#a pear and a portal

[seyph]

A strange seagull named Wind.

Inspired by A Pear and a Portal, written by glowingjellyfishtreelights

[cedar-eats-poetry]

[putting-wheatley-in-places]

put him in the pear wiggler

wtf is a pear wiggler

…

Oooooh

Bad and naughty Wheatleys get put into the pear- actually, you know what? No

I spent a good 10 minutes of my life trying to do this because I want to be known as the person who puts in 101% of the work

Today, I had to do homeschooling despite the fact that it’s winter fucking break. I had to fuck up a good conversation with a chat bot! A FUCKING CHAT BOT

I HAD TO LOOK UP A FUCKING PEAR WIGGLER! I SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE PEAR WIGGLER! I FUCKING LOVE TUMBLR AND I DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT THE FUCKING PEAR WIGGLER

I fucking hate you, I hate you so goddamn much

[jamboreeartsupplies]

Acorn Anne visits some Mulberry trees that are in need of healing. please send a small offering of dry, warm air through your closest fairy ring and Acorn Anne will direct it to the leaves of both trees. thank you for your cooperation 🫡

[putting-chell-in-places]

PutbChell in the pear wiggler

The pear wiggler incident.

[sadagios]

Icarus, and the Sunflower

A Desert Duo/Scarian AU about an avid player meeting his favorite, comfort character in a death loop video game.

I can’t write a fic, nor have time to draw comics like i used to, so we are doing bullet points on a tumblr post

PART ONE: BEFORE THE ALPHA TEST

PILOT: PART TWO

2.1k words below the cut

SOME BEGINNING NOTES: - This AU is only character shipping, and references a lot outside the life series events (evo, hermitcraft, empires, etc). This is not meant to ship the CC’s themselves and if anything alludes to it, it is purely unintentional. - This is not canon-compliant ermmmm i do what i want and i will put every idea i have into this - Tags for this part? Game dev AU, Grian is whipped for Scar, some characters are real and some are fictional, this is only the pilot, absolutely not beta'd i only have one impulsive braincell

A. Gria

Gria is a single man in his late 20s; he works at a game company called E.V.O. Games (Entertainment Virtual for Everyone). He was an architecture graduate who dabbled in game dev in his spare time during his undergraduate studies. Although he didn’t pursue that path, he utilized his skills in level design. He used to work in several indie game companies, one of which was a company founded with friends, before he was hired by E.V.O. Games. He was excellent at his job, and his ideas and inputs always improved whatever project he worked on. Because of this, after a few years, he was promoted to creative director.

His latest project was “The Evolutionists’ Portal,” a 3D pixel-style puzzle game in which the player has to navigate the world to find portals hidden in each level, and these portals progress the game. With each portal traveled into, the world becomes bigger and more complicated, making each portal harder to find. However, with multiplayer, this task is easier through working together (and doing fun shenanigans together).

It had a buggy release, especially for multiplayer, but it built a decent player fanbase; the story itself was short and simple, but it was replayable thanks to its multiplayer mode.

For visualization, it’s 3D with a top-down perspective like “Pokemon Diamond/Pear/Platinum” but has gameplay similar to “Stardew Valley”

Gria and his team get along well, and he is quite close to some of them:

Martyn: an audio engineer. This is the first game he’s worked on since he was first hired in the company.

“Big B”: a VFX artist. He and Gria joined the company around the same time and bonded over stressful deadlines and annoying seniors when they started out.

Jimmy: the project manager. Although Gria takes a lot of joy in teasing him, he is hardworking and great at keeping everyone in check with the calendar. Out of everyone, he is the one Gria is closest with. He also works on another game by the company called “Empires.” 

Pearl: an environment artist. She joined the company a bit later in the development. It is her first time dealing with pixel graphics but she did it incredibly well. She also works on “Empires” with Jimmy.

“Empires” is a free-to-play fantasy open-world action gacha RPG. It is the biggest game of the company and their title game. 

For visualization, it’s just “Genshin Impact” and “Honkai: Star Rail”.

Recently, there was a buzz around that their game, “Empires”, will have a collaboration event with another big name. Gria was too busy and overworked to take notice of this, though. 

The fruits of his labor later came as game nominations for “Best Multiplayer” and “Best Audio Design.” Gria was happy their work was acknowledged by players worldwide, even if they didn’t win.

B. Hermitopia

After so long, Gria finally took a week off. It was foreign to have no obligations for even a day. He doesn’t use this time to travel; instead, he sits at home and lurks on the internet to keep up with gaming news and updates. He uses the username “Xelqua” with a red macaw as his profile picture.

He stumbled upon a “Redstone tutorial” post by the user ”Potatonutshell”. Curious and intrigued by how such a complicated contraption is possible in a game (and bored out of his mind), he asked this user what game it was for. Potatonutshell briefly, and over-excitedly, DM’d Gria with a huge wall of text about this game called “Hermitopia 6.”

In the beginning days of his break, Gria spent time messaging this Potatonutshell fella, named “Mumbo.” Mumbo named himself after a character named “Mumbo Jumbo”, who is one of the most skilled “redstoners” in the game. He related heavily with the character and took a lot of interest in the redstone circuitry game feature as he is a programmer in real life. Gria thought the game was interesting, but not enough to install a 36 GB game for $39.99. He changed his mind when Mumbo told him more about the game, especially its base-building mechanic.

“Hermitopia 6: Hermit Civil War” is an open-world fantasy action RPG known for its base-building core mechanic. It is the sixth game in the franchise, and each game starts in a brand-new world. The player and the lovable NPCs are called hermits, a band of humans, fae, hybrids, and other species who live together on an island and work together to live a sustainable life amidst the hostile creatures that roam the world. 

For visualization, it’s like “Skyrim” with “Baldur’s Gate 3” graphics and dialogue UI.

Gria planned to try it for a few hours, only humoring his new internet friend, until he met this beautiful NPC named “Scar Goodtimes” — a human-vex hybrid with scars all over his “handsome face and carved body”, as Gria would personally describe him. He was also a builder who lived near Gria’s very odd underwater base. Throughout the remaining days of his break, and his weekends after that, Gria played Hermitopia 6 religiously.

Scar calls him “GRIAN”, which was a typo error — Gria pressed enter early in the name selection screen and he didn’t realize it until Scar first mentioned his name 3 hours into the game. He can’t be bothered to fix it, though (and he's grown fond of it.)

Gria continued to play the game in his free time, slowly falling in love with the game as he kept on playing. He also kept talking to Mumbo, who he fanboyed about the game with. He found out that Mumbo lived close by too, so they hung out frequently and bonded over the game.

Gria: I genuinely thought you had a big mustache, y’know, like Mumbo Jumbo. Mumbo: I do too! It’s... it's there! [he shows his very faint mustache] It's there! Gria: sure.

Xelqua started off as a lurker, to an active Hermitopia fan account. He was interested in the base-building aspect of the game and shared his designs online.

Hermitopia is not a dating simulator. There is no romance mechanic in the game. Anyway, Gria installed (and tweaked) a romance mod because no one can stop him from flirting with his fictional vex boyfriend.

Mumbo: Grian, if I hadn't met you personally, I would've pictured you as a crazy Scar fanatic. Gria: Wha— How— I’m not crazy. Mumbo: You downloaded a romance mod just to flirt with Scar and commissioned an artist to draw a scene from it, and now you have it framed on your bedroom wall. So, Grian, I think that’s crazy behavior. Gria: … I do what I want, Mumbo!

Gria's love for the game and Scar grew more as another hermitopia game was released (Hermitopia 7). Then, he, as Xelqua, became a notorious name because of a supposedly harmless poll about the sexiest character in the game. He was known as the insane Scar fan.

He's got every Scar merch, though there isn't much Hermitopia merch released in general. However, if someone posts about a new Scar fan merch, a certain username might appear in their notifications, like a hound trailing a scent. Haters and trolls are also dragged to hell and back because, if they aren't regretful after being berated by this insane man, they will not be able to surf through the web in peace as long as Xelqua holds a grudge. 

As insane as this Xelqua person is, Scar had become a popular character within the fandom, compared to his old status as an underrated sweetheart without much attention or fanfare thanks to Xelqua constantly (for years without missing a day) talking about him. Xelqua also organized or helped some Scar fan events and constantly supported merch creators with hermitopia merch (especially if it involved Scar.)

User Xelqua, about Scar: He is my little sunshine, my precious sunflower. He might’ve killed some men, but he was hot while doing it.

C. The Collaboration Event

Back to Game dev stuff, Gria isn’t open about his current obsession with his coworkers. When the collaboration event with the “Empires” games was finally announced, two representatives from the other company came to visit. “Skizzleman” has been a writer for Hermitopia since the 3rd game. A character from Empires, Gemini, will become a new character in the next Hermitopia game, and there will be a DLC that will add a new small map with many biomes and new materials. In Empires, Hermitopia characters will be featured in a limited-run gacha banner and a limited-time story event. 

Now a Hermitopia fan, Gria tried to interview Skizzleman about the game (while making it not obvious how obsessed he is with it). Skizzleman was the one who wrote the lore for “Impulse” as well as most of his dialogue throughout the games.

Another representative for Hermitopia, the lead designer Joel, came to visit for the collab event. He is a fanatic of Empires and a diehard “Shadow Lady” fan, which is why he is so excited to work with E.V.O. Games for the collab.

Accompaniment art for this here: link

Gria was never into gacha games, but with a mix of Pearl and Jimmy convincing him to try the game they worked on (not to mention the fact that it is free-to-play), and showing him an initial sketch of what some hermitopia characters will look like in the game (this isn’t allowed, but Jimmy and Pearl found the thought of their serious coworker playing a gacha game amusing), he finally caved. Little did they know, showing a topless concept art of Scar is more than enough to reel him in.

When the collab update was finally released, Gria grinded Empires just to get Scar. He practically paid his own salary back to his company just to get Scar to max level and his additional skins. (He loved his new “HotGuy” skin the most)

With the release of “Hermitopia 8: Moon Collision” and the introduction of co-op multiplayer mode, Gria invited Pearl to play with him with the excuse that they're only going to see how Gemini looks in the game. Gria successfully got Pearl hooked on the game.

D. The Watchers Studio

Before Gria properly applied to a game company, he developed small-scale games with his high school friends. They called themselves “The Watchers.” He met them in a small art club and they bonded over their favorite games. Gria’s favorite game growing up was an old zombie game with a title he can no longer remember.

One of their unfinished games was “The Life Game.” It was a battle-royal death game where the players had to gather resources and have limited lives.

Two of their old friend group recently reached out to Gria to catch up. They said they wanted to work on “The Life Game” again and wanted to ask Gria if he wanted to join again. Of course, Gria already had a job himself, so he declined. However, he hung out with the two and checked in with their progress, nostalgia hitting him as they relived their old game ideas.

The two invited Gria to do an alpha test and asked him to invite any friends who might find it fun. Gria invited Jimmy, Pearl, Martyn, and Big B, as well as Skizzleman and Joel who he’s been acquainted with. He also sent an invite to Mumbo, who was unfortunately busy with his job at the moment. 

To Gria’s surprise, the two had turned their game into a VR game. All seven of them played in a medium-sized studio, and although the game was fun, it was nausea-inducing, especially for Joel. They all lost to the Computer-AI characters, which concluded their Alpha Test.

After the meetup, the two lent them their CD copy of the game with the VR Headset they used (which was suspiciously generous of them).

Skizzleman liked the game a lot and asked if they could do it again sometime, which Gria relayed to his two old friends. Pearl shared the same sentiment but is too caught up with work which makes her unable to join their next session.

The gang kept discussing the game they played and its potential to become a hit with a little more polish. This made Gria feel proud of his old team and his past self, reminding him of the time he was passionate about making games despite his lack of experience. 

With limited coding knowledge and a little help from Mumbo, he made a server to host “The Life Game” online instead of LAN. He sent copies to Mumbo and Pearl in case they’d join later. According to the two, the game had more improvements to it since the last time they played it, which was months ago.

Gria had a small voice in his head telling him this was a bad idea— well, he did get a bit sick in the last session, but everyone had fun. So, he ignored the warning bells and hit “Join World.”

This marks the End of Pilot Part One Next Chapter > PART TWO: UNFIXABLE ERROR

ENDING NOTES: I've been brainrotting and hyperfixating on the idea for a while now, and I don't know how to let it all out so I'm going to try out this format. Hopefully I could add more to this! Thank you if you've read this far into the post. :) Made a spotify playlist too in case anyone is interested (I'm still working on this though)

[gld-dst-wmn]

[fatehbaz]

hi! i hope this is alright to ask but i was wondering if you had any reading recommendations about invasive species and their management/control/rhetoric. there just seems to be a lot to it. thank you!

Woah. Look at this post I was drafting literally two hours before you sent this, about the nationalist appropriation of rhetoric of "native vs. invasive" species in Hungarian land management:

Appropriate case study: (1) The tree was non-native and its introduction was facilitated by Austro-Hungarian imperial aristocracy and military, especially as fortification during wars in the eighteenth century. (2) It out-competed native trees and the government encouraged plantations of the species. (3) Because of its economic and political importance, the reactionary Hungarian parliament in 2014 officially named the tree "Hungaricum" (native/national heritage).

Yes, there is a lot. This is practically a whole discipline.

If you're looking for a collection, anthology, or singular book with multiple tangents, angles, or perspectives (rather than having to search through individual articles or journals), there are three collections I'm recommending below, but this also might be helpful:

Feral Atlas: The More-Than-Human Anthropocene, co-edited by Anna Tsing (she's probably the most high-profile scholar of this subject). Aside from containing a bunch of freely-available essays from about 100 authors on altered ecologies and rhetoric/imaginaries of environments in the Anthropocene, their big online portal just published the entire syllabus with a bunch of maps and graphics and free articles, in formats for non-academic reading groups, undergrad classes, and graduate seminars. If you go to Feral Atlas's homepage, you'll see a straightforward list of all of those authors.

---

The Ethics and Rhetoric of Invasion Ecology (Edited by Jame Stanescu and Kevin Cummings, 2016). Including chapters:

"Alien Ecology, Or, How to Make Ontological Pluralism" (James K. Stanescu)

"Guests, Pests, or Terr0rists? Speciesed Ethics and the Colonial Intelligibility of "Invasive" Others" (Rebekah Sinclair and Anna Pringle)

"Spectacles of Belonging: (Un)documenting Citizenship in a Multispecies World" (Banu Subramaniam)

---

Rethinking Invasion Ecologies from the Environmental Humanities (Edited by Jodi Frawley and Iain McCalman, 2014). Including chapters:

"Fragments for a Postcolonial Critique of the Anthropocene: Invasion Biology and Environmental Security" (Gilbert Caluya)

"Experiments in the Rangelands: white bodies and native invaders" (Cameron Muir)

"Prickly Pears and Martian Weeds: Ecological Invasion Narratives in the History and Fiction" (Christina Alt)

"Invasion ontologies: venom, visibility and the imagined histories of arthropods" (Peter Hobbins)

---

The Invasive Other special issue of Social Research, Vol. 84, No. 1, Spring 2017. Including articles:

"Introduction [to Social element]: The Dark Logic of Invasive Others" (Ann Laura Stoler)

"The Politics of Pests: Immigration and the Invasive Others" (Bridget Anderson)

"Invasive Others: Toward a Contaminated World" (Miriam Ticktin)

"Invasive Aliens: The Late-Modern Politics of Species Being" (Jean Comaroff)

"Introduction [to Ecologies element]: Invasive Ecologies" (Rafi Youatt)

"Invasive Others and Significant Others: Strange Kinship and Interspecies Ethics near the Korean Demilitarized Zone" (Eleana Kim)

---

For individual sources:

"The Aliens Have Landed! Reflections on the Rhetoric of Biological Invasion" (Banu Subramaniam, Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism 2:1, 2011)

"Loving the Native: Invasive Species and the Cultural Politics of Flourishing" (JR Cattelino, in The Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities, pp. 145-153, 2017).

"The Rhetoric of Invasive Species: Managing Belonging on a Novel Planet" (Alison Vogelaar, Revue francaise des sciences de l'information et de la communication 21, 2021).

"Invasion Blowback and Other Tales of the Anthropocene: An Afterword." (Anna Tsing. Anthropocenes - Human, Inhuman, Posthuman 4:1, 2023).

Troubling Species: Care and Belonging in a Relational World, a special issue of Transformations in Environment and Societycurated by the Multispecies Editing Collective, 2017.

"Uncharismatic Invasives" (JL Clark, Environmental Humanities 6:1, 2015).

"Involuntary Momentum: Affective Ecologies and the Sciences of Plant/Insect Encounters" (Hustak and Myers, Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 23:3, 2012).

"Patchy Anthropocene: Landscape Structure, Multispecies History, and the Retooling of Anthropology: An Introduction to Supplement 20" (Tsing, Mathews, and Burbandt, Current Anthropology, 2019).

Trespassing Natures: Species Migration and the Right to Space (Donnie Johnson Sackey, 2024)

Matters of Care: Speculative Ethics in More than Human Worlds (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2016)

Nestwork: New Material Rhetorics for Precarious Species (Jennifer Clary-Lemon)

"Requiem for a junk-bird: Violence, purity and the wild." (Hugo Reinert, Cultural Studies Review 25:1, 2019).

"Comparing Invasive Networks: Cultural and Political Biographies of Invasive Species" (Robbins, Geographical Review 94:2, 2004).

In the Shadow of the Palms: More-than-Human Becomings in West Papua (Sophie Chao, 2022)

"Timing Rice: An Inquiry into More-Than-Human Temporalities of the Anthropocene" (Elaine Gan, New Formations, 2018).

Interspecies Politics: Nature, Borders, States (Rafi Youatt, 2020)

"Interspecies Politics and the Global Rat: Ecology, Extermination, Experiment" (Rafi Youatt, Review of International Studies, 2020)

Critical Animal Geographies: Politics, intersections and hierarchies in a multispecies world (Edited by Kathryn Gillespie and Rosemary-Claire Collard, Routledge, 2015)

"Invasive Narratives and the Inverse of Slow Violence: Alien Species in Science and Society" (Lindstrom, West, Katzschner, Perez-Ramos, and Twidle. Environmental Humanities 7:1, 2016)

"Life Out Of Place: Revisiting Species Invasions. Introduction to the Special Issue" (Hanne Cottyn. Anthropocenes - Human, Inhuman, Posthuman 4:1, 2023).

---

It's been a "transdisciplinary" topic (especially in the past 15-ish years) in environmental humanities, ecocriticism, environmental studies, "science communication," anthropology, etc. (I think the humanities or interdisciplinary scholars handle the subject with more grace than ecology-as-a-field proper.) It shows up a lot in discussion of "the postcolonial," "ecopoetics," "Anthropocene," "multispecies ethnography," and "the posthuman"; Haraway was explicitly writing about rhetoric of invasive species in the 1990s.

A significant amount of posts on my blog from 2018-2022 are about invasive/alien/native labels. I summarized some of the discourses in my post about Colombian hippos. I especially talked a lot about the writing of Banu Subramaniam (rhetoric of ecological invasion, racialization of aliens); Rafi Youatt ("interspecies politics"); Anna Boswell (Aotearoa extinctions, "anamorphic ecology"); Sophie Chao ("post-plantation ecologies"); Elaine Gan ("Anthropocene temporalities" and industrial ruins); Hugo Reinert (species "purity" and extinctions); Puig de la Bellacasa ("speculative ethics in a multispecies world"); Ann Laura Stoler (of fame for her writing on "imperial debris" and ruination/haunting), Hugh Raffles, Nils Burbandt, Anna Tsing, and others. Lately in my own work I've been writing on borders/frontiers and media/colonial imaginaries of "pests/the exotic" and have been referencing Jeannie Shinozuka's Biotic Borders: Transpacific Plant and Insect Migration and the Rise of Anti-Asian Racism in America, 1890-1950.

Thanks for saying hi.

[writers-potion]

When to Use "P" Sounds

to show unbending authority, bureaucracy and the law

for a character who prides himself in his masculinity

for eortic scenes with male action

for a display of power and pompousness

for a firm patriarchal society

"P" for authority and pride:

power, principle, parilament, empire, approve, impose, president, prelate, prefect, emperor, empress, pastor, priest, prince, pontiff, patriarch, parade, palace, portal, pose, display, pomp, peacock, prance, preen, pretend, imposter, importance, impress

"P" sounds for judgement and punishment:

police, penalty, punishment appraisal, probe, oppose, probate, approve, passport, apprehend, appeal, troop, platoon, deploy, poll, parish, population, protocol, parochial, position, plead, process, prison

"P" for stick-like objects:

pole, pile, pillar, pilaster, peak, pike, spear, poke, pierce, prong, push, pin, prick, penetrate, point, penis, patriarchy, paternal, progenitor

Other thematically unrelated words:

apply, park, perk, pug, puppy, posy, plug, apple, pear, grap apricot, peach, painting, portrait, picture, people, ping, peg, gape, lip, ship, pen, pulse, parchment, palaver, ploy, ape, sap, tap, sip, tip, pillow, pirouette, pry, ploy, slip, plant, peek, peer, nape, plate, platinum, planet, ship, rip, spin, wasp, lamp, ample, shape

If you like my blog, buy me a coffee☕ and find me on instagram! 📸

[squshymarsh]

DPxDC idea Prompt #1

Danny goes into dcu (prolly cause of CW) just after Jason crawls out of his grave. To Danny he finds a halfa his age and looks like him but is very broken. So he takes him back to the GZ to heal. With no memories, Jason goes to AP with Danny where he stays and learns about his new powers. Gets accepted by the Fenton parents and Team Phantom.(now team Nightingale) for a year or two

Things go pear shaped because of the GIW capturing Vlad and learning of a ‘ghost wearing human flesh’ they start hunting Danny and Jason now known as Phantom and Revenant. (But often when fighting together are called the Nightingale Ghosts) the Fenton’s send team Nightingale(the two halfa’s, Sam, Tucker and promising to send Ellie later when they (jazz) can contact her) through the portal and seal it behind them. Promising to re open it when they fix things there.

Together, the two wander the GZ but soon realize they need to still care for their human selves. They settle on going to Jason’s home dimension. Once there they find themselves drawn to Gotham for various reasons. Being that they need to find under the table jobs as they are 16 and only Jason has documents but he’s dead and doesn’t really remember his whole story yet(only starting to get bits and pieces back before they have to leave then getting worse now that he’s back in his home dimension and city.) there they refuse to use their powers unless absolutely necessary.

The group of four end up in crime alley doing odd jobs, get caught up in a joker attack and escape with a gaggle of kids close to their age thanks to the help of Tucker who has quickly become a guy in the chair for them. With a now larger group of kids, they form a tight knit collective. but that soon turns into them running their own gang of alley kids which turns into a full take over after an older gang starts targeting them.

The nightingale’s (already traumatized from Jason’s death, subsequent resurrection and healing, then the almost literal burning of Danny’s world and then the joker attack) get a little violent with it. Start using their powers behind the scenes

This gets the attention of the Bats and Birds.

Jason is the most violent, having outbursts when he has a memory return or when he spots one of the city's vigilantes stepping into their haunt. It comes to a head when Batman himself approaches them after they plan to kill the joker. They fight, it comes out that Revenant Nightingale is Jason Todd. Then they manage to push the Bats and Birds out of Crime Alley again.

There’s a peace period where each side licks wounds. Calm down and start actually making things better. The making things better part is Jason and Danny using their co-crime lord money to make social safety nets in the Alley for it’s residents. Clean out a few rats. Make green spaces for Sam. Then Jazz and Ellie show up. Ellie is about to destabilize and Jazz is grievously injured. The GIW have made a way into the DCU to come after the male Duo.

They try to handle it on their own, but the GIW take root as if they’ve always been there. Pairing with anti-meta groups and pushing legislation like in Danny’s world. There isn’t much they can do other than go to Batman and the Justice league for help. By now they are 18. Have calmed down a bit but aren’t anywhere as ‘clean’ as the Bats and Birds.

With the ball rolling, conversations are had but Jason doesn’t want to talk any of them about their halfa status. Danny agrees. They track down the portal between worlds for the Hero’s and vigilantes Danny goes through with the promise of returning once he checks on his old world and parents. The door way between the realms is closed behind him and the GIW are taken care of in the DCU soon after.

Danny doesn’t return. Leaving Jason and the rest of Team Nightingale to run the Alley and hope they can make a portal into the GZ to find Danny.

[zolanort]

A silly doodle of seagull Wind from A Pear and a Portal by glowingjellyfishtreelights on Ao3. His bird brain constantly fixating on Legends shiny rings delighted me to no end.

Highly recommend any/all of their fics, some of the best banter mixed with game references and shenanigans.

[rarepears]

Because writing 10k words a day is not sustainable and he's gotten enough flake (from Peerless cucumber about his worldbuilding going downhill in favor of papapa content), Shang Qinghua makes a wild decision.

He tries his hand at making short form video content.

His first video starts off simple: "A day in the life of a webnovel author" and "POV of an author's keyboard".

It gets like 9 views. Total.

Shang Qinghua keeps at it, but it never really takes off. He keeps posting because what it something does go viral? But his attempts get weaker and weaker and it eventually just becomes shitposts where he films something random for 10 seconds and immediately hits "post", no editing or captions at all.

So when a strange man falls into his apartment through a portal while he's got his camera rolling for his shit post of the day, he doesn't think before his hand, born out of instincts, hits that "post" button. He's a little too busy to be freaking out about the fact that this?? is?? Mobei Jun?? in?? his?? shitty little apartment to remember that he got interrupted while filming (and that he already posted it).

But by the time he does remember, it's too late.

Of course this is the one video that goes viral with 8.2 million views and the top comment has 824k likes.

It's from his biggest anti-fan too.

"WTF do you mean you based the protagonist's right hand man on your boyfriend???"

(A much less noticed comment from cucumber on another video was "wait. the date of this video matches the date you posted chapter 1856. you don't mean to say that THIS is what inspired you to write that papapa scene involving a suspiciously pear-looking fruit of all things? BECAUSE YOU TRIPPED OVER A FREAKING PEAR IN YOUR HALLWAY?")

[multiversal-pig-outing]

(Open to any DC muse.)

A yellow portal cracks open with a shining white light shooting out. The light morphing into two new figures that rose to their feet.

“We did it! The veil has been broken we’ve jumped to another world.” A female and rather pear shaped Dr.Fate said as she looked around. “Are you well Kimiyo?” She asked to her companion as Fate helped her up.

“I am well Inza. But piercing the veil has drained me.” The thin Japanese woman replied weakly. “It will take some time for my body to calibrate to this universes energy. If they are the same.”

*A portal opens upnext to the two. Coming out a very well fed women wearing a stage magician outfit.Zatanna the retires heroine.*

So this what I felt. Guessing you came from another world right? Not unless something happen to Nabu old host.

[lilareviewsbooks]

April Reading Wrap Up!

Hi everyone! Sorry for being late on this one... But here's what my reading looked like in April!

Sunrise On The Reaping, by Suzanne Collins

5/5 stars | 382 pages | audio & digital | 2nd prequel to the Hunger Games

We started off the month strong! Sunrise On The Reaping is Collins' second prequel to the Hunger Games series. This time, we're following Haymitch, a previous District 12 victor, who in the original series as Katniss and Peeta's mentor.

If you don't know what the Hunger Games is all about: it chronicles the eponymonous Hunger Games, a televised competition where children from the various District compete to the death, presided over by the tyrannical Capitol. This is a modern classic, for sure, and I recommend everyone read at least the original trilogy! It's an emotional gutpunch, full of social critiques while still being action packed.

This description could be easily applied to Sunrise On The Reaping. While the previous prequel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, had a different take on the structure, here we return to the bread and butter of the trilogy. Similarly to The Hunger Games, we follow Haymitch's journey into the games, what happens in the Arena, and the immediate aftermath. I was glad to return to this familiar setup -- I think Collins mastered it, and it works so, so well. But it's no wonder reviewers are calling it "the saddest Hunger Games book"... The final two chapters are gut wrenching reminders of the devastation of the Games, and beautifully interwoven with the poetry that has always been a keystone of the series. A stunner!! Highly recommend!

In An Absent Dream, by Seanan McGuire

4/5 stars | 204 pages | audio & digital | #4 in the Wayward Children

In a surprise twist, I've returned to the Wayward Children series... After having read one of the novellas a couple years back, I had decided the series wasn't for me... But I decided to give the even numbered books another go, since they're small portal fantasy adventures. The odd numbered books tell the story of what happens after the children return from their parallel worlds, when they all live together in Eleanor West's Home for Wayward Children.

I was excited for some straight-forward magical adventures, and that's what I got! I really enjoyed Lundy's story, as she travels to the weird realm of the Goblin Market, where deals are all everyone does. I like the sinister twist on the classic portal fantasy story, and the commentary on Lundy's life when she returns "home". The narration is also top-tier. It follows impeccably and has a nice, fresh character to it. And, of course, the crown jewel here is the world-building -- it's refreshing, and, although not very detailed, super vivid.

Lovely novella, and I would highly recommend -- even if you didn't particularly enjoy another installment in the series.

Time's Agent, by Brenda Peynado

2.25/5 stars | 207 pages | digital | standalone

I was super excited to pick up Time's Agent, as it has a super cool pitch! This novella follows Raquel, a former agent that cataloged pocket time-warping parallel universes. But everything has gone pear-shaped -- her wife is living in a pocket universe nestled in her necklace, and her daugher's consciousness is inside a metal robot dog.

So, yeah, it sucks to be Raquel -- but that's about it for the book. It starts with a lively exploration of her hayday, but then quickly devolves into her future. Suddenly the world is cartoonishly apocalyptic. Though I understand what Peynado is going for, the social critique falls flat from the sheer exaggeration of the many, many disasters. Similarly, Raquel's grief doesn't feel like a compelling portrait, but rather a quick sketch. And although the worldbuilding is interesting, the cool details are glossed over in long, long lists of all the terrible things that are happening in this dystopia.

The novella also strives for a message of indigenous liberation which is very haphazardly tacked on as a climax. It's mentioned before, but barely developped before the "explosive" finish of the final chapter. I found it lackluster and disappointing. The use of random Spanish words in the middle of phrases is also awkward and looses its charm as soon as it starts. This is a definite pet peeve of mine, but it felt particularly odd, here. Overall, this unfortunately wasn't the enjoyable read I was expecting.

Someone You Can Build A Nest In, by John Wiswell

4/5 stars | 310 pages | audio | standalone

Another one I was excited about -- Someone You Can Build A Nest In also has an interesting pitch. It's a horror comedic comedy, about a monster who falls in love with a human... Who just might be trying to kill her.

I honestly wasn't expecting to like this! I'm not a horror gal, but I ate this one up! I think it was Carmen Rose's lilting narration and Wiswell's almost cozy writing. It's a bizarre comp, to be sure, but it works! I found myself rooting for the main couple, despite their circumstances. I also found the plot around the romance to be super compelling -- maybe even more than the main pairing. This is kind of rare in romance books, and so it was refreshing to be gripped by the background shennanigans. There's also a strong and emotional reflection on motherhood, family, duty... Such an enjoyable and unexpected experience! I highly recommend -- though beware of some vivid descriptions of... internal organs and the like.

Paladin's Grace, by T. Kingfisher

2.5/5 stars | 398 pages | audio & digital | #1 in the Saint of Steel series

I ended up following that with another romance, but that unfortunately fell flatter... I have been meaning to get into T. Kingfisher (and this won't be my last try, for sure!), so I was excited to read Paladin's Grace. This fantasy romance follows Grace, a perfumist with a haunting past, and Stephen, a paladin with a dead god and a lot of guilt. Oh, and there's some murders!

At first I was enjoying myself, but I felt it went off the rails from the midpoint onwards. As with a lot of romances, the B plot overtook the story, particularly in the climatic finish, leaving little room for the relationship to finish growing. Stephen is a compelling character, but he isn't utilized to his full potential, and Grace isn't fleshed out enough. I ended up forcing myself to finish this, and left feeling that I had read nothing special. This could be any couple, really, and not even necessarily a fantasy one. I continue to have high hopes for Kingfisher's work, though, and I'm excited to keep reading -- I'm sure something will stick!

The Spirit Bares Its Teeth, by Andrew Joseph White

5/5 stars | 381 pages | audio | standalone

And, to finish the month off with another bombshell... I had been avoiding The Spirit Bares Its Teeth for its horror-ness (specifically medical horror!) for a while. But my urge to read about an autistic medium trans boy locked away in a school for insane young ladies in a ghost-filled Victorian England... it was too strong! And I'm so thankful for that!

This is AMAZING. The most vivid first person narration, chilling to the bone, which comes alive in the voice of Raphael Corkhill. I literally could not stop listening to this, and finished it on a long bus ride, after which I could not pick anything else up! It's a creepy medical horror of trans solidarity, autistic resistance and found family. It's also a harsh depiction of the realities of being a woman and of being considered insane. Silas' character jumps off the page, and is clearly either inspired by White's personal life or on his incredibly thoughtful research. Daphne, our love interest, is so real I found myself moved to tears. Silas' infatuation and eventual love feels so genuine, it reminded me of my girlfriend so vividly! Multiple times there were tears in my eyes (yes, it was awkward on the bus, thank you) and I was almost left at our rest stop because of The Spirit Bares Its Teeth. Again, not recommended for the weak-of-stomach and the medically squeamish (speaking as one myself, it was a challenge), but if you think you can do it... Do it!!

Thank you guys!! See you soon with more reviews :))

[sergeantsporks]

WATCHING AND DREAMING SPOILERS

Writing request: Luz tells everybody about what she saw in the Realm In Between. Including the weird Hooty in the Titan’s eye. They spend a while questioning and investigating Hooty’s origins, increasingly confused and terrified.

Gus held an illusion microphone to Luz’s face. “Did she look like King?”

“A lot, yeah.”

“Was he as big as the Isles?”

Luz tilted one hand back and forth. “At the end? She was bones, huge when she disappeared. But when I was talking to him… you know what, how about I just draw him for you?”

King’s tail wagged back and forth. “Yes!”

Luz sketched a pear, adding limbs and claws and… she paused halfway through drawing Papa Titan’s face. One of his eyes… “Hey, Hooty? You, uh…. You wouldn’t know anything about… Look, one of her eyes was missing and had a… well, a you dangling out of it. Do you know why?”

“Of course I do, hoot. That’s where I was born.” Hooty bobbed up and down. “Why do you ask?”

King grabbed Hooty’s face in his hands. “Hooty. Hooty. You’re telling me that you lived in the titan’s eyeball, and you didn’t realize I was a titan?!”

“How would I know that? I didn’t live in your eyeball. Geeeze.”

Luz pinched her nose. This was going to be a frustrating conversation, wasn’t it? “Hooty. If you lived in the Titan’s eyeball… why did you leave? How did you get here?”

“Oh.” For a creature without shoulders, Hooty was incredibly good at shrugging. “Evelyn felt bad about taking the eye for her portal door, and offered me a place to stay at her house. Or in her house? I picked in her house.”

Willow’s jaw dropped, and she glanced at Hunter. “Wait, Evelyn? Like, from the brothers Wittebane story in Gravesfield Evelyn? You knew her?”

“Told Gus all about it in our interview!”

Everyone twisted around to look at Gus.

“What?” he demanded, “I stopped listening five minutes in. Have you heard him ramble? He told me every single thing he’s had for breakfast since he spawned! Do you know how many times I heard the phrase ‘and then I ate a bug?!’ Too many times, Luz. Too. Many. Times.”

“Okay,” Luz said slowly, “Hooty, explain. Start at the beginning.”

“Don’t say that,” Gus told her in a strangled whisper, “Luz, what have you done?”

“Well, it all started the day I hatched inside of the titan’s eyeball,” Hooty began, apparently oblivious to Gus’ distress, “I don’t remember it! Not a single thing! But I remember crawling around in the titan’s eye.”

King looked like he might be sick. “Doing… what?”

“Eating it, of course! But then maggots started spawning, so I ate those, and that’s when I realized how tasty bugs were!”

“But… you’re a bug demon, aren’t you?” Hunter asked tentatively, “Isn’t it… weird… to eat bugs?”

Hooty stared at Hunter for a long, long moment, his eyes narrowing as he considered what Hunter said. Hunter shifted nervously, but then Hooty’s eyes popped back open. “Nope!”

“The titan,” Luz pressed, “You were living in his eyeball, eating maggots, and then…”

“There was a great squelching noise, and the eyeball was ripped away! A great flood of light shone through, and I was left hanging out of the socket.”

“And then?” Luz asked again.

“Then I found out just how many bugs there were in the world. Bugs everywhere! Buzzing all around! Grown-up maggot flies, beetles, worms—”

Luz had gotten used to Hooty—or so she thought. Every so often, he’d casually reveal some extra horrifying feature of his, and she’d be left in the lurch again. As far as the way he talked, she was usually confident she could handle it. But right now, she wanted to shake him until all the answers fell out.

“Evelyn,” she interrupted, “She took out the eyeball?”

“Yep! She said she was very sorry, but she needed it for her door, and then asked if maybe I’d like to come along, and I said will there be bugs, and she said more than you can eat, which I said wasn’t likely since I’m miles of empty tube, and she laughed, and I followed her home. And she dug a burrow for me, and I jumped in, but then I found the wood of the house. And there were termites! So I ate them, and burrowed into the house. Boy was she surprised when I stuck my head out the door.”

“And—the portal?”

“You mean Eda’s portal?”

“Yes—did Evelyn build it?”

“I don’t know. I was busy. No bugs were getting in on my watch. I ate a beetle, then a fire bee, then a worm, and then a fly, and then another fly, and another fly, and then I ate Evelyn’s kid, because I thought she was a large fairy, but Evelyn made me spit her back up. And then I ate another beetle, and an ACTUAL fairy, and—”

Gus pressed pillows against his ears. “I warned you! Make him stop!

“—and then I ate a really big beetle that was all shiny gold and white when it came to bother Evelyn—”

Hunter coughed. “Is he talking about Belos?”

“—but I spit it back up because it was the wrong kind of slimy inside, and it scurried off, and I never saw it again! And then I ate a whole nest of fire bees, and a—”

Luz held her hands up in a T. “I’m sorry, timeout, Hooty, go back, you ate Evelyn’s kid? And also maybe Belos?!”

“I was eating bugs and finding out what wasn’t bugs.” Hooty arched his neck, as if trying to appear dignified. “Lulu says I have an inquisitive mind.”

“You’ve got an inquisitive stomach, at least,” Gus muttered.

“So… about Evelyn…”

“Not a bug.”

“Right, but the portal, Belos—”

“Also not bugs.”

Luz almost growled. “Okay, but the house—”

“Not a bug.” Hooty tilted his head to the side. “Waaaait… if I’m a bug… and I’m the house… have I failed? Is the enemy within? Can I eat the house? Will it end, or will I become an endless ouroboros, the bird tube eating its own house?”

Luz blinked. “Uh…”

“Well! Much to think about! Bye, Luz!”

Hooty snaked out of the room, returning to his place in the door. Luz groaned, putting her head in her hands. “Why do I feel like I know less than when we started?”

Gus patted her shoulder, nodding solemnly. “The Hooty effect, Luz. Welcome to the club.”

[gamerbearmira]

My little pony: family is a miracle

Say hello to the missing member of the Pear Family, Sunny Picnic (or now Felix Madrigal). He was the brother to Pear Butter and the son of Grand Pear. Like the rest of his family, he worked on the farm; picking pears, selling to ponies, and working hard. However, unlike the rest of his family, he never hated the apples. He was the only pear that supported Pear Butter and Bright Mac relationship.

He always hated the apple and pear feud. Ponyville was split between the apples and pears, and He couldn't escape the fact that he was a pear. He was worked to the bone to "help his family beat the apple."

He had one friend who didn't care he was pear, Tempo. Him and pegasus would spend hours playing music, talking, and having fun. The two had hardships with expectations and family.

One day, Tempo came to Sunny, telling about this fantastic place where they could escape their worries. Not believe him, Sunny followed him to the Everfree forest where he came face to face with the portal to the human world.

He was weirded out by being human at first but came accustomed to it quickly. Him and Tempo (or as he wanted to be called in the human world Agustin) walked around a town close by. Sunny loved that no one recognized him or antagonize him. He thought this might be the right place for him.

(Sorry if something doesn't make sense. I'm very tired)

Bro just wanted everyone to be a family is that too much to ask 😞 nah but someone save bro. Or I guess he's fine now 😭😭 him and Agustín living they best life in the Encanto 💀💀💀 does this make Apple Jack his niece by his sisters marriage. Like am I reading that right 🌚

SO RADDDDD LOVE THE ART LOVE THE LORE🙏🙏🙏 at least Felíx and Agustín being friends even in Ponyville, you love to see it <33

You know I'd question how a pony can play a guitar without opposable thumbs (or at that, fingers), but let's be so real right now 🗿

Also morbid question but does he leave to the human world before or after Pear Butter's death. Like. What happens when if bro did and found out way later.