#one day i'll be able to dedicate the whole month to this event again

[cdroloisms]

Sixteenth Day Event Prompt:

Anticipation & Survival

woo :D was able to participate this time with a little fic, hopefully this means i'll have the time to try and write more consistently again :') hope you guys enjoy 2.8k words of c!Dream being Normal and Fine and c!Sam being absolutely miserable.

---

The prison is working out well. 

Dream spins the clock. The background is mostly a sunny blue sky, with the slightest creep of dark blue rotating in along the right. The sun is a bright dandelion yellow. It’s afternoon. Maybe two, three o’clock. He’s been tracking the days by sunset, when the clock is split in equal halves of blue and navy. Ranboo visits too, to corroborate the time, but it’s a good habit to keep track while he can. It’s been seven days. A whole week. 

Besides Ranboo, there’s been one visit. Tommy. He’s seen three people, since being put in here. Tommy, Ranboo, and Sam. He’s eaten twenty potatoes. Counting is mundane, but so is everything now. There isn’t much to do in prison. Just sweat, and stare at lava, and stare at obsidian when that makes his eyes hurt, and wait for Sam to come in and check that he’s not been doing anything stupid, and wait for visitors, and eat and drink and sleep. It’s not a big room. He wouldn’t say it’s a particularly small one, either. The ceiling’s a little low, and there’s not anywhere to run, of course, but there’s plenty of room to pace and sit and lie down straight and he can sit down on the chest fine without hitting his head on stone. It’s not like he’ll need much space to carry out any plans in the foreseeable future. The cell is absent of certain comforts—a cot, for one, for obvious reasons—but once you get used to that, and the food, and the heat, it’s really not that bad. It’s not like he’s any stranger to roughing it. 

From a certain point of view, it’s almost relaxing. Sam is predictable. Almost more of a clock than the clock he’s given him, which is half the reason Dream throws it in the lava at all; Sam is reliable. His reactions are reliable. He gets food delivered twice a day, once in the morning, once at night. The nightly visit is accompanied by questioning, and occasionally Sam comes into the cell around midday to interrogate him too. Dream cooperates. Why shouldn’t he? He’s already spilled his whole plan to everyone on the mountain, gloated to Tommy, who has surely run his mouth to everyone within earshot by now. There’s no point to him being cagey at this point; no, better to rave and rant about Tommy and exile and his plan in the mountain, better to let Sam get all the information he wants and watch his eyebrows knit in disgust. Sam raises his voice, Dream answers his questions, Sam storms off. He’s even started watching the clock, just out of curiosity, and Sam leaves his cell pretty much the same time every day. Clockwork. 

There was one day when Sam didn’t come at all and Dream had—a moment, admittedly, embarrassing enough, just a string of disconnected thoughts about what would happen if the Warden of the prison suddenly dropped dead and died—but Sam had been right there the next day, looking more miserable than Dream has ever seen him. He made a quip about skipping work that made Sam snap at him; Dream takes it as a good sign, that the man guarding him seems to be more pained about the fact that he left him alone for a day than Dream was bothered about the disappearance of the single person responsible for every aspect of his life for the foreseeable future. That’s Sam, though. Dependable. Dedicated. Never one to not take his job seriously. If Dream put Sapnap in charge of the prison, he’d probably starve to death before the first month was up, but Sam looks like he’d rather fall on his own sword than leave Dream alone for a full twenty-four hours again; Dream has it in him to feel bad that he’s putting the guy to work for the sake of his own vacation. Just, a little bit. 

Back to his point. The prison is relaxing. Really. It’s boring, sure, but obviously he expected that; he’s never had so little to do before. He wakes up at night (he’s been attempting to sleep at nighttime, just because the light apparently is supposed to mess with you, but his sleep schedule has been shot for months so it’s not like it really matters to him all that much) with his brain racing, grasping for a list of tasks to do, only to come up empty. It’s a bit of a marvel. He thinks it’s funny. Yeah, brain, he’s in his—vacation arc. They’re doing nothing. Absolutely nothing. Just like they planned. Nobody’s getting into this place to kill him, not without smacking face-first into, like, a billion security protocols, not without dealing with Sam’s workaholic Warden schtick on their ass. He’s even getting food hand-delivered to him. Full service! Or something. 

He spins the clock again. Tommy gave him books to write. Sam flipped through them, asked questions, Dream answered. He’s not writing answers for them. He might throw them in the lava, if Sam doesn’t just confiscate the damn things; Dream knows he wants Tommy nowhere near him. Fair enough. Maybe he can write some long-ass manifesto about how much he wanted Tommy’s discs for Sam to chew on, if he gets bored enough. He laughs a little at the thought as he thinks it—okay, yeah, nah. He’s not at that point yet. 

He lies down. Horizontal. The ground is hot, but everything’s hot, and he’s getting used to it at this point; better hot than cold, honestly. He’d rather sleep here than out in the snow. The ceiling is a plane of unbroken black stone. Dream raises his hand, splays out his fingers. His nails are starting to get long. Nothing to file them down with in here…teeth it is. Whatever. He lets his hand fall back to the ground, sighing. His eyes glance over at the clock. 

Barely any time has passed. Still hours before Sam comes back. Dream bites back a low groan. Fine, fine, the boredom is getting to him. A little bit. He’s not surprised—it’s not like he’s ever done well with sitting still—but it’s still, annoying. He waves his arms and legs like he’s making a snow angel in the obsidian. Or doing jumping jacks. He should do jumping jacks, maybe. He’s got a basic workout routine to do daily—or several times a day, when there’s nothing else to do (there’s always nothing else to do, but whatever), but he’s not in the mood for it right now. 

He clicks his tongue, just to hear himself. He talks to himself, sometimes, but he has to be careful what he says. Not that it’s not a good thing to keep up, though, for the madman routine. It’s much better to talk to himself when he knows he has an audience, muttering Tommy, Tommy, Tommy in those minutes before Sam enters his cell. Fun, even. Sometimes he writes out evil speeches to give in his notebooks, burning the pages in the lava before Sam arrives. He shouldn’t get reckless with it or anything, pushing the things too far past the point of absurdity, but at this point he could probably get away with saying—just about anything. He could blather on about how he wanted to keep Tommy in a cage and play his dumb little discs to him all day until he goes insane, and Sam would write all of that down in his—book with his face twisted up under his helm while Dream tries not to break down laughing and give away the whole ruse. Not that laughing doesn’t work out for him either, to be fair. He’s gotten pretty good at the villain laugh. 

Dream stands up. He looks at the clock mounted in the item frame; the sliver of night sky on the right side has grown just slightly wider, enough to expose the slightest edge of one white-dotted star. Still hours before sunset. He pulls it off the wall, watching the background tick ever slowly forward. The gold gleams, polished to a mirror finish. 

Sam’s craftsmanship is unmistakable, even with something as small as this. He almost feels bad for what he’s about to do. 

He holds the clock up to the lava, keeping it in his hand for as long as he can handle it before the heat against his palm makes him shove it entirely under the flow, watching it disappear through strings of smoke. The crackling noise fades back into the normal hisses and pops after a few seconds; the smoke will linger for longer. Dream stands there, the lava’s heat at his face. It hurts his eyes to look at.

…whatever. 

He backs away. Then claps, brushing his palms against each other. Clock’s been burned. Another item of his daily itinerary handled—not that he does this daily. Has to keep Sam on his toes, right? The crazy prisoner isn’t supposed to be the predictable one, not like the ever-punctual Warden. This is—important, he’s decided, for his image. Well, not important, maybe, but it’s calculated. Beneficial. Nobody sane takes the one thing they have in their cell and destroys it repeatedly for literally no reason. Sam’s prisoner, the crazy guy that was trying to take over the server, isn’t sane. No one questions why an insane guy tries to control everyone with a bunch of shit he doesn’t even have, why he thinks he can keep someone locked up in a two-by-one box with a couple of iron bars, why he listens to a guy threatening to kill himself when he can literally raise the dead. It’s all set dressing. Method acting. One or the other, or both; it’s not like he’s ever watched a real play in his life. All that matters is that everyone thinks he’s crazy because no one asks a crazy guy why he’s acting crazy, and crazy people do stuff like obsess over stupid pieces of vinyl and talk to themselves and destroy their own shit for no reason. 

(Which probably makes Tommyinnit a crazy person, ha.) 

Sam will come back. Soon. He will bring potatoes with him, and investigate the cell, and see the missing clock. He will complain. He will threaten Dream, rave about the destruction of prison property, telling him that he won’t replace it. He will question him about Tommy. And tomorrow morning, a new clock will be put in its place. Honestly, Sam would probably give himself an aneurysm if he had to look at the cell with one of its components missing. It seems like the kind of thing to bother him too much not to set straight. And tomorrow, maybe Dream will throw the clock into the lava again, and maybe he won’t. He’ll see. 

He’s the one that decides, in the end.

— 

Sam checks his comm again as he waits for the lava to fall, head already pounding. He’s had an on-and-off migraine ever since his night with the Egg, and the current wave shows no sign of abating any time soon. If he could have it his way, he’d be back in his bed, Fran curled up beside him, where it’s dark and quiet and comfortably cool instead of sweating half to death in a suffocating suit of full armor. Instead, he’s nursing a headache that only gets worse with every notification he reads off the log pulled up on his screen; he doesn’t even bother counting the string of [Dream tried to swm in lava] that appears under today’s date. The fact that it’s a seemingly longer list than the days previous does little to help his already bad mood. 

He still has no idea what Dream hopes to achieve by doing this, besides attention. Not that Sam has even been trying to give him that, these days; he visits twice a day, once at 9 the morning and once at 6 in the afternoon, and then leaves the prisoner to himself. Sam doesn’t answer to him. He’s not going to get the same reaction he got the first time he pulled this stunt, when Sam had rushed into the cell in the middle of the night, heart in his throat after running halfway across the server, only to find Dream waiting for him in the middle of his cell with his mask smiling back mockingly. If he’s hoping to stir Sam into a panic again, he’s sorely mistaken. But still Dream continues. He’s probably just doing it to get a reaction out of him. He probably thinks that’s funny. 

Dream is standing, waiting for him. Muttering to himself, he thinks he can hear. Sam pulls the lever for the bridge and steps on it, his sword in hand, wanting to get this visit over and done with as quickly as possible. He might sleep in the Warden’s quarters here, tonight, just to avoid the commute back to his base. Yeah, that sounds good. All he has to do is survive one conversation with Dream. 

The prisoner has stopped talking to himself by the time Sam steps into the cell, lifting his chin as he looks at him. 

“Hi, Sam.” 

Sam makes a vague noise of acknowledgement, not more than a low grunt. His eyes scan the room from left to right, stopped prematurely by the sight of the empty item frame mounted on the wall. His headache grows exponentially worse in an instant, a stabbing pain hammering itself into the back of his skull. He grits his teeth. 

He should’ve expected this. He knows he should’ve expected this. 

“Prisoner.” 

“Sam,” Dream replies, his smile audible in his voice. Sam closes his eyes, a prayer flitting across his overtaxed mind. God help him.

“Where’s your clock.” What’s the point of asking, even. Dream sways from foot to foot. 

“I burned it?”

“Why did you do it. Again.” Dream shrugs. Sam steps forward, shoves him back. “Don’t be so dumb, Dream.” 

The prisoner barely seems to react, his back hitting the wall. His voice is nearly sing-song. “Ohhh. I got you though.” 

Sam wishes, not for the first time, that he didn’t have the work ethic that keeps him from coming into the cell drunk. Surely the prisoner cannot be any more infuriating to handle with the help of some alcohol. He holds the prisoner by his jaw and knocks his head back against the wall, gauntlet digging into the pale skin under the bottom edge of his mask. 

“What is wrong with you!” Dream struggles, slightly. Sam kicks at his legs. “Don’t move. Answer my question.” 

“Let go.” 

“How many times have I told you not to burn the clock, Dream!” He knocks the back of his head against the wall, harder this time. The struggling stops. “Do you think it’s funny? I don’t have to replace your clock!” 

Dream sounds a little dazed when he replies, arms crossed at his chest. “I just wanted to burn it. So I did.” 

“That’s ridiculous. What is your problem.” He shakes his head by his jaw, once, then lets go, giving himself enough distance to swing a fist into Dream’s side, making him double over. He scoffs at the sight, anger white-hot. He knows he shouldn’t be letting the prisoner get to him. Knows that Dream is only doing this to mess with him, mess with him the same way he messes with everyone, trying to get into his head. His skull feels like it’s being split apart. 

Dream stands up straight again. All Sam can see is the flat, smooth plane of his mask, that smile, unchanged. His hands, knotted into tight fists at his sides, shake. The heat pulsing behind his eyes feels like rage, and also almost feels like he’s going to cry.

He can’t do this. The realization is abrupt, but sure. Not tonight, not with this headache, not with Dream. He can’t go through the same song and dance, can’t sit here and examine the cell and give the prisoner his potatoes and go through questioning for an hour, can’t spend the rest of his night going over his words with a fine-toothed comb looking for the nuggets of truth hidden in the midst of the prisoner’s crazed ramblings. Hasn’t he done enough? For the whole server, for everyone, day after day he stands and faces the monster before him and day after day he stands strong; retreating now feels like weakness, but he can’t. He honestly, truly, can’t. He ignores the weight of the potatoes in his inventory and turns. 

“Sam?” Dream speaks again when he’s reached the edge of the cell, sounding slightly winded. “What are you—?” 

Sam pearls across the gap, slamming the lever to lower the lava wall as soon as his vision clears. Tomorrow, he will be the Warden of Pandora’s Vault. Tomorrow, he will stand toe-to-toe against the one he has been entrusted to keep and stand firm. Tomorrow, he will do as he must, as the one responsible for the survival of everyone and everything he holds dear. 

Today, it’s just too much. He looks back to a wall of unbroken lava, only able to stare at it for a few seconds before turning away. 

[accio-victuuri]

CPN : 3/24 LRLG Post

As if the excitement that we all have today, the eve of Weibo Night where they will be at the same event isn’t enough, LRLG had to go ahead and bless us with an update. A very recent one at that. Usually, the contributions shared to us are events that happened months ago. This is why we are able to match which is which fairly easily or notice something we haven’t before.

It starts of saying “today”, meaning this happened 3/24, XZ’s arrival in Shanghai. I have thoughts on LRLG deciding to share this today and who allowed it. If we’re going by the assumption/speculation/clownery— whatever you wanna call it, that these contributions are sent out with xz/wyb’s “blessing” then there must be a reason why they are switching from the usual pattern. They could have easily shared this after the whole weibo night craziness. As what they did in previous events, but they didn’t. So what’s changed? I’m not looking at this as a negative in any way, I am just curious. Did they see how excited BXGs are so decided to give us something? Are they also just dying to be in one place again so they are sharing this happiness to us? No matter the answer, All I can say is : “Bless Shanghai!🙏🏼”

now onto the fake rumor itself. same disclaimer applies. this is all fan fiction. ‼️

It starts with a phone conversation ( i think ) between the boys and it’s mostly yibo. As you will notice in this entire scene/s, it’s all on WYB’s perspective ( literally only one red circle in the entire post ) so again, we have an additional “clue” that this lrlg person is from wyb’s team.

WYB: "Wear more when you come"

XZ: "Okay, I'll use it for you..."

WYB : "sock"

WYB: "I can't see your news anymore, you tell xx"

WYB: "good"

This exchange is so simple and sweet. Their love language is being attentive towards each other and what the other might need, even as “simple” as needing extra clothes to wear because of the weather. And so GG decides to wear a Tod’s biker jacket that makes him look so sexy instead ( as seen in photos / videos of him boarding the plane today and arriving ). 😂😂😂 I mean, WYB & I are not complaining with his choice of clothes but I hope it does keep him warm. and GG’s “ i’ll use it for you..” he really can’t say No to his puppy. He will do it if his puppy wants it. I just. I’m done with them.

The next part is his staff ( a woman based on the emoji ) is saying how unfortunate it is that he has work today and he is mildly pissed that has to because if he didn’t, then he can pick GG up at the airport. I mean. That’s interesting. I wonder if he did that before and i’m surprised at how brave he is to even consider “planning” to do that out of all days. It’s the day before WB night, paps are waiting for all the celebrities to arrive at the airport so if he goes — there is a higher chance for him to get spotted compared to just the normal day. Or maybe he knows the ins & outs already as he’s almost always filming in Shanghai over the past years so he might know how to make it happen.

Then you have a scene where people are playing cards, and I think there is drinks involved. but he ( wyb ) can’t come and join because he has works. The people are telling him to try and join because tomorrow ( WB night ) is busy and there will be lots of material to shoot. I just love WYB’s dedication to work and cackling at the emojis LRLG is using for him — I can totally picture his face like this and going “what are you all doing???”

in the meantime when the subject is XZ, he all sweet smiles.

and this exchange is just too much —

WYB: "Get me the power bank"

👧"Hurry up and play, you won't be interested in playing with your phone tomorrow.

WYB: What are you talking about?"

👧: Would you like to see how you smile now

WYB: XZ is coming why won’t i be smiling.

and he goes on to say 恋爱脑 with that smiley face. I don’t know if he’s fuckin trolling himself at this point, because this is same/similar label said about him by that yangyang paparazzi. the same one he refuted was false because they were saying he single then the next sentence has ambiguous relationship with an older woman and so on.

so i am looking at this like, he’s trolling and this only applies to GG. It’s not necessarily real for him, cause i highly doubt it— looking at how they live and thrive as individuals too. He’s using it and also making fun of that ridiculous rumor spread about him.

HIS SMILE THO MUST BE LIKE THIS :

he just smiles differently when it’s connected to ZZ. I think no one can deny that. It’s so radiant ✨✨✨

I AM ALSO CURIOUS ABOUT WHAT THIS EXCHANGE MIGHT MEAN: ( the people talking aside from wyb is his staff )

“Those who didn’t know thought that xx stole our boss”

"they're here"

"it's here"

WYB : "Finish xx this afternoon, we will record together tomorrow"

"I have sorted it out and sent it to xx for confirmation, no problem with me

WYB "Good job"

WYB "What time will the filming be, you can tell me when the time comes"

Shoot with who? I mean, I’m not really expecting XZS to share a bts of XZ’s photoshoot because they are together soooo ( based on this cpn ).

The next is his his ( wyb ) staff telling him they will prepare food for him and put it in the car cause it will be hard to eat tomo because of the show and how busy it would be. They said they will fix just small things he can carry and also provide him warmer. Awwww. They are so sweet and caring of Bobo 🥹

AND LAST IS THIS EXCHANGE :

👩🏻‍🦰: “you are really so happy today”

🟢: “im happy every day”

👩🏻‍🦰: “nonono there is a difference”

🟢: “😊”

👩🏻‍🦰: “that’s great”

I’m thinking this girl who commented is probably part of the cast/crew. not sure why i get the feeling, cause the emoji is different form his staff. lol. I’m so giddy thinking about yibo being all radiant and happy knowing that he will be with ZZ very soon. ☺️

LRLG also has a message for us at the end:

Be Safe. Have a long and fun weekend!

What a great treat to all turtles, setting all of us in a good mood before the day of the show. I have no expectations. I’m looking forward to seeing what they will wear and to see the photos. I’m proud of the awards/ recognition they will get — all well deserved. everything else is just a bonus. 💕

-END.

[spotsupstuff]

hi

you've mentioned that sparrows would have reincarnated as a slugcat?

would you mind elaborating on that?

also would they have met caper again after becoming all scuggy?

heehee

hoohoo hee :)c of course i'll elaborate! it is Her ✨ Fish's little best animal friend

wonderfully enough, Sparrows and the Tinkerer were developed completely removed from each other in my head, so Tinkerer still feels like a rather separate character from Sparrows even though they somehow wound up havin a lot of similiarities. exactly how the reincarnation stuff should feel like

the Tinkerer is Sparrows! and no character in-universe will ever find out. it isn't important. nobody but Tinkerer is affected by this, and Tinktink doesn't really have the means to speak about it. but for us behind the screens that know about this it will make Tinktink's interactions with the world just a lil bit more juicy

you've sent this at a good time, too! the day ur question came in i was actually pondering how to somehow make use of this reincarnation fact and not just let it float about as a lil bonus for the people that would know about this lil tiny ultimately unimportant connection

so, the idea: as we (probably) all know, Euros is going to end up developing the Rot. this is distressing for a large amount of reasons, but the main point rn is that Euros is also a secret archive of folklore of the lower circles in the Eo group, plus maybe even a little bit over the range's borders to the east (after all, there's two more groups right next door to him n he's a phone operator chief). Euros is going to die a slow painful death and he won't be able to care for or save his collection of knowledge, which somehow manages to hurt him more than the reality of his impending doom

maybe not so surprising, considering that in his archive are the stories, the history, the spirit of his late lover's home- a place he clung to for as long as he could, the one he spent the most time in with his overseers, the one that held people he constantly wished could be his citizens instead of the vile and fake *things* soiling the streets of Ales

so one day after the Fish has properly reconnected to the Eo group, is caught up on current events and trying his *damnest* to revive Mission Self-preservation even though it is guaranteed to be useless, Euros mentions the nightmare that he's living through

"I'm a dead man walking, carrying precious treasures of people that were never heard crying out. I've held them close and safely within myself for over two thousand years. And now, when I'm fated to rot through and splatter on the ground, I fear all this time will be for nought. That I will kill what I've been protecting for so long."

"Even if nobody ever reads these- learns of them, hears them out from above their graves- I can't bear the thought of losing them."

and well Fish DOES have a lot of beef with Euros, but at this point this bitterness is starting to give away to desperation and horror of the terrible torment waiting for them in the future. he might be stubbornly still trying with the Mission, but he would go against what makes him himself if he didn't acknowledge that they are all damned for good no matter what he tries. so he gives in to the pity and hails Tinkerer to his chamber

he explains to her what he needs her to do and tells Euros about the plan. Tinktink has to travel all of this distance

to get to Euros (basically walk through the whole Europe), but dammit, she helped one Iterator that became her closest friend, she will help another one (a different Gen 2 that she loved and dedicated her whole life to in a different life)

Fish sends her on her way with a hug and a plead to keep herself safe

it takes her over a month to get there even with the help of vehicles like the barely working trains and a remshackle sky-sail that Fish guided her through fixing in their free time together. when she gets on top of Euros' structure, the dejavus start to hit. she visits the Mechanics' home, her feet carrying her to the bedroom as if it was just another end of the workshift. she looks in the cupboards she- opened millions of times- never even touched. she walks outside and then down the path to the entrance into the Iterator she's- taken countless times- never set a foot on

she saw these halls so many times she can pin point where every screw is- she's never been here, she can't understand these giant beings, they are too complex for her animal brain. that specific rhythm of beeps and pumps and water rushing through metal veins has haunted- comforted- her in many of her dreams. the Tinkerer makes it to the chamber almost like on an auto-pilot

when she enters the chamber, the slugcat finds itself disappointed, scared, confused- this isn't what this place is supposed to look like (but how does she know what it is supposed to look like-?), this isn't how she left it (this is the first time she stands here, what are these thoughts). it's supposed to be brighter. warmer. why is the puppet's plating and skin damaged by time, where is it its vibrancy, why are its eyes so tired? there are panels missing from the walls ("it's got to be the results of that Fever i once made a proj- i can fix thi-! what?"), glowing artificial bronze robins fly about or sleeping on his shoulders, tiny Rot cysts pulsate from the cracks in the umbilical arm. where has the firebird in that halo gone off to?

Euros greets her joyfully ("oh what are you trying to play at, you goof. i've known you for so long, i can tell when something's wrong. what's hurting? why are you tired? i'll get you back into shape, doncha worry love.")

"Ah, you made it! Welcome to my chamber, adroit little thing."

"Please. Your journey was a long one. I hold no doubt a very dangerous one, too. I won't march you into the job immediately. Rest up."

Tinkerer thinks he's strange. but her legs are indeed hurting, the bag strapped to her is heavy. she curls up in the corner of the room and tries to get some shut eye. she almost falls asleep when Euros starts mumbling under his breath, shooting nervous glances towards the birds. five fingered hands tremble so badly the joints rattle like a child's toy. he's scary, when his shoulders hunch up like that and those tired eyes turn frantic. but it hurts so much to see him like that for some reason, more so than it is scary. so against the better judgement of a survivor, she softly coos at him

the puppet's head snaps to her, gaze cold. the mumbles increase in volume, allowing her to understand

"...I'll tell you what. I have another mission for you, little messenger. But it has to stay a secret between the two of us. Nobody would approve, especially not the one you belong to now."

something whispers that the puppet closing in is supposed to be a comfort. the larger part of the Tinkerer instead finds itself wishing to run away

"Are you aware of the Memory Crypts that lie beneath all of us City Bearers?"

cautious nod, back pressed against the wall

"Good."

[readingloveswounds]

as you're writing your dissertation, how focused are you on publishing and how do you balance it all?

aHHH great question.

So, I'm in the helpful position where I was able to publish an article prior to starting the dissertation. It grew out of a final paper for a class I'd been taking and was published summer '23 if I remember correctly. This essentially means my advisor wasn't worried about pushing me to publish, so it's been on the backburner.

The publishing ventures so far:

published! Written for a fall '21 class, sent to the journal in spring '22, heard back very quickly, went through a million edits, published spring/summer '23

I essentially got lucky, but yay publication! This also introduced me to some people in the extremely small subfield (the reviewer revealed themself and a guest in a class talked with me about it as well). Horrid little philology paper, but I loved every moment of it.

The edits took place while I was taking classes and teaching, but not when I was writing my prospectus. There were some significant ones, but largely the revisions were minor. I was able to set aside time on certain days to work on these.

rejected! written for a spring '23 class, sent to the journal spring '24 (whoops lol, i meant to send it fall '23), very much rejected.

This was a poorly put-together paper that I was very tired of the whole time. I could and should have done better on it. I'm presenting something based on it in November, but depending on exactly what I talk about at that conference, I may try to do some massive revisions and publish the original paper. (i.e., how the conference paper is looking right now is quite different than my original focus in the article paper, so I think I may just want to try again with a different journal).

In hell!

I've been trying to adapt part of my first chapter into an article, but it's going, shall we say, very slowly. I wanted to send something to my advisor by the end of this month but lol. lmao, even. We'll see. I've still got time. I'm also entertaining this fantasy that the weird paper I wrote to try to figure out my thoughts on a passage will be publishable, but I am being realistic that my mad ramblings are probably not.

--

All this to say, that in terms of juggling, I am doing very poorly at it. My advisor didn't bring doing other things up until I was at the end of chapter 2, and he doesn't seem overly concerned about it, so I am trying to remain calm, even if I absolutely feel inexperienced and like I should be doing more. But we persist.

What I am doing right now (or attempting to) is to plan/write 3 conference papers. At least one of these events might have published proceedings, so that one needs to be very coherent from the get-go if possible.

The way I handle this is that I have designated days for working on different things. Sometimes I can change gears mid-day, but I like to have a full day dedicated to each project. The dissertation currently takes priority, so most days I'm focusing on that, but I will plan for certain days to be dedicated to work on the conference papers or other things like that.

I'm a big fan of scheduling blocks for doing particular things, whether that be days or hours - it's what helped me from having crippling anxiety during finals periods because I'd be pulled in so many directions without knowing where to go.

In really busy periods where I start to feel caught in stasis and unable to do anything except think about how much I need to do, I will go hour by hour and schedule myself. That means meals, commute, 'work on specific thing', etc. It helps me visualize AND it helps me move on if one block doesn't work out. If I said 'okay work on 17th century paper from 10-12' and I get nothing done, I don't need to wallow in that, I just need to look at my list and go 'okay, it's lunch and then I'll start fresh with the 19th century paper'

[likeadevils]

I was trying to find out timelines for one of my favourite artist's songs(not taylor). So can you give some tips? What is the first things you do while trying to find a date? Anything I should remember?

oooh good question

so, first tip, there's various different ways to be useful--one of the reasons this project has kept my attention for so long is i can do it in so many different moods. some days i just want to organize everything, some days i want to compile a bunch of links, sometimes i want to read old interviews, and sometimes if i'm lucky i want to actually use my brain to connect all the clues. don't get in your own way, just follow your gut

step one: organization

i find my spreadsheet set up very useful and i wouldn't be able to keep track of everything without it-- i would say my must haves are track, title, written, recorded, writer(s), producer(s), misc credits, and location recorded (for example here's 1989).

you'll want to set up some sort of key for how certain you are of the date (i do white text if i only know the general timeframe, red highlight if i have no idea where the date comes from, yellow highlight if its a shaky source, and green highlight if it's certain). i also like to color code everything else so i can quickly see basic information but that's just me being extra

in my experience genius has a list of most credits, and if not this website is super thorough (kinda a beast to sort through tho)

i add also add comments to each song and copy paste any quotes from taylor or her collaborators that i think might be useful to figuring out when it was written

step two: interviews interviews interviews

youtube is a gift from god-- i have a folder for interviews from each year and it's so nice (a good place to start is literally typing like, taylor swift 2006 interview, and following that rabbit hole wherever it will lead you), and when i'm in the mood i'll watch them.

old print interviews are a bit easier to find in taylor's case-- taylorpictures.net has a whole section dedicated to it, and i've noticed a lot of other big pop girls have something similar. if not, i've literally google searched "taylor swift interview" gone over to tools, click "any time", change it to custom time frame, and just crawled month by month through target years.

i'd say start with articles around the release date of the album and then work backwards

if you get tired of crawling through a bunch of interviewers asking about literally anything other than the art at hand, search interviews with the producers about the artist, and they tend to be more on track

step three: social media

use twitter advanced search to search specifically your artist and words like "studio" "writing" "guitar" "piano" "song" "album"

i like to add relevant posts to my spreadsheet like this

but i also have a full sheet for just taylor's old posts

if your artist is also insane and deleted all of their old posts, then wayback machine is so helpful

step four: when and where

a fair amount of the work comes down to figuring out where the artist was and when they were there-- especially if your artist works out of multiple studios

location stuff can get a bit icky, so personally i don't track stuff until two years have gone by, and even if you want to steer clear of candids you can still gain a good amount of information from public events only-- most artists are constantly touring, doing interviews, maybe attending award shows, stuff like that, and its useful to keep track of all that

again, the wayback machine is super useful-- most artists have an events page on their website, and smaller artists especially will add almost every television show appearance they have to it

Misc tips

CITE AS YOU GO

get around paywalls by copy pasting the link into the wayback machine

in general, i've gotten so good at googling because of this project it's insane-- check out this article to get more specific search results

i've also gotten crazy good at creating and using spreadsheets-- check out conditional formatting if you don't want to manually color code stuff

go one album at a time, at least until you've gotten a feel for it

have one or more work sheet on your spreadsheet- you'll need to format/sort stuff without worrying about screwing up everything else

i do this all in one massive spreadsheet with little individual sheets inside of it for each thing i need to keep track of, but like. i've literally opened up the sheet and then used my computer as a heating pad for period cramps. so do what that what you will

A rough date is easier to organize than no date-- get something down, and then you can refine it