#basically ALL THE THINGS

[not-poignant]

August 2023 Writing Round-Up

Here's the monthly round-up of everything written and posted in August 2023!

Underline the Black 56 

Underline the Black 57 

Underline the Black 58 

Underline the Black 59 

Underline the Gold 03 

The Nascent Diplomat 35 

The Nascent Diplomat 36 (Patreon early access $5+)

Underline the Red 05 (Patreon early access $5+)

Chapter Commentary - Underline the Black 23 (Patreon reward $3+)

Chapter Commentary - Underline the Black 24 (Patreon reward $3+)

Game Theory 02 (the Edits) ($10+)

FANFICTION

A Stain that Won't Dissolve 18 

A Stain that Won't Dissolve 19 

A Game We Can Try 01 

A Game We Can Try 02 

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The following stories are ongoing at my Wattpad account. For those who prefer to read on the Wattpad app, or who prefer shorter chapters, or just want to reread the stories somewhere different (or want to give me some love!), you can currently find these stories ongoing there:

A Stain that Won't Dissolve

Falling Falling Stars

Once the scheduled chapters for these come to an end, I will no longer be writing at Wattpad! And will just leave a note to anyone who finds me there that I'm on AO3 instead. It's been an interesting experiment, and a pretty spectacular failure, lol. 

*

Thanks for everyone's patience while Patreon has been a bit fucky with payments and declining payments, I've experienced this myself too as a patron. The short version of the story is that Patreon started doing more of their payments through Ireland instead of the USA and didn't tell anyone, and a lot of banks freaked out because it was unexpected. As far as I know, that's the main reason this has been happening! 

*

August (I always spell Augus first and have to remind myself to add the T, just little Fae Tales things) was a good month with a decent 14 chapters written across four stories, Underline the Black, A Stain that Won't Dissolve, Underline the Gold and Underline the Blue - Black got a whopping 6 chapters to itself! 

And that was a total of 50,909 words. :D

My September writing is actually going to have a really heavy focus on A Stain that Won't Dissolve, other than that, I'll be diligently writing ahead because in October I'll be taking a month off from writing!!! I'll still be posting chapters as usual - more than in July and August, I was preparing for October :D - but my monthly wordcount will be set to 0 and if I want to write, I can work on anything I like, which I'm looking forward to. 

I'm excited to take a full month off before NaNoWriMo, because I tend to burn out pretty badly towards the end of the year, and this is the first year of my writing life where I've managed to plan things enough that I can take a kind of holiday from writing, and while I'll still be doing other aspects of this job, writing and editing 10+ new chapters will not be a part of it. Or at least, if it is, it'll be on literally anything I want lol.

If you're particularly excited to see me work on anything in particular, including stories not listed here, please let me know!

This year I've written y'all 358,000 words, which is the equivalent of about 4 standard novels. :D

*

If you want to get updates or links to my fanfic, or hear about ongoing writing things, and read excerpts from future chapters, please find me on Twitter or Tumblr, and subscribe to my fanfiction account over at thespectaclesofthor.

If you want to keep seeing my writing and support it, come join a tier at Patreon - it's my income and it lets me share this writing with you! Alternatively, I have a Ko-Fi account for anyone who wants to support that one. :D

Sending love to all of you, from the lurkers, to the folks who just like that one story, to the peeps who aren't here for the writing and are somehow here for all my ask responses I love you all

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The math just adds up!

[ardri-na-bpiteog]

Also increasingly aware that a LOT of people "manage" getting through the 40+ hour work week by sleeping less than is healthy and relying on stimulants like coffee and energy drinks to keep them going.

For people who are unwilling or unable to do this...work really does just dominate your life. Like we really should not have to rely on unhealthy practices just to have a social life or keep on top of housework or whatever.

I know I post about this a lot but I'm so TIRED all the time and it's just so depressing that this is how we're expected to spend the one life we have.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

Of the 19 hijackers who carried out the Sept 11 attacks:

15 were from Saudi Arabia (a powerful/oil-rich country the U.S. works hard to maintain diplomatic relations with)

2 were from the United Arab Emirates (also a powerful/oil-rich country the U.S. works hard to maintain diplomatic relations with)

1 was from Egypt, 1 from Lebanon.

None of the hijackers were from Iraq.

None of the Sept 11 hijackers were Iraqi.

None of the 9/11 hijackers were from Iraq.

[deadpoolsmom]

as far as one piece antagonists go Crocodile truly gets absolutely scooby-doo’d at unmatched levels

He immediately falls for a phone scam and from basically little garden to rainbase he doesn’t even know the strawhats are alive (and clowning towards him at incredible speed). As soon as he does, they’re in his house tearing at his walls and bringing marines into his villain lair.

He uses a literal floor trap door over a gator pit to catch them, gets phone scammed again, full scooby-doo chase scenes after Chopper through the streets while still missing him, and suddenly his prisoners have escaped his impossible cage, and his giant bananagators are dead. and Nico Robin saw it all happen.

He then spends rest of the arc complaining about those meddling kids and their dog “strawhat pirates and their weird pet” and at no point does he even know how many strawhats there are.

Like yeah he keeps having plans on top of plans to stop everything Vivi can do but also she keeps coming up with a new thing to do (Tom and Jerry ass dynamic).

Part of it is that he’s underestimating them and keeps grandstanding villain monologuing but also teens keep killing hundreds of his grand line bounty hunters and he straight up does not know what is happening.

Cause he IS trying to kill them he’s sending top assassins after them and ripping out luffy’s organs, the whole time he’s yelling HOW ARE YOU ALIVE?? DIE. as whack-a-mole Luffy keeps inventing new ways to hit him.

[bigfatbreak]

Birds of a Feather previous / next

[chloesimaginationthings]

FNAF Glitchtrap really HATES Mike specifically

[catsharky]

Presenting: King Sidon, his wife Queen Yona and his boyfriend Link.

Yona is very supportive of everything except Sidon forgetting his ceremony cues.

(I had an atrocious week and TotK has been coming in clutch for keeping me sane.)

[bacchuschucklefuck]

class swap design masterpost for convenience (from top to bottom: bard!riz, cleric!gorgug, sorcerer!kristen, barbarian!fig, artificer!adaine, and rogue!fabian)

[amu-says-hav-says]

I can’t believe I went through all of Season 2 assuming Nina was the stand-in for Crowley when you actually pay attention it’s so CLEAR that she’s Aziraphale. I was tricked by her spiky, sarcastic, cynical outer shell and lulled into a false sense of security by Maggie’s bubbly optimism and wholesome goodness, because on the surface they reflect the ineffable husbands perfectly, in their personalities, their aesthetics, even many of their actions and morals. but not, and this is the real key, when it comes to their “relationship”. but those first impressions really had me damn fooled. 

I missed the blatantness of Nina’s “we’re just friends. actually we’re not friends. we barely know each other.” the same thing Aziraphale said in season 1.  the way he still struggles to quantify their friendship when Nina asks. Nina’s sarcasm when Crowley asks about rain and awnings because it worked for him (we all know it LMAO). hell, that whole convo the girls have in the rain is so AziraCrow (“I know. I’m not your type” “...You have no idea” hits so much harder the second time, help meeeee.) “Lindsay” maybe being symbolic of Heaven and Aziraphale’s toxic relationship with them and their abuse? (the handwritten text messages in red pen make me think of angry notes on paperwork, anyone else?) because Crowley has never actually cared about what Hell thinks of him, just not getting into trouble (or him or Aziraphale getting hurt). Maggie is always chasing Nina. NINA NEVER GOES IN THE RECORD STORE. Just like Crowley always goes to the bookstore, to Aziraphale, Zira NEVER WENT TO THE FLAT (apart from The Swap but that doesn’t count imo). Crowley has always chased Zira, not the other way around. Always there to rescue him, always going to him for company, always relying on their shared connection, always US. OUR SIDE. All through season one, he comes to Zira every time to work together, never trying to work alongside Hell in any way that isn’t to save their skins or Earth, while Zira hides things from Crowley because he STILL thinks Heaven is ultimately good and will do the right thing if he can just show them. fix it from the inside. 

Maggie working up the courage to finally say something, to put herself out there, while Nina is utterly oblivious and then when she does realise Maggie has feelings, becoming standoffish, putting up that barrier, fighting it, denying it, ITS SO CROWLEY AND AZIRAPHALE IN THAT ORDER. the way I was fooled into thinking Nina’s trust issues are Crowley because he does have trust issues ofc he does BUT Crowley has ALWAYS TRUSTED AZIRAPHALE. has always relied on him. has always been hurt when Aziraphale doesn’t immediately reciprocate the way he expects (the holy water request, the bandstand, the “off in the stars” etc). he’s always the one putting himself forward. Aziraphale has always been the one to second guess everything, to fight their connection, their similarities, their friendship. the girls really made me think it was going to be okay when they sat Crowley down, even as my inner sirens were going haywire about Metatron interfering, they were telling Crowley he just needs to open up and it’ll all work out BUT HE’S ALREADY AT THAT POINT. he may not say it, and by gosh is that part of their damn problem, but he’s always SHOWN IT. he’s not Nina who needs time to heal and recover from her broken trust, he’s always been Maggie believing it doesn’t matter, they’ll end up together in the end anyway AND I WALKED RIGHT INTO THE TRAP THAT THIS MEANT THEY WERE GOING TO BE OKAYYYYYYYYYYY

[hinamie]

playing around w slightly different hair renders

[keferon]

…..SO. AHAHAHAHAH. I finished reading Mistakes on mistakes until (technically I finished chapter 68 which is the last one currently~)

What a ride OH MY fuckINg god

[lucabyte]

siffrin starts the game with oddly empty pockets for a rogue who has a habit of stashing away every little trinket that isn't nailed down

and a hardy pocketwatch is an indispensable tool for oceanic navigation

[arsenicflame]

Bonus round! Do you use a queue tag?

[shmaroace]

don't get me wrong, i love all the positivity around being aro, like "be proud of being aro!! love who you are!!", but we never talk about how hard it is to reach that spot. so here's to the aros who are still trying to understand themselves, who aren't proud of who they are yet, who are still coming to terms with their new identity.

[buttercupshands]

can you even call it a warm up if I'm going to bed without drawing anything big

and a sketch I made while sitting in the park today