#shelving a story

[mellowwillowy]

“RABU”

Original story by @merakiui

So my dumbass didn't reread the fic and forgot Reader was 44 already. So here we are, young and fresh.

Funny story 2, I forgot what Rabu was until I finished all the drafts and realized, “It’s love isn't it??” (right?)

Rabu might not be categorized as my fave (coughs SK series coughs) but the ending makes me think late at night, how many options did Reader have?

So here I am, spawned to speed-run the vision in my head. Azul’s hair is too annoying so I'd rather have Floyb first (even though I really want to see Zuzu smoking). Jade’s route(?) is still vague in my mind so he’s no good as well.

I just love the idea of Papa Leech caring more about his sons, doesn't matter what Jade does, Papa Leech will forever cover his track. In this case, Papa Leech didn't care about Reader’s well-being at all, it was probably something done by Jade anyway. That’s Papa Leech’s love~.

Anyway, as I said in my previous RB, long live the seafood (by Chef Meraki!)

[bamsara]

being an adult means we can buy or make as much self-indulgent shit (as we can afford) and unironically have trinkets of our fave things cause our teen years was bullied for liking things and hiding/denying we were ever neurodivergent to the point of suicide. sucks for anyone that thinks its weird cringe but I'm going to try and allow myself to love myself in little ways now

[tcfactory]

Dumb SVSSS thought of the day: what if Mobei-jun is pretty damn young (14, not quite 15) when Shang Qinghua (20+however long he lived his first life) first meets him. And when he's relaxed and not in mortal danger (like when he's hogging Qinghua's bed) he's acting extremely childish, as emotionally neglected teenagers sometimes do. Just the brattiest of brats, somehow an unfortunate mix of 1. trained for deadly combat 2. already posessing very thorough education on demonic politics and rulership and 3. completely emotionally neglected and almost feral. Like. He's a lonely kid who very much needs a family connection and some hugs. He reminds Qinghua of some of the disciples An Ding gets who come from neglectful families, because getting their unwanted kids in a sect raises a family's prestige and there's a 'compensation' CQMS pays out to the 'gracious parents who give up their child' so it pays better than selling them to the slavers. (It's all just a ploy to make sure the people bring their kids there first, so there's less of a chance that they would end up in the clutches of demonic cultivators.)

So overworked, sleep deprived Qinghua ends up treating his demon brat the same way he treats the An Ding brats a few times. He can't help it! He knows that Mobei-jun will grow up to be like exactly his type, but right now he's just extremely little brother shaped (despite being really goddamn tall, what are they feeding young ice demons???) and Qinghua's brain just turns off the self preservation around him when he's tired enough apparently.

And Mobei-jun... Likes?? He likes this??? Nobody has babied him since the fallout with Linguang-jun when he was four, he's touch starved and needy for affection. The way his human expresses affection is not really the way he's used to, but it's still pleasant. It speaks to that shameful part of him that wanted to curl up and cry himself into oblivion when he was five and his father threw him out into the ice sheets and told him he's not allowed to return unless he kills something with his bare hands and then finds his way home.

So Shang Qinghua acquires a sticky, feral, demonic younger brother. He doesn't really mind as such, that's his blorbo and probably still his favorite person (and the reassurance that as long as he's Mobei-jun's emotional support human he's going to be kept safe is nice). But it really puts a lid on his non-existent dating life. Who would possibly date him now when they would have to contend with having Mobei-unlikely-to-ever-grow-out-of-his-stickiness-in-private-jun around too?

Yue Qingyuan. Yue Qingyuan would date him. He totally gets it, he has his own ill-tempered sticky little brother. Same situation, just with 95% less demonic energy and 80% more verbal sass. Shang Qinghua even ends up joking that they should set up playdates for those two. They are surprisingly effective.

What do you call it when you, your boyfriend, your little brother (feral cat, demon edition) and your boyfriend's little brother (feral cat, cultivator edition) are all cuddled up in a sleepy pile? Shang Qinghua isn't really sure, but it's comfier then it sounds, actually. Everyone appreciates Mobei-jun and his unshakably cool body temperature in the summer heat.

[clonerightsagenda]

Love reading the conclusion of a romance plot and trying to figure out whether the author realizes it's a horror story.

[elizabethrobertajones]

Canonical bunny hug.

(I know the weather transition didn't happen like that but NG+ isn't exactly generous with the transition to switching off the zone when technically Frog was halfway through Stormblood in the first screenshots :P)

(I just wanted to make them hug tbh. I may be back when NG+ comes here for real. Lamaty'i should be here to make faces in the background while G'raha and Krile facepalm.)

[themintman]

ok so after a depressing amount of procrastination I have discovered that I DONT HAVE AS MUCH BROWN CLOTHES STASHED AWAY AS I THOUGHT I DID so I'm gonna have to buy and dye before the con. Anyways, figured I should show y'all how Nurm is looking so far! The shirt and jeans will be different, DW lol

You get this frame cause my cat was making me laugh so hard like GIRL WHAT ARE YOU DOING

Also I have a parrot. Perfect for Archie if I want to take him to the con

Solstice jumpscare

[wieqo]

⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ ⠀๑⠀ ⠀🈺⠀ ⠀𝆹 ॱ

bokshelv⠀ ⠀librwrie

fantsycre⠀ ⠀wrdhisrtie

mgicbook⠀ oldltters

[b4kuch1n]

the king shunned, the lion dead, the knight lost, the princess absent. but the wizard lives.

[freakoutgirl]

This is my most gen z opinion but it takes wayyy too long to read. I have so many books that look interesting but I'd have to set aside 5-8 dedicated hours to read them. And you can't do anything while reading like you can with movies, so those really are dedicated hours. I should be able to absorb the contents in my brain.

[kaelidascope]

I love your mm au so much literally if you made a series of one random one shots of just the bees and friends getting up to random shenanigans I would read it in a heartbeat

This is an old one but I might, actually. There were a lot of mini-scenes (and sex scenes) that got cut from the final product of MM due to story flow issues. There's this one scene I cut that I am turning into an art piece instead where they have a bath one morning and Blake sees Yang's stupid rubber ducky collection and asks if they can use them. Then they order pizza and have it while in the bath because what is life if you can't eat pizza while taking a bath (don't @ me about cleanliness ok let the girls live a little)

I really loved that scene, and I'm sad it didn't fit anywhere, but maybe some of y'all might actually wanna read it?

Other cut scenes include;

A very dirty sex scene after Lemon Custard that's full roleplay with the bees

Serena chases off new competition at the club (Neon Katt) by 'marking her territory' with Yang

The actual alley fight between Yang and the White Fang

Car sex LOL

Guy's Night 2.0 with Yang and Pyrrha but this time they have to track down Weiss and Blake WITH Ruby because they get lost after barhopping

Blake teaches Yang Bachata

Early Blake and Weiss before the events of MM when she was living with her for a while

More exploration of Blake dissociation issues

Flashback to Vernal teaching a teenage Yang how to shoot

A collection of mini-scenes that happen during the chapter called Eight that are meant to span over 8 months but don't fit the final product (small conversations, Blake and her parents, Weiss and Yang interactions, mundane stuff like that)

Where Emerald and Blake's long-standing rivalry comes from in literally everything

And a lot of bullshit small scene ideas that I've talked about in private with friends that were just misc details

Here's the sketch of that pizza bath scene as a treat

[poisned]

Diving head first back into Marvel by reading the comics and not watching their newer shittier (imo) movies has reignited my love for both it, and Loki.

Currently reading his comics in whatever order it tells me because finding a starting point that's not from the 1960s was taking too long. So I started with Loki (2019) and I have to say it was such a fun read. He's such a silly guy I love him in every form.

He also has the worst casual Earth fashion I hate this outfit from the bottom of my soul I want to set it on fire and feed it to Frösti.

What's better than the utter lack of drip Loki has with that shirt and those glasses, are the covers. They're so clean and wonderful to look at and I instantly made smug walking Loki my lockscreen and cowboy Loki my wallpaper.

This was short, but very enjoyable. Now I'm reading Loki: Agent of Asgard since there's someone who shows up at the end that's apparently Loki's one and only actual friend and I have no clue who she is since she was introduced way beforehand. It's already turning out to be a very fun read too and I know I'm going to finish the rest of it in one sitting as soon as I get time.

It literally said they were relaxing a page before why are they fully geared lmao

[not-poignant]

it's wild to me that The Nascent Diplomat is so close to finishing

and while i know there'll be a new installment in a few months, it's just really really...weird because this story has been with me since May 2020 (i didn't realise it was a pandemic story but there you go)

i'm gonna miss Aethelwaters almost as much as Gwyn will

[yuanw3i]

after a sleepover at ramshackle ace made breakfast once and then never again

[stalkedbytrains]

A Dark Revelation Returns

The villain's lair, even by current standards, was trash. Some stupid fortified bunker underneath an abandoned warehouse. Absolutely no class. No style.

Shit security.

She walked up to the entrance. Hands in her pockets, didn't do anything besides walk confidently towards the hidden door.

Finding the location was a bit of a trick, she had had to call in a few favors and markers that she was sure were going to cost her later.

One flunky came out with a gun. "Stop! Who's there? What are you doing here?"

She didn't stop, but she did take her hands out of her pockets to show that she was unarmed.

Funny how there have been people with superpowers for a long time now, and the motion of showing you were unarmed still carried so much weight with people. It was an ingrained motion, hidden deep in the DNA.

"Sorry. I'm looking for my husband."

"We don't have anyone here. Get lost."

Only six. Not nearly enough.

"I'm sorry! Really! I think I may have gotten lost! This whole area is quite big and you know me I have like, no sense of direction," she said. Her voice changed. Higher, a bit more shrill. Ditzy. 27 was much better. The guard is shifting his weight awkwardly. Just a few more words to sink the hook.

"You sure he's not here? Did someone else bring him in and just... didn't tell you? My friends don't tell me things, like, all the time."

53. Much better. He's listening now. He's sweating a little bit.

Her power was starting to really sink in.

"I mean... I was told he was here by people that would know. If you don't know that he's here. What else don't you know? What else are they lying to you about?"

She watched the words sink in. Another 33 words. He was enthralled by the power and the paranoia was taking hold.

"You don't think... no... they're not planning on... well, you know," she said with too many words. More words than were necessary. She could have just said that they were planning on killing him. But that was too easy, and she needed to be wordy.

The guard took a step backwards.

"I... uh... maybe."

Too late. 86 words in a row were more than enough for her power to kick in. The fear had him.

"I would leave if I were you. Run while you can. Before they find you," she said, her voice back to normal, lower, more menacing and controlled.

The guard didn't need telling twice. Not when he was fully under her control.

He dropped the gun and ran. He ran as fast as he could.

"Wow, I've never seen a man run so... stupidly. What terrible form. Jesus," she said as she watched him run with a weird fascination. "Huh."

From there she entered the secret villain base.

It was drab, boring, and so so dull. It was gunmetal gray and looking like it was taken straight from the set of a D-list action movie from 30 years ago.

She ran into a couple of mooks, random goons for this villain. But she was already on a roll with her powers. The guard outside was a nice warm up. All she had to do was offer a quick explanation, no more than 15 words or so, uninterrupted, and she had them dancing to her tune.

-[x]-

The mission had been successful. The Union required a couple of heroes to be out of commission for a few days. They had a big mission planned in the next 48 hours and there needed to be specific people in place at specific points, and can't have the over enthusiastic heroes doing their jobs in the wrong spot.

Black Charles was pleased with himself. He managed to snag the hero Gaia's Grace almost without effort. As soon as the big Supervillain Union plan happened, he was sure that he was going to get promoted up to be closer to the big leagues.

Maybe even participate in the next big Villainy.

He was ready. And he proved it.

Black Charles walked into his main office and there was someone sitting at his desk. Her feet were up on his desk and she was just idly twirling a pen in her hand.

She was totally unassuming.

"Well well well. Black Charles was it?" she said.

"Who are you? How did you get in here?" the villain demanded. His powers started to bristle against his skin.

"That's a question for later. First, I need to ask you something: do you have someone in your life that makes you want to be better? Someone that you look at with fondness and joy and decide that you will be better to be the person that they want you to be?"

Black Charles, what an awful name for a villain, faltered. He knew better than to attack someone who just seemingly appeared in his lair without so much as a shot fired or an explosion. "No. I am my own man. I strive for perfection because I am and will be the best."

The woman frowned. She was still spinning the pen in her hand, it moved quickly and precisely despite the fact that she wasn't paying it the slightest bit attention. "How sad. How lonely for you. See, I found that person. They are not the greatest hero in the world, nor the strongest. But they are the best. The brightest. They're so goddamn good that they just inspire everyone around them, even me, even me with all the crime and evil that stain my hands. They love me, and for them I would do anything. Even retire." He lets her monologue. She loved a good monologue. All villains love a good monologue. "I own a flower shop now. We have two cats: Missile Launcher and Bartholemeow."

Black Charles started to shift nervously. He still hadn't figured out who she was yet. Which meant she really needed to thank the people who set up her retirement package. But the nervousness meant her power was working.

"Now you've taken the person that is my whole reason for nothing being a terrible murderous villain anymore and I'm having some trouble reigning in my old tendencies. I mean, you know what they say about old habits. So how about we do an even trade? You give me back my spouse, and I tell you how I got in."

Black Charles was starting to get really antsy, scratching at phantom itches. "I want you out of here."

"Or what? You can't stop me. You didn't even know I was here. You don't even know who I am."

"Fine! Deal! Deal!" He pulls out a small comm unit that looked like a walkie-talkie which she found very funny but couldn't laugh about it now. If she laughed it would break the hold her power had over him. "Release the prisoner!"

"But... boss!" came the voice on the other end.

"DO IT!" Black Charles yelled.

"Good," she said. "Now, you never figured out who I am. I don't want to spoil that surprise, I'll let you figure it out on your own. But I will say that spreading fear and paranoia is my stock and trade, and people make lots of very stupid decisions when they act out of extreme paranoia. So did the guards forget to leave the doors locked? Did someone do it deliberately? Are all of your goons and mooks trying to undermine you by letting me in? Who can say? But you really shouldn't have let me talk for this long."

The longer she talked, the more words she could string together without stopping the stronger the sense of fear and paranoia she can instill in the people who hear her. And Black Charles really just let her go. The only person to ever stop her was her husband who constantly interrupted her and asked a lot of truly valid and intelligent questions.

But Black Charles was deep within the throes of her power and was probably going to terminate some of his henchmen's contracts. That wasn't her problem. She got up, strode out of the room with confidence as the paranoia burrowed deep within the substandard villain, and got her spouse out of the small prison cell.

"Hey honey, let's go home."

"We gotta feed Missile Launcher, I'm sure she's super upset with us."

She tried very hard to stifle a laugh. "Of course. But now is not the time for you to be so disarmingly charming love."

"I am what I am," he said as he leaned on her a little bit too much.

As they left the lair together, her husband turned to her. "You're distant, what are you thinking about?"

She frowned. "I think I'm going to have to do some favors."

"You're not going to..."

"No. No more costumes and fights for me. But I can't let this just go. The villains have gotten out of control. I can't believe I'm going to say this. Fucking Adrienne was right."

"How so?"

"This whole thing was set up to keep you from doing your job and protecting people. So that the villains can succeed in something in the next two days."

Her husband didn't say anything. He knew his wife better than to argue.

She pulled out a cellphone as they got to her car.

"Adrienne. It's Dark Revelation. Yeah. I'm in," she said. "Oh don't sound so smug. I'm not putting on a costume and I'm not going around causing the terror that I used to. But these idiots tried to take out my husband and I won't let that stand."

my kofi

[bookshelf-in-progress]

There's always a danger of caring too much about a story, and then getting paralyzed by the need to do it justice, so it never gets written.

I've solved this problem in the past by writing stories so fast that I don't have time to get too invested, or writing stories that I'm not that attached to.

But maybe the trick is to love the story so much that I want to share it any way I can, even if it's imperfect. To feel that any version of this story is better than the story never getting written at all. To get out of my own way and stop worrying about what other people will think of my writing, or even what I think of my writing, and love the story for its own sake, love the readers enough to want to have the joy of sharing the story with them.

Maybe it'll work. Maybe it won't. But so far it feels like a much better approach.

[sourtomatola]

The Plushie debacle (a true story)

The actual pic of the plush pile under cut