My Attempt To Draw Alessa From The Golden Rose, By @anathemafiction 

something in me jumped a little

finding this in a dying soldiers wallet

Heart of Battle is out now!

Battle for love as a gladiator in this epic romance of swords and sandals!

Heart of Battle is a 255,000-word interactive gladiator romance by Fay Ikin, where your choices control the story. It’s entirely text-based—without graphics or sound effects—and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.

As a prisoner of Coritan City, you had two options: rot in a dungeon or battle in the gladiatorial arena. You chose to fight—and as a star gladiator, you have the power to sway public opinion as nobody else does.

The city is divided, ruled by the glittering Illustrious who use their wealth and status to maintain their power over the struggling masses. A lucky few have access to magic as well: it can be used to heal, but it can also be used as a weapon, or to reinforce the bars of prisons.

Below them, rumors of revolution simmer—and nowhere more strongly than among the gladiators. Former soldiers, political prisoners, and prisoners of war now bide their time, plotting to rise up. Some just hope to escape to their own freedom; others want to bring down the entire oppressive system. Yet others seek to work within the hierarchy, currying favor among the Illustrious in the hopes of having their freedom bought by a wealthy patron.

In this treacherous web of alliances that you must navigate, the one certainty is your own heart. Will you find love with a gentle healer, haunted by a tragic past? A wealthy patron who could promise you a life of luxury? Or even one of your fellow gladiators, whose muscles and martial skill you admire through every battle: a fervent ex-revolutionary now condemned to the same servitude as you, or a bold daring warrior who seeks fame and glory.

What skills will you bring to the battlefield: domineering strength, agile cunning or force of personality? Will you accept your fate and build a reputation as a respectable, honorable fighter, relying on the aristocrats to free you? Or will you throw in with the rebels? Victory can mean a better life for you and your beloved—but what will you do if you find yourself on the opposite side of a gladiatorial match from the one you love? Or on the opposite side of a revolution?

Play as male, female, or non-binary; trans or cis; gay, straight, bi, demisexual, asexual, or aromantic.

Romance a gentle healer; a glory-hound gladiator; a wealthy patron; or an ex-revolutionary.

Choose your weapon: fight with sword, mace, bow, daggers, or bladed gauntlet.

Negotiate your way through relationships with your superiors, walk the balance of power between gladiators and guards, and clash with a bitter rival.

Win battles with honor, or scheme and cheat to take down your enemies.

Incite a riot—or even a revolution!

Anniversary celebration and chapters 1 & 2 update  

Happy one-year game anniversary! ✨😱🥳

I know it’s not the 9th in most places in the world, but it is in some! And I’m impatient 😆✨ anyway—one year! Isn’t that amazing? Time flies when you’re having fun 😅 Thank you all for giving me such a warm welcome to all this 💖 without your support and kindness, this would have remained a small little writing exercise 😳 

As thanks for sticking by me and the game, I wanted to give all of you something. But as the new chapter 3 and 4 update isn’t done yet, I had to do the next best thing! I’ve updated chapters 1 and 2 with a little over 6 thousand new words, which feature content such as:

Extended Lestrade sandwich scene

Ask Watson about Lestrade 

New price if you win the heads or tails game 😉

Steal Lestrade’s flask?

Multiple new choices and edits to make it easier to play a soft bickering Lestrade relationship 💖 (if you still want to be yelled at, make sure you make them mad before gloating rudely or obliviously) 

And more! 

I hope you like it and have a great weekend! ❤️ 

Would anyone be interested in a Twitch stream Friday?

If so, what times work best for people? Would you rather see a beginner Twine/IF tutorial or more in-depth UI design/coding? (I may experiment more with writing streams in the future, but for now I think coding/tutorial focused stuff works better for streaming)

Do you ever notice yourself getting bad again…like, you know you’re not doing work that needs to be done, you know you’re not cleaning, you know you’re not taking care of yourself…you know all the things you need to do to start trying to feel better. But you just can’t. And you’re left feeling like shit bc you thought you were getting better but here we are

Hello everyone! I've been made aware that the personality calc isn't currently working in the demo. I'll fix it when I can in the next day or so, but until then, I'll repost this disclaimer from the forum!

h o w t o s u r v i v e c o l l e g e

Sleep

Okay listen - I know what you’re thinking. College students don’t sleep, though! And guess what? That’s absolutely true. I’ve had two cups of coffee today already and it’s only noon, but you need to learn how to sleep enough. Your body has limits and you need to learn what those are. I have had multiple friends who have fainted from not sleeping enough and guess what? They don’t perform better on tests that way. Figure out how many hours of sleep you need to get to function well. For me it’s about 5-7 hours per night during the week and about 7-8 hours per night on weekends (and I don’t have Friday class so Thursday nights count as weekends for me). This is probably the limit for keeping yourself healthy enough to function and I subsist off of coffee. If you don’t sleep you are going to get sick and your papers are going to be incoherent and you are going to gain weight from over eating. So just put down that paper, get your 6 hours and start up again in the morning. For majors that are reading based (i.e. English, History, Philosophy, Classics, etc) it is so important to get enough sleep so that you can actually comprehend your readings!

Plan

Your planner does not have to be beautiful, covered with script handwriting and cute small artist stickers to be worth putting time into (more power to you if yours is though — that’s a whole mood). I used Hobinichi Cousin planner to plan my day—chores, homework, and meals—but I also use iCal and an app called Things. My freshman year I thought that just having a paper planner would be fine but it did NOT work out for me. I was always late/forgetting meetings and running around like a chicken with her head cut off. Once I downloaded Things (for my assignments) and inputted work, social events, and when I’m really busy sleep/meals into iCal, I started getting better grades. Take 2 hours to plan. Seriously even if you have 372 things to get done by tomorrow, if you plan and make a linear list of the things you need to get done they will get done better and faster.

Things is a paid app. $10 for phone, $50 for Mac. It’s a bit of an investment for both but I have used it every single day for the past 2 years.

Socialize

Just me here with your local reminder that socialize does not mean you have to party. Let me tell you something, I haven’t gone to a party this entire year (it’s second semester) and I feel completely content about it. I am not saying that going to parties is bad. A lot of people have a ton of fun doing that, but let me tell you something—your social life cannot subsist off of parties alone. Invite people to brunch, make friends with the people in your classes by literally just talking to them (!!!), go on coffee dates with your friends as much as you can, take midnight ice cream runs, 1 am fried chicken runs, 9 pm boba study breaks, invite people over to make cookies, go to the cinema. Deep conversations and long talks will sometimes distract you from your work and guess what? That’s okay. That’s an important part of college too. Don’t shut yourself up in your room all day studying every day of the week. You are going to burn out. You need your friends and they need you!

Work smarter and harder

I cannot say this enough—utilize your resources! Go to office hours. It will literally save you to have a relationship with your professor. Not only are you going to get letters of recommendation, extensions when you really need them, and helpful tips—you can have amazing conversation and insight about grad school, research, and jobs. Go to the library. Not only are there a million books for your research project all grouped in the same section, but there are librarians who can help you find more resources with less effort. Use your databases, but also your own school’s archives. There is a reason we save so many books and newspapers. Also libraries are the absolute best place to study. This year I have tended to go to the most social floor because it keeps me awake and it reminds me that I have other people around me working late as well. Use apps. I’m saying this right now—DOWNLOAD ZOTERO. It will save you. It is an app and a google chrome extension which saves your sources in a database and then generates perfect citations/footnotes for your papers. It is the best thing of my life. Use google drive and keep your documents in organized folders. Organized virtual work is AS important as physical work. Also put some time into your LinkedIn ASAP—the sooner you do it, the easier it will be to keep it up to date.

Take care of yourself

Just be smart about your time and your mental health. Both of those I struggle with every day, but take solace in the fact that other people are going through it too. College is an amazing opportunity and even when it feels completely overwhelming it is still an extremely privileged position to be in. Do why you can to make yourself better, be there for the people who need you, grind on your papers and projects and research. At the end of the day your projects/papers are only going to be as good as your individual capacity allows them to be. Sometimes sleeping an extra hour is as beneficial as an extra hour of studying. Figure out what you need by making mistakes and forgive yourself! We are all just trying to make our way though.

What are your favourite IFs?

I've answered this before but since I love them so much, I'm gonna answer them again! Below the cut because I have many more 😁

I've added the links to the demos in alphabetical order (I hope) for your and my convenience :D

Absentia by @absentia-if

The Abyssal by @theabyssal

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: An Affair of The Heart by @doriana-gray-games

Attollo @attollogame

Before We Are Ghosts @anjiefiction

Blood Moon by @barbwritesstuff

Blood and Runes by @bloodandrunes

Citadel by @bouncyballcitadel

Crown of Exile by @ramonag-if

These Crimson Strings by @thesecrimsonstrings-if

Deadweight by @deadweight-if

Defiled Hearts: The Barbarian by @defiledheartsblog

Fell Star by @fell-star-if

Fallen Lights by @fallenlightsif

Golden by @milaswriting

Honor Amongst Thieves by @leoneliterary

The King's Hound by @the-kingshound

Mirror Mine by @if-mirrormine

The Moonless by @moonless-if

The Nameless by @parkerlyn

Next in Line by @nextinline-if

Novaturient by @kalorphic

The Numbers Game by @thenumbersgameif

Ouroboros by @honeypeabrain

Out of the Blue by @outoftheblue-if

Project Hadea by @nyehilismwriting

Ripper's Plague by @ripperplague

Scandal by @nightingale-interactive

Sinners and Saints by @sinnersandsaints-linwrites

Snakeroot by @cerberus-writes

Swallow the Moon by @dipmyquillinmoonlight

Swan Song by @swansong-if

Unwilling Souls by @unwilling-souls-if

Water to Blood by @veirsewrites

When Twilight Strikes by @evertidings

Whisper in the Dark by @whisper-game

Witches of Ferngrove by @witchesofferngrove

Zorlok @zorlok-if

The person I reblogged this from deserves to be happy

I tried to scroll past this. I really did

initially it’ll be funny but I guarantee u will all end up in tears missing the good times and thinking wow that was crazy I love u all