[skywalking-through-life]

Hello my darlings! I didn't put together a moodboard for this one...

(and would totally accept any efforts y'all make since they are better than mine)

...but the first chapter of the first sequel to 'waterbound' is here! I hope you love it as much as I have loved writing it. It's called 'resplendence,' here's a little snippet, and the link is below! 💙💙💙

His smile sharklike, he turned back to Stavros. “You've caught me - I thoroughly exhausted myself last night,” he drawled, collapsing back down onto the pillows as though he could not hold himself up. “So much so that I cannot possibly be expected to rise,” he added dramatically, curling around Andromeda as the boy lifted a wavering, sarcastic hand to his brow.

"All hail the conquering prince,” Stavros replied, rolling his eyes as he walked backwards across the stone. “Put on his back by a pretty girl.”

“A most pleasant place to be,” he replied, smirking. Throwing caution to the four winds, he let one hand creep down across Andromeda's stomach to cup the soft mound of short curls between her thighs. She sighed again, and he grinned, stroking his fingers lower. “You will understand it, one day.”

https://archiveofourown.org/works/80809271/chapters/212277766

[skywalking-through-life]

Okay, so maybe I did decide I wanted to moodboard. 😅

[rebellum]

Kinda wild how the concept of emotional labour changed from

"people have to hide their emotions to perform specific types of labour where their apparent emotions influence another person's. Eg. Flight attendants have to be cheerful all the time, so that passengers feel welcome and safe. This suppression and masking of emotion can cause a sense of disconnect within the individual where they dont know what their true feelings are. This is part of the Marxist idea of alienation from labour and from the self."

To

"If you ask me to care about you or listen to your problems, youre being toxic."

[pterribledinosaurdrawings]

how it feels to message a friend who's having Problems that you can't do anything to help with.

[pterribledinosaurdrawings]

#i appreciate how genuine and non-judgemental this comic feels #like left one is not upset at right one for caring while being powerless #and right one seems genuinely distraught and not performative

I'm glad the facial expressions are coming across accurately! It can feel so absurd to say gosh I hope the torment maze removes some fire and rusty nails soon, but alas, sometimes that's all one can do.

[literary-sparks]

“Why don’t you use ai” idk man beyond the obvious environmental and “this machine causes psychosis and encourages people to kill themselves” thing I think asking the equivalent of a solid D student who is also a pathological liar if they can answer my question/do the work for me seems pretty fucking stupid

[forgetful-nerd]

Spelling mistakes? I guarantee neither of us saw those at 3:00 AM Monday Morning.

[asteroidtroglodyte]

Me, tears streaming down my face, sobbing, as I stare at the stars: it’s just so beautiful

The medieval peasant I went back in time to give a bag of Doritos to, concerned: what terrible and powerful sorcerers they must have in your age, to be able to veil the vault of heaven itself from view, as you say

Me, sniffling: I didn’t realize, I can’t, it’s so much, I, I… are the chips good, at least?

Medieval peasant, trying to make me feel better: they’re… magical, strange traveler

[infectiouspiss]

you have to stay alive. you're going to be such a beautiful middle aged freak. young freaks will see you in the street and know that things can be okay.

[soundoftheirwings]

Gotta tell you guys something wild in the Chinese fan sphere

So some fanartist drew a “sexy” (read: booby) version of a (cartoon) character who is traditionally very non-sexualised. Fans of the character got mad about it because it’s kind of groundbreaking how that character is written and portrayed and this art totally ignores the entire point of the character. They demanded the art be deleted. In response to that other people said, well what the fanartist did may be distateful but they have every right to draw what they’re into. The two sides fight for days and each starts a harassment campaign and even report their “opponents’” accounts.

So far so typical. But things eventually come to a head and they decide that this will be settled by votes - not through a poll. Through donations to a children’s education charity via each side’s portal. Whoever can get the highest amount of donation wins.

And that is how this charity received over 1 million in donations in three days lol. Oh btw the “freedom of expression” side won by a landslide (960k to 40k)

[tlbodine]

From now on this is how all petty fandom disputes should be settled.

[flagellant]

[eldr1tch-cr0w]

number one rule! never believe ur thoughts after 10 pm . unless its about The Character then believe all of your thoughts wholeheartedly

[skywalking-through-life]

Hi Sky! I hope you are doing well. I was wondering if you have any updates on any of the fics you're working on. No pressure to answer, I am just very curious and excited for whatever you can give!

Aww, hello my dear anonymous friend! 💙 Thank you for reaching out! Oops - I have been a little incommunicado lately, haven't I? I'm happy to say that this time it has actually just been because real life has been very busy, in lots of positive ways! I AM well, and grateful for it! I've been helping family move into my area and spending time with them and with friends, swimming a lot, going to conferences, and have been very busy at work. Don't accidentally get important at work, kids, it'll eat into your lunch-break writing time. 😅

BUT that doesn't mean I haven't been writing at all! Even though I've had less hours per week to devote to actually putting words on paper, I've still been plotting, still been drafting, still been editing, and even gotten involved with a fandom event. (More to come on that!) Everything is progressing, just slowly (is that really that unusual, lol?), and I am hoping to get some new chapters out by the end of the summer. 'resplendence' and '[conduct]' are both in pretty good places, and I've actually done a TON of plotting for Annabeth's 36 hours, the sequel to 'I drown in you.' Though I probably should finish the last 1.5 chapters of 'I drown in you' first, shouldn't I? 😅

All that to say: if you're looking for snippets, please ask! The only caveat is that I'm really determined not to share more snippets of '[conduct]' until after this chapter is actually posted. And I REALLY want to post it by the end of the summer, so please send good vibes to my poor ADHD brain. 😅💙

[zisurru]

something i think would make a lot of historical romance more accurate & interesting is the realization that people are less likely to totally disparage the ethical & social values of their time than they are to use those values to defend whatever it is they want to do

a woman is less likely to go "it's stupid that women are expected to be modest" than she is to go "there is nothing immodest about a woman going out without a chaperone" or even "i can go out without a chaperone because i am so modest"

people also seem less likely to see someone's shitty behavior as reflecting a shitty society than they are to view that behavior as being out of accordance with that society - e.g. a father who's excessively controlling of his daughters' marriage prospects isn't, in her mind, acting that way because he lives in a repressive patriarchal culture, but is actually outdated in his values - his cruelty is unmodern, ungentlemanly, stuck in the past, barbaric. we might think he's upholding the values of his culture perfectly, but the people around him who took issue with his behavior probably wouldn't see it that way

[caspercryptid]

I feel like not enough people realize that people under enormous strain act really really fucking Weird

[caspercryptid]

If someone is doing things that don't make Sense, try to understand that it is entirely possible that their brain is probably under an enormous weight and fracturing under the pressure. People who have been stabbed will sometimes talk a circle around the fact that they've been stabbed because stress and shock prevent you from recognizing the distress you are in and what you need to do to seek help for it. PTSD will do this also. You will find yourself repeatedly jamming a bag of frozen fruit into the same spot in the freezer where it doesn't fit and keeps falling, over and over and over, focused on nothing but that bag. You will decide that a beanbag chair is 10000% necessary to your life. You will lose your entire shit because you stubbed your toe on a table and that means the whole setup of your furniture is wrong. These are largely harmless examples. People under strain will also hurt themselves and others. Cornered animals bite. And it doesn't heal the bite to go "Hey, are you okay?" But it might get you to an animal that stops biting, so you can start to heal. And before you had an animal that bit, you probably had an animal that kept doing shit you didn't understand as stress signals

[pink111shit]

[fellshish]

reading other comments on the fic you’ve just commented on is like. asynchronous book club meeting 🫶

[inzika]

sometimes when i go for a walk i look at the sky and realize that i really love earth & nature like i just get this really nice feel. i love it

[azaablue]

the best fanfiction you've ever read was written by a woman in her 40s before she made dinner for her kids. it was written by a teenager after school when they should've been studying for a history test. and a barista came up with the idea while they cleaned the espresso machine and busser fact-checked it on their break and the post-doc edited between writing grant proposals and the nurse apologized for typos in the notes after a long shift and behind every drabble and one-shot and multi-chapter fic there is a person with a wonderful and interesting and chaotic life and it is such a privilege that we get to be apart of it because they decided to do this thing we all share, for fun.

[notlayingroses]

Everything I read about recovering from burnout is like “it takes months or even years to fully recover” and it’s like okay…. I have a weekend before I gotta clock in on Monday

[hellothanksjellyfish]

Just gonna leave this here