#whenever I have the time to read

[watchyourbuck]

buddie fic recs from my two-day reading binge

the more we move ahead the more we’re stuck in rewind by @try-set-me-on-fire (trysetmeonfire in ao3.) — hurt/comfort | completed | 4,2k

let’s fast forward to three hundred awkward blind dates later by @loserdiaz (heartbeatdiaz on ao3). — restaurant AU getting together | completed | 7,2k.

In a drought I’ll give you water by @diazsdimples (JamesPearce911 on ao3). — smut & humor | explicit | completed | 8,2k.

Be My Valentine? Or Something? By @theotherbuckley (theotherlucifer on ao3). — high school AU getting together | completed | 5,8k.

nothing safe is worth the drive by @lover-of-mine (lover_of_mine (I_almost_do) in ao3). — love confessions & first kiss | completed | 2,1k.

it was your heart on the line (I really fucked it up this time, didn’t I, my dear?) by @smilingbuckley (smilingbuckley on ao3.) — angst & getting together | completed | 4,3k.

baby, it’s okay if we both end up afraid by @eddiebabygirldiaz (Underhung_Aura on ao3). — hurt/comfort, getting together & angst | completed | 28,3k.

and of my own writing hand…

Dear Maddie, by @watchyourbuck (tinygiantsam on ao3). — trauma, post-relationship, angst, MCD | completed | 12,5k.

[peachyutdr]

i finished it, was kicked out of the game, and then spent the next 10 minutes drawing this. i will now go take a shower, most likely cry, and then go through the emotional turmoil of convincing myself to reset so i can do a geno run. i hate it here :D

[tittyblade]

okay ive been thinking.

rb with your answer + what your interpretation of barbie/ken is

[saintobio]

gojo, akemi, and sachiro all snuggled together in one giant bed, with sachi nestled close to auntie ‘kemi who’s softly singing him to sleep, while dada satoru watches them both, holding them in his arms and feeling this warmth in his heart at the sight of their bond >>>

[azaracyy]

a lesson on good karma digimon survive week 2024 day 4: supporting characters

[yendts]

on my scorbus blog i posted abt the hc where when you marry a malfoy your hair slowly turns the iconic malfoy blond too, like narcissa’s in the movies, and i’ve been dying to draw it,, plus the normal version bc i thought it was just as cute as a married scorbus spread <3 (also all pose refs belong to mellon_soup on pinterest i’m far too tired to make my own rn but i love all theirs sm)

[creativesplat]

I would also like to see some miphlink, if that's okay!

I was really struggling with what to draw, and then I remembered your ask from ages ago (dang ADHD brain...) anyway, sorry its such a late answer, but Miphlink inspired by Dicksee's La Belle Dame

[jouyato]

alex/kaz doodle

also never posted this on here but here's an old caspar & andreas i drew for a gift exchange on ao3!! got fed w alex/kaz content on my end so im 🛐🛐🛐 (filled with great hunger for any crumbs of the bard boys)

[slasherscream]

No bc ur post about hitting Jordan with the "this you? 🤨" is so real. Like maybe you two are frenemies like you hang out but are academic rivals so as soon as they get a little too bold, you pull up their jitterbean promo lol It def shuts them up but they're secretly into it when ur mean to them

(Sorry for rambling I just really like ur stuff)

They'd never know a minute's peace. Even when they think you're being nice there's teeth to it.

"You look really good today, Li."

Jordan, not trusting you to not be a cunt, "....thanks?"

You, copying their exact cadence and tone during the 'Godolkin Campus Tour with Jordan Li' video, "So much swag!"

"FUCK YOU."

[13eyond13]

underrated funny thing about lawlight is they never actually did get to confirm that 100% of the time they were basically thinking exactly what the other person thought they were thinking every single time

[bonefall]

post/734733274896809984/do-you-ever-worry-your-own-writing-might-come-off that makes sense. i was asking because i'm afraid of accidentally writing misogyny myself and i kind of admire what you do

Hmm... I wish I had better advice to give you on this front, but honestly, the only thing I can tell you is to consider the perspective of your female characters.

Women are people. They have thoughts and feelings of their own, so like... just let them have their own arcs. A lot of the worst misogyny in WC comes from the way that the writers just don't care about their girls (or, in the case of tall shadow, actually get undermined and forced to rewrite entire chapters), so they're not curious about their lives, or WHY they feel the way they do or what they want, or any direction for their character arcs.

Turtle Tail as an example. She'll often just end up feeling whatever Gray Wing's plot demands. She's gotta leave when Storm dumps him to make him feel lonely. She shows up again to love him in the next book. Lets her best friend Bumble get dragged back to Tom the Wifebeater, but is sad enough about her death to be "unreasonably angry" with Clear Sky, and then calms down and accept Gray Wing is right all along.

And then she dies, so he can have his very own fridge wife.

In this way, Turtle Tail's just being used to tell Gray Wing's story. They're not interested in why she would turn on Bumble, or god forbid any lingering negative feelings for how she didn't help her, or even resentment towards Clear Sky for killing her or Gray Wing for jumping to his defense. She isn't really going through her own character arc.

She does have personality traits of her own, don't misunderstand my criticism, but as a character she revolves around Gray Wing.

So, zoom out every now and then, and just ask yourself; "Whose story is being told by what I wrote? Do my female characters have goals, wants, and agency, or are they just supporting men? How do their choices impact the narrative?"

But that's already kinda assuming that you already have characters like Turtle Tail who DO have personalities and potential of their own. Here's some super simple and practical advice that helped me;

Tally the genders in your cast. How many are boys, how many are girls, how many are others?

And take stock of how many of those characters are just in the supporting cast, and compare that to the amount you have in the main cast.

If you have a significant imbalance, ESPECIALLY in the main cast, fire the Woman Beam.

It's a really simple trick to just write a male character, and then change its gender while keeping it the same. I promise women are really not fundamentally different from men lmao. You can consider how your in-universe gender roles affect them later, if you'd like, but when you're just starting to wean yourself off a "boy bias" this trick works like a charm.

Also you're not allowed to change the body type of any girl you Woman Beam because I said so. PLEASE allow your girls to have muscles, or be fat, or be old, or have lots of scars. Do NOT do what a cowardly Triple A studio does, where the women all have the same cute or sexy face and curvy body while they're standing next to dwarves, robots, and a gorilla.

Or this shit,

If you do this I will GET you. If you're ever possessed by the dark urge, you will see my face appear in the clouds like Mufasa himself to guide you away from the path of evil.

Anyway, you get better at just making characters girls to begin with as time goes on and you practice it. It's really not as big of a deal as your brain might think it is.

Take a legitimate interest in female characters and try not to disproportionately hit them with parental/romance plots as opposed to the male cast, and you'll be fine. Don't think of them as "SPECIAL WOMEN CHARACTERS" just make a character and then let her be a girl, occasionally checking your tally and doing some critical thinking about their use in the story.

(Also remember I'm not a professional or anything, I'm just trying to give advice)

[front-facing-pokemon]

I bring you: two front-facing pictures of My Dog (pretend he's a Herdier)

a very beautiful herdier. with the shot at the end of the nose particularly wonderful. everyone admire this immediately before i blast you with 900 more asks attack

good? okay. asks blast

re: persian: i'm SORRY i know some of those in that line suck i'm TRYING to make them better but they're. hard. so. gimme a break if you would thank you. i am also mutuals with tumblr user demifiendcruithne i think we should all have a moment of appreciation for tumblr user demifiendcruithne for existing

ok. what do you want me to do about this. you've already had sylveon twice. sylveon is the most requested pokémon i get by far. i did the original "back-facing-pokemon" joke months ago with sylveon wayyyy before we were even in gen 6. how much more sylveon do you need

↑ now THIS ask i love. because it's TRUE it happens every single time i say that but. to be quite honest with you. SOMETIMES i just say that so that i can get everyone in the comments to tell me how much they love that pokémon instead. i love seeing how every pokémon in the natdex has at least some diehard fans who would do anything to see their baby on the big screen. so i'll be a little mean to them sometimes just to get folks in the notes to tell me off. and i love reading those notes. so. i'm gonna continue doing it if i have no better commentary, for the record. every pokémon is someone's favorite and it's just. ugh. pokémon, guys. i love it

this is wrong because of tumblr user demifiendcruithne. okay?

[cheese-water]

I know I’m late but idc that person who tried to spread fake allegations about tubbo is so fucking stupid. Like yeah, the obviously fake story is telling enough but their lack of forethought as to what they’re actually doing is just crazy.

They outright used Tubbo’s name and blatantly accused him of a crime that he didn’t commit. AND if his viewers can defend him based on the limited evidence we have, I can only imagine what his lawyer could do if given the opportunity. This random person has potentially put themselves in so much legal trouble and for what? goddamn twitter likes???? Like congratulations, thanks to your actions not only will you rot in hell but also possible rot in jail as well.

It hasn’t even been a month since Cellbit’s twitter calúnia case was made public and yet we still have people who don’t understand that their actions have consequences ESPECIALLY IF ITS FUCKING ILLEGAL

[yujeong]

- home by whitney hanson -

[bookshelf-in-progress]

Honors From the King: A Short Story

The sword felt strange in Mia's hand. It fit perfectly in her grasp, but it still seemed impossible that it was hers. A few days ago it had made her into a hero, but in the confusion of the battle, she barely remembered making the lucky blow that felled the giant who had terrorized the Southern Forest for ten years.

Now she, an ordinary eleven-year-old from Iowa, was the hero of a fantastical realm, waiting to receive honors from the king himself.

Elbera bustled around Mia in the antechamber-turned-dressing room of the village hall. The elf woman—barely taller than Mia—had served almost as a mother to her since the strange wind had left her in the elfin village. "Now, my dear, as you're being honored for valor in battle, it's right for you to carry the sword, but you must never put the point toward the king. If you're nervous about it, you'd best sheathe it."

Mia sheathed the sword before Elbera finished the sentence.

Elbera continued, "Since you've slain a well-known terror, it's customary for the king to offer a boon. If he offers up to half his kingdom, don't take it—it's only a polite phrase. Best to ask for something useful—perhaps a sum of gold to rebuild the bridge outside the village."

From what Mia had heard of the king, he'd do that anyway. No, if Mia was to get a boon, she would ask for only one thing.

She wanted to go home.

For nine long months, she'd been stuck in Athelor. The cheerful, dainty elves had been kind to her—sheltering, feeding and teaching her without complaint—but they weren't her family. Her parents had to be frantic about her. And her six siblings—what had they done when that strange summer wind took her away from them? An entire school year would be gone by now. If she stayed away much longer, she'd be so far behind, and it would be harder and harder to fit back into ordinary life.

The elves had been unable to provide any suggestions about how to get back home; they only told Mia to wait for the wind. But the elves had sung praises of King Edonniel's library, spoke with awe of his scholarly works about Athelor's history. If anyone knew how to get her home, the king would.

The door to the chamber opened, and a palace guard escorted Mia into sunlit wooden expanse of the main hall.

At the room's far end, the king stood among his guard. Though over fifty, he was tall and fit, with a reddish-gold beard and a noble bearing, resplendent in royal armor. He was like the good king in every fairy tale Mia had ever read, like her father, and she forgot to be afraid of him. The king was a great man—warrior, poet, scholar, diplomat—but Mia knew in an instant that he was kind enough to help a lost girl.

The assembled crowd—all the elves and talking beasts from the village—cheered as Mia approached the king. Mia tried to ignore them, instead focusing on the king’s kind face.

The king stared at her. He stood frozen for several moments, then stepped toward her. “Mia?”

Mia stumbled to a stop. "Yes?" This seemed an informal greeting from a great king.

In a blink, Mia found herself in the king's arms, crushed in a warm embrace.

"I can't believe it." The king's deep voice sounded right next to her ear. "I thought I'd never see any of you again, not here."

Mia tried to push him away. King or not, this was too weird to put up with. "Any of who? What are you doing?"

The king pulled away and looked into her face, drinking her in. "I'm sorry. Of course you don't know me. Mia, I’m Danny. Your brother."

*

In the privacy of Elbera’s good parlor, Mia sat alone with the king. Her brother. Her ten-year-old brother. Who she never in a million years would have connected with the great scholar, warrior, and king the elves, in their musical accents, called Edonniel.

She couldn’t doubt that he was Danny. He remembered their parents, their farm, all their family, even the dinosaur village she and he had created two summers ago. With only a year and a day between their ages, they had often been mistaken for twins, but Mia had always reveled in her superior age. Until now.

Danny seemed so dignified; he made Elbera’s soft chair look like a throne. His eyes had wrinkles around them. His red-gold beard hung down to his chest. He sat so steady, so still, gazing at her like she was his long-lost child—instead of the sister whose hair he pulled when she beat him at Mario Kart.

As Mia sat across from him on Elbera's other chair, the only thing she could think to say was, “You’re older than me.”

The king guffawed. “I’m older than Dad. But you—you don’t look a day older than when I last saw you. How long have you been here?”

“Nine months.”

“It’s been forty-eight years for me.”

Mia’s head spun at the idea. “How?”

“The wind that carried us into a different world carried us into different times. I landed on the shores of the Beryl Sea forty-eight years ago. Ever since I became king, I’ve made a study of Athelorian history, trying to find the rest of us.”

“Us?” Mia had been with her siblings when the wind had taken her, but she’d assumed they were back home in Iowa. “How many of us are in Athelor?”

“All of us,” Danny said with surprise. “Didn’t you know?”

Mia shook her head. “I couldn’t see much.”

“And when you landed here alone, you had no reason to guess that we weren’t all safely at home,” he said, understanding.

“Is anyone else here?” Mia asked, half-hoping another brother or sister would pop out from behind the furniture.

“I crossed paths with Thomas not long after I arrived, but you’re the only one I’ve met in person since. Everyone else, I’ve had to track down in history and legend.”

“You met Thomas?”

“He landed among the trolls of the northern mountains,” Danny explained. “Became a master smith—the greatest in Athelorian history. He forged that sword you carry. I have no idea how it got into the elves’ hands; I’ll bet there’s a story there.”

Danny never could stick to the point of a story. “Where is he?” Mia asked in frustration.

“He was a very old man when I met him,” Danny said. “A hundred and twenty-seven, by some counts. Some say his life was extended by working with the stones from the heart of the world.”

Was? Her little brother had been only six years old when she’d last seen him. He couldn’t be—

Mia sank back into her chair, stricken.

Danny, caught up in his story, didn’t seem to notice. “Jane lived among the centaurs and elves of the Skyveil Plains seven-hundred years ago. Became a legendary warrior and explorer, defender of the weak. Beloved by all the beasts. First to step foot on the Daybreak Isles and meet the talking mice.”

Seven-hundred years?

“Now Ben,” Danny said with a laugh, “has popped up all through history. Rarely seen for more than a day or two, but he always has some dramatic effect. Some scholars speculate he’s extraordinarily long-lived, but my theory is that time is playing with him in a different way than the rest of us.”

He said it all so calmly!

“Nora?” Mia dared to ask about their oldest sister.

Danny’s gaze turned dreamy, his voice hushed and reverent. “The legendary Queen Eleanor, present at the waking of the world.”

Danny was talking about Nora—bossy Nora!—like he was in awe of her.

Her sister—all her siblings—had become legends. They weren’t waiting for her at home. They were long dead, had been dead ever since she’d arrived, which meant they were gone forever, and there was no way home—

Mia burst into tears.

Danny reacted about like how she’d have expected him to react. He sprang up from his seat and hovered awkwardly over her chair. “Mia? What’s wrong?”

Through tears, despair, and frustration, Mia blubbered something that included the words, “They’re all dead!”

“Dead?” Danny asked. “Who said they were dead?”

Mia wiped her tears on her sleeve and glared up at him. “You did! You said Thomas was ancient, and Jane lived seven-hundred years ago, and Nora’s as old as the entire world!”

“That doesn’t mean they’re dead.”

“I’m not stupid! No one can live that long, not even here!”

Danny crouched down next to her chair. He placed both hands on her shoulders and looked straight into her eyes. “Mia, look at me. I’m telling you: they’re not dead.”

Before his fatherly gaze—even with the beard, he looked a lot like Dad—Mia’s sobs became mere sniffles. “Then where are they?”

“They’re home. Safe. I promise. The same wind that brought us here brought them back home after their adventures were over.”

Just like the elves had said. But when Mia had thought she’d have to wait to go home, she’d thought it would be a few years at most, not—

“You said Thomas was more than a hundred years old.”

Danny said, “I’ve done a lot of reading about people like us. We’re not the only people who’ve come here from Earth—or gone home. The stories all say the same thing. No matter how long we spend here, the wind takes us back home to a time only minutes after we left, and we’ll be just the same age we were then. Reunited from across history, as young we ever were. A foretaste of heaven.”

His voice had gone dreamy again. The elves had said he was a poet.

Mia dried her face and sat up straight. “We’ll all be together? At our normal ages? Like we never left?”

“Exactly.”

“You and me and Thomas and Ben and Nora and—“ Mia realized something. “You never said where Claire was.”

“She’s the only one I haven’t found in history yet. That means her story’s probably still in the future. Maybe we’ll run into her someday.”

That did sound exciting, but Mia didn’t like the idea of waiting decades like Daniel had.

“How long do you think it will be? Before we go home?”

Danny stood and walked toward his chair. “I can’t say. Whenever the wind blow lately, I get the strangest feeling that I won’t be here long—maybe five years.”

Five years—half her life—not long?

“For you,” Danny continued as he sat down, “I can’t say. But I have a feeling that your adventures are just beginning.”

“I don’t want more adventures,” Mia said, as another tear dripped. “I want to go home.”

“I know,” Danny said, his voice husky with sympathy. “The first year is the hardest, and you’re so young.”

The idea of Danny—Danny!—treating her like a little kid! “I’m older than you!” Looking into his very-much-not-a-kid face, she amended, “Well, I should be.”

“You will be again, one day. But until then...“ Danny leaned forward, his hands on his knees, and suddenly sounded more like an American kid than he had all day. “This sounds so weird, but if you like, I can adopt you. You can live in the palace under my protection, and I can show you everything about Athelor. Maybe name you my heir if you like the whole royalty thing.”

He was planning a whole life for her. Plotting out a future. Here. Even without the weirdness of Danny acting like her dad, it was too much.

Danny noticed her hesitation. “You don’t have to, if you don’t want to. I know we’re all called here for different purposes, and I don’t want to keep you from your intended mission.”

“I thought the giant was my mission.” Mia had constructed such a tidy tale—and now it was unraveling. “I came here, I slayed the giant. The story should be over. I should get to go home.”

“It will always be waiting for you. Until then, you have Athelor.”

“Athelor isn’t home!”

“It can be,” Danny said. “It’s been a good home to me. It can be a better one, now that you’re here.”

Mia suddenly realized how old her little brother was. How long he’d been waiting, searching for his family through books. And now she was here, after all this time.

Maybe that was her mission. To help this great king while he was here caring for the people of Athelor.

“I guess I can try,” Mia said. Even if she had to stay a long time—well, Danny had managed to do some amazing things, and she couldn’t let her little brother outshine her. “When we do get back home, I don’t want you to have a better story than me.”

Danny grinned—and for just a second, he looked a little like the kid she remembered. “Mia,” he said, “I think you’re going to be fit for legend.”

[orpheuslament]

what’s your writing process like?

i receive divine visions. i open google docs. i stare at it. i have a breakdown. i write