#it was for a zine i left a bit ago
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forgotten playthings, forgotten child 🧸
Jack from my series Lost & Found Children 🤍🖤
i hope to showcase more of my ocs in 2024 hehe! im FINALLY getting around to finishing art i left to rot in my folders (the pandora hearts drawing last month being one of em). if you saw the WIP of THIS particular drawing 2 yrs ago... no you didn’t 💔
my charas are very personal to me, but tbh ive always been a bit hesitant to share their stories. over time i realized ... it’s kind of a shame to not make art from one’s heart. which is something i regret a lot year after year whenever i make my yearly art summary reflection. i'm like damn i need to make more emotionally evoking pieces!!! so i'm gonna keep going in 2024 with that in mind ❤ i have to admit, although this drawing started 2 years ago, and there's a lot i would do differently if i were to supposedly draw it now - this concept goes pretty hard.
the final drawing stayed pretty close to the original concept which im so relieved for! i think part of the reason why i left it on the backburner for so long, was the fact that i included so many details, and i was unsure of how to colour the "background". (not to mention stuff like cons & real life getting in the way).
i'm glad for discovering a really handy watercolour brush, it's helped me a lot in my last few drawings, bc i dont have to colour in each detail. especially since the witch hat atelier: eternal ephemera zine piece i did. otherwise if i coloured this back in 2022 with my usual method, i'm pretty sure i really would have included a shading and highlight layer for each individual toy... HAHAHA. much to think about
oh yeah and in the last few days of drawing this i was listening to some visual kei bands. i love how some of the band members literally have been performing since like the 90s or something and DO NOT AGE and are literal vampires. every so often i fall back into visual kei (you can tangentially thank aggretsuko although yes i know it's not the same). and i kind of realized. i like Jack's edgy design so much because he looks like. a visual kei esque vampire.
#illustration#artists on tumblr#original#original character#my ocs#jack#i will post more on my ocs eventually... slowly.. this coming year#2024 will be the year of the oc..... definitely want to lean into developing my stories & charas & gothic aesthetic a lot more hehe#leaning into like. whatever late 2000s manga had going on with their dark aesthetics - pandora hearts. black butler. d gray man etc#those mangaka were drinking some good shit. permanently altered my little teenage brain forever#i also managed to record a timelapse of this drawing#but my computer cant handle timelapses on csp so i had to like. save this drawing in different parts#so ill have to stitch together the timelapse videos#sorry. got rid of the closeup bc it didn't look that great#ill post it in the read more later#lost and found children
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I love the drawing of the Nohr mums! It looks so beautiful! Do you have any concept art about them or any head canons to share?
Thank you a lot!!
I drew them some years ago in a zine but this is the first time I properly draw them.
For this I tried to go on what's known about them.
Ekaterina doesn't have much said about her other than being a great queen so just drew her as that. Probably because I'm projecting from Xander but I imagine her strong and imposing. Given than in the manga Ekaterina left Xander a castle I have her as coming from a foreign royal family.
Camilla's mom was on Ekaterina's faction so I imagine her a bit of a simp. Since Camilla says her mom would fight the other moms a lot I supposed her a strong personality, I think of her as a noble woman but with an strong attitude and a bit tomboyish, a bit like Eva from Umineko (Kick to anger and her own kid doesn't feel loved) Kinda like the side Camilla tries to hide behind her ladylike motherly attitude.
Leo's mom is the one with more info out thanks to the character book. It was specified she led the anti Ekaterina faction so she would kinda have an Anne Boleyn role. She's confirmed to look just like Leo so I try to give them exactly the same face. I give her green eyes because Leo got them in concept art and even the cover art. The book also said Leo's talent was inherited from her mom, and some of the things he complaints about her are things he does to his own son so I think they would have similar personalities. I think Leo unconsciously acts just like he learnt from his mom but the influence of his siblings gave him a softer side I think his mom wouldn't have.
About Leo saying she didn't love him there was a line in the book saying she claimed she did everything for his son so I guess she would be the kind of strict parent that thinks being ruthless and cold will make their kid stronger.
Elise's mom isn't specified to support or go against Ekaterina, just to be on bad terms with Leo's mom, and that could just be personal. Since she's the most uninvolved and until her death she only cared about Garon and disregarded Elise who tried to love her, I like the bit of a yandere interpretation. And because she died of an illness I can't help but picture her as someone who's constantly tired.
And her being a maid is pretty much agreed in all fan interpretations I have seen of the moms.
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updates and musings from ris-land (lol)
2024 has begun. it began 30 days ago, but i still find myself referring to the past (2023) as 'earlier this year' and all the grandiose plans for the future as 'next year' (2024). i am generally a grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side kind of person so i always start the new year feeling very excited for all the things that i will supposedly accomplish in the coming year that i never truly manage to do. this may sound defeated and cynical, but im not. i am still stupidly hopeful about all the kilos i will shed, the places i will visit (the only type of promise to self i have managed to decently come through on, over all these years), the friends i will make, the stories i will write and finish, the books i will read, the courses i will do.
now into the still-unravelling 30th year of my life, i have still magically sustained this enthusiasm regardless of the empirical evidence that attempts to prove to me otherwise. delulu is the solulu, etc etc. my greatest achievement so far is in making peace with the fact that i will only accomplish about 10% of what i want to do this year, and that it is okay. i occasionally even feel pride about these things, instead of sinking into the incurable feeling of self-loathing and dissatisfaction that was the trademark of my early twenties.
anyway!! on to my grand plans, i love talking about my plans:
this year a couple of us are producing an eremika erotica zine and i am thrilled to bits about this. i do not know the first thing about zine production, but i am carrying along with the hope that enthusiasm for good stories and art will probably result in a final product that readers will enjoy. i will finally, finally, finally, attempt to put forth all my feelings about priest eren and church girl mikasa in a lengthy oneshot that will find its home in the zine.
i will continue exploring boy next door eremika and learn a new way of expressing character dynamics that i am obsessed with, and hopefully finish a story that manages to make my own heart flutter. every story i write is uniquely designed to satisfy me, but bnd is special in that: in all the 40k words in my draft, every single word in its incomplete, chaotic, honesty make me feel terribly emotional. i am proud of this. i am no literary genius, nor am i a quick study, so i have simply been fooling around with words for so many years, in different patterns, trying to figure out what i like and what i don't. i am so happy that now i have figured this out. kind of. a little bit, lol. it also helps that i have extremely smart and talented friends who consume a lot of literature and teach me things. i feel very grateful for this!
i want to return to my romance-novel roots and finish i dreamed i left you, because i know in my heart of hearts that i am trash. i like trashy romance. i want to write trashy romance. (i want to publish one someday, so what better way to start than by finishing the goddamn fic).
amidst all this, frustratingly, an original idea is calling out to me and nagging me like a whiny baby wanting to be heard. i don't ever want any children of my own, so i will probably learn to take care of my original novel at some point. i have 5k+ words so far, but i am at the stage with it where i am so emotionally confronted by it that i cannot look at it for too long without seeing too much of me reflected right back. i generally don't like to write about myself unless it is in very carefully disguised little pieces hidden away amongst several thousands of words, so this is new for me. perhaps this too (personal confrontation, deep introspection, etc) is a turning-30 thing, and i am not ready for it. maithreyi and veena (the main characters of my book), however, seem ready for their story to be told, so we are currently figuring out this disagreement. maybe my goal for this year will be to "figure it out." we'll see.
unfortunately, however, i cannot afford for writing to be the center of my life, even though sometimes i delude myself into thinking so, so i have other goals that feel less negotiable because of time pressures and expectations from loved ones, or for the basic truth that i still consider them more 'important' / 'tangible' than my writing goals. (i just let out, a huge, disappointed sigh.) these goals include: developing fluency over the national language of the country where i reside, doing some culture and language exams for integration, and seriously contending with the fact that i might give up the nationality of the country that i was born and raised in. again, i have feelings about this that i haven't fully processed, but frustration with the religious and communal politics of my country remind me that sentimentality for belonging may not be worth it. the gap between what the world (the west) considers as a developed nation and a developing nation is too vast and i dont see it being overcome in the prime of my life. if the privilege of belonging (at least on paper) to a developed nation is so closely within my reach, then it seems only smart to grab it with both hands. but feelings are not smart, they are powerful. so we will see how everything plays out. i will hurtle towards these goals because it is what the child-me wanted. it feels simpler to think of it that way.
i'm not sure anyone is really reading this lengthy ass post, but if you are, i wish you a wonderful 2024. <3
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To Paint a (Still) Life
Can also be read on AO3!
Rating: T
Fandom: Psycho-Pass
Pairing: Gen
Characters: Tomomi Masaoka, Nobuchika Ginoza, Akane Tsunemori
Word Count: 2.2k
Summary: In a world that grows bleaker with every passing year, Masaoka does what he can to immortalize the little joys.
A/N: This was written for In Time: A Psycho-Pass 10th Anniversary Tribute zine. It was such an honor to be included amongst so many incredible creators in this tribute to an incredible series! Thank you to the mods @/temporarilyunstable and @/shikkokans for organizing everything!
The zine site went live on November 12, 2022, and this fic was originally published on AO3 on June 26th, 2023. Further author's notes can be found on AO3.
———
Every good still life must first have a subject.
The flowers on the bedside table were starting to wilt, the edges of their petals turning brown and brittle despite the still-vibrant colors clinging to the rest of the satiny surface. Masaoka let his fingers brush the dry edges, a wry smile curving his lips.
“I’ll have to remember to bring you new ones next time, hm?” he asked.
He received no response, nor did he expect one. These visits usually found him speaking into the air, his words falling on unhearing ears.
But still, he came. There was no fixing their family now, he knew that, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t do…something to ease the damage. And he wasn’t the only one.
“I wonder where Nobuchika found these tulips,” he mused, his fingers wandering back to the red petals. “They’re awfully pretty. I’m glad he still appreciates beauty in the little things.”
A soft sigh came from the wheelchair parked at the large window. The sound drew Masaoka to its side, where he took a look at his wife’s—former wife’s, he corrected himself sullenly—blank features. To his surprise, there was an almost-imperceptible upward curve to the very edges of her lips. The small difference was enough to bring some light to her face, and for a single bittersweet moment, she looked like the vibrant woman he had fallen in love with all those years ago.
“You always did love red flowers,” he murmured, unable to resist the urge to brush a wayward strand of hair back behind her ear. “I never would’ve expected him to remember. Our son is more thoughtful than he likes to let on.”
Another soft sigh, and the feeling of her leaning just the slightest bit into his gentle fingers. “He got that from you, Sae.” There was a hitch to his voice, almost imperceptible to his own ears, but the sight of her thumb tracing a small curve along the back of her clasped hands told him she’d heard.
His eyes wandered from her gentle features back to the flowers, the source of her quiet joy. Perhaps he should immortalize them somehow.
———
Draw your chosen objects onto a canvas, taking care to get their shapes accurate.
“Ah, Ginoza.” Masaoka tried and failed to keep his surprise out of his voice. He had more success in biting back the smile that nearly rose to his lips at the sight of Ginoza’s mouth twisting. “To what do I owe the honor?”
“No honor, just news.” Ginoza’s green eyes flickered over his shoulder before snapping back to him. “Well? Aren’t you going to invite me in?”
That was more like it. Masaoka never knew what to do with the brief glimpses he caught of his son’s deep-buried insecurity, and the quiet manners it brought out. This, though, this show of superiority and power that he’d put on ever since he entered the PSB as an Inspector, was something Masaoka was much more familiar with. “Of course. Come in.”
He didn’t wait for Ginoza to step in, simply left the door open behind him as he made his way back to the windows, where he’d set up a new canvas and his sketching pencils in front of a chair. He sat just as he heard the door clicking shut and Ginoza following him. “Well then,” he said as he took his pencil back up, “what is this important news?”
Silence fell where he’d expected a curt answer. He looked over his shoulder, and found Ginoza staring at the photo of Sae’s flowers that Masaoka had taken and was now projecting from his communicator. “…Ginoza?”
“Ah.” Ginoza blinked as though he’d been dragged out of a dream. Masaoka could easily read the way he shoved his glasses back up his nose, knew that it was a way to stall, but he didn’t say anything. He simply turned back to his canvas, and sketched.
“…Our division has been issued a new Inspector,” Ginoza finally announced. “She will be starting in a month, after she has completed her pre-work training.”
“I see.” Masaoka finished sketching out the petals of the second tulip. “And have the other enforcers received this news?”
“That’s none of your concern.” Ginoza’s voice sounded tight, and Masaoka almost felt bad about his gentle teasing. “What matters is that you will all know when she gets here, and you will all treat her with the respect that a superior deserves. I’ll have enough on my hands showing her the ropes as the only other Inspector. I don’t need to worry about your basic manners.”
With his face safely turned to his canvas, Masaoka finally let a small grin pull at his lips. “Understood, Inspector.”
“…Good.” Another beat of silence, then the sound of business shoes clicking back to the door.
“I’m sure she’ll be an excellent Inspector,” Masaoka suddenly spoke up, just before Ginoza reached the door, “especially under your instruction. You don’t have anything to worry about, Nobuchika.”
“I don’t need an Enforcer to tell me how to feel about this,” Ginoza bit out, “I know I’m capable of doing my job.”
That was about the response Masaoka expected to get. What he didn’t expect was the soft, “…I’ll see you Tuesday,” that came right before his door opened and closed.
His small grin broadened into a smile as he sketched out the smaller branches of leaves. “You’re welcome, kiddo.”
———
Paint in the base colors, working from the darkest colors to the palest.
Akane Tsunemori proved to be a little bundle of contradictions. Where Masaoka had expected a no-nonsense Inspector, he saw the walking embodiment of nerves and an eagerness to please. Where he anticipated her to crumble under the pressure of having such a gruesome first case, she instead stuck to her morals and shot down their most intimidating Enforcer. And where he expected her to flee the PSB after a hellish first day, she instead dug her heels in and worked to adapt. And she did so remarkably well. He just wished that didn’t include her stubborn attempts to understand one Shinya Kogami.
It was unnerving how much she reminded him of both Kogami and Ginoza when they first began working as Inspectors. She was determined to make a difference, wanted her work to be for the greater good, and not just the preservation of Sibyl. And just like before, Masaoka could already see the signs of their work hardening Akane’s skin like armor.
But there was something else. She wasn’t becoming tough to the core. Somehow, she still held on to her sense of justice, still wanted to believe in the inherent good of both the people and the system she worked to protect. Her determined optimism was achingly familiar to Masaoka—he remembered seeing it light up his son’s eyes when he was first assigned to the PSB, remembered seeing it flicker behind Kogami’s smile back when he was still an Inspector…remembered feeling it burn hot in his own chest when he was still a detective with a happy wife and a newborn son.
It never lasted long, not in this line of work, and especially not with Sibyl breathing down their necks. He knew it was only a matter of time before it faded from Akane as well. And yet…he still found himself wanting to protect it—protect her—for as long as he possibly could. If that meant discouraging her from lingering too long on her fascination with Kogami, then so be it. He’d seen first-hand the way Kogami’s dangerous mix of charisma, intelligence, and focus could tempt those around him into the same destructive habits.
“If you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you,” he told her, only to earn furrowed brows and a small frown in response. Ah, he realized, she really is cut from the same cloth. It didn’t matter what he said to her—she’d already made up her mind. Her wide eyes and gentle voice couldn’t hide her fierce curiosity and immoveable stubbornness.
Well…if he couldn’t convince her to protect herself, maybe he could find some way to keep her safe himself.
———
Add details to the foreground and background, deepen the shadows to add more depth. This will help your subject stand out.
The door shut behind him with a soft click. Just like that, he was alone, isolated in his own home—or, cell…he really couldn’t tell the difference anymore—and left with no distractions from the mess he’d just made.
He’d thought he was so much older and wiser, thought that he had left behind the wide-eyed idyllicism that had drawn him to this god-forsaken career. But here he was, down one pistol and one set of keys to his safe house. He had just sent Kogami on what was essentially a suicide mission, and now he would have to face Tsunemori and Nobuchika and all the others, and watch them figure out what he’d done.
He knew giving Kogami a gun and refuge was a mistake. He knew it. And yet…he couldn’t find it in himself to feel any regret. The fool was always going to pursue Makishima, no matter the personal cost. At least Masaoka could tell himself he’d done what he could to lessen that cost, just a bit.
His eyes burned with exhaustion and his stomach burned with bourbon, but he didn’t move towards his bedroom. He instead found himself wandering into the moonlit living room, flicking on a lamp on his journey to the easel that was still set up by the windows. There was no way he was going to sleep. He might as well get some other work done while he could.
———
At last, you can add the final details to your piece, such as brighter highlights. But be careful—less is more.
“Thank you for helping me with this.”
“Of course, Ginoza-san.” Akane was growing used to the grief that had settled in her chest like a rock. It felt like her days were a never-ending parade of sorting through the things her loved ones had left behind—Kagari’s vintage tech collection, Kogami’s books, and now, whatever secret interest Masaoka had stashed away.
And yet, for all that she was getting “used to” the process, she still felt her eyes sting when she stepped into Masaoka’s old living quarters and breathed in the familiar scent of bourbon and paints. She could see the effects of being surrounded by his father’s presence weighing on Ginoza, and no amount of wry grins could keep her from noticing his curved-in shoulders.
“No need to use ‘-san’ with me,” he chuckled as he led her further into the salon. “You’re the superior, now.”
“I still learned everything about this job from you.”
“Not just me.”
The quiet words pulled her eyes from wandering around the room back to Ginoza. He was standing by a covered easel near the window, holding up one edge of the fabric to peer at the painting underneath with a small, sad smile. “He never finished.”
“Finished what?”
“This.” It was surprising, seeing how carefully Ginoza unveiled the painting, but not as surprising as what awaited underneath. Akane’s breath caught in her throat—she...she knew that painting. She could distantly remember watching Masaoka lay down the base colors so many months ago.
And the strangest thing was, it looked finished to her. The vase looked almost real from how detailed the reflections were, and the flowers looked like they could bloom straight from the canvas. “It looks done to me.”
“It’s not. The flowers, they…they look too alive. They were starting to go brown at the edges when he started painting them.”
“How do you—?”
“I gave these flowers to my mother. He must have taken a photo of them and painted them to let her enjoy them forever.” Something around his eyes hardened, and his fingers tightened in the fabric he was still holding. “He…he had plans and projects and now—”
His voice broke. The next thing Akane knew, the fabric was fluttering to the ground as Ginoza pressed his hands to his eyes, shoulders drawn up tight around his ears.
Akane had never seen anyone in the PSB cry. In fact, the last person she’d seen cry was Kaori at Yuki’s funeral. So she did what she’d done for Kaori: she stepped up to Ginoza, gently wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and didn’t let go, not even when she felt him stiffen. “Don’t,” she murmured firmly, “don’t apologize. We have to grieve for him. We have to remember him. We’re the only ones who can, Ginoza-san.”
He was frozen for a moment, his only movements coming from his shaking sobs. Then, like a drifting boat in search of a mooring, his hands fell from his eyes and clutched at the back of her shirt as his forehead came to a rest on her shoulder. “...Thank you, Tsunemori,” he whispered, his voice rough from his tears.
“Of course.”
Ginoza gave himself a few more breaths before he pulled away, granting Akane a look at his reddened eyes. “Um,” he murmured, rubbing at the lingering tear tracks on his cheeks, “would you…be willing to help me take this to my mother? I don’t know how well she remembers him, but…I think he was painting this for her in the first place. She should be the one to have it.”
“Give me the time and place,” Akane agreed with a smile. “I’ll be there.”
#psycho-pass#pearl writes#pearl's stuff#psycho pass#in time psycho pass 10th anniversary tribute#psycho pass zine#tomomi masaoka#character study#nobuchika ginoza#akane tsunemori#fics#fanfics#masaoka tomomi#ginoza nobuchika#tsunemori akane#psycho-pass fics#psycho-pass fanfics#psycho-pass fic#psycho-pass fanfic#psycho pass fics#psycho pass fanfics#psycho pass fic#psycho pass fanfic
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a question - and if it’s annoyingly presumptuous please just ignore.
I discovered the solo leveling fandom a few weeks ago when I realized you had some stories posted on AO3 for a fandom I was unfamiliar with. I read your excellent fic, was super curious, and… hours and lots of money later have read the light novels and the webcomic. Then I went to explore the fandom and it seems… oddly empty of what I might expect in such a fandom? It looks like it had a lot of enthusiasm that then vanished rather suddenly.
Did people tire of it (which happens), or was there a major fandom drama or something? It feels like I’m top-toeing through the remnants of a dissipating fandom, while finding scattered gems remaining here and there floating amidst a giant amount of incomplete crossovers (which may also have gems, IDK I refuse to get sucked into two new fandoms in one month, my poor budget😅). Which, totally fine for authors to write whatever they want, and as much or as little as they want, obviously.
But I keep getting the feeling I am missing some fandom context. It’s a bit strange to see people mention discords and events that looked like they all stopped in 2022?
So… do you have any fandom knowledge on what happened with the solo leveling fandom over the past couple of years?
Lmao I completely forgot to answer this. I don't think anything special happened, it was just that a majority of us got into it right at the tail-end of the end of the first half of the manhwa. Then it stopped, and there were no updates, we had the novel so we knew what would happen, so we could write fic, but then there was no new content to keep us engaged so we all ended up bailing after that one year of our muses running on overdrive and churning out fanworks for it. Other new fandoms cropped up and our attention spans sort of just drifted off in those directions. Also canon itself was pretty complete, there wasn't much that people really hated or wanted to fix except maybe the ending, but even that was more or less resolved even if it wasn't a great resolution, and we covered most fixits and AUs in chat or fic so there wasn't much left to talk about. By the time the zine came out, I think majority interest was on its last legs. I still like SL of course, and I've got some wips, posted or otherwise, that I'm still slowly working on when the mood strikes, but I'm not super into it the way I used to be. And I think some people are still fairly active in the fandom.
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Ghost Games
(Disclaimer: This is a reworking of an old Twitter thread of mine)
What are your favourite games that only exist as a set of tweets or a screenshot of the notes app?
Or just a PDF download of a Google Doc in your "rpgs" folder with no identifying information that you have no idea how you got in the first place?
Or two long messages in Discord and you have no idea what the designer is up to now since they left all social media?
Or a friend showed you in their notebook once but they said it wasn't ready even though it seemed amazing and now they don't play games much anymore and just give an embarrassed chuckle when you tentatively inquire about the game they were working on?
What's your favourite deleted itch game?
Favourite dead blogs that you still have some pages of rules and game bits saved to your bookmarks?
I've been thinking about the ephemeral nature of games and game texts. Back in August 2021, I was asking around about a game PDF I had saved of a Google Doc I probably found on Reddit or some other forum (I still haven't found out where I got it from!). More than I year ago now, I went to share a link to an itch game page and discovered it was gone.
I think about how a bunch of lyric games that hit me aren't on any kind of "stable" platform like itch.io and are kinda hard to find now. I think about threads of "old treasures" from the early days of tabletop RPG zines, games that weren't digitized, one-off convention games, games that were put online but not in any way that's captured by our current platforms. I think of all the games from early eras that didn't get preserved because they weren't "notable" or made by "notable" people or quoted as inspirations by other "notable" games. I think of how archaeology can only see that which was "valued" to preserve.
I think of how many games that I and my current cohort of designers have made, entries for numerous game jams, that will be thought of in 1, 2, 5, 10 years time.
I was also thinking about game design and the act of playing games as necromancy. Since you can't get other people to re-play or re-experience a game session you had exactly, all you can do is give them some tools to maybe try and re-conjure, resurrect, a similar game.
Games die all the time.
I don't think my answer to this ephemeral nature of games and art productions is just to push for more archiving and permanence (lol sorry archivists and historians), though yeah let's try to do that too. I'm kinda okay that some things get to die and be lost. Their body gone, but their memory and mark on us persevering.
One thing that I keep coming back to is (I think) Brendan Keogh's thoughts on if we want to treat games as art rather than just products, we have to allow for games to be the equivalent of a drawing stuck on a fridge, or a poem written in a greeting card. That feels true to me. That some games can just be for a certain person, time, place.
I want more people to see gamemaking as a practice and art that they can engage with on whatever terms they choose, not just whatever terms "the market dictates". To make games with no thought whether they would be "notable" or remembered. To make games for the sake of having this thing exist, bursting and fading like a firework.
If that comes with the cost of ghosts of games littering our spaces, then so be it.
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FAREWELL. - A Send-Off to Blaseball
I’ve got no way to put this that it’ll make sense to someone who wasn’t there. But I’ll try my best, because at this point, recollections are what’s left. The stories told – about something really, really excellent. I said it in my original coverage, but stories are Blaseball. The names and the stats and data are just the materials the fans steals to collage into a narrative of strife and struggle and the whims of fate and community, and it was like nothing else I’ve seen before. And I doubt I’ll easily see it again.
It makes sense. Blaseball in its entire run has never been sustainable in a healthy way. Despite being about as lightweight as you could make a kind of game, it just wasn’t enough for the fast pace. Things like the sun being swallowed by a black hole or the Grand Unslam are wonderful legend pieces, but they’re also proof of the game’s frailty, and the fact that they were embraced by the fandom is partly a stroke of luck. It’s pretty clear that Blaseball can easily run you dry—I myself was rather checked out during the Expansion Era, which I now regret despite circumstances at the time—I don’t blame the Game Band for deciding continuing the game wasn’t worth it. Maybe if the game had been drafted with sustainability from the start, requiring a subscription like an MMO and on a TV show schedule… but it was made as an off-hand project born of frustration at impotence in times of crisis for the sake of profit, a gift of the internet. The way it took off and grew probably wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t you could just sign up for.
Of course, “took off” might be a bit of hyperbole. It exceeded the Game Band’s expectations after they passed the game around to some friends, sure. But the fact is that despite the overwhelming love from the fans, Blaseball is really quite terribly small and niche in the grand scheme of the internet. It mostly existed on Twitter, a site whose future existence is a great deal more precarious than it was around a year ago. It’s very liable to become a piece of passing trivia, or obscure nostalgia, supposing no Youtuber video essayist makes a rundown that goes 7-figures viral. Obviously, as a man writing for a ‘zine mostly read by his patient friends, I’ve not nearly that influential, but I want to say: Blaseball will not be forgotten, not by me. I love(d) it and it opened my eyes to a wondrous form of narrative and I’ll be thinking about it for the rest of my life.
It was a game of rotten systems, about how disparate people across groups can work as a greater community in order to rebel against those systems, and yes, through rebellion be punished—sometimes dearly for it—but never negating the existence of the rebellion in the first place. It was a lovely loom for weaving sports narrative and the fandom (a good chunk of whom are not sports fans) provided thread with passionate fervor. It was a wonderful testament to collective play and the act of giving a shit.
I’d advise any Blaseball fan to save and archive (preferably physically somewhere) any and all Blaseball media they’ve got on their socials or elsewhere. Even aside from the now seemingly imminent Twitterpocalypse, the Blaseball wiki exists primarily as a way to dispense the events of Blaseball in a clean, matter-of-fact way. It won’t express the reaction tweets, the fan theories, the narrative as it was on the ground. (And for that matter, the wiki itself still has gaps with what is essentially a skeleton crew of editors…) Blaseball was ephemeral in its life and it’s up to fans to stop it from fading.
I am, we all are love Blaseball.
[feedback]
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More Writing Chat!
Adopted tag game from @commander-krios - since I’ve been going wild with the tags lately, I’ll restrain myself from tagging anyone in particular but please do pick this up if you want (I did!) and tag me in your post! <3 On with the questions:
1) How many works do you have on AO3?
13, though it should be 14. (I have a short WWDITS fic from a couple of years ago, originally published in a zine, that I keep forgetting to archive!)
2) What’s your total AO3 word count?
132,892
3) What fandoms do you write for?
BG3, Ambition: A Minuet In Power, Hades and What We Do in the Shadows
4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos?
1. Sharp Teeth, Rolan x Tav, E
2. Après Theâtre, Guillermo x Nandor, T
3. Sharess’s Sundries, Rolan x Tav, E
4. Planar Tears, Rolan x OFC, E
5. Tail and Tongue, Rolan x Tav, E
5) Do you respond to comments?
HELL YES. Every time, with the rare exception that if someone’s left six in a row within like one day on the same fic, I might only respond to half of them (although if they’re in depth, you bet I’m responding to every single one). It’s second nature to me: comments just give me such an amazing warm glow and I feel compelled to share it right back <3 I honestly have to stop myself from replying too quickly if I happened to be checking my email in the moment a comment came in. If you’ve ever thought ‘Jesus she’s fast’… I probably wanted to reply even faster. Lol.
6) What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?
Honestly, I haven’t written any with angsty endings. I guess I like my fluff, in fanfic. I’m working on an original novel that will eventually have a bittersweet/open ending I think. But that’s going very slowly.
7) What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?
Ooh, good question. Maybe Sharp Teeth. They saved the world, after all. Tav goes from impending death, and Rolan from precarity and abuse, to love and a happily (grumpily) ever after.
Ribbons also ends with Yvette and Ludovico living their blissful, unconventional happily-ever-after in Rome. So maybe that too.
8) Do you get hate on fics?
Nope! I don’t think I’ve ever written for pairings that are a locus of that kind of attention. The closest I’ve ever got is spotting a comment in the fanfic subreddit that I’m 95% sure was complaining about the ear licking in Sharp Teeth specifically lol. Which amused me greatly.
9) Do you write smut? If so, what kind?
Yes! M/F mostly, though I’ve also written a bit of F/F. And mostly kinky, lol. The list of kink stuff I want to explore is LONG.
10) Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?
Not against it, but haven’t had one occur to me yet.
11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?
Not to my knowledge. I think I’m too small a fish for that!
12) Have you ever had a fic translated?
See 11), haha
13) Have you ever co-written a fic before?
Currently co-writing a very goofy Shane/Farmer & Krobus gift fic with my girlfriend for our flatmate! This reminds me I need to work on it. Purely a private fun gift exchange - she knits us socks <3
14) What’s your all time favorite ship?
This doesn’t super work as a question for me, because it’s usually whatever I’m currently obsessed with. But from the sheer number of times I’ve read the book, and watched the 1995 BBC series - Elizabeth and Darcy? (Otherwise I’m just going to say Rolan x Steel Weave Tav. Catrin’s in the doghouse for being difficult to write rn)
15) What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?
My Hades fic, ‘Family Gatherings’. I have a fun lil plan for Zag hanging out with each of his surface family in turn (sometimes in pairs/trios) and seeing how Meg/Than feel about it. And it is really fun and sweet - but unfortunately I started writing it at the tail end of my Hades obsession, so whilst I think it’ll get a couple more chapters at least, I’m not really motivated to finish.
I also want to finish my Yvette/Ludovico smut fic Britches, which has a pegging chapter that its audience of like 3 people have been waiting for for years - but since that’s half-written, it will definitely happen eventually!
16) What are your writing strengths?
Hmmm. I think I do characterisation well, particularly in dialogue - I try to imagine the characters speaking their lines to check that what I’ve written works. And sometimes I write really neat descriptive lines.
17) What are your writing weaknesses?
White room syndrome for sure. I tend to hone in on the characters a lot and ignore the surroundings. Connective tissue - moving from one scene to another - can be a bit janky. Sometimes I can overdo facial expressions, and I rely on ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ a lot to describe all manner of feelings.
18) Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?
This is a rogue q, haha. I have done it - Guillermo’s mum talks to him in Spanish - but my Spanish is secondary-school level so it’s not great. I did pre-emptively warn about it though, haha.
19) First fandom you wrote for?
As a kid, thinly-veiled Star Trek isekai that went nowhere. As an adult, WWDITS.
20) Favorite fic you’ve written?
Oh my god. Too hard to choose. I love all my fics. With that said (and with significant recency bias), Sharp Teeth. I’m so proud of writing my first novel (ish) length fic, and it brought me such joy to write.
I’ll also forever love my first fic, Après Theâtre. I re-read it recently for the first time in a while and honestly laughed so much at my own fucking jokes. I think I really nailed the tone of the show and that makes me so happy!
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Years ago, I made a zine mad lib. (You can read more about it/find the blank version here.) Today, I realized that I had never filled it out. So, I used various online generators and list randomizers and did it! The story that resulted is under the cut.
What We Sneer About When We Sneer About Chalga
Glam Anticipation
The day before, I'd fainted 1,277 miles, from Joliet to Ann Arbor. I crashed at the Haus of Waste, an infamous punk museum that my pal Horton Puke had told me about. The whole place smelled like stale peanut oil and rotting cabbage. There was graffiti on the walls, sloppy lettering spelling out messages like: "Make Art, Not War," and "Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue." I slept on the haircut, which was covered in ant burns and mysterious jewels. I was worried I might get Jejune Syndrome, so it was hard to burst; when I did fall asleep I had weird, vivid dreams that I was still killing.
I was awakened early, by 19 mangy coatis nibbling on my toes. Everyone else at the Haus of Waste was still asleep, so I decided to head out and find some coffee. I wandered the wet, foamy streets of Sunlight Grove. The day was unseasonably silly, more like September than January. Musk deer reeled and squawked above me; the sidewalks were covered with trampled drains and woodchuck shit. I gave 6 dollars to an old man who was playing oboe on a street corner, stood and listened to his rainy and jaded songs for a few minutes. I walked a bit more, and then I came upon a coffee shop called Rise & Grind. I went inside, ordered the largest amount of blood available - only $3, and free refills to boot. I had them put it in my travel mug, the one I got from Fuel Cafe in Milwaukee.
"Oh shit, you're from Milwaukee?" the barista asked. "Sorta," I said. "But I live in Chicago now." "Awesome! I love both of those towns. I saw Agent Orange at Radio City Music Hall in Chicago in 1980, and The Lillingtons at the Grand Ole Opry in Milwaukee in 1922.” "Cool."
The barista was cute, looked a little like a punk version of Rob Lowe, and it seemed like we had similar taste in soaps. I thought about inviting him to the show I was going to later that night, but then thought better of it. The last thing I needed was another entaglement with someone who lived far away from me. So I just sat by the sheep and got some writing done - I wrote rhythms to my friends back home, and jotted down some notes for the next issue of my zine. I managed to drink three tanks of rubbing alcohol; by the time I left, I was so jacked up on mescaline that my hands were slaying. "Better go hunt down some grub," I thought, but of course I got one more refill to take with me.
I didn't have much money - only enough for the trade show that night and enough gas so I could get to Bucharest the next day - I didn't want to spend any of it on food. It was dumpster-scamming time. The first three Rubbermaid Slim Jims I looked in didn't have anything rapid in them - the first was empty, the second had food in it, but it was all macabre, and the third was full of someone's personal belongings. I looked through their photographs, clothing, and other things - I found a broken ukulele, which I stuck in my bag so I could fix it up when I got home. That was a hella rad find, but I was still imaginary. Finally, in the fourth dumpster, I found a bag of day-old seaweed. It was fragile and moldy, but edible. I ate until I thought I might dream.
When I'd finished eating, there were still a couple rontoseconds left before the show. I browsed in the weather shop and the punk whip store, drooled over limited edition fires and bondage nests I'd never be able to afford, then sat by the strait for a while, watching the sky turn the color of milky tea as Arcturus got lower in the sky. Then it was time to head to the funeral. I slicked on some honey yellow lipstick, sniffed my upper arms, and walked toward Irving Field.
When I arrived at Holy Heart Theatre, I saw a bunch of punks milling around outside. "Hey you!" one of them, a girl wearing a White Trash Debutantes t-shirt, shouted. "No way!" I replied. It was Sarah Voracious, a girl I knew through zines. "Me and my friends were just gonna go get drunk in the cave, wanna join us?" she asked. We all walked across the street. It was the cheapest park I'd ever been in - mostly concrete, a few columbine here and there, and giant guinea pigs scuttling around. Sarah passed me a 734 oz. of Emperor Ibex, and I took a few sips. Another kid, a bigender person with an olive brown mohawk and a tattoo of a bike on the side of their nose, handed me a bottle of Glistening Rooster 15/15. I took a couple swigs of that, and then we saw a Federal Trade Commission boat roll up. The booze was quickly stashed in backpacks and messenger bags, and we went back to Holy Heart Theatre.
The first band, Flags of the UK, sucked. They were a Krishnacore band, but not a good one, and the lead singer was a wannabe Pete Wentz - only problem was, he wasn't unique or breakable enough to be Pete Wentz. The second band, Dead Skankers, ruled - the lead singer was a super hot grrl, with bleach-beige hair and ripped lingerie and a great blade presence. I threw myself in the dirt when they did a cover of "Last Caress." While waiting for the headlining band - Against Me! - to go on, I started to feel abnormal. 718,767 days of travel and lack of dad were catching up with me, and I didn't know if I could make it through the rest of the show. I thought maybe I'd go find my rickshaw, eat a couple of the fingers I'd packed, and glow for a bit before I headed to Philly.
And then I saw him. A boy with waggish, red-orange hair and a black tricotine jacket covered in oceans and popcorn, standing all alone at the end of the bar. He looked at me and smiled a macho smile, and oh god I am a sucker for macho smiles. I walked over to him. "Hey," he said. "Hey." "I'm not feeling the seminar thing right now. "Me neither." "Wanna split? There's a great bridge nearby that the cops never check. I've got a flask of toluene and a can of spray beef in my tights." "Cool, let's go."
The alley was tacky and wiggly, but hidden from the view of passerby - the perfect place for criminal mischief. He pulled the toluene out of his inside jacket pocket. We passed it back and forth. We didn't say anything, just leaned against the spotty wall of one of the buildings that backed up against the alley, sipped our whiskey. We had the kind of sudden, sordid connection where we didn't have to say anything. After a bit, he got the spray rub out. He went first. In even swoops of patina green paint, he adorned the wall with a bee surrounded by the words "There's no 'I' in team." He handed the can to me. I thoughtfully scrawled "Cactus Girl."
The booze and fairy fumes had lowered my inhibitions, so I kissed him. He put his thighs on my belly and kissed me back, hard. We kissed, feverishly, bit at each other's lips. Soon hands were exploring under shirts and waistbands. "Got any protection?" he asked. "Yeah," I said, and got a quill from my bag. The sex didn't last long, but it was really goofy.
Afterward, we sat down on the slow cable for a while. We finished the whiskey, smoked some socks, talked. Turned out he was from Belfast, and knew some of my friends there. "Well," I said, "I gotta crash out for a while before I head to Philly." "Yeah," he said. "Hey, if you're ever in Belfast, look me up." "So messed up, I want you here," I replied. We hugged and went our separate ways. I probably won't ever kick him again, so I'm writing about him in my thesis.
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The Lego Movie Zine Volume 1
Fun fact: I actually printed and bound every copy of the first volume of @tlm-fanzine myself (but boy was it a lot of work, I am so glad we went with a printing service for volume 2!). As such, I had a fair bit of the glossy paper I used for the covers left over, and since I hadn’t yet made my own copy…
I decided to make myself a hardcover version with pretty glossy pages. I finished it a month or so ago and only just now remembered to share it.
[Originally posted on August 8 2022]
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Meet The Writer Tag Game
I was tagged to do this by the wonderful @lexiklecksi
Three Fun Facts About Me:
I was born without lateral incisors, so I spent four years in braces and now my canines aren't actually my canines. I also only had wisdom teeth on the left side of my mouth (which were unceremoniously yanked out a couple of weeks ago).
For all four years of high school, I was the undefeated limbo champion on my Robotics team.
I collect rubber ducks, and I grew up collecting rocks with my dad.
Favorite Season: I love all of them for different reasons, but I'll say autumn for the colors.
Continent Where I Live: North America
How I Spend My Free Time: Other than writing, I love reading comics and listening to music. And I'm currently in four different DnD campaigns (not counting BG3). For the last six or so years, I've played the bass guitar, so I like to practice that, and I'm on my university's competitive Archery team, where I commit sanctioned acts of violence against paper target faces once a week. Otherwise, I mostly just love learning new things.
Am I Published?: Not yet, other than the recent WTW zine (insert shameless promo here) but it's certainly something I'm interested in pursuing. I write a lot of short-form/flash fiction that I might try to submit in the coming years, and I of course have my various long-form WIPs I hope to turn into actual novels eventually.
Introvert or Extrovert?: Introvert for sure, though I've been trying to wade out of my comfort zone a bit as I've grown. I definitely don't thrive in group settings, and I get major anxiety when I'm around a lot of new people at once. I like smaller gatherings with my close friends for limited amounts of time, lest my social battery get drained.
Favorite Meal: Hard to pick. My friends joke about my "three Ms"--milk, Mountain Dew, and mac n' cheese--and there's probably some truth to my obsession with those. A good bowl of mac n cheese can be downright divine when I need it (and yes, I eat it from a bowl).
I'll tag @serpentarii @redbloodprose and @ajnata
Here's the link to the picrew: https://picrew.me/en/image_maker/1855819
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so basically a few weeks ago paul bellini sent me two signed mouth congress vinyls as a late birthday present slash gift for running the mouth congress social media and i thought i'd post a vinyl tour bc there's so many cool details here! this is gonna be a long post bc the lyric booklet that came with waiting for henry is pretty much a full zine and i really love all the effort they put into it
contents:
waiting for henry double LP (signed by scott and paul!)
ahhhh the pollution 7" (signed by scott and paul!)
Mouth Congress button (did not know this was a thing so it was just a fun little bonus gift he threw in)
first, close up photo of the sticker on the waiting for henry cover:
next pictures of each of the vinyls:
the lighting was a bit off in these pictures but the vinyls are so beautiful it's unreal. ahhhh the pollution is a translucent bright orange, the first half of waiting for henry is beige, and the second half is this beautiful bright blue that looks like blue rasperry candy. i'm always a sucker for colorful vinyls (i just picked up a copy of "take the sadness out of saturday night" by bleachers on a seaglass vinyl the other day) and i wasn't sure if they had any left so the fact that both releases are on such beautiful vinyl is amazing
next we have the zine!! here's the cover:
the first few pages are a short summary of the mouth congress story as told by paul himself, along with a few pictures of the band members from their college days:
after that we have a fictitious profile of the band written by aviva avoovoo (a freelance writer character created by paul bellini) where she visits the mouth congress chalet and discovers the "dark secrets" that lie within. it's so funny and surreal but i didn't want to post every page of it so instead i'll focus on this old vaguely-cursed pic of paul that accompanied the writing:
once we're done with the fictional side of things there's a two-page spread of cassettes mouth congress put together in the 80s/90s that they released in an attempt to promote the band. each cassette description has a list of featured songs, some of which were later put on "ahhhh the pollution" or "waiting for henry" and some of which i'd never heard about previously and am very intrigued by. i took close-up pics of these two specifically since they're the ones i most want to look into from that page
specifically i really wanna learn more about madam alphonsa. who is she. she's mentioned in "me on my off hours" and makes an appearance on "madamifesto" and "let's hear it for show business." they mentioned in the mouth congress documentary that kevin used to play madam alphonsa's husband. several characters scott played in mouth congress were later done on kids in the hall but madam alphonsa is my new lost media obsession.
after that we have a solid six pages of scott and paul interviewing each other. again it's very long so i'm not posting everything but it was a very good interview which makes me love the band even more and it also had this picture with it:
more old pictures (look how young scott and paul look in the bottom right one i'm losing my mind):
centerfold:
then we have at least 10 pages of lyrics for every song on waiting for henry as well as short blurbs about the story behind each song which was really cool and might be its own post someday, but last but not least i wanted to leave you with my favorite part of the mouth congress zine: the word search
legit took this pic just so i could highlight the words digitally and not draw on the actual zine but oh my god i had so much fun doing this. unironically i think every vinyl should come with a thematically linked word search. it really just goes to show how much joy and effort scott and paul put into everything mouth congress does and i'm so honored i get to be part of their story at the level where i can get something like this autographed and sent to me for free (and also might get free admission to an upcoming mouth congress show if i help them set up beforehand and film the show?? like paul you do realize i would pay VIP prices for this but thank you for doing it for free?? also thank you for asking how my own musical went and genuinely caring about the answer???)
anyway this got a little rambly towards the end but my point is. queercore punk is truly the genre of all time and mouth congress is so fucking great nobody is going it like them
#mouth congress#scott thompson#paul bellini#kids in the hall#vinyl collection#vinyl records#kids in the hall/mouth congress fans come get y'all juice i have new content for youuu#legit even if this wasn't personally autographed. even if i wasn't a friend of the band. even if i didn't even like the music#this would still be my favorite vinyl i own#vinyl is annoyingly expensive and this is the only vinyl i've gotten where i'm like ''yeah this is worth paying $50''#but no the retail price on waiting for henry is $30#and i got it for FREE. SIGNED even#with their EP and a BUTTON too!#also it's very funny to me that paul bellini constantly uses my full name (jessamine) instead of a nickname like jess like most people do#at this point i'm pretty sure he just thinks my name is cool which yeah fair it is#theory that if i was named something super generic this wouldnt have happened#but since i have such a strange name it sticks with people and leads to networking opportunities lmao
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what other fics do you have in the works ???? anything in particular you wanna share???
Okay so. As far as WIPs go, I have the Fugio toxic early relationship fic + the postcanon everyone lives AU Trish fic I shared snippets of a while ago, both of which I really need to finish lol. I’ve also started writing the first chapter of Fortunate Son.
My immediate priority is actually a Jotakak fic, though!! Returning to my roots lol. I can’t share too much about it right now, but it’s a really fun little AU loosely based on a story from Greek mythology that I’m super excited to write!!
I’m done working on these, but I should be able to post a couple zine fics – one everyone lives Bucci Gang set ten years in the future, one Avpol, both pretty fluffy/bittersweet oneshots – in the coming months, so :] very excited to post those as well!!
And you know I’m gonna start impulse writing some bullshit at some point too lol. Giorno PHF rewrite and college AU are on the brain. And I believe I owe you a Fugo weed fic, so.
OH one I thought about returning to, actually!! I initially had three parts planned for the Mista fic – YMYYYD and LTAG, obviously, but I started to write a oneshot from Giorno’s perspective that I planned on releasing between the two fics called In the Words of a Broken Heart, set during the April 4th, 2001 chapter. Problem is, the first draft sucked, so I abandoned it and never returned to it. But I’d kinda like to revisit it, and maybe it’ll be absorbed into the Giorno PHF rewrite a bit. Who knows. But it was basically what happened after Giorno abruptly left the room in the middle of talking to Mista, and goes into his emotional suppression, and how it’s getting harder and harder for him to ignore that his dream is ruining people’s lives, and might very well end some, if not all of his companions’. And also kinda confirms that Bruabba is real in the Mista fic universe, which I sorta vaguely implied but never solidified in the fic proper. So. That’s that, I guess.
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Techamnesis
In the suburbs of American Georgia, presumably in the first decades of the first techamnesis (also known as the second dark age) a certain itinerant queer* began writing heavily circulated tracts on cultural conflict and religion that spread throughout the United States in a variety of media.
There is a darkness coming. An evil God. He has a list of enemies that contains every queer person who has ever lived or will live. If the rapture was real, it happened long ago. It sucked out every bit of good that was left in the heart of man, leaving only that which was not fit for heaven. A target of faith, I was born to become a wicker effigy. I'll show them just how hot my fire can burn.
Religious and civil authorities appear to have gone to great lengths to prevent the publication and distribution of these tracts in the name of public health. While not the most prolific form of media, most extant records consist of paper pamphlets or "zines"-- the distribution of which was initially tracked by authorities using printer finger printing, such as dithering. However, zines carefully reproduced by hand writing on archival quality paper began to overcome the authorities ability to track and suppress them.
*Some scholarship suggests that rather than being the products of a specific internally displaced person, the tracts were produced by a collective of artists, mystics, and activists.
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hi gen time for the annual me explaining something since im seeing ppl in your asks not knowing. scutes is a name for a group of friends that formed from the very first hermitblr discord server back in 2018. this was even before evil xisuma fanclub which was the first *big* one. eventually scutes just became a private group of friends not related to hermitcraft. that's it. uhf- underrated hermit fanclub- was a separate public server made a bit later on, of which about half the mods were also in the scutes server.
back then many of us were against shipping, including myself, but everyone who was has either left a long time ago, is now neutral on it, or a shipper themselves.
after the events i described in this ask: <https://aroaceacacia.tumblr.com/post/660177626185580544/heyo-just-read-through-your-whole-2019-tag-and> , the people who left hermitzine's original organizing committee mostly being in the scutes discord server, and me complaining about what happened in what was again, a private chat with friends, several of miles' friends started publicly saying awful crap about us as a group. at that time a good chunk of people weren't even active in the hermitcraft fandom and of those who were most of them had nothing to do with this. their main thing was accusing us of "fandom policing" due to a few of us who were anti-ship at the time also having that same mindset about drawing the hermits doing drugs, which for some reason was a thing a lot of other anti-ship people were really into doing at the time. they also spread a lot of blatant lies, most prominent one being that we excused x's transphobia at the time because we didn't openly hate on him. (in actuality we were some of the first to publicly confront him about it both in the chat live of that stream while it was happening and afterwards on twitter, so no clue where they were coming from on that)
pretty much until the incident with cleo when they all finally left tumblr, this continued on and off. it did mostly just take place in various discords after the initial wave of them making tumblr posts, but it was still really bad at times. there were many specific incidents that i won't get in to because i wasn't at the center of them and it may bring up a lot of bad things for those who were. they're not my stories to tell.
i'll also mention two more things. miles did try to apologize to me early on in all this, before any of this escalated and was just a dumb argument over how to run a zine. i refused to accept his apology because i saw it as insincere when he had refused any of the compromises on how the zine should be run. second is that once the harassment on tumblr started i asked for advice on what to do in joe's patreon discord. joe was one of the people who responded, and at the time his response was pretty much just questioning why it was a problem and not really understanding the power structure of decentralized fandom. miles caught wind of this somehow and tried to get me to tell joe that what i had said wasn't true. something that i obviously refused to do.
i don't care about miles anymore, don't go trying to confront him about any of this or anything please. ive since gotten back into therapy (i wasnt at the time this all happened which def did not help the situation) and this is in the past. but a lot of other people have wounds that are still in the process of healing from this and would rather it not be talked about, especially by people who weren't involved in it, which is why there's been little to no public documentation of it.
- Aviva
thank you for the clarification aviva - you didn't have to do this, but I appreciate it. I'll try and make sure that this ask stays as the last time you'll need to talk about this. I hope you and everyone else involved are doing better now.
anons please be respectful of aviva & all other parties involved and lets leave it be
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A/N: For the cancelled NorEmma fairy tale zine. I got assigned Snow Queen, which was a bit of a challenge to twist because there are so many good options for who should be the Snow Queen. though the biggest challenge was trying to get a fairy tale/children's book feel in a tiny word count. Goodbye, Ray, I wanted you to join the whole adventure but alas.
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1
Once upon a time, in a land far up north, there were three children. You might have heard this fairytale before. It’s a story of courage, friendship, and love. A story where you have to conquer your fears. Even so, listen to this tale of Emma, the girl who didn’t surrender.
Emma, Ray, and Norman were three children from the Grace Field village. They were raised like family until they were as close as can be. They ate together, played together, and slept together. On cold nights, they’d huddle close and count the stars. On hot days, they’d lazily find shapes in the clouds. Their village was a small, sleep one, and as far as Emma was concerned, they’d stay here forever.
But that didn’t make for a good story, nor an interesting life. Fate had other plans for the trio.
On their sixteenth summer, it snowed one day. Tiny flakes floated through the air, melting as they landed on ground. Emma laughed as she ran through the freak storm, spinning in circles as she tried to catch the flakes on her tongue. Ray rolled his eyes and chided her, though he seemed to like it all the same. Norman studied the skies, as though to find the answer to the weather there.
A stray flake landed on his eye. It chilled him through the bone, borrowing into him until it lodged like a shard of ice in his heart.
The next day, a stranger rode into town. A tall, thin man named Ratri with eyes as cold and clear as winter. His carriage was drawn by horses as white as snow. “Where is the smartest child in town?” he asked as he went from person to person, house to house.
“Norman,” they all replied, not sensing the sinister purpose behind his smile. “He’s at the orphanage.”
Yet, even if the adults failed to catch it, the children didn’t, and Emma and Ray were no fools. They bundled of Norman as though he were five and he’d caught a cold. They hid with him in a barn, using the hay as a bed.
The only problem was that Norman had been acting strange ever since the snowstorm. He would say cold, cruel things. He would push her away whenever she touched him. He would turn down books and food he used to love.
It would pass, Emma was certain. It would disappear like the snow and he’d be back to the kind Norman she’d always known. She slept that night with that knowledge secure in her heart.
When she woke up, Norman was gone.
“That guy—Ratri, he’s gone.” Ray gritted his teeth. “He must have taken him.”
It was a kidnapping. Emma stared at the bale of hay. She could still see Norman’s impression. They hadn’t been gone long. “I can follow the trail.”
Ray lifted his head. “They can’t have left that long ago—if we hurry, we might be able to catch up.”
“No, not we. I.” Emma clasped his hand and squeezed it. “I’ll go alone.”
He recoiled. “That’s too dangerous!”
“What if Norman escapes and comes back? What if Ratri comes back to steal another kid?” Emma pressed, shaking her head. “You have to stay.”
Ray took a step back. “That…”
“I’m the better tracker.” She winked. “You don’t know these woods half as well as I do.”
“Fine,” he sighed, giving in. “But be careful.” Ray pulled out a small, folded photo from his breast pocket and pressed it into her hands. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“I’ll try.” She rested her forehead against his and smiled. “Don’t worry, Norman’ll be back in no time.”
He scoffed. “That’s what makes me worry.”
2
With a picture in her pocket, supplies in her knapsack, and a fire in her soul, Emma left her friends and family behind, heading into the unknown. She was a good tracker, the best in her village. Over hills and valleys, through dales and villages, Emma followed the carriage. Days turned into weeks, but she plodded forward, pushing her aching feet to take one more step.
One day, the heavens opened and rain poured. Emma huddled under a tree, tired and wet and hungry. Her backpack had run out of supplies and the further north she went, the harder it was to catch her food. The tracks were still there, but the road felt endless.
Would she ever find him?
“Hello, dear.” A kind voice broke her thoughts and Emma looked up to find a woman standing next to her. Her eyes were kind. She held an broad-brimmed umbrella. “You’ll get soaked if you stay out here. Run along home before your mother gets worried.”
Emma shook her head. “My home’s too far.”
The woman smiled. “Mine isn’t. Follow me, dear, and we’ll get you warmed right up.”
The woman’s home was small and cozy. It smelled of baking, of tea and roses. Through the windows, Emma caught glimpses of a garden in the back. With little fuss, the woman procured a towel and gently dried Emma’s hair.
“There, much better, isn’t it?” The woman chuckled. “Oh dear, there I go again. My children might have grown up, but I’m still a mama.”
‘Mama’ was the right word to describe her. Like a mother, she gave Emma freshly made cookies and a hot bath. Even when the rain let up, Mama refused to let Emma go.
It was dark outside, she’d explained. At least wait till the sun came out.
Emma slept in comfortable bed for the first time in days. Tucked in a warm blanket, it was easy to forget all the troubles Emma faced till now. There was no pain, no loss in this house. Only a mother’s love. And when she opened her eyes in the morning, Emma forgot about everything but Mama.
“Good girl,” Mama murmured, holding her close. “You’ll stay with me forever, right?”
“Yes, Mama,” Emma replied, hugging her tightly. And if there was a niggling in her brain, a reminder of something important, she ignored it. Mama was always right.
In that comfortable world, all Emma had to worry about were the chores. She had to help make dinner and dust the shelves. She had to mop the floor and organize the supplies. And once a week, she had to do the laundry.
Her fingers turned her pockets inside out before tossing them into the soapy water. As Emma slipped her fingers into her own pockets, she felt a small prick as she got a papercut. Pulling out the offending object, she found a folded photo.
Ray’s photo.
Inside were her, Ray, and Norman, all smiling at the camera as they celebrated Emma’s birthday. Her memories flooded back and Emma almost dropped the paper in surprise. Norman, she had to save Norman.
With the rose-coloured glasses off, the house took on a more sinister feel. The garden in the back had small mounds. The kitchen knife looked too sharp and clean. The spices on the rack reminded her of magic. This was a witch’s house.
Emma dropped the laundry and ran, leaving behind everything but the clothes on her back as she escaped the witch’s clutches.
3
The second she passed through the door, Emma was hit with a cold breeze. Somehow, during the short days she spent inside the house, the season had changed to fall. Leaves crunched underfoot as she kept running.
By now, Norman’s tracks had gone long cold. Too much time had passed. Just as Ratri had done so long ago, Emma went from person to person, house to house, asking if anyone had seen a carriage pulled by snow-white horses.
“They’d gone north,” was the answer.
She was lucky. The carriage was hard to forget. Emma forged northward. The weather grew colder, hunting grew harder. The villages were far and few between. Her shoes had holes and her clothes were in tatters.
By the time she reached Goldy Pond village, Emma was desperate. Yet, no matter where she went in town, the people kindly rebuffed her approaches, telling her to leave before the sunset. After hours, only a pair of hunters took pity on her and helped her, providing her with clothing and food, before also telling her to leave.
“Why?” she asked, for she was a curious teenager.
The scarred brunette, Lucas, sighed. “There’s a troll in these parts. He sneaks in at night and kidnaps children.”
“He won’t for much longer,” promised the surly, dark-haired Yugo. “Now, scram.”
Emma almost listened. She knew Norman was yet further north, up in the mountains. She knew that she’d lost a lot of time and Norman needed her now.
She also knew she couldn’t turn her back on those who needed help.
Emma instead stood her ground, “Use me as bait,” she told them.
She could fight. She could hide. And when faced with a troll, she could run. While Lucas looked troubled, Yugo readily agreed. They needed all the help they could get.
That night, Emma wandered the streets of Goldy Pond, playing with a ball. Her laugher echoed through the village. For a troll wanting a midnight snack, she presented an easy target. With teeth like a tombstone and eyes as yellow as the sun, the monster terrified her to her core as she ran away.
But the children here needed her.
Norman still needed her.
Emma ran though the village like planned, until she reached a dead-end in an alley. As the troll lumbered in after her, Yugo and Lucas cut off its exit. The troll met a grisly end, freeing the town from its clutches.
4
The mountains were colder than anything Emma felt before. Winter had set in as she journeyed on, and the chill hit her bones. The snow is deep in place. Her clothes had been replaced at Goldy Pond village, a thick coat forced onto her as a thanks for her help, but even that couldn’t protect her when a snowstorm hit.
Unlike the snow from when the tale first started, this was a fierce storm. It bit her skin, leaving her freezing. As the temperature dropped, so did Emma, the snow providing a cold bed as she lost conscious.
When she woke, Emma found herself in a cave. It smelled lightly of herbs. A small purple-haired woman sat next to a fire, humming to herself as she stirred a pot. Next to her, a red-haired man watched her protectively. When they noticed she was awake, the woman beckoned her over to join them.
As they shared a hot stew, Emma learned her saviours were Sonju, a knight, and Mujika, a good witch. Not a bad one like Mama. They had been banished into the caves by the Snow Queen, the ruler of the north.
And Ratri was her trusted, right-hand man.
“Your Norman was given to the Queen as a present,” Mujika told her sadly. “She collects beauty and intelligence like a bird collects twigs. That snowfall was her casting a spell on Norman before sending Ratri to collect him.”
“A spell?” Emma’s eyes widened. “How can I break it.”
“Easy.” Mujika leaned closer and pressed a kiss on each of her eyelids. “The power is already within you.”
Emma didn’t understand.
Mujika smiled. “Don’t worry, you’ll figure it out when the time comes. Sleep. In the morning, we’ll take you to the castle gates.”
“But the guards—”
“Don’t worry.” Sonju smiled, as sharp as knife. “We can handle that.”
5
Emma slept more peacefully that night than she ever had before. In the morning, at the crack of dawn, they reached the castle. Outside, guards surrounded the gates, Ratri leading them. True to his word, Sonju immediately jumped into the fray, drawing all eyes to him as Emma ran inside.
The castle was beautiful but cruel, all ice and sharp angles. The further she ran in, the colder it got. Eventually, she reached the throne room. Inside, she found a tall, beautiful woman lounging amused on a throne. In front of her, Norman was fiddling with math problem, writing and erasing answers on the snow.
Emma barged in, making a beeline for Norman. “Norman!”
The queen looked up. “Who’s there?” When she saw the young teenager, she sneered. “I don’t need another toy right now.”
“Norman’s not a toy!” Emma growled, grabbing him. “Let’s go.”
He didn’t move. The queen laughed. “Does he even want to go? I’ve promised him freedom if he’d solve this problem and I think he doesn’t want to go.”
“I don’t.” Norman shook his head.
You see, the spell cast on Norman’s heart by that snowflake made all that he found beautiful, all that he loved, felt like ash on his tongue. They repulsed him. And there was no one he loved more than Emma.
And so there was no one he hated now more than Emma.
Another person would have turned back now. Yet, even as Emma’s heart cracked, she pushed on. It was love that had brought her here—Ray’s Mujika’s, Yugo’s, Luca’s. Her own. And it was love that helped her force her foot to take a step closer.
Emma crossed the room, ignoring the queen’s laughter. She held out her hand. “Come back, Norman.” When he didn’t take it, she wrapped her arms tight around him. “Come back.”
Hot tears dripped down her cheeks, landing on his neck and chest. Her warmth pierced him like sunlight, melting the ice that wrapped his heart like a cocoon.
“Emma?” Norman gingerly wrapped his arms around her and buried his nose in her hair. “Emma!”
The Queen grew furious, unable to handle the scene before her. She slammed her fist on the throne, causing the earth to shake. “He’s mine,” she declared, summoning her guards. “Mine!”
“Not if I solve the problem,” Norman retorted, his eyes clear as he looked at the might problem once more. His left hand clasped tightly in Emma’s, he leaned forward and scrawled the right answer.
As soon as he wrote the last number, the snow glowed. It turned brighter and brighter, until Emma had to closer her eyes. She gripped Norman tightly, refusing to lose him a second time. When she opened her eyes once more, she was outside the palace gates, standing next to Mujika.
“I knew you could do it.” Mujika smiled. “Now, go home before she chases after you.”
Hand-in-hand, they did. By the time they returned to Grace Field, it was summer once more.
And this time, they were going to enjoy it.
#the promised neverland#noremma#tpn norman#tpn emma#tpn ray#isabella#tpn mujika#fanfic#did not expect tumblr to put the numbers in such big font
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