i hope you find love, happiness and or everything you’ve ever dreamed of. i hope you know you are so loved. i hope you know how much you matter. i hope you never give up on your dream. i hope that you live to see another day. i hope you know you’re worth more than the ignorant opinions of others. i hope you know that you are not alone, and that i will always be here for you.
your future self loves you. they dream of hugging you and wiping your tears away. they wish they could tell you stories of your future, just to see your smile and relief. they wish they could squish your cheeks and tell you how lovable you are. they miss you. they listen to playlists you made just to experience it again. they wrote you a long love letter too, but you will never read it. you are so loved.
I actually wrote today!!! Do you guys know what a big deal that is these days? These days I’ve been so invested in my need to support and hold up other writers - which is very important too, don’t think I’m downplaying the importance of lifting you all up - that I’ve been completely neglecting my creative side.
Like… I’ve been running my blogs, working on my new big project and playing vidja games. I haven’t really creatively written other than my fiverr projects (and even then, it’s character introductions and development, so not really creative writing), but today? At lunch? Spent the whole time talking to my husband then working on my musical script.
Wrote two whole scenes! :D
So proud of myself for taking the time to work on MY creative project <3
Hopefully I’ll be able to announce soon what my new big project is.
Congratulations!!!!!!!!! Also never feel like you can’t take time for yourself! That’s super important to lift yourself up too!! PROUD OF YOU!!!!
Thank you! <333 I’m very glad everyone’s been so nice and patient about me never writing, especially since I was at the very end of a story that several people were really getting into. :)
But I actually think I might eventually finish that story, which almost never happens xD I’m great at starting new stories, not so great at reaching the end of them.
Thanks for the support and uplifting! <3 It’s always nice when the support is reciprocated.
even if you started your journey of recovery and went through a time of better mental health, you are not broken for feeling not so great again. you are never meant to feel perfect all the time.
some people naturally struggle with excess anxiety or feelings of depression, and they may need help to tone it down and smooth the ups and downs of their life. but negative feelings in moderation are simply human, and you did not fail, you did not mess up, for feeling them again. all that it means is you are human.
however, if what you feel seems extreme and constant, it might be wise to seek help again, and that’s okay! there are periods of life where one solution works, but then maybe later it doesn’t work anymore and a new one is in store. trust yourself, because you know how you feel and you know yourself, and you can figure out what you need to feel better. take your time and be careful with your heart❤️
Summary:“What is it about him that turns us all against our deepest principles, just to see him smile brighter?” “I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter, right?”
One Piece loyalty content, with a focus on friendship and the Straw Hats, because that’s what I love the most and write the best.
Readers Overall: I am just making a post for the whole series because all of them are amazing. This is a series of 13(for now) little one shot snippets regarding the Straw-Hat’s and Luffy and how they feel/deal with certain events. Absolutely beautiful writing and super soft feels. I adore this so so much. All of the characters are written magnificently.
a bit of a recommendation list for one piece gen fics. i’m usually a very shippy person but i’ve found my favourite one piece content to consume is all platonic. i’m fairly new to the fandom so some of these might be well-known but eh i’ll get to the lesser known stuff later.
under the cut because it’s kinda long and i don’t wanna make people scroll forever
Welcome back folks! This week, I read way too much (seriously don’t add up the word counts). Enjoy the fics and if you have any recs for me or fics you want me to look for, let me know!
call this world home by Sixteenthdays, stygiomedusa (grainjew) - DreamXD breaks Dream out of prison, and he is forced to live with Techno, Ranboo, and Phil. He learns to be a better person. 42.6k words
of freedom and chains by WhiteBeakedRaven (series) - Dream breaks out of prison, learns to be a better person, and also helps take down the egg. There is a sequel series that is still in progress, but this is a full story. 85.1k words
Burning Bridges by ScumbagSimon - Superhero AU, featuring vigilante Tommy, support Tubbo and Ranboo, and the rest of SBI as government licensed heros who legally have to hunt Tommy down (but morally don’t want to). 21.8k words
An Abundance of Additions by Mags_Eli_Pandora - Phil and Puffy adopt (almost) the entire cast of the Dream SMP out of foster care. It’s literally just fluff (and good fluff too!). 61.4k words
leave the past buried by caydiink (gayleb) - Dream escapes the prison, and lives his best cottagecore life in the woods. Eventually, everyone makes up. 74.5k words
let me die (i’m not meant to live) by caydiink (gayleb) - Dream has been possessed by Nightmare, but he’s saved after being tortured in Pandora’s vault. Heed the warnings! 11.8k words
That’s all for this week! If you enjoyed, come back next week for more! I promise they won’t all be Dream-centric, I just go through phases.
Just a quick post, since I think everyone could use a little bit of good right now. Lots of people have their Comfort Fanfics that they reread when they’re feeling down or having a bad day, and I wanted to share some of mine! Not at all a complete list, since I don’t have the energy to go through all of my bookmarks and my memory is spotty at best. I have others that I think of at difference times! These are just the ones I’m thinking of at the moment.
Breathing Room is a particular fave, but literally, like, anything by AchievingElysium(@queenangst). I just go through her works and click on whatever strikes my fancy that day. Ely’s 30-min fics are especially good when I don’t have a lot of time but I NEED to read something good.
I just recently started playing this game and it’s been one of the most positive things to happen to my life lately. It’s less of a game and more a place to sort out your thoughts. You write out whatever’s on your mind, and people can send you anonymous letters to try and help you out, or let you know you aren’t alone ! It’s a really sweet game with a sweet community. There’s been one or two obnoxious players, but it’s easy to report things that don’t belong. Please check out Kind Words on Steam. Its $5 and it’s so helpful
While one of my works got rejected as the winner of a poetry contest, I received a critique from one of the judges of the competition, who said it was “edgy, brilliant work”and“unapologetic and empowered.”
“This speaker is on fire! The points and voice are delivered with intelligence, justified rage, and a charming straightforwardness. You have a talent for voice, tone, and storytelling.”
They also went on to say that they think this poem has a high chance of getting published, and that no big edits were necessary, which according to them “is a good sign that a poet knows what they’re doing, stamp of approval!"
They ended with this:
"I encourage you to keep sending your work out. I once had a prose poem rejected twenty times and later accepted at The Nation. Other similar stories as well. You’re doing great!"
This past month I’ve been struggling with confidence in my written work, wondering if I truly had a chance of getting published one day. This was a much needed and deeply appreciated critique and sign that I should continue.
Pairing: The Winter Soldier x S.H.I.E.L.D. agent!Reader
Summary: With your team dead and your mission failed, you’ve been taken by the assassin to an unknown location and are at the mercy of your cruel tormentors. (This fic is explicit, 18+ only, mild dubcon)
Chapter Warnings: Intimidating sexual tension, brief suicidal ideation
The torture seemed to go on forever. There was no end in sight. No one to help you. No one who even knew where you were. There was only you and the white-hot agony that was so much worse than simple pain. It threaded down into your thoughts, wrenched at your memories, conflagrated your hopes and dreams and left them as piles of ash.
You still didn’t understand what they had done to you. Even as you were dragged back into your cell and dumped on the concrete floor like a garbage sack, you couldn’t come to terms with what had happened. It felt like someone had taken your brain out of your skull, mashed it in their hands like dough, and shoved it back in.
Pairing: The Winter Soldier x S.H.I.E.L.D. agent!Reader
Summary: With your team dead and your mission failed, you’ve been taken by the assassin to an unknown location and are at the mercy of your cruel tormentors. (This fic is explicit, 18+ only, mild dubcon)
You awoke with a start, limbs jerking as you opened your eyes to find a bare concrete ceiling above you. While remaining completely still, you took quick stock of yourself: you were tired, thirsty, cold, and your upper right arm throbbed in time with your heartbeat. Slowly and with great care, you sat up and panned your head to assess your new situation.
You were in a small room of some kind, an isolation cell by the looks of it. A single bulb behind a cage illuminated your stark surroundings. There was barely anything in the way of furnishings, a combination sink/toilet, a thin sleeping mat, and a door made up its entirety. It was steel and had a small square window in the top.
The more you examined the cell, the more convinced you were that you were in an actual prison or some kind of correctional facility. The air was stale, chilly, and carried a sour hint of mold.
You looked down at your arm and winced. You had been stripped of your vest and long-sleeve shirt, leaving you only in your black tank and tac pants. You could see the wound clearly, a nasty gash tacky with dried blood, and while the wound itself had clotted it was clear it had been left untreated.
There was no way to tell how much time had gone by—nor if you were still in New York. You weren’t hungry and your thirst wasn’t enough to convince you that more than a couple of hours had passed. But you had no doubt that HQ would be looking for you by now.
You had reasonable expectations when it came to your chance of survival. Whoever had taken you had also divested you of your radio and cell phone. If they were smart, they would have done so at the scene before taking you away.
No, not they. Him. He was the one who had taken you. The assassin with the metal arm.
Pairing: The Winter Soldier x S.H.I.E.L.D. agent!Reader
Summary: With your team dead and your mission failed, you’ve been taken by the assassin to an unknown location and are at the mercy of your cruel tormentors. (This fic is explicit, 18+ only, mild dubcon)
Relocate the Kartal family from their house in the Hamptons to a S.H.I.E.L.D. safe house. Simple. You had run the scenario a hundred times with other members of your team.
It should have been simple. That’s what you told yourself as you hid Mrs. Kartal and her son behind a rusted tractor, wiping Mr. Kartal’s blood out of your eyes and checking to see how much ammo was left in your P226. You had already run out of magazines for the Glock, spent in vain to try and stop the man who had attacked your convoy.
Not a squad. Not an enemy raid. Your entire team had been killed and the primary escort target had had his brains blown out inches away from your face.
I love how much you love this first chapter, especially because it was from a dream. This entire first chapter is nearly beat for best from a dream I had. And that dream inspired the rest of the story. Even now, I wonder how I wrote all of this the way I did. It still doesn’t seem like I did it
Thank you again, my dear You are giving me the strength and confidence I need to keep going. Keep wanting to try and create. So thank you for that
Another queer historical romance writer who always does his research! Sebastian Nothwell has three main historical romance books: Mr. Warren’s ProfessionandHold Fast are both m/m rich-poor, opposites attract romances; and The Haunting of Heatherhurst Hall is an f/f gothic romance between a heartbroken heiress and the sister of her husband (don’t worry; it’s not really cheating since the married couple aren’t actually romantically involved).
I love Nothwell’s books because they’re long, immersive, historically-sound, fun, and soap-opera dramatic. There are tons of loveable side characters, epic family feuds, hilarious dialogue, and a focus on working-class or middle-class heroes (when most books just feature nobility).
My favorite so far is Hold Fast but all are good and highly recommended.
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Mr Warren’s Profession is a gay Victorian cross-class romance, available now wherever fine books are found!
This was just the kind of book I was looking for! The couple is adorable, and while they get together relatively quickly, it gives the book plenty of time to explore them once they’re in their relationship and how much they both trust and respect each other. One conflict comes up later in the book and the two of them begin a classic fight but where one starts talking about a dramatic sacrifice, the other isn’t letting them get away with it and they actually start working together before the chapter is up - and no one goes against the other’s back or some other stupid forced plotline! They have communication and they respect the other’s culture throughout their whole relationship as they learn more and more about each other’s lives.
Because the book is set in the mid 1800s, it creates a story introducing both England and the fey world as foreign to the reader so that you can explore both worlds from each character’s standpoint. Even though Shrike has been to the human world before, he hasn’t actually been there for a few centuries, so Victorian England is completely new to him as well. It does a good job of describing the harsh life of a gay character set in the time period while not beating you over the head with it, making you feel hope for Wren rather than despair that nothing’s going to be able to instantly change the world. They even added in some trans rep in a plot about how Victorian women could be treated as well.
[…] Overall an enchanting and relaxing love story wrapped up in a pretty straightforward plot that was executed brilliantly with tons of depth and plenty of time to expand upon the characters, letting them walk through the story on their own rather than having the plot drag them head-first into one stressful plot after the other. And isn’t that just the whole point of the tale - being given a destiny you reject and choosing to walk your own path around it?
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Oak King Holly King is a gay Victorian fae romance, available now wherever fine books are found!
Fantastic. An especially great read if you are a man that lies with men
I loved this book. I was very invested in the world and characters the author created. It deserves far more praise and attention. Please give it a read!
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Oak King Holly King is a gay Victorian fae romance, available now wherever fine books are found!
For the Tales of Old prompt, I went for the obvious and picked up an historical romance I’ve been meaning to read for ages. Mr. Warren’s Profession is set at the end of the nineteenth century and is as much about the difficulties of two people from very different ends of the social spectrum being together as it is about the problems inherent in a relationship between two men at that time. It’s well written – despite a few Americanisms – and obviously well-researched, the wealth of background detail carefully integrated into the story in order to create a wonderfully strong sense of time and place.
Aubrey Warren works as a clerk at a textile mill in Manchester. He’s very good at his job, extremely diligent and hard-working – and used to doing the work of two since the other office clerk is lazy and only has the job because of his family connections. But Aubrey is at least content – and doesn’t expect happiness. He’s come from nothing – he was brought up in the workhouse – to a responsible position that provides him with income enough to live decently, if not well, and has dreams of one day becoming an engineer. His quiet and unassuming life is suddenly blown apart by the appearance of Lindsey Althorp, the son of a baronet, who has won the mill in a card game, and who actually takes an interest in the place, much to Aubrey’s surprise.
Lindsey had no idea of becoming involved in the business of the mill, but that changes the moment he lays eyes on the beautiful, dark-eyed clerk sitting at a desk in the office and is immediately smitten. It’s a defining moment for Lindsey; for the first time in his life, he feels a true and strong desire for another person, and like a bolt from the blue, it crystallises the truth – that he is, and always has been, attracted to men. He’s well aware that’s something that must be hidden, but in the first flush of infatuation, in his overwhelming desire to see and spend time with Aubrey, Lindsey behaves less than discreetly – requesting several tours of the factory and anything else he can think of that will put him into Aubrey’s company.
While Aubrey is every bit as attracted to Lindsey as Lindsey is to him, he tries hard to distance himself, and it’s easy to understand why. He knows full well that Lindsey’s marked attention to him could have serious repercussions and knows how easy it would be for him to lose even the little he has should anyone suspect where his interest lies. The precariousness of his situation as someone of lower social standing, without family or other support system is well articulated and well-contrasted with Lindsey’s; a relationship with another man would be risky for both of them, but Lindsey has the ‘safety net’ of family, wealth and title that Aubrey does not. But Lindsey’s warmth, enthusiasm and sheer joy in their connection are hard to resist; it’s been a long time since he’s allowed himself to feel just about anything – and before long, Aubrey can’t find it in him to deny himself the happiness he longs for.
[…] Mr. Warren’s Profession is an enjoyable historical romance filled with interesting period detail, and Aubrey and Lindsey are a likeable couple who are easy to root for. I really enjoyed their growth as characters and as a couple, together with the story’s focus on their deepening emotional connection and how they surmount the obstacles on their path to happiness. If you’ve enjoyed books by KJ Charles and Joanna Chambers, I’d definitely suggest giving this one a try.
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Mr Warren’s Profession is a gay Victorian cross-class romance, available now wherever fine books are found!
** spoiler alert ** I love so many things about this author’s writing: their attention to historic detail, the way readers get to revel in characters’ desires and thought processes, their world-building. And all of those elements are here (ESPECIALLY the world-building)… but what I wasn’t expecting out of this book was the whole-hearted embrace of all the different stages of falling in love. This book doesn’t follow the stereotypical beats of a romance novel; the focus is not on the burn of yearning and misunderstanding, but of the triumph of “us against the world.” The lovers–and, by extension, we–are allowed to be happy, in so many different ways. There is struggle, there is hate–but always, always we fight together. And there are so many different reclamations of identity throughout this story that give true meaning and vindication to the struggles. I wish more novels took this approach.
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Oak King Holly King is a gay Victorian fae romance, available now wherever fine books are found!
Paranormal fantasy adventure. Wren works as a clerk in Victorian London when he is approached for help by the Butcher of Blackthorn and is drawn into the fae realm to aid Butcher in surviving his duty as the Oak King. Beautifully descriptive world immersion as Wren travels back and forth from London to the fae realm, spending time with Butcher, both men learning about each other’s lives and introducing Wren to a whole world of people and places he only ever imagined from stories. I especially appreciated Wren’s easy ability to accept all the new experiences with the fae, and especially Butcher’s steady affection and attraction to Wren. A love story with adventure and surprises, and a large and interesting secondary cast of characters. Honestly, I could have kept reading more and more about the fae realm and the constancy, commitment and caring between Butcher and Wren. 4.25.
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Oak King Holly King is a gay Victorian fae romance, available now wherever fine books are found!
hey! suprisingly good! i havent read a huge amount of fae romances bc i know they can sometimes be a bit. iffy. but this was fun.
i liked the world building of the fae relm and i loved Shrike so much. he is such an unintentionally funny character, really well written and just out of the ordinary enough that mortal people think hes like a bit weird, but not so much hes like a complete freak. helped by the fact he is so solemn and serious. i love him.
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Oak King Holly King is a gay Victorian fae romance, available now wherever fine books are found!
What a remarkable book. I devoured it in the span of 3 days, only interrupted by having to work.
All I have ever wanted was queer fantasy. This book was so fun to read. I enjoyed that it took itself serious and it was equally enjoyable to read. The authors writing style is very captivating.
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Oak King Holly King is a gay Victorian fae romance, available now wherever fine books are found!
Though at times the story seemed to go on longer than expected with its endless daily commutes, it was worth the few sections that required patience. The world building was fascinating. The mysteries within the year long story were compelling and the journey to solve each of them were engaging. The ending had a solid payoff. In the grand scheme of things it was a worthwhile read that was both intriguing and imaginative.
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Oak King Holly King is a gay Victorian fae romance, available now wherever fine books are found!
