#roundup post

For reference, here are the entries I previously wrote up from this Writing Jam:

Checkup at the Lucerne Clinic by chromantophores

Little Flowers Need The Most Watering by RocketMermaid23

Too Little, Too Late by Lagnia

Childproof by Dame Harmony (Glire)

Total ReCucked; or Democracy Manifest: Prop 69 by AshInBloom and Tsunmene

So, with that in mind, where do we even start? There's so many of these. Well, how 'bout with the really obvious one?

Everbloom Academy by sheepwave, Slylittleprincess

Lynn Echeveria, First Floret, has a problem. 14 years of florethood have gone by in a blur, and now her two plural facets are pulling in different directions in a way that threatens the stability of her idyllic life. Then, she gets a very special invitation letter from Occantalis, the sapient ship she lives on who has been courting her for a decade, about an exciting event starting soon. For one month, Everbloom Academy will be opening its doors, to welcome a class for the ultimate hypnosis-enhanced boarding school kinky roleplaying experience where nobody knows it's a game! She is to be just one of guests from all over the Affini Compact, as Affini and florets alike will take on roles as teachers and students. Lynn will learn the ultimate lesson: How do you live the life that will make you happiest when one of you is ready to grow up, and the other isn’t even ready to graduate?

I'm almost certainly going to do a dedicated post just about Everbloom Academy as more of it comes out, but this story is the sequel to the immaculate From Pawn To Princess, taking place some 14 years after the events of the original story. Essentially, our main protagonists from FPTP, along with a who's who of beloved characters from HDG's past and present, are placed into a complex high-school LARP scenario, where most/all of them are convinced that this is just their baseline reality. At the moment, there are four chapters released and we're kind of just now getting to the real premise of the story, but, like... c'mon. It's sheepwave and Slylittleprincess being given an excuse to go completely off the rails and throw a massive party with everyone's favorite blorbos. I shouldn't have to tell you that this is going to be completely amazing.

Annaberry Has a Secret by Belenen

Anna goes to the park, gets floret-sat, and goes to the Mysterious Playhouse where the tubes lead somewhere new every day. She gets a boyfriend along the way, who teaches her a lot of new games, but shh, gotta be quiet and keep it a secret from Mommy. A skeevy age play one shot.

...This is the intro to this story. Holy shit. However fucked up you think this one's aiming to get, think "worse". It is disgustingly hot, and it just kinda keeps getting hotter. Even the absolutely sweet and lovely ending is stupidly hot. An absolute joy, this one.

Little Sprout's First Time: An HDG Hypnosis Script by Cadence_the_Hypnotic_Floret

Your mistress wants your attention. She wants to show you just how little you are, and how much fun that can be. Also, she wants you to call her Mommy. A day in the life of an adult floret whose affini wants to help remind them how little they are, and make their "first time" something special.

If you're familiar with HDG at this point, you've probably at least heard of Cadence's hypnosis files. This one is all about being age regressed, then molested, and I use that word intentionally. This one gets pretty dark, although said darkness is intended to serve the greater purpose of reclaiming certain traumatic experiences. An absolutely filthy agereg experience.

Little Sprout's Juice Box OR: The File That Makes You Pee Your Big by Cadence_the_Hypnotic_Floret

Your affini Mistress isn't quite done reminding you what a good little sprout you are. This time, she's gotten you a fancy new juice box. I bet it'll taste nummy. (Note: side effects may include peeing your big)

A second Cadence Little Sprout File has hit the HDG discord. This one's not quite as sexual as the other, but it may be a fair bit more embarrassing. A word of advice: do not listen to this unless you're ready to piss yourself. Whether that means you're wearing a diaper, or in a bath, or you've put down lots of towels... This file is designed to make you piss yourself, and I have it on good authority that it's pretty successful at doing just that. You have been warned.

A Normal Grocery Run During Which We Get Lots Of Yummy Food by AshInBloom

A couple of adorable, plural, regressed florets go on a routine grocery run with Mommy!

This one's just sweet. A simple trip to the grocery store with the main characters of Golden Ladder, featuring a ton of fun littlespace thoughts and just a sweet little "accident". It's good to see the girls having a good time, and not... whatever awful things Ash is doing to them in the latest chapters of Golden Ladder (as of right now: chapter 78).

Hypnopompia by otterpopd

You are a struggling indie. You are sleepwalking through life, beset by nightmares. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.

I'll be blunt, this is a gimmick fic, but dammit, it's a damn good gimmick! Our main character explores the world through the medium of... the Disco Elysium menu interface, complete with "skills" speaking to you and decision trees with deeply funny options.

Now, if you haven't seen or played Disco Elysium, this might make approximately zero sense to you. I, however, have played Disco Elysium, and I love it, and this fic is really fucking funny. I'm eagerly awaiting more of it.

Compile the Past by Dame Harmony (Glire)

Charlie Fitzgerald has seen too many instances of moving fast and breaking things to trust the green tide that swept across her city after the aliens came, and in particular, the magic mystery box in her kitchen. They said it could compile anything. She didn't believe them. A short one-shot ventfic about a news item I found particularly distasteful. No formatting tricks or anything this time. I'm just writing.

Here's the news item in question, in case you also want to get mad and/or sad about it. This fic is incredibly sweet and lovely and reminds me a lot of Breaching by RocketMermaid, and yes that is intended as high praise. It's a fic where Harmony gets to draw a laser focus to the ways in which the Compact intends to fulfill its promises - something Harmony is goddamn masterful at. At this point, you should know that my recommendation is to subscribe to aer page so that you get emailed whenever a fic comes out, so uh... yeah. It's good. It's really good.

Ecdysis by The Crows (grey_girl_v)

Vincent Cullen and his lover Dean were captured by a particularly maternal Affini. While Dean was incapacitated by xenodrugs, Vincent plays a twisted game of hide and seek in which his goal is simple. To find the exit. Will he manage to find his way out or will the serpentine Affini find him first?

The Crows is a relatively new author in the space who I've been watching with some interest, and Ecdysis is really fun. Our main character's immature machismo is very funny, and watching it get broken over the course of an extended game of Hide And Seek is pretty awesome. Also: oviposition and a Snekfini. Absolutely delightful.

A Rosebud Ranger Is... by Kanagen

Zoran's first mission right out of basic ended with him the sole survivor of his ship, shoved into an escape pod at the last second by the man who took him under his wing. His second, he volunteered for, in the name of revenge for that selfless superior who saved his life. Fortunately for Zoran, he never stood a chance, and his target was a certain very big ship full of very little florets. Even more fortunately, there's a spot in Rosebud Rangers Troop #333 with his her name on it.

Speaking of immature machismo leading to sproutification... Good lord. Do I need to tell you people that the new Kanagen fic is absolutely fucking fire? Do I need to tell you that the concept of being part of a group of cub scouts and gradually "earning" how big you get to be is a blast? Do I need to inform you that Zoran is a huge fucking egg and seed? Do I need to inform you that the affini are inevitable? It's an amazing little feralbreaker romp. Go read it.

reading spent this afternoon finishing @finnlongman's the wolf and his king (excuse the tag!) and feeling so fulfilled and gratified by everything they chose to do with that retelling. i know and have taught the original marie de france lai a few times now, so a lot of my experience of reading was spent wondering 'okay but when is that going to happen? how are we going to do xyz??' and then being relieved with the way it turned out. i was so on edge for it to end...some other way, but then it ended like it does, which felt like a gift. lovely stuff. i spent the end of last week and some of saturday at the Big medievalist conference, and this was the cherry on top of an overall fulfilling week--i'm really pleased and proud to be around the people i am, who are doing and making and writing the beautiful things that they are.

also outside this afternoon i got to start chad harbach's the art of fielding, which will earn its own post when i've finished it and can place it alongside the other baseball novel i'm reading rn, but this is a note to say that at least the first five chapters have lived up to my loyalty in toting this hardcover book around for years looking for the right time to actually read it-- i laughed out loud with delight multiple times, like, at least four.

listening several new album drops that i'm excited about, the most recent being MUNA, but the most long-standing of the recent albums on repeat is of course florence + the machine.

obsessed with buzzkiller primarily for the melody and the lyrics, obsessed with old religion primarily for the bass line and the chorus. i only play certain albums and tracks on repeat, it's not typical for me (i found this out with the spotify anniversary data that let me know i'd listened to 30k individual songs since 2011, and none of them more than 100 times in total), so the fact that i have not moved on from these two is the height of complimentary.

watching i posted about this in the jh discord a while ago, but it's been a good few weeks of thoroughly enjoying my solo tv-watching endeavors (as opposed to the social tv which is mostly how i've been watching things this year). once i figured out that we did, in fact, have netflix access again, i started and very quickly finished the first season of how to get to heaven from belfast, thanks to the rec from @thehibernatinglentil and @yogurtforever. is it weird to say that one of my favorite parts of this show was its colors? the saturation, the way people were dressed and made-up, their title sequence-- extremely cool and good, as befits the premise. laughed out loud, figured a few things out along the way but also didn't guess everything correctly, i was moved, i was briefly scared, i had some questions, i'm intrigued for season two. loved the array of strange and out of control and imperfect and wonderful women in this show, almost as much as the accents. i saw a headline that said there weren't enough laughs, to which i would argue that there were the right amount for the story they were trying to tell, which yes, is darker than derry girls (and this was also a surprise to me at first). but you try and tell me robin and dara didn't make you cackle like, every other line.

playing i've made it to day fifty-something in blue prince, and have solved (as in, decoded) one of the big basic puzzles, figured out the parlor room and billiard room games, unlocked the orchard, the west path and outdoor room, and the gem mining, and made it down into the cliffside via the gas valve elevator thing. i seem to have missed some really really basic things? i have only managed to make one thing in the workshop so far...i need to get more creative with my items, or look up some item combos, though i'm proud of the way i did put together how to make and where to use the burning glass on my own. i've chatted a little with @blue--period about our triumphs and frustrations, and have begun taking offline notes to save @un-serial-writer's notifications (and so that i could draw lol).

shout out to the root cellar, a particular fave right now. opposite of a shout out to the gallery, where i am one out of four for the puzzles currently.

i will also note here for posterity that i made it past the silksong boss (the fourth chorus, please don't laugh) that had had me stuck for the past three months!

making did some fairly aggressive mending on a pair of old navy pants a few weeks ago, and they are newly ready for summer which makes life so much easier! removed a good few inches off of both legs, used this material as patches for the classic inner-thigh holes, bing bang boom.

cross-stitch progress report: