I do a lot of things and go by a lot of names, but here I'm Terri and I’m here for the writing blogs, the Sea of Thieves fandom, and my own ‘little’ story.
Hey! I go by a few names and do a few different things, but in this corner of the Internet, I go by Terri. I’ve been on this hell-site for like 15 years now and can’t seem to ever truly get away.
This blog is mostly oriented for my creative projects, including on-topic rambling about said writings, general writing advice and resources, and the sharing of other storytellers’ plights. There’s a bit of visual art, some fun stuff, some life advice, a smidgen of this and that. I try to keep the amount of politics low.
My current main story is Opposing Colours, part 1 of Do You Think Sharks Have Feelings? It is a story about two people meeting, learning to get along, and eventually forgetting how to live without one another. It’s also something of a story about a fall from grace, a descent into madness — that sort of thing. We’re getting there. It’s based in the Sea of Thieves universe with all of its deceptively deep lore, partially thanks to my years-long hyper-fixation on it.
I’ve also had a life-long love of the Sonic The Hedgehog franchise and grew up in its darkest times, leading to some… slightly skewed views on the franchise. From that has sprung an alternate universe (AU) project of mine centering around Mephiles the Dark. While I don’t have anything of this posted, I have spoken a little bit about it, and it is something I am quietly working on to soon post. I have a somewhat unrelated one-shot where hints of this AU can be gleamed, though. This project’s series is A Fractured Reality.
I primarily maintain my stuff on Archive of our Own. I also have a SquidgeWorld Archive account for redundancy. I’m not sure why I bother maintaining a fanfiction.net account. For some reason I don’t really outright post my stuff here and only occasionally post little things (dash / blog).
If you’re more interested in what I’m doing precisely, check out my rambling tag (dash / blog) or say hi. I don’t bite!
Normalize leaving unhinged comments on ao3 fics you like. I’m tired of being the only one brave enough to write “I am chewing on this fic” in the comment section. Be weird. Authors will love you for it
If I didn’t want readers to chew on it, I wouldn’t have spent all that time on the mouthfeel
I’ve noticed lately that people don’t really understand what it feels like to be a writer. To them, we’re storytellers, yes, but ones who can just switch it off when the real world calls. They see writing as a hobby, something cute, something optional.
But Writing isn’t something we do. It’s where we live. Our heads are crowded with voices that won’t shut up, with worlds that refuse to stay imaginary. We carry entire cities inside us, whole histories that never happened but still weigh more than half the things in our calendars.
From the outside, the “writer” looks romantic. A little tortured, maybe, but mostly harmless. But to us? Being a writer feels like standing at the edge of a cliff with a thousand ghosts pressing at our backs, whispering: Tell us. Tell us. Tell us.
And we do. Not because it’s charming. But because not writing would mean carrying those ghosts forever.
sometimes reading fanfic is like enjoying a gourmet tasting menu from a team of expert chefs who all have different styles and approaches to a favorite cuisine
and sometimes reading fanfic is like standing in front of the open fridge at three in the morning shoving handfuls of shredded cheese into your mouth
⭑ when characters are bad at lying. like, the instant rambling, the “uhhh yeah totally” energy, and everyone around them already knows they’re full of it. cracks me up every time.
⭑ when someone’s handwriting shows up. messy notes, doodles in the margins, grocery lists, whatever. feels so real, like you’re peeking into their life.
⭑ characters laughing at their own dumb jokes. i don’t care if no one else finds it funny, i will absolutely melt if they can’t finish their sentence because they’re giggling.
⭑tiny hobbies that don’t matter to the plot. like “sorry i’m late, i was baking bread” and then we never hear about it again. but i’m obsessed because now i know they exist.
⭑casual “i love yous” that aren’t romantic. best friends saying it, siblings saying it, someone tossing it out like it’s just… normal. (because it should be.)
⭑the awkward silences that feel painful. not just “they sat in silence,” but the kind where suddenly the sound of someone stirring their tea is way too loud.
⭑ when food gets described in a stupidly specific way. like “her toast was burnt, as always” or “he added three sugars to his coffee even though he swore he was cutting back.” love it.
⭑when two characters remember the same event completely differently. instant drama, instant tension. i eat it up.
⭑dumb little artifacts in the story, maps, scribbles, a fake flyer someone crumpled up. i don’t even care if it matters to the plot, i just think it’s neat.
reading:SIGH OKAY LISTEN — I look at the r/wyrmworks subreddit occasionally and the author advertised the book so I checked it out and Scales of Fate: The Chosen Prince was… all right. It reads like fanfiction — it has some quirkiness, it’s got a few (substantial, I think) errors that should have been caught in an editing process, some… weirdness, and it very much feels like it has sexual content for giggles. I dunno. I don’t think I’d say it was good, but it was fun.
I’m hopeful that the second is better but in the meantime, I’ve got a giant fanfic to finish reading. I don’t want to go on about it because I don’t like to be openly overly negative or positive about fanfics but uh it bad. I started reading ‘cause of a character tag and it seemed interesting enough on its own but it’s all just there to facilitate some shipping desires. Sure, everyone is free to write what they like and do what they like with it, but I’m also free to say ‘This sucks’ lol. It’s just extra sucky that the premise is so interesting, but then there’s also a lack of any tagging such as ‘parody’ or ‘satire’ when the driving force behind the main plot is… I wanna say it’s suppose to be comical, but the entire tone of the fic goes against that and how it’s presented and what it is. I dunno. It was harsh tonal whiplash and now I’m barely skimming to the end. It was disappointing.
The other book I can go back to is the first Age of Fire novel. I got about a third of the way through it when I had to take a break because it didn’t feel like anything was happening. I’m definitely gonna force myself through more of it, though, ‘cause I hear all sorts of interesting things about the series. It also had some very strong world building in the beginning that I’d love to get back into.
last series: My husband’s got me watching The Apothecary Diaries on Netflix. IIRC he started watching it because it was pleasant to the eye and he got sucked the fuck into it. Had me looking for books and everything for him.We’re about three episodes in so far and it’s pretty amusing — it reminds me of a very tonally different Blue Eye Samurai from a different POV. It’s got a bit of that anime quirk without being suffocating so far and I appreciate that.
last movie: I think that was Sinners from last year? Absolute delight of a movie. A little tonally confused but absolutely delightful. Lots of great music and moments. It’s described as a horror movie but I dunno that that’s the best description of it.It’s also a bit of period film, I believe? Idk. It was good and I don’t want to spoil it, just go for it!
last song: Undefeatable from Sonic Frontiers. It’s absolutely bonkers to me how good this track is, just as a song, and tonally for what it is in the game. I do think it’s a bit misplaced as the first boss’ music, though. Before that was Break Through It All, the second boss theme. Not quite as much of a banger was Undefeatable, but fun nonetheless.
sweet or salty: I’m not a sugar fiend or anything, I actively dislike overly sweet things, they upset my stomach, but I’ll always prefer it. I blame the ADHD.
tea of coffee: Coffee. I’ll drink it black, but I prefer a dash of milk or creamer in it. I do like teas, but their flavour profile tends to be rather weak to me. I’m just glad I don’t need the caffeine from either anymore lol And weirdly enough, the tea that I like best is a medicinal tea, the stuff you take for a sore throat.
working on: The obvious is I’m always working on DYTSHF. Just… always gonna be working on that for the foreseeable future. I’m trying to get an editing/final touches pass on 057 right now. I, uh, I think we’re like 5 chapters away from the end of Opposing Colours, if I’m honest. The closer I get, the more daunting it becomes, somehow.
Every other day I’m doing something with the sourdough starter, Shit Bread Reborn. (I should not have let my husband name it.) I made some crackers with yesterday’s discard and they’re quite good! Texturally, they’re weird ‘cause I’ve never made crackers before and wasn’t sure how to (the instructions from my brother were not very thorough lol) but they taste very nice despite ranging from a little too crunchy to weirdly chewy. I think the base of the recipe would work very well with having cinnamon and nutmeg added instead of Italian seasonings. I’m saving doing a proper loaf of sourdough bread for the weekend when my husband can work it with me ‘cause same-day sourdough bread is an all-day affair but we just do not have the refrigerator space to over-night proof it.
Video game wise, I’ve been very slowly working on getting another character leveled and established on a cluster in ARK: Survival Ascended since my last one was on a server that they changed to something paid so I can’t even try to see if it’s there anymore lmao. Mainly, though, I’ve been park-building in Jurassic World Evolution 3. I had the zoo-tycoon bug bite me and it has scratched that itch very well. Bit of a shame ‘cause I had gotten Prehistoric Kingdom in the time before but just… man, that game does not have any polish. Absolutely phenomenal what its team is doing with realistic looking animals and its fully dynamic growth system, but it’s lacking huge things like the game running well. I have a beast rig and it was still abysmal. Features-wise, it’s bare bones. JWE3 is a steal at 60 USD compared to PK’s 30 USD. I’m normally a stickler for indie games, but in this case, it really is a good example of getting what you pay for.
Caught between kicking myself for having finished the initial draft of 057 but not even so much as glancing at it in the last week ‘cause husband came home from a long work trip and going, ‘Yeah, he was out of town for 11 fucking days.’
We went fishing together yesterday and that was fun as shit. The only keepers I’m getting are “trash” fish but whatever, we’re catching half a dozen little guys for funsies in the middle of winter. I’ll take it.
My husband wasn’t sure what gifts to get me last month. Something he ended up doing was getting me a pack of really nice pens and some stuff to write in and it has really reminded me of how much I like writing in general. Typing’s nice, it’s quick and efficient and digital storage is something I appreciate, but there is just something about using your hand to make squiggles on a piece of paper. Unfortunately, my chronic conditions make doing that a bit difficult, but, I dunno, I should find something to do with that.
I’ve also been trying to get a sourdough starter going and I think I’ve done it. If you’re not aware, sourdough bread requires a ‘starter,’ which is basically just a water-flour mixture that has certain bacteria/yeast in it. Or something; I’m not an expert. I just did the thing I was told to do and it seems to be working. BUT ANYWAY — I think I’ve got it this time. I have a cracker dough in the refrigerator right now that will be ready to work on baking in about half an hour and that’s exciting. I’m not sure I’ll care for them too much but if not, my husband’s mother is keen on having them, and sourdough seems to help her stomach condition so I’m very hopeful in that regard.
I dunno. So, I love tech and computers and quite enjoy video games, but it’s been very nice to keep busy with my hands. The move absolutely has had a bit to do with that.
For quite a while, my husband and I were simply friends online who played games. Bit of a complicated matter. Fast forward to us getting together and it turned into a something like ~5 year long-distance relationship. He got his current job in that time and it required far more time from him than his previous one. It led to quite a few changes and one of those was just the amount of time we had to be together. I totally picked up on that change and it led to us sort of trying to spend as much time as possible together, whether that was time spent in a Discord server with friends or just a private call between the two of us. Our time together went from frequent, near daily 15+ hour long calls to a bit of time in the morning and then the evenings of each day. We were glued to our devices in order to be with each other and that meant we were often playing video games.
(Mind you, I do still love those things. I rebuilt my PC early last year and mid-last year I had to rebuild my husband’s ‘cause of some hardware failures.)
But having moved, there’s no need for that anymore. Now we can just sit on a couch together. We can go do things together — something which was oddly difficult for my direct family to do, which we frequently comment on with the phrase of “Doing things is hard.” And it’s not just him and I that do things — his parents will go have little date nights. I’ll go do things alone. He and I will go do a thing just to do a thing, and sometimes we’ll take one of the kids with us or both and their mother.
My direct family just always has me going ??? I digress.
It’s quite nice to be busy with actively using my hands. I need to watch I don’t over-do it, which was pretty easy when we were hunting, but I’m finding that I’m quite enjoying this. I still love my stupid circuit boards and stuff, but it no longer being a lifeline to my other half is quite nice.
Dude, read the books, she and her mom freed themselves in Book 1. We don’t disrespect American Girl in this house
Don’t you dare disrespect Addy, or any of my girls for that matter. American Girl used to be legit. Good stories, good dolls, good movies.
Felicity’s story was set in the beginnings of the American Revolution, and addressed the conflict that she faced when her loved ones were split between patriots and loyalists. It also covered the effects of animal abuse, and forgiving those who are unforgivable.
Samantha’s stories centered around the growth of industrial America, women’s suffrage, child abuse, and corruption in places of power. Also, it emphasises how dramatically adoption into a caring family can turn a life around.
Kit’s story is one of my favorites. Her family is hit hard by the Great Depression, and they begin taking in boarders and raise chickens to help make ends meet. Her books include themes of poverty, police brutality, homelessness, prejudice, and the importance of unity in difficult times.
Molly’s father, a doctor, is drafted during the Second World War. Throughout her story, friends of hers suffer the loss of their husbands, sons, and brothers overseas. Her mother leaves the traditional housewife position and works full-time to help with the war effort. They also take in an English refugee child, who learns to open up after a life of traumatic experience.
American Girl stories have always featured the very harsh realities of America through the years. But they’re always presented honestly, yet in ways that kids can understand. They just go to show that you don’t have to live in a perfect time to be a real American girl.
Dont you fucking dare disrespect the American Girls in my house. ESPECIALLY Addy!! That was my first REAL contact with the horrors of slavery, as I read about her father being whipped and sold and her mother escaping with her to freedom, but also how freedom was still a struggle.
A slave doll. Please. Read the books.
Don’t forget Kirsten, the Swedish immigrant who had to deal with balancing her own culture and learning the english language and customs of her classmates, or Kaya (full name
Kaya'aton'my, or She Who Arranges Rocks) , the brave but careless girl from the Nez Perce tribe, or Josefina, the Mexican girl learning to be a healer.
And then there are the later dolls, that kids younger than me would have grown up with (I was just outgrowing American Girl as these came out), like Rebecca, the Jewish girl who dreams of becoming an actress in the budding film industry, or
Julie, who fights against her school’s gender policy surrounding sports in the 70s, or
Nanea, the Hawaiian girl whose father worked at Pearl Harbor.
These books, these characters, are fantastic pictures into life for girls in America throughout the years, they pull no punches with the horrors that these girls had to face in their different time periods, and in many cases I learned more history from these series than social studies at school. And that’s without even mentioning the “girl of the year” series where characters are created in the modern world to help girls deal with issues like friend problems, moving, or bullying. We do NOT disrespect American Girl in this house.
American Girl is probably going to be the only exposure young girls are going to get to history from a female perspective. This is actually kind of important considering that in history classes we dont really get that exposure. We dont hear about what women felt and endured during these time periods cause schools are too busy teaching us about what happened from the male perspective, which is not unimportant, but we need both. Girls need both.
These books were such a crucial part of my childhood and shaped my love of history, which still ensures today. These books can be a young girl’s first lessons in diversity and cultural awareness (hopefully burying that insensitive “we’re all Americans” tripe) and looking at history from more perspectives than just that taught in school. They also are an example of how women have ALWAYS been part of history, which some people would rather us not believe.
I think Kit and Kaya were the newest American Girls when I started “aging out” of the books, but hearing about some of these kinda makes me want to revisit them!
I wasn’t gonna say anything, but you know what?
Nah.
OP (of the tweet thread) was either a actively trying to start shit or is just a huge fucking moron. Probably both.
I’d like to point out that the company that makes American Girl dolls actually doesn’t skimp when doing their research and they don’t make the dolls with the intent to be offensive in any way:
And they departed from the norm in Kaya’s doll to fit her culture! The other dolls all show their teeth, and Kaya does not because that is considered rude in the Nez Perce culture!
It is absolutely true that these books covered the stuff in history that was absent from our history books. I still distinctly remember reading about Addy being forced to eat bugs she missed on tobacco plants, and that started me out from a different perspective and made it easier for me to know to reject the sanitized version of the slave trade we’re taught in school. And these books are targeted at ages 8+, which is a pretty critical time for developing your own thinking and morals.
Reblogging for general awesome
when i was in 3rd grade i was reading the Meet Addy book at school & a couple boys made fun of me for reading a “doll book” - my teacher overheard & started reading Meet Addy to the class after every recess. everyone became extremely invested & by the end of the year we had read the entire collection of Addy books & did a presentation on the civil war at the end of the year that we all presented to the class one by one.
i think back on this & realize that as third graders we were talking about how awful slavery was & because we were simply innocent kids without any societal or institutional influence yet, all of us could kept saying “why would you treat a HUMAN like that ?!” this one girl for her birthday invited all of us for her party & she got the Addy doll - every single one of us (boys included) held her & was in awe of this doll - it was such a touching experience.
i went back home about a year ago & ran into my third grade teacher in the grocery store. she said that year opened up a whole new teaching structure for her. she now reads american girl stories to her students starting day one of class every day to calm them down after recess & she’ll get through maybe four or five sets of books a year. she has the dolls in the room with packets on information from the doll’s time period that her students can “check out” to take home for weekends to care for them.
we oftentimes overlook how powerful toys can be in influencing young children & american girl honestly knew that kids could read intense moments in history & synthesize the issues to learn how to be a better person. my grandma bought me my first doll, molly, when i was only six & the dolls became a huge part of my childhood. when i turned 21 a couple years ago - we were living in minneapolis - she took me to have lunch for my birthday at the american doll place in the mall of america & bought me the Addy doll for my birthday. it was such a powerful moment i hasn’t expected.
i’ve since gotten rid of majority of my childhood toys, but i still have every single one of my dolls & all the books that i plan on gifting to my future children.
I’m white and my first real introduction to slavery and the underground railroad was Addy. She was a young girl like me I could connect to and care about her story. American Girl does a great job of making history relevant to kids.
Also American Girl sells all sorts of books unrelated to the dolls. The Care and Keeping of You books were super important as I started puberty and were the most comprehensive, non judgemental account of what was going to happen.
They also have “the smart girls guide” series which covers topics like crushes, worry, middle school, drama and gossip, sports, friendship, the digital world, communication, money, confidence, etc.
Oh I had those too and I loved them!
I want to say I think there was an American Girl Doll magazine series that came out, but don’t quote me on that. there were lots of helpful girl guides that used the American girls as examples for doing good or learning lessons or trying to understand why girls did what they did
I learned a lot of my core beliefs from these girls.
I remember being very invested in Molly, Addy, and Kaya. Mostly cuz I look like Molly, and the other two had a lot of information on two of my favorite time periods. But I owe a lot of my personality to these lovvely girls
yo don’t forget my girl Caroline. Her father was captured by the British during the war of 1812 and she basically learned how to sail and rescued him herself.
omg yeah i love caroline
I can confirm that they really do their research - during the creation of Caroline the company called a museum I was associated with and quizzed them extensively about what sort of food kids would have eaten at the turn of the 19th century.
When i was like ten I wrote a letter to the American Girl magazine saying that the girls in their magazine were all really skinny and it made me, a chonk, really sad because it was showing that I couldn’t wear any of the outfits they suggested, and I got a personal letter back from the editor apologizing for making me feel that way and saying they would work on that. Dunno if they actually did, i can’t remember, but they did promptly personally respond to a letter about something that was not exactly on the radar for girl’s media in fucking 2002. So there’s that.
I’m happy to report that the messages from American Girl have only gotten better in recent years.
These are from one of their latest books, A Smart Girl’s Guide to Body Image:
They got a lot of flak from conservative parents for this and they did. not. back. down.
Their newest historical doll, Claudie, is a black girl growing up in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Her story is about Black artists thriving, and making a safe, beautiful place for themselves in a society that tries to reject them. It teaches about the NAACP’s protests against lynchings, in ways kids can understand, but there’s also so much Black joy and creativity showcased in her story.
Another historical doll, Melody, is growing up in the 1960s during the Civil Rights movement. She faces the struggles and triumphs of attending a newly integrated school, and learns about the bombing of a Black church in Alabama that killed four little girls her age. Her stories show how black people found support and community within the church, as well as music— she loves to sing! If you have a free hour, I highly recommend watching her special on Amazon (free with prime). It stars Caila Marsai Martin from Blackish and it will make you weep.
The girl of the year for 2022, Corinne, is Asian, and her story touches on the issues of anti-Asian hate in the wake of covid. When conservative parents threw a fit about this, American Girl went ahead and made the girl of the year for 2023 Asian, too.
Any of their dolls can be customized with assistive devices like hearing aids, service dogs, and wheelchairs. They also have bald dolls, to include stories about girls battling cancer or alopecia. And it’s not just girl dolls— they have boy dolls now, too! And dolls with no gender assigned to them! People complained that they couldn’t find any dolls in the Just Like Me line that looked like them, so they now give people the ability to create their own custom doll, with tons of different options.
I’m not claiming American Girl as a company is perfect, but I am saying they’re important. Girl perspectives, girl stories, and girl communities are IMPORTANT. If there are kids in your life who would benefit from these stories, or if you’d like to read them yourself, you can find any American Girl book for pretty much dirt cheap on eBay, and libraries usually stock tons of them!
I don’t know who needs to hear this but please please please please please explore the settings. Of your phone, computer, of every app you use. Investigate the UI, toggle some things around and see what happens. You won’t break anything irreperably without a confirmation box asking you if you really mean to do that thing. And you can just look up what a setting will do before touching it if you’re really worried ok?
Worst case scenario you just have to change the settings back if you don’t like what happened but it is so so so important to explore the tools available to you and gain a better understanding for how the stuff you use works.
Even if you already know. Even if you’re comfortable with how you use it now. You don’t just have to accept whtever experience has been handed to you by default and it’s good for you to at least know what’s available to you.
Yeah. I’ve been “good at computers” since I was a kid and since I was a kid I’ve been telling people that all it is is a willingness to look at settings and push buttons.
Computers are good at “are you sure?” and “reset to defaults”. There’s a safety net. Go look at the options, and push ‘em if you’re not sure. That’s like 90% of being “good at computers” : not being scared to push buttons and fiddle with options when something is broken or you need to learn a new thing
I especially reccomend looking through the accesibility settings on any new device or site, even if you don’t have any access needs. That’s where they hide a lot of basic QoL they hope you don’t turn on. On Discord, for example, “show "send” button" and “always underline links” are accesibility options, as well as things like font size and video/gif autoplay.
And debug or developer settings often double as accesibility. I set my phone to display a little dot where it detects the touchscreen being touched; they added that feature with debugging in mind, but I’m clumsy enough that that little visual helps a TON when I’m trying to press a tiny imaginary button.
