#How to Create Sales Letters

[paper-starz]

PLAYTIME REDESIGNS!

It’s the three versions of beloved dough man! From his original 50s version, to his rebooted 80s and 90s versions!

I had a bit too much fun with these guys. Especially 90s doey, it’s so much fun to draw his expressions!

Rewritten lore under 👇

Doey D. Doughman was Playtime Co.’s second major commercial success! Hitting the toy aisles in the 1950s, “Doey Dough” became the toy marketed towards schools across the nation, teaching kids how to be creative and imaginative. With Playtime Co.’s original recipe, kids won’t have to worry about forgetting to close the lid on the can, because the dough can’t ever dry out!! Here, we see Doey’s original design, a fine and charming fellow marketing the four original colors of “Doey Dough”: blue, red, orange, and yellow!

Luckily, Doey’s Dough expanded its color selection by the 1980s, and with it, Playtime Co. redesigned their beloved mascot! Now he’s sporting a bea-U-tiful rainbow vest, showing off the wonderful new colors! Once again, profits soared! Playtime sold nearly 8 million cans of Doey Dough in 1982 alone, and with that amount of profit meant that there were a LOT of fans.

Playtime Co. was receiving hundreds of letters per day of kids asking when they’re going to see more of their beloved dough man? With so much demand, it would’ve been stupid of the company not to capitalize on that! So on 1984, “Doey the Doughman” series was released out onto the public, and boy did the public adore the lovable living doughman. More than 40 million viewers tuned in to watch Doey teach them the wonders of one’s own creativity, of joy, kindness, and friendship. From there, more merchandise got released, from plush toys to books!

Now that all changed once the 90s began. You see, Playtime Co. wanted to be in the public spotlight again, and while they HAVE been releasing toys, with varying degrees of success, they weren’t as popular as Playtime Co. needed them to be. So, instead of creating a new, innovative toy that kids would love, the company repurposed its beloved mascot Doey, the one that taught kids about love and kindness since the 80s, into a brash, mean-spirited Doughman.

Playtime Co. was finally receiving the attention it so desperately wanted, but not the right kind of attention. Angry fans (both kids and adults alike) sent in hundreds of letters complaining about the awful new changes, some even refused to buy anything Playtime Co. related UNTIL they could fix this issue. This got so bad that it even started to affect PlayTime Co.’s sales, so with no other choice, Playtime Co pulled 90s Doey Dough away from store shelves and replaced it with the memorable 80s version. This era is often referred to as the “Playtime Company’s Doh-sastor”.

To this day fans often wonder why Playtime Co. decided on redesigning their once colorful and fun mascot to something “unoriginal”, “bland”, and “boring” compared to its predecessors. Perhaps this is due to the time period, where many shows at this time were a lot more “edgy” than the cute and pastel cartoons that came before. Perhaps we’ll never know!

Huggy, Kissy, and Doey redesigns

Yarnaby!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Google’s enshittification memos

[Note, 9 October 2023: Google disputes the veracity of this claim, but has declined to provide the exhibits and testimony to support its claims. Read more about this here.]

When I think about how the old, good internet turned into the enshitternet, I imagine a series of small compromises, each seemingly reasonable at the time, each contributing to a cultural norm of making good things worse, and worse, and worse.

Think about Unity President Marc Whitten's nonpology for his company's disastrous rug-pull, in which they declared that everyone who had paid good money to use their tool to make a game would have to keep paying, every time someone downloaded that game:

The most fundamental thing that we’re trying to do is we’re building a sustainable business for Unity. And for us, that means that we do need to have a model that includes some sort of balancing change, including shared success.

https://www.wired.com/story/unity-walks-back-policies-lost-trust/

"Shared success" is code for, "If you use our tool to make money, we should make money too." This is bullshit. It's like saying, "We just want to find a way to share the success of the painters who use our brushes, so every time you sell a painting, we want to tax that sale." Or "Every time you sell a house, the company that made the hammer gets to wet its beak."

And note that they're not talking about shared risk here – no one at Unity is saying, "If you try to make a game with our tools and you lose a million bucks, we're on the hook for ten percent of your losses." This isn't partnership, it's extortion.

How did a company like Unity – which became a market leader by making a tool that understood the needs of game developers and filled them – turn into a protection racket? One bad decision at a time. One rationalization and then another. Slowly, and then all at once.

When I think about this enshittification curve, I often think of Google, a company that had its users' backs for years, which created a genuinely innovative search engine that worked so well it seemed like *magic, a company whose employees often had their pick of jobs, but chose the "don't be evil" gig because that mattered to them.

People make fun of that "don't be evil" motto, but if your key employees took the gig because they didn't want to be evil, and then you ask them to be evil, they might just quit. Hell, they might make a stink on the way out the door, too:

https://theintercept.com/2018/09/13/google-china-search-engine-employee-resigns/

Google is a company whose founders started out by publishing a scientific paper describing their search methodology, in which they said, "Oh, and by the way, ads will inevitably turn your search engine into a pile of shit, so we're gonna stay the fuck away from them":

http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/papers/google.pdf

Those same founders retained a controlling interest in the company after it went IPO, explaining to investors that they were going to run the business without having their elbows jostled by shortsighted Wall Street assholes, so they could keep it from turning into a pile of shit:

https://abc.xyz/investor/founders-letters/ipo-letter/

And yet, it's turned into a pile of shit. Google search is so bad you might as well ask Jeeves. The company's big plan to fix it? Replace links to webpages with florid paragraphs of chatbot nonsense filled with a supremely confident lies:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/14/googles-ai-hype-circle/

How did the company get this bad? In part, this is the "curse of bigness." The company can't grow by attracting new users. When you have 90%+ of the market, there are no new customers to sign up. Hypothetically, they could grow by going into new lines of business, but Google is incapable of making a successful product in-house and also kills most of the products it buys from other, more innovative companies:

https://killedbygoogle.com/

Theoretically, the company could pursue new lines of business in-house, and indeed, the current leaders of companies like Amazon, Microsoft and Apple are all execs who figured out how to get the whole company to do something new, and were elevated to the CEO's office, making each one a billionaire and sealing their place in history.

It is for this very reason that any exec at a large firm who tries to make a business-wide improvement gets immediately and repeatedly knifed by all their colleagues, who correctly reason that if someone else becomes CEO, then they won't become CEO. Machiavelli was an optimist:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/28/microincentives-and-enshittification/

With no growth from new customers, and no growth from new businesses, "growth" has to come from squeezing workers (say, laying off 12,000 engineers after a stock buyback that would have paid their salaries for the next 27 years), or business customers (say, by colluding with Facebook to rig the ad market with the Jedi Blue conspiracy), or end-users.

Now, in theory, we might never know exactly what led to the enshittification of Google. In theory, all of compromises, debates and plots could be lost to history. But tech is not an oral culture, it's a written one, and techies write everything down and nothing is ever truly deleted.

Time and again, Big Tech tells on itself. Think of FTX's main conspirators all hanging out in a group chat called "Wirefraud." Amazon naming its program targeting weak, small publishers the "Gazelle Project" ("approach these small publishers the way a cheetah would pursue a sickly gazelle”). Amazon documenting the fact that users were unknowingly signing up for Prime and getting pissed; then figuring out how to reduce accidental signups, then deciding not to do it because it liked the money too much. Think of Zuck emailing his CFO in the middle of the night to defend his outsized offer to buy Instagram on the basis that users like Insta better and Facebook couldn't compete with them on quality.

It's like every Big Tech schemer has a folder on their desktop called "Mens Rea" filled with files like "Copy_of_Premeditated_Murder.docx":

https://doctorow.medium.com/big-tech-cant-stop-telling-on-itself-f7f0eb6d215a?sk=351f8a54ab8e02d7340620e5eec5024d

Right now, Google's on trial for its sins against antitrust law. It's a hard case to make. To secure a win, the prosecutors at the DoJ Antitrust Division are going to have to prove what was going on in Google execs' minds when the took the actions that led to the company's dominance. They're going to have to show that the company deliberately undertook to harm its users and customers.

Of course, it helps that Google put it all in writing.

Last week, there was a huge kerfuffile over the DoJ's practice of posting its exhibits from the trial to a website each night. This is a totally normal thing to do – a practice that dates back to the Microsoft antitrust trial. But Google pitched a tantrum over this and said that the docs the DoJ were posting would be turned into "clickbait." Which is another way of saying, "the public would find these documents very interesting, and they would be damning to us and our case":

https://www.bigtechontrial.com/p/secrecy-is-systemic

After initially deferring to Google, Judge Amit Mehta finally gave the Justice Department the greenlight to post the document. It's up. It's wild:

https://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-09/416692.pdf

The document is described as "notes for a course on communication" that Google VP for Finance Michael Roszak prepared. Roszak says he can't remember whether he ever gave the presentation, but insists that the remit for the course required him to tell students "things I didn't believe," and that's why the document is "full of hyperbole and exaggeration."

OK.

But here's what the document says: "search advertising is one of the world's greatest business models ever created…illicit businesses (cigarettes or drugs) could rival these economics…[W]e can mostly ignore the demand side…(users and queries) and only focus on the supply side of advertisers, ad formats and sales."

It goes on to say that this might be changing, and proposes a way to balance the interests of the search and ads teams, which are at odds, with search worrying that ads are pushing them to produce "unnatural search experiences to chase revenue."

"Unnatural search experiences to chase revenue" is a thinly veiled euphemism for the prophetic warnings in that 1998 Pagerank paper: "The goals of the advertising business model do not always correspond to providing quality search to users." Or, more plainly, "ads will turn our search engine into a pile of shit."

And, as Roszak writes, Google is "able to ignore one of the fundamental laws of economics…supply and demand." That is, the company has become so dominant and cemented its position so thoroughly as the default search engine across every platforms and system that even if it makes its search terrible to goose revenues, users won't leave. As Lily Tomlin put it on SNL: "We don't have to care, we're the phone company."

In the enshittification cycle, companies first lure in users with surpluses – like providing the best search results rather than the most profitable ones – with an eye to locking them in. In Google's case, that lock-in has multiple facets, but the big one is spending billions of dollars – enough to buy a whole Twitter, every single year – to be the default search everywhere.

Google doesn't buy its way to dominance because it has the very best search results and it wants to shield you from inferior competitors. The economically rational case for buying default position is that preventing competition is more profitable than succeeding by outperforming competitors. The best reason to buy the default everywhere is that it lets you lower quality without losing business. You can "ignore the demand side, and only focus on advertisers."

For a lot of people, the analysis stops here. "If you're not paying for the product, you're the product." Google locks in users and sells them to advertisers, who are their co-conspirators in a scheme to screw the rest of us.

But that's not right. For one thing, paying for a product doesn't mean you won't be the product. Apple charges a thousand bucks for an iPhone and then nonconsensually spies on every iOS user in order to target ads to them (and lies about it):

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

John Deere charges six figures for its tractors, then runs a grift that blocks farmers from fixing their own machines, and then uses their control over repair to silence farmers who complain about it:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/05/31/dealers-choice/#be-a-shame-if-something-were-to-happen-to-it

Fair treatment from a corporation isn't a loyalty program that you earn by through sufficient spending. Companies that can sell you out, will sell you out, and then cry victim, insisting that they were only doing their fiduciary duty for their sacred shareholders. Companies are disciplined by fear of competition, regulation or – in the case of tech platforms – customers seizing the means of computation and installing ad-blockers, alternative clients, multiprotocol readers, etc:

https://doctorow.medium.com/an-audacious-plan-to-halt-the-internets-enshittification-and-throw-it-into-reverse-3cc01e7e4604?sk=85b3f5f7d051804521c3411711f0b554

Which is where the next stage of enshittification comes in: when the platform withdraws the surplus it had allocated to lure in – and then lock in – business customers (like advertisers) and reallocate it to the platform's shareholders.

For Google, there are several rackets that let it screw over advertisers as well as searchers (the advertisers are paying for the product, and they're also the product). Some of those rackets are well-known, like Jedi Blue, the market-rigging conspiracy that Google and Facebook colluded on:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi_Blue

But thanks to the antitrust trial, we're learning about more of these. Megan Gray – ex-FTC, ex-DuckDuckGo – was in the courtroom last week when evidence was presented on Google execs' panic over a decline in "ad generating searches" and the sleazy gimmick they came up with to address it: manipulating the "semantic matching" on user queries:

https://www.wired.com/story/google-antitrust-lawsuit-search-results/

When you send a query to Google, it expands that query with terms that are similar – for example, if you search on "Weds" it might also search for "Wednesday." In the slides shown in the Google trial, we learned about another kind of semantic matching that Google performed, this one intended to turn your search results into "a twisted shopping mall you can’t escape."

Here's how that worked: when you ran a query like "children's clothing," Google secretly appended the brand name of a kids' clothing manufacturer to the query. This, in turn, triggered a ton of ads – because rival brands will have bought ads against their competitors' name (like Pepsi buying ads that are shown over queries for Coke).

Here we see surpluses being taken away from both end-users and business customers – that is, searchers and advertisers. For searchers, it doesn't matter how much you refine your query, you're still going to get crummy search results because there's an unkillable, hidden search term stuck to your query, like a piece of shit that Google keeps sticking to the sole of your shoe.

But for advertisers, this is also a scam. They're paying to be matched to users who search on a brand name, and you didn't search on that brand name. It's especially bad for the company whose name has been appended to your search, because Google has a protection racket where the company that matches your search has to pay extra in order to show up overtop of rivals who are worse matches. Both the matching company and those rivals have given Google a credit-card that Google gets to bill every time a user searches on the company's name, and Google is just running fraudulent charges through those cards.

And, of course, Google put this in writing. I mean, of course they did. As we learned from the documentary The Incredibles, supervillains can't stop themselves from monologuing, and in big, sprawling monopolists, these monologues have to transmitted electronically – and often indelibly – to far-flung co-cabalists.

As Gray points out, this is an incredibly blunt enshittification technique: "it hadn’t even occurred to me that Google just flat out deletes queries and replaces them with ones that monetize better." We don't know how long Google did this for or how frequently this bait-and-switch was deployed.

But if this is a blunt way of Google smashing its fist down on the scales that balance search quality against ad revenues, there's plenty of subtler ways the company could sneak a thumb on there. A Google exec at the trial rhapsodized about his company's "contract with the user" to deliver an "honest results policy," but given how bad Google search is these days, we're left to either believe he's lying or that Google sucks at search.

The paper trail offers a tantalizing look at how a company went from doing something that was so good it felt like a magic trick to being "able to ignore one of the fundamental laws of economics…supply and demand," able to "ignore the demand side…(users and queries) and only focus on the supply side of advertisers."

What's more, this is a system where everyone loses (except for Google): this isn't a grift run by Google and advertisers on users – it's a grift Google runs on everyone.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/03/not-feeling-lucky/#fundamental-laws-of-economics

My next novel is The Lost Cause, a hopeful novel of the climate emergency. Amazon won't sell the audiobook, so I made my own and I'm pre-selling it on Kickstarter!

[deesseshesca]

PAC : Letter from your pregnant self (HIS POV) 18+

I got beef with men but ... what else is new ?

PERSONAL READING (SALE) (LINK)

FIRE TO THE MOON

FUTURE LOVE + SEX DOUALA = 40$ (2for1)

DOWN TO MY CORE

CHARACTER UPDAPTE + LORE DUMP = 40$ (2for1)

PILE 1

MY BEEF...any way thank you so much for coming through. Girl you better like it, he got me working fucking overtime. Actually all of them did ...

(LINK TO YOUR READING ... YES IT IS FREE AND ON TUMBLR ... MERRY CHRISMAS)

PILE 2 

Both of y’all are only child that were raised to be anxious over achiever. Parents are never there. I keep hearing : ‘’Super rich kids with nothing but loose ends. Super rich with nothing but fake friends…’’

Letter suppose to be for you but instead he wrote it for your baby.

Dear Lucetta (Various ethereal ‘’L’’ name came through. Other name that came through : Lysandra, Lysianne and Lucretia) 

Daddy messed up (This man is bawling. I mean breakdown and everything. He tries to be strong but for the sec that he admits that, tears are overflowing. If he was actually writing the letter they would be teardrop on the letter). Daddy is nothing but an asshole. I should not write this right … Your mama is going to get mad when she realizes how I butcher your vocabulary (yellow laugh ( french : rire jaune) … idk how to explain it in english). Fuck … You deserve a fucking good letter. That’s the least I can fucking do … yeah that’s the least I can do. Mama decorate your room like the royalty you are meant to be. The tapestry tailored in Spain in an accent of gold and soft pink are all over the walls. Made sure to ask the maid to polish the wooden floor until she can see herself in it. She actually sent me in here to check the oxygen cleanliness of your room. First wtf is air cleanliness. Second when the fuck did they created a damm machine for that shit. Lastly, you are not even there … Sorry baby … I love you more than anything but your mama is gone mad with the way she’s preparing for you. I never understood when  my poor friends complain about rich people's spending habits.  Now I am standing in the room section reserved for your room oxygen. I can help but run a hand in my hair and agree. (Another yellow laugh (rire jaune) before falling down on his knees and crying. Give him a couple minute y’all he needs to catch his breath … ) You're going to cost me so much baby. I never care for my trust fund, finances or even money but I am asking the family accountant to come to me first thing in the morning for the 4th this month. I hope I have enough money ( and for some of y’all … gold … liquid gold …iykyk). I know Mr. (His dad's name) has enough money in the bank but maybe is not enough. Maybe you need more than the couple millions we have. Maybe you need more than the properties we own. Maybe you need fucking more than an oxygen regulator machine. Maybe you need a whole lung doctor. Yes… you  need a nutritionist, a child psychologist … Does the baby have a tutor ? Fuck you need it. Baby just said and daddy will get it. You understand everything you want daddy get. You want a hug, a kiss, for me to count all the stars in the sky to describe how much he loves … done. You need me to buy the moon for you … done. You need me to resurrect  Leonardo Devinci so he can paint you in all your glory … done. There’s nothing I would not give to you but the thing that makes my heart ache is the way I crave intimacy with you. Can’t wait to hold you in my hands. Can’t wait to touch your littles toes. Can’t wait to see your lips pout like your mama when she is done with my mess. Can’t wait to see you grow. I promise princess I will never make second ever again. I will go to every parent meeting at school, bringing you to all your ballet, opera, harp, fencing, horse ridding whatever fucking classes your mom has for you; I will never miss your school competition and I will listen to all your house show you will produce to show yourself off. I don’t care if I am in a meeting, I will always have time for you. I will always have time to remind you how much I love you, how pretty you are, how much you matter and how much of a blessing you are just because you are. Yes… just because is you,  baby. Forgive daddy please. I know I am not in a position to ask you for anything especially after giving up on you for so long but if you don’t make it out of the NICU … mommy may never make it out. We both made her suffer enough. 

Please baby (damm he's whimpering in pain, choking on tears) stay with us. 

YOUR DADDY. 

Don’t worry you are not dead or close to it ( in the physical form at least …), you are being monitored at the hospital. I am getting traumatic labor (I should do a PAC about it) not because of pain but because of blood. You may have not lost your water but blood. I see you laughing at some joke the father of your baby did. Not a single care in the world. Girl your hair is perfect, if you have a Dyson and are working to perfect your blowout … just so you know you are the blowout queen in a couple years. Skin glowing, you look so pretty pregnant. That baby was really the blessing that changed your life forever. You are wearing a 2 piece white set … boom blood. You touch and look at your man. I keep hearing : ‘’ nononono … that can’t be it. (HIS NAME !) It can’t be … my baby. 

This whole letter  has nothing to do with the cards so let’s dive … shall we ? (Intuition took over …)

First you guys were both extremely hardworking workers. Never had time ( and also if I may … never learn ) to create deep bonds. I see both people living in their own penthouse. Yours has more of a Victorian look and his is more modern. You may have a white cat. 

You met at the work gala. I see 2 people look at each and accept y’all fate. 

You start fucking. The deal was perfect. He needed a woman that was not going to get attached to his riches. You needed a man that’s not trying to fix your cold heart. 

I see y’all literally planning to have sex like it’s a meeting … I think y’all use it to blow some steam annoyed by your empty life, useless parents and annoying coworkers. 

At first just fucking, no aftercare, clothe back on and on the go. Then he cracks a joke and you giggle which makes you stay 5 minutes longer. Then he charms you while cooking dinner for you before you leave. Then you spend more and more time together… Now he grabs you a snack and y’all always watch a kid show. He complains about how dumb the character is but you enjoy the deep dive he’s doing without even realizing it. 

You are not wrong, there's a lot of things he doesn't realize. He doesn't realize how much he craves connection. He doesn't realize how much he craves intimacy with you. When asked why ? Is it because you allow him to be ( do you realize the synchrony with the letter … anyway sometime my psychic surprise me 2 girl) 

You took the pregnancy test together and he joke on the fact it was getting terminated and not to stress so much but a light a hope awaken in your  heart for the first in soooo fucking long but you brush it off and went on the same page as him. Not because of him but because ‘’ you the fuck has time for a kid anyway’’ (your word not mine). 

Then you heard the baby's heartbeat and you cut all contact with him. Someday at the beginning of your second trimester you text him paragraphs upon paragraph on how you kept the baby, how it was never to hurt him, but for the first time in your life you felt hope and it felt like you needed to hold on to it. That you don’t know how but you are going to make it. 

He will villainize you and block you. One of your close friend is going to send them drunk voice memo in the middle of the third semester announcing him is a girl between cursing the fuck out. WAKE UP CALL FOR MISTER. 

He comes back the same day you threw your private luxurious baby shower. 

Some of y’all are Italian 

He has a no relationship with his parents and refuses 2. Calling them by their first name while you still seek love from them. 

PREVIOUS READING

2) Wanna know the love story the universe has for you? 💫 In 8 parts, I spill all: first meet, first kiss, confession, sexy time, and more. Don’t miss out! 👀💖 (LINK)

3) For ALL DECEMBER get 2 readings for the price of 1 : LINK

PILE 3

Dear Red (y’all call each other by colors so anything can fit, just took that one because it came through first) , 

You are resplendent. I know you think I am exaggerating. Or maybe you think I am only talking this sweet because everything is new ( I just heard : ‘’ The talk is cheap …’’ Lol this one is sassy) but baby I can put my hand the fire that I would still go that hard for you in 30 years when you boobs going to sag, your face will wrinkles from all the time I am going to make you laugh and you have grey hair just like mine ( You : YAH! Stop that in 30 years we are not going to be this old … you dumb fuck. I swear too God this fucking skincare better work. You better stop being goofy .. I want to be a MILF. You know, that is one of my life goals … GIRL YOU BETTER TELL HIM; Me: (choking on my laugh) Now… Why am I getting yelled at ?). Can’t never forget when I saw your sexy ass that day at the beach. I did not think … yeah I can’t wait to fuck it and make her yell my name (ok can’t lie it was my very next thought) nahhh, baby I was hook by the way the sun was making your skin glow. The tattoo on your body is a telling story before my eyes but you know I never wear my damm glasses so I could not read it. Anyway the way your hair flows gracefully with the wind, the way your eyes light up basking in the sun. I knew I had to get a lil mama number. When I first hear your voice … it made me breathless (should have asked for your asthma pump but I did not know you like that at that time but that shows you how much I was starstruck … Almost I had my first asthma attack- You: BABY stop telling my damm business to this lady). Your words, your tone, the way you move with so much elegance … I just knew I hit the jackpot. I would be damm to let you go. I am so proud of having you as mine. I love spending time with you, I love spending money on you, I love kissing you, I love leaving hickeys on you, I love holding your hands, I love texting you, I love making stupid edits of us (Me : the 2014 couple edit … girl … I can’t … you boy is making me cry of laughter). I know everything happens so quickly but you know how you explain me that life is like a book with crystals and your cards with little drawing on it, ( Me : Byeeee I can't, he is trying to explain crystals and tarot cards; Him: Honestly I don’t know about all that … I love hearing her talk about it. I love hearing her talk when she’s excited. I love her voice. The perfect candidate for yap session) anyway my inner child feels so safe and alive with you. I know you feel the same baby girl. Everything is working so effortlessly that must mean we are manifesting something good ( Me : LOL ! He’s talking about the law of attraction). My mom did not even get mad when I announced to her that I got you pregnant (You : Duh she loves me stoopid). You parents loved the fact that we found each other and your dad is as eager as me to formalize our union. Honestly I would marry you anywhere at any time. I told  you from the beginning that you will be my wife and I meant it but I know you want something bigger and so  it’s going to have to wait. That doesn't mean I can’t surprise you with an engagement ring. Standing here with a small group of men allowed to the baby shower, I can’t help but look at you. Your skin tight black dress exposing your full breast and the slide on it showing off your thick thighs. The smile on your face while you act ratchet with your friends ( Him: Damm babe I did not know you could still throw it in a circle 8 months pregnant … you better not say you are tired tonight. I got a plan for both of us) letting yourself go not a single care in the world. This is how I want you to be forever. Not a single care in the world, always full of joy and love and helping you achieve all your goals. Baby I know, it was quick but I swear it is only the beginning of the most beautiful love story. I am going to work hard until my last breath to keep the spark going. 

YOUR ONE AND ONLY MAN 

HIM 

Again wtf is wrong with those men. At first they did not want to work with me … now they are good ? To the point of making me over work …smh.

Yes, you guess it … it was an intuitive letter now let’s get into the card. 

First I am getting PLUS SIZE ! Yes, very thick and curvy women.  Now I understand why I wanted to write a bigger butt earlier … your man loves the curves baby. That’s does not mean is a fucking fetiche. Like if it is affecting health is going to ask you to fix it. News flash loser fat people can have an active life and still be fat. He never forces you to achieve any kind of weird kink. 

Y’all may be giving yourself too easily to men. I am getting that since they only see you for your body. You prefer existing than being invisible (like when you were child, some of y'all have been big since childhood. You were not really bullied but very ignored. People were ashamed to associate with you). Right now I see you are at the beginning of your elf love journey. You are making healthy food choices, spending time mastering a hobby : crystal, tarot, knitting or some other heels dancing. YOU GO GIRL ! Regarding men you still give yourself easily, some even tell you they don’t like you. They just fuck you because you are easy. You accept it and let them take you to pound town anyway. 

This man is going to help you tremendously in your self love journey … you have no fucking idea. You are going to glow more, stop eating your feelings, love yourself, have boundaries with your environment ( idk when the world decides that we have to give less respect to rounder people but anyways …), you will dress more provocatively and wear way more colors. Speak your mind more and be confident in yourself. 

Baby say goodbye to boring sex and say hello to sex toys. Rejoice, babe rejoice you deserve it. Let me tell you something he is pleasure dom … Girl he's going to make you orgasm like it is a damm sport. You better hold on because the night is going to be long. Pussy swollen from overstimulation, ass hurting from spanking and hickeys everywhere. Not him having the audacity to ask you to ride him after all that … anyways chile let me go. 

He gets so hard whenever you talk about spirituality. If you are witch prank by performing some sex magick on him, this man would be sooo proud to be your little helper while you are doing some spell.

PREVIOUS READING

2) Wanna know the love story the universe has for you? 💫 In 8 parts, I spill all: first meet, first kiss, confession, sexy time, and more. Don’t miss out! 👀💖 (LINK)

3) For ALL DECEMBER get 2 readings for the price of 1 : LINK

PILE 4 

Judgement (reverse), King pentacles, 4 wands (reverse), page of cups (reverse) 

I put the card because I want to show that I actually try to do the reading at first but the energy aint it. Somebody had an awful pregnancy especially because of an awful baby daddy. Like he dragged you to the filth, made you cry and cheated on you. Even gave you an STD for some of y’all. Since than he calm the fuck down. He tries to come through like a nicer person  but he made sure to make me understand he doesn't love you so I don't want him. I ain't wasting my time for something he can text. Then his younger self came through … boy bye with your filthy energy. 

So I kept trying because I had to feed you guys … Then your future husband came through but you were still not pregnant so … it was kind of useless for me … But then I understood that y’all are actively trying and that's good enough for me. 

No cards … straight intuition ( I don’t  want this filthy energy to come through again) 

Dear Малышка, Солнышко, Киса (ain't going to lie … I google the most popular and line it up. He ain't going to call you all that. Also I am really getting eastern Europe and I know they all have their own language but most of them somehow got colonized by Russia in some way shape or form. But if he’s from Poland then he will use his language. He’s from Lithuania, he will use his language … You catch the drift) 

(before we get into anything … thick, thick accent), fuck I want you. I need you. Like all the time. You ain’t make it easy for me Малышка. One day you welcome me home with a long white robe, hair in a perfect intricate bun and makeup a bit oily. That's how I know our kid did not let you rest. You only had  time to take away your clothes before you had to jump in mommy mode. Other times you tease me by sending me pictures of the lingerie and perfume you are wearing. Swear I hate the fact that I start work so early and finish so late. Oh let me not forget when you took a picture with my computer of you in your favorite brown set. The number of times you give me a blue ball should be illegal. Don’t even get me started when we were invited to the gala, you look so breathtaking … anyways you already know all that. Being a man's desire never was a foreign concept but being in love was one I had to teach you. Every day I rejoice with the idea of spending a whole lifetime loving you and our little bundle of energy. She/He never stops … just like her/his mommy. It took me a while to win over her/his heart. She/He is so protective of your heart. Almost as if he/she everyone in your heart aches when carrying him/her. That’s ok now we are 2 trying to protect you, can’t wait to be 3 humans to love on you. Until then here is the money for the new makeup you wanted to try. 

Love you Малышка. 

LOL ! I swear your future man has some sense of humor. I said the other one he could text you is lame nice word this one came through as a text. 

Also some of you may think he is super old … nah he is around your age. Babe get out the damn book there’s handsome Slavic men your age range in the real world. 

Anyways this man has tattoos and loves metal and goth music. He has moneyyy. I just don’t know the capacity but enough to put you in a luxurious condo and fund your influencer career. 

Lol … I see some of y’all cringing. I don’t think you will do couple content, actually you keep your life extremely private … The only thing people know is the diamond on your finger. I am getting more skincare and makeup content creators. You have a boudoir (beauty room/content room) that’s all we see. When I channeled him, I saw you receiving his message while getting ready to film some content. At that time in your life you are still juggling a 9to5. I mean girl, you are doing it all ! Mommy, corporate baddie, content creator and trophy wife. 

He has a rather dark aesthetic unlike you. You have a quite cute, pink aesthetic but love hardcore metal and goth. 

He came through while I played my NIRVANA playlist.

PREVIOUS READING

2) Wanna know the love story the universe has for you? 💫 In 8 parts, I spill all: first meet, first kiss, confession, sexy time, and more. Don’t miss out! 👀💖 (LINK)

3) For ALL DECEMBER get 2 readings for the price of 1 : LINK

[foolishlovers]

With 2024 coming to an end, I just wanted to give a quick shout-out to my favourite fics I (re)read this year. I have so so much appreciation for all writers creating beautiful works about our beloved angel and demon pair. Reading these sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes sappy, sometimes deliciously filthy stories has been a constant source of joy. I truly can't even begin to describe how thankful I am to be part of such an incredibly creative and loving fandom. So so much gratitude for all the different versions of them, all the genders, all the tropes, all the canon fics, and all the human AUs. There are so many more amazing fics I read this year and there are so many more to explore in 2025, but the following few have made themselves a home in my heart. I promise they're worth a read! 💜 [I do fic recs all year long, check out this tag for more.]

Date by @ddagent (2.5k, T)

Every year, Aziraphale is spoiled on his birthday. This year, he decides to do the same for Crowley. There's only one problem - he's not actually sure when Crowley's birthday is.

Roller Derby Queen by @summerofspock (2.5k, M)

Crowley skates for Hell on Wheels and she's pretty good at it too. She'd be better if she weren't so distracted by the new skater on the opposing team.

Sweet Nectar of the Eldritch Gods by @brenna (3.2k, G)

Azira writes a letter to the purveyor of her favorite honeys and sweetness ensues. No offence, but who says “by the by,” by the way? It’s adorable? By the by, do you like wine? Crowley

Poor Men by @why-not-go-with-style (3.9k, G)

What To Do When Two of Your Professors Are Hopelessly in Love With Each Other: an instruction manual by Adam Young (featuring Pepper Moonchild because someone has to be the voice of reason here).

!False (It's Funny Because It's True) by @mirjam-writes (6.4k, E)

Aziraphale drew a long breath through his nose. Crowley, of course it had to be Crowley. The new guy in the sales department, who would promise potential customers just about anything to close a deal. Arrogant, annoying – and wildly, stupidly attractive. Aziraphale hated him.  Aziraphale is a stellar software architect and a project manager, who is so done with the sales department selling unrealistically scheduled and budgeted projects. And he definitely doesn't have a crush on anyone, thank you very much.

Show me where the Nightingale sings by @sabotage-on-mercury (6.5k, G)

After settling into their new home in the South Downs there are still things to process for Aziraphale and Crowley before they can start a new chapter of their life. But winter is turning into spring. There is magic abroad in the air. And finally, the nightingale is back.

The Art of Human Nature by @ineffable-doll (6.5k, T)

Crowley is a painter who has only ever had an eye for nature. That is, until a client named Aziraphale commissions her for a painting to boost her self-confidence, and Crowley discovers that her client is as beautiful as the Earth itself. Then she goes and catches feelings, because she’s a disaster.

Lit by @fellshish (12k, T)

Crowley takes a university course on literature and surprise! The book they’re discussing is Good Omens. Uh oh.

Paradigm Shift by @hakunahistata (13k, E)

“Apologies, apologies! The time got away from me.” Aziraphale Fell entered the room brightly, a binder in one hand, tea mug in the other. Crowley’s languid sprawl went rigid as the senior accounting analyst who had been the indulgent secret in the back of his mind took the seat opposite him.   Or, Crowley Pines at the Office: An AU.

Feast by @ashfae, mostlyjustgoose (15k, E)

Crowley's spent the whole of lockdown asleep. Aziraphale has spent the whole of lockdown baking, cooking, and becoming increasingly frustrated with his solitude. Which eventually leads him to the perfect way to solve all his problems at once... Or, Aziraphale attempts to seduce Crowley with a truly excellent meal, and Crowley is amenable.

Ever-Fixed by @hkblack (19k, E)

Aziraphale Fell had a plan. Go to school, get his degree, and start his life with his beloved at his side as man and wife. Until one day Crowley disappears. Decades later he meets a man, and finds the love of his life again. Anthony J. Crowley, suave, cool, masculine, in control, unflappable, has spent decades building himself up. He refuses to let his confident facade disappear for Aziraphale, who once almost tumbled down the stairs to certain death because his nose was stuck in a book. It’s just sex, and they’ve been dating for months, this time around. There’s no need to get his knickers in a knot. But the past isn’t easy to let go of, even if you’re both avoiding it. A story about love, intimacy, and finding each other again. (Alternatively: Tender smut, but then I wrote love story flashbacks, and now it's just emotional and there's plot in my pornography)

Fireworks by @optimistic-starlight (19k, E)

He had to get himself under control. Aziraphale needed him. That prick boyfriend of his drained so much of Aziraphale's time and energy, dampened so much of the gentle, beaming happiness that Crowley had always adored about him. He needed Crowley there to support him, to do the things a best friend should be there to do. And, well, if Crowley needed him too, if he had to subsume his own pain to focus on making Aziraphale happy, that was something he could bear quietly. He could do it for his angel. Crowley groaned and dropped his head against the tiled wall of the shower. His angel. He had to stop thinking of him like that.

Maybe Next Christmas by @flamingbentleyy (21k, T)

Airports were tricky business, but waiting in airports was as close to hell as one could possibly get. Nobody knew it better than Aziraphale, whose luck had made him end up in one right on Christmas Eve of all days. Although his airport experience turned a little less hellish and a whole lot more entertaining after he ran into an old college friend in that same airport. And then again. And again…

The Small Ad by @theladydrgn, @sylwritesstuff (32k, E)

WORK WANTED: Partner For Hire. Tall, lanky ginger of arguable gender available to be your significant other to keep pesky relatives, nosy coworkers, or well-meaning friends at bay. Able to be as annoying or as polite as you like. Causing a fight over Christmas dinner with your odd, bigoted uncle/aunt/cousin will require an extra £200 up front. £50 for the first hour, negotiable otherwise. Ciao.   It isn't the sort of advertisement Aziraphale usually paid any attention to, but desperate times do indeed call for desperate measures.

Heavenly Wicked Cafe by @waitingtobebroken (33k, T)

There is a terribly rude barista that makes amazing coffee and a saint of a barista, whose coffee tastes vile. And they are in love.

Petrichor & Parchment by @katnoggin (33k, E)

“Mr. Crowley, I presume?” Aziraphale asked in lieu of an introduction, which was not forthcoming. The guy hadn’t even removed his sunglasses. Oh God, he had a tattoo on his face. Aziraphale wasn’t one to judge, but… what kind of gardener had a snake tattoo on his face? Now also available as a podfic from Literarion  [Huuuge recommendation for the podfic!!]

The Heart of the Forest by Kalimyre (33k, E)

Retired librarian Aziraphale moves into a small, isolated cottage deep in the forest with a strange history. He soon realises he's not alone in the woods; a presence watches him. But as he begins to befriend the stranger that lurks in the trees, Aziraphale comes to understand there's more to him than appearances suggest - and Aziraphale's own destiny may be tied to the mysterious creature with the golden eyes.

in your own time by @ineffabildaddy (33k, E)

Aziraphale and Crowley grew up together as next-door neighbours on Hogback Lane, classmates at the local Catholic school, and inseparable best friends. By the age of eighteen, both were hopelessly in love with the other, despite the knowledge that they were doomed to live apart, as Crowley aimed to pursue university study in London and Aziraphale committed himself to remaining in Tadfield, dedicating his life to the Church. After almost twenty years spent away from his hometown, renowned botanist Crowley decides to come and visit Tadfield again at a moment's notice; the purpose of his visit is to speak at a Careers Day for the school he and Aziraphale, now a beloved priest and a frequent helper at the school, attended. The twenty-four hours that follow will change both of their lives for ever.

Between Comfort And Chaos by anathxmadevice (45k, T)

“And how long have you two been a couple?” “Oh, I—” Aziraphale panics. “Ha, well, that’s a funny… We’re not actually—” “We’re just friends.” Crowley says, their voice clear and calm and lightly amused, either because of or in spite of Aziraphale’s flailing attempts to divert the conversation. “Ah, yes, quite.” Aziraphale says, then takes a sip of his drink just for something to do, instead of focussing on the way Crowley said just friends, and how it causes a painful throb in his chest that he has never fully got used to. His memory can only scrabble at the edge of a time where being just friends with Crowley didn’t feel like a particular form of torture. * Or, Aziraphale has been desperately in love with his best friend and housemate Crowley since they were students, but is too scared to do anything about it.

Loving You Slow by @tawnyontumblr (46k, E)

Crowley just wants to dance, but he's not prepared to sell his soul (and other things) at Mayfair's Hellfire Club to do it. Tending bar at The Bookshop in Soho is just the escape he needs, providing Crowley can convince the club’s owner he really belongs on the stage. Unfortunately Aziraphale Eastgate is not quite the generous guardian angel Crowley has been led to believe. Welcome to The Bookshop, where it always pays to look under the covers.

A Billion Points of Light by akitsuko (50k, E)

The firefighter lifts the visor on their helmet, and Crowley may not be able to see very well, but those are the most beautiful eyes he’s ever seen in his life. Crowley has never been one for the whole 'love at first sight' business, but he may need to reassess after Aziraphale - a gorgeous firefighter - saves his life.

More Than by @naromoreau (55k, E)

Crowley would like to spend another year without marrying, especially when thrust-forced to pick a husband. She refuses to cave in on a matter of principles. She refuses to cave in specifically on a matter of not wanting to be married to Lucien Morningstar. But she might need a hand to break free from such a burden. And who knows? She might even find something else along the way.

Lavender Apiary Of Your Honey Eyes by @snek-of-eden (66k, E)

The first thing Aziraphale registered was fiery red hair matted with sweat. The second thing was the man’s face, sharp and intelligent and a little guarded, sunlight dappling a spray of freckles. Upon seeing this, two contradictory thoughts crossed his mind: ‘Gosh, he’s pretty’, and ‘I don’t believe I’ve ever heard a man use that many expletives in the space of a minute’. “Oh,” he said, swallowing hard. “Hello, then.” __________ When Aziraphale inherits a small, cosy cottage in the countryside, he finds unexpected company in a gardener he didn't even know he had. Crowley is sweet, and strange, and about as foul-mouthed as you can get. Before he knows it, he's falling pretty goddamn hard for a man whose friendship he's terrified of risking. Ah, the foils of love.

Old Vines by @sevdrag (189k, E)

A.Z. Fell, one of the most respected names in wine and food blogging, has been sent on assignment with his assistant Warlock Dowling to spend six months in California Wine Country. Under direction (by his boss, Gabriel) to use this experience to double his blog followers and write a novel, Aziraphale is both excited and anxious about the opportunity. Anthony J. Crowley is the owner and viticulturalist of Ecdyses, a winery that unexpectedly fell into his lap eleven years ago when he hit rock bottom. He may be in debt, yeah, but he’s paying off his loans — and despite pressure from his lenders and their team of inspectors, Crowley has found a kind of contentment tending his little corner of terroir and producing extraordinary wine. Crowley’s old vines are the heart of his vineyard, and he’s never let anyone in. Crowley finds Aziraphale intriguing; Aziraphale finds Crowley enthralling. Turns out a famous wine expert and an experienced viticulturalist can still learn things from each other. The summer of 2019 unfolds. [Big recommendation for the podfic here too!!]

[ellierenae]

SUPER UNIQUE writing ideas for hobbyists and professionals looking for fun, personal projects to get their inspo back

get a fictional pen pal (ask your other writer friends!) and spend time decorating envelopes, picking out a handwriting style, maybe buying a cheap perfume/cologne that smells like your character to really get to know them and feel their presence. if you have hand tremors or bad handwriting like me, you can choose a handwriting font for them and print their letters out!! more examples: save the dates, wedding invitations, birthday cards, party invites, etc.

use old calendars in character (there are many "expired" planners on sale around the end of the year, usually August) personally, i use them to record major life events like first band tours, trips abroad, holidays, birthdays... even trash pickup days and when they forget to roll out the bins!

sketch floor plans this can be on graph paper if you have the know-how when it comes to scaling down, but there are also tons of simple apps that allow you to both create the floor plan a builder would use and add furniture like an interior decorator. some even let you rotate them afterwards and see the furniture and walls burst to life in 3D! you can think of them as the sims but where everything is actually to scale

make an architectural model if you have some scrap cardboard, paper, and glue, you can easily bring the floor plan you just made to life (you'll need practice if you want to get really fancy with it of course! window panes and railings are the gnarliest part for me, haha)

make a playlist as your character maybe the most accessible one on this list, you can make the playlist your character listens to. sometimes this can be fun and surprising, like when my little guy Possum from Violence Without Plot is covered in tattoos and plays punk music on stage but listens to nothing but spa music to wind down between shows

write something your character can see this one is so weird to summarize but what i mean is like... a school essay for your teacher character to grade. cryptic street signs warning about danger by the lake. a memorial plaque beneath a statue. a character's online blog. a few of the cards in a grandmother's recipe box. a business card for a smooth-talking lawyer. things you can write that make everything feel so textured and real

these are all things i do on the daily, and it makes my life as a writer a thousand times more joyful and fulfilling. so have fun, be safe, and don't forget to unplug the hot glue when you're done <3

[tiktaalic]

Girls will be like yeah so basically Taylor swift has eradicated all attempts at creativity in favor of seamlessly merging her IDENTITY to PRODUCT and I will give accolades where accolades are due. She has been very successful at this probably the most successful person on earth at this and all it cost her is her soul. And it DID cost a soul. You could make a graph between amount of streams and quality of work and see so clearly the inverse relationship materialize before your eyes. She was not born a hack but embraced the life of a hack when she realized she would be more popular with platitudes and dialing back on oversharing and being less messy. If you replace personhood with producthood you lose your humanity but your album sales go fuuuucking crazy. I can make overtures at understanding this by reminding myself she was crucified for being a person for years and years and she has been very vocal about it doing a heavy number on her psyche. Maybe when that happens to you as a teenager the trade off seems less revolting. Getting rid of something you’re mocked for having anyway and in return you are richer and more famous than anyone has any right to be. But then I scratch my head. And go but surely you see that this is a deal with the devil. Surely with the contract laid out in front of you. You gnaw your lip. You hesitate. You follow the letter of the law but skirt the spirit of it for brief shining moments. And when she’s so publicly had misogynistic vitriol levied at her. So often for so long. IS it misogynistic for your criticisms to boil down to “she’s not likable enough for me”? At what dollar amount does a millionaire going on billionaire become a public object rather than a person? Does the fact that she’s slowly revoked access to herself change this? Is it more or less human to orchestrate your life so that paparazzi only sees you on planned outings where you look impeccable and have a message to send and you are Taylor Swift The Brand after you’ve been scarred by years of being Taylor swift the young woman in the tail end of the aughts and the 2010s ripped to shreds scrutinized for every choice and smile and dress and man? Is there a passable essay in the title Taylor Swift Doesn’t Owe You Authenticity. Maybe! but doesn’t she as an artist work at a job where she’s supposed to produce. Art? It sounds like I’m asking for ballads but I’m really not I’m asking for a song that is good. Im asking for a cruel summer which is irreplicable but surely the minds behind it can produce something more than snow on the fucking beach? Or am I overestimating the continued talent of a woman who is the platonic ideal of a target shopper? Is it misogynistic to believe the platonic ideal of a target shopper can’t create with a soul? How to talk about the fall off of Taylor swift in a woman honoring way?

five minutes later. You can’t spell awesome without ME!

[makingqueerhistory]

Queer Books Challenged in Florida Schools and Libraries

There are some affiliate links below in case you want to support MQH.

Gender Queer: A Memoir, Maia Kobabe: Now, Gender Queer is here. Maia's intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma and fundamental violation of pap smears.

The Color Purple, Alice Walker: Separated as girls, sisters Celie and Nettie sustain their loyalty to and hope in each other across time, distance and silence. Through a series of letters spanning nearly thirty years, first from Celie to God, then the sisters to each other despite the unknown, the novel draws readers into its rich and memorable portrayals of Celie, Nettie, Shug Avery and Sofia and their experience. The Color Purple broke the silence around domestic and sexual abuse, narrating the lives of women through their pain and struggle, companionship and growth, resilience and bravery.

Julián Is a Mermaid, Jessica Love: While riding the subway home from the pool with his abuela one day, Julián notices three women spectacularly dressed up. Their hair billows in brilliant hues, their dresses end in fishtails, and their joy fills the train car. When Julián gets home, daydreaming of the magic he's seen, all he can think about is dressing up just like the ladies in his own fabulous mermaid costume: a butter-yellow curtain for his tail, the fronds of a potted fern for his headdress. But what will Abuela think about the mess he makes -- and even more importantly, what will she think about how Julián sees himself? Mesmerizing and full of heart, Jessica Love's author-illustrator debut is a jubilant picture of self-love and a radiant celebration of individuality.

Drama: A Graphic Novel, Raina Telgemeier: Callie loves theater. And while she would totally try out for her middle school's production of Moon over Mississippi, she can't really sing. Instead she's the set designer for the drama department's stage crew, and this year she's determined to create a set worthy of Broadway on a middle-school budget. But how can she, when she doesn't know much about carpentry, ticket sales are down, and the crew members are having trouble working together? Not to mention the onstage AND offstage drama that occurs once the actors are chosen. And when two cute brothers enter the picture, things get even crazier!

Cemetery Boys, Aiden Thomas: Yadriel has summoned a ghost, and now he can't get rid of him. When his traditional Latinx family has problems accepting his true gender, Yadriel becomes determined to prove himself a real brujo. With the help of his cousin and best friend Maritza, he performs the ritual himself, and then sets out to find the ghost of his murdered cousin and set it free. However, the ghost he summons is actually Julian Diaz, the school's resident bad boy, and Julian is not about to go quietly into death. He's determined to find out what happened and tie off some loose ends before he leaves. Left with no choice, Yadriel agrees to help Julian, so that they can both get what they want. But the longer Yadriel spends with Julian, the less he wants to let him leave.

I Am Billie Jean King, Brad Meltzer: This friendly, fun biography series focuses on the traits that made our heroes great--the traits that kids can aspire to in order to live heroically themselves. Each book tells the story of one of America's icons in a lively, conversational way that works well for the youngest nonfiction readers and that always includes the hero's childhood influences. At the back are an excellent timeline and photos. This volume features Billie Jean King, the world champion tennis player who fought successfully for women's rights. From a young age, Billie Jean King loved sports--especially tennis! But as she got older, she realized that plenty of people, even respected male athletes, didn't take women athletes seriously. She set to prove them wrong and show girls everywhere that sports are for everyone, regardless of gender.

This One Summer, Mariko Tamaki: Every summer, Rose goes with her mom and dad to a lake house in Awago Beach. It's their getaway, their refuge. Rosie's friend Windy is always there, too, like the little sister she never had. But this summer is different. Rose's mom and dad won't stop fighting, and when Rose and Windy seek a distraction from the drama, they find themselves with a whole new set of problems. One of the local teens - just a couple of years older than Rose and Windy - is caught up in something bad... Something life threatening. It's a summer of secrets, and sorrow, and growing up, and it's a good thing Rose and Windy have each other.

Marriage of a Thousand Lies, Sj Sindu: Lucky and her husband, Krishna, are gay. They present an illusion of marital bliss to their conservative Sri Lankan-American families, while each dates on the side. It's not ideal, but for Lucky, it seems to be working. She goes out dancing, she drinks a bit, she makes ends meet by doing digital art on commission. But when Lucky's grandmother has a nasty fall, Lucky returns to her childhood home and unexpectedly reconnects with her former best friend and first lover, Nisha, who is preparing for her own arranged wedding with a man she's never met.

And Tango Makes Three, Peter Parnell: At the penguin house at the Central Park Zoo, two penguins named Roy and Silo were a little bit different from the others. But their desire for a family was the same. And with the help of a kindly zookeeper, Roy and Silo got the chance to welcome a baby penguin of their very own.

More Happy Than Not, Adam Silvera: In the months following his father's suicide, sixteen-year-old Aaron Soto can't seem to find happiness again, despite the support of his girlfriend, Genevieve, and his overworked mom. Grief and the smile-shaped scar on his wrist won't let him forget the pain. But when Aaron meets Thomas, a new kid in the neighborhood, something starts to shift inside him. Aaron can't deny his unexpected feelings for Thomas despite the tensions their friendship has created with Genevieve and his tight-knit crew. Since Aaron can't stay away from Thomas or turn off his newfound happiness, he considers taking drastic actions. The Leteo Institute's revolutionary memory-altering procedure will straighten him out, even if it means forgetting who he truly is.

Melissa, Alex Gino: When people look at Melissa, they think they see a boy named George. But she knows she's not a boy. She knows she's a girl.

Melissa thinks she'll have to keep this a secret forever. Then her teacher announces that their class play is going to be Charlotte's Web. Melissa really, really, REALLY wants to play Charlotte. But the teacher says she can't even try out for the part... because she's a boy.

With the help of her best friend, Kelly, Melissa comes up with a plan. Not just so she can be Charlotte -- but so everyone can know who she is, once and for all.

A Quick & Easy Guide to Queer & Trans Identities, Mady G, Jules Zuckerberg: In this quick and easy guide to queer and trans identities, cartoonists Mady G and Jules Zuckerberg guide you through the basics of the LGBT+ world! Covering essential topics like sexuality, gender identity, coming out, and navigating relationships, this guide explains the spectrum of human experience through informative comics, interviews, worksheets, and imaginative examples. A great starting point for anyone curious about queer and trans life, and helpful for those already on their own journeys!

This Book Is Gay, Juno Dawson: This candid, funny, and uncensored exploration of sexuality and what it's like to grow up LGBTQ also includes real stories from people across the gender and sexual spectrums, not to mention hilarious illustrations.

Little & Lion, Brandy Colbert: When Suzette comes home to Los Angeles from her boarding school in New England, she's isn't sure if she'll ever want to go back. L.A. is where her friends and family are (as well as her crush, Emil). And her stepbrother, Lionel, who has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, needs her emotional support. But as she settles into her old life, Suzette finds herself falling for someone new...the same girl her brother is in love with. When Lionel's disorder spirals out of control, Suzette is forced to confront her past mistakes and find a way to help her brother before he hurts himself--or worse.

King and the Dragonflies, Kacen Callender: Twelve-year-old Kingston James is sure his brother Khalid has turned into a dragonfly. When Khalid unexpectedly passed away, he shed what was his first skin for another to live down by the bayou in their small Louisiana town. Khalid still visits in dreams, and King must keep these secrets to himself as he watches grief transform his family.

It would be easier if King could talk with his best friend, Sandy Sanders. But just days before he died, Khalid told King to end their friendship, after overhearing a secret about Sandy-that he thinks he might be gay. "You don't want anyone to think you're gay too, do you?"

Sorted: Growing Up, Coming Out, and Finding My Place: A Transgender Memoir, Jackson Bird: An unflinching and endearing memoir from LGBTQ+ advocate Jackson Bird about how he finally sorted things out and came out as a transgender man.When Jackson Bird was twenty-five, he came out as transgender to his friends, family, and anyone in the world with an internet connection. Assigned female at birth and raised as a girl, he often wondered if he should have been born a boy. Jackson didn't share this thought with anyone because he didn't think he could share it with anyone.

The Black Flamingo, Dean Atta: Michael is a mixed-race gay teen growing up in London. All his life, he's navigated what it means to be Greek-Cypriot and Jamaican--but never quite feeling Greek or Black enough.

As he gets older, Michael's coming out is only the start of learning who he is and where he fits in. When he discovers the Drag Society, he finally finds where he belongs--and the Black Flamingo is born

Explore the full list here.

[malamilkbeats]

Ink Meister

Such a swell guy. You can trust him with your tax information.

His name "Cirque Lire" emphasizes his connection to reading, information, and perhaps... manipulation of knowledge (which ties into his ink abilities and courtly intrigue). "Lire" (meaning "to read" in French) fits well with his cunning nature—someone who "reads" people, situations, and texts to his advantage.

Cirque Lire

Orientation: Aromantic

Gender: Male

Age: 27 (once appointed) 45 (currently)

Alignment: Lawful Neutral to Lawful Evil

Cirque Lire's ink abilities and how he uses them:

His ability to manipulate ink could extend far beyond just composing music; he could use it as a weapon in more subtle ways, especially in a court filled with intrigue and deception.

***************

Cirque Lire's fingertips sway as liquid shadows dance to the silent melody of his mind. With a twist of his hand, the ink dispersed into familiar calligraphy on the parchment before him. A royal decree—one that had never been written by the King's own hand, yet bore his perfect signature and seal.

Another masterpiece of forgery.

Another stride forward.

To the court, Cirque Lire was a master composer, a patron of the arts, a nobleshape whose ink created symphonies that moved the soul. His charisma was like a spell of its own; his honeyed words wove through courtly banter to ensure that his name was spoken with admiration and trust. But beneath the polish lurked a careful orchestrator of downfall—a man who knew that true power was not just taken with brute force but cultivated through deception, reputation, and carefully placed words.

His ink was his greatest weapon. One touch and he could rewrite the records or history, craft messages that shattered alliances. It's proven one letter would unmake a man – though, of course, no one could ever substantiate such charges. His talent for manipulation was subtle, a ripple in still water that never came back to him as the source. It never dirtied his own hands; it was the rumors, as well as the court that tore itself apart over trumped-up scandals while he stood above it all.

Lire did not merely ruin reputations—he got something out of it. A disgraced noble meant lands and titles went up for sale, assets were sanctioned, and his debts were called in. With his influence, he ensured that those desperate enough would turn to him for aid, signing away their wealth in return for salvation he never truly intended to give. A true robber barron in the making. He would orchestrate financial ruin, the buy out their holdings for a fraction of their worth to supply his own allies, growing his fortune while his targets dwindled to nothing. Shapes who owed him were never **truly** free, bound by invisible chains of obligation and debt that he tightened at his leisure.

He was politically keen enough to know the importance of positioning; he whispered advice into the ears of the right shapes, offering solutions to problems he himself had quietly created. His influence spread like ink upon a page, whereby ministers and lords alike depended upon his counsel. He did not need to raise a blade; he merely needed the right words, the right moment, and the right target. And when lords and ministries were under turmoil, Cirque Lire stood untouched, ever the benefactor of chaos.

Concavex, his daughter, was both his greatest asset and his biggest obstacle. She had been the simple key to his ascension, her telepathic abilities a tool he wielded with precision. The court was in strange fear, fearing what she would reveal. But Cirque Lire? He had molded her into something greater, something useful. She was his unseen eyes and ears, whether she wanted to be or not.

“Read them now,” Cirque would murmur while they sat among the masked smiles of the nobles. And Concavex would begrudgingly follow his command, her mind brushing against the thoughts of unsuspecting men and women too foolish to guard themselves. Through the insights, Cirque would know who was weak, who had doubt, who could be influenced given the proper incentive or broken with the right rumor.

[arimiadev]

recommendations of visual novels on sale for the steam winter sale 2024

steam's winter sale just started and will run for the next two weeks, so if you're looking for a new visual novel to try (or want to get into them), here's a lot that I've played that are on sale on steam.

umineko when they cry

the ushiromiya family returns to the family head's home on an isolated island for their annual conference with the intention of settling how his vast amount of wealth is divided. instead, though, a letter is left from someone claiming to be a "witch". with the ushiromiyas dropping dead left and right, the mystery behind everything remains to be solved by you, the reader.

I can't make a recommendation list without mentioning umineko. it's life changing. it might even trans your gender. it's hard to describe umineko, but just know that it's absolutely deserving of the "cult classic" tag.

notes:

kinetic/linear - no choices

VERY long, 120+ hours (over all 8 episodes)

divided into two games on steam - Questions Arcs is the first 4 episodes and Answers Arcs is the last 4 episodes (8 episodes in total, play Questions Arcs first)

created by Ryukishi07, creator of Higurashi

fantasy vs mystery

ace attorney

follow phoenix wright as he embarks on his career as a lawyer to help people. meet a variety of clients and prove their innocence by collecting evidence, interviewing witnesses, and exposing lies in court.

ace attorney is a classic mystery visual novels, being a blend of point-and-click elements via investigations and visual novel storytelling. the steam port is a massive collection, combining the first 3 games (the original phoenix wright trilogy) as 1 game.

notes:

investigative gameplay segments, a good chunk of the story is point-and-click parts

pretty long for the whole trilogy- each game is around 20 hours long and the steam edition is 3 games

modern mystery with supernatural elements

ai: the somnium files

play as detective kaname date as he hunts down a serial killer using a cutting-edge technology which allows him to "psync" with a person, diving into the memories of others to solve crimes in a limited amount of time with the help of his AI assistant/eyeball Aiba.

aitsf is a lot. it's probably the raunchiest non-eroge game I've ever played and despite my low tolerance for dirty jokes I found most of it to be laughable and a fun experience, though I did play this with friends. if it's a miss for you, it's gonna miss you by a wide margin, but if it's a hit for you, you're going to be recommending it nonstop. either way you'll want to hit kaname date with a car.

notes:

long, around 25-35 hours

this game heavily relies on going back to prior choices via their branching menu to try other options in order to get the full story (and true ending). there are several endings to this game but you're meant to play through them all, not just one or two.

a lot of gameplay and interactive segments

sci-fi mystery

english voice acting

witch on the holy night

aoko aozaki is a highschooler who has to balance her class president, perfect grades life with her secret afterschool life of being a mage—a secret she has to keep at the risk of death. keeping this balance already isn’t easy but one day she gets a wrench thrown into it with the introduction of a transfer student, soujuurou shizuki, a country boy so out of touch that he’s never seen electricity before.

I love witch on the holy night so, so much. it's one of the most beautifully directed visual novels ever made with so much love and care put into each frame. the cast is wonderful (touko my beloved) and it's a must-read for anyone who likes modern-ish fantasy.

notes:

kinetic / linear - no choices

long, around 25-30 hours

originally written by kinoko nasu, one of the co-founders of type-moon and creators of fate/stay night. has some relation to tsukihime and garden of sinners but you don't need any knowledge of those going in

modern-ish (1980s) fantasy with lots of talking about magic

ghostpia

a snowy town filled with "ghosts" is where the young woman sayako finds herself trapped, feeling like she doesn't belong and wants to leave this town where no one dies.

it's hard to describe ghostpia. it's a surreal-ish story about "ghosts" where every character is quirkier than the last but every part is made with so much heart behind it. you never really know where the story is going, but unfortunately only 1 season is currently out on steam.

notes:

medium length, around 10 hours

very innovative and unique use of visuals and paneling

surreal-ish (sometimes violent) fantasy

please be happy

as a shapeshifting fox called a "gumiho", miho has traveled the world in search for a traveler who showed her kindness many years ago. afraid of sticking around in one place for too long, miho has never stayed anywhere for more than a few nights- but all of that changes when she arrives in wellington, new zealand and meets the barista/writer aspen and the vampire archivist juliet.

okay I did work on this one but hear me out. please be happy was a labor of love for our team that took over 3 years to make and is a slice of life story about love, trust, and what it means to be human. and you get to play as a gay fox girl voiced by dottovu.

notes:

medium to long, about 20 hours

2 romanceable ladies, aspen and juliet, and a plethora of side characters to meet via a map system

modern slice-of-life fantasy

english voice acting

WE KNOW THE DEVIL

find yourself back at summer camp with all the queer religious horror of it.

WE KNOW THE DEVIL is a short, atmospheric and slightly surreal story about 3 teens at a religious summer camp waiting for the devil. if you want something that feels familiar and otherworldly at the same time, this is right up your alley.

notes:

very short, about 2 hours

3 endings and 1 true ending

isolation, psychological horror

fate/stay night

seven mages known as masters summon heroic and fictional characters from the pantheon of history to fight it out over the ultimate magical item - the holy grail.

fate/stay night is one of the most well-known visual novel properties out there and it's finally not only available in english officially but on steam! this remaster is a treat and done with a lot of care put into it, it's a great way to get into the fateverse if you've never tried it before.

notes:

pretty long, 70+ hours

3 routes / heroines to be with with lots of bad endings

modern fantasy, battle royale

mamiya

the end of the world is near. what will you do in the final months? and who is this "MAMIYA" who proclaims their love for you?

MAMIYA is a dark mystery visual novel about a group of guys who meet during the funeral for a friend, a stranger, a passerby, and become entangled in the web of an entity known as "MAMIYA". the presentation and style feels fresh.

notes:

check out the content warnings before reading

medium length, but is segmented into a lot of chapters that make it easy to pick back up

dark modern mystery with supernatural elements

a date with death

the grim reaper contacts you saying he wants your soul. naturally, you respond...with flirting??

a date with death is a free game but it does have paid DLC so I'm including it here because I want to. it's a comfy chatsim romance visual novel about, well, courting the grim reaper.

notes:

short, around 8 hours for the base game

customizable protag

1 male love interest

cute modern supernatural romance

twofold

Olive has 1 last chance to graduate college - pass a filler class. when their situation comes to light, 2 club presidents agree to help them but end up dragging them in the middle of their feud...

I also worked on this one. the writing and art is truly charming and heartfelt. it's a story about romance but also relationships in general - friendships, platonic relationships, familial bonds, etc. this visual novel took several years to be completed and the final result is one made with a lot of love.

notes:

medium, around 15-20+ hours for both routes

nonbinary protagonist, 2 female love interests

modern slice-of-life, college setting

english voice acting

slay the princess

you're tasked with a simple goal - slay the princess, or else she'll destroy the world.

talk about taking a simple premise and running with it. slay the princess is a mind-bending psychological horror about love and repeating things a lot of times. after all, all you have to do is slay the princess, right?

notes:

short to medium, around 10 hours for a full run

lots and lots and lots of branching paths

psychological horror, does contain gore

english voice acting

canvas menagerie

Niko is a trans man and lifelong actor who's been down on his luck until he gets the lead role in a major TV show. there, he starts to fall for his annoying celebrity costar.

well I wrote and drew and programmed this one by myself so I can't really give an indepth recommendation for it but I think it came out pretty nice. it's a comfy gay romance about actors.

notes:

medium length, around 10-12 hours

boys love romance

modern slice-of-life, adult cast

------------

note that all of the indie visual novels listed are also available on itchio as DRM-free versions. there's a ton of VNs on sale over there right now as well.

[niqhtlord01]

Humans are weird: MMO’s

Alien: What do these letters mean? Human: “Massively Multiplayer Online Game” Alien: Shouldn’t there be a “G” in there as well then? Human: Then it would be “MMOG”, and that sounds silly when said out loud. Alien: *Looks sad* Human: Oh Christ your name is Mmog, isn’t it? ---------------------------

Alien: So this game is about the star wars religious fanatics fighting each other? Human: Pretty much. Alien: You would think the rest of the galaxy would have united and wiped them all out by now since it looks like the majority of conflicts are started by one side or the other. Human: Pretty hard to stamp them out when they can crush your windpipe from half a star system away. ----------------------------

Alien: So evil triangles fighting good spheres? Human: Pretty much. Alien: That doesn’t sound exciting. Human: It was before they put up a paywall around everything believe it or not. Alien: How so? Human: Well for one thing you got to punch an ancient worm god the size of a skyscraper in the face on Mars. Alien: Wow, that does sound like fun. -------------------------------

Alien: Friend human, I wish to start a fight but I don’t know hard. Human: Oh that’s easy. Human: Walk into any of those blue cities and shout in chat “Sylvanas did nothing wrong!”. Alien: Thanks. *An hour passes* Human: How’s it going? Alien: I’m not sure how but I may have started an in-game race war. Human: Ah; classic indeed. ---------------------------------

Alien: So this one is about flying around the universe and raiding people? Human: Yup. Alien: Isn’t that what we do now though? Human: Well when it came out it was depicting the future so it was more exciting. Alien: I’ll say. Alien: For being supposedly dangerous I’ve seen waiting lines at amusement parks on Florp III that were more harrowing. Human: They never did find that little girl waiting for the teacup ride. -------------------

Alien: Why are there fire pits everywhere?!?! Alien: There are not enough players to need so many. Human: you just don’t understand. Alien: Understand what? Human: You always need to leave a trail of fire pits behind you as you go in this game. Alien: Why? Human: *Points behind alien character to see angry band of players dodging way through fire pits trying to attack them* ---------------------

Alien: I don’t like this one. Human: Really? Human: You loved the two previous entries. Alien: Those were both offline games and this one isn’t. Alien: Plus it has a really annoying feature I hate. Human: Which is? Alien: Having to interact with other players to complete missions. -------------------

Human: They called this one a wow killer. Alien: How’d this get a name like that? Human: Well for starters they invested in decent writers. ------------------

Human: I heard that one is rather good. Alien: I guess. Human: You sound disappointed. Alien: Well I’ve yet to come across this black desert the title speaks of and I’m starting to get upset. -------------------

Alien: All I wanted to do was mine asteroids!!! Human: Yeah, but you did it in their territory. Alien: This is government controlled systems! Alien: Nothing is player controlled!!! Human: Probably explains why they are swarming you with cheap ships. Alien: Why!?!? Human: They’re probably hoping they can take you out before concord floods the system and wipes them all out. Alien: That’s crazy! Alien: They’d waste dozens of ships just to take out my lone miner? Human: Let me tell you about a little group called “Goonswarm”. ----------------------------

Alien: So everything is player created in this world? Human: For the economy at least.  Alien: That would explain a few things. Human: Like why there is super inflation for a bundle of wood? Alien: More so why every sword for sale is called a variation of “Buttsmasher”

[meeedeee]

DIY printable zine to give us direction and steps to build a resilient community of resistance and mutual support. Written by members of the Jewish anarchist community

1. Focus on your one-on-one relationships.

2. Make soup for people

3. Build a support network.

4. Buy, gather, or otherwise obtain Plan B and birth control for yourself and others

5. Write letters to people in prison and detention

6. Make art and display it in public.

7. Take concrete steps to build relationships beyond borders

8. Learn new skills, share them, and help others learn new skills

9. Feel your emotions.

10. Learn about and begin to practice alternative ways to organize groups and make collective decisions

11. Gather and distribute free N95/KN95 masks and COVID tests

12. Start a study group of people from our history and other histories opposing authoritarian regimes and find inspiration in those stories

13. If you care for a child or children create a mutual aid group

14. Revive the mutual aid funds/networks that used to keep immigrant neighbors afloat

15. Take time to mourn your losses and grieve your dead

16. Feed people for free.

17. If a friend or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts offer to drop everything and be present with them.

18. Organize a stoop or porch sale

19. Engage in play with others as a gateway to imagining other worlds

20. Slow down

[mdmdusol]

Louis de Végobre's journey to the Carthusian monastery and his initiation into theology.

I think it's so beautiful to see De Végobre so excited about his trip and writing a whole travel guide abou it!

This post was meant to briefly introduce De Végobre's stance on a few topics. The next one will probably be about his relationship with Laurens and his relationship with Naville (no one can convince me that De Végobre and he weren't boyfriends). I'll also write another post about how his life changed to the point where he became deeply involved in religious matters (which is curious given today's reflection).

Adv:

---I'm not a native English speaker, so I apologize for any grammar mistakes. I'm from a French-speaking Swiss canton, so I'm here to provide information and translations from French to English, as well as transcriptions of letters. I often visit my beloved Geneva, so I created a Tumblr page to show you all the information there about Laurens and his acquaintances that is not so accessible online. Pls, help me with my grammar, i have to take an english exam <3----

This is a description of a trip made in 1781, one of his first trips, found almost half a century after his death in 1840. The first picture is the monastery (I haven't been there)

A Carthusian monastery, or Charterhouse, is a monastery of the Carthusian Order, a Catholic contemplative order known for its strict rules of solitude and silence.

I reached Chambery in a day and a half. Of the two routes leading there, the one from Rumilly is shorter, but the one from Annecy is more picturesque and variade.

Furthermore, it is a pleasure to see Annecy, where you can perform devotions to Madame de Chantal and Saint Francis de Sales, in a rather rich and beautiful chapel where their bodies are preserved.

I was recently in Annecy, and I assure you, De Végobre is telling the truth! I'm attaching photos of my stay! There are a variety of plants and gardens that Laurens would surely have enjoyed.

some photos from my casual vacations there Yvoire-Annecy!

And if you want to know what a traveler can see, I'll answer that it's the Cathedral, then the Castle, where there's a staircase that was built with great taste and very quickly during Victor-Amédée's trip to Savoy in 1775. Outside, you should stop to examine, in the castle courtyard, the facade of a very regular chapel in the Greek style, following the Ionic order. On the other side of the castle, you can see the gardens, either belonging to the castle or to a private individual, which are very well maintained and clean. The passageway is very pretty.

Maybe a comparation between the past route and the actual one could be my next trip!

On the way back to the city, you can see the fair sex, which is not bad, and some people say they are very good. I don't know if what is said is true: that the women there are not shy.

Then, it's best to visit a gauze factory, which is really the only thing Chambéry contributes to the surrounding towns; for two louis you can buy a beautiful gauze dress. There is also an industry native to this capital, although a little less famous: that of certain fruit jams, or rather, vegetable jams, which are eaten in salads.

Végobreeeee....🤨 You're supposed to be suuuper gay. "Some peolple say" of course. "Some people" "I don't know"...

We leave Chambéry and take the road toward Les Échelles. A league or a league and a half away, we see a very beautiful waterfall on the left, very close to the road. [...] This is the road at the end of which you will see on your right, on a large and beautiful stone, very well carved, an inscription informing the traveler to whom he owes the road he has just traveled, that is, the name of the King.

It's quite funny that he highlights the king's name. He probably was the most republican boy. He mentions that the king placed a commemorative plaque praising himself nearby the road. Therefore, De Végobre suggests some phrases that could replace this "pompous ridiculousness."

In half an hour, you'll be in Les Échelles, a neighboring village separated in two by a river spanned by a bridge. That's where the border lies; there you'll also find that detestable breed of clerks and office workers: prepare for the boredom of the visit.

Dear, of course office workers are boring. You're one of them.

As you enter the village, you'll see the Croix-Blanche Inn on the left; it looks ugly. But hey, it's there; it's the least bad option, and anyone with a sweet tooth or a gourmet will find it excellent.

You can probably find a beast of burden in this village to carry your luggage and yourself to the Charterhouse, about three hours away. These three hours are a continuous climb, along an excellent path for pedestrians, passable for horses, but impassable for wheeled carriages. However, if you can't find a horse and want to save your legs, you can take a carriage to the village of Favory.

Thank goodness this boy had asthma, I'm tired of just listening to the route.

You will find in front of you a gate blocking the path, the only one through which you can ascend the mountain from this side. There is the guardian, and there is the boundary that only the male sex may cross. So if you belong to this noble sex, advance, walk slowly, look carefully to the left and to the right, be ecstatic... I have nothing more to say.

"I have nothing more to say." Me too, darling.

After an hour, you'll cross the river. A quarter of an hour later, you'll pass a second gate next to a hut that served as a guardhouse at a time when bands of robbers threatened the convent. Ah! Look carefully at the path you're crossing! Finally, approximately three-quarters of an hour after passing this last gate, you'll be in front of the monastery entrance.

There you will be patient for a moment, until the gatekeeper announces you and allows you to pass. Their horses will be taken to an inn half a league away, and there they will be kept at your expense. But you and your people will be lodged and fed free of charge at the Chartreuse, except for an honest gift to be given upon departure to the servant who served you. In the house, you'll have to see the corridors, the rooms and the portraits they contain, the kitchen, the refectory, the cellars, with their immense stores of butter and cheese, the gallery, where the plans of most of the Charterhouses are displayed, the chapter house, the vestry ornaments, the portrait of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, painted in the image of the Virgin. But above all, talk as much as you can with the people in the house, to get an idea of ​​the life these inmates lead.

In French, he uses the word "reclus," which refers to the monks as prisoners in a somewhat derogatory way. I don't know how to translate it into English, but in French, you have about a dozen words to choose from that don't sound so horrible. I think this trip makes his political and religious stances during his youth clear.

That's all, if I'm not mistaken... Come down from this paradise, where there are no houris, and return to eat meat on the plain.

He clarifies that it is not a sensual paradise: the houris are celestial virgins of the Islamic paradise, symbols of pleasure. It certainly seems like his conclusion was that that life wasn't for him. (I'm not surprised; everyone described him as "openly" "gay".)

I find it funny how he says that with a touch of irony. He wants to express something like: "This is very nice, but it's not for me. I want to get back with my boyfriend and have sex 😄."

Make sure you go in July or August at the latest!

[writer-by-the-sea]

Jdndnnd Ur work makes me giggle and kick my feet... For the request I'd love angst to comfort, light angst ofc nothing too serious;

Farmer forgetting/not having time to visit Elliott for almost two weeks bc of farm work... and finally the writer can't take it anymore and goes to the farm to confront the farmer. They're not dating but they're having very intimate friendship with mutual pinning :p

(take ur time ofc 🫶!!!!!)

Like Home.

I thought I knew loneliness.

Until now.

----------------------

Slight angst, fluff, and loneliness. Thank you for the request! I am very rusty but I hope you like it!

Read below or continue reading on AO3.

In my youth, I thought I knew what loneliness felt like. 

My mother would leave me at home for hours, picking me up and setting me down in her library. A library with books all the way up to the ceiling, encouraging me to reach as high as I could. 

I would read book after book, tearing through the pages as if it would be taken from me at any given moment. Mystery, romance, biographies, fantasy, adventure, self help, horror, anything and everything that my little hands could grasp. 

Of course, looking back on those times, those bookshelves weren't tall. The library wasn't a library at all but a small office with books collected over the years from garage sales or discount goods stores. 

But the books, the books I would always hold dear. Because even in my loneliness moments, hunched over another story, when my thoughts would drift to my own family… my mother who is never home, or my father who didn't stay– books, were my company, my friends, my family, my home. 

I thought I knew loneliness. 

Until now. 

Every morning, I stretch on the beach. Rain, snow, sleet, or hail; I make the effort to stand outside before the ocean and take in the fresh sea air. 

And every morning, my favorite farmer would join me with a steaming cup of coffee. We would sip our drinks together, stealing glances at one another over the rim of our mugs, and we would chat. About anything and everything. 

For the first time in my life, I didn't feel the need to run away to my library. I didn't feel like I was alone in the world, left out in the woods with no way home. 

Because the farmer became my company, my friend, my family, my home. In the course of a year, I'd grown as attached to them as I did my books. 

The first morning they didn't come to visit me, I took no offense. Winter was coming to an end and the ground was finally soft enough to till. It only made sense that they didn't visit. 

The third day had me rethinking our last conversation. Had I said something to offend them? Had my eyes lingered too long over their body with too obvious of want? 

On the fifth day, I began writing a very strongly worded letter. All teeth and no kindness, demanding to know why they didn't visit me and what on earth I could have done to warrant such behavior. For an entire year we would drink our coffee together, huddled close as we whispered secrets and gossip. I tore the letter to shreds, it was just caffeine withdrawal. Surely I would see the farmer again soon. 

A week and a half passed. Not a single visit. Not a single letter despite myself sending them three. They didn't come to the inn, they never stopped by the bathhouse. 

And yet– others had seen them. Pierre told me how the farmer came in a few days ago. Selling and buying goods for the farm. He smirked at me and said, “did the two love birds have a little spat?” 

I left in a huff, leaving behind the bread I was planning to purchase and made my way to the farm. All the while creating imaginary conversations with the farmer in my head. Preparing myself for the worst, preparing myself to be alone once more, left alone in a library while my tears slowly dripped down my cheeks and into the worn pages. 

When I arrived, I stopped to catch my breath and took the time to look around. A few small sprouts of new plants poked through the ground, the wind giving them a light tussle, welcoming me to the farm with their own little wave. 

Knocking at the door, I crossed my arms over my chest and waited. My foot tapped impatiently on the wooden deck. I didn't want to appear rude, or as though I owned all of the farmer's time to myself; but… a life without them wasn't something I was willing to have. 

I knocked again, harder this time.

Still no answer. 

Just as I was about to leave, gritting my teeth and making my way back down the steps; I saw them. 

The farmer was already grinning when they spotted me, waving me over excitedly before running back into their barn. 

While I wanted to ignore the little ping in my heart at finally seeing them once again, to flip my hair and turn away from the barn to make my way home– I found myself entering the barn. 

Inside the farm sat on their knees, their hands and forearms covered in dried blood. 

And a baby calf, peacefully lounging in the straw with its mother stroking her tongue all over to clear them up. The farmer laughed at the mother gave them a quick lick on the side of their face. 

“She’s been ready to deliver for nearly two weeks now,” the farmer said as they helped to clear more of the signs of birth from the babe. “I've hardly even left the farm besides running to Pierre’s to get more seeds and towels for the delivery.” 

I could only stand there in shock. Their absence has nothing to do with me. 

It had everything to do with their family. 

“I see,” I said, defeated. Perhaps… at this time, the farmer is my company, my friend, and nothing more. “Well, I will leave you to it–” 

The farmer laughed and held their hand out to me, beckoning me to join them. “Don't leave, I've missed you so much!” 

“You did?” I blurted and took a tentative step forward. 

“Of course I did,” the farmer’s smile dropped, their face twisting into confusion as they gazed back at me. “Did you not miss me?” 

I dropped to my knees beside them, pulling the farmer into my arms and hugging them tightly. The farmer wrapped their arms around me, one hand rubbing over and down my back. 

Tears I didn't know I was holding back began to fall and the farmer held me tighter. 

“I love you,” I whispered into their neck, closing my eyes and preparing for them to pull away. 

Time slowed as the farmer placed their hands on my shoulders and pushed me back. Their eyes glassy with tears, their cheek smudged with dirty, and a smear of dried blood across their forehead leading up into their hair. 

“I love you, too,” they breathed out. Their lips crashed against my own, their kiss as desperate and needy as I've felt for all this time. It was slow but overflowing with heat, their tongue sliding over my lower lip and into my mouth as I melted into them. A moan escaped me as they pushed closer, one hand slipping into my hair and tugging me towards them. 

“Moo?” 

With a laugh, the farmer took their lips away from mine, much to my displeasure. They reached over and pet the mother cow on the top of her head. 

“I've been wanting to do that for months,” the farmer smiled and grabbed my hand, rubbing their thumb over the back of it. “Since I first met you, actually,” they said, their cheeks filling with heat. 

I leaned forward and brushed my lips against their own, softly and with all the ease in the world. “My sweet farmer,” I whispered against their lips, kissing them again. “You have no idea how much you mean to me.” 

Like home. 

(Please like, comment, and reblog. I am a plant and your enjoyment is my sunlight.)

[jd07201990]

I’ll admit, this one was a real challenge. But that never stops JD Marketing Solutions, LLC from fulfilling our contracts. I’ll even bet you’ve seen many of our Ads out there, selling sports gear, energy drinks, shoes, hygiene products, etc. Hell, if you’ve walked through the Men’s underwear aisle of any store, you’ll have seen our work. Models. Exact – to – order, custom designed walking – talking billboards that draw eyes to them, and whatever it is they’re created to sell. Their entire existence built from a spec-sheet that wealthy companies, and… well, private investors, pay 8-9 figures to fill out and submit. If your company has a need for perfect male specimens who’ve been programmed to your specific, needs, you can find our Sales team contact at Build-A-Boy . com. Now we have a prime example of our work, although he needs quite a bit more mental rewiring. Tanner here tends to escape our facility and dart about the grounds, attempting to flee back to his pointless life in college at least twice a month. His psychological strength against our state-of-the-art brain-wiping protocols is astounding. Although as you can clearly see, he can fight the brain wipe, but his body has followed our plans to the letter. He’ll soon be strutting around multi-million dollar photography studios, hawking Athletic Gear to aspiring males who would give anything to look like him. For now, we’ll continue to allow him to inadvertently add an hour or so of high-intensity cardio to his already grueling workout regime, as he bolts between buildings, thinking he’s nearly free. All the while our cameras snap thousands of high-resolution photos and video clips, providing us with more evidence of our immaculate work. Tanner added another zero to his buyer’s bill when he sprinted across our lawn in that high end jockstrap, the sun blazing above and sweat beading down his impeccable torso, while our slow-motion cameras streamed his precision athletic training to a private buyer in the Czech Republic. The Clothing company made the wise choice to out-spend the private investor, or Tanner would have been on a private within 6 months, depending on how long it took to finally break his stubborn mind.

[a-d-nox]

lenormand cards: key phrases and an example of a card combo (part 3)

this is just a beginners guide to the lenormand. these are key phrases that come to mind when i think of the cards - NOT how they should be directly applied. they needs to be thought about situationally - the card / when it is in specific combos can change or alter its meaning in a reading.

paid reading options: astrology menu & cartomancy menu

enjoy my work? help me continue creating by tipping on ko-fi or paypal. your support keeps the magic alive!

ring: unity, attachment, alliance, marriage, vow, affections, commitment, engagement, agreements, promises, partnerships, mergers, valuable objects, jewelry, completion, solution, full circle, etc.

ring + cross = joint suffering, spartacus energy, feeling burdened by your commitments, relationship trials, bad karma, being "cursed", being humiliated by your partner, disappointed by your partner, etc.

book: curiosity, knowledge, education, wisdom, intelligence, hidden things, mysteries, secrecy, information, facts, data, learning, education, projects, cases, assignments, audits, research, monetary accounts, research, exams, school, esoteric studies, discoveries, breakthroughs, confidential information, books, journals, files, deck of cards, etc.

book + ring = marriage license, wedding planner, knowledge about prenuptial agreements, combined assets in a partnership, a finished project, final exam, etc.

letter: news, messages, information, notes, memos, documents, reports, written correspondence, awards, certificates, licenses, credentials, diplomas, records, permits, authorizations, warrants, liens, titles, contacts, advertisements, flyers, brochures, junk mail, invitations, announcements, cards, posters, etc

letter + book = lecture notes, hidden messages, literary analysis, awards for intellect, learning permit for driving, etc.

man: brother, lover, father, spouse, fiancé, etc.

man + letter = a guy with news, a message from a man, doctor, educated man, famous man, etc.

woman: sister, lover, mother, friend, spouse, fiancée, etc.

woman + man = siblings, twins, couple, etc.

lilies: royalty, honor, nobility, purity, innocence, knowledge, respect, wisdom, maturity, happiness, protection, pregnancy, aging, peace, slow down, etc.

lilies + woman = queen, maid of honor, a nun, baby girl, a virgin, woman teacher/professor, grandmother, mother, motherhood, etc.

sun: new beginning, life, warmth, heat, success, glory, victory, happiness, glory, desire, courage, hope, recognition, fame, power, reputation, ego, pride, high self-esteem, charisma, alluring personality, summer, beaches, positivity, optimism, masculine, etc.

sun + lilies = pure joy, contentment, joan of arc energy, being well liked and trusted, invincibility, king, patriarchy, etc.

moon: imagination, musing, passion, unconscious, feminine, maternal instincts, intuition, psyche, dreams, creativity, inspiration, innovation, honors, fame, recognition, popularity, celebrity, emotions, passions, seduction, romance, intimacy, affection, desires, fantasies, motherhood, the womb, menstruation, hormones, instincts, perception, sensitivity, awareness, mystics, mediums, psychics, etc.

moon + sun = prologue, dream life, "the warm and fuzzies", psychic power, pearl energy, charming personality, awareness of yourself and your power, etc.

key: wishes, hidden things, success, unexpected results, karmic lessons, breakthroughs, etc.

key + moon = manifestation, creative success, overnight success, karmic lover, awareness of your lesson, etc.

fish: abundance, water, fertility, spirituality, prosperity, eternity, unity, happiness, transformation, femininity, adaptability, knowledge, creativity, freedom, luck, intuition, independence, self-employment, entrepreneurship, sales, purchases, exchanges, abundance, wealth, emotions, beaches, independence, etc.

fish + key = having a lot of wishes, murky water, the unknown, things working out, a gamble paying off, etc.

anchor: stability, security, safety, immovability, trust, faith, loyalty, stubbornness, consistency, endurance, destinations, support, reliability, lifestyle, etc.

anchor + fish = stability income, stubbornness paying off, enduring beliefs, freedom to choose, supporting yourself, lifestyle that supports the self, etc.

cross: suffering, martyrdom, burdens, challenges, worries, troubles, trials, pains, hardships, concerns, hardships, obstacles, hindrances, regret, remorse, guilt, shame, humiliation, disappointment, religion, faith, belief, esotericism, psychics, mediums, empaths, etc.

cross + anchor = financially struggling, lacking faith, being in your own way, struggling with consistency, regretting your life's choices, being disappointed by where you are, faith worth relying on, being a psychic/medium, etc.

have ideas for new content? please use my “suggest a post topic” button!

return to nox's guide to metaphysics

return to the masterlist of lenormard

© a-d-nox 2024 all rights reserved

[femmefatalevibe]

any tips for getting into copywriting?

Learn the basics of copywriting & writing fundamentals/ marketing skills

Study the different types of copywriting (web/banners, email, social, ads, direct mail, sales letters, etc.)

Decide on your niche(s). Study everything you can about the industry, trends, latest news, customer demographics/psychographics, customer behavior, types of lifestyles/preferences they have, how they speak, where they spend the most time (IRL or digitally)

Craft an inspiration folder full of compelling copywriting examples you find when browsing on the web, going through your email, scrolling on social media, billboards, magazines, direct mail, etc.

Practice rewriting these examples with your own flair. Evaluate it, and keep practicing until you're proud of your copy.

Be as concise, clever, and convincing as possible. Keep your tone conversational (write like how you would speak), catchy, simple, and witty. Take out any extraneous or fluff words. Pepper in cultural references, puns, and relatable anecdotes understood by your target audience when relevant to your messaging/CTA

Create a portfolio with these mock-ups or projects done for family/friends (state they're spec work, not client-commissioned samples) or clips from an internship, school work, etc.

Craft a USP for yourself (including your niche, copywriting specialties, and the specific expertise you offer within your broader niche/service offerings that makes you unique)

Create an Upwork profile and share your services on LinkedIn (optimize both of these profiles)

Research local clients and small businesses within your niche. Also, take time to create a list of dream clients. Study their copy, brand voice, and keep tabs on updates regarding these companies' happenings

Learn the art of a cold email/LinkedIn pitch/Upwork proposal. Introduce yourself and your services to your prospect and share with them how you can fulfill a specific need they're seeking out (For local and smaller companies, feel free to offer suggestions. With more established companies, connect the dots as to why your experience/expertise is a great fit for their brand/target audience), and attach your work/link to your LinkedIn profile, website, and any other relevant hub for your professional services & content

Ask for referrals from friends/family to get started. If they're not a relative, get a testimonial to include in your portfolio

Follow up once if you haven't heard back from a prospective client after an initial pitch after a few days

Search for potential gigs on sites like Upwork/ProBlogger/People Per Hour

Once you land a gig, execute to the best of your ability and hand in your work by the deadline (strategies surrounding best business practices is a whole other post, lol)

Gather testimonials from all clients of successful projects. Confirm with clients whether you can use their work in your portfolio if you're unsure

Continue studying copywriting from books, courses, and everyday reading & living

Stay knowledgeable about advancements/updates in your field, keep updated on current events, and culture/social trends, and read a lot in general. Have interesting, multi-faceted conversations with others. Observe what makes people tick & remain engaged in a verbal dialogue or content