#I could elaborate but I have deadlines and stuff to do

[frankensteincest]

I think Wei Wuxian going from arrogant, shunning his place in society, chatty as fuck but never says anything real -> basically the same but with LWJ on his side this time is not a good story actually. we were doing so well with the gradual buildup of past revelations and parallels between the senior trio (Lan Xichen-Jin Guangyao-Nie Mingjue) and the succeeding one (LWJ-WWX-JC) but then it all fell apart. there’s a difference between confronting your current self and developing from it vs. ignoring the past and living an idyllic dream.

[saturnville]

a night off, l. hamilton

pairing: he (lewis hamilton) x black!wife (she) content: she encourages her husband to take a night off. warning: angst. minor disagreements. an: thank you for reading <3 let me know what you think! tags: @boujiestpoet @mauvecherie-writes @saintslewis @greedyjudge2 @vile-harlot @emjayewrites @ggaslyp1 @neeville

“Can you just relax, please?” 

He was a self-proclaimed workaholic. Breaks did not exist in his world. Rest was just as foreign as a language different from his native one. If he wasn’t frequently working, he was unsatisfied with himself and his efforts. He refused to be seen as lazy or anything aside from a hard worker. He was a self-proclaimed workaholic who needed a night off. Just one. 

“No, baby. I gotta get this done,” he mumbled, mindlessly pecking her cheek as she rose from her position on his lap in frustration. His laptop had more of his attention than his sanity did and it drove her mad. She glanced at the screen. Whatever he was working on had a deadline more than three months away. She’d be damned.

Despite his protests, she clicked “save” on the document, closed the computer, and tucked it under her arm along with his phone. There was no way she’d allow him to overwork himself, especially not during a trip that had been planned for the sole purpose of escaping the normal day-to-day responsibilities he had. 

His grumbling was muffled and incoherent as she retreated further and further from the dining room where he was. She trekked up the stairs and into their shared bedroom. On the nightstand closest to her side of the bed, she placed his laptop and phone. Then, she made her way back downstairs. 

Her husband wasn’t where she left him, rather sitting on the couch, arms crossed with a television show playing on the large platform television ahead of him. She rolled her eyes in amusement. He was unbelievable. 

“You can’t have your way so you resort to this?” Her voice made his head whip around. His expression was blank. 

“I mean yeah. You took my phone and computer. What else am I supposed to do?” 

Her jaw ticked and anger began to bubble deep within her. He was unbelievable and she was ready to blow a gasket. “You’re supposed to relax, Lewis! That’s why we’re here. If you wanted to do the same regular-degular stuff, we could’ve done it at home. You complain about how we hardly have time together, but look! You’re in this overly-priced villa with a beautiful wife and you won’t even take the moment to relax with her. I could have stayed home if I knew you loved work more than you do me.”

Lewis stood from the couch at her comment. “That is not true and you know it.” 

“Do I?” She snapped before turning on her heels to walk up the stairs. The slam of the bedroom door was the last thing he heard before he was met with utter silence. Sheesh. 

-

The bath water scorched her skin just the way she liked. The suds surrounded her like a cape and she basked in the cover it provided. The speaker she brought from home played her favorite songs from Snoh Aalegra. 

It had been over an hour since their last interaction and she needed time to herself before facing him again. She tried to understand her husband’s mindset and for the most part, she did, but she firmly believed in rest. And the fact that he refused to do so, especially after she planned an elaborate vacation for them, hurt her feelings. It made her wonder what about spending time with her was so repulsing that work took more of his attention than she did. 

Sighing, she moved her arms in the water, preparing to dunk her head beneath the water until she heard the door peel open slowly. “Baby?” His voice was gentle, much different from the fierceness it held just an hour ago. She did not object, so the door opened wider and his body appeared. 

He closed the door behind him to keep the humidity from escaping the room and leaned against the counter. His muscles flexed as he put his weight on his arms. She turned to meet his eyes, which were filled with regret. Her eyebrow quipped. “What’s up?” Her volume was slow and her tone was even. 

“Room for another?” 

She nodded. Lewis’s hands went to his outfit, a matching sweatsuit, which he plucked off piece by piece. She leaned forward to make room for his strong body, which was more comfortable than the porcelain tub. Her husband’s tattooed hands found themselves palming her body--his left hand around her growing belly and his right squeezing her breasts. As much as she tried to fight it, her eyes fluttered closed and her head fell against his shoulder. Lewis’ lips pressed against her temple firmly. 

Silence surrounded them for many moments before he spoke up. “I didn’t mean to disregard you. I never want to be the reason why you feel ignored and unwanted. I’m not good at breaks and you know this, but it was no excuse. You put so much time into this and I blatantly ignored it--I’m sorry, beloved.” 

She didn’t speak verbally, but the squeeze of his hand let him know she heard him. But, because she said nothing, he continued, “I’m all yours.” 

“You promise?” She spoke quietly. 

Lewis's lip pulled in the corner. They were okay. 

-

“Am I too heavy?” She sounded unsure as she hovered over her husband’s muscular body. Her body had changed tremendously as she was carrying their child. Normally, she didn’t worry about it too much, but she had moments where her thoughts got the best of her. He found her beautiful in every state she was in, but even more so in the current one. She was carrying his child--how could he see any flaw within her?

Lewis shook his head against the pillow, “No, baby, never.” She squeaked out a quiet okay before finally putting her full weight on him, which made no difference to him. 

In her hands, she poured a considerable amount of oil into her palms, rubbed her hands together, and caressed his soft skin. The sounds he released were music to her ears and had a soft smile spreading across her lips. “Feel okay?” 

He groaned softly, “Feels amazing.” Silence, save for his sounds of approval, surrounded them. This was was he needed. The closeness, the intimacy, the love between a man and his caring wife during the hardest parts of his life. It was moments like these that he cherished deeply and would do so forever. 

Almost thirty minutes passed before she complained of her body becoming sore. Lewis adjusted their position so her head was against the pillow and her legs were spread just enough to welcome his body. She smiled at him as she welcomed the kisses he planted on her neck and collarbone. “Thank you, baby. Let me return the favor…”

With that, his hands palmed her thighs and pushed them upward. Her eyes fluttered as she prepared for the best. His lips caressed her sensitive skin and she sighed softly, her fingers finding themselves in her hair. He melted into the embrace of her legs and soon the room filled with whispers that turned into loud cries that played on repeat even when it was all said and done. 

They drifted off to sleep during the early hours of the morning, wrapped in the love of each other. With her bare body against his, she said, “See what happens when you take a night off?” 

Lewis chuckled and poked her side. “Yeah, yeah. I love you…”

“I love you more.” 

[genericpuff]

I've been seeing you say/speculate Rachel Smythe has been cut loose from webtoon, could you elaborate what you mean by that?

It's only a tinfoil hat theory that people should take with MOUNTAINS of salt (seriously, I'm more likely to believe that Rachel really is just done with LO), but there's a general suspicion that LO wasn't meant to end here and that Webtoons decided to cut the cord. I've made a post about it before but some new stuff has surfaced since then.

1.) The announcement the series was ending was made quietly at NYCC and not shared to either Webtoons' socials or Rachel's socials.

The only way fans initially knew about the series ending was through a screencap from the Discord where someone else who had been attending NYCC passed on the info from a Q&A that LO would be entering its final arc.

For a good while the only other way to know the series was ending was through the Discord, a Cosmopolitan article, and my own post.

Though it sounds odd for a series to get cancelled halfway through its third season, it's not uncommon for Webtoons to suddenly axe series while they're on their midseason hiatuses, it's happened before. So there's a general suspicion that Rachel may have found out during NYCC that LO would only be given one more arc.

2.) The actual finale announcement was made in a text post on Instagram that suddenly announced it would be ending on May 11th, despite the fact that there was still lots to wrap up in the story.

What this implies is that Rachel was given one more arc, with no concrete end date... until Webtoons told her to wrap it up in a limited number of episodes, hence why despite us knowing it was in its final arc, the end date still felt too soon. This is also supported by the fact that her initial announcement was vaguely "early/mid 2024" - she couldn't give a more accurate end date because she didn't plan for the actual ending.

3.) Things that Rachel has said implies that she was either hoping for the final arc to go on longer, or that she didn't think LO was going to be ending now.

(that "nothing is set in stone" quote further supports the theory that she may have been hoping to get renewed in spite of the lukewarm ending announcement - that the only reason the announcement was so quiet was because WT hadn't fully committed to it yet and wanted to see how the series would do upon its return; now that they see it falling behind to other series, it might mean WT became more sure in their decision to cut it and gave her an actual deadline to wrap it up by.)

4.) Webtoons has stopped promoting Lore Olympus despite it ending.

Any promotional spots that it has gotten have been stuffed into the dead zone of the banner reels (seriously, anything past the 3rd spot is practically useless because it takes actual committed scrolling to get there vs. the first 1-3 banner spots which can be seen as soon as you open the app/site) and the banner art itself does not in any way advertise the series being in its final arc. These banners also only seem to be appearing for a day at most, compared to the days upwards of weeks they used to get.

Webtoons also hasn't been doing any sort of promoting on their socials for it. Considering The Mafia Nanny has been consistently beating out LO in the top rankings for weeks now, and that LO's rating and view count is still dropping, it appears that Webtoons has finally given up on shoving it down people's throats and put their focus elsewhere.

Again, this is all tinfoil hat speculation, so take it with massive doses of salt. Considering this is Webtoons, I wouldn't be surprised if they finally decided to put LO out of its misery, but this is also Rachel and I wouldn't blame her in the slightest if she finally wanted to be done with it after the past two years of people clowning on it. And I say that knowing I, myself, am a clown LOL

Either way, I feel like either outcome is plausible in its own ways, but whatever is the true reason, it doesn't change the fact that LO is ending and has 3 episodes left to wrap itself up. And whatever comes after will likely involve the launch of Inklore which was estimated for the spring.

[hotdaemondtargaryen]

TOM GLYNN-CARNEY INTERVIEWED FOR DEADLINE MAGAZINE.

IS THAT YOU LYING IN BED IN EPISODE 5, GETTING THE BURNT VALYRIAN STEEL PEELED OFF OF YOUR BODY?

"It certainly is me."

I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD. SO YOU'RE NOT DEAD YET?

"I say a word … unless dead people can speak."

SO YOU ARE SURE AS YOU'RE SITTING HERE, YOU ARE NOT DEAD.

"I’m not dead yet."

LET'S BACK UP TO THE DAY WHEN YOU SHOT THAT EPIC DRAGON FIGHT.

"Well, that day was, in fact, probably about three weeks work, trying to get all these certain angles and these set pieces together."

"It takes a while to coordinate something like that."

"And it was great fun."

"It was a little different."

"The stuff I had to do previously with the big dialogue, the heavy council scenes and the moments in the pub … that felt more theatrical."

"And by theatrical, I don’t mean hammy and stuff, I mean being in theater and doing a play."

"But this [dragon fight] felt very filmic, being strapped into this crane and having this big camera on a long hydraulic arm thrown in your face."

"There were lots of green screens and gray screens and tennis balls on sticks and wind machines."

"It was great."

"It was a big learning curve for me as well, because I’ve never done anything quite as elaborate as that before in terms of CGI work."

DO YOU THINK CRISTON SAW WHAT AEMOND DID TO AEGON'S DRAGON IN THAT FIGHT? THAG AEMOND IS TO BLAME?

"Criston definitely sees Aegon on the ground and Aemond near him with his sword drawn."

"So he can make his own mind up about Aemond’s intentions, which is still unclear even to me."

"I’m not sure the story was there."

"There could be various outcomes."

WHAT HAS IT BEEN LIKE TO PLAY SOMEBODY WHO'S SO BLOODY UNLIKABLE?

"So you’re not team Aegon, then?"

"Who wants to be liked?"

"Where’s the fun in that?"

"I think it’s great playing someone like Aegon because he’s so unpredictable."

"He’s so volatile."

"He’s not just someone who people don’t like."

"He’s a tragic case."

"He’s a complete and utter tragedy of a person, and I feel deeply, deeply sorry for him."

"And I guess that’s kind of why I’ve wanted to investigate his vulnerabilities, his fragilities and his boyishness, all the things that he lacks in his life that kind of inform his decisions, that have given him a certain reputation."

"There’s a lot to unpack in him."

"He’s way more layered and complex than just an unlikable character."

IT'S BEEN AN INTERESTING JOURNEY WATCHING AEGON AND AEMOND BECAUSE THEY'RE OBVIOUSLY BAD KIDS, WHICH DOESN'T MAKE SENSE BECAUSE IT'S NOT LIKE THEIR DAD WAS AN AWFUL GUY. SO WHERE DOES THAT BADNESS COME FROM?

"I dunno."

"I mean, they’ve got Targaryen blood running through them, so there’s going to be an element of madness somewhere."

"I think if they had a different upbringing and a different experience of childhood, things may have been different."

"If they had the treatment that Rhaenyra got, for example, their lives could be different."

"She was very much the golden child."

"She came first."

"She was the one whose picture was on the fridge."

"So yeah, I think that in many ways they’re a product of their history and their upbringing."

"But then again, they’re spoiled as well."

"They’ve never had to work for anything and that can have its effects."

"That’s probably a question for a psychologist, not for me."

WHY DOES HE DISLIKE HIS BROTHER SO MUCH?

"I don’t think he does."

BUT HE WAS SUCH A SHIT TO HIM IN THAT BROTHEL SCENE.

"That’s brothers."

"Aegon was pissed off that for weeks that Aemond has been in the small council and he’d been conniving and plotting with Criston behind his back."

"That kind of clique-ness and keeping Aegon out of the situation for Aemond’s own self-gain, knowing that Aegon would take over the position of King should he get the opportunity, Aegon needed to bring him down a peg."

"I don’t think it come from a place of disliking him."

It comes from a place of being like, ‘you are my little brother, know your place.’

"It’s dismissiveness and also, I’m from Manchester."

"From where I’m from, there are so many sibling relationships that are completely flawed and fractured."

"It’s very normal for me."

"I’m lucky I have a great relationship with my sibling, but it’s very normal and not out of the ordinary at all for you to see two siblings who actively want to hurt each other."

"It doesn’t come from hatred."

"That’s just the way people behave."

[horselover107]

Ok there’s a lot of new people in the Torchwood tag so it’s time to tap the sign again:

Please do not pirate from Big Finish productions. They’re a very small company that has the license to Doctor Who, Torchwood, etc audio content, not the BBC themselves. They are still actively making content and if too many people pirate that has a direct impact on the writers they contract and they could become unprofitable enough to stop making them.

This PSA does not* apply to:

(Edited for typo)

1) anything directly made by BBC, so the BBC radio plays (Submission, The House of the Dead, Deadline etc) don’t count

2) absent friends related leaks also don’t count since there’s no way to legally buy that, although high key no one’s been able to actually authenticate that eBay listing so know that — it’s still possible that was a very, very elaborate troll

I know the BF stuff is expensive but they do have sales like constantly throughout the year. It’s worth checking their socials to keep up with it.

I’m not making this to be the fun police and yes pirate from big corporations, but I need people to realize these things are being made by a small team for a small audience. It’s like pirating a small press publisher

[the-s1lly-corner]

Can you do Costumes, Excitement, and Scary Movie for Loona? Ideally for Male Reader. Thank you, I love your writing!

Costumes, Excitement, Scary Movie w/ Loona (fall prompts)

juggling between writing normal posts and prepping for flufftober while also drawing while also brainstorming ideas for halloween art while also getting silly with my current hyperfixation is starting to take a toll hisshiss i think what i might do as deadlines come up is dedicate a day or two to write a bunch of stuff just so i have uninterrupted time to finish flufftober... just 11 more fics!! we are so close!! prompts: costumes, excitement, scary movie notes: reader is male cws: none

COSTUMES

shes not that big on dressing up actually, including costumes for halloween

at most you might be able to wear one of those really simple costumes... maybe you could get away with putting a witch hat on her

she just generally seems uninterested in the idea, however if its something that means a lot she will make some level of effort to match with you! even if its not some elaborate costume, its still something!

store bought costume, as well

EXCITEMENT

assuming she doesnt have to work, shes looking forward to spending the night with you! she may not be insane for the holiday like you might be... but its nice to have some down time to relax with your partner

neither hates nor dislikes halloween, shes just not much of a holiday person in general

sometimes doesnt get what the hype is about even if you try to explain...that said she wouldnt intentionally make you feel bad for liking the holiday

SCARY MOVIES

can definitely see her being the type to try to appear unphased by the movies on the outside but on the inside shes just the slightest bit tense

oh she hates jumpscares- she thinks theyre cheap, plus hates the sudden noise... you catch her ears flattening against her head everytime

does like some of the themes and vibes some films give off, though, even if otherwise the genre isnt her cup of tea

work doesnt allow her to watch them with you all month- ignoring that shes likely slacking at work- so you guys are going to be confined to weekends

[sporco-filth]

thanks for answering all my questions, I love hearing you elaborate on the details which does bring me to my follow up question, how are the jobs like in Slob City? I imagine that the deadlines are really slack or just don't exist. That and those too lazy to work or just prefer to be NEETs are supported somehow?

I'm going to be honest, I haven't put thought into this solely because I think it would not be possible for the economy of the city to sustain itself if nobody at all is really working and so it just exists in a vague state of 'it works somehow' and I don't question it.

I assume they have really good welfare so people don't necessarily need to work. I feel like the unemployment rate is really high.

A lot of jobs we'd consider essential (e.g. waste management) just aren't performed and others (e.g. electricity production) are done outside of the city. I guess when you think about it, what sort of jobs would need to be done? Other than restaurants, supermarkets, government stuff, real estate/construction and other retail stuff, there probably wouldn't be a whole lot of things. So as long as some people are employed so that the government gets taxes and the retailers get money to buy more stock, people can do whatever job they want, even if it's 'unproductive' by our standards.

But for people who do work, there are literally no expectations or whatever. It's impressive enough that you showed up to work. if anything, people who work hard are looked down on or mocked because they could be spending their time trying to minimise the effort they need to complete the job to a barely acceptable standard. Below standard is already too high. there's no desire to climb the career ladder (except if it leads to a cushier job), so people only want enough money to buy food and stuff. Not having to work is the dream and so people who get to lounge around at home all day are envied.

I don't know, maybe the city is right next to huge oil reserves and just gets money off of that or something, so no one needs to pay taxes. The point is, there's no pressure to work if you don't want to.

I assume there are schools as well and the same sort of principles apply in that like a real world C is the equivalent of their A+.

[waterspoutskies]

For the wip game: side quest gremlins? XD

Sidequest Gremlins!

Ok so I'd have to go digging for where Ruby put the art, I can't remember if it's on her tumblr or not...

FOUND IT it's here

Anyway it was for the discord birthday event themed for trios way back when! and Ruby and I planned to submit the fic and art together but thanks to my incompetence with school- oh hold on I lied it wasn't incompetence with school, that was my brother's senior year, I stand corrected, I missed the deadline because I had to watch him and his relay team mark the fastest time in the US for the year. Anyway the fic never fully panned out on my end.

The premise was that Wild and Hyrule and Wind coming back from one of their own little adventures and getting in deep trouble because Hyrule twisted his ankle and is out of magic, Wild got hurt and absolutely plastered in dirt (and broke a sword), Wind tripped backwards into the stream walking back, and all of them are fucking lying about what they were doing. And the joke was the reference to that one panel where Wolfie is fetching Hyrule and Wild and Wild goes "They're not mad, they're furious, I can tell"

It never got a name either because I could not get one to stick properly, but it did actually get mostly done, so have a few bits of it and hopefully I can wrap that up this summer!

“I told you we should’ve gotten the map!”  “And I told you there are no maps for random caves!”  “Maps are for Legend.” The squabbling pair gave him a look- one curious, one suspicious- and he elaborated. “They suck all the fun out of things.”

“Now what will they find? A group of skilled and extra awesome adventurers of course! Defeating all the invading moblins in sight,” Wind announced, waving his arms in a grandiose movement.  “Some of them more amazing than others?” Hyrule stumbled and winced, almost yanking Wild off balance.

So yeah fun stuff! Sidequesting Gremlins right here!

[a-dragons-journal]

You often mention you have bad episodic memory. Could you please elaborate on that? How does that manifest for you? I ask because I think I've got the same problem and it's quite frustrating! Like, if you asked me what happened in my personal life in the year 2018, I would have absolutely no clue where to even begin without looking up stuff in my journal or asking people if I was in school/what year, and even then. Baffles me when people are able to remember stuff like this.

So, there's three main types of memory:

Episodic memory, event-memories, where you can "watch" or "relive" an event as it happened,

Semantic memory, knowledge-memories, where you remember a fact but not necessarily an event tied to learning it, and

Procedural memory, knowing how to do a task without necessarily remembering learning how.

My semantic memory is pretty decent, with the exception that I'm fucking terrible with names and dates. I can spit facts out at you all day long. My episodic memory, however, is absolutely rotten, which I suspect is tied to my time-blindness. I remember many facts about my life, but I remember very few actual events past, like... a few months ago. And there's often no rhyme or reason to what gets saved - I still have a vivid flashbulb memory (a type of episodic memory) of a few seconds of walking down the street (I think back to our motel) past some juniper trees during a vacation to Mesa Verde when I was like eight, where absolutely nothing notable happened, but I have zero episodic memories of the rest of that trip. Similarly, I "remember" visiting the Coliseum, in that I remember that I've been there and many of the things I learned while I was there and even the facts of specific events that happened, but I have very little in the way of actual memories of the place - I can "see" maybe one "frame" of it in my head if I try; the rest is nothing.

The time-blindness ties into it in much the way you describe; if you ask me for things that happened to me in a specific timeframe, unless I've made a deliberate note of it along the way (ie, I know I awakened as draconic in 2017) I have no way of knowing when exactly something happened and have to reverse-engineer it through what I know happened before and after it and when those things were, because my brain processes time basically as "today," "yesterday," "earlier this week," "within the last couple of months," and "the past," and everything within each of those timeslots might as well have happened only a day or two apart.

(This unfortunately goes the other way, too - my brain processes the future basically as "later today," "tomorrow," "later this week," and "the future," which sucks for deadlines because they don't feel real until they're right in front of me because something that's two months away feels exactly the same as something that's two years away.)

...Unfortunately I have no real solutions for the memory thing. It's just how my brain works. If there's a workaround, I don't know it. Potentially a side effect of the suspected undiagnosed ADHD, from what I understand.

[vonpharma]

“handwaving genuine, good-hearted concrit, to refusing to even engage in the conversation at all, to constant changes that make the event less fun for a huge chunk of us”

Do you mind if I ask more about this? I’ve also participated in sicktember (casually) and I haven’t really noticed anything that fit this, so I just wanted to ask more about your experiences if you were comfortable elaborating. I’m mostly curious what changes were made that made the event less fun (other than delay in prompts released I heard about that)

yeah sure! right off the bat i wanna say that this is not something i was like. PISSED OFF or intending to start any drama about, just some stuff that made the event less enjoyable for me.

i also wanna say that you haven't noticed it because sicktember is very very careful to not publish anything that makes them look bad. they do not engage with any of their replies or asks unless they can spin it in a very sanitized, pr-friendly manner. try creeping through the tags and replies on some of their posts, and while a lot of shit is deleted or lost, you can still see traces of it, some of which i will link to here.

the prompts becoming more delayed. i wasn't here in 2021 (when they dropped in early march), but in 2022 they dropped in mid may. that was awesome because it gave us all lots of time to prep--my favourite thing about sicktember is how accessible of a prompt event it is! the prompts don't all drop like a week before the event starts, you have all summer to write so if you have a full time job or responsibilities you can still participate. this year they made it very clear the prompts were ready to go in may but didn't drop them until mid-june.

when people started sending asks about this, they responded thusly. they maintain this weird kinda... pr-friendly, stepford smiley vibe whenever anyone tries to open a dialogue with them? and it just comes across as so dismissive of anyone trying to make genuine points.

here they say that "many things go into planning prompts" but don't elaborate on that at all. for context, the night before this ask, they had made it clear that the prompts were all ready to go. the hand-waving comes in the form of all the "suggestions" they offer here--"well, you don't have to do every prompt!" (but i want to. it's fun. it feels good. and that's what i've done in the past) "you can write after september!" (i did that last year. it was kind of miserable. i like posting with everyone, it feels like a big celebration!) "we give you like 100 days!" (that's cool. but you could give us more at no detriment to yourself. a lot of us didn't make the deadline last year.)

check the notes on this post and you'll see several disappointed contributors/fans who are trying to open a dialogue with the event runners, all of whom were ignored. several people have reached out to me saying that their asks about this were ignored.

2. last year, they said they would only be accepting fills on the sicktember blog through submissions, and only posting 10 random ones a day. in the past, sicktember has reblogged every single fill directly from the writers.

here's why this is shitty:

when you submit something to a blog, the blog owner then becomes the one who effectively "owns" its engagement. that means any notes, reblogs, comments, follows, etc. all go to sicktember. they do not go to the person who MADE THE STORY. if you, the author, want to see what people are saying about your work, you have to pull up the sicktember window and obsessively check it. if you want to respond to any comments, you give sicktember more notes.

this is just more work, especially if you still want those notes. you would then have to make TWO posts, one on your personal blog and one on sicktember's. and people are probably disinclined to reblog a story twice. it is not exposure or engagement to do this, it actively robs authors of engagement.

sicktember might not even post your fill. they pick ten random ones a day. this is because...

they literally admitted that they lose followers when they reblog every fill. they said aloud that it is all about engagement for them. maintaining followers means more to them than highlighting the contributions of all the people who are making their event what it is. they are quite literally trying to maximize followers and stealing engagement from their contributors. it's kind of fucking insidious.

the only valid point here is the thing about reducing mod workload. still, they could've just... opened apps for another mod? inquired for some extra help? lord knows i would've jumped at the opportunity to curate! i'm sure others would've too.

contrast this to whumptober, who religiously reblog every single fill despite being a much longer running event than sicktember.

this is why i started @sicktemberfeed. with permission, but the mods were even weird about THAT... i asked if it would be ok to make, and they said "well, it's not like we could stop you." weird fucking answer. it's fine to say no.

3. i didn't speak out about point 2, but did speak out a little bit on this blog about point 1. @yes-i-am-happyaspie's husband (@spaceninjas42) dug through my blog, somehow found my untagged critique (it was not vitriolic or cruel, just a plea for an open discussion) and started getting on my case for talking about it on my personal blog. there was a second, much more vitriolic reply that he left but i was a dingus and blocked him as soon as i saw it, which means it's now marked deleted and i have no way of getting it back or proving it. that's kind of a "just trust me bro" situation.

4. the prompts this year were not very good. that is a purely subjective opinion i have, but a lot of us agree that they really stray from the concept of sickfic. we have a lot of heavier whump events floating around and the appeal of sicktember is that it is for fluffier, more low stakes stuff. seeing "cardiac arrest" and "anaphylaxis" and "medieval treatment" on there had me and a lot of others scratching our heads. their response to this is always "just sub it out!" but when we start running out of alt prompts because so many of the main ones are not what the audience is vibing with... there is room for critique there. there is room for a discussion.

i can't stress enough that the problem isn't necessarily these changes--they are not dealbreakers! the problem was sicktember's attitude. every single time anyone in the community tried to say 'hey, i think this idea could use work/tweaking' the response was basically just, again, the happy-go-lucky stepford smiler pr voice "we'd like to remind you that blah blah blah! happy writing, authors!" and absolute refusal to talk to their community at all. as i've said many times, this is not a dichotomy--where one side is "we fold to any criticism! our fans control us!" and the other side is "you're not entitled to anything! we run this event for free despite our busy lives!" like you can very much find a happy medium there but they just. do not.

none of that is a deal breaker, genuinely. i was still planning on participating up until the very end, and i obviously am now.

what was a deal breaker was them posting harry potter shit.

[fearowkenya]

Winds of Change

In a perfect world, all it takes to make things right with Lopmon is a punch to the face and a sincere apology. In a perfect world, if the timing's just right, the worst can be avoided. In a perfect world, it's easy to make amends. But this is not a perfect world, and Shuuji has to take the good with the bad if he and Lopmon are going to come out of this mess stronger.

Chapter One: Clouds on the Horizon Shuuji's trying his best to recuperate from what happened in the waterway, but it's difficult to recover when Ryo's determined to commit a misdemeanor

ao3 link in source, extended end-of-chapter author's notes below cut!

chapter 1 of this behemoth of a fic ive been working on is finally out!!! it's taken me just over a month to get the whole thing done, and im really excited to be posting it. i hope my formatting is okay - i dont have a beta reader, so im stuck relying on my own perspective. it's not a big deal now, but as the rest of the fic is published, i can see myself getting a little worried about structure and pacing.

the driving force of this fic was my dissatisfaction with the tonal dissonance that part 6 has during truthful route. in every other route, it works GREAT. but because nothing bad really happened in truthful save for some ooh ahh scary fog, the kids' fearful reactions seem totally exaggerated, and it's such a shame! so one of the main ideas behind this fic is figuring out what would have to happen in part 5 truthful that could make all the mistrust and paranoia in part 6 actually feel warranted.

if you've read the chapter, you know what my answer is! i won't elaborate on it now, but when i post chapter 2 next week, you know i am absolutely not going to shut the fuck up about it.

the other driving force behind this fic is actually two small things rolled into one.

first: there's an easily missable conversation between ryo and shuuji during part 6 if you click around in the shopping district. it's so silly. i love it. i didn't see it during my first play of truthful, so when i found it during my current one, i damn near fell out of my chair when i clicked on the ice cream cooler. fuckin got jumpscared by ryo and shuuji's portrats popping up like a pair of bowling pins out of nowhere.

second: ryo and shuuji just don't show up at ALL during the fight against garurumon. like i know the reason they don't is because the game dev situation was probably quite dire and they had to cut stuff in order to make deadlines. it kinda sucks, but i imagine it was totally out of their control. im sure if they had the time and resources they wanted, there wouldve been an alternate version of this fight where shuuji and ryo are included, but im actually not super bothered by it because it means i get to ask the question "so what were they doing instead???" well, if you take the stupid ice cream cooler conversation into account, it implies that the reason that shuuji and ryo miss SUCH A MAJOR FIGHT is because they're too busy having their stupid competition. Unbelievable. but that's actually quite convenient for me, because that's the exact window of time where half the segments of this fic take place.

anyway, that's gonna do it for chapter 1 notes! thank you for reading this far, and i'll be back with chapter 2 next week!

[imogenleewriter]

hello hi, i've got a question, what keeps you going while writing? i admire your consistency!

Hey!

Super valid question that I'm not entirely sure I have an answer to. Or maybe I have too many answers.

I'm going to give short ones (because I keep trying to answer this and writing a novel) but if you want me to elaborate I can.

1) Deadlines. If I don't have deadlines, I just waste time staring at a blank screen, and that's more stressful than forcing myself to get words down.

2) Writing stuff that matters to me. Before ychiits, I tried writing 1000 things with amazing plots and could never finish any of them. If you think about it, ychiits actual plot is so mundane, but for that, the characters were what mattered to me and a complicated plot would have taken away from that. The two wips mean different things to me as well. Writing fanfiction falls into that as well. I have no desire to write original works because writing Larry fanfiction means more to me.

3) General techniques that work for me. I could probably write an essay on this, but basically, I have so many strategies to get myself to write based on my mood.

4) Comments. I doubt I'd be close to as productive without comments and interactions. I probably get over 250 comments a week across all four fics now, and it's hard not to stay motivated when that happens. But at the start of ychiits I was getting like 4-5 comments per chapter, and that was still as motivating! (So please comment on every fic you love).

5) Planning. ychiits has a full draft. My current WIPs are less so because I found I didn't copy a single sentence from ychiits so it seemed silly to have a 100k draft when I only referred to it for scenes/chapters. So now I just focus on a general plot. My study looks like a serial killer den because of all the posters and cork boards and white boards where I keep all the plans. So, if i get stuck on a chapter, I write out everything I want to include in it. The more stuck I am, the more I flesh out the plan.

6) Talking things through with others. I started Ychiits because I know anyone in the fandom at all, so I was completely alone and didn't have a single beta until the last chapter when @hereforh and @enchantedlandcoffee looked through it as readers to make sure it all aligned so you can definitely do it without this. But now, because I have friends, lol, if I get stuck on a scene or chapter, I have people to talk to and bounce ideas off them and check they think what I'm writing makes sense. I've mentioned in my AN, but @hereforh and I have a constant chat - different time zones - and at least half of the time we're talking about fic ideas etc. @nooradeservedbetter also gives me amazing advice when I'm stuck.

7) Privilege. I don't know how to talk about this without sounding like I'm bragging. However, my job is after-hours. So, I don't work during the day on weekdays. It's a well-paying job, so I don't work full-time - my hourly rate is about double what it was when I worked in a hospital. Some of my shifts are being on-call overnight. This means I spend 10 hours in my study but only have to work when I get a call (that being said, I'm not very productive after 2am, so it doesn't help that much). There is still a need for me to bring in income, and does still take away hours from writing, but I obviously have more time to write than I did when I was working full-time.

8) Lack of sleep. Okay, so realistically, I need just as much sleep as everyone else, I know that. But I seem to survive better than most people would on the same amount of sleep.

9) Supportive husband. I mean, he's never read a word I've written or anything, but he is supportive in the sense that he knows writing is something I value and doesn't talk down about it. I think he'd be just as supportive if I were actually making an income from it as he is about it being fanfiction.

10) ADHD diagnosis and meds. Even medicated, my ADHD is still a big challenge to writing. It might not seem like that because of the frequency that I upload, but it still does. For example, I'll click out of the document to google a word or something and straight away get side-tracked, and after an hour, I'll remember that I was writing and come back to the document and realise I still didn't even google the word and the process starts all over again. But knowing that my brain works differently helps - i.e I know I can only write in 20-minute blocks, and then I need a break. That probably falls more into point three, but I know my limitations now. And ADHD meds still help bring me up to a point where I can actually finish things.

11) Letting go of perfectionism. Could my work be 10x better than it is? Yes. But when I'm writing and uploading 20k+ words a week, I don't have time to try and get every sentence perfect. The thing is, perfectionism freezes me. I probably would give myself more time between deadlines if I was sure that I would use that time to perfect chapters. But I either would still wait until the last minute and not use the extra time, or I'd get too wrapped up in getting every word perfect that I'd still miss every deadline. There are plenty of "good enough" words, sentences, paragraphs, and scenes in my fics that I know could be better, but I just don't have time to spend twenty minutes trying to find the right word or the best sentence structure. I hope that makes sense.

Anyway, this is still long af but I hope it helps a little. Happy to elaborate on any points - because I could definitely right about this all day - but again, it's already long af and I'm not sure if it is helpful at all lol.

[your-actual-therapist]

the many fallacies of the high-functioning adhd person (or why you should get the damn pills)

i am a therapist and also a late-diagnosed adhd person. and by late-diagnosed i mean that i just got diagnosed a couple of weeks ago and apparently all my clients have known i have adhd since the day they met me.

the common objection (read: my objection for the last several years) to the bare fact of "you should 100% go get neuropsych testing and maybe get on medication, learn better coping skills, adapt your work environment to fit the way your brain works, be open about how adhd affects you and what accommodations you need, etc." is "oh, but you see, i can actually get shit done when i need to."

it's true. i have a successful private practice. i've written several published books. i own my own home. it is clean. my dog is not neglected. that was why i called myself "well."

the thing is, though. neurotypical people tend to do those things...well, not effortlessly, exactly, but without the self-hatred. the self-blame. the all-nighters before a deadline. the endlessly ping-ponging back and forth between a thousand browser tabs and the one tab that contains the thing i actually need to get done. the stress. forgetting shit and remembering it and then forgetting it again. developing the elaborate organizational systems that prevent you from forgetting shit. trying to mitigate the effects of my symptoms on my partner. family. clients. the toll on my body and brain all this untenable stress takes, because untenable stress is the only way i'll get things done.

picture someone who uses a mobility device but can walk some distance without it. can they technically get across certain parking lots? sure. does it take the same effort for them as it takes someone with typical mobility? no. does their ability to walk mean they don't have to think about the number of steps they have to walk that day, today's level of pain tolerance, or whether there's a place to sit in the building once they get there? no. would it be frustrating for them to hear "but i thought you could walk!" from me if i saw them use their mobility device or park in an accessible space? of course. should they spend all their time worrying about whether they "really" need their mobility device? whether they're taking resources from people who have it "worse"? whether they're exaggerating how hard it is to get around because they "can" walk in a pinch? whether the fact that their mobility issues are less visible than others' means they're less deserving of accommodation? also no.

picture someone whose income is low but who is basically staying afloat. are their bills paid? sure. can they technically afford to splurge on a video game if they eat eggs for dinner for a little while? sure. does the price of that video game mean the same to them as it means to someone with a lot of spare cash? no. does it help that person to pretend their video game budget's the same as their rich friends' budget? hell no.

i'm not comparing any of these situations to each other, but i think it's useful to talk about the way we think about Other People's Life Stuff vs. Our Own Life Stuff. i think it helps us be kinder to ourselves and to people who share our experiences. i often caught myself thinking "why can't [sibling who also has adhd] just be on time and get shit done?" in a way that i'd never think about someone with a more visible condition, and that wasn't right.

my point is that whatever my level of adhd-related impairment is or was, there was never any point in minimizing it. there was no benefit to me or anyone else in pretending i wasn't struggling. i did no one any favors by not getting those magic pills that have greatly improved my life. i helped no one by refusing to ask for help or pretending the ways i sneakily accommodated my "quirks" were for any reason other than neurodivergence.

my point is that it can do harm to pretend that "high-functioning" means anything but "looking like a typical person but also expending so much effort on behaving typically that it detracts from your happiness and health."

my point is that mentally putting myself in a category separate from people with "actual" problems who needed help did not help those people at all and did jack shit to reduce the stigma of neurodivergence. those people were me, and i needed help. you do not stop needing help once you reach a certain threshold of socially sanctioned functionality. if my goal was to pass myself off as an "absent-minded professor" (my parents' and every single one of my teachers' and supervisors' favorite nickname for me) rather than a Genuinely Impaired Person, then congrats, yay to me, i successfully shot myself in the foot.

and maybe that was what i needed for a while because i was not in a place where being open about it and getting the help i needed was necessarily safe. but not anymore. and now it's time to use the rest of this addy to get cracking on some writing projects because i am on fire today.

[piduai]

Why do you think Koito fizzled out the way he did? His character was built up over the course of the manga and then whoosh, nothing, no payoff whatsoever. It’s so weirdly nothing for a story that’s generally so good

as i said, i don't know! and i don't think we'll ever know, like even if they kept interviewing noda about gk (which is already falling out of relevance) i doubt they'd be like hey can you elaborate on this weird moment. so there's no way of knowing 😬 i can't really attribute it to the rush with the deadline or lack of time, because he could have always expanded stuff in the volume editions, but the few additions he did do didn't solve much. it was just really... untypical and untidy, in ways nothing else in gk was, truly the biggest disappointment with the series. but maybe it's just us? most readers seemed pleased enough with koito's character, and the way it ended seemed to resonate with them, so maybe we're the problem and we couldn't keep up with noda's pace, i don't know

[knamil]

So class was Tuesday and people had their thumbnails and got reviews and I kind of barely paid attention because I was trying to meet my self imposed deadline which I missed anyway.

More comic stuff under the cut.

I stopped trying to do the daily figure drawing art challenge, which is moderately stupid because I could have just submitted the figures I was drawing on like every friggin panel of this comic. But nooo I wanted to do something separate and I was either noodling for so long on things or just phoning it in so I don't think it was really helping me with figure drawing improvement and it was making me fall behind my poorly-thought-out schedule.

I don't know if I'm satisfied with the quality of my drawings for Stasis. I know if I try to make them fit what I want I'd probably only have a page a week if I'm lucky. I also want to finish this thing so I think the standard I have will have to do for now.

I was thinking though, that maybe every week I'd pick one panel to make look really nice (as nice as I'm able) and either have that be a hero panel or just post the panel separately.

It's a thought.

Separately, I'm going to try to paint in clip studio again. I know I KNOW if you've followed me from my old blogs you know that I have tried to reach escape velocity from planet photoshop before and failed. This just means it's high time I try again. Also, photoshop randomly drops pressure sensitivity with my current tablet and I have to undo every third stroke which is not fun and also makes everything take longer.

I have to recreate my whole work flow and stuff, but I was already using clip to do the word bubbles, so maybe doing everything in clip will be better.

Also I've revised part 3 of Stasis so all of those thumbnails I made for part 3 are useless. It's funny because though the story is already written as prose, the adaption into comic form means I can take one paragraph and make it 10 pages long, or I can make it a single panel. Choosing which ones to elaborate on visually vs which ones to make into a hero shot with a caption box can mean a completely different book.

So far I haven't had to change much about Part 1 or 2, though every week I change the thumbnail layout of the pages I'm working on. :]

I thought it would be easier to do this because the story is written. The firm boundaries would make a solid framework, but I'm learning that there's still infinity inside the boundaries of a story to navigate. Which was kind of what they were talking about in art class, so I guess I am learning along side them.

[redd956]

Writing Journals: Why do them?

I keep an annual writing journal. After every New Year’s I start a new one from scratch. Sometimes I bring some of my other works or unfinished pieces to the next one because I want to continue to add onto it. But why do it?

Improve Faster

After starting my first writing journal I found myself practicing with it and writing more frequently. My writing skills improved tremendously fast. I did when I was bored, between classes, and if I ever felt an itchy palm for writing. Each installment greatly shows your current skills, how your writing has changed over each year, and what you can still work on.

You can also easier look back on older works and writing styles and look back on how much you’ve improved. I love doing this because sometimes I am baffled by my own writing and love salvage, rewrite, and continue older pieces. Reading through earlier snippets even in the same journal often gets my hopes up as a writer, and I become exciting for my own works.

Free Reign

Your journals are for no one else but yourself. Write whatever you want in them. You aren’t obligated to finish anything, elaborate on anything, or meet a deadline at all. You could write a few paragraphs of something, leave it there, and instead write pages of something deviously suspicious. No one is going to stop you, and you don’t have to show it to anyone if you don’t like to.

Often times I jump between pieces I really like. Write small snippets of stuff I choose to never continue. I do prompts, writing exercises, whump stuff, little romantic snippets of my OCs, fanfics, different writing styles, whatever I want. I just never delete. Even if something super sucks I don’t delete it. I just keep going and move on.

Inspiration

When you aren’t tailored to other people’s receptions, deadlines, or moral law your writing goes wild. You never know when inspiration or masterpieces are going to strike. Often times I find something small I was intending to write becomes a much larger project that I am very proud of. A little alternate universe for my OCs became 230 pages of detailed worldbuilding, stories, and fun character interaction. So much so that it needs it’s own document now.

When down on motivation or needing a last minute writing assignment to come out of thin air the writing journals help as well. I always turn to them for motivation and inspiration. Often times reading my own stuff I realize how good I’m still doing, or how much progress I’ve made, and I feel like a renewed artist. Sometimes there’s gold mines of inspiration hidden in older art journals, and all it takes is me opening them up to be blasted in the face by it.

Organization

Even though the journals themselves aren’t organized. Your writing for the year is all in one area. It can really help if you need to put together a massive portfolio last minute. :)

Sometimes even if I do a piece on a separate document or piece of paper I transfer or copy also into my writing journal. In the end I know I have my stuff. 

[Make back ups]

For Fun

They’re fun. Very fun.