#a draft from some time in early to mid 2022

[sunspirart]

With him as my muse you’d think he’s my fave but noo thing is. I’m stuck on this show and fond enough of Goemon to be inspired to draw him. but not so overly attached to him that I get weird art block and avoid him you see . that’s the secret. Plus the character design is SO good i love working with it. Why is he so long. He’s perfect

[datura-tea]

holy shit this year marks 10 years of this blog and moz!! i can't remember the exact date i started posting here - my archive says i have one post from november 2013 but let's disregard that - but i do remember it was around late 2014/early 2015 :)

^ one of the very first moz art pieces i ever drew, for fallout week 2015!!

memories and art through the years under a read more bc it got long

2014 → baby's first rpg!! i started playing fnv on my cousin's jailbroken xbox late 2013 and finished mid 2014 and i loved every minute of it. i remember waking up at 8am and playing almost nonstop until 2am the next day haha!

i didn't play moz on my first playthrough - but i did start creating a character that would eventually become her: a shorthaired ex-boxer who punched her way through obstacles when diplomacy failed. i remember she spent a lot of time with boone. i liked him then, because he saved my ass more times than i can count. but i digress. this is draft 1 moz essentially

2015 → this is the year that i was doing my thesis so i could graduate but i was so depressed and stressed about it that i distracted myself by replaying fnv on pc, where i played through the dlcs for the first time. i fell in love with the dlcs' oversarching story; particularly ulysses, who i became obssessed with, especially since i couldn't find any content of him at the time. in the game, i played as moz; i had most of her personality and choices down, but her backstory was still up in the air.

fun fact: this was an existing sideblog that i remade to be a fallout blog so i could look for ulysses content, and when i couldn't find any, i made some myself, featuring moz as my main courier six. originally, i didn't ship them, but eventually i ended the year as a courier/ulysses otp shipper.

this was the year i started drawing digitally - my uncle let me borrow a drawing tablet and i used an old copy of photoshop i pirated hehe

2016 → i graduated this year!! and promptly fell deeper into my depression. this was the year that it got so bad that i had to be medicated. through it all, this blog and moz and ulysses and my fandom friends were with me. and for that i am truly grateful :) this was the year i figured out how to lock transparent pixels so that i could color my lineart lol

2017 → i started hammering out moz's backstory this year i think. there's a lot of sketches of her and her family in my files. i experimented with shading and backgrounds here but that experimentation was pretty short-lived

2018 → i started using references seriously!!!! i did a lot of oc on oc kissing this year, featuring mostly moz and many friend ocs haha

2019 → didn't draw much this year. actually this year was a blur and i can't remember much from it except from it being the year of my terrible no good bad copywriting jobs... anyway i did manage to continue my courier/ulysses brainrot and make this piece, which i'm still proud of

2020 → pandemic time. i spent a lot of time asleep at home and i think this was also the year i started doing commissions?? shoutout to anyone who has ever commissioned me - thank you so much, i truly appreciate it!!

2021 → i switched from my old-ass pirated photoshop to clip studio paint and never looked back. also i did a bunch of commissions for my grandmother's surgery, which failed, and i distracted myself from the sadness by drawing my ocs over and over and playing disco elysium

2022 → by this year, i've got moz down pat and have started vaguely developing other ocs instead. but she's still always at the back of my mind

2023 → i bought new brushes from true grit texture supply and immediately found new favorites that i started using for everything. i tentatively started incorporating background elements in some pieces!

2024 → while it's still too early to say where this year will lead me art-wise, i will say that i started experimenting in realistic paint studio (which i bought in 2021, the same time as clip studio paint) a few days ago and i'm liking the results so far. we'll see!

all in all, these last 10 years have been quite a ride, but i'm glad i stuck around and i'm glad you guys stuck around too!! much much love 💖💖💖

[s-che]

From the Game Designer Tarot, I'd like to draw JUDGEMENT. Tell me about something you designed that taught you something important, please?

From yesterday's Game Designer Tarot ask game

Judgement — Talk about a game you’ve made that taught you a lot.

In 2022, when I was, like, a year out of college and already pretty burned out by teaching, I wrote the extremely quick and angry first draft of Queen of the Moon, a game which yanked the lindworm oracle from Jay Dragon's Sleepaway, slapped a couple of playbooks in for different the types of children, and said there you go. There's a game. Kids and a thing that hurts them. That's all there is in the world. I was angry with the educational system, I was pessimistic about the craft of teaching, and I wrote a game that was miserable as a result. It was extremely important to me to write it the way I did — to make a point — but it wasn't until last year when I finally started revising it that I realized how little fun there was in playing the thing.

All this to say, I think a lot of people write bit-based games. Polemical games. Games that only exist to make one point. And I think it can be really therapeutic to write that way, or just to write for a joke (God knows Queen of the Moon isn't the only time I've done it — Ritual & Experience, another early game I'd love to come back to and make into something more interesting, basically works the same way). But I do think it's worth considering the limitations of writing one-note games.

I had a really good conversation while helping @jdragsky move apartments a few months back (great setting for design yapping, tbh) about how super duper rules light, one-mechanic games can be extremely restorative to play after dealing with a bloated, clunky, D&D-esque system — but that there's something to be said for the fact that D&D & co. have all those goddamn mechanics in them. There are, whether we like them or not, multiple things to do in dungeons & dragons, and playing a game with that much shit to do in it can be fun! I don't want one universal dice roll -- I want lots and lots of little bespoke systems overlapping nibbling at each other! I like it when there is a lot of games in my games! One good mechanic is still just one mechanic — it might be better than any one of D&D's twenty mid mechanics, but D&D still has 20 of them.

Anyway, I bring up Jay's writing specifically because that's a hallmark of what PCG does — Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast most obviously, but Sleepaway too. It took me a long time to get to a point where I could joyfully make Queen of the Moon less one-note. It's still pretty pared down compared to Sleepaway (although some of that is on purpose), but it's a lot bigger than it was when I started. And that isn't because of bloat: it's because it's good to write more good game.

[imaginespazzi]

Agee with your anon's 2022 theory. I always thought it was somewhere in mid/late 2022 they got together for real. And it makes sense, in high school that's just way to complicated and long distance to do anything but just focus on the limited time you have together, and kinda ignore if there's anyone else when you're not together. Then in college basketball is the job so it's important to focus on that. I could see it being more fwb Az freshman year and then it was the post P's injury where it got serious for real and they've been together since. In 2021/early 2022 they really acted so kind of giddy, esp P, and by late 2023/2024 they give much more settled couple vibes (to me). I'm praying someday we get some ESPN feature on their story and the timeline is finally confirmed lol.

Love when y'all agree with my delulu, it makes me feel less insane. But yeah the St. John's interview is lowkey my roman empire because there's just something about it that's different from the preseason interviews or even the exhibition game interview like it just feels like something clicked, beyond just both of them being really happy that P was playing again.

I so agree with the they give settled vibes now (maybe that's just my shipper hat) which I think some people maybe misinterpret as disinterest sometimes because they're also very private. There's just this sense of calm in between them that I think is just very beautiful and you could really see it at the soft launch draft. But it's gone from i'm scared to look away because you're the best thing that's happened and what if you're gone to i know you're mine and i can take my eyes off you because i know you'll always be there. Does that make sense?

[literaticat]

Hi, Jenn! I was wondering: I know supply chain issues are still a thing, but how much lead time do publishers usually need for a YA book? I heard you need to finalize everything a YEAR before publication? Is that still true?

This is not a supply chain issue per se, it's always been the case that there needs to be a long lead time. Typically the due date for a (non-illustrated) book is around a year before pub date. Ideally, it's then able to be made into galleys/ARCs around 9 months before pub date, and it's ready to print, absolutely no more changes, around 6 months before pub date. A typical timeline might look something like this:

Book sells in mid-late 2022 with a mid-2024 pub date. Contract comes late 2022, and edits ensue in January 2023. There are a couple back-and-forths, final draft is due June 2023. Book goes into copyediting in June, and there are a couple rounds of pass pages where mistakes can be fixed, etc, in July/August, and it is proofread and absolutely done by October 2023. Then it goes into the long queue for printing. Once it has printed, sometime in early Spring 2024, then the final books get shipped back to this country (literal ship. very slow boats.), sent to warehouses around the country, and then distributed to bookstores and wholesalers, each step of which is a whole weeks-long process, and god help us if something happens to a ship or a truck or whatever along the way.

And then in June 2024 - Happy Book Birthday!

Meanwhile also in January/February 2023, the cover is starting to get talked about, the author gives input, they choose an illustrator (or whatever). By June there are sketches, by the end of summer the cover is final, by September the ARC is being distributed (the ARC is generally made from first pass pages -- ie, there still may be some mistakes -- they can't wait for the final-final. That's why they say "NOT FINAL" all over them).

Why does the ARC need to be done 9 months before the book is out? For two reasons: Bookstores need a lot of lead time. The catalogue for Spring/Summer 2024 probably comes out in August/September 2023, and the publisher's sales team is selling Spring/Summer 2024 titles to bookstores in Fall 2023. So all that marketing material (like ARCs, the catalogue copy, the cover, etc) all needs to be in place BEFORE the sales reps get out there and bookstores start placing their orders. Also, review outlets want at least 6 months lead time as well, and we REALLY want reviews!

It might vary a bit by publisher, but this would be what I'd consider a perfectly normal, average timeline for a novel. It *could* certainly be LONGER — and probably WOULD be longer — for a picture book or anything illustrated, and the supply chain issues and whatnot of last year did mean lots of things got pushed because even with a generous timeline they simply were not ready when expected.

It couldn’t really be a SHORTER timeline and still be a normal book: If it were to go faster than this, it'd be a "crash" book -- this can happen for sure, I've had books come out and be on shelves the same year that they got offered on -- but it adds a layer of expense and drama that publishers are not undertaking unless there's a very good reason.

ETA:

Also bear in mind: Yours is not the only book. So while all this is happening for your book, it's also happening for dozens of other books at the same time -- and still more books are at some other stage in the process while this is happening for you. I think it's easy to think like "ugh, why does everything take so long" -- and this timeline might give you some insight, but it still feels like a very long time! -- but remember, it's not like "oh, we have this one book we are working on, let's take three months getting it from point A to point B because we are slowpokes who like to screw with authors" -- rather, it's "we have dozens (or for a huge publisher across many imprints, HUNDREDS) of books coming out in the same season, and ALL of them need to be ready and to a place at a certain time, and it keeps happening, month after month" -- it's like a whole logistical dance that takes many people to pull off, and frankly it's amazing to me that it works as well as it does as often as it does.

[zyrafowe-sny]

writing ask game: 16 and 19!

from this ask game

16. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever used as a bookmark?

Umm... It has been A While since I've regularly read physical books (mostly read on Libby/other phone apps these days), but I've done the usual random scraps of paper in the past.

When I was a kid obsessed with Narnia in elementary school, I made special friendship bracelet bookmarks for my set that matched the colors of the covers. Some might still exist at my mom's.

I also remember buying bookmarks that looked like castle tapestries.

19. Tell me a story about your writing journey. When did you start? Why did you start? Were there bumps along the way? Where are you now and where are you going?

When I was a kid, I loved stories and reading and daydreaming and playing pretend (mostly on my own, as others aged out of it). I enjoyed my elementary school creative writing assignments, and started writing poems and stories in my free time too. That continued through high school, and around high school I also got into fanfic (mostly as a reader, but I wrote fan poems, short snippets, and a ficlet/one shot or two that I never shared with anyone else).

In early college, I finally posted a tiny bit of fanfic (on website that thankfully no longer exists), but I had an unfinished WIP that hung over my head for years and years. (It wasn't even that long a story! It just became an impossible task.)

And then there was over a decade of basically nothing. I wrote for college/grad school and for work, but papers, memos, PowerPoints, emails, etc. are not exactly creative writing.

The Owl House rewired my brain, as they say. It started out as a show I started watching mid 2022 while folding laundry, but in October 2022 I started bingeing in earnest. I was still finishing Season 2B when Thanks to Them dropped, but once I caught up... oooph. Immediate rewatch. I read some fanfic, but for the first time in over a decade, I was itching to write. I started with one drabble — 100 words seemed like a realistic goal — which turned into a drabble sequence. Then I posted a one shot a few days later, then another one shot, and... After having an AO3 account with zero posted words of my own from August 2013 to mid October 2022, I now have over 50k up and more in drafts.

These days, I consider myself a fanfic writer in it for the long haul. I know that life responsibilities/health/etc may interfere with writing from time to time, but I've found my way back before and I am confident that I can do it again. I am a little anxious about having multiple multi-chapter WIPs up on AO3 — there was a reason I initially intended to stick to one shots/one shots in series — but fanfic writeblr helps immensely. When in doubt, I write drabbles.

I am in zero rush to focus on writing original fiction, but I have decades of life yet. Who knows — maybe I'll write a short story collection or a novel someday for fun, but I'm not nearly as passionate or dedicated (or talented!) as my friends/acquaintances who are writing/making art professionally. That's where I am with music too — I love being part of a community choir and I hope music will always be a part of my life, but it's a hobby. And as much as I desperately wish we supported full-time artists better, I also wish more people could just "dabble" in creative/artistic endeavors (time and money being big gatekeepers for hobbies too).

[jennablackmorebooks]

The convenient part of having been writing stories for so long is that I can look at what my characters were wearing overall during a particular period of time, and that reminds me of what was maybe sort of in fashion at the time without me having to organically remember. I've never super been a trends person on purpose, but I like looking back at previous years and seeing what people were wearing that's not as common anymore, things that would have been casual and ubiquitous enough then for me to give it to a character, but not something I really see anymore now.

Like, infinity scarves. Hecate, Orion, and Seth each have one, and Visions and The Line Madder came out in 2017. Meanwhile when Adrienne gets her own thematically relevant symbolic scarf of choice in 2022's Regards (side note: I am banned from using scarves as a symbol for the next five years at least after this), it's more in blanket scarf territory. I don't know when was the last time I saw an infinity scarf in the wild that wasn't a holdover from the 2010s. It's weird, like they completely disappeared overnight at some point.

Or Mae making fun of Tornin's fedora in Rainbow, which was written in 2016 and released in early 2017. Which is also so very of its time. Not in a bad way exactly, but in a way. I didn't edit it out or change many of the outfits in the 2021 re-release edits, because I wanted to keep the mid-2010s vibe of the book intact (with a bit of 2013, of course; one of her outfits is pulled directly from an outfit I made for her in the 2013 novella draft).

I'm sure in a number of years I might look at Regards and think, "wow, such an early 2020s fashion time capsule!" which is a terrifying thought and also completely likely.

[unluckyadept]

Do you still continue the story of Felix or have you stopped?

//I'm not sure if you're asking about IALS₁ (“It's A Long Story”), which chronicles the events of The Broken Seal and The Lost Age, or if you're referring to IALS₃ (“It's Another Long Story”) which covers the events after the first Mourning Moon and before the second Mourning Moon.

In both cases, I have been working behind the scenes.

For IALS₁, I have been working behind the scenes for a long time. I had a tentative plan to resume working on v2.0 in 2025, and then in 2026, but as of now that's been pushed back to 2027 at the earliest due to restructuring my life to have more balance to it.

The thing is, I am not sure how I'd actually post the story, because Staff—in their infinite “wisdom”—changed how HTML posts work and practically gutted ALL the necessary components I use for storytelling, which include (but are not limited to):

1.) The ability to have multiple links in the same line of text without breaking 2.) The ability to center text 3.) The ability to use a Read More in an HTML-edit-type post 4.) The ability to use hover text at all 5.) The ability to use text shadows at all 6.) The ability to use font colors of my choosing

Any post or draft made after mid August 2023 is affected by this change, but posts and drafts made prior are still able to be edited and work properly/fully/as desired. So my options are either:

1.) Find 261 non-reblog posts on unluckyadept to recycle into story posts 2.) Git gud and learn some more CSS to make my own website (something very basic, but functional) to be able to post things that will display the way I want them to display or 3.) Pray Staff changes how HTML posts work so that things are fully functional again

The way HTML posts work now is so limiting, so bad that I will choose Door #2 if I absolutely have to. 💧

As for IALS₃, re: what are, for Felix, “current” events…

There are actually two posts detailing certain events—most notably the rise of the first Mourning Moon—that have taken place since early 2022. Other events have been written out and only shared on Discord.

To put it briefly (and trust me, this IS the SHORT version):

The Tolbi Empire wishes to use Lalivero's coastline to launch a fleet to sail for Lemuria, to capture it and make use of the life-extending waters. To this end, they have tried invading Lalivero again multiple times, with the war starting in full with their first invasion of recent years.

Felix accepted the responsibility of being in charge of Lalivero's defenses as they resist the Tolbi Empire. To this end, he has maintained the Nol Gate (more on that below) and the Suhalla Gate—and for a time in 2022, was on the offensive, even taking a key stronghold from the Tolbi in the summer. The war turned for the much worse a few months after that, though, and they've had some pretty heavy losses. He's become convinced over these last few years that he has no choice but to strike for the heart of the Tolbi Empire, as absolutely deadly as that may be for him and those who go with him.

Sheba has been helping her father in running Lalivero itself. For a while, she was crucial in maintaining the peace between refugees from Suhalla (which was razed in 2020, but later recaptured) and the native Laliverans. The Suhallan refugees mostly returned to Suhalla after it was recaptured, and Sheba became busy helping the Laliverans flee to Contigo in a diaspora that has greatly reduced the population remaining in that part of Gondowan.

Prox has become involved with helping Lalivero resist the Tolbi; Prox itself has taken Loho (which was abandoned some time ago by the dwarves after they finished excavating it) as a stronghold to defend the Western Sea (and particularly to serve as the first line of defense for the Kalt Islanders and the Northern Reaches).

During the last few years, several Proxans have been promoted to Warrior status. I have names for several: Kalora, Eleanor, Orynar, and Falkner. Kalora and Orynar are in charge of Loho's defenses. Eleanor and Falkner are with Felix to assist him in running the two Gates that block the way to the Tolbi: the Suhalla Gate and the Nol Gate. (The Nol Gate is located in the mountains Felix raised up West of the Nol River to cut off easy access to Lalivero, a feat which spent him so thoroughly that he was unable to use Psynergy again for quite a while.)

After being officially exiled by the Senate following the lighting of the beacons, Piers dedicated his life to helping negotiate commonly agreed maritime law for the budding fleets of the Eastern Sea. He was able to keep Briggs and (and now Eoleo, too) in check for the most part, but THAT came to an abrupt end when Xian (who had been aggressively seizing territory for a while) declared open war on Champa (among others). As of now, he's very busy with that conflict.

Felix is actively working on preparing for the foray, but it takes a lot of time to do that and he has to be very careful in how he goes about executing his ploy. I hope to have the opportunity to write out his misadventures with that plan, but it probably won't be until late Autumn this year, maybe later than that… and if I get the time and energy for it, I'm not sure if I will post it openly, either. It's going to be one of those “The ‘Read More’ exists for a REASON, you fool” loooooooooooong posts (or series of posts), but remember what I said about Read More not working right? ☹️ There's that, and I can count the number of people who -might- be interested in reading that content on one hand—which is a pretty big damper on motivation even when the inspiration does exist.

Thank you for the Ask; I'd be happy to answer more questions if you have them!

—T.

[incarnateirony]

I am guessing this break down of Jensen was at least mildly affected by Cas being the Misha factor. However ppl see them.

I uh. yes. there's uh.

hm

literally no way i can say this without sounding like an itk douchebag but i do remind that misha recently clarified being in a suicidal state during that time period. As much as this is a gift to fandom, and a resolution for himself and Dean, this is a gift to misha that remains low effort and low commitment beyond as far as he wants to engage, and fandom really hasn't let that click yet. Misha was on the list of first known people jensen told he had the deal. if i'm not mistaken it was on Dec 8 2020. We* (my server) heard about it about a week and a half later. (the fandom of course heard it the following late-june at large, once the pitch had been accepted, but those considerations would have started by mid may, for reasons.)

the bulk of early prequel treatment happened between like Feb-May 20-21 then submitted, accepted, and further drafted, with that fourth network drafted i leaked last february being submitted late december just before holiday as the form it had been decided on roughly by then, with the tweaks from my script draft process post minded.

then between New Years, after the draft submission, some ideas were passed around, and then during/after filming throughout and again in early May, it was charted out to reframe with some guidance which caused the reshoots and minor narrative tweaks both extending OG pilot filming and a few saved for when everyone came back ep 2 which Showalter picked up since he was doing episode 2 anyway, following the chart robbie had drawn jensen all those months back since the direction was already locked in since May.

Hence jules and buds being so damn behind while so proud of her bottom of shit mountain badge. she was only hired in Feb 2022, and was only given the third network draft, not fourth, from mid december, and has similarly screened content since. She's over a year behind in content, hence that 8 month delay on their grand reveal that wiki's sources on payroll suck ass compared to mine.

i keep saying serpentine fandom climbing bitches going into low grade positions always learn their place but this time it's moving fast. I've run this rodeo. remember season 12 fandom? Oh jess was so proud of talking to Manchin and then debunker said, hey, I was right for years douchebag and had the goddamn receipts.

Check your shit guys. sad, sad little fandom clout seekers begging for crumbs from the world's most mediocre coffee runner deadass 2 years behind on all this shit. vinnie's pants wetting pretending anyone's jealous about cons rather than the rage they feel that I don't need to pay to play in their classist socialite club and exist in some, as best they understand, cosmic media rafters they will never fucking understand or influence. Eat shit, assholes. Same as about the market testing, about berens' intent, the confession, the roadhouse, the omissions, the pilot being real, eat shit. You ain't got a ladder to climb high enough to fuck with me. (sorry for this extra rant i just know they're hate crawling me rn so read it and weep, assholes)

[clarislam]

Writeblr Re-Intro: March 2023 Edition

Hi there, fellow readers and writers! I’m Claris (she/her).

I write a wide variety of works including poetry and fiction. I also post book reviews biweekly and fanfics weekly, though expect more of my focus to be on original works this year!

Click here to check out my website! Or, if you want to read a fuller-length version of what I’m up to for this month, click here to read my official March 2023 writing update post!

See this Carrd to find links to my website, other social media, and fanfiction!

Fiction:

I published the first book in my murder mystery series, “Winner Takes All: A Harlow Mystery” in June 2022, and you can click here for more details about it! Please feel free to support me by buying a copy, spreading the word about it, or even requesting your library to get it in their e-catalogue. I appreciate all the support in my writing journey.

Also, "Winner Takes All” will be on sale on Smashwords from March 5th-11th 2023 for their Read An Ebook Week 2023 sale!  

Click here to find my book on Smashwords!

Click here to see the whole sale when it shows up!

I’ve also had some short stories and poetry published in various literary magazines and collections, and I hope to have more pieces published this year!

Currently Pitching/Querying:

“Sadie’s Search For The Missing Necklace:” A kidlit fantasy book inspired by Gwyneth Rees’ Fairy Dust series and Daisy Meadows’ Rainbow Fairy series. As of this writing, I just pitched this book to a traditional publisher and (hopefully) they’ll let me know by late April/early May latest if they said yes to it or not! Wish me luck!

Current WIPS:

A fantasy novel inspired by the video game series King’s Quest. I am currently still writing its first draft and I’ve spoken a bit on this blog about how it’s going so far. I just finished writing the first draft in mid-February, so this WIP is on a break for now while I work on...

"An Engagement To Die For:” The sequel to “Winner Takes All,” the murder mystery that I self-published last year (June 2022)! I am finally, FINALLY, starting to do more edits again after beta reader rounds have finished! 

I also have other novels I’m writing during this time, butttt I won’t tell you what they are yet because they’re very early in the writing process. XD

Fanfiction:

You most likely know of my writing fanfiction for The Last Story, Bravely Default/Second, and Escape The Night.

I’m currently posting chapters for a The Last Story/Super Smash Bros. crossover fanfic called “Super Smash Bros: The Next Story!” You can read it on either Fanfiction.net or Archive Of Our Own! New chapters come weekly!

Check out the posting schedule on my site (or on my Tumblr blog) for what you can expect to see from me!

What I usually post here on Tumblr:

Links to my posted book reviews, and other important news from my official website

Links to any new fanfics or fanfic updates

Musings of a writer

Funny writer-related memes

Writing advice that I think can be helpful

Positivity!

Commentary on video games, fiction novels, and other fandom-related material that I usually don’t share on Twitter/Facebook/my official site.

I hope you enjoy reading my works, whether it be my original fiction, poetry, fanfiction, book reviews, or anything else I share!

Want to follow me? Find links to my website, related social media, and other works through this Carrd!

[magicofthepen]

hmm i am intrigued by so many of the titles! but also i want to pick one without time war 2+ spoilers. do any of these fit that description? the drowning deep or our minds at war or well deserved frustration with Romana? also please do tell me about Conspiracy Verse, Emily :D

ask me about one of my wips!

ah Scar regrettably all of the documents named with the Actual (Song Lyric) Fic Titles are in my post-Time War series. so yes there are spoilers.

but the spoiler free teaser is: every chapter in this fic series is based on last year’s Whumpay prompts (not in order, I rearranged the prompts). so I can tell you which prompts I plan to use for each of those fics.

the drowning deep

the prompts I’m using are: 1. Harming Self, 2. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

our minds at war

the prompts I’m using are: 1. It Never Gets Any Easier / Nightmares, 2. Headache of Doom, 2. To the Pain / Delirium.

SHORT: Bonding Over Well-Deserved Frustration With Romana

I keep forgetting this fic exists — it’s one of two fics I have that were fully drafted a while ago, and really just need some light edits. 

this one was written in fall 2021 when I was trying to write some shorter pieces—so it was part of the same batch of fics as the war outside our door keeps raging on (Scar don’t look at this one), be the lightning in me, twilight whispers, and overwhelm me (or this one). but I think I got distracted in early 2022 by writing prompt fics and I never got around to posting this one? I should get around to posting it.

it’s a post-Enemy Lines Leela/Narvin fic that is about Narvin working on talking about What’s Really Going On instead of letting his frustrations stew and bubble over…..and specifically, is about the ways in which Romana was a shitty friend in Enemy Lines and how both Narvin and Leela are allowed to feel their feelings and be upset about the things she did that hurt each of them. 

conspiracy verse

well, once upon a time, you were like. hey want to hear another au idea. and I was like. tell me more. and thus began rabbit hole #2. 😊

the premise of conspiracy verse is: what if, not long after the end of series 6, when the ot3 are dealing with the consequences of their reboot of the population of Gallifrey, a young Romana and young Sartia from another universe suddenly appear in the catacombs?

slight background: young Mana and Sartia end up in the “prime” universe after their Gallifrey is overrun by Daleks, brought by a Vansell from yet another Gallifrey, one wracked with a version of the War. alt!Vansell is the one with the mysterious universe hopping technology, and after he tries to kill young Mana, and Sartia ends up killing him, the two teenagers take a risk and make a portal to another world. surely it’s better than waiting for the Daleks to find them. 

story complications include:

there are actually consequences to the biodata reset. which first meant deciding how far back everyone’s memories were rebooted to. canon is contradictory about this, but we’re ignoring Matthias thinking he was president when Narvin woke him up because logically it has to be earlier than that, if the goal is “before the spread of the virus” and the civil war was canonically a super spreader event. we don’t know exactly when the pig rats the virus originated in got out, but after much discussion, we picked a moment mid-Imperatrix as the point everyone’s biodata is reset to. so no one remembers Romana declaring herself a dictator, or the civil war. but they did wake up to a Citadel in ruins, with hundreds if not thousands of Gallifreyans suddenly dead. meanwhile, anyone who isn’t Gallifreyan—namely any alien students who were on Gallifrey at the time, and the members of the other Temporal Powers in general—remember the civil war and everything after. so needless to say, things are rather politically fraught for Romana right now.

they’re hiding the kids. given how Gallifrey is this close to erupting into more civil unrest, Romana really doesn’t want it getting out that a version of herself from another universe—and a version of a wanted renegade from another universe—have appeared without explanation. so Romana, Leela, and Narvin have pseudo-adopted teenage Mana and Sartia, but their existence is a secret from everyone else on Gallifrey. (and when I say “they” have pseudo-adopted the kids, I really mean that Leela’s the one they’re living with and the one who’s actually taking care of them.)

the kids don’t know about Sartia Prime’s crimes. young Sartia and Mana know Sartia in this universe is a renegade, but that’s it. Narvin and Leela have only just found out from Romana that Sartia (in this universe) tried to kill her, but Romana really does Not want to talk about her Sartia-related trauma…..except for the fact that she inherently distrusts young Sartia and has already very nearly told her the truth about Sartia Prime in a fit of anger over Sartia trying to secretly use the Coronet to find out what the adults are hiding. (and y’know, they are hiding things!)

Pandora is back—kinda. in the catacombs, before hopping universes, Mana was contacted by Pandora, who tricked her into letting Pandora put the Imperatrix Imprimatur into her. a sliver of Pandora from another universe lives in Mana’s head, and no one, including her, knows it. but that fragment of Pandora is restless. she’s been cut off from the rest of herself, and she isn’t staying idle in Mana’s mind. over time, her grip in Mana’s consciousness will only grow—until Romana, Leela, and Narvin will be faced with their old enemy rising again, in the form of Romana as a teenager. and at that point: can Mana be saved? is even trying to save her worth the risk?

Sartia’s mother is still alive—and still scheming. in @presidentromana’s Sartia backstory fic, Sartia ultimately turns her abusive mother (who turned their House into a cult) over to the CIA. in this universe (and in redemption verse) Sartia didn’t have the chance to. that means: if Kinnora find out there’s a young Sartia running around that won’t really be missed—because how could the President admit that she even existed—Kinnora’s vampire-Gallifreyan hybrid schemes are back on, with Sartia as the experimental subject. but Kinnora has refined her plans since the last time they went wrong, and if (ahem, when) she gets her hands on young Sartia, Sartia will actually survive the process—and be a vampire-Gallifreyan hybrid, an abomination in the eyes of Gallifrey. and at that point: will anyone stand by her?

Sartia Prime is still out there—and pissed. her biodata is part of the archive, so she was reset just like everyone else. and now a chunk of her life is missing, Free Time (which she was working with) is scattered, and she’s trying to piece together what happened. basically, Sartia is out there, vaguely in the early chapters of my fic Redacted. and she’ll probably (definitely) become involved in the story at some point.

oh, and it’s a rom-com, too. teenage Sartia and Mana are doing the “slow realization of Feelings for best friend/first crush” story. Romana, Leela, and Narvin are in there “everyone has Feelings but no one has said anything” stage. at this point Sartia is convinced there’s something going on between Romana and Leela, and Mana is convinced there’s something going on between Leela and Narvin. neither is quite sure what that “something” is, but.

this verse truly has it all, I’m so excited to discover where the heck this story ends up taking us.

oh and in this rp verse: I always write (young) Mana, @presidentromana always writes (young) Sartia, I write Leela most of the time, @presidentromana writes (adult) Romana most of the time, and we share Narvin. (those are all the characters who have been involved in the story so far.)

[goofnuggetkarlaa]

Well here's my little year in review shit. Putting under a readmore for your convenience

I posted 13,080 times in 2022

That's 4,441 more posts than 2021!

39 posts created (0%)

13,041 posts reblogged (100%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@bebidocrimes

@domi-de-sade

@slyfox101honk

@pandabully

@shadowgirl-noa

I tagged 457 of my posts in 2022

#the nugget speaks - 31 posts

#ffxiv - 14 posts

#final fantasy xiv - 9 posts

#final fantasy 14 - 9 posts

#ff14 - 9 posts

#v'saka tia - 7 posts

#splatoon 3 - 6 posts

#gpose - 5 posts

#miqomarch - 5 posts

#pvp - 4 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#you know i was gonna reblog this as a joke and then i remembered that ive had like 5 people i havent heard from in years suddenly make a pos

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

so does anyone actually know how unlock the pink slopsuit in salmon run?

i can only see the green and yellow ones, but i dont really wanna buy either of them because i know about the pink one. i dont have to buy one of them first to unlock other options do i?

8 notes - Posted September 18, 2022

#4

since I'm seeing a lot of posts go around (again) here's my own little reminder:

yes, inking spawn is important (less so in ranked tbh but its still good to ink it a little. just dont waste time getting every nook and cranny)

no, you don't have to do it at the start of the match. you have 3 minutes to get it done. ink a bit as you go out each time when you respawn (because yes, you WILL die eventually, or at least your teammates will)

it's important to get to mid early if you know you're good at splatting because it allows you to establish a foothold while your teammates catch up

also keep in mind not every weapon is great for inking turf! something with more spread like an aerospray is better than a blaster or bamboozler

so if you see someone not inking base, don't get angry right away. maybe you and 2 of your teammates are inking, and they decided to go ahead cause you don't need all 4 players competing to ink the same turf. maybe they're a heavy splatling and are better suited for splatting (because yes, splatting is still important, just slightly less than inking turf)

10 notes - Posted September 14, 2022

#3

anyways please appreciate this 5 second drawing i made in ms paint when i was filled with rage at a teammate who just sat there for like 10 seconds at the corner of the map on high tide while this stupid ufo was blocking me from reviving them

11 notes - Posted October 10, 2022

#2

I WANT ALL MY FOLLOWERS TO KNOW THAT I JUST SCROLLED PAST THE LONGEST COLOR OF THE SKY POST EVER AND I DECIDED TO NOT MAKE YOU SUFFER AS WELL

HOWEVER

if you want to see the post lmk, i saved it as a draft just in case i need it later.

12 notes - Posted May 31, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

I know people are talking about how cool it would be for Shadow to have 70s music playing in the background, but bro I am STILL waiting on some Crush 40

233 notes - Posted April 12, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[originalleftist]

A more hopeful, and yet still sickening, take on the current situation in Ukraine. Please, read the full article, to understand some of what is happening in Ukraine right now, and why.

"As Russia's wider war on Ukraine grinds into its third year, three main dynamics are shaping the battlefield.

First: Russia is fully mobilized-politically, industrially and militarily. But this mobilization is depleting resources the Kremlin can't renew. Most importantly, stocks of old Cold War-vintage weapons.

In other words, Russia is strong, but fragile.

Second: Ukraine is mobilizing, too, but it still relies on foreign aid to meet urgent financial and military needs-and Russia-friendly Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives are withholding a decisive portion of that aid.

Third: Ukrainian tactics are superior to Russian tactics, helping Ukrainian formations to defeat much larger Russian formations. But tactics are irrelevant when and where Ukrainian forces simply run out of ammunition.

The interplay of these three dynamics explains the seeming contradictions that are evident every day along the 600-mile front line of the wider war. The Ukrainians defeat most Russian attacks, inflicting catastrophic casualties on increasingly under-equipped Russian assault groups.

But the Russians keep coming, and keep gaining ground. And the one person who can stop them-Republican Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Mike Johnson-so far has refused to do so.

All Johnson has to do is bring to a vote an overwhelmingly popular bill that would send $60 billion in aid to Ukraine. Aid that would pay for the ammunition Ukrainian forces need to hold off Russian forces until the Russians finally deplete their reserves of old Cold War weapons.

In 26 months of hard fighting, the Russian military has lost 15,300 tanks, fighting vehicles, howitzers and other weapons in Ukraine, along with hundreds of thousands of troops. The Ukrainian military's own losses are a third as heavy.

And yet the Russian force in Ukraine is bigger than ever. "The army is actually now larger-by 15 percent-than it was when it invaded Ukraine, " U.S. Army general Christopher Cavoli, NATO's top commander, told the House Armed Services Committee. "Over the past year, Russia increased its front-line troop strength from 360,000 to 470,000."

That's possible only because the Kremlin drafted more than 300,000 men starting in late 2022 in addition to increasing bonuses for volunteers. At the same time, Russian brigades have curtailed basic training for new recruits in order to speed fresh forces to the front.

But these unprepared new recruits don't survive very long on the front line. Lately, between 800 and a thousand Russians have been dying every day in the wider war, according to the Ukrainian defense ministry.

Russian soldiers die as fast as they arrive in Ukraine. The Estonian defense ministry concluded, in one recent study, that killing 100,000 Russians this year would permanently damage, if not collapse, the Kremlin's mobilization effort.

Ukraine is on track to kill 300,000 Russians this year. It isn't sustainable.

Nor are Russia's vehicle losses sustainable. Russian industry produces 500 or 600 new tanks and maybe a little more than a thousand new fighting vehicles every year. The Russian military loses more than a thousand tanks and close to 2,000 fighting vehicles every year-and the loss rate is increasing.

There's a gap-one the Kremlin fills by pulling out of long-term storage tanks and fighting vehicles dating back to the 1970s, or even the '60s or '50s in some cases. But these old vehicles are a finite resource. Built during the Soviet Union's industrial heyday, they cannot be replaced with new production.

Ominously for the Russians, the most recent projections anticipate that, as early as mid-2025, there won't be any more old tanks and fighting vehicles left in storage. "Time is running out for Russia," wrote Artur Rehi, an Estonian solder and analyst.

We're already seeing evidence of a shortfall: Russian troops riding into battle in unarmored freight trucks and even open-top golf carts that the Kremlin purchased from a Chinese company.

It should go without saying that golf carts don't last long in combat with, say, Ukraine's angriest anti-tank missile teams and most skilled drone operators. It doesn't matter if the Russian army in Ukraine has 300,000 or 400,000 people if those people utterly lack protection on the battlefield.

The fragility of Russia's army might be more evident if Ukraine's own army weren't starving for ammo and, at times, incapable of shooting back. When Ukraine's 2023 offensive petered out late last year after achieving modest gains, Russia seized the initiative-and went on the attack all along the front line.

The timing couldn't have been worse for the Ukrainians. At almost exactly the same moment in mid-October, Speaker of the House Johnson refused to bring to a vote the $60 billion in fresh funding U.S. president Joe Biden had proposed for Ukraine.

Johnson is a close ally of former president Donald Trump, who was impeached in 2019 for attempting to coerce Ukrainian officials to support a smear campaign targeting Trump's political opponents. Trump has since called on Ukraine to surrender portions of its territory to Russia.

Deprived of the hundreds of thousands of artillery shells and thousands of surface to air missiles that Biden had hoped to buy for them, Ukrainian forces have had to make hard choices: retreating from positions that, with enough firepower, they might have held.

A 2,000-person Ukrainian garrison quit the city of Avdiivka in mid-February after inflicting tens of thousands of casualties on the attacking Russians-and then running out of ammo. Now another 2,000-person Ukrainian garrison faces the same terrible dilemma in the canal district of Chasiv Yar.

At the same time, Ukraine's best air defense batteries have fallen silent for a want of American-made missiles. Ukraine's biggest cities-Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odesa-are increasingly defenseless as more Russian missiles and bombs pummel them.

Six hundred Ukrainian civilians, including children, died in air raids in March. A missile raid on Kyiv last night destroyed the city's biggest power plant, casting thousands of homes, and vital weapons workshops, into darkness. "More air defense, and our assistance, is needed now," Bridget Brink, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, pleaded yesterday.

Ukrainian troops are losing ground, but they're losing ground to legions of poorly-trained Russian troops riding in antique vehicles. They're losing ground only because they're running out of ammo. Ukrainians' "ability to defend their terrain that they currently hold and their air space would fade rapidly-will fade rapidly-without ... continued U.S. support," Cavoli said.

Conversely, with U.S. support, a rearmed Ukrainian military could protect its cities from Russian raids and, on the front line, achieve firepower superiority over a Russian military that's fast running out of modern weapons.

The choice, tragically, isn't the Ukrainians' to make. It's up to one man, an American. The leader of a thin Republican majority in one house of the U.S. Congress.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, for one, understands the politics and the stakes. "If Ukraine's partners act decisively, I am confident that we can defeat Russian terror before it spreads further," Zelensky wrote today."

I will add that while I understand that a journalist might hesitate to make such an allegation without proof, I do not believe that the disastrous timing referred to in the article, of Mike Johnson and MAGA blocking aid to Ukraine as Russia began it's counter offensive, is a coincidence. There are far too many close and well-documented ties between high-level Republicans and the Kremlin, from the infamous Trump Tower meeting during Trump's 2016 campaign, to Republican legislators visiting the Kremlin during the Trump years, to Musk's open hobnobbing with Putin and using his control of Starlink to sabotage Ukraine and aid Russia, to Tucker Carlson's recent visit and interview of Putin, to Republicans knowingly using misinformation from a Russian agent to fuel their impeachment inquiry against Biden (basically a continuation of the same scheme to dig up dirt on Biden in Ukraine that resulted in Trump's first impeachment, as mentioned in this article).

Discussions were had, and plans were shared. And now Ukrainians die at Mike Johnson's hand.

[theninjasanctuary]

I'm still getting Tumblr glitches, as in, the end-of-year post I saved in drafts is nowhere to be found in the browser version, which is where I wrote and saved it, but is there on the app. Ehh.

Well, this one did not feel like a year where anything significant happened. Which I suppose is a way of saying I've had a decent enough year? As in, the world continues to burn, but I don't recall anything officially bad happening to me, despite all the whining and strong language I did in my posts. Nobody died, I'm gainfully employed and mostly bamboozling people that I can keep up. Looking at what I wrote to summarize the previous year, this one's been a breeze. Even though when I re-read what I've been posting this year - and I don't actually remember half of it -, it seems at least in the winter and spring, I wasn't having a great time between sleep deprivation, money woes and raising a sweet, but messy and needy cat; and from the summer onwards have not updated much at all, always complaining about stress. Well, for one thing, it is obvious I should reduce time spent on Reddit so there's more of it for everything else...

In no particular order: this was surely a better year from the health perspective. The last time I was ill was an annoying cold in early-to-mid February, where I actually needed antibiotics again because I tested positive for lung chlamydia, and have been generally just fine ever since, a welcome break after all the ailments 2022 threw at me. The achy wrist is still there and annoying, but I'm hoping it is fixable with the new treatment plan. And the toe I stubbed really bad in early September is still not a pretty sight, but in early December I finally started seeing a healthy pink regrowth emerge from under the cuticle, so the purple bruised part might finally be gone by, idk, April?

Could have used more exercise, as always, but I kept up with massage therapy and tried to keep up with physio appointments at least (there were some unintended breaks). And I've made some improvements about keeping my cholesterol level in check, and feel good about the new GP.

The cat is indeed no longer a kitten, but has grown into a fine adult, he's 1,5 years old now, weighs close to 6 kilos and is a pretty, floofy, bright boy with a friendly, curious personality. It has been expensive (getting all.the.things from zero, plus medical costs, plus food), and takes up loads of time, he nearly always delays bedtime so I lose sleep, and I've had to wash all the rugs, even replacing one with one that's easier to clean, because he either puked on them (his tummy is a bit sensitive apparently), or used the texture to scoot dingleberries off his floofy butt. Ehh. I'm now a lot less squeamish about cat poop, and since we are trying to keep his butt hair at least somewhat trimmed (despite resistance), there are fewer accidents, and he's learned to tolerate the occasional butt showers without clawing.

He's also grown less bitey when playing, and is still positive and confident, not holding any grudges. His favourite treat is freshly boiled egg (quail or chicken will both do, and he likes his portion slightly warm). He does not enjoy getting brushed all that much, but we keep a Furminator handy for quick swipes, because otherwise every damn thing is covered with cat hair, and the floors develop hefty, dark grey dust bunnies. Beyond demanding before-bedtime treats and play, he mostly lets us sleep without interrupting, as he's not particularly food-motivated, just gets impatient waiting for his morning cuddles sometimes. He only slept in our bed for a few weeks as a baby, initially between our pillows, then moved towards the end of the bed, but then decided he needs more space, and now sleeps where he feels like - sometimes on a chair in our room, sometimes under the bed, sometimes in whichever comfy spot elsewhere he prefers that night. I sometimes wish he was more of a snuggler, tbh, since he's so nice and soft with big plushie vibes. He does come asking that I pick him up for a cuddle and purr session when I get out of bed, or come home from wherever I've been, or sometimes before bedtime as well, and occasionally he'll have a cuddly kind of mood all day long, but overall, he's not a lap cat. Still, I lift and carry him around often enough that it might be contributing to my wrist issues. (Typical De Quervain's syndrome sufferers are mothers with young children.)

Work-wise, I've been feeling like a failure all year, despite actually getting at least some things done by winging it, and I feel I've been growing and learning with the new tasks I've had. Even so though, there's loads of guilt and stress, and I've often struggled with an irrational urge to avoid looking at my emails. It's not even that the workload is that much, it all boils down to my inability to focus. And I still haven't gotten any professional help with that, because my ability to go looking is limited (because I'm busy either stressing about work or procrastinating). And I still haven't seen an optometrist either, despite it being on the to-do-list since spring.

Can't say I've kept up on the home front that great either. My cleaning standards are slipping, particularly when it comes to dusting. There are just way too many things. And the inability to focus bleeds over to chores, things take way too long to get done or are delayed endlessly. I wish I could fix this. OTL

I keep procrastinating by browsing second-hand stores a lot. Made a switch to Sellpy as the first choice this year, since Momox changed their pricing policy and now Sellpy has the better deals as well as cheaper and easier shipping/returns, despite never having discount codes like Momox does. As for the score of items purchased, there were wins and losses, I did manage to get a few stellar items I wear a lot, but also returned lots of complete duds, either things that unfortunately didn't fit, or things I should not have expected to work in the first place, I guess. And I certainly kept a few items I don't use as much... if ever, as remains to be seen.

I see it would be better to tone this habit down to save both time and money, but since the shopping urges are at least partly hormonal, I cannot count on consistently making rational decisions. At least I'm not experimenting much with skincare at this point, mostly sticking to repurchasing staples. It still gets a bit expensive even so, and it has to be said that I've had an annoying amount of acne and picking issues this year despite keeping up with an elaborate skincare routine. All of this to be filed under *shit I still don't know how to fix*.

The travelling I managed this year was pretty nice in hindsight, a week in France at the end of January, then another in mid-August, then a weekend trip to Brussels, and an overnight in Helsinki to see a great live. I wish I could do more of this without financial stress, and worrying about leaving the cat (he's not taking separation super-hard, but still). The trip to Japan with friends we could not afford to take was a bit of a shitshow, btw: scorching temperatures, then a typhoon and then return flight cancellation, so stuck at the airport for 2 days before eventually getting rerouted.

Socializing: I think I did better than last year in this respect, I finally was in the mood for, and had the opportunity to throw a proper birthday garden party for myself, which was lovely. Additional meet-ups happened too, even if it would have been fun to have more. And having the cool coworker back at the office has been good, as expected. Now if I'd manage to actually get work done in reasonable hours, and feel good enough about my work output to warrant taking the time for fun, including hanging out with people, it would be even better.

Family: things are good with the boyf and most of the family, but I am stressed about big brother, his wife, and mom's will. Idk how any of this will be resolved. Ideally, I'd just buy the things I want from mom before inheritance ever becomes an issue, thus preventing any dividing issues, but I'd need to win the lottery beforehand...

I managed to do more gardening at mom's over the summer, which was rather nice. The summer wasn't as stressful climate-wise as feared, it was very dry in June, but enough rain from there onwards, and not too hot (I didn't get round to buying a mobile air conditioner nor heat-reflecting blinds, nor Birkenstocks, so this was very welcome). Still sad about losing a major feature of the entire garden, the big maple tree. Hoping to plant a replacement in the spring.

My aims for the next year involve being more responsible about money. It would be ridiculous to end up short on funds again when I'll be earning more than ever. The plan is to put more into the index fund retirement scheme, and I've started an automatic saving scheme as well (it rounds up all the card payments to 1 € up + I've added a monthly lump payment). I do hope to finally calm down about wardrobe upgrades, since I already have so much fabulous, joy-sparking stuff, and instead improve fitness a bit, so things will look better on me. I should definitely get more exercise anyway, and get some sort of a cheapish sports watch might be good. And I need to eat less sugar, and it would be good to get back to 8/16.

It also looks like 2024 will be one of the hardest work years of my life, and I have to manage to pull it all off for things to be easier in the future. It would be good if I just read books in my downtime instead of procrastinating on social media. Work guilt has meant very little reading just for fun this year, and that's not the kind of person I want to be.

As for what to look forward to, I will travel to France again in a few weeks, and probably to New York in June.

[lyrsui]

currently working on a poetry manuscript,

and that's been true for the last four years. but around this time in 2019, i had a handful of poems, and i had some vague ideas of what i was writing about--at first i thought i was writing a satirical commentary on internet culture, but then as i wrote more and more, i had these other pieces that were like... sadder. in early versions of the book, i tried to tell a straightforward sort of "story" but the poems didn't work quite that way. so, i found other ways to sort them.

so, what have i accomplished since then?

in the fall of 2019, i probably had like 6-8 poems tops

then i signed up for a yearlong writing program at the start of 2020. it was costly, but it helped me a lot. it was a crash course in poetry. i read books. i wrote new poems. at the end of the program, mid-2021, i had something like 20-25 poems, but i was not yet at a full-length count.

i spent another year writing poems on my own. i joined a writing workshop or two but mostly i wrote in solitude. i finally got to about 35 poems by the summer of 2022. i felt hopeful.

in fall 2022, i submitted my manuscript to first book contests. i had done a lot of revising on my own. i asked a person or two to be my beta-readers. i felt good about most of my poems, as i had been diligently revising the 2019 drafts to their best, and i was nervous about the newer pieces but happy to have them included.

i received a lot of rejections. but i had two poems published online, and a third included in a horror poetry anthology. i was also named a semifinalist for one of the book contests i'd entered. these were all small wins.

i took a break from the poetry stuff to focus on school, then on job hunting. now things in my life have settled down and i am back to thinking about poetry.

i signed up for a poetry conference this weekend, where real live editors offer their genuine feedback and talk craft with us. i'm excited by the opportunity. i was given the first ten pages of notes and some of it was cutting, but goodness it's been so long since i really had sharp feedback on my work, and i am appreciative of it nonetheless. the conference runs till Monday morning. the notes are truly invaluable.

i plan to pursue an MFA in 2025, which would only be an extension of the $$$$ i am invested in my writing already. the yearlong workshop was several thousand, the conference a couple thousand as well. the manuscript consultations i plan to pay for will also run me a few hundred each, and the submission fees add up quick. truly, no one is lying when they say that writing is a pursuit mired in privilege. I am grateful to work a day job that makes a lot of all this easier, but it's cushioned work, isn't it? i recognize that more and more lately.

i am not mentioning the price tags to brag, but really just to highlight that money has felt so necessary in lieu of organic connections or inner networks. money isn't buying me placements in top tier lit mags but i feel like it is buying me the notes and feedback to guide my revision towards stronger poems that may one day be lit mag worthy.

i am excited by the work ahead. invigorated by the energy of knowing i have work worth launching into the world. i plan to use october to edit and refine, as there are many upcoming contests and i want to have better drafts to send along than i sent last year.

i plan to sign up for more paid workshops that will help me with drafting my fiction. i only have one short story under my belt, and i'd like to slowly round out that list too, eventually having three then five then ten, all in rotation to lit mags submissions too. i want my name to hold weight eventually. to become familiar.

it feels really good to have clear dreams and a clear plan for my writing career. my goal is to work on these poems and continue trying to place them. to partake in writing programs that may help me get exposure to other editors and mentors, etc. i hope that by the time i am ready to apply to MFA programs that I will be able to ask for a reference or two out of these workshops. by the time i apply for a poetry MFA, i hope to just use the published poems and an unpublished one or two as well, to feel confident about my abilities. then i'll generate a second book of poetry, who knows about what, and publish that too.

it's all fun to think about!

[lyra-swan]

- Mechanical Angel -

Ensemble Stars Military AU, Age-Gap, Father/Son, Enemies to Lovers, Slow Burn

Main relationship: Tenshouin Eichi/Kagehira Mika

Other relationships (spoilery): temporary MidoMika, temporary MikaNaru, ShuMika, heavy past EiTori angst, with a dash of KogaNaru, and an implied hint of Tatsuei, past ShuNazu, and RinHii.

Short synopsis: Mika's family dies, he's adopted by Eichi, but Eichi uses him for an experiment in a rather vaguely early-mid 20th century setting in an alternate world. Mika is 7yrs old in the beginning, and 14 at the end. Eichi is 22, and 29 at the end.

I began posting this in 2021 and completed the main story in 2022. Be sure to read the ao3 tags, there's a lot of heavy topics throughout all these 300k words.

Author's note in read more, some affectionate rambling.

The longest fic on my ao3 belongs to this, it takes up 300k words of my 490k total word count, and took about a year to write. 1 year, 1 month, and 10 days specifically according to my time statistics. It took a lot to write and I have to say I became insanely attached.

Sometimes I still regret not finishing the first draft before editing and posting the first few chapters, because I feel the plot becomes a bit confusing by the end parts with untied loose ends, but in the end it's still just a fanfic so it's not that big a deal, no matter how much I love it. Either way, I am extremely glad to have written and finished it, and even more happy for the readers who also enjoyed reading what I wrote.

Also it was very difficult for me to resist posting the first part on Christmas Day 2021 because Christmas and winter are important themes in this fic. Especially winter, that's 'Eichi's season'. Midori's is summer, Tori's is spring, and Arashi's is autumn. There's a meaning behind assigning those four characters a season, you can figure it out yourself or demand an answer from me and I'll respond with a few paragraphs.

Those graphics included in the post? They don't fit the angsty tone of the fic to some people, but to me it is a perfect fit in ways I have no idea how to explain.

Though I feel like I could write a thousand words and more about this fic I will stop here. I'll definitely want to make similar posts for my other two longfics if I have the time and energy, and shorter posts for shorter fics if I want to post them here, too.