#I just counted - I've done 52 of these

[nightskylonging]

F1 x the internet: the last one (for now)

[no-name-publishing]

Tiny Book? Tiny Book. Pt1.

Idk yall I just felt like writing a little how-to of how-I-do my tiny A9 books! So if you've ever been interested, I hope this will be helpful. This will be neither a beginner typesetting nor beginner bookbinding tutorial; as I go through my process I will only be showing my process and providing a few tips, assuming you already have the basics understood. We can worry about the rougher technical skills in another post.

Also keep in mind that this guide includes images of fic I've bound, and you're zooming into these fics at your own discretion. I am not responsible if you read something yucky. I know you have a lot of options out there but thank you for flying No-Name Publishing.

Tiny books part 2; Tiny books part 3

Just like with regular ficbinding, there are layers, and they are:

1 - Typesetting and Imposing 2 - Printing 3 - Cutting, Folding, and Sewing 4 - Gluing, Rounding/Backing, Endbands 5 - Building the Case and casing in 6 - BOOK

In this part we will be focusing on steps 1 and 2. Please feel free to skip to the area you're interested in most.

1 - Typesetting and Imposing

Okay, so this area has some nuances that you don't have to consider so closely with typesetting for more traditionally sized books. To me, these tiny books are not about readability, they are about novelty. As such, I do not prioritize readability. Instead, I try to achieve something that is closer to scale. That said, neither do I want these illegible. But we'll begin from the top.

You want to make a tiny book, but you're wondering, what would be an appropriate word count for a tiny book? Tiny books are the perfect medium for the ficlettes, the shorties, the one-shots. They are also perfect for the mid-sized, 10-15-20k fics, in my opinion. Here we can see,

On the left we have a fic that is exactly 12,771 words, typeset on a 1.5" x 2" (37 × 52 mm) document, with .3" margins, 6pt Garamond font, and 5pt line spacing. This book is only approaching 1/2" (13mm) wide, and only took 5 sheets of Letter paper to print. On the right we have a fic that is exactly 1,939 words, typeset to the same specifications. This book is only 4-5mm wide, and took only 1 sheet of Letter paper.

In my opinion this format of book begins getting unruly around the 300-page mark. However, making any combination of margins, fonts size, and line spacing will yield different page results for different word counts. For example:

Like the above, in each of these examples I typeset in Garamond font @ 6pt size and 5pt line spacing. Typesetting on an A9 page, this is about as small as I felt comfortable sizing my font while still being legible. But notice the rivers between the words--the rivers of white space bisecting the lines, due to the Justified alignment battling the admittedly tiny work surface. At this scale, with the font at this size and alignment, those will be unavoidable. Over time I began disliking this in my own work, so I pursued a different method, which was typesetting on a quarter letter page (4.25" x 5.5" / 108mm x 140mm), and allowing my imposer to scale the PDF down.

Have you ever seen anything sexier. THIS looks like a tiny book. Little to no rivers, still legible (hand-wobble), and preserves the novelty feel that I desire from a tiny book. This method of scaling down (specifically from quarter letter to A9) does change the final shape of the book, from A9 to A9-ish in this case. Specifically, from 1.5"X2" (37 × 52 mm) to 1.625"X2" (41.3mmX52mm). You're achieving something closer to a square shape, which is delightful to hold. All this to say, you have some freedom with word count, with font size, with page size. I've done as many pages as 376 and as few as 17. The fantastic thing about tiny books--their structure will not be load-bearing, meaning--the only thing stopping you are your tastes.

Quickly, some more examples of features in a regularly sized typeset and their tiny counterpart after the imposer has scaled them down. First, scaling half-letter down to A9, a little-over 4X shrinkage:

And from B6 to B9, smaller by 3x:

You notice the compression of every element, and too how entirely unparcable the text in the first example is, sometimes not horrible, sometimes very. Make your decisions dependent on your tastes!

You have decided on the fic you'd like to bind into a tiny book. I will be using my own fic as the typesetting example, and I will be using Word 365 for PC. I'm sure many of my pointers during this process might not apply 1-to-1 if you are using a different word processing software, but hopefully you can adapt the concepts to your program of your choosing.

Kay, next you will do your typesetting. Since this is not a typesetting guide I'm trusting that you have your preferred methods, but I will go through my key steps for setting up a tiny typeset:

First, for every typeset I delete each default Style, create mine own, and dictate the document size. For this example I will be doing my preferred quarter letter method, setting the custom page size to 4.25" wide and 5.5" tall, and .5" page margins all around (except Gutter; leave 0"). On the Multiple pages dropdown I will select Mirror margins (however, as all my margins are the same size, this is redundant, though may not be the case for you). My body text style will be Cardo font @ 11pt size and Exactly 15pt line spacing, with a .2" first line indent and Justified alignment.

You can use whatever body font you like, I only encourage you to do many many test prints to refine your preferences. Your favorite font for half-letter books might not translate to tiny books. After ~30 tiny books I've found I like Cardo at this size and spacing. And if you're using A-paper sizes, consider doing quarter A4 instead of quarter letter, which is technically A6--4.1"X5.8", or 105mmX148mm. Follow your heart~~nyah 🐱♥

Now I will go to my fic and download the HTML file. I hugely prefer copying from the HTML file rather than the browser itself. It kind of standardizes any goofy formatting that might try to make its way over otherwise, while still preserving the italics and bolds, etc, and makes for an easier editing process. It was important I made my body Style in Word first, so that once I paste the text into my document that Style is automatically applied in one fell swoop (if not, you can change that in your Word settings. Advanced -> Cut, copy and paste -> Merge Formatting. It is a huge time saver.)

Now you've gone through your typesetting process, you have a liddle quarter letter Word document that you're happy with. Gets real close to you. Listen to me--listen, you're going to Export as PDF. Not Save As PDF. Not Print to PDF. Export. It's in--listen--it's in File, then Export, then Create PDF/XPS. You need to Export. Especially if you selected Bookfold instead of Mirror margins in your page settings because we need an unimposed PDF in order for this to work right and exporting to PDF is going to solve 99% of your pdf formatting woes with Word. Okay, I love you 👨‍❤️‍💋‍👨

Now, your EXPORTED pdf should look something like mine. Straight, unimposed.

Now what we're going to do is take this PDF back to my penthouse and freak it. Go to this link for the Renegade Bindery-created and -curated imposition tool. This has been will be is such an incredible FREE asset to you, maintained by a crew of intelligent, skilled Renegade Bindery members who understand the importance of community and accessibility. If you find someone hiding this link behind a paywall of any kind it is not with the creators' permission, so shame on them.

Anyway I will be assuming that you know what imposing your document means. If you've never used this site before, it's very straight forward, and here are my settings for making Tiny Books.

1 - Upload your unimposed exported pdf. 2 - ignore 3 - Select the paper size you will be printing on. This is not the FINAL size of the book, this is what paper you are printing on. These instructions are for Letter sized paper. Don't change any of the other settings right now, I will explain more about the Single-sided vs Duplex option in a bit. 4 - Skip aaalllll the way down to Signature Format. Under Wacky Small Layouts, click on the bubble next to Little. You'll notice there are a lot of options here. I encourage you to play with these settings later on as well, there are so many things you can make with this tool.

Once that's done, scroll down to the very bottom. You'll see the Signature Info area, telling you the results of your imposition. In the case of using the Little option we've selected, 1 sheet of our paper will make 40 book pages. 3-signature-sets of 3/3/4 folio configuration. That's a lot of pages per page.

Anyway for our document today it will cost us 2 sheets of Letter paper, and will make 6 signatures. Math says that's 80 pages. Now, you may be concerned because your typeset PDF is not formatted in a number equally divisible by 40. And why would it be. The imposer is doing that math for you in the background, organizing your pages regardless. In my case, my finished typeset is 62 pages, which means that from my second page, I will only be using my 3 folio segments, and discarding the 4 folio segment. This will make more sense later. Click the Generate button, and save the zipped folder wherever you want. Don't change the name of it.

Unzip that baby, and inside you'll notice 2 files--(filename).pdf_little_packed_backs, and .pdf_little_packed_fronts. Appropriately named as one file contains one side of the sheet that will be printed, and the other file the other side.

And when you open them up, they will look like:

2 - Printing

We are manually duplexing this bad boy, because working at this scale amplifies and compounds every millimeter of difference. Manual duplexing will keep printer skew to a minimum, as the printer will not have to perform gymnastics in order to print on the reverse side of your page. Here are some examples:

Two auto-duplexing examples of skew, one horizontal and one vertical, dependent on which direction my paper was loaded into the feeder. There is significant skew. Not a horrible issue on full-sized books but these will matter much more on our tiny books, the key issue being that we do not have much to work with in the margins department. Trimming 5-6-7mm of margins of your half-letter sized textblocks might not be much of an issue; however, here, in order to remove all the trim lines during the cutting process, you will be significantly impacting the margins of your tiny textblock.

Now here is an example of the skew from manual duplexing:

MUCH subtler. Your skew with manual duplexing will range from this--less than .5mm--to no skew at all, and you will have to cut off far less of each page to remove the trim lines, maintaining the consistency of appearance of your tiny, beautiful pages. This is why during step 3 of the imposing process we selected Single-sided (which is MANUAL duplexing), and not Duplex (which is AUTO duplexing) appropriately. This will result in you either getting two files for manual duplexing, or one auto duplexing file.

Your next consideration when it comes to printing your liddle book will be whether you want to use an inkjet printer or a laser printer. I've until recently only had a laser printer available to me. I can say after about 6 or 7 little books on an inkjet printer that I prefer the laser printing on tiny books. Here is an example of why:

On the left you have a tiny book printed from an inkjet printer printed on the highest quality setting, and on the right is a tiny book printed from a laser printer. These were both printed at the same scaling, same font size, same line spacing, everything. The inkjet printer, printing at this scale, introduces pretty glaring feathering on the letters, whereas the laser printer is crisp as can be. I've said before that to me tiny books are more for novelty rather than readability, however I do still want to make out the word I'm looking at, you know what I mean? For this reason I prefer printing my tiny books from a laser printer. Use what you got though, you'll get a tiny book regardless. Make sure you're flipping on the short edge with these tiny books too, and double check to make sure your page numbers line up. And when you're done you got...

BOOK(-adjacent).

Continue on to part duex.

[whumpsday]

Sneak Peek of Kane & Jim #55

since i've kept you guys waiting so long i figure you deserve a little something while you wait a little more

takes place 1 week after #52: Trust

-

Kane woke and looked to the door. Just like every morning the past week, it was a normal door. No silver. No lock.

He changed and washed his face, creeping upstairs with the hesitancy of someone who knew he wasn’t allowed, despite knowing full-well that he was: Jim had made that clear. He felt too quiet, his ankles free of chains.

It was early morning, early enough that the sun hadn’t risen yet–that terrifying tell-tale glow didn’t shine from behind the curtains. Jim wouldn’t be awake for hours, resting upstairs while Kane slunk around in the dark, in his own house.

Kane knew just how much trust that must require. He still couldn’t believe he’d earned that much.

The fact that Jim was still feeding him his own blood was a miracle in itself. He’d given a time limit of one month. One month for Kane to get used to freedom, to going out on his own, traversing society like a normal person after years as a prisoner. An adjustment period, Jim had called it, his mercies never-ending in the face of Kane’s fear of running to and from the border on his own.

There was no way Kane could ever repay it, not in a thousand years. But he at least had to try.

He turned the knob on the stove. It was something familiar, having owned a stove himself for heating up the contents of blood-packs in his time before he came to own Jim. Human stoves, like their food itself, were more complicated: four burners instead of one, all with dials offering various degrees besides just ‘on’ or ‘off’.

And it was something he hadn’t done since before.

The circle of flames flickered to life, blue and hot and threatening.

He quickly turned it back off, luckily managing to control his strength and not break the delicate knob.

Deep breaths, Jim had said, more times than Kane could count now. Look at me. You’re okay. No one’s gonna hurt you. You’re safe here, remember?

Kane took a deep breath in, playing Jim’s soothing affirmations through his head, exhaling slowly. That’s it, there you go, the memory of Jim’s voice encouraged. You’re alright. No hurting.

After a few more of those, he turned the burner on again. The flames flicked back to life, and Kane watched them silently.

[scarletlizzard]

So apparently I hit 500 followers? Thank you to everyone who follows and has interacted with my fics!! 🥳

I thought this would be fun to celebrate? I have a list of random dialogue that y'all could pick from to send me. Ranges from everywhere to fluff, angst, NSFW, etc. And I'll write a little short something for it!

Feel free to pick a number or few to send or you could be specific with who you want or a specific trope or plot. Anything!

Thank y'all so much, made my whole day 💕

104 Dialogue Prompts

1. "Admit it... you're in love with me."

2. "We could get arrested for this."

3. "I thought you were dead."

4. "I've missed this."

5. "You could've died."

6. "Who did this to you?"

7. "I know, I know, I'm sorry... it'll be over soon, I promise."

8. "Come back to bed."

9. "How long has it been since you slept?"

10. "Tell me where you are, I'll come get you."

11. "I still love you."

12. "Such a good girl."

13. "Open your mouth for me, baby."

14. "We have to make this quick."

15. "Beg for it."

16. "Mommy?"

17. "You're in love with them. Aren't you?"

18. "It was you? This whole time?"

19. "You know, just cause you're older don't think for one second I'm not in charge."

20. "Smile at me like that again, I'll fall in love with you."

21. "... is that a trick question?"

22. "Don't just stand there, say something."

23. "Say that again, I dare you."

24. "Fuck you." "Right now?"

25. "I'm joking! Unless..."

26. "You take me so well."

27. "What do you mean I'm dead? I'm standing right here."

28. "Please, I'm begging you. Just hear me out."

29. "Oh fuck... I'm in love with (x)." "You're just now realizing that?"

30. "What if you didn't go? What if you stayed?"

31. "You like it rough, don't you, slut?"

32. "Flowers?"

33. "I hate you. I hate you. I hate you."

34. "Fuck, marry, kill..."

35. "Truth or dare?"

36. "Since when did you ever care about me?"

37. "You think I wanted this to happen? You think I wanted to fall in love with you?"

38. "May I have this dance?"

39. "I know I'm the last person you want to see, but..."

40. "I'm done! I am done waiting for you."

41. "It's okay, you're okay, I'm here. I've got you."

42. "Touch her again and see what happens."

43. "Is that a hickey?"

44. "I'm fine, it's just a bruise..."

45. "I'm going to fucking kill them."

46. "Are you sure about this?"

47. "Why are you all sweaty?"

48. "You left! You left and you didn't even think to look back. What was I supposed to do?"

49. "Well... this is awkward."

50. "You know I've been flirting with you this whole time right?"

51. "They'll never love you the way I did."

52. "If you're trying to make me jealous, it's working."

53. "Wanna bet?"

54. "Just say that you want me and I'm yours."

55. "I'm going to ruin you for anyone else."

56. "Wait you've never kissed a girl?"

57. "Where did all this attitude come from, princess?"

58. "Take my hand."

59. "Can I have your number?"

60. "You're an idiot." "Well yes, you'll have to be more specific."

61. "Quick! Pretend to be my girlfriend?"

62. "Run away with me."

63. "Are you going to be a good girl for mommy?"

64. "That collar looks so good on your pretty neck."

65. "Too bad, you're going to take every last fucking inch of me."

66. "Do you ever think before speaking?"

67. "Count them for me."

68. "You snore."

69. "Let's try that position." (I know, I know)

70. "Bullshit! You're telling me you just don't blush?" "Nope, never."

71. "Just tell her how you feel." "I'd rather get shot again."

72. "Oh my god are you okay?" "Yeah I'm fine, I've been stabbed before."

73. "Daddy?"

74. "Can't we go back to how things used to be?"

75. "Save a horse ride a cowgirl, amiright?"

76. "I like you. A lot."

77. "Is that the best you can do?"

78. "I'll consider kissing you if you can beat me."

79. "Please, pull the trigger."

80. "I'm not drunk enough for this."

81. "You can't run away from this forever."

82. "I know you're having nightmares again."

83. "Would you like me to whisper it in your ear?"

84. "Stop looking at me like that."

85. "Somebody's cranky." "Somebody needs to shut the fuck up."

86. "Get on your knees."

87. "How stupid do you think I am? Don't answer that."

88. "I can't sleep."

89. "Just relax, let me make you feel good."

90. "Close the door."

91. "Was that supposed to hurt?"

92. "I've wanted this for so long."

93. "You can do better than that. Beg for it."

94. "Controlling? Oh I'll show you controlling."

95. "You drive me fucking crazy!"

96. "Nobody needs to know."

97. "Take another step and you'll be dead before you open your fucking mouth again."

98. "Do they always look like that?" "Just when (x) is around."

99. "I made you a playlist."

100. "I know you said you would die for me but I didn't think you meant that literally!"

101. "Is that... blood?" "Huh? Oh yeah! Oh I'm fine it's not mine."

102. "Why are you always looking at me like that?" "Like what?"

103. "Hero? Please. You heroes have to win every time. But being the villain? I only have to win once."

104. "You've changed." "You haven't."

[ukrfeminism]

Women in the UK are waiting almost nine years for an endometriosis diagnosis, according to research that found many women are "dismissed, ignored and belittled".

The study by the charity Endometriosis UK found waiting times for the condition to be formally identified have significantly deteriorated since the pandemic, increasing to an average of eight years and 10 months - up 10 months since 2020.

The report, which surveyed 4,371 women, also found that almost half of respondents had visited their GP 10 or more times with symptoms before receiving a diagnosis.

Endometriosis is a condition where tissue similar to the lining of the womb grows in other places, such as the ovaries and fallopian tubes.

It impacts around one in 10 women and symptoms can vary from person to person.

"My periods are… painful to the point where I'm bedbound," said Sanchia Alasia, who was diagnosed with the disease in 2010, after 15 years of symptoms.

As a former mayor of a London borough, she has led a busy and productive life - but pain and discomfort were never far away.

"I've missed so many engagements," she said.

"I remember missing my nephew's funeral. I've missed dinners, day trips. I wouldn't even count the amount of money I've lost over things that I've booked and not been able to attend.

"It can be incredibly frustrating," she added.

Emma Cox, chief executive of Endometriosis UK, said the problems with diagnoses persist because symptoms are often misunderstood.

"Day to day, without a diagnosis, some people have real issues both physical and mental health, because they'll be in severe pain," Ms Cox said.

If left undiagnosed and untreated, endometriosis can lead to worsening physical symptoms and even permanent organ damage.

The charity's research showed that, while women in England and Scotland wait an average of eight years and 10 months for a diagnosis, those in Northern Ireland wait nine years and five months, and those in Wales wait nine years and 11 months.

It also found that 52% of respondents had visited A&E at least once due to symptoms of endometriosis.

Ms Cox said: "We want this to be a real wake-up call for governments and the NHS.

"What we'd like to see is a commitment from the NHS and governments in each nation in the UK, to have a target of an average diagnosis time, by a year or less by 2030.

"We believe that's doable," she added.

Minister for the Women's Health Strategy, Maria Caulfield, admitted more needs to be done to improve women's experiences of the healthcare system.

"From getting an initial diagnosis to getting the right care and treatment, we must learn from this report," she said.

"We launched our Women's Health Strategy to do just this - listen to women. Endometriosis is a priority area within our strategy, so expect to see more in this space.

"Through the strategy, we are working to turn 'dismissed, ignored and belittled' into 'listened to, understood and empowered'."

[vanwritesfan-fiction]

I have a concept you know how Druski has those blind date streams what if thats how you met Jack or something ?

I'm going to go with you're secretly dating Jack, but no one knows so Druski puts you on one of these "blind dates" and Jack gets jealous, hence the creeper picture below 😂

Linking an example here in case anyone hasn't seen one of the videos before (Jack starts being a creeper around 38:52 lol and Urban has one of the dates at 47:55):

You and Jack had been secretly dating each other for about 4 months when Druski invited you both over his place for a house party, no idea the two of you were together.

"Who's up next for their blind date?" Druski called out to the room of people, most people ducking, not wanting to be embarrassed in front of a thousand people on Druski's twitch stream. Jack was across the room on his phone, leaving you to stand in the corner because you really didn't know anyone and couldn’t hang around Jack for fear that someone would put two and two together.

You were getting tired of sneaking around, not being able to tell people how much you cared about Jack, and thought it would be good to make him sweat a little, if only for your enjoyment.

"I'll go!" You made your way to the chair set up in the living room, Jack watching you with wide eyes. The last thing he wanted was to see his girl get interrogated about her sex life, especially on a blind date with someone else.

The room went dark as someone slipped a blindfold over your eyes, another person strapping you to the lie detector machine.

"Alright, Y/N. We're gonna ask you some questions, see if you're compatible with your date across from you. The lie detector will let us know if you're telling the truth. You ready?"

You shifted in your seat, unaware that Jack was pacing the room, his eyes never leaving you.

"Alright, guy first. Ask your question."

"You ever had a one night stand?" You didn't recognize the voice.

"Yes." You nodded, even though the other person couldn't see you.

"I told you she was freaky." Druski laughed, taking a sip from his drink.

"What's your body count?" Jack perked up at that question, moving to stand right by you. At this point he didn't care, he just needed to hear the answer to this question.

"She's taking too long to answer", someone chimed in, "Its either high or she's lying." Everyone in the room laughed, well everyone except Jack.

"Five. My body count is five."

"Damn, that's high." Jack covered his mouth as soon as the words slipped out but you had already heard him. Your chest tightened, embarrassed that he felt that way.

"I think I'm done." You slipped off the blindfold, handing it to Druski before you headed upstairs for the bathroom. Jack followed behind you, stopping the door before you could close it all the way.

"Damn that's high", you repeated Jack's words in a mocking tone, fixing your makeup in the mirror.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say that."

"No you did. You're one to talk by the way, your body count is double digits."

He ignored your dig. "So who were these four other guys?" Jack was still jealous, he could try to make it up to you later.

"I'm not answering that. Its none of your business."

"Were they better than me?"

You backed away from the sink, looking at Jack, your eyebrows raised in confusion. "What?"

"Don't make me say it."

"You're gonna have to, because I don't know what you're talking about." You gave him a sly grin, enjoying how much he was squirming.

"Where they better at sex than me?" He mumbled out the words, avoiding eye contact with you.

"Were any of the girls you slept with better than me?"

"Honestly, no. You're literally the best I've ever had."

"Aww, that's really sweet." You patted his cheek, placing a kiss on his lips as you left the bathroom. Jack was right behind you.

"Baby, this is the part where you say I was better than those other guys. Baby?"

[astronomodome]

Tumblr Poll Tournaments & MCYT

So a while ago I made a post expressing my frustration with the way a lot of tumblr poll tournaments seem to exclude mcyt characters- or if they are included, people in the notes are rude about it. The first situation of these- the poll organizer including rules against submitting characters from mcyt- is something I can easily quantify. I've crunched some numbers in order to find out two things:

How common is this phenomenon, really?

Why does this happen in the first place?

A note before I start: I'm not blaming the poll organizers for this, and I don't want anyone to get angry at them for excluding mcyt. At the end of the day, it's up to them to curate what they want their poll to be, and if they don't want to deal with the toxicity that often comes with letting mcyt characters run (or if they just don't like it for whatever reason), that's their decision. Trust me- poll organizers have to put up with a lot of shit already, and I don't want to add to it, regardless of their opinions on mcyt. If any poll organizers recognize their own words in the later part of this overview, they can contact me and I'll remove it. This is also why I have chosen not to identify the blogs from which I took the examples- I mean no harm to any poll organizer. They are a symptom of a much larger problem and they haven't done anything wrong except be a little misinformed at worst.

Excluding mcyt characters from poll tournaments really isn't that big of a deal on its own- though it is frustrating- but it does speak to the larger attitude of the general tumblr population towards mcyt. While not without its flaws, this can be used as a metric to measure the extent of this attitude and maybe get a hint of why it exists.

...Please note, also, that most of these polls date back to around March-June 2023, when poll tournaments were a big thing on Tumblr. Not super outdated, but I still should note that opinions might have changed since then.

Also also, be warned that there are examples below of some organizers being pretty toxic! It's not a whole lot, but if you don't want to expose yourself to that, maybe pass on this post!

With that out of the way, let's get started.

Part One: The Numbers

The first thing I decided to do was figure out a rough percentage of how many poll tournaments have a rule that excludes mcyt characters from being submitted. To get a sample batch of poll blogs, I used one of the blogs that pits the winners of tournaments against each other and checked each blog included in that. This ended up being a more tedious process than I had thought, since there's a lot of variation in the way poll organizers, well, organize. I ended up with 123 blogs sorted into three categories.

The first category included tournaments where a rule for or against mcyt characters wouldn't really make sense, for a variety of reasons. Most commonly, the tournament was between letters of the alphabet or animo acids or government agencies, not fictional characters, so I counted them out. There were also a handful of blogs where the contestants were determined by the organizer, not by nomination at all. Combined, blogs that did not fit my criteria made up 60/123 of my samples.

The second and third categories were the blogs that either had a rule against mcyt characters, or didn't. Most of the blogs I looked through had rules I could find, and some were more thorough about it than others. For my purposes, I counted the blog as a no only if they explicitly had a rule against mcyt characters, or clarified later that they weren't allowed. Most poll blogs didn't mention mcyt at all. (This will become relevant later.)

Of the 63 blogs that fit my criteria, 11 (17.5%) of them had a rule against mcyt characters, while the remaining 52 (82.5%) did not.

To me, this seems like pretty good news! I had honestly expected the percentage of blogs that excluded mcyt to be much higher. This is definitely a good sign! But I wouldn't really jump to assuming that mcyt characters would actually be accepted in all of these blogs. I will explain this in the next part of my research.

Part Two: The Examples

The second thing I wanted to find out with this research was why organizers end up having rules against mcyt in the first place. Is it just the bad reputation the mcyt space has (largely a result of one green man in particular)? Let's look at a few examples of poll rules against mcyt characters. Some of them are from my sample blogs and some of them aren't.

Type 1: Not understanding the difference between real people and characters in mcyt

The majority of the rules against mcyt I saw were of this type, and honestly, it's pretty reasonable. It's a pretty major debate in the mcyt community over whether mcyts' characters are separate enough from their content creators to count as fictional. However, there are a considerable number of mcyt characters who are explicitly stated to be different from their cc in the same way as a character in a movie played by an actor is different from the actor playing them. Excluding all mcyt characters for being 'real people' is just incorrect, though I can kinda understand where the organizers were coming from with this one.

It should also be noted that the vast majority of poll blogs had a rule against submitting real people. There's a possibility that some poll organizers might have lumped mcyt characters as real people even if they didn't specify it explicitly. Therefore, an attempt to actually submit an mcyt character into one of these tournaments might be against the rules based on what the organizer thinks. I have no way to quantify this, which is why I said earlier that the results of my initial test might not be accurate.

Type 2: 'Problematic fandom' (toxicity warning for some of these)

This type of rule is usually broader than just mcyt, but lumps it in with other fandoms known for being associated with bigotry (often hp, which is... yeah i'm definitely not going to argue in favor of harry potter but yikes. really? we're as bad as terfy potter? really.) At least one of them let dsmp characters in with the exception of dream, which is a lot fairer than... some of the others.

If we want to give the organizers benefit of the doubt here, we can say that these rules are made to keep the poll less toxic than it would be otherwise... but to be perfectly honest, some of these might be more about that phenomenon of purity culture that has had a habit of popping up in fandom spaces since forever. That's a whole other conversation I'm not ready to have now, but it comes as no surprise to me that mcyt has become a little taboo in some places (likely to a large extent because of dream and all the drama he's generated). There's also no telling whether the poll organizers in these cases even know that there are other smps besides dsmp... but that's besides the point, since there are other dsmp characters that aren't associated with dream at all. Excluding them reveals a misconception about the mcyt genre anyway. And of course, I think we can all agree that some of these are just pretty rude.

Which brings us to our conclusion.

I feel like a lot of the toxicity towards mcyt as a genre and mcyt characters boils down to people either not really understanding what mcyt is (i.e. mcyt -> minecraft youtubers -> real people) or hearing stuff about dream and assuming the entire mcyt space is reflective of that. Of course, it's a frustrating issue that some people think this way. I think it's nice to be reminded, though, that this sort of thing isn't very widespread. Alongside the bad examples, I saw a lot of organizers confronting their preconceived notions: one organizer let in an mcyt character after admitting their 'unfamiliarity with the source material', another allowed mcyt characters 'on the condition that you can explain how they are a separate character' and a few others fiercely defended mcyt characters against toxicity in their polls. Every day we grow as a community and we can't let a few people with misguided notions of what we are keep us down. Keep watching, keep creating, and as Zedaph once said, It's okay to be silly!

[skania]

Some OnK Chapter 131 Thoughts

And by "OnK" thoughts, I predictably mean "Akane and AquaKane" thoughts lol

Once again, Akane is the one correcting surface-level statements and showing insight into Aqua (and even Ruby!).

I've been wondering how Aka would have Akane and Aqua interact after Chapter 116. I'm actually surprised that they were so at ease with each other during this chapter, it's like they overcame a hurdle in Chapter 116.

Akane knows where Aqua stands, just like Aqua knows where she stands. For Akane in particular, deciding to stop Aqua's plan likely gave her something tangible to hold onto; something practical that she can focus on, a way in which she can make an actual difference. For Aqua, knowing that Akane is planning to stop him told him that she will keep getting involved with him whether he likes it or not.

Of course, since Aqua is always fighting his own nature, he probably likes it in the same measure in which he hates it. Akane burning the bridge with him would be for Akane's own good, and thus what Aqua wants - but there's likely a part of him that is relieved to know that she is still there.

He may not be able to rely on her, but the person who saved him little by little simply by acknowledging him, understanding him and choosing him is still there. She hasn't given up on him.

And it just so happens that Akane is not willing to let Aqua forget that.

I think Akane may have gone there for two reasons. On one hand, she is probably keeping an eye on his every move; she needs to, if she doesn't want to let Aqua catch her by surprise.

On the other hand, Akane likely knew that Aqua would have mixed feelings after meeting Ai's mother.

So I think that by going there, Akane was also hoping to emotionally support Aqua. Just like she promised she would back in Chapter 51.

After all, if Akane wanted to simply watch Aqua, she could've done so without revealing her presence; the same way she managed to follow him all the way there.

But just like Aqua wanted Akane to see him back in Chapter 116, Akane wanted Aqua to know she was there.

The way she throws his stalker tendencies in his face is so funny! Despite the gloomy atmosphere, the two of them instantly fall into a very easy-going back-and-forth and I love that. It's not what I was expecting at all (I love tension), but I'll take it because it's positive that they can joke around about personal traits that anyone else would see as flaws lmao

Plus, good on her for serving Aqua some of his own medicine!

I already mentioned this, but this exchange right here immediately made me think of Chapter 52.

Funnily enough, that Chapter was titled "Boyfriend x Girlfriend" and featured the moment Aqua and Akane truly started playing their parts. And in this chapter, we have Memcho describing Akane's current role in Aqua's life: His ex-girlfriend.

Aqua and Akane have gone through so many stages in the manga, I can hardly keep count. Right now they're in their "Exes" era, yet they're still as entwined as ever lol

And now we get to the part that truly caught my eye. I feel like this interaction can be read in different ways:

There's more to Ayumi Hoshino that meets the eye. Akane knows this but doesn't want Aqua to know, and he can tell but decides to play along.

Akane understands how frustrating it must be to find out that the tragedy that was Ai Hoshino began due to something like this. What's more, she understands how Aqua must feel seeing Ai's mother and knowing that... there's no point in him hating her, because she already hates herself enough for both of them.

The first would fit the Masterminds™ game that these two are supposed to be playing, and as such it would be pretty fun. But we have seen Akane lie to Aqua in the past and she is... kind of very bad at it lol

Maybe she's bringing her S Acting Skill Level to the game this time, and I'd applaud her for doing so if she is. But for the time being, I'm leaning towards the second option:

Akane knew that knowing Ayumi's truth would give Aqua mixed feelings and that he may stay stuck on that, and so she came to help take that burden off his shoulders.

And good thing she did, because as Ichigo put it: Aqua is breaking.

That said, there's something kind of ominous about the way we're shown Ai's mom looking at them in the last panel. I can't decide whether it symbolizes Ai's mom seeing her grandson (the one she thought she had no right to meet) leaving her and her pain behind, accompanied by someone who is obviously a part of his life - as well as Aqua deciding that indeed, Akane is right: there's no point in hating Ai's mom anymore, because she is already living in a hell of her own making.

Or if maybe Ai's mom is hiding something. I seem to remember one of the sidestories mentioning that she even put glass shards in Ai's food once, which kind of sent a very different image of her compared to the regretful woman we saw this chapter lol

Alas, for now I'm going with Option 1 though, because I think there's something really beautiful in the symbolism of Akane coming to pick Aqua up, and the two walking away from that painful memory together so that Aqua doesn't have to wallow in it alone.

Ruby was hoping that Aqua would start to lean on people soon. As it is, he can't lean on anyone - but Akane is still there to guide him home either way, and luckily Aqua let himself accept that much.

[luigiblood]

The oddities of Nintendo Switch Online retro service

I've talked about a lot of things about this service, on Twitter, on Tumblr, but also a lot on Discord, but I have been thinking about a post where I could put all the accumulated information that I've gotten over the years through datamining and leaks.

Here's a post about all the little things that you may not know about the retro service of Nintendo Switch Online.

Identifiers and Stats

One of the most obvious parts of datamining these apps is that each game have a unique identifier rather than just being a game name.

On NES Switch Online, they use identifiers identical to the NES Mini ROMs, which are usually like CLV-P-H***J or CLV-P-N***E for Japanese and English, usually. On SNES, they use now an identifier like this S-****_j or S-****_e and other consoles follow suit.

The thing about these identifiers is that they have an order, they all usually follow each other. But in all the apps, there are always gaps, and those gaps can tell a huge story.

Currently as of February 2nd 2023, there are 66 Famicom games, 63 NES games, 53 Super Famicom games, and 55 Super Nintendo games on the service on all regions. If you start counting the gaps, it seems that internally, they have 185 NES titles and 174 SNES titles MINIMUM. This is a pretty huge difference.

Thanks to a leaked build of NES Switch Online from last year, we can figure out some of those missing titles, involving mostly Capcom and Konami, which are unlikely to release on the service as most of them were rereleased through collections before, though it hasn't necessarily stopped them.

That said, if you remember, we had done a similar research with Nintendo 64 and Genesis titles at launch, which the press have definitely talked about, where we found out there were potentially 38 N64 titles and 52 Genesis titles running internally at minimum, but Nintendo has actually done us dataminers a bit of a response: All IDs on N64 and Genesis are now randomized since the first updates, which means we cannot do this kind of research anymore.

That said the updates to NES and SNES apps have not done this change, they probably decided it wasn't worth it. But all that to say that Nintendo is definitely taking notice of our datamining (and won't be the last time) and won't necessarily hesitate to throw us for a loop.

The secrets of NES Switch Online 2.0.0 update

Now I'm definitely going way back in December 2018, 4 months after the debut of the full Nintendo Switch Online service after a year delay (do you actually remember that?).

In January 2019, people started to take notice of SNES game descriptions within the language files, hinting SNES Switch Online coming in the near future, and the potential games coming.

To this day, all the games except two released on the service: We're missing The Legend of the Mystical Ninja and Contra III: The Alien Wars.

The other thing that was noticed is what's called an enumeration of emulator types:

EMULATOR_TYPE_CANOE = 0 EMULATOR_TYPE_KACHIKACHI = 1 EMULATOR_TYPE_HIYOKO = 2 EMULATOR_TYPE_COUNT = 3

Canoe is the name of the SNES emulator since SNES Mini, Kachikachi is the name of the NES emulator since NES Mini, Hiyoko was, at the time, unknown, but turned out to be the Game Boy (Color) emulator, and Count is most likely a counter, to say there are 3 different emulator types, it's a programming standard.

What most people ignored at the time is that the app also included a function called getEmulatorTypeFromCode, which would return the Emulator Type based on the identifiers I talked about earlier.

Once I took notice of this and checking other code making use of it, I figured out something huge, and after talking to an actual reliable insider who also confirmed it (don't get used to this), my conclusion: They had originally developed a multi-emulator app, which would have included all games from NES, SNES and GB in one single app.

Now you may wonder why this didn't pan out, I don't have the exact reason but I can have some educated guesses: Aside from the accidental reveal of SNES emulator on Switch which I think is not that huge, I think the seperation of systems is probably because of the developers wanting to compatimentalize the development instead of having to test a huge app every time they wanted to update it to avoid potential huge regressions.

I think it's not necessarily a bad reason, as a developer I also take importance of the ease of development VS user experience, and I do think this decision is not really a bad thing overall, making a multi emulator can be extremely hard and you could deal with problems because of decisions taken extremely early on.

The secrets of SNES Switch Online

The SNES emulator derived from the Wii U Virtual Console by NERD has a bunch of secrets that you may not know about... such as the currently unused SNES Mouse emulation.

Once you start checking around the code about how to enable the SNES Mouse emulation, you find out two things:

It can be enabled using metadata within the custom ROM format.

It was able to be force enabled using specific internal emulator Game IDs.

The most interesting part of the Game IDs is that only 3 Game IDs specifically forced the SNES Mouse to be emulated: 0x11A0, 0x11A2 and 0x11A3. If we just keep ourselves to SNES titles that could only work with the SNES Mouse... we could think of only two, actually. Most of the SNES games that supports the mouse can also just work with the controller.

We can only think of Mario Paint and Mario & Wario as SNES titles that only works with SNES Mouse, but also both are first titles, so in terms of rights, there's no issues here.

The problem is like, what's the third title? And that's where we can have a lot of ideas here.

The thing about those emulator Game IDs is that they don't correspond to the Switch Online IDs, they correspond to IDs that have been populated since the Wii, but especially Wii U Virtual Console, but we don't exactly know when NERD took over the emulator from Intelligent Systems. It is currently impossible to tell for sure.

So we can only think of the following:

The third title is actually the PAL version of Mario Paint, when they used to seperate game versions in different IDs.

The third title is Sound Fantasy, the unreleased but confirmed to be completed third SNES Mouse first party game.

Or it is a game that Nintendo decided it was better to play with a mouse rather than the controller, but I don't think it's likely.

Unfortunately I don't know for certain.

One other thing about the SNES Switch Online service, you may have noticed that some of the games currently on the service can actually be played up to 4 players at the same time... at least outside of it since the emulator locks you up to 2 players maximum.

If you thought that they did not emulate the Multitap, you'd be wrong. In fact, the games in question all contain metadata saying up to 4 players, unlike what the menus might tell you, and they all technically emulate the SNES Multitap, but the user interface can only allow you 2 players, so it's sorta funny that the second player is technically plugged to the multitap from an emulation standpoint.

Funny.

The secrets of N64 Switch Online

This part has some plot twists to it, but in fact I should rather say the secrets of the N64 Wii U Virtual Console emulator, as most of these things were brought over from this.

Unlike what most people might tell you, NERD has not much to do with the N64 emulation, it was developed by iQue. If you wonder what's my evidence, the debug menu between the NES/GB VC emulator for 3DS (which is confirmed done by iQue because the source code of it leaked in 2020), and the N64 VC emulator for Wii U are pretty much the same.

I may as well mention the biggest secret of all which had a plot twist later: The N64 emulator used to have unfinished 64DD emulation code in it, since Wii U.

I do insist on unfinished because it was nowhere near enough to boot a single 64DD game, but they for some reason included a Sim City 64 configuration file on Wii U at one point, probably for initial testing.

When the emulator was ported to Switch with improvements such as Vulkan graphics rendering on Super Mario 3D All-Stars and Nintendo 64 Switch Online app, a bunch of the 64DD emulation code stayed as is, in the same unfinished state.

However something funny happened in between, the emulator had code to recognize the fanmade 64DD cartridge ports, and those are definitely fanmade, and they must have looked at other emulation code for it, and most likely, code that I even wrote myself as I did add support for these in emulators before. Note that at that point, the code to boot those games were not seemingly present, or maybe I missed it.

So I would like to assume iQue had still wanted to make 64DD games working, but wanted to test on easier to emulate versions of the games. That said, I did mention this on Twitter... and then they removed every single line of code involving 64DD in the 1.2.0 update build in January 2022. It was probably not literally removed, just not compiled as it is still a good skeleton code for it. I am definitely convinced that I'm being looked at.

When it comes to other stuff in the emulator... well did you know that the Controller Pak, the memory cartridge that you put inside the controller's slot to save in a bunch of games, is actually fully emulated since Wii U?

It is very annoying that they had something like this working, but couldn't figure out to swap between both that and the Rumble Pak for games that could make use of both.

If you wonder about the Transfer Pak, the Wii U has a bit of it, but it's just turning the hardware ON and OFF, and this code has stayed as is on Switch. I know Emily Rogers has mentioned there were experiments and I believe her, but unfortunately, the code must be in a seperate branch and not put in place in N64 Switch Online builds.

If you tell me "oh they didn't plan Pokémon transfers for Pokémon Stadium," please look at the japanese Direct about it and you'll find a widely different sentence that does not actually rule out support for this, stating that "Pokémons cannot be transferred from the Game Boy." I dunno about you, but that's a statement that makes it vague because they could just mean the actual real Game Boy.

Now I'm not really dumb, as Nintendo has showed that Switch Online is mostly low budget and does the bare minimum, but there are things that shows a bit more attention to things...

When it comes to new things that weren't in the emulator on Wii U, they actually emulated the Real Time Clock chip from Animal Crossing's N64 original version. This code actually isn't in Super Mario 3D All-Stars, this must be a fairly new addition, and since there's only one game using it, it is fair to assume Animal Crossing is actually in a working state in the emulator.

When Mario Golf was added to the service, the Lua script dedicated for it is... a bit odd. It includes code for asynchronous netplay, where each player would take control of the game in turns in an attempt to optimize the netplay and reduce lag. This code is fully unused, there's not even the functions that it uses in the emulator yet.

This could also be additional evidence towards my theory that the NSO apps would see a refresh including user experience to some extent, but this stuff was added since April 2022, so whatever they are doing, it's certainly in private and has been in the works for almost a year now.

This post... is a bit long already, and there are still a bunch of other little secrets to uncover, but I think I covered the most technical ones so far, I hope this post is mostly clear about these secrets. Feel free to give me feedback.

[nuctoria]

Do you have Antasma headcanons?

Please, I don't care if is a 100 pages, show me!

... also headcanons ship about the bat.

I've been staring at this all damn week but could not touch it due to college work eating me from the inside out. I wanted to make a list of each aspect I can make a headcanon on but that will take too long and I don't have that kind of time nor do I think I have the space for it. Plus, some headcanons I am hesitant to put out because they will be similar to others' and I don't want to look like I'm copying or stealing. Anways, lets start!

As stated by the game, Antasma was a bat that ate a nightmare and came to be the monster creature he is now. Therefore, his kind is meant to eat dreams only, not nightmares, so perhaps he got curious, made a mistake or was desperate for any source of food to eat the nightmare. This also led to him having such a form, along with his battle form that we see in the final battle. I like to think that normal dream bats have other forms too when they can control their powers after they become adults but they don't need to use it unless they want to or have to for survival. They look like Antasma's true form but less monster-like and more Pi'illo like to blend in and not seem as threatening.

Antasma can feed on the dream portal or absorb the nightmare one is having but when inside the Dream World he can eat specific items or even creatures that were created by someone sleeping, like how he ate Dreamy Luigi. This won't harm the person physically but psychologically? Yes. And he can make it look gruesome to add extra flavor and power to his food.

He can eat other things too, like fruits and such, but dreams and nightmares are the main thing that needs to be eaten to keep his powers and energy at top notch.

I'm going with the headcanon that Dreambert met Antasma after he ate the nightmare and befriended him. Young Dreambert was so fascinated by the strange bat and took him in to study him. Antasma allowed it because he started getting curious about himself too and was curious to know of Dreambert and his kingdom which led to him learning of the stone.

Antasma has the title of a Count. I made this based on him being inspired by Count Dracula and how some of the different versions of his name in other languages put the title Count in them. This was given to him by Dreambert for being his friend and due to his power level. He couldn't be given a high position like a Duke so being a nobility rank just a bit under the middle worked. This can be an aspect to why he wanted to steal the stone and his starting point for his need of greater power.

I like to think that Antasma couldn't have cared less for Bowser, just wanted the greater source of power when he came to stop him from taking Peach but as he started to spend more time with him and see his ambition and way of ruling, he was inspired and gave up his plan to betray him, which bit him in the ass.

Antasma must have done something to most trapped Pi'illo souls, probably ate them, because there is no way the island had a population of 52. He must have done it since he could not get out of the Dream World and since no one was actually dreaming, he ate the souls to remaining alive. This only stopped when the tourists came and started rebuilding the island. The petrified bodies of the eaten souls crumbled and the dust was taken by the wind due to this.

His battle form was one of his many other wishes from the Dark Stone so he could fight against Dreambert and his guards or even the Zeekeeper himself if he decided to show his face during his attack.

Another wish was to created as many minions as he could with his powers so he won't have to try and recruit other bats from his home.

Different types of nightmares have different flavors to him and he prefers the salty ones as it makes him think of the salty tears of terror his victims are being inflicted with. The more terrifying the nightmare is, the more power he receives, the maximum being the victim snapping away.

Y'all remember the vampire bat fact about making bonds with regurgitated blood? His kind does it with dreams to feed the young, to help neighbors for a favor later on and with mates or family to keep the bond strong. But now that Antasma has the appetite for nightmares, he will cough up plenty of blood as it's a common thing seen in nightmares.

I'm still debating dream bats being either being mostly inspired by vampire bats alone or being a mix of that and fruit bats. I'm still deciding.

He'll never admit it and will probably cut your tongue off if you find out, but he loves cuddles and head scratches, making cute lil squeaky purrs. Back before he was taught other ways to show affection by Dreambert, he'd hug his hand and do quick little licks to show affection. It tickled a lot.

Loves dark corners and tight spaces like spiders do. Makes him feel safe when he wants a rest and if something crawls in, it better be stronger than him (it won't be) cause it ain't getting back out unharmed or alive.

Not all growls are hostile or negative, he just never had a reason to not growl for any other reason.

I've seen two flower OCs shipped with him (One knows who they are) and Luigi loves flowers and takes care of his own, so I headcanon that Antasma really likes flowerbeds to lay on because it's soft and the aroma really calms him down, like a small sanctuary that makes the rest of the world fade away.

He knows how to use old-fashioned language like Dracula and his flirting game with it makes him win against Luigi each time from how beautiful and sophisticated it sounds, no matter how skilled Luigi is. If Luigi ever learns how to use it and use it during their flirting battles, he might actually melt.

Bites and licks all day, every day, It's his second love-language. The claws are for special occasions that requires any later obligations to wait or be rescheduled.

Clingy as hell and will not allow another soul near him and his partner. I dare you to challenge him.

Depending on the person and how he feels about them or the situation, eye contact longer than 30 seconds is dangerous.

I like to think he has some cat traits, like his fur fluffing up when he's startled, having airplane ears and his eyes becoming big when he is ready to attack in play or flirt mode. His eyes turn into very thin slits the more hostile and enraged he feels.

Gets annoyed with kids but isn't hostile to them, often gets surprised by their deep curiosity, abilities and experiences. Maybe one day he will consider being a father.

Loves shiny jewels and crystals, or smooth rocks with multiple colours.

That's all for now. If I think of more, I'll reblog this or edit it.

[justaboot]

Ahh, tagged by @hueberryshortcake (thanks! also this was the thing someone tagged me in and lost weeks ago so bless <3)

how many fics do you have on ao3?

omg 8, what even are they.

what's your total ao3 word count?

174,260 oh my GOd

what fandoms do you write for?

- I've only posted for DT but I've got a 10th Doctor/River fic in my drafts

what are your top five fics by kudos?

And a Sixpence in Your Shoe

In Situ

I've Got Time

Everyone Loves a Reunion (A come from behind win?)

Gentle as it Goes

do you respond to comments? why or why not?

- I try so hard to reply to everybody, but I've got weapons grade anxiety so sometimes I'm worried people will think I'm self-important. I've actually found I'm less likely to respond to tumblr mutuals? More anxiety? Unclear but I'm smashing my face into my hands at every comment.

what's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I can't handle ending on angst. Gentle as it Goes, definitely, but I hate it, I cannot handle splitting the party.

what's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Sixpence definitely has the most Disney Fairytale Everything Works Out ending, but writing I've Got Time's button fixed something in me I think.

do you get hate on your fics?

The first comment I ever got ever was DellaHate gbless, thanks AO3 User DellaDuckShouldDie for your insightful comment of "Della Duck should be destroyed."

do you write smut?

I've written it for other things, I'm not shook by it and its a great storytelling tool just like everything else, but not cartoon characters. I...I have one explicitly human DT fic that. I. Well. We'll see. Its a genre test run for something original and they're pointedly human, but I guess I'll cop to that one?

do you write crossovers? what's the craziest one you've ever written?

I hate crossovers stay away from me I cant wrap my head around it

have you ever had a fic stolen?

Nah. Where would you go with it, we're all in the same room.

have you ever had a fic translated?

No but that'd be so cool!

have you ever cowritten a fic before?

girlfriend and I made an absolute banger of a spn fic together on a 12 hour roadtrip. Its not written down but we've got it beat for beat.

what's your all time favorite ship?

The Doctor and River will never fail to make me lay down they're them I dont even know what to say

what's a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

-I've got 1/3rd of an OG3 prequel episode fic written, but it has to be part of a series and that's just...not gonna happen.

what are your writing strengths?

oh god i dont know don't look at me dialogue? I get a lot of comments about in-character dialogue/behavior lets go with that.

what are your writing weaknesses?

I have "I'll finish it later, let me start this new one real quick" disease.

thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I haven't done so, I'm fine with French but I'm terrified across the board of The Comment From A Native Speaker.

first fandom you wrote for?

Let me tell you about Tid, my halfling OC based on my Lord of the Rings Online character who played very little of the actual game and just ran laps around the shire. Elementary school core.

favorite fic you've ever written?

I am putting Sixpence on the award shelf for having finished something so big and I've Got Time was me getting a good grade in therapy. Right now I'm actually really proud of Dear Fellow Traveller? They're just lil kids and omg they're swimming in the Little Lake watering hole in the sierras I did that how did the author know

Tagging.... @writebackatya and @shychick-52

[justthornsnorose]

5,7,8,9,10,11,23,27,28,29,30,31,35,36,37,41,45,49,50,52,53,60,62,63,67,73,76,77,79,83,84,96,97,99.

Also RED.

5. What’s the best orgasm you’ve had in the past few months? Hm, one where I was realllly good about not touching myself while I watched some things on tumblr, etc. When I couldn't stand it anymore, I used my favorite toys to fuck myself as hard as I could.

7. What’s the soonest after meeting someone that you’ve slept with them?  Same day--it was a hookup.

8.What position or angle or specific technique never fails to make you cum? I loooooove doggy but basically I'm hard to make cum. No one else has ever been able to reliably do it. :/ Using the rose toy and getting fucked at the same time is what works for me.

9. When was the last time you watched porn? Last night. >///>

10. What is the hottest thing someone has ever done with you in bed?  Hmm, beyond just being sweet? (I'm a sucker for kindness.) Manhandled me and fucked me like the lil bitch that I am. :3 11. Do you prefer tongue or fingers?  Fingers because I can't get out of my head lol.

23. Have you ever watched people having sex? Not like in person, no. (I'm assuming porn does not count here)

27.When was the last time you had sex? Hooked up with someone who was way too proud of being a YT streamer. They wanted to be fwb but once was enough for me lol. A few months ago? It's been a while T_T

28.Have you ever masturbated to any of your friends? Do you think any of your friends have ever masturbated to you? Yes and yes.

29. Describe a typical masturbation session. I scroll on tumblr and keep my hands OFF myself until I'm squirming, and when I need more I switch to porn. I start with a clit toy and move on to a dildo once I'm aching for it, and then I use both until I've cum or can't take any more.

30. How do you feel about threesomes? Have you ever had one, and if not, would you ever have one? They're hot in theory, but I'm not sure I've ever had the confidence. I wouldn't want to lose my person... but I've definitely considered & fantasized about it. So, maybe with the right people. 31. What’s something that turns you on, but you’re a bit embarrassed by? UGH lol ummmmm. Fucking myself while someone watches. 35. Which one of your holes do you most want to be filled right now? Cunt and/or mouth please.

36. Are you loud or quiet when you masturbate? Well, I'm vocal when no one is around, but I'm usually quietly whiny when I have to be. That, or I'm burying my face in the pillow to muffle what I can't hide.

37. Do you own any toys? What’s your favourite? Yes, and my "demon" and "rose" toys.

41. Do you like being called a slut or whore in bed? Only when someone calls me THEIR slut/whore, and I know they don't really mean it as like.. a bad thing? Idk. It can be hot but it can also trigger me if it's said/meant a certain way.

45. What’s the kinkiest thing you’ve ever asked someone to do while sexting? Oh jeez. I don't know, probably cnc stuff.

49. What’s a sex act you think is overrated? What’s a sex act you think is underrated? Overrated-eating me out? I've just never really been able to get past the embarrassment of it. Underrated-doggy and choking and blowjobs all need more credit.

50. When did you last have an orgasm? How did it happen? Last time I was HORNY DUHH. Lol. The other day, and I pleased myself. :*

52. How often do you masturbate? When I lived on my own it was a lotttttt, but sometimes I go through phases where I don't much at all. Depends if I'm taken or not, too. Or if someone's been teasing me.

53. Where’s the most unusual place you’ve masturbated? Oh boy. Mmm, in the middle of the woods lol.

60. Have you tasted yourself? If so what did you think?

Only off someone else’s hand. Not really much of a taste.

62. How long do you masturbate before you cum?

Usually about 45 min - an hr.

63. What’s the weirdest category you have ever searched for?

Furry LOL.

67. If you had 5 minutes to get yourself with porn right now, what would you type in the search bar? Throat fucking or overwatch. ;P

73. Would you do a cum walk? Idk what that is tbh.

76.Have you ever worn lingerie? Let's be clear I LOVE that shit. 77. If you could fuck anyone at all right now, who would it be? Do you know them in real life? Do they know you like them? Well.. ANYONE? Lol.. They know I like them, but they have someone :(

79. What’s the last object you put into your own body for sexual reasons? Dildo.

83. What’s your dirtiest secret? Honestly I'm not sure.

83.What’s the most embarrassing porn you like to watch? Probably cnc stuff, or free use.. or idk lol.

86. What’s the kinkiest thing you’ve ever asked someone to do in real life? I asked someone to choke me once and they knocked me out lol... they also used to leave bruises... they did not know their own strength..

97. What was your most shame-filled orgasm? Why? I was on skype masturbating while they watched. And because it's embarassing!! Idk, I was taught to never be online/on film etc so it was really embarassing lol.

99. Admit something sexual that you’ve never told anyone else before. Hm, I've definitely fantasized about being used*/fucking more than one person at a time. *i mean used in like.. a nontriggering way lol

@the-blue-rose-of-the-sea

[indigo-scarf]

20 questions for fic writers

Thanks for the tag, @danpuff-ao3 and @turanga4!

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 18 + some I made private.

2. What's your total A03 words count? 45k.

3. What fandoms do you write for? Harry Potter.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Assumptions (483) The asexual Drarry fic.

Quiet Things (134) The other Drarry fic.

Something Old, Something New (52) The Droyle fic (which got rec'd by a Drarry blog).

Longest Night (51) The Drarcissa fic.

Love (51) The Blaise fic.

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not? Yes, because I like to show appreciation for commenters in that way, and because I usually don't comment if I know the author doesn't reply (how Slytherin of me lol) so I don't wanna be a hypocrite.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? The Draco/Scabior fic, Refuge.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Most have decently happy endings, I think? I'll say Silver Lined because thinking of the peacock always makes me smile.

8. Do you get hate on fics? Nope, never did.

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind? I've done it four times: One Night - Just wanted to see if I could. I could. Longest Night - One-way incest more out of care than attraction, what a comfy notion. [Redacted] - A hetero-allonormative abomination that will haunt me every day until I re-edit it to not be sexual. [Upcoming for a fest] - It's more vibes than smut and it was more for the concept than the titillation.

All of them are very gentle in form even if they're fucked up in concept. And strange that 3/4 were het since I never read that — but well, one I hated, one was family love, and one was conceptual.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written? Not yet, but I swear one day I will write Draco/Nathan from Life is Strange.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? I hope not 👀

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? Nope. It would be funny to have one translated by someone else into my first language.

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before? Nope.

14. What's your all-time favourite ship? I don't have one. I read more Drarry because there's so much more of it, but I made a list the other day and there are 20+ Draco ships I find interesting.

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will? I have a million unpublished WIPs where I've just jotted down a half-formed idea on a doc.

16. What are your writing strengths? I keep Draco a prickly little meow meow, which is the most important thing in a fic :)

17. What are your writing weaknesses? I feel like I make everything funny, I can't ever make it serious enough. But that might be partly because I find everything I write funny in some way. "It's not the writing, it's the fact that it's yours" etc etc.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic? No? The closest was deciding how to write Scabior's accent, but it was Draco's POV so I figured if it came across as classist and exoticising that was a feature.

19. First fandom you wrote for? Phineas & Ferb. I shipped Phinbella.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written? Eh, my fave is always the one I haven't written yet.

tagging @leogichidaa @nv-md @lumosatnight @artemisia-black @the-paper-monkey

[galactic-pirates]

Hey hey 😄 For the fanfic writer asks!!

10, 17, 29 and 41

Hey thank you so much for the ask!!

10) Do you work on multiple wips or stick to one fic at a time? I thought I had already answered this but must have been for a previous ask meme. I've done a few of them lately and it's such fun, thanks for playing all.

Anyway! I actively work on just one. More live in my brain obviously but ping-ponging between projects just makes progress so glacial it gets really discouraging. So one at a time :)

17) Do you have a writing routine? I guess? I turn the PC on. Boot Plottr, open NovelPad. I get my planner and write down the scene I'm working on that day. I decide what my goal is for the day. Lately it's been more time-focused rather than goal. I have a horrible habit of not focusing if I say "do X number of words" and then I sit there forever being miserable. Much better to give myself a time limit, and whatever I get done is all I get for the day. I keep hoping it will teach me to spend my time more wisely but alas there are still days I procrastinate badly.

29) What’s something about your writing that you’re proud of? Already answered here :)

41) Who’s your favorite character you’ve written? Hmm. What I enjoy the most I think is when I can hear the character, and I feel like I captured their voice. That doesn't happen a lot. It has happened with Claudia (Warehouse 13), and I had it happen quite a bit in my Librarians/Sanctuary crossover. I think it helps if the characters have phrases they often use.

But favourite character to write just generally? You know I'm tempted to say Nikola. I went through a phase where I felt like I should tag every fic I was writing with "Nikola is a good friend" because it was just coming out that way. He's a snarky bastard who talks a good game but he doesn't fool me, he can bluster all he wants but I know how much he cares for his friends.

Although I have liked writing Eve in my Librarians fics.

Bonus question because you had a repeat :)

52) What’s the average word count of your fics? 943,505 / 81 (as I have 2 fanarts on AO3) = 11,648

Given my propensity for lengthy multi-chaptered I am surprised it's that low, but then I guess there are a fair few oneshots as well, and it is an average.

I'm bummed it's close to a million but not over it. Makes me wonder if I scrape my HD for all the prompt ficlets I never posted anywhere other than tumblr, or the fanfic I never finished/posted, if I would get there. I doubt it. I've probably got 20k or so but not nearly 60k. Sad.

[samsa-studies]

17 January 2024, Wednesday 78/100 Days of Productivity

This week has been a bit difficult. I had a family event on Monday I had to go to that was super awkward and was all day, so I didn't get anything done then, and I was so exhausted on Tuesday that I didn't get anything done then except submitting applications to an internship and a couple of part-time jobs. It was nothing special, and I know I could have spent my time better but just didn't. My bad habits are definitely harder to break that I had thought they would be.

Academics

Independent Study meeting

Applied to summer internship

Award application personal statement first draft

I got nominated for an award! I also got nominated last year but I didn't make the cut, sadly. However, I really think I have a chance this year since I started volunteering and so can fill that section of the form, when I couldn't last year since I hadn't any any experience in that field yet. I'm very proud of myself for being able to do that!

52 Book Challenge

3/52: Mammoths at the Gates by Nghi Vo

4/52: Anti-Romance, vol.1 by Shoko Hidaka

I count the manga volumes I read because I believe any reading is good reading. I don't read manga as often as I used to, since I've moved more towards preferring light novels, but every now and then I find a series that I want to read and usually complete it in a night. Anti-Romance had looked cute but after the first volume I was pretty much just tired of the premise, too much relying on a lack of communication.

Other Resolutions

Decluttered manga shelf

I took out the series that I was not longer collecting or no longer had any interest in. I will be giving some volumes away to friends and selling others online, especially the completed sets.

[pumpkin-spike18]

✨Weekly Progress #51-52✨ +Happy New Year 2024✨

I've been thinking about the past year for the last few days and struggled with how to talk about it.

But, let's start with the weekly progress reports, before I miss the ability to do it for 2023.

Weekly Progress #51

Linearted 4 SYVNH BGs

Answered more BWOBK edit comments

Yes, it's the same image as last time since... the 4 linearts were done by the time I posted the last update.

Weekly Progress #52

Scripted BWOBK S1-S3

Submitted the demo for The Beauty Which Only Beast Knows to Winter VN Jam and Once Upon a Time VN Jam

The demo is now available for download here!

...Oh my god, I forgot I start my weeks on Mondays. My brain got really confused for the twitter version of this update 😅

I'll be making a separate post for it tomorrow (or Akua would), but BWOBK is finally out! ...Well, the demo for it anyways. The last week has been a blur of editing, scripting, and final playtesting. I was working quite frantically so I didn't record all of my tasks for the past week.

...Which, to be fair, didn't amount to much other than working on BWOBK. Our team wanted to accomplish a lot for this jam, but as the final week approached, we knew we had to cut back a bit if we wanted to submit anything to the two jams so we discussed and agreed to submit a demo.

Please look forward to a full release in January 2024!

Looking Back at 2023 ⏳

Visual Novel Development

Last year I made this tweet to celebrate what I accomplished in 2022.

A total of 5 VNs was an amazing feat I didn't think I'd accomplish. I was prepared to never beat this record again. Yet, lo and behold...

This year, I submitted nine projects.

1 Updated Demo:

I counted this as a submission since my update was about 50k new words, all new BGs, and like 14 CGs (I forgot the exact number). Sadly, I couldn't make it to the finish line of a full game. That'll be 2024!

4 Solo Projects:

These are four short visual novels I did for a variety of jams (three of them were for about week long game jams). They're all playable in browser and shouldn't take longer than 20 minutes each to play.

one last time. is a standalone entry.

kill your feelings., spirit killing curse, and Exorcist Killing Lie are separate stories set in the same world of ghosts, unreliable gods, and exorcists. I've been calling it the Kill Series and I hope to work on it more in 2024.

4 Team Projects:

I participated in another four visual novel projects this year! Two of which were demos, and one even won second place in the Spooktober Visual Novel Game Jam!! That was a real surprise! Although everyone in the team worked super hard, I don't think any of us expected it. So it was really a great and amazing surprise that had all of us shocked with happiness!

The Beauty Which Only Beast Knows is a demo I'm the main writer for. I also wrote one of the routes for The Final Prize is Soup, which is the second place Spooktober 2023 winner!

I provided the art for For the First Time.

And I did the programming for Saintess Alasdair is Dead.

All of these visual novels (plus more from previous years!) can be found free to play on my itch profile!

I think, next year, I won't be able to beat this record 😂 In fact, I hope I don't... As happy as I am to have performed such a feat, it was very exhausting and took a lot of energy out of me. I just hope to finish my ongoing projects in 2024.

Other Creative Goals

Here is another tweet from early 2023:

I wasn't able to spend a lot more time animating, and it's hard to gauge improvement on my own, but...

I did it! I completed 24 illustrations!

This has been a mix of OC art, fanart, a couple gifts, and a couple commissions. Hopefully, next year I'll be able to not "cheat" by adding commissions to the mix... 😂 I'm very proud of my commission works, but I did say it was supposed to be personal art.

I actually spend the last three months drawing 10 of the illustrations. To be exact, I drew 14/24 drawings in the second half of 2023... This was alongside working on a variety of CGs and BGs for games, a couple fancomics, and some design work that didn't feel quite "illustration" worthy.

Other

As a number of you might have noticed, or if you're one of my closer friends in devtalk... I quit my job!! Which, may sound like a bad thing, but I'm actually quite relieved. I finally freed myself from something that felt like it had been chaining me down for years.

I did it with no plans, just enough savings for a short while. Hopefully, this will be the wake up call I need to improve my life and find a job I enjoy. I took a few months off so I'm ready and back for the job hunt in 2024! (...So in about an hour from me writing this, haha)

Speaking of the job hunt... I also started accepting commissions on vgen! I don't know if I want to pursue a creative career, but it isn't out of the question.

If you're interested, I'll be opening for a week or so in 2024 before I close to work on projects again until June or something. (wink wonk 😉😉)

Finally, I'm really happy to have joined the Ace Attorney fandom this year. I started replaying the games around September and searched for a fandom discord on a whim. I've met some really great writers and artists since! Everyday getting to talk about gay lawyers have been great and reminded me of an almost lost fun from my childhood.

So if any of you from there see this post, hello! Thank you for giving me such a warm welcome! I really enjoy spending time with you all!

And someday, I WILL kidnap you guys into making a visual novel with me.

I participated in my first online fan event thanks to everyone there and it was a lot of fun. I hope to do more with everyone soon!

Well, that's all! If you made it all the way down here, thank you for reading! 2023 has been an interesting ride and I look forward to 2024.

It's currently 11:12PM for me here (I made it, I finished writing before midnight!) but, this is probably as close as I can get before getting distracted by a video or other work so...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!