronica can go both ways. I also mean that in a very gay way. No amount of her sleeping with Archie will convince me that her character can’t be bi. I can’t even say I hate her in season 2. She seemed a little lost there, but she was deciding between her family and her principles. For a while she thought that both could coexist, but when she realized in the end that it couldn’t, she broke away. That’s badass. 

As for Betty and Jughead, I have at least 500K worth of words in fanfic that expresses the many ways I love them. But to be clear: 

I love Betty for being so steadfast in her beliefs. She may have her insecurities when it comes to how she looks and what her mother may think of her, but when it comes injustice and friends endangering themselves for sex, she isn’t going to let anyone prevent her from doing the right thing. She is a go-getter, from saving Pop’s to saving her relationship (especially when Jughead was pulling away from her). She is a master at wielding household items — a skill, we learned, she got from Alice, who’s clearly handy with a lamp. She’s kinky, and she can be scary stone cold — forcing Cheryl to testify the truth with blackmail, watching Jughead punch Chic in the face without flinching, drowning a man to get him to confess to his sins (although ask me some other time about the morality and racial undertones of that, as that is an entirely different conversation). But she also deeply values her relationships. She cares for her loved ones so much, friend or family. That makes her so strong.

Let me tell you the many Jugheads I love: Soft!Jughead, Smughead Jones, Curious Jones, Snowflake!Jughead, ProudBF!Juggie, and even HaplessSerpent!Jughead. I like him best when he’s writing and when he’s making literary references in regular conversation. I love how sarcastic he could be and how his transition from loner weird kid in Riverdale High to popular serpent prince in Southside High tugs at my heartstrings and makes me mad, too. Like Betty, he cares fiercely for the people he loves. His need to belong becomes real to him, after he tried to deny it for so long. As much as we all have our issues with Season 2 Jughead, it added certain dimensions to Jughead that I love to write about in fanfic.

Favourite moments from S1 & S2?: I think I loved most of season 1, but the moments that stood out to me most were these: When Betty was dancing happily in her Cheerleading uniform, when Betty and Jughead were searching Jason’s room and got caught, when Jughead and Betty went to the Sisters of Quiet Mercy together, when Betty rushed to SSH to save Jughead only to find him laughing at the lunch tables with his newfound friends, when Veronica stood up for Betty at the tryouts, when Veronica showed Cheryl compassion, when the girls all banded together to make Chuck suffer the consequences of his misogyny (again, I have words for this, but mostly — why only him? His wasn’t the only name on that playbook), when Cheryl calls people names, when Jughead protected Betty from her vandalized locker, and of course, when Jughead climbed Betty’s bedroom window.  While I can’t get enough of Jughead throwing Betty against the kitchen counter, I have to admit I still loved those other scenes a whole lot more. That said, I will still hope for what I mention in question #7.

Season 2 — ah, my goodness. I don’t need to explain how S2 broke my heart in so many good and bad ways. While there were some golden moments, I think most of us are in agreement that there were so many things that could’ve been done better. However, I STILL do have favorite scenes in this Hell Season: Jughead running the gauntlet was amazing, Betty working on Reggie’s car, the entire street race sequence, every time Betty uses a household object to save people (a shovel, a rolling pin, a poker), Jughead and Betty disposing of the car--from her house to the swamp, that entire episode of “The Wicked and the Divine”, Cheryl and Toni finding one another, and the hunger strike scenes.

What are your hopes for S3?:

Bughead summer sex montage. 

MOAR Bughead Detective Agency. 

A slammin’ Riverdale Parents Flashback episode. 

Joaquin stays and Kevin gets better with love and BDE.  

Kevin and Josie becoming step-siblings.

Reggie and Sweetpea being half-brothers.

Veronica being the Speakeasy Queen.

Cheryl stirring trouble (even if I know I’ll hate her for it).

Archie getting a clue.

Other fandoms you’re into?: My thing is that I don’t usually fan hard on more than one thing. My past fandoms were Harry Potter, Teen Titans, Anime (many of them at once), Cowboy Bebop, X-Files, Star Trek Voyager, and Firefly. At present, I love Star Wars (all of them — eh, except maybe for Episodes 1, 2, and 3), Wonder Woman, and all the Marvel movies.  

What are some of your favourite movies/TV?: Classics: Galaxy Quest, Tropic Thunder, Labyrinth, The Princess Bride, Forest Gump, The Matrix, Constantine, Clueless, The Breakfast Club, Transformers: The Animated Movie, Snatch, Firefly, Veronica Mars, Supernatural (Seasons 1 - 5), X-Files; 

Most Recent: Pacific Rim, Black Panther, Wonder Woman, Rogue One, Ready Player One, Anne with an E, Daredevil, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Anthony Bourdaine’s old and new series. 

Favourite books?: There are so many, fam, but here are the ones that first come to mind:

Harry Potter 1 - 6 (yeah, sorry, not a huge fan of the 7th)

Emma by Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

All of Louisa May Alcott’s books

All of Sharon Shinn

All of L.M. Montgomery

Anne Marston’s Rune Blade Trilogy

Barb and J.C. Hendee’s Noble Dead Saga

The Infernal Devices Trilogy (Cassandra Clare)

A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

All of Zilpha Keatley Snyder books

All of Paula Danziger books

Juliet Naked by Nick Hornby

Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer

The Unlikely Disciple by Kevin Roose

The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston and Mario Spezi

The Terror by Dan Simmons

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

Misery by Stephen King

Favourite bands/musicians?: I shall date myself, thanks:

Queen

Guns & Roses

Metallica

Nikki Minaj

Cardi B

Imagine Dragons

One Republic

The Killers

Lily Allen

Cake

Eminem

Amy Winehouse

U2

Sting

If you could live in any fictional world which one would you choose and why?: Harry Potter, no doubt. I would like to live in a world that relies on magic. I would like to go to a magical school like Hogwarts. I would love to fight in a resistance to overthrow an evil sorcerer. Plus, I would really, really love to meet Hermione.

Favourite food?:

Ramen (the real stuff, not the dried instant ones)

Banh Mi

Bun bo Hue

Sushi

Filipino Food — particularly Adobo

Tacos

Mangos and strawberries

Favourite season?: Summer.

Favourite plant?: This is an odd question to me as I don’t have a favorite plant. They are just there and sometimes they give me grief when I have to tend to the outside of my house because they’ve gotten unruly on some level (like — Fall, why do you have to discard your leaves all over my grounds?)

Favourite scent?: Baby’s breath, food, and freshly changed bed sheets.

Favourite colour?: Victorian pink.

Favourite animal?: Cats and Owls (I am definitely a witch by heart).

Are you a night owl, an early bird, or a vampire?: I sleep late and wake up early. I am an old person who can go on 5 hours of sleep.

Place you want to visit?: Portugal or Prague is next on my list.

Do you have pets? If you do, tell us a little about them: I have two pets. Pootie is a cat. He is a gray tuxedo. He loves me best, but he also hangs around my eldest child a lot. Every once in a while, he bothers my husband. Bob is a hermit crab. Bob bores the hell out of me and I am equal parts terrified that I will find him dead in his cage and tired that I am still taking care of him. His previous companions, Larry and Curly, have perished. When I found them dead, I screamed. Hermit crabs are creepy as fuck when they leave their shells, like I can’t stand them that way. I don’t know why I am stuck taking care of Bob, but he’s here, he is under my care, and God help me, he’s a stubborn bastard.

Tell us a little about yourself?: 

For work, I’m a web producer/web developer, and I maintain about 20 sites for my company.  

I used to work in publishing.

I went to law school and quit.

I eventually married my high school sweetheart and now we have 3 children.

I was always attracted to women, too, but growing up, I was too afraid to come out as bi. It still intimidates me, coming out to new people now. Most times, I just let them draw their own conclusions.

Fun or weird fact about you?: There’s nothing weird about me that you don’t already know. Fun fact: I kickbox in the nearby UFC gym, and one time, I was practicing with Tai pads with a dude who kicked me in the leg by accident — he just “grazed” me, really. I TRIED VERY HARD to pretend that I was alright. That night, my leg was swollen, and three months later, I saw that same dude fighting in the octagon on TV.

Asks for fanfic authors:

How long have you been writing?: 20 years.

Which is your favourite of the fics you’ve written?: That is impossible to answer. Truly. So I’m going to close my eyes over a list of my stories and where my finger lands, that’s my fave. It’s Drive.

Favourite fic/chapter/plot-point/character you’ve ever written?: This is even harder. 

Polly’s character arc in Wicked. I really love how I fleshed her out in that story

The development of Kevin and Jughead’s friendship in Harvest to Home

Jughead’s relationship with Archie and Jellybean in Drive.

Betty’s story arc in Drive.

The twists and turns of Wicked.

The rich ambience of Harvest to Home.

Betty and Cheryl’s friendship in Harvest to Home.

The text conversation in Drive.

Sweet Pea’s background character in Drive.

Cheryl’s character in Wicked.

The car chase scene in Drive.

The hotel scene in Cowboy Jones.

The Peitho kitchen scene in Cowboy Jones.

Which was the hardest to write, and why?: Wicked was hard to write. I had set out to write this story with the twists and turns in mind, and those twists were interlaced. I had to set stuff up all throughout the beginning and middle so that the end would make sense. It was also harder because of Season 2. The background of those episodes in contrast with what I had in mind tended to make me nervous about reader expectations. Like when Hal was suddenly the Black Hood on Riverdale, it felt odd to not make him so terrible in Wicked. 

One of the hardest chapters I had to write was a chapter written in Cheryl’s POV. Delving into her psyche was a difficult switch to turn on and at some point, I was doubting whether I can do it, but I did it and there it was. And I don’t regret it at all.

How do you come up with the ideas for you fic(s)? (examples: Do you draw inspiration from real life? Listen to music? Get inspired by TV/movies?) Do you have an process to your writing?: Inspiration is different every time. 

For Harvest to Home, I wanted to write a fic about a very domestic Betty who made beautiful things. While I was writing that fic, I was deeply into the show Fixer Upper because we had just moved into our own new home. I was absolutely inspired by the designs I saw on TV and our need to decorate our home. I wanted Betty to be so good at it that she wrote a blog about home making. I had a lot of inspiration for that as well, since in the publishing company I used to work for, I worked with a lot of chefs and homemakers who published books. 

For Drive, I was inspired by images of Mechanic!Betty at the start of Season 2. I think I may have seen a couple of fics inspired by the movie Baby Driver, where Jughead drove the getaway cars, and honestly, I got a little mad that Betty was never the driver. So I wrote the damn thing, and suddenly, Jughead was drag racing in Season 2. I wrote that fic with a lot of alternative music in the background. I usually started my chapters with the lyrics of those songs that inspired me.

For Wicked, I started writing it for Halloween and it basically grew too large of an idea to make it to Halloween of that year. I was also hesitant about how the fandom would receive a fic where Betty was a witch. Then there came that article about how Alice was possibly a Spellman. WELL THEN. 

Cowboy Jones was absolutely inspired by the Camp Bughead prompts. I figured since I hadn’t been driven out of the fandom by torches and pitchforks because of Wicked, I’d try for some sci-fi, a genre I really love. I aimed to misbehave with Cowboy Jones, so I told myself that this was going to be my smuttiest work yet. I had also put out an X-Files inspired bughead short called The Truth is Here for that same prompt. 

I answered the question about my writing process here and some more about character development here. 

Idea that you always wanted to write?: Kitchen Confidential type story, where Jughead is an asshole chef who is determined to make his restaurant succeed. Betty becomes his sous chef and shows him a thing or two about cooking and about life.

Favourite character to write?: Betty and Jughead, no doubt.

Best comment/review you’ve ever received?: Well, there are so many commenters who have been so fantastic, but my favorite comments come from those who want to have a discussion with me, mostly because I like to reply to all commenters to express my gratitude and it’s easier to reply when I can pick up a conversation.

Best and worst parts of being a writer?: Best part is finishing a chapter and posting it. Worst part is getting flamed. I have been fortunate enough to have a welcoming group of readers here, but I’ve had my share of flames in other fandoms. I always try to dig deep for something constructive in them — there always is something that can be so useful to my writing, but man, those are TOUGH to handle sometimes.

Do you have any advice to offer?: Few things:

Don’t let fear rule your life. Embrace that fear and get to know it. Find out what makes it frightening, then overcome it. 

Practice. That is the only thing that will make you better at anything. 

Learn from failure. It’s a bitch of a teacher but it’s the best lesson you’ll ever have.

Find work that you love. It always pays.

.

.

This is the eleventh installment of Bughead Family’s Member Spotlight series. Each week, a member’s url is selected through a randomizer and they will be featured in a spotlight post. In order to participate, please join the Bughead Discord (more information found here). Thank you.

#bughead #riverdale #bughead fanfiction #bughead family discord #bugheadfamily #member spotlight

[inknerd]

October Wrap-Up 2018

So! October’s soon over, autumn is in full bloom and I’ve read some books! It’s been an interesting month - I’ve started and finished my three weeks of practice at school as part of my teacher education programme, and I really feel like I’ve learnt a lot! I did show up in the middle of reading exercises and poetry introductions, so you could say I felt at home, at least!

CIRCE by MADELINE MILLER ★★★★★ | 352 pages | 2 days to read | Published 2018

Like...there’s wasn’t even the slightest doubt that I would LOVE this books - but wow, what an AMAZING book! If you liked The Song of Achilles, you’re probably going to like this one. + Just, everything! Circe as a character, the magic and scenery, the fact that we got even more Achilles/Patroclus inbetween the pages??? I loved everything. I was especially pleased to get to know so much more about Circe in general? Like the thing with Odysseus took a while to even get introduced, and all the background information and everything about all the other gods and nymphs - perfect. - Can’t really find anything to complain about. You should go read it. All I hope for now is that M. Miller decides to write even more about characters in Greek mythology.

WILD EMBERS: POEMS OF REBELLION, FIRE AND BEAUTY by NIKITA GILL ★★★★☆ | 150 pages | 2 days to read | Published 2017

I ordered two of Gill’s poetry collection, and this one was the first one to arrive. Lucky enough, I liked it! So I’m looking forward to reading the next one. + Some of the poems I really liked, but I was more amazed by some of the fantastic one-liners that were in most of the poems. - I felt somewhat...underwhelmed? by the poetry at times.

AVGRUNDENS ÄNGLAR by MAGNUS NORDIN ★★★☆☆ | 284 pages | 1 day to read | Published 2013

This is a book I normally wouldn’t be interested in, but at the school I did my teacher’s practice on they read this for class, so I decided to read it! + I was actually pleasantly surprised, despite knowing already that Nordin is a good author. It was a fast-paced and intruiging read, and it was nice seeing how it all came together in the end. - Some of the dialogues and scenarios felt pretty cliché, and the book also had this typical “school book feeling”, like this is the kind of book they’d force 15-16 year olds to read.

WEIRD THINGS COSTUMERS SAY IN BOOKSHOPS by JEN CAMPBELL ★★★★☆ | 120 pages | 1 day to read | Published 2012

Ah, okay, you know those tumblr posts talking about hilarious (and very frustrating) costumers who just ask the stupidest questions? If you like those you should totally read this! + I mean, what is there to say? This book is hilarious to read even if you’re not a book seller or a reader. - Idk, the first part is the funniest? then the second part while fun didn’t make me laugh as hard.

THE GOLDFINCH by DONNA TARTT ★★★☆☆ | 864 pages | *whistles awkwardly* | Published 2013

Okay, so I had a hard time rating this. It took me a long time to read it, or rather I read like 1/4 in like 3 months and then the rest in like, a week? and by the end of it I was like ���...okay”. + Tartt’s writing is amazing, okay. The language, the structure, all the info pumped into the story about art and everything is so interesting to read about. I also quite liked the ending, which is what I’m usually critisizing when it comes to most books? So yeah. - I didn’t really connect with the main character? Or any character really. And at many points in the story I wondered “but what is the point with this???”. It’s a really dense book, in many ways, and I would recommend it at the same time as awkwardly shaking my hand and say meh?

THE WITCH DOESN’T BURN IN THIS ONE by AMANDA LOVELACE ★★★☆☆ | 208 pages | 1 day to read | Published 2018

So according to goodreads I rated The Princess Saves Herself in this One 4 stars, and I can’t remember enough of it to know if I actually liked it more than I did this one, but oh well. I enjoyed reading this, anyhow. + I especially liked the poems dedicated to other media like The Handmaid’s Tale or Hamilton, it was fun catching the references! Also? The red text on all that white? So pretty.  - While I really liked some of the poems, I can’t say I got a favourite, and it just wasn’t completely my style, I guess?

FIERCE FAIRYTALES: POEMS AND STORIES TO STIR YOUR SOUL by NIKITA GILL ★★★★☆ | 176 pages | 1 day to read | Published 2018

Gill’s second poetry collection that also has a fairytale theme!!!???? I knew I was going to like it. + Okay, first of all: The Cover? Amazing, stunning, beautiful. I liked the poems in this collection more than in Wild Embers, for some reason, maybe because anything with fairytales in it makes me like it like 50% more. - I didn’t get a clear favourite and at moments I sort of, didn’t agree with the interpretation of the fairytale? If that makes any sense. 

THE COLLECTED POEMS by SYLVIA PLATH ★★★☆☆ | 349 pages | 21 days to read | Published 1981 (Poems from 1956-1963)

It seems to be a month of poetry, huh? This I’ve been reading for a while, simply because it was so long; practically all of Plath’s poetry, of which I wasn’t familiar with at all before. + Sometimes they really got to me, and I noticed I liked a lot of poems one year only to drift away the other, which was interesting. In the back of this collection there was also an article about Plath’s life and other bonus stuff with notes on some of the poems (how and why they were written etc.). - I somewhat wish I’d bought the poetry collections as they were when published by Plath rather than in one thick book. It made it very slow to read. I also was quite bored with some of the poetry, and I’ve come to the conclusion that I prefer Plath’s writing in prose rather than in poetry.

TASH HEARTS TOLSTOY by KATHRYN ORMSBEE ★★★☆☆ | 367 pages | 1 day to read | Published 2017

Lately I’ve been so excited to read more books with asexual characters in it, and this was high on my list! (Well, it’s not a very long list. Yet) + I always love to read about fandom and all that includes, and I’ve never read a book about people making a youtube series before and I thought Ormsbee was very creative regarding the Anna Karenina retelling. The friendships in this book was also something I enjoyed. - With that said I didn’t think this book was that special? There were several relationships dramas that I wasn’t overly interested in and in the end it left me wanting for something more (but this can once again also be because of me not being super interested in contemporary)

RENEGADES by MARISSA MEYER ★★★★☆ | 552 pages | 2 days to read | Published 2017

I’ve heard so many people reading and liking this book, and it sounds just down my alley! Superheroes and supervillains? Sign me UP. + All the characters and their respective powers and hero-names were all so creative and fun to read about. I like the detail going into their costumes and also the sides’ different aesthetic in general. And, the ending? Awesome. I’m so pumped for the next book in this series! - I did find the world Meyer described interesting, but it also left me with some questions that I hope are answered in the sequel. I’m also surprisingly not very invested in the main romance? Like, it was sweet but I had expected something more of it.

THE PRICE GUIDE TO THE OCCULT by LESLYE WALTON ★★★★☆ | 272 pages | 3 days to read | Published 2018

I really liked The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender, so I was so excited to read another magic realism book by Leslye Walton! + The atmosphere of the story and the scenery were PERFECT for autumn and Halloween, so I definitely read this book at the perfect time. The story of the Blackburn family and their powers were so interesting to read and the magic system was so cool and horrifying at the same time! - The main romance (and the side ones) felt like they sort fizzled out by the end, and I also felt like a lot of the action scenes or choices Nor and company made were so cliché in contrast to Walton’s otherwise magical and original writing. And also, the ending? It was good but will there be a sequel??? Because that ending is not satisfying to me if there’s not a sequel, and I think there won’t be, so.

GOOD OMENS by NEIL GAIMAN & TERRY PRATCHETT ★★★★☆ | 412 pages | 14 days to read | Published 1990

Okay, so I actually started reading this about a year ago, but for some reason I forgot about it and started reading something else. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I saw the trailer for the upcoming TV-series adaption of this book and went “NOW I HAVE TO READ IT”. + Like, it’s hilarious. Not much to say there. Just, the characters and their personalities and all the anecdotes about history and the Bible were just so spot on funny. The story in itself is also so such an interesting and fun concept. - I think I’ve had the same small problem with Gaiman’s work before (haven’t read anything else by Pratchett) and that is that while all the characters introduced are skillfully made and bring some relevance to the story I always want to get back to the main characters (or who I, personally, see as main characters) rather than read about a random construction worker or delivery man (but okay, the chapters with the delivery man was super funny).

#reading wrap-up #reading wrap-up: october 2018 #books #reading

[advocatewrites-blog]

Into the Unknown Part 4 Chapter 4

Into the Unknown

Fandom: Undertale, Coraline (book), Over the Garden Wall, Paranorman, Gravity Falls (season 2)

Characters: Frisk, Norman B., Dipper P., Mabel P., Coraline J., Wirt, Greg, the Cat, the Frog; Sans, Toriel, Papyrus, Undyne, Alphys, Asgore,; the Other Mother, the Beast, Agatha P., Bill Cipher, Asriel D., Chara D.,

Pairings: Not the focus. Alphys/Undyne, with mentions of Papyrus/Mettaton, sans/Toriel/Asgore, and Wirt/Sara. Due to the nature of Undertale and the dating segments, there is also interpretable Papyrus/Wirt, Undyne/Mabel, Alphys/Dipper, Napstablook/Norman, Mettaton/Norman, Mettaton/Mabel, Sans/Dipper, Sans/Norman, and Sans/Greg.

Rated a high +K for violence, mild language, horrific elements that may be disturbing to younger readers,  mentions of child abuse and bullying, character death that is sometimes permanent, and mentions of suicide that may be triggering. These elements remain relatively unchanged from their source material, which most all are for children, but discretion is advised nonetheless.

Disclaimer: Undertale was created and owned by Toby Fox. Coraline was created by Neil Gaiman and owned by Bloomsbury and Laika. Over the Garden Wall was created by Patrick McHale and owned by Cartoon Network. Paranorman was created by Sam Fell and Chris Butler and owned by Laika. Gravity Falls was created by Alex Hirsch and owned by Disney. Any other work mentioned or homage are property of their respective owners. This is a fan-made, nonprofit work that only seeks to entertain. Please support the original franchises.

Chapter 4

“OHHH YES! WELCOME BEAUTIES…TO TODAY’S QUIZ SHOW!”

Spotlights engulfed the lab. Two disco balls dropped from the lighting fixtures and engulfed the three into multicolored lights. Confetti fell from somewhere. Dipper knew that he was not going to like whatever happened next.

“OH BOY! I CAN ALREADY TELL IT’S GONNA BE A GREAT SHOW!” said the robot. “EVERYONE GIVE A BIG HAND TO OUR WONDERFUL CONTESTANTS!”

A fake, monotone clapping noise echoed from the robot’s soundboard as more confetti poured onto them.

“NEVER PLAYED BEFORE GORGEOUS? THE RULES ARE SIMPLE. ANSWER CORRECTLY.” said the robot. “OR YOU DIE!!!

Mettaton attacks.

“LET’S START WITH AN EASY ONE!!” said Mettaton. “WHAT’S THE PRIZE FOR ANSWERING CORRECTLY?”

“Uh…” said Dipper. “A new car?”

“THAT IS INCORRECT!!!”

A lightning-bolt shaped bullet shot from Mettaton’s microphone and collided with Dipper’s Soul.

“Are you okay?” Mabel asked.

“I’m fine,” said Dipper. “Not sure how many of those I can take. We’re gonna have to be smart about answering them.”

“Alright,” said Mabel. “Making things up is my specialty!”

“GLAD TO HEAR IT GORGEOUS!” said Mettaton. “HERE’S YOUR PRIZE: WHAT IS THE KING’S FULL NAME?”

Dipper actually remembered that one. Papyrus had said it, Undyne had said it, and the turtle that sold them things had said it even though he insisted on calling him “Ol’ King Fluffybuns”.

“Asgore Dreemurr!” said Dipper.

“CORRECT! WHAT A TERRIFIC ANSWER!”

“I was going to say Doctor Friendship…” said Mabel.

“NOW ENOUGH ABOUT YOU. LET’S TALK ABOUT ME! WHAT ARE ROBOTS MADE OF?”

“Metal and magic!” said Mabel.

That one had come pretty quickly, but Dipper figured that it was easy to guess.

“HERE’S AN EASY ONE FOR YOU: TWO TRAINS, TRAIN A AND TRAIN B, SIMULTANEOUSLY DEPART STATION A AND STATION B. STATION A AND STATION B ARE 252.5 MILES APART FROM ONE ANOTHER. TRAIN IS IS MOVING AT 124.7 MILESPERHOURTOWARDSSTATIONBAND TRAINBISMOVING-AT253.5MILESPERHOURTOWARSSTATIONAIFBOTHTRAINSDEPARTEDAT10:0AMANDITISNOW10:09HOWMUCHLONGERUNTILBOTHTRAINSPASSEACHOTHER?”

“32.058 minutes!” said Mabel.

Dipper had no idea how he could even solve that one, let alone Mabel.

“NEARLY RAN OUT THE CLOCK THERE, GORGEOUS! BUT THAT IS CORRECT!”

“You spent the entire time asking the question!” said Dipper.

“DO YOU WANT ME TO TAKE BACK YOUR CORRECT ANSWER?” Mettaton asked.

“We’re good!” Both the twins said.

“EXCELLENT! BECAUSE FROM HERE ON OUT THEY’RE ONLY GOING TO GET HARDER FROM HERE!” said Mettaton.”NEXT QUESTION: HOW MANY FLYS ARE IN THIS JAR?”

“54!” said Mabel.

“WHAT MONSTER IS THIS?”

“Mettaton!”

“BUT CAN YOU GET THIS ONE? WOULD YOU SMOOCH A GHOST?”

“Heck yeah!”

“WHAT A GOOD ANSWER! I LOVE IT!!!!” said Mettaton. “NEXT QUESTIONS: HOW MANY LETTERS ARE IN THE NAME METATTON NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN…”

“56!”

“That is correct!”

“How are you getting all of these?” Dipper asked.

“Alphys is telling me,” said Mabel. “But the smooch a ghost one was all me!”

Alphys froze.

“ALPHYS…” said Mettaton. “WERE YOU HELPING THE CONTESTANT?”

“U-u-uh, I was—” Alphys stammered.

“THAT’S ALRIGHT,” said Mettaton. “I’LL GIVE THEM AN ANSWER YOU’RE SURE TO KNOW THE ANSWER TO! WHO DOES DOCTOR ALPHYS HAVE A CRUSH ON?”

The two twins froze.

“Could we…not answer that one?” Dipper asked.

Entry no. 34

During our game of multi-dimensional chess, Bill mentioned something interesting. A Kingdom of Monsters. He seemed hesitant to discuss more; although it seemed more out of ignorance than ill-will. After some prying, he managed to bring up some key points. Sometime before Gravity Falls was inhabited, humans lived with monsters. A war broke out between the two races, leading to the monsters becoming imprisoned underneath a magic suppressing barrier. Bill mentioned that he had tried to enter the kingdom several times to look for someone to help him build the portal, but he kept being chased out by some “annoying dog”.

Whether or not he meant to, Bill has just made a phenomenal breakthrough with my research. Is this Kingdom of Monsters the source of all weirdness in Gravity Falls? Or even the world? Maybe there can be a direct link between the monsters in the forest and the monsters underground. Furthermore, if Bill really wanted to find a scientific mind in the kingdom of monsters, there could be someone else working on a portal right now.  Someone else I could compare notes with!

I expect the portal will be finished by tomorrow. Perhaps once Bill can enter our dimension, I can welcome him to Earth properly with a little hike.

It was much later, after the quiz show and after a cooking show and after a news show, when sans made himself known and invited Dipper to dinner.

“where’s that sister of yours?” he asked.

“Well…”

“‘A tragic tale of two lovers, torn apart by the tides of fate’…” Mabel read off of the poster in front of her. “That sounds right up my alley!”

She ignored the fact that 75% of the poster was Mettaton’s face. It would be nice to see him actually acting, and not just the elaborate set pieces he set up when he wanted to kill them. She would have to make a mental note to come back and catch it once Mettaton had calmed down a bit.

Mabel was so lost in thought that she did not notice where she was walking next. She stopped as she noticed she was on stage.

“Oh,” said Mabel as realization dawned on her.

“OH? COULD IT BE…” Mettaton’s voice echoed through the stage. “MY ONE TRUE LOVE?”

Mettaton descended down the fake balcony with all the grace of a vacuum cleaner. The song’s opening covered most of it up. He dropped the hem of his bright blue ballgown and began to sing.

That was when Mabel knew that this was really right up her alley.

“guess it doesn’t really matter,” said sans. “so, what do you know about a talking flower?”

The atmosphere grew suddenly very heavy. Dipper swallowed before he spoke.

“We found it in the Ruins,” said Dipper. “It’s this little gold flower named Flowey—“

“really?” said sans. “couldn’t think of a better name?”

“I didn’t name it!” Dipper said. “It calls itself that!”

“alright. tell me more about flowey mc flower face.”

“Well, when we left the Ruins, he talked about a lot of weird things,” said Dipper. “Stuff like how he was the one that would inherit this world...and how we weren’t the ones he was looking for…sans, how many humans have been in the Underground before us?”

“haven’t you heard undyne, kid?” sans asked. “there’ve been six humans in the underground. not including you two.”

“And is that where you got the lamps?” Dipper asked.

sans fell silent.

“Look, if we’re going to work together, we need to be 100% honest with each other,” Dipper said. “I won’t…judge you if you did something bad. Just be honest with me.”

Sans did not say anything for a moment. Just when Dipper was about to speak up again, he chuckled lowly.

“don’t judge anyone, you say? kid, that’s a good one and you don’t even know why yet,” said sans. “alright. there have been a total of 12 humans in the underground. i’ve seen six. just not at the same time.”

“So there’s a way out of the Underground then?” Dipper asked.

“sure there is. but that’s not what i’m talking about,” said sans.

“Well, what do you know about the other humans?”

“i’d say most weren’t older than you,” said sans. “all came from the ruins, all left through new home. all came at about the same time. don’t know what happened to them. don’t think they knew why they were here, either.”

“Well, do you think that flower might have something to do with it?” Dipper asked.

“don’t know. never seen ‘em before,” said sans after a minute. “well, if nothing else, this run’s been good for information. anything else you need to know?”

Dipper opened his mouth for a minute. But there was not anything else he could think to ask.

“great,” said sans. “if you get to the castle, i won’t stop you. but try and think about what you’re getting into, alright?”

It was only when sans got to the fichus in the corner that Dipper found what he wanted to ask next.

“What do you mean, ‘this time’? You keep talking about ‘this time’ and ‘these runs’, like you’ve already seen all this before!” said Dipper. “What are you trying to hide? I won’t be able to help you if you don’t tell me everything!”

“listen, kid,” said sans. “it’s not gonna matter. even if i do tell you everything, you’re just gonna disappear again. and there’ll be another kid waiting for me at my station. or maybe something worse. i’ve given up trying to change this.”

Dipper’s mouth hung open as he tried to think of what to say. Everything that sans said ran through his head. And then he realized.

“You’re a time traveler?”

The light in sans’ eyesockets went dark. He did not say anything.

“Why didn’t you just say that?” Dipper asked. “Maybe we can help you! Are you with the same agency as Blendin? Is there actually a Time Baby?”

“well,” said sans. “you’re close. if there’s a time traveler, it’s not me.”

Dipper probably had more experience with time travel than the average person, but it was still limited. There was stuff in the journals and the science fiction books he read, but most of what he really remembered came from the 80’s movies Mabel watched. There was one he remembered quite well, about the crabby man who was stuck in the same day repeating over and over.

“Oh,” said Dipper, because he was not sure what else he could say.

“if that’s all you have to say, kid, then i better head out,” said sans. “it’s almost papyrus’ bedtime, and he gets cranky without a bedtime story.”

“We’ll find a way to fix this,” said Dipper. “Mabel and I. We have, uh…experience with this kind of thing.”

“i mean, you probably won’t,” said sans. “but thanks anyway.”

He walked past the fichus in the corner and disappeared.

It took Dipper longer to leave. Too much was going through his head, not just about what sans had said but how he looked when he said it. He was going to have to set things right. There was no way around it.

When he did stumble out, he was surprised to find Mabel.

“Hey Dipper!” Mabel said. “I just finished up Mettaton’s play! How was your date with sans?”

It barely fazed Dipper to hear it called a date. His mind was on too many other things.

“Do you remember what the Journal said about time travel?” Dipper asked.

“Hmm…I’m not sure about the Journal, but there was that Blendin’ guy,” Mabel said.

“That’s what I was thinking too,” said Dipper. “No matter how we get back home, we need to remember to find a way to contact him.”

“Sounds like a plan!” Mabel said. “I’ll make a note of it in this cool notebook I bought from the turtle!”

#fic #Into the Unknown #Undertale #Gravity Falls #Mettaton #Dipper Pines #Mabel Pines #Alphys #sans #featured

[virtuteminteriusmobile]

PLEASE DO NOT REBLOG THIS THIS IS ONLY INFORMATION ON POISON IVY.

Muse Name: Dr. Pamela Isley

Alias: Poison Ivy, Ivy

Age: 30

FC: Emma Stone

Profession: Former Botanist/Evil Villain

Fandoms: Marvel, DC And others if asked.

                                                    Bio:

Following the events of the DC maxi-series comic Crisis on Infinite Earths, which massively retconned DC Universe history and continuity, Poison Ivy's origins were revised in Secret Origins #36, 1988, written by Neil Gaiman. Poison Ivy's real name is Dr. Pamela Lillian Isley, Ph.D., a Gotham City botanist. She grows up wealthy with emotionally distant parents and later studies advanced botanical biochemistry at a university with Alec Holland under Dr. Jason Woodrue. Isley, a shy girl, is easily seduced by her professor. Woodrue injects Isley with poisons and toxins as an experiment, causing her transformation. She nearly died twice as a result of these poisonings, driving her insane. Later, Woodrue flees from the authorities leaving Isley in the hospital for six months. Enraged at the betrayal, she suffers from violent mood swings, being sweet one moment and evil the next. When her boyfriend has a car accident after mysteriously suffering from a massive fungal overgrowth, Isley drops out of school and leaves Seattle, eventually settling in Gotham City.

She begins her criminal career by threatening to release her suffocating spores into the air unless the city meets her demands. Batman, who appears in Gotham that very same year, thwarts her scheme, and she is incarcerated in Arkham Asylum. From this point on, she has a kind of obsession with Batman, he being the only person she could not control. Over the years, she develops plant-like superpowers, the most noticeable being a lethal toxin in her lips; she is able to literally kill with a kiss.

In subsequent issues, she states that she only started a life of crime to attain sufficient funds to find a location to be alone with her plants, undisturbed by humanity. A few years later, she attempts to leave Gotham forever, escaping Arkham to settle on a desert island in the Caribbean. She transforms the barren wasteland into a second Eden, and is, for the first time in her life, happy. It is soon firebombed, however, when an American-owned corporation tests their weapons systems out on what they think is an abandoned island. Ivy returns to Gotham with a vengeance, punishing those responsible. After being willingly apprehended by Batman, she resolves that she can never leave Gotham, at least not until the world was safe for plants. From then on, she dedicates herself to the impossible mission of "purifying" Gotham.

At one point, Batman travels to Seattle to ascertain information on Pamela Isley's life before she became Poison Ivy. Here, Batman states that both of Pamela's parents are dead. When and why they died has been left undetermined.

While in Arkham, Poison Ivy receives a message through flowers that someone is to help her escape. That night, two women, Holly and Eva, successfully break Ivy out and bring her back to their employer. She is less than happy to discover that it is the Floronic Man, formerly known as Dr. Jason Woodrue, her former college professor that conducted the experiments on her. The only human portion of him remaining is his head, while the rest of his body is plant-based.

After striking a deal with him in the underground tunnels of Gotham, Ivy receives a trunk full of money in return for samples of her DNA. Woodrue intends to combine their DNA to create a "child", all while flooding the streets of Gotham with high-grade marijuana. The purpose of this is to create a world economy run on hemp and to have their offspring control it. Batman intervenes but is overcome by Woodrue's henchwomen, Holly and Eva. However, Ivy turns on Floronic Man and lets Batman go to fight the intoxicated maniac. In the end, Batman decapitates the Floronic Man, and Ivy escapes with her money.

At times, Ivy demonstrates positive and maternal traits. When Gotham City is destroyed in an earthquake, rather than fight over territory like most of Batman's enemies, she holds dominion over Robinson Park and turns it into a tropical paradise. Sixteen children who are orphaned during the quake come to live with her as she sympathizes with them having suffered a traumatic childhood herself. She cares for them like sons and daughters, despite her usual misanthropy.

That winter, Clayface (Basil Karlo) pays Ivy a visit, hoping to form a bargain with her. This would entail her growing fruits and vegetables, having the orphans harvest them, and him selling the produce to the highest bidder. She wants nothing to do with the plan, and she attempts to kill him with a kiss. Clayface overpowers her, however, and imprisons Ivy and the orphans for six months in a chamber under the park's lake. He feeds her salt and keeps her from the sun to weaken her. Eventually, Batman comes and discovers the imprisoned orphans and Ivy. The two agree to work together to take Karlo down. Batman battles Clayface and instructs Robin to blow up the lake bed above, allowing the rushing water to break apart the mud, effectively freeing Ivy. She fights Karlo, ensnaring him in the branches of a tree and fatally kissing him. She then proceeds to sink him down into the ground, where he becomes fertilizer for Ivy's plants. Batman, originally intending to take the orphans away from Ivy, recognizes that staying with her is what is best for them, and they remain in her care until the city is restored. Also, as part of a bargain to keep her freedom, Batman arranges it so that Ivy provides fresh produce to the starving hordes of earthquake survivors. Soon after, Ivy finds Harley Quinn, who had almost been murdered by the Joker, among the debris of the earthquake and nurses her back to health. The two have been best friends and partners-in-crime ever since.

After Gotham City is reopened to the public, the city council wants to evict her from the park and send her back to Arkham Asylum, as they are uncomfortable with the thought of a "psychotic eco-terrorist controlling the equivalent of 30-odd square blocks." They also mistakenly believe that the orphans in Ivy's care are hostages. The Gotham City Police Department threaten to spray the park with R.C. Sixty, a powerful herbicide that most certainly would have killed every living plant in the park, including Ivy, and more than likely do harm to the children. Ivy refuses to leave the park to the city and let them destroy the paradise she had created, so she chooses martyrdom. It is only after Rose, one of the orphans, is accidentally poisoned by Ivy that the hardened eco-terrorist surrenders herself to the authorities in order to save the girl's life. Batman says that, as much as she would hate to admit it, Ivy is still more human than a plant.

Later on, she and other Gotham characters are manipulated by the Riddler and Hush. Her task is to hypnotize both Superman and Catwoman, using Catwoman to steal ransom money from Killer Croc after the original plan is interrupted by Batman while Superman serves as a 'bodyguard' when she hides in Metropolis. However, she abandons Catwoman to be killed by Killer Croc, and Batman is able to keep Superman busy in a fight (aided by the Kryptonite ring he was given long ago) long enough for the Man of Steel to break out of the spell. Soon afterward, the Riddler, who is being chased and attacked by Hush, approaches Ivy and seeks her protection. Ivy, who is angered by the manipulation, battles the Riddler physically and psychologically. She comes to physically dominate her opponent, humiliating Riddler and temporarily breaking his spirit.

"One Year Later", Ivy is alive and active. Her control over flora has increased, referred to as being on a par with Swamp Thing or Floronic Man. She also appears to have resumed her crusade against the corporate enemies of the environment with a new fanaticism, regarding Batman no longer as the main opponent, but as a "hindrance". After arriving back from a year-long absence, Batman discovers that Ivy has been feeding people including "tiresome lovers", "incompetent henchmen", and those who "returned her smile" to a giant plant which would digest the victims slowly and painfully. She refers to these murders as a "guilty pleasure". In an unprecedented event, her victims' souls merge with the plant, creating a botanical monster called Harvest, who seeks revenge upon Poison Ivy. With the intervention of Batman, however, she is saved. Poison Ivy is left in critical condition, and the whereabouts of Harvest are unknown.

[flourish]

My life with comics

My best friend as a child has issues of Witchblade. Her parents bought it for her? Maybe. She has video games too, other things that I am allowed to engage with at other people’s houses but that I am not encouraged to bring home.

I love the sexy, powerful women in it. I don’t know that I want to be them, but I want to look at them forever. I don’t know how to get more issues. I know my mother wouldn’t approve.

I’m in high school. My best online friend is involved in scans_daily, and I’ve seen how much she loves superhero comics. I want to get into comics so I can talk with her about them.

There’s a comic shop about a quarter-mile from my house and I walk there in the Central Valley heat, ignoring the catcalls from the road. I’m used to it: in my suburb girls with long blonde hair don’t walk anywhere, and when they do they are fair game for any and all harassment. I’m still in the closet about being bi, still always femme, still painting my mouth with bright red lipstick. I don’t know any other way to be yet.

I get to the shop. It’s in a strip center that’s seen better days, and if you didn’t know it was still in business already, you might assume it was abandoned. I’ve been places like this to buy Magic cards before, got in and got out quickly, keeping my head down. I knew what happened when I played Magic with strange boys: they laughed at me, beat me hollow. After a few experiences like that I kept the cards not to play but just to look at the illustrations and imagine the worlds beyond them. I wanted to play, but I didn’t want to be humiliated.

No one speaks to me when I enter. I thumb through longboxes, feeling the eyes of the men behind the counter on me. I can feel the sweat drying on my back. I don’t want to ask questions. “Shopping for your boyfriend?” one of them finally ventures.

In retrospect, it was probably meant as a kindness.

At the time, I fled.

A few months later I’ve met a guy online. He’s into comics, so I gather up the courage to try again. This time when I go in to the same shop I can say “yes” when they ask whether I’m shopping for my boyfriend, but it’s not true. I have heard about Neil Gaiman’s 1602 and I want to get it weekly.

I go back over the course of months to pick up my one, singular comic. Once or twice someone tries to pick me up. Once the sales guy quizzes me on my knowledge, holding the issue hostage behind the counter as I struggle to explain that I don’t have a history with comics, that I just picked this one up because I like Neil Gaiman. He finally, grudgingly, gives it to me. “You should read—” he says, but then he catches himself: “it’s not out in trades and I don’t think we have all the issues.”

It doesn’t matter. I couldn’t afford to buy a long run of single issues anyway. My parents could, but I don’t have pocket money, and I’m supposed to be focusing on school, not getting a job. Or reading comics.

I like 1602, but I don’t get it. It’s so referential to characters I don’t know, storylines I can’t track. Every time I go into the shop, I feel more like an outsider. I’ve crossed the Rubicon. I am a regular, or anyway, a person who regularly comes in, even if I still don’t know anyone’s name. So why do I feel more left out than ever?

I end up at the same college as the guy I met online. He runs the comics library. Even after we break up, I’m welcome there. I finally feel like I can come in and flop down, pick up any comic I want, read it. I don’t have to talk to anyone if I don’t want to, and if I do talk to people, they are people I already know. I will not be quizzed.

The comics are in hardback books comprised of many single issues. I know they’re sent to a monastery to be bound together. (This is, though it seems fantastic, true.) I suppose that the monks are puzzled by the contents. My imagination doesn’t yet stretch to consider that some of the monks probably loved comics as boys, that they probably enjoy illicitly reading the issues as they bind them.

I can go back as far in comics history as I want to, here. There are first issues of all sorts of things. But I don’t. Every time I pick up something from the 80s or before, it’s too old, I don’t get it. When I try to pick things up in the middle, even the spots where people say “here’s where to start,” I feel that shivery misery of out-of-placeness. Maybe I’m not made for these. Maybe these are not made for me.

I read the full run of Ultimate Spider-Man, because I don’t have to know anything about what came before. I read V for Vendetta. I read Bone. I read Blankets. I read zines published by local artists. I don’t read any more superhero comics, after awhile. It’s not any individual person’s fault. It’s my fault, for not being more persistent. I shouldn’t have been put off by those actually-nice-guys who were just trying to be welcoming in an awkward way. After all, no one ever did anything really offensive. I should have listened more to my kind feminist boyfriend, to the scans_daily friend, even to my childhood best friend who somehow managed to get her hands on all sorts of pop culture that I wasn’t privy to. I shouldn’t have been daunted by canons that stretch back years before my birth. It’s me. I’m the one who’s at fault.

I watch people love superheroes from, it feels like, a long way away.

What if I loved superheroes?

I wax poetic about the new Spider-Man movie, about how much I hated the Tobey Maguire films because they weren’t really about a high school student. I scream with delight when the trailer comes on at SDCC, when I’m in Hall H and suddenly Peter Parker is in a high school comedy and Zendaya is flirting with him and it’s so great. Elizabeth is startled to find out that I care at all.

What if I was a fan of Spider-Man?

It’s not possible that I am a fan of Spider-Man. I know nothing about him. After all, I’ve only read Ultimate.

I feel confident at Comic-Con, going to the CBLDF party, walking around the floor. I know a lot about this stuff compared to most of the people here. I am a True Nerd.

I’m not a True Nerd. I only know a lot about comics compared to the Muggles.

The fact that I call them “Muggles” and not something else, something comics-specific, only illustrates that fact.

I read indie comics. My husband likes them more than me. I can’t compete with his expertise. I can’t compete with anyone’s expertise. So I begin to say, “I don’t read comics.” This is a lie.

I personally buy many of our comics, but they still feel like they belong to him.

I don’t look femme anymore, at least not high femme. I see myself in zines I buy at Printed Matter or at St. Mark’s Bookshop or online: people with long eyelashes and men’s haircuts. I don’t, somehow, connect these people with Witchblade, or with 1602. Their work is sold in bookstores. Their work is sold in Artists’ Alleys. They aren’t comics. Or they are, but they’re not that kind of comics.

They’re the kind of comics that I can read, not the kind of comics I can’t read.

I lift weights a lot. My favorite shirt reads THE SAVAGE SHE-HULK. I have never read a comic about She-Hulk.

I begin to think I might be non-binary, but I don’t care enough to insist on pronouns.

Maybe I do care enough. But I am set in my ways. People assume I’m straight, people assume I’m absolutely female. When I send up a test balloon about it, the reaction is stark: what the fuck. I don’t want to get into the argument.

I also don’t want to get into the argument about comics. I would rather not read superhero comics than have to defend my enjoyment of them, or have to fight my own instincts in order to enjoy them. So I don’t. I’ll study them and know all about them, intellectually, and I’ll watch the movie when it comes out but I won’t give my heart away.

This makes me a coward. I have recently come to recognize that I belong in Slytherin. I guess it comes with the territory.

I study fandoms for work. My closest colleague loves to read single issues, loves Marvel and DC. She follows a million superheroes, she writes criticism for fun in her off hours, she brings great insights. We do projects to look at superhero fandoms together and I know I’m resting in the fact that I can focus on just the parts I feel comfortable with and leave the rest to her. If I squint it’s almost like I’m just engaged in the fandom spaces I always have loved, the spaces that are familiar to me. The internet spaces where people write fanfic and make fanart. The spaces that are mostly female and enby.

On the internet nobody knows you’re a dog.

So why is it that I know so many women, so many women who are much more femme than me, so many women who are much more women than me, who embrace superhero comics?

Who identify as comics people, even if not superhero comics people?

Why can’t I seem to do it too, no matter how much I read?

I don’t normally self-disclose this way, for a lot of reasons. My work involves actively trying to ignore personal feelings about fandoms, checking and double checking against data to make sure that they’re being represented accurately and truthfully and honestly and fairly, and I think I do it pretty well. More to the point, I do it with a team, and we check each other.

Fansplaining involves criticism of fandom as well as celebration of it. A lot of times our experiences as hosts are beside the point. When Elizabeth said she thought we needed to do a big quadruple episode and address racism in Star Wars fandom, my stomach sank. Star Wars was my jam. I wept at the new movies. I owned a whole bookshelf of extended universe novels at one point. I didn’t want to look at how the fandom was flailing (and failing). But she was right. And my feelings were beside the point.

Still, it’s impossible to set aside everything you feel.

Are we really negative about comics on Fansplaining? I can’t tell. Or, I can: I combed through every time we’ve discussed them, and was satisfied that we weren’t. But then I got to the end and had another email from another listener saying that we were. I know from experience that perceptions are untrustworthy. My perceptions are untrustworthy. Relying on your gut means you get things wrong.

I resent that I feel obligated to write this post. I don’t want to talk about how easily intimidated I am. I don’t want to talk about my life as a teenager, when everything to do with gender felt momentous. And I don’t want to have my voice, as an upper middle class white person who isn’t usually visibly non-binary, be the voice that’s heard on this subject, when our interviewees on Fansplaining have surely been speaking from experiences of racism as well. But I guess I’m writing it anyway.

I don’t know how to unpick this knot. I don’t want to be unfair, but I don’t know how to be “neutral,” not in the podcast that Elizabeth and I manage to produce by the skin of our teeth around everything else in our lives. If it were my job I could do it. But I already have a job, and I do have to be neutral there, and I can’t do it any more than I already do.

There’s no answers here, but maybe there’s something useful.

[barbecuedphoenix]

200 Followers: 11 Things About Me

So I was re-tagged a week ago by @eldarya-scenarios. (I had no idea I tagged you twice, dear. ^_^ Having two aliases is awfully sneaky.) 

If you’re a little curious on who your friendly fan blogger is behind the Leiftan icon and the barrage of text-winks, feel free to read on. Watch out though: it’s a long post like everything else I write... 

And if not, please continue to enjoy this blog’s smart-assery and the text-winks. ;)

1) Why did you name your blog the way you did? ...Because that’s the screen-name I use for my main Eldarya account. I’m not very creative with names. :( Not to mention that it’s probably very politically-incorrect to say ‘Barbecued Phoenix’ in the faery realm. Huang Hua would not be amused. And my blog is guaranteed to be politically-incorrect as far as folklore and faeries are concerned. ;) My screen-name is actually homage to a Neil Gaiman short-story called ‘Sunbird’, which is still one of my favorites from its double serving of dark humor and culinary catastrophes. And it sounds really funny when you say it out-loud (at least that’s my opinion).

2) What was your last meal? *checks bowl next to laptop* Eh… a fruit salad I scraped together from some Rainier cherries and leftover cantaloupe slices. It’s summer here, and I enjoy my fruits. :)

3) Jeans or skirts? …I must have at least nine different pairs of jeans in my closet, half of which I don’t even wear most days. And just one pencil skirt. Because at least once in my life, I’ll need to go to a court room. So there’s your answer. :)  

4) What’s your favourite letter of the alphabet? In the English alphabet, ‘L’ is my favorite. It just rollllls off the tongue so nicely. :) 

5) Favourite fandom/shipping? I’m a mercenary crack-ship writer. Anything goes so long as characters are in-character. ;) *cough* Truthfully, I haven’t shipped anything in a fandom since I was eleven or twelve, and that was waaaay back when the cartoon series Avatar the Last Airbender premiered. I think that experience has inoculated me to serious shipping. So now, while I enjoy seeing a well-developed, well-paced canon romance (because it means the creators have really thought the story through), it’s never a huge concern for me who’s paired up with whom. Romance isn’t actually the selling point for me for a lot of stories; it’s individual character development and plot direction that counts.   And anyway… fan shipping is really a fabrication. With a bit of imagination, effort, and tactical writing, functional relationships can be spun between anything and anyone, and unraveled in the same way. Even when keeping all parties in character. So why blow a gasket over shipping? To each their own dirty little fancies. ;)

As for my fandoms… they’re a patchwork quilt of games, books, movies, TV shows, anime from a lot of different sources, and it changes every year. For the sake of time, I’ll give a rundown of just the fantasy/supernatural genres I’ve been following for a while (translating some of the titles to English when possible):  

Games: the Dragon Age series, Folklore (also called FolksSoul), Uncharted, the Persona series 

Books: Discworld, His Dark Materials, the Dr. Siri Paiboun series, the Temeraire series, The Tiger’s Wife, Brisingamen, pretty much anything done by Neil Gaiman… the list goes on. With a few rare exceptions, I’ve shifted from being a high fantasy lover (those tropes get old after a while) to an acolyte of more low-key genres like magical-realism, fantasy-historical-fiction, and satirical-fantasy.  

TV Shows: Supernatural  

Anime & Cartoons: the Fate series (even though my fanfiction ends up making fun of it 95% of the time, it’s still a really intricate universe), the Avatar series  

Movies: Practically anything done by Studio Ghibli and Tomm Moore, ‘Coraline’, ‘Corpse Bride’, ‘Therapy for a Vampire’, ‘Let the Right One In’, ‘Groundhog Day’, the very first installation of ‘The Hobbit’   

6) What’s your favourite sport? (You don’t necessarily have to play it) Favorite sport I can’t do, but love to watch: Surfing. Forget berserk football matches; give me a crazy Australian riding a tunnel wave any day. :D  Favorite sport I can do: Bicycling. I’m no Tour de France candidate, but my bike regularly takes its share of unreasonable hills and descents in the city where I live. Personally, It’s a great way to get around. ^_^

7) What’s your idea of a perfect day? Getting everything on my list done with minimal coffee and hair-pulling.  -_- Sorry… I’m still listening to the robot half of my brain. Switching over.  Start the day by making a difference and sharing a good time with both the students I see where I work, and the odd friends and colleagues I do have. Attend a really good lecture. Then take a quiet bus ride to the beach or an aquarium, where I can watch all the wildlife shenanigans I want. Tourists included. Cook something awesome for lunch or dinner, and eat it to discover that it’s still more awesome. End the day with a good book, an avalanche of blankets, and a conveniently-rainy night. And maybe a quick Skype/phone call with my dad.  ;( Oh there I go, listening to the sappy half of my brain. Switching over.  

8) What animal do you hate with all your soul? The logical part of my brain tells me I have no cause to loathe any animal for existing. But the cave-woman part of my brain still gets creeped out by a few of them…. Geckos especially. Because the house where I grew up was infested with them (like a typical equatorial house, actually). The geckos could be found on absolutely any flat surface, even the underside of the table and on the ceiling, so we always had to check right before sitting down that something cold, bug-eyed, and squirmy wasn’t going to drop on us in the middle of dinner. And they also liked to appear in other surprising places: like in your shoes (as my father found out one day while rushing to work), inside drawers, inside trash cans, crushed between door hinges, trapped in the kitchen sink, and inside the refrigerator a couple of times (worst idea ever, for a lizard).      One of the best things that happened to me on moving to this corner of the United States: no geckos anywhere. I can clean my apartment with an easy heart. \o/    

9) Can you dance? Besides some lingering muscle memory from my early days doing classical ballet... no. :(  I’d really like to take up Spanish Flamenco though. Generally, I do better with choreographed dances rather than impromptu club-dancing. As all my friends have told me. I’ve given them so many priceless memories on the dance-floor… 

10) What’s the name and age of your favourite character? (OC or otherwise) I can’t decide on a ‘favorite’ character in media; there’s too many of them. So how about a favorite OC instead? ^_^   Right now among the Eldarya OC cast, my favorite would have to be Zephania ‘Zee’ Tantiango because she’s a magnet for trouble as a protagonist very dynamic heroine to work with. (She’s 23, in case you’re interested.) Zee is actually the latest incarnation of the ‘funny-but-unlucky action heroine’ archetype I’ve spent years working on, and I’m happy with how she’s turning out so far. On one hand, she’s the typical small-town heroine who’s sharp, plucky, energetic, and more than a little kooky herself; the story never stops moving once she starts improvising in a tight situation. :) But there’s a strong undercurrent of tragedy in the way she continues to isolate herself through her pride and her decisions, especially because she’s allergic to either admitting that she’s in real trouble, or cutting herself some slack for her mistakes. There’s a lot of sadness behind that finger-snap smile. I’m still debating on whether to give her a good ending, or a bitter one. :(  No, that was not a spoiler for the fan-fiction that’ll one day hit this blog.

11) What got you into your favourite activity?(i.e how did you start?) Favorite activity? Like… a hobby?  Well the longest-running hobby I’ve ever had is writing (no guesses there). And it was more-or-less self-taught. As a kid, nobody could take me anywhere without a book in my hand, or some other adventure happening inside my own head (which made it awfully inconvenient to get my attention in a mall… but hey, I never wandered off). And writing short stories was always the most entertaining school assignment for me.  But it wasn’t until I started home-schooling at thirteen that I found the time and need to write something for myself, putting to paper those increasingly-complex sagas and fan-fictions that lived in my head (because my short-term recall just couldn’t keep track of all the dialogue and plot twists anymore; I needed to start recording my stories to make sense of them.)   And I haven’t stopped since. :)

Uh-oh. Here come… my questions. For @mentacomchocolate, @areyntheheartseeker, and @the-irish-hoor​. 

Why did you name your blogs the way you did? ;)

What would your honest personal reaction be if you accidentally stepped into a fairy ring, landed in a strange place, and got threatened by a fox-lady wielding fireballs?  

What’s your dream job in this life?  

Is there anyone you have a crush on that you’re still really embarrassed to admit? Would you like to mention them anyway? ;)  

If there’s only one book genre you could spend the rest of your life reading, what will it be?  

What are the top 5 things you geek out over? (Today, at least. ;) )

If you’ve been given a 24-hour advance warning that the world is definitely going to end (i.e. via Death Star), what will you do?

And if you’ve been given an exclusive two-person escape pod during above scenario, what/who would you bring with you to escape the planet? Would you want to?

If your friends can agree on one thing about you, what would it be? Do you agree with them? 

What’s the most embarrassing thing that happened to you this past week?  

What do you remember as your most incredible feat of endurance to date? Physical, mental, and/or social?

*looks up* ...All right, those are some weird questions. I won’t blame you at all if you ignore them. 

#Q&A #tag post #blog milestone #200 followers #OC: Zephania