madimpossibledreamer: red and black comic-booky picture of an original Jojo's Stand. (jjba)
[personal profile] madimpossibledreamer
Main Points:
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure/Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU
Chapter Summary: Johan, Jotaro, and Kakyoin formulate an approach.
Word Count: 1391
Note: HERE THERE PROBABLY BE BUFFY/JJBA SPOILERS

Chapter 385: Reading Your History )

Valdemar, Valdemar, Valdemar

Jul. 31st, 2025 07:18 pm
senashenta: icon NOT up for grabs (Not Your Average Shiny Pony)
[personal profile] senashenta
“MONARCHS”: Another fic about Nero and Jenial, along the lines of Onyx And Pearl, but this time involving Prince as a young colt as well. Just cute day-to-day family stuff, basically. Probable cameos by Herald-Mage Clint and Healer-Herald Clear.

“DISINTEGRATE”: Herald-Mage Clint and Grove Born Stallion Nero are on a mission on the Hardorn border: people have been disappearing in the settlements there, seeming to vanish into nothingness in the blink of an eye. Soon, Clint and Nero are one-on-one with the Mage responsible—and are torn asunder, picked apart piece by little tiny piece until nothing is left but shadows and dust.

“PRINCE”: Hijinks with Prince when he’s around two years old and feeling his oats. Featuring his friends Wyeth, Sabella and Upton as well.

“MAJESTY”: The Companion Prince finally, at nineteen years of age, after a decade of frustration and wondering why he isn’t being called like his fellow Companions, finally feels his Call—and it leads him all the way across Companion’s Field to the castle and Mathilde of Valdemar, the until-then uncrowned Princess of the country.

“EMBERS”: Three years after the fire that claimed her family home and the life of her sister, Karrie, three years into her training as a Herald-to-be, Kylla Tucker and her Companion, Piper, finally return back to Kylla’s hometown and the rebuilt farmhouse—to her parents—for Midsummer break.

“ASHES”: Herald Klaire and her brother, Herald Skott, make the long journey home, on special leave. Skott to be put to rest, and Klaire to scatter his ashes in the pond by their family home.

“THE CALL OF WINTER”: Flurry Snowbourne had been an Unaffiliated Student at the Collegium since he was young and just turned seventeen summers. He’s set to graduate next year. And then, out of nowhere, a Companion waltzes into his life and turns it completely upside-down in a single, brilliant moment.

“SPIDER SILK”: Herald Wade and Herald Rayne, as well as their Companions, Upton and Wyeth, are sent to the far north to investigate strange occurrences that have been happening there. Their poking around leads them to the Pelagiris—and right into the maw of a spider the size of a freaking HOUSE.

Emmett & Rosie, Etc.

Jul. 31st, 2025 08:45 am
senashenta: (Budgie Buddies)
[personal profile] senashenta
Emmett and Rosie went to a new home last night, along with some of my excess budgie stuff. I got $60 for the deal, which is good, except apparently my last ink return got lost in the mail so they charged me $40 for that and now I'm down the ink AND the money. Anyway, I had to rehome Em and Rosie because the bird dust from them hanging on the ceiling was KILLING ME. I still have Winter and Shield, but if my allergies stay as bad as they have been I might be looking at rehoming THEM, too. :<

So, I don't know what happened but I went from having almost $200 available on my credit card to having $35 available on my credit card, so I had to put $400 on it this month to HOPEFULLY have enough to pay for Juna's vet appointment in a couple weeks. And I can't even look at my statement online to find out what happened because the Capital One website won't let me login. I need to actually call them and get them to reset my account but I never have the time and I don't have the patience for the automated bullshit.

Today is shopping day with Mom and I am down $40 from usual already because of the extra hundred I put on my credit card, so I don't see this going well. I'm supposed to buy pizza for everyone for supper tonight (just from Costco) but that may or may not happen. I'm going to have to cut back on other stuff that I planned to buy as well. At least I only need one binder this month? That's good, right?

I've started working on Of The Deepest Dye again the last couple days and I think I'm going to try to actually WRITE it, even though the STORY is still a little vague. Like, I have the broad strokes but I'm missing some of the details. idk I'll figure it out. Dad will be happy, he's been campaigning for me to write the black Companion story for literally YEARS.

I have a bunch more new Valdemar one-shots again: Monarchs, Disintegrate, Prince, Majesty, Embers, Ashes, The Call Of Winter and Spider Silk, which I will talk about in another entry. I'm considering dropping Prince all together already, but I guess we'll see. *shrug* I've just had Valdemar on the brain lately, I guess. I miss writing Heralds and Companions and the like.

Legacies and Secrets

Jul. 31st, 2025 01:22 pm
madimpossibledreamer: Zhuge Liang concentrating and looking thoughtful. (red cliff)
[personal profile] madimpossibledreamer

Round X of Desmond gets and gives impromptu therapy. (also more paraphrased dialogue from Kyra) I was tempted to put more detail and then went ‘nah, we need to get to the end of the ‘Savage Coast’ soon’. (Also Desmond does not know about American exotic animal laws in the US, but that’s also not as likely to get other people in trouble, just the family. Ami is definitely going to look into it.)
(I was looking for prominent Illuminati or Freemasons, because TSW has them as actually allied and not separate things, and decided they’d be related to Prince Hall.)
Usher absolutely does use ‘what news from the colonies’ as a greeting and it’s strange every time.
Most of the dialogue about the Vault was paraphrased, other than Montag’s addition and Miss Usher’s leaving line. Because it’s too good not to use.
I did leave out some of the funny lines, though, and at this point if you wanted to you probably could watch all the Secret World Innsmouth Academy cutscenes.


Main Points: Assassin's Creed/The Secret World
Summary: Desmond helps a bunch of people and finds an unexpected lead upon returning to Innsmouth Academy.
Word Count: 2657
Rating: Teen

 

steps forward )

 


Placing Safeguards

Jul. 27th, 2025 05:12 pm
madimpossibledreamer: Eye from manga drawing. (edgeworth)
[personal profile] madimpossibledreamer

I may have taken some inspiration for McCoy’s internal grumbling about transporters from a reddit thread about what transporters would feel like to which someone responded ‘Easy there, Bones’. Some lines (from Sarek and Kirk) taken from Journey to Babel.

Main Points:
Star Trek (the 2009!movie verse) Cambion AU (New Genesis)
Summary: McCoy, Kirk, and the rest of the landing party take a tour of Regula and the Genesis Project.
Word Count: 2706
Rating: Teen

a couple plans come to fruition )

Shenanigans

Jul. 27th, 2025 08:09 am
senashenta: (Rift)
[personal profile] senashenta
I have three more Valdemar one-shots on my plate now (it brings me up to 39 Valdemar one-shots in-progress, not counting Cole & Hadley, Hanna & Lorenzi or Sarie & Tarth LOL.) The newest ones are called Shenanigans, Love Between Horses and Southwest, and they all popped into existence yesterday because my mind has nothing better to do than continually come up with more projects, obviously.

SHENANIGANS is about Magic, Gwydion, Piper, Sage and Ripa, with their Chosen (Singe, Metty, Kylla, Rena & Shiloa) as kind of background characters for the whole thing, and is generally just Companions being goofballs, lead, naturally, by Magic, because she couldn't be less majestic if she TRIED. But also because she likes to have fun and drag the others down with her when she does, yes even the Grove Born.

LOVE BETWEEN HORSES is about the Companions Kharis and Cheshth, who are lifebonded but completely oblivious to that fact. They've been best friends since they were foals, along with Uisge, Roth and Essara, and the other three can see the lifebond, it's GLARINGLY OBVIOUS, but Kharis and Cheshth are just. Willingly blind, I guess. The story is about them finally coming to the realization and suddenly all the pulling, romantic feelings MAKING SENSE IMAGINE THAT. (They go on to have a large family together later on, outside the purview of this fic.)

And then SOUTHWEST is about the Chosen of two of the Companions from Love Between Horses, Thistle Craven (Chosen by Uisge) and Westley Fullington (Chosen by Roth) out on Circuit together some time after the events of Love Between Horses, travelling down by the Karsite border where West's family was massacred by Karsite bandits as they slept (and Roth rescued him the next day), so lots of PTSD stuff in that one as they get closer to the area West used to live with his family.

I'm also just now considering writing a one-shot about West and the whole Karsite bandit situation and Roth rescuing him from it, but it obviously doesn't have a title yet so I guess that's TBA. :D

Other than that, I'm at 181 pages and 90,825 words for TKA so far but I have TONS more to write, so my new goal is tentatively 120k? I keep making goals and then achieving them but TKA isn't done, so I make another goal, and I achieve that, but TKA STILL isn't done, and now I'm coming up on the end of my 25k month and I've written 35k words so far, but I'M NOT DONE AND MY TKA VACATION IS ALMOST OVER. /SOB lol.

I have decided, though, that I'm going to decrease my Horror High et al fic posting from once a week to once every two weeks and use the in-between weeks to work on other stuff; TKA, Valdemar, The Witcher, whatever, I just need to start getting my head out of Horror High and Storm Season a little bit and try working on some other things. Anyway, it's not like anyone is following the series to be disappointed by this new development, so it's fine. *shrug*

jusq'au jour se leve...

Jul. 29th, 2025 01:54 pm
madimpossibledreamer: Tatsuya holding a motorcycle helmet under his arm and looking at a swingset (innocent sin)
[personal profile] madimpossibledreamer

Larry’s revelation got moved up here.

Main Points:
Buffy the Vampire Slayer/SMT Devil Summoner Raidou Kuzunoha (Will of the Yatagarasu)
Summary: Xander is a little on edge about some gossip.
Word Count: 1240
Rating: Teen

 

there might be some teasing )

 

madimpossibledreamer: Tatsuya holding a motorcycle helmet under his arm and looking at a swingset (tatsuya)
[personal profile] madimpossibledreamer
We have reached another cowritten section of the story.

Main Points:
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure/Buffy the Vampire Slayer AU
Chapter Summary: This bookstore is a whole hell of a lot more ominous than the last one.  The war god doesn't help.
Word Count: 1253
Note: HERE THERE PROBABLY BE BUFFY/JJBA SPOILERS

Chapter 384: Tired of Being Shoved Around )

Literary Criticism, Part II

Jul. 23rd, 2025 10:16 pm
madimpossibledreamer: Jiraiya|Yosuke jumping and using a throwing star (Default)
[personal profile] madimpossibledreamer
part I

I’ve been thinking about this again lately, partly because of the remake (and what are they going to do, call it Persona 4 Golden Xtreme? That’s a kiwami joke btw). And also because I realized that if someone’s literary reading skills are so poor, then just dunking on them isn’t too productive. So rolls up sleeves part 2. It will be a lot shorter than Part 1, mostly because I’m doing a Critical Lenses 101 with some minimal ‘this is how it relates to Persona 4’.

I will also note this has nothing to do with people who want Kanji to be straight and Naoto to be cis for the purposes of genderfuckery and nonconformity which are awesome and valid reasons—unless you’re going around and telling people that they’re not allowed to read a text differently from you. That’s not only not going to happen, because everyone’s going to come out of a text with a slightly different reading due to individual differences: socio-economic class, gender, sexuality, etc, and going to make you miserable because your game of whack-a-mole of different readings will never be done, but also, the act of telling people they’re existing wrong being bad is maybe one of the key Persona 4 themes, so don’t? I’ve run into that a couple of times, but for the most part, it’s people bemoaning the existence of gender or sexual minorities within their line of sight. Which, valid reading within one interpretive lens, but it is the blandest of the bland and not just because they think it’s the only correct interpretation, when it’s more of the sorta default?

Lenses are the particular way we’ve chosen to view the text. Sending us back in history, yeah, the main lens was cisheteronormative and also author’s intent. In several cases, this involved reading every single piece of correspondence written by an author. If they hadn’t said something definitive about the point in question, it was your duty to either ignore it or argue about how some unrelated line in an interview could be stretched to apply. With the advent of the theory Death of the Author, you could just read the text and let it stand on its own without needing to know anything about the author outside the work. (I’d also argue a lot of people also like to engage in psychoanalytic or Freudian criticism these days, because everyone’s so sure about what a text reveals about the author...and while, such as with Hashino, especially combined with outside statements patterns between works might reveal something, I feel it’s safe to say that it is vastly overapplied). Other lenses you may have heard of are Marxist, feminist, queer, and critical race theory...which I hadn’t actually realized was a literary critical lens because it hadn’t been taught while I was in school, and in which case the hyperbolics against it comes off looking even less informed, because lenses are not meant to show you the capital-T Platonian Truth. Then again, I forget that for some people critical thinking is the enemy, because it lets you evaluate for yourself rather than following exactly what you’ve been told to do.

Unless you and someone else are using the same lens for a text, arguing about how “you’re reading the text wrong” is pointless. If the other person is reading in a lens that decenters the author, then arguing about how “the author said x on twitter” is useless. (And things get convoluted even if you do care about what the author says in multi-creator works, such as a game—if the writers, the voice actors, etc all were on board with a romanceable Yosuke storyline and the director said no, who gets priority?) If you’re both arguing from within the same lens, you can then look at how a particular piece of the text is better or worse for a particular reading through that lens.

I also don’t expect a lot of the people to care, mostly because a lot of the people making the argument come off like homophobic, biphobic, and/or transphobic jerks, but the idea that gay or trans stories aren’t deep, worth a deeper look, and are just shallow surface level *aesthetic~* that can be used for any story just as set dressing especially when mainly applied to either give the relief mentioned in the last chapter that “oh, phew, I’m not trans after all” or “oh, phew, I’m not gay after all” or to set up for jokes is deeply insulting.  I don’t care if you have a different critical lens, but it is yours, and it is common, but it is not universal.  Let me have mine.

(I also am going to English Nerd here and say that maybe headcanons are extensions of our favorite critical lens of reading applied with various degrees of evidence to back them up, even when we don’t necessarily realize that ourselves, but. I’d probably need a lot more research to explain that particular theory and I’ve only seen one other academic thing even dive into headcanons and how they relate to this. Let me know if you have more; I’m actually really curious how that would get defined.  Especially if there’s something in Transformative Works and Cultures [the Ao3 published peer-reviewed academic journal] or something.)

A Sad Anniversary

Jul. 23rd, 2025 10:42 am
senashenta: (Quoth The Raven)
[personal profile] senashenta
It's been almost a year since Poe full-stop ghosted me for the second time, and though this time has been easier to handle because a lot of it was my own doing, as the anniversary approaches I find myself thinking back on our friendship and what went wrong with it to begin with. The frustrating thing is that even having talked it out with them last summer, looking back I still don't see the signs. I was that blinded by how invested in our friendship I was.

And that's not a good thing, you know? When you shut your eyes to the negative parts, it's not a real back-and-forth relationship. You have to take the bad with the good for it to be a stable friendship, and while I understand that, at the time I didn't even realize I had blinders on. But apparently I did and said things that were harmful to Poe without even knowing it, and they were too nice to say anything until they finally just blocked me on everything and ghosted me.

I'm not saying their way of coping was any healthier than mine. Keeping quiet about all the problems and then shutting me out completely out of the blue was a terrible way of handling things, but they were just running because they felt trapped, I guess, so I can't blame them for that despite what it did to me mentally AND physically.

I wasn't... shocked. When it happened again after I sent them the email at the end of last summer saying we would be better off as casual friends, just chatting and emailing once in a while, because as much as I'M not better off without POE, it's obvious that POE is better off without ME. I would rather they be healthier and I not be in their life than be in their life and make them miserable, right? Anyway, they just ghosted me again immediately after I sent that email and I haven't heard from them since.

That wasn't my intent when I wrote out that email and edited it a million times, but Poe seems to have taken it to mean we shouldn't be friends at all, and like I said, as much as it was disappointing, I wasn't shocked when they disappeared. It hurt, but not as much as the first time. It still hurts, when I let myself think about it too much...

I think in the end, the universe wasn't meant to shove two people who were so alike together the way that it did. We were destined to implode right from Day One, I just didn't want to see it because I adored them so very much. I still do. I think I always will, and I'll always look back on my friendship with Poe with equal parts sadness and fondness, because despite how it ended we had some really good times together. Or at least I had some really good times, anyway. I'm really not sure about them, anymore.

I'm 3/4 of the way through TKA and the dedication in the book is going to be for Poe, because they helped me so much with brainstorming and character development, and they were my own personal cheerleader for almost two years. They did a lot for me when it comes to TKA and a dedication is the least I can do.

And I still follow them on Insta, just... because I worry about them, and Insta is a good indicator of how they're doing day-to-day. I'll probably message/email them if/when TKA gets published to let them know and say "thank you" personally, but otherwise I said I wouldn't message/email them anymore and I plan to stick to my promise, no matter how much I miss them. Trying to be the grown-up in this is painful, but I'm determined.

Birthmas In July just passed on the 12th of this month and that makes me equally want to laugh and cry.

Happy BIJ, Poe.
I miss you.
Always know you're loved.

The Devouring Maw

Jul. 24th, 2025 01:04 pm
madimpossibledreamer: Tatsuya holding a motorcycle helmet under his arm and looking at a swingset (tatsuya)
[personal profile] madimpossibledreamer

In which a weird and slightly crack moment about leaving eldritch monsters alive turns into yet more discussion about free will.
(they’d be stalagmites if they’re on the ground, but Desmond definitely wouldn’t know this.)
(also for creepy cave feel I might be drawing a little from my favorite Japanese youtube horror series Fake Documentary Q’s Film Inferno. Nothing 1:1, but while Ami’s commentary is a little creepy in the game, it’s definitely one of the “tamer” instances, and midway through the description of the cave I was like, hang on, that reminds me of something, so after that it was definitely deliberate.)


Main Points: Assassin's Creed/The Secret World
Summary: Desmond and Ami get to explore more of the creepy cave and meet some of the inhabitants.
Word Count: 3741
Rating: Teen

 

the dark places in the world )

 

Health Stuff, Mostly

Jul. 20th, 2025 10:38 am
senashenta: (The Kelpie Agenda)
[personal profile] senashenta
The power went out this morning around 7; Lee and I could literally hear the transformer blow so it must have been really nearby. It was only out for a couple of hours, though, and came back on while I was downstairs feeding the cats via flashlight lol. That was just after 9. Nothing like Icepocalypse2k25, thank goodness, though now would have been easier to endure something like that. The only problem would be keeping the axolotl tank cold enough. But it's all a moot point, anyway.

A couple of days ago, I reached my 25k goal for words for TKA for this month, and when I SET that goal I REALLY THOUGHT that would finish the project up, but I got to 80k+ and reached my 25k goal for July and I'm not even CLOSE to done. It's probably going to end up 150k at this point. Which isn't a bad thing! Just... wow. I was not anticipating this AT ALL. So, I'm still chugging away even though I met my goal and we'll see where I am at the end of the month. I might have to wait a couple months and then do another TKA challenge, 40k in a month or something? Maybe I'll do it in November and it can be my own personal NaNo, since official NaNo has gone the way of the dodo. idk we'll see.

This past week I had two appointments. The first was with the Respirologist because of my lungs and she learned that I had cats and birds and basically decided it's all allergy-related and shut everything else down. Like, I'm sorry, what? I've had Juna and Pluto for 16 and 11 years, respectively, and never had any trouble with having them (or any of my OTHER cats) around until the end of 2019 when all this started, and EVEN THEN I HIGHLY DOUBT it's the CATS. And I just got the BIRDS three years ago, two years AFTER all this started, so THAT DOESN'T TRACK, LADY.

Regardless, she wants me to get rid of my cats and birds and the CARPET (which I can't do because of co-op regulations) and she's sending me for blood tests to see if it's allergies or not. Which. I AM ALLERGIC TO EVERYTHING THIS TIME OF YEAR, THE TESTS ARE GOING TO COME BACK 100% ALLERGIES AND SHE'LL BE LIKE "SEE??" AND I'LL JUST BE LIKE "IT'S FUCKING SUMMER WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME." >/

Anyway, my other appointment was just the Dentist and I had a couple of my front teeth fixed because one had a cavity and the other one had a piece like... fall off, which isn't good, obviously. Once again, I had my oral hygiene questioned because I always have so many cavities. Once again, I pointed out that I am on ten million medications that fuck with my teeth and have bad tooth genetics to begin with, so I could brush my teeth all day every day and STILL get cavities. Once again, they recommended the $40 toothpaste that I CANNOT AFFORD, and I flat-out told them that this time. It just goes round and round. I hate the Dentist.

Still no word on the dentures, by the way, and it's been a month since the Denturist theoretically got the required x-ray from the Dentist to forward to ODSP so they can decide if they're going to cover the partial that I need or not. I literally have no top molars right now and haven't had for MONTHS (a big part of why my front teeth are falling apart), you'd think the ODSP people would look at that and be like "yep, of course" but they're apparently dragging their heels on it. I think I'm going to call the Denturist again tomorrow and check in just in case.

Dr. K and Lori helped me fill out my Disability Tax Credit application forms and I got them sent out last week via H&R Block. I have absolutely NO CLUE how long it will take before I hear back, but I'm hoping soon because I really need the money. But also I'm a little concerned because when Lori filled out the paperwork she only put down my anxiety, bi-polar and ADHD and didn't put down any of my physical conditions? I'm worried what she put down wasn't enough, even though she seems to think that it is. I dunno. =/

Juna is going to the vet next month and that's going to cost me $300-$400 just for the exam and his shots, and for them to give me shit for having him on senior food and try to insist on $500 worth of blood tests that I can't afford. The cat vet at Pine Grove is really pushy and rude and treats me like I'm a bad Cat Mom half the time, and I really wish she just WOULDN'T. I do my absolute best for Juna and Pluto (and for all the cats I've had over the years) and I don't appreciate being talked down to like that. I always hate when the time of year for them to go in for check-ups comes around.

Anyway.
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