#// been working on queueing drafts and organizing things better on here :)

[starwrittenfates]

I've cleared the old responses, added the new muses and re-made my INTEREST TRACKER. I've also gone ahead and made a RELATIONSHIPS INTEREST TRACKER too to let me know what dynamics you are looking for. I appreciate you taking the time to fill them out! It helps me with bad brain days, giving me something to look back at and to go off of when I forget. Thank you! <3

[jojo-oliver]

How to tumblr for artists… my own version

A collection of things that have been working for me, but may not work for everyone

~~~ your posts ~~~

!!!reblog your own stuff!!! you need to reblog your own stuff, there is nothing morally wrong with reblogging your own stuff regularly. in fact, it is morally right to allow the chance for more people to see your artwork.

~~~ queue it!! ~~~ my queue is 500 posts strong. maybe don't try to make your queue hundreds of posts strong in the same day omg but like… once every month or two i'll go through my whole blog and just scroll and "add to drafts" to every one of my own posts i have. then i'll use the "mass post editor" to add content warning tags. and add to queue, and shuffle. and then I write down what the date was for when I last added my posts to be reblogged on queue. this is helped by turning on timestamps for posts in tumblr "dashboard preferences" settings.

queueing is necessary and life saving for me. It takes out so much work with decision fatigue and the anxiety around posting. It also guarantees that even if I suddenly need time off or away from my phone, I don't just disappear and lose all traction. It also breaks the instant-gratification cycle that you expect when you finish an artwork. It's hard to keep creating when you post something and, when you're expecting to get that gratification, you get none... If you queue your new artwork to come out at a later time, you've separated that expectation - with time. It hurts less and contributes to a more consistent gratification thing instead of peaks and troughs.

~~~ tag ya stuff ~~~ when you're making a new post, the first 20 tags are what gets put into the searchable tags. do not feel shame for using lots of tags. shame is the mind-killer. tags are hard. hard to know what to tag a post with. hard to remember the tags. so I found some ways to help myself. maybe they'll help you too. dedicate some time towards just figuring out what tags you want to use. i have a list in my phone notes that i add tags to and reference whenever i'm making a new post. i have the phone right beside the laptop while i'm tagging so that i can just look at it and scroll. tags are the only way for people to find your artwork, other than people manually coming to your blog because they saw you somewhere. there is no algorithm. posting without tags, until you have an established fanbase, is throwing something into the void.

When I'm doing tag research, I look at what people seem to use - when you put something in the search bar, tumblr recommends you some that have a higher following, typically. Looks like this on desktop:

if you like one tag, look at what other people who use that tag also tag their posts with. Observe and learn how this tag is used. search through a bunch of them and write them down.

here's what i got in my notes, for the specific kind of art I post and look for:

these tags are sort of specific to me and the kind of art I make. You'll want to research your own tags, but this is an example of how I keep them organized to make posting more effective. I generally only write down a tag when it's got more than 2k followers. You might be tempted to use the tags with millions of followers, but I've actually found those a lot less functional for small artists. If your stuff doesn't immediately get a bunch of notifications, you're drowned out and pushed to the bottom much faster. But the bigger tags are better than no tags, so I keep them if I can't think of anything else to tag something with.

~~~ post at the right times….? ~~~

fridays and saturdays is when I post fresh new things... usually. every website has it's own peak hours, and you can find those hours in many different online articles that try to sell you social media growth services. tumblr is unique in having later hours.

here's some random graph from google images:

please don't over think this. please don't let this consume the idea of when to post, preventing you from posting at all. it doesn't mean too much - if you post during very active hours, maybe your art would just be pushed down the feed faster. if you post at the end of hours, maybe everyone's going to sleep… if you post at inactive hours, maybe there's less 'competition'… if you post at the beginning of active hours, maybe that's just more time for your post to circulate for the day, if you have enough people reblogging it once it drops....

this also is in EST. So fuck the other time zones, I guess. I'm over here in europe knowing that the "best" time to post would be like 2-3am or something. It's like this for most english-speaking majority sites - higher traffic in north american time zones.

it's also worth mentioning that this is scattered as heck, compared to other social media sites. and it's not like, the activity times of your followers. it's not the best time to post for your niche. this is just tumblr, broadly. all of tumblr.

~~~ Plan ahead for annual dates ~~~

Your artwork will get more circulation if it's posted on a celebratory day. You could just put them on your calendar and if you're wondering what to make, look on the calendar for what's coming soon. For example, asexual awareness day, trans day of visibility, location-specific holidays, etc. Here's my phone notes thing with my own recorded annuals:

I got these dates from googling and reading different articles, but I find that I still miss dates, and then I add them for next year. If you know of some I missed, tell me and I'll add them please <3

~~~ reblog other people's stuff ~~~

tumblr is sorta about ecosystems. things get passed around within groups of people that are all following eachother. to enter this ecosystem, you must engage and reblog other people's stuff too.

if you reblog other artists' stuff, sometimes they'll come over and reblog your stuff too. sometimes they'll follow you back. this is called becoming a mutual. I'll search specific tags for the kinds of people I want to follow and the kind of art I like - those are listed in the screenshot of my tag note under "Tags for finding new people".

I see a lot of blogs out there that are very clean, posts are tagless, and are only for the artists' content. like scrolling through a portfolio. I imagine this is good for people who are migrating to tumblr but already have their own established fanbase from elsewhere.

you don't need to do reblog other people's stuff on your art blog, you can do this on a separate blog. but if the two don't look very closely correlated, it's hard to tell who you are when you're interacting. and hard to make sure people know that you are the same person as your art blog. and you gotta remember to promote yourself on your personal blog.

~~~ have an art tag ~~~

make your blog easy to search!

if i go to your blog, and you've written 'artist' or 'sometimes art' in your bio, i wanna see it… it make me so sad when i don't get to see it. i want to reblog it. please let me reblog it :(

to make a tag on your own blog searchable, you don't need to repost it to add a tag. you don't even need to reblog it. you can actually just go back to the original post and edit it to add your tag. I've seen post people just have their art tag be something like #(blogname)art . you can see my own in my tags image above. if it's very unique, then it'll work tumblr-wide. I think that's good, since the tumblr search function is really weird. Otherwise it should still work if it's not entirely unique, people just have to make sure they're searching specifically your blog to see only your stuff.

I like to have a link in my pinned post where people can click to have immediately searched for my art tag. Convenience is king. Keep in mind that most people are on mobile, and if something isn't immediately clickable, they often won't find it.

~~~ be consistent and be patient ~~~

!!!this time will pass anyway!!! how many notes you have is not correlated with how good you are as an artist. wanting to earn something from your art means you essentially have two jobs. two potentially full time jobs. this shit's difficult. most of the job is promoting yourself. don't undersell how hard it is to do… don't feel bad for not immediately succeeding. I would write about how hard it's been to promote myself, but it would just be long and sad I think.

This isn't a full guide, please feel free to add more!!

I'm sure in another year I'll disagree with a lot of this, it will become irrelevant with time, and I'll have a lot of different opinions. Chip in and share what you've been doing? Teach me? This is very overwhelming. Don't do it all at once, just like, try one thing at a time, and see how it works for you. Your niche might be different. One size does not fit all. If you're confused about some of the things I talk about in here, you might be on mobile. I do most of my queueing and posting from the desktop browser version.

I will update this with more as things change, but I think you'll have to click through to see the updated post

[seastoried]

hellloooo my beloved 2024 holiday pal :D

i hope you are having a beautiful week so far, i am personally having a wonderful day because i got tickets to a concert i'm v excited about yesterday despite being 13,000 in the queue (hello....) for presale and still riding that high.. and i am traveling home tomorrow for holiday break which despite the flight i am excited for <3 my work graciously let me be remote all of next week so i could travel home a lil early so i am very excited. do you celebrate any winter holidays btw? 👀 and if so do you have any fun plans!! (if u want to share, please do not feel pressured).

perusing your about page, and linguistics and anthropology is such a neat area of study!! for anthro, do you have a speciality? also re: your about page, i saw on there go by two different names on here, do you have a preference for which one i call you during our exchanges? :) for this exchange to make it shorter than holiday pal u can call me j if you want 🫡

v excited to be your pal this season, i hope something happened today that made you smile 🥰

love,

j

hiiiii j thank u so much for this lovely lovely message!!

i have been drowning in work and hence this took a couple days to but it made me smile sm when it popped up :)

so pleased about your concert tickets!! truly there is no better feeling than defeating the evils of ticketmaster (presumably). what artist are u seeing, if u want to share? i just bought tickets to see tamino in spring and am on the fence about getting some for sam fender, although there was no huge for them thankfully 😌 otherwise the week has been....busy to say the least but the good thing about being close to a ton of deadlines is that i can justify spending hours in cute cafe's to get work done so! there's a positive to be found! do u have a standard coffee/treat order? i'm incredibly boring with mine and have been wanting to try new stuff out.

i'm also going home for the holidays, which i'm looking forward to sm <3 i don't realllly celebrate any holidays rn but hey the whole december vibe is so fun and sweet!! and i'm part of a couple holiday card/gift exchanges that should be a good time. don't have any huge plans besides spend a ridiculous amount of time w my cats and get through some of the books i've been piling onto my tbr, but some friends and i are trying to organize a night out for new years so we'll see how that goes....(it's like herding cats i love them dearly but logistically its a little nightmare lol) i'm also on a bit of a baking kick so all the free time will probably result in a large quantity of baked goods for my family haha :) how about you? any exciting holiday plans?

and omg thank u !! i'm primarily interested in cultural anthropology, especially folklore and oral tradition, but recently (and largely as a result of me starting to follow some sports) have gotten VERY swept up in sports anthro. it's relatively new as academic fields go but that's some of the appeal tbh. i'm hoping to maybe start drafting a journal article in that area over break but we shall see if i actually get to it hehe

as for the name thing, tara is good :) i used squish online for years and am still very fond of it but there is some appeal to being addressed with a name and not a verb

thank u again for this sweet message, i'm so looking forward to getting to know over the season 💖 hope u had/have a lovely day !!

love,

tara

[tittyblade]

tumblr etiquette 101

a list that is nowhere near exhaustive, from yours truly.

First off, welcome! Whether you’re a twitter veteran looking for anything but whatever twitter is, or a new user just done signing up, glad to see you in our ranks beloveds! Welcome home. Refer to this quick tour to make sure your fandom experience (or tumblr experience in general) is a positive one!

Disclaimer: I know it’s long, but please try to read or skim through til the end if you’re new here! This is by no means meant to be a rule book (for the most part lol), only a guide to help you get settled easier!

1) Your blog

This is where people will see and interact with you, so put some effort into it!

Try to choose a name (url) that’s simple. You can see it as your brand, it’s how people will perceive you and remember you. If you’d like to interact with other users here (and not use the site just for the content) it’s better to have something short and sweet, preferably without spaces. (Of course, these are only suggestions.) Rest assured, you can change it literally any time you want.

Have a theme. Utilize the tool that lets you edit your blog’s color or the font of your bio! You can make it match your profile picture, or your blog if it has a theme of its own. Make it feel homey :]

Fill in your bio. People will be checking out your profile probably more often than you think. Don’t leave it empty! Put in any information you’re comfortable with sharing and isn’t too personal (like your age if you’re a minor, or other TMI that can be found on other people’s carrds). It’s always better to add a name/nickname people can use to refer to you by, but feel free to use your blog description to shitpost still.

You can have an intro post. More often than not, you’ll see a blog have a pinned post, a post permanently appearing at the top of a blog until you pin another post or unpin it. You can make one of those, if you’d like to introduce yourself in more length, link any other socials or a carrd, and show others visiting your blog how you tag things so it’ll be easy for them to navigate. Not an obligation.

Keep your anonymity and your safety. It should go without saying, but there’s no harm in repeating it just in case. Your comfort, privacy and safety has the utmost importance. Don’t share any information you don’t want to. Don’t share your age if you’re a minor, or any other incredibly personal info. I’d encourage you to go by a nickname that’s not your real name, (blog name, your brand, remember?) since there’s safety in anonymity, and that’s lowkey one of the big deals of tumblr, but that’s up to you still.

Choose what you want to be visible. Your liked posts and who you follow are all things you can set to keep to yourself and hide from the publics eye, how handy! You should go through all the setting while you’re at it, set it to your comfort.

Side blogs are a thing. You can have multiple blogs that you can use for different things (see: different fandoms, art blog, etc) to keep them organized or away from your followers. Just remember that the replies and off-anon asks you send will be from your main blog, as well as where you follow other blogs from.

2) Interacting with others

You’ve set up your account, now comes the fun part!

Follow to your heart’s desire. If you care about others seeing who you follow, fear not! In tumblr, usually only two types of blogs keep their following visible to others: newbies, and big blogs using it to point people on other good blogs’ direction. Just turn it off, and go ham following people.

Customize your dashboard. Gonna mention just two things here: this is another reason why it’s really important that you follow blogs without sparing, your dash will collect dust otherwise; and you should turn off “best stuff first” in your dashboard settings, to have a better community here and all.

Follow tags. You can set it in your settings that posts with your followed tags appear on your dashboard.

You can check the og post for edits and context. When you see a reblogged post you don’t understand the context of (or don’t recognize the character in case of fanarts), click on the profile so it will take you to the original post. From there you can check the original poster’s tags to get the context, or see if there have been any edits made to the post, since when you edit a post it doesn’t update any past reblogs.

Send people asks... This is how you make mutuals, people! Do it off-anon if you’d like them to know your blog, or anon if you’d rather not! (You can still end your messages with a signature to show you’re the same person, -[name] is one example.) Send them nice messages, ask their opinion on something, discuss things, or just straight up shitpost lol. Go wild. The sky’s your limit and it’s definitely more than 280 characters.

...and let them ask you! You can set your preference in the settings, do it on desktop tumblr to access more settings tho! What you can customize on mobile is limited (like letting people ask you things anonymously, that’s only on desktop settings). In my personal opinion, it’s always better to tag their username (or a nickname you give them, if they’re a friend) on that post, since you wouldn’t want your interactions with your friends to get buried in your blog forever.

Comment on posts. If you have something to say but don’t want the post to appear on your blog you can add a comment. The owner of the post will get a notif for it, but for anyone else you need to tag them.

For the love of god, reblog. People will only see your liked posts if you have it visible to public and they specifically go on your blog to look at them. You like something? You reblog. It’s already hard for posts to circulate properly, if you don’t reblog them literally no one will see them. If not for anything do it for the artists. Just hold and drag on mobile to fast rb.

3) Your Posts

Finally here! Don’t be a lurker, post and engage!

Make use of “read more”. If your post is long, add it. That’s what you clicked on earlier to expand this post. On desktop leave an empty line and you’ll see three dots appear, and on mobile type :readmore: on that empty line.

Draft a post to come back to it later. Pretty self explanatory.

Queue your post. Whether it’s your own post or you’re reblogging, make use of the queue feature to a) not spam reblog and fill up the dashboard of people following you and b) keep your blog active while you’re gone. Mess around in the settings, it’s fairly easy to set up.

Schedule your post. Same as queueing, the only difference is you get to choose the exact time your post will go up. Handy if you want to schedule a post for certain dates like april fools, or 5 years in the future for some reason. 

Format your texts. You can do all kinds of fancy stuff here (that’s a link, try pressing on it). Twitter doesn’t have this, make use of it. Changes depending on whether you’re on mobile or desktop. (Desktop has less features.)

Check your stats. If you’re trying to understand the algorithm better or want to look at some pretty graphs you can get your data on that on desktop tumblr.

@ people in comments. You’ll get all the notifs when people comment on your posts but they won’t see your reply unless you tag them in your message.

4) Tags, and tagging a post

This is where my earlier statement “this isn’t a rule book” stops being applicable. It’s not a war crime to go against these, I won’t come chasing you (don’t take my word for this) but you’ll work up a bad rep. Just saying lol.

Do NOT crosstag posts. It’s really tempting to add unrelated tags to increase your posts’ interaction, I know, but that’s not what tumblr is about. Don’t be a dick and make other communities’ experience worse for them.

Always tag your posts with “crit/critical/discourse/etc” if it calls for it. There’s no exceptions to it. This is the reason you see people migrating to tumblr. Let people enjoy things.

Don’t main tag a critical/negative post. If your crit post is about “Thing”, you add the “Thing critical” tag, but not the “Thing” tag. People block crit tags if they don’t want to see it, don’t shove it in their faces by main tagging it. 

If you don’t want to see something, just block it. Another reason why people are able to survive on tumblr. You don’t start discourse, you don’t make call-outs, you block. You can find something for every community you can think of if you go looking for it. The worst of the worst probably won’t ever appear on your dash, but if you’re worried or feel the need for it, you know where the block button is.

Feel free to shitpost or ramble. More often than not you’ll see people rb a post with a comment, and their elaboration will be in the tags. The tags are only visible on your profile and the notifications of the owner of the og blog. Just a thing people do.

Reblog artists’ posts with nice comments in the tags! Commenting on a drawing is usually done through the tags (Not an obligation, again, just a thing people do. Feel free to add your comment on the rb itself if you’d want other people to see it tho!) and leave nice messages for the artists! It’s a win-win for everyone involved. 

If you have more than a single follower, always use the common tw warning tags. You don’t need to tw everything, but tw’ing some common things is the bare minimum human decency. Keep it safe for others. 

Tag a post “long post” if it’s really long. Pretty self explanatory. Don’t make people scroll through all that please lol. 

You can use them to organize your blog. This is more of a pro tip, if you’d like to not miss a post in your blog, cause they will start pilin’ up soon enough.

#Liveblogging is pretty fun. If you’d like to talk to people during streams, don’t forget to add the relevant tags still! Again, you won’t show up on people’s dash otherwise.

Whew! That got out of hand. Hopefully I didn’t bore you too much. Check out blogs like @heritageposts and @hellsite-hall-of-fame to honor our past o7. @mcytblr-hall-of-fame too maybe :eyes:. Anyways, don’t forget the most important rule of them all:

Enjoy your stay! You’re meant to have fun on here while also making friends (if that’s your thing). Just be kind and respectful of others, you’ll get the hang of the rest! <3

[dcviated]

yet another mun meme || [ open ]

@ivakir​ sent: 6, 11

6. is roleplaying the only writing-based hobby you have, or are there other things you like to write?

Yeah, no. It’s all roleplay related stuff around here. I used to do a lot more drabbles back in the day. Both on tumblr for my muses and even back before then either on forums or shit I think I wrote a lot of one-off stuff on deviantart too? But with how much I have to do to keep up with drafts any muse and energy I’m more than happy to funnel into doing RP. I don’t feel any regrets or feel like I’m squandering my talents.

If anything I feel like I need to spend less time writing and more time doing other things. Even if it’s just watching anime or playing video games. I need to expand my horizons and give myself more ideas to work with when it comes to plots and just consuming other media (shit what if I read a book) would help with that. I’m also trying to learn bass, and could do to put more time into that...

11. describe your ideal outcome/endgame for the muse you are currently writing. if you are a multimuse blog: do this for your current favorite muse, or the muse of the last reply you posted.

*checks what last popped out of my queue*

Right, Mizuki.

She’s an interesting muse since like a few months after I picked her up (when she was just a child) she got the sequel announced with her as the star which immediately threw out every hc I had for her. I’m not even mad, I keep bringing it up because it’s hilarious and it makes me wonder- am I not thinking off the wall enough? Do I get too domestic with my hcs and sell my muses and what they get up to short?

Regardless, I’ve got a good core and line set for her now post-AINI. Which is to say this girl is needing some kind of guidance. She’s been without proper guardian figures almost half her life, and cut something crude out of stone that makes up a semblance of the kind of person she wants to be. But now that she has that, and so many things in her lap (sans a boyfriend) she doesn’t.... know what to want? To do with it?

With all these paths in front of her she’s at a point of indecision and the ideal outcome is for her to realize that she doesn’t need other people telling her which option to go with, and she can simply live and go forward finding out things organically. Her life has so much insanity going on and her maturity was so compressed, she feels like that next step needs to come along.... now. And as someone who’s in their 30s and still hitting strides that’s such a fucking LOL.

So the ideal is for her to learn that line of maturity. And get proper guidance. I still think she’s better as a powerhouse businesswoman than she is an ABIS agent but I know AI3 will continue to laugh in my face somehow about that. Mark my words.

[chaotic-bells]

I was tagged by @imbellarosa and @justalarryblog 😊 thank you! And sorry for the delay and rambling lol

my check in tag

This is a bit long... so I’ll just add the break not to bother people with my ramblings. 

1. Why did you choose your url? I created tumblr because of a fanfic, and I've been reading them since I was 11. And I will always love fanfic. Fanfic is the answer to all life's problems and bad canons. I can't imagine living in the world where I don't have fanfic to continue a world I love or to fix issues in a world that was promising, or just to wait until the next bit of canon came out. You have to imagine I started reading fanfic when there were only 2 Harry Potter books available and I was waiting for the translation of the third one (that came out end of 2000, and yes I was reading fics by then). So yeah... I wanted something related to fanfics, and I really am terrible about online identities. Probably should've used something more creative, but oh well. I like it well enough now, it is one that applies to all fandoms I love.

2. Any side-blogs? If you have them, name them and why you have them. Yes, I have @randomsideposts as my attempt to create a tag system and save my favorite posts. I failed. I also have @kenshin-and-maki for my cats, and a third unnamed one as sort of a journal/vent blog, for those times I just need to write stuff down and I don't want to keep things to myself. No one follows me and that's the way I like it. It's kind of dark.

3. How long have you been on tumblr? A year and a half only lol a baby by Tumblr standards.

4: Do you have a queue tag? Me? Organization? What? Jokes aside, I don't really like queueing stuff. I'm either here or I'm not. I'll schedule a post for a random future time, just so I don't forget the post, but a time I know I'll be online to interact with it/the reactions to it. I do that when (for example) Louis posts and I see posts that are not related to that that I'd like to reblog, but not right at that moment.

5. Why did you start your blog in the first place? Because of a cute Larry fic where Louis and Harry become mutuals without knowing they're the other one. I liked the dynamic they described of how Tumblr worked and I wanted to see if it really was like that, because my previous experiences with Tumblr were... confusing enough that I didn't stick around for more than 20 minutes.

6. Why did you choose your icon/pfp? It's Louis and Liam, who are definitely my favorites. Don't get me wrong, I love all the boys, but Liam and Louis (and their friendship) are just really special to me. And this pic is just... so cute. Also, @whatagreatproblemtohave and @evilovesyou demanded either me or @promisethatillnevertell change our profile picture, and that we should duel to see who would keep it because it was getting confusing lol (it was one of the outtakes of the House of Solo photoshoot). I would never fight Lou so I changed it. And I love it because it has my two boys 😁💕

7. Why did you choose your header? Because the livestream was so awesome and even if it's blurry i like it. Also, I never use the desktop version of Tumblr so it's probably a mess, but I like what I see on my mobile so it'll stay.

8. Whats your post with the most notes? Probably my Youtube comments about Louis? I know it has over 1k notes, which... wow.  Also, my little wistful post about keeping the livestream format after lockdown did ok too.

9. How many mutuals do you have? No clue, but I love them all.

10. How many followers do you have? 900 or so.

11. How many people do you follow? 654 blogs

12. Have you ever made a shitpost? Who hasn't?

13. How often do you use tumblr a day? No clue, dozens of times. I won't scroll too far down, just enough to distract me for a couple minutes while I'm waiting for something to load or if my brain needs a break from work.

14. Did you once have a fight/argument with another blog once? Who won? I've argued before with a Liam blog at the end of the LP Show 2, but it was a misunderstanding, I didn't express myself the way I wanted to. Pretty sure a bunch of Liam blogs have me blocked because of it still. Other than that, I'm pretty peaceful, and I really try to just stay out of drama.

15. How do you feel about “you need to reblog” posts? I hate them. It is a passive aggressive way of someone thinking their opinion is better than yours, usually has a comment like "if you don't reblog you don't care about this" or "I don't care if it doesn't fit my blog asthetic, I'll reblog it anyway". Congrats? Do you want a star for it? I'll reblog it if I think it has important information, despite these annoying comments, but only once. If it's a post I've seen multiple times, then everyone saw it multiple times.

16. Do you like tag games? Love them, but recently I've been a bit lax. Once you start saving them in your drafts, it snowballs into unmanageable levels.

17. Do you like ask games? I love them, but whenever I reblog one I only get 1 or 2 asks. :(

18. Which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous? I... don't really care enough about that to keep track lol

19. Do you have a crush on a mutual? Yes, but I won't put them on the spot

20. Tags? I don’t know if you’ve done this before, so feel free to ignore it? As usual @promisethatillnevertell @whatagreatproblemtohave @technicallysideacc @maybe-i-missyou @vintageumbroshirt @thedevilinmybrain @beckydoesthings

[morethanaprincess-a]

I know this is quite a bit of time after I posted this meme, but I wanted to respond to all of the kind comments I received on the positivity meme when I really needed some last week! So I thought I’d save it for a Munday post, complete with pet tax beneath the cut. Mundays are better with pet tax, right?

@electricea

Thank you so much for your compliments, Jassi! I adore writing with you too, it’s so much fun coming up with new AUs for Ryuji and Sonia (and expanding on our established verses as well). You’re such a positive and encouraging person in the tumblr RPC and I’m pretty sure your dash agrees. Here’s to more IC adventures and me sending you ramen related news and saying “we’re working this into a thread, right? Right??”

Does Ryuji have the ramen pool float/raft already? Because that needs to happen.

@cadcnce

So uh, on a scale of 1-10 how mad will you be if I get a draft back to Eira by mid-week? To be fair, it’s not the same day please don’t point that gun at me

Joking (about what will likely happen on my dash) aside, I love writing with you and your many muses too! Bonus that we have plenty in common too, including being Old Muns with Old Mun Problems. Like roleplaying before tumblr and the fact that pogs are a bottle/milk cap game (I think I had close to 100 of them as an elementary school student, before I said I wanted beanie babies instead).

In short, I have so much fun both writing IC and just chatting about fandom and life OOC. Though the more I keep looking at Las Vegas-related things for RP research I’m just “Well, now I want to go and not gamble at all but do everything else.”

But I’ll finish with this: I do try to put my happiness first, and for me that’s when I’m writing every day and have a consistently-running queue. This is partly due to how organized I am about my work and my hobbies, and partly due to content creation and social media being a large part of my professional life. It’s not that tumblr RP is work, it’s that I can’t help but approach it, in a way, in a professional sense, taking in algorithms, patterns, activity, etc. into consideration. I look at a variety of statistics tumblr provides on my blog and often make judgement calls about content I post here that way.

It’s super nerdy and I know it. I also just can’t help it because it’s ingrained in me at this point: content planning, creation, calendars, analytics, etc. Pain for me is disorganization, a queue that isn’t updated, or answering asks/taking on more threads when I have replies I could write. 

@despairfiles​

Excuse me, every hour is Sin loving hours! Thank you so much for your encouraging feedback. You’re absolutely right: I’m definitely someone who likes to develop complex, long-term interactions over a variety of interesting situations. I know that can be frustrating sometimes with queued replies and wall-of-text replies, but it really is fun for me to show so much of a scene: the setting, the dialogue, the action, the thoughts and feelings. I tend to come up with most of my headcanons through threads at this point, too.

And I’m always going to say ‘challenge accepted’ when it comes to writing new stuff with Hajime and Shirou. If you feel compelled to bring Hajime back at some point I’m always here to write with you, and there’s so much story to tell with Sonia and Shirou too. I actually have a plot idea development for one of our verses on that front, I just haven’t put it into words yet!

Oh, and of course: Chatting OOC with you is one of the best parts of my day! Politics, spilling tea, me bemoaning that England lost Euro 2020 (the rest of the world doesn’t agree with me and I know it), you sharing your adorable dogs and wine sodas (I’m going to find the wine soda here. Somewhere.), agreeing that Lord El-Melloi II is a SNACC even if the fandom doesn’t agree with us, I adore it all. 

Seriously though I love him he is A++++ husbando material. This is where Sonia and I differ: she loves Shirou and I’m here just “He’s a professor who barely adults and realizes it is, indeed, a crisis when your favorite tearoom is closed. Husband material right here.”

@phantasmalcalamity​

Thank you so, so much for your compliments regarding my Sonia portrayal! That’s really nice of you! I’m not sure that my version is perfect by any means as plenty of people offer different takes on her, but I’m so glad you enjoy writing with her! Our Sonia/Gundham threads have been such a joy to write so far and I hope to continue and do more of them (without adding too much to your plate of course. I’m hoping you start feeling better, first and foremost!). You’re also wonderful to chat with OOC and I love seeing your costumes when you share them. It’s so cool having RP partners who are also cosplayers because you understand that unique struggle of “do I write drafts or do I work on costumes for upcoming con/event?”

I’m trying to balance both but it’s been interesting. Definitely after the fall cons/events I should have some more photoshoot stuff to share. I miss cons and photoshoots so much!

And as promised, some pet/life photo tax underneath the cut!

One of the two usual views I have when writing drafts/shitposting/chatting with you all on discord. Princess Molly received a new bed recently, befitting her royal status. She’s judging the quality of my drafts and wondering when she will be given pets.

And the other view I usually have while on tumblr. I’m missing Paris (and London. And Edinburgh. Let’s just put missing the U.K. and France in general here) quite a lot. I don’t know when I’ll get a chance to go back (probably whenever I go on my honeymoon), so I’m having a small taste of it at home. My family’s going next month, but work wouldn’t give me the time off to join them. 

The Laduree Marie Antoinette tea is my favorite version of the MA tea, and with shipping so expensive, it made sense to grab some macarons to go with it. 

I just miss Europe so much right now. Most of my off-tumblr friends are trying to plan trips to Japan next year, and I’m over here just “I actually miss Heathrow and Charles de Gaulle.”

[softspiderling]

five signs you’re too close to your boss | t.h.

anonymous said:

Hi may I please request a one shot of Tom with ceo au with this prompt “I’m your assistant and you just informed me that your entire family thinks we’re dating and you don’t want to let them down” please

Summary: you liked being the personal assistant of the CEO of Holland Enterprises. But sometimes you wondered if you were too close to your boss.

Pairing: CEO!Tom Holland x Assistant!Reader

Song I listened to while writing: If I can’t have you by Shawn Mendes

Author’s Note: I started out way different, and I was googling for some funny assistant/boss puns when I came across an article called ‘five signs you’re too close to your boss’ and I rewrote the whole thing. Hope I did your request justice, nonnie!

Warnings: the occasional fuck and shit

Word Count: 4k (this was not planned, I gotta be honest)

Masterlist

ONE: You call him by his first name

Balancing a tray with coffee cups, you knocked on the wooden door, waiting for a muffled ‘Come in’ before you opened the door with your elbows. You entered the room and were greeted by two men who sat across from each other at a desk.

“Good morning,” you greeted them and placed their coffees on the table. “I’ve got your latte Tom and your americano, Harrison. Mark is waiting for you in your office by the way, and the meeting with the board members has been pushed up to three pm.”

“Thank you, Y/N,” Harrison Osterfield said as he reached for his beverage, grateful for your services even though you weren’t his personal assistant.

Tom Holland, your actual boss, accepted the cup you placed in front of him and grinned. “She’s a godsend, isn’t she?”

You made an offhand gesture and ducked your head at the compliment. “I just brought you your coffee.”

“And at the same time you told me about the changes for today’s schedule. Accept the compliment, Y/N,” Tom said and you rolled your eyes fondly. You were literally just doing your job. Sometimes you really wondered what Tom would do without you.

“Alright, I better go before my assistant sends out a searching party,” Harrison sighed and got up, his coffee in his hand.

“I’ll see you later T, thanks again for the coffee Miss Y/N,” he said in a teasing tone and left the office, his dress shoes clacking against the marbled floor, leaving you and Tom alone in his office.

“Is there anything else you need me to do?” you asked your boss and he pursed his lips in thought.

“Yeah actually, I’m planning to take my mum out to lunch. Can you make a reservation at The Clink?”

“Of course. Around twelve alright for you?”

He leaned forward and clasped his hands. “That’ll work. A table by the window would be amazing.”

“I’ll see what I can do,” you nodded and Tom gave you a smile.

“Thanks, Y/N, that’s everything for now,” he told you and turned to his laptop, dismissing you wordlessly.  

You left Tom’s office and shut the door behind you, returning to your desk. Reaching for the phone, you dialed the number of the restaurant and waited for the line to connect.

“Hi, this is The Clink. You’re speaking to Lionel. What can I do for you?” a man said when he picked up the phone.

“Hi, this is Y/N, I’m calling to book a table for Tom-“ your eyes widened, before you cleared your throat. “Uh, for Mr. Holland. A table for two at noon, and preferably by the window?”

The other end of the line is silent for a few seconds before the man returned. “Table for two, at noon by the window. Got it.”

“Perfect, thank you so much,” you sighed, bidding goodbye before you hung up, leaning your face in your hands.

You’ve never realized how you always addressed your boss by calling him by his first name. It wasn’t something you did on your own, but rather a thing Tom insisted you doing when you first started this job.

You were pretty sure it wasn’t common for an assistant to call her boss by his first name. But as long as it wasn’t hurting anyone, it wasn’t a big deal.

TWO: His mother invites you along to private lunch dates.

You’ve been working on a few drafts of the invitation of the charity gala that was taking place in a couple of months, when someone approached your desk.

Looking away from your computer, you came face to face with Nikki Holland, Tom’s mother. “Oh! Mrs. Holland, hi,” you greeted her with a smile, giving her your full attention.

“You can just go right ahead, I think Tom’s still immersed in his work,” you said, gesturing to the closed office door.

“That boy is always stuck in work,” Nikki sighed with a headshake. “I’m glad you’re here to keep him from living at the office.”

You chuckled and ducked your head. “Just doing my job.”

When the door of Tom’s office opened, you and his mother lifted your heads to see him coming out, loosening the tie around his neck.

“Hi mum, have you been waiting long?” he asked and kissed her on the cheek.

“No longer than usual, honey,” Nikki sighed and he grinned, before turning to you.

“You take a break soon, okay?”

“Why don’t you come with us?” Nikki suggested and Tom looked at his mother in surprise, before nodding.

“Yeah, that sounds like a great idea.”

You shook your head, your cheeks flushed. “No, I don’t want to impose. I know you two haven’t spent that much time together. Plus I only booked a table for two.”

“I’m sure they won’t hesitate to add a chair to the table if I ask them to,” Tom pointed out with a grin and his mother smiled encouragingly at you.

“I insist. You have to eat anyways and you won’t impose, I promise.”

With narrowed eyebrows you looked between the two Hollands, who were looking at you with expectant eyes. A lunch at the Clink sounded really good right now, and Nikki was right, you did have to eat anyway.

“Fine,” you then sighed, the corners of your mouth tugging up. “I guess if my boss’ mother tells me to do something, I should do it, right?”

Tom snorted and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his pants.

“Don’t believe a word she says, mum. She never listens to me.”

“That’s because you make really dumb decisions from time to time,” you reminded him, grabbing your coat and purse. Nikki only laughed at the bickering, shaking her head fondly.

“You two can bicker over the most mundane things, it’s unbelievable.”

THREE: He asked you to be his date for charity events.

“You look lovely tonight, Y/N,” Tom whispered as the two of you entered the building, arms linked.

“You did buy this dress, you’re aware of that, right?” you asked with a raised eyebrow and he chuckled, shrugging with his shoulders.

“I know, doesn’t mean I can’t give you a compliment when it’s due, does it?”

You rolled your eyes fondly.

“I guess. Thanks for bringing me, by the way. I’ve heard really good things about this organization.”

The organization whose charity event you were attending was taking care of providing clean water for villages in South Africa and though you were glad to support this organization you weren’t a fan of the guests that used to attend these kind of events.

They were wearing expensive looking suits and dress. You didn’t really know how much the dress cost you were wearing, because Tom refused to tell you, but you were willing to bet a horse that it cost more than a 100 bucks (then again, 100 pounds probably wasn’t a lot when it came to these people).

Long story short, this wasn’t really your scene. Expensive champagne, rubbing elbows with wealthy people and tiny food portions wasn’t your style. But Tom had asked you to accompany him and it was for the good cause, right?

“I’m going to get us some champagne, I’ll be right back love,” he told you and unwrapped his arm from yours before disappearing into the crowd, leaving you all by yourself.

Slightly intimidated, you sought refuge at a vacant table and placed your clutch on it, looking around for Harrison, of whom you knew was also supposed to attend the event.

“Did I see you come in with Tom Holland?” an unfamiliar voice asked and you turned to see a blonde in a red dress looking at you.

The corners of her lips were curled upward, though the smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“Yes you did,” you replied, giving her a curt smile. “Why?”

She tapped her perfectly manicured fingers on the table.

“We had an nice… How should I put this delicately?” she trailed off, pursing her lips. “Encounter. And he hasn’t given me a call yet.”

You raised an eyebrow at her. What was this lady’s problem?

“If you’re trying to pick a fight, it’s not with me. I’m his assistant, not his date,” you clarified and her eyes widened slightly, before she let out a breathy laughter.

“Oh of course you are. I was wondering why he would be dating under his standard,” she chuckled and you narrowed your eyes at her, your cheeks flushing in anger.

“Excuse me?”

She smirked at you. “You can’t be surprised by this. You’re not exactly his type.”

You bristled at her insinuations and as you were about to open your mouth to rip her a new one, Tom joined you by the table with two flutes of champagne.

“Sorry that took so long, Y/N, the queue was insane,” he apologized, handing you a flute when he caught sight of the blonde, who turned her full attention to him.

“Hello Tom. Nice to see you again,” she said sweetly and you gripped your glass.

Tom gave her a polite smile, though you could tell he wasn’t too happy to see her. You were guessing that she was someone he picked up at a previous event and judging by his lack of interest, he had wanted it to leave it like that.

“Hello… Victoria, was it?”

“Veronica, actually,” Veronica pressed out through gritted teeth and you hid your smile, turning your head away.

“Right, Veronica. Sorry, must’ve slipped my mind. Did you need anything?” Tom asked and she fumed, though she raised her chin defiantly.

“Not necessarily, no. Just wanted to give the courtesy of letting you know that my father won’t be doing any business with Holland Enterprises. Have a good evening,” Veronica sneered and turned on her heel, obviously pissed off by how he was treating her.

“Wait, is she someone important?” you asked at the mention of her father and Tom shrugged, nipping on his champagne.

“She’s the daughter of Philip McAvoy.”

Your eyes widened and slapped his arm.

“McAvoy who you’ve been dying to get in contract?! Are you kidding me? That’s a big deal, why are you acting so nonchalantly about losing a huge client like that?” you hissed and Tom glanced at you, before he smirked.

“’Cause McAvoy signed the contract last night.”

You sighed in relief, shaking your head with a smile. “You’re unbelievable, Tom.”

“I am not going to let all the hard work go down the drain just because I didn’t give his darling daughter a call after an unfortunate night we spent together,” Tom smirked and you rolled your eyes at him, pulling a face.

“You’re gross.”

FOUR: He asks you to pretend to be his girlfriend in front of his family.

“You want me to do what?”

Tom sighed and rubbed a hand over his face.

“I know it sounds like a weird request-“

“No, getting you sushi at nine in the morning is a weird requests, having me pose as your girlfriend in front of your family is crazy! How did you even come up with such an idea?” you asked. You hadn’t had expected Tom to ask you that when he called you into his office.

“I didn’t! My parents just assumed we were dating because of pictures they’ve seen of us at events. Especially at the office’s Christmas party,” he explained and your cheeks grew hot.

“You know I had too much to drink!”

“I know, Y/N. And I wouldn’t be asking you this if it weren’t so important to me. Please?” He looked at you with pleading eyes, clasping his hands together as if he was begging.

You gritted your teeth and rolled your eyes, before relenting.

“… Fine. But I expect a bonus,” you warned him and he beamed at you, nodding quickly.

“Of course, whatever you want, Y/N. Thank you so much for doing this.”

Two weeks later, you and Tom were standing in front of his childhood home and you were feeling like you were going to throw up.

“You okay?” Tom asked as you walked up to the front door.

“If by okay you mean currently freaking out about lying to my boss’ family about dating him, then yeah, I’m okay,” you muttered, tucking your hair behind your ear.

“You’ll be fine. They’ve always liked you, even before they thought you were my girlfriend,” he assured you and you frowned.

“I just don’t feel comfortable lying to them.”

“Then don’t,” he replied and you scoffed. “Just, stay as close to the truth as you can. We don’t want to get entangled in a web of lies.”

Tom pressed the door bell and you could hear footsteps from the other side of the door before you felt Tom put his arm around your waist, pulling you close. You barely had the time to react before the door was pulled open and you put up a smile.

“Tom! And Y/N! I am so glad you could make it,” his mother greeted you and Tom let go of you to hug his mother.

“Hi mum, happy birthday,” he mumbled and gave her a kiss on the cheek, handing her the bouquet of flowers. You smiled shyly at her and reached out to shake her hand. “Happy birthday Mrs. Holland. Thanks for inviting me.”

“Nonsense!” Nikki replied and swatted your hand away, pulling you into a hug instead. You yelped in surprise before you hugged her back with a laugh. “And please, call me Nikki. You’re part of the family now.”

“Oh, okay,” you chuckled nervously and Tom gave you a look.

“Alright, come on in you guys, you’re the last to arrive.” Nikki ushered you inside and shut the door after you’ve stepped inside

“You go right ahead to the backyard, I’m going to put these flowers in some water,” she told you and disappeared into another room, the kitchen you presumed.

With a hand on your lower back, Tom guided you towards the backyard. You were so nervous to face his family, you couldn’t even react to the countless pictures of Tom throughout his childhood. You made a mental note to make fun of Tom later, but right now, you didn’t have the nerves to do so.

As you stepped out to the backyard, you were greeted with a sight of familiar people. You were relieved to see that it wasn’t an understatement when he told you it was ‘a family-only event’.

“Hey guys!” Tom greeted his family, waving in the round.

“Look what the cat dragged in,” one of the boys said and everyone came around to greet you.

“Guys, this is Y/N. Y/N, you know my dad, Dom, my brothers Harry, Sam and Paddy. And Haz, of course.”

Your eyes widened slightly at the blond sitting at the table nursing a beer with a knowing smirk. That little fucker. He had to know all about the stunt, you were sure that Tom had a discussion with his best friend long before asking you to come to the party. You were not looking forward to the endless teasing you had to endure at work that following week.

“Hi everyone,” you waved shyly. “Thanks for having me.”

“Are you kidding me? I can’t believe we’re finally meeting you as Tom’s girlfriend. How do you actually stand being around this div during work and in your free time?” Harry asked and you shrugged with a grin.

“Eh, it helps that he barely acts like a boss. Usually I’m the one making the important decisions,” you countered and Tom’s jaw dropped while the rest hollered out in laughter.

“Wow,” Tom said, shaking his head with a grin.

“I knew there was a reason I liked her,” Dom said and smiled brightly at you. “Someone needs to put you in your place when neither of us are around, Tom. Can I get you guys anything to drink?”

Pleased at having received his father’s approval, you ducked your head.  “A water is fine, thanks.”

“I’ll just have a beer, dad.”

Taking a seat at the table while Tom’s father poured you a glass of water, you nipped on it but not without sending a glare in Harrison’s direction, who was sitting across from you.

“Hey, where’s Tessa?” Tom wanted to know when his brother handed him a bottle of beer and Harry pointed towards the green bits of the backyard.

“She’s been digging for half an hour. Didn’t even hear you ring the bell.”

Tom took a big swing of his beer before letting out a whistle. “Tessa!” he called out and jogged towards the lawn, leaving you to fend for yourself with his family.

“So, how long have you guys been dating?” Sam asked as soon as Tom was out of earshot. You blushed a bit, and shrugged with your shoulders.

You internally cursed when Tom’s mother joined you, hoping you wouldn’t say anything that would make them suspicious.

“A couple months, give or take? I’m not too sure about it,” you replied, keeping it as vague as you could.

“I’m really glad you guys got together,” Nikki said and you looked at her in surprise. “He always looked at you like you hung the stars, it was really obvious that he fancied you.”

“Yeah, it was nauseating,” Harrison piped up and hid his grin behind his beer bottle while you narrowed your eyes at him. You weren’t sure if he was messing with you or not.

“You guys should have seen them at the office Christmas party. He was smitten,” he told Tom’s family, wincing when you kicked him in the shins.

“Oh we’ve seen pictures. That was why we pestered Tom about her and he admitted that you’ve been dating on the downlow,” Paddy said. “Though I don’t understand why he would keep that from us. He knows we’ve always liked you.”

“I think he was probably worried about what people would think if they found out he was dating his assistant,” you explained, defending Tom. You didn’t want his family to resent him for keeping a relationship from them if it wasn’t even a real one.

“What are we talking about?” Tom asked when he returned with Tessa by his side.

“About you being head over heels for Y/N, and not telling us you were dating until we asked you,” Harry teased and his older brother flushed.

“Well, I should be head over heels for her, she’s my girlfriend,” he pointed out and you opted out of the conversation by turning your attention to Tessa who sniffed curiously at your hands. She was the only member of his family you hadn’t met yet. You know, considering she was a dog she wasn’t really allowed into the office.

“Hi pretty girl,” you cooed to her, scratching her behind her ears. Tessa yapped and wagged enthusiastically with her tail, bumping your hand with her snout.

“She likes you,” Tom told you quietly, suddenly standing by your side. You glanced up at him before you returned your eyes to the Staffordshire.

“Everyone in your family likes me,” you pointed out and he gave you a look, crouching down next to you to pet Tessa.

“Maybe a little too much. I can’t believe you made fun of me with them,” Tom muttered and you snorted, rolling your eyes at him.

“Don’t be a baby,” you teased him and he looked at you with a soft smile. You’ve never noticed how much his eyes crinkled when he does that. And did he get more freckles on his nose?

“Jesus, you two are way worse in real life,” Sam commented and the two of you broke apart flushing. You hadn’t even realized how close you’ve been standing.

“See what I have to deal with at work every day?” Harrison joked and you and Tom glared at him.

“Shut up Haz.”

The rest of the evening passed in a blur, between having dinner, getting to know Tom’s family better and them teasing you and Tom mercilessly.

Their jokes got you thinking about the relationship you had with him. The work relationship, that is. You knew that you two were very close, maybe even closer than an assistant and their superior usually are. Sometimes you wondered if it bordered the line of being inappropriate, considering all they’ve been saying was somewhat true.

You found him very attractive and you liked him a lot. Even though he was in a higher position than you were (obviously, since you were his assistant) he still treated you with respect.

And since you were only human, you sometimes wondered what it would feel like to be by his side as something else than his assistant. Admittedly, you had a small crush on him. But who wouldn’t, right? A successful businessman, CEO of his own company, he achieved all of that in his twenties and he looked like that.

But you’ve always respected the boundary that was between you and him, allowing yourself the daydream now and then, but nothing more. But you never knew or even asked yourself, what he was thinking.

You knew about his occasional hook-ups, including Victoria McAvoy. But you’ve never heard of a serious girlfriend. At first, you’ve thought it was due to his busy schedule and the fact that he always threw himself in his work.

Now however, you weren’t too sure about it anymore.

It was later that night, when Tom was taking you home in his car. A comfortable silence was settled over you and you were leaning your head on the window.

“Hey, can I ask you something?” you suddenly said and he glanced over at you before turning his attention back to the street.

“Yeah of course, what is it?”

“Do you like me?” you blurted out and he swerved the car, cursing.

“Shit, Y/N, you can’t just ask me something like that!” he yelled and you stared at him, frowning.

“Why the tell not?”

Tom groaned and shook his head, pulling over. Turning the car off, he ran his hand through his hair before turning to look at you.

“Well?” you asked impatiently, narrowing your eyes.

He sighed. “I do like you,” he admitted and your eyes widened. You did not expect that.

“I didn’t want it to be weird for you, because I’m your boss and I don’t want you to feel like you’re obligated to date me, if you don’t like me back? I don’t know. It feels weird to have this kind of power over you which I don’t want to abuse that?” Tom groaned, hiding his face in his hands. “I guess I did pressure you into pretending to be my girlfriend in front of my family, but I promise I didn’t do it to make-“

Before Tom could continue to ramble on, you had dragged him by his shirt and put your lips on his, effectively shutting him up.

“Oh,” he sighed softly against your lips, his own curling into a grin.

FIVE: You almost fall off the bed at night.

You were still tired when you woke up, and judging by the darkness in the bedroom, it wasn’t time to get up just yet. Stifling a yawn, you reached for your phone that was charging on the nightstand to check the time, nearly blinding yourself by the brightness of the screen.

2:17 am

With a groan, you put the phone back down and wondered why the hell you woke up, when a nudge in your waist almost sent you falling off the bed.

Right.

Even though you’ve fallen asleep at your respective sides of the bed, Tom had somehow managed to sneak all the way over to your side and wriggled himself into your body, pushing you to the edge of the bed.

“Tom,” you hissed, jabbing him ribs.

“Wha-?” he murmured out, cracking an eye open just to frown at you.

“Don’t give me that face! What did I tell you about scooting all the way up in my space!”

His eyes fluttered close and he wrapped his arms around your waist.

“You’re comfy,” Tom mumbled and you sighed, shoving him a few inches away from you.

“You could pull me in your arms instead of pushing me off the edge,” you pointed out and snuggled up against him, smiling when he settled his head atop of yours.

“Shhh, sleep time now,” he said sleepily and you rolled your eyes, before shutting them to get some more sleep.

You really were way too close to your boss.

Add yourself to my taglist here!

Bolded means I couldn’t tag you for some reason. Shoot me a message so we can solve that problem!

Taglist: @sunflowercth // @thatphandomchick // @psychicforest // @llamasaurousmaddie // @jackiehollanderr // @fandomdarlings // @unfortunateshelby //  @skyfall8600  // @yeahimcrying // @spideys-gurl // @one-big-fangirl // @imagine-lovebug // @professionalphangirluniverse // @zabdisamor // @palindrome-teddy // @axa-vega // @btsgot7crackheads// @angelicshinigami // @mrsfortune1306 // @spicy-mango626// @thorsvotary // @boughs-of-hollie // @magicalturmoil // @overdramaticdepressedteen // @tomhollandismyspiderman // @jackiehollanderr // @tomshufflepuff // @trustfundparker // @lost-in-translating // @chaoticharmonyqueen

[emberbent]

Book 2: Air | Chapter 4: Bending Embers

“Idiot,” Yanyu scoffed. She was a mean-faced woman of indeterminate old age; though she wore civilian clothing, her long, gray queue and sharp, precise movements gave her away as having had Dai Li training. She cast a disgusted sneer at the Avatar, who was held fast to a chair with hand-shaped cuffs made of unforgiving stone, entranced. “I can’t believe she fell for it.”

“I can’t either,” the Org lackey grunted. He sat beside the chair on the floor, taking a rest with his arms curled around his bent knees. He’d lit the fireplace to stave off the chilly late-autumn draft that had swept into the room. “Name’s Nobu, by the way.”

“Can’t say I really give a damn what your name is,” Yanyu replied airily. Then, with more force: “You know what I’m here for.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Nobu rolled his eyes. “Hang on a sec.” He yanked his radio out of its holster on his belt and held it up to his mouth. “Agent Tanaka to Command. Avatar has been captured and is ready for transfer, over.”

The response was immediate. “Very good. See that she is brought to me in one piece. Over.”

“Wilco. Over and out,” Nobu said into his radio. Hauling himself up into a standing position, he twisted a couple times to the left and right, cracking his spine. “Man… I’m getting too old for this.”

“Oh, please,” Yanyu spat. “Don’t talk to me about being old. I want my money.”

Nobu stood firm. “You know the deal. We get her transferred, and then you get your cut.”

Yanyu rolled her eyes. “Fine.” Then she looked again at the pacified Avatar, eyes open but unseeing, face still. She produced from the inside of her robe pocket a little vial of thick, black liquid. “Let me give her more of this before we take her.”

“What is that?” Nobu inquired, squinting at the substance.

Yanyu uncapped the vial and, with a hard curling of her fingers, removed the sludge and let it hover in the air for a few seconds. “Insurance,” she smirked. ���Gave her some of this when she was a kid just in case. This’ll help her stay nice and quiet on the trip.”

With a slow, tight twist of her hand, she propelled the wobbling blob toward Shinza.

“Open,” Yanyu instructed.

She obeyed. The sludge brushed her bottom lip.

Hey. Hey! Wake up! shouted a familiar voice in Shinza’s mind.

Her hand twitched. 

“Hurry!” hissed Nobu. “She’s coming out of it.”

Shinza! Wake the fuck up, you’re in trouble!

“No she’s not,” Yanyu replied arrogantly. “Shinza… you are a good, quiet girl.”

Korra’s palm was hot and hard as it struck Shinza’s face. “Wake! Up!” 

Shinza bolted upright, dazed, as she found herself in the spirit room with Korra. “What…?”

“You have to wake up,” Korra urged. “It was a trap. The Org and some bitch named Yanyu are kidnapping you. Get up.”

Slowly, stupidly, Shinza looked at her hands, her arms. Realization dawned on her. As if piped in through an old-time intercom system, a voice came to her: “You are a good, quiet girl…”

She was awake now.

“I can help you, but you have to fight. Ready?” Korra urged.

On the physical plane, Shinza’s eyes shot open, glowing white with the force of Korra’s guidance. A howling wind kicked up around her, throwing furniture around the room as if it was all made of paper. The earthen cuffs crumbled away and she stood up from the chair. 

“I am no such thing,” Shinza bellowed; the wind was deafening, but her voice rang out above it, bolstered by Korra’s voice layered behind it. With a sharp jab, she shot a blast of fire at Yanyu’s head.

Yanyu swiftly ducked and rolled, grounding herself in a solid horse stance and sending her foot downward, hard. The cement slab beneath their feet broke into shards like brittle candy, shredding the carpet above it; Yanyu directed the shards inward, aiming to capture Shinza’s legs. Narrowly, Shinza leapt upward on a current of air, the cement scraping at the leather of her boots. Behind her, Nobu snuck up and wrapped his arm around her neck, cutting off her airflow with the crook of his elbow. Flailing, Shinza kicked both legs out high, striking Yanyu in the jaw in an attempt to wriggle free. Nobu flexed his bicep. Shinza saw stars. He snared her wrists behind her back and wrestled her to the ground, stomach to the earth with his knee hard on her back.

“Stop fighting!” Yanyu commanded over the cutting wind. Gesturing with her hands, she summoned the crumbled earthen cuffs; they reformed and flew toward Shinza, stony fingers curling--

Shinza uttered a deafening howl. The gale picked up with sudden, ferocious force and sent Yanyu and Nobu both across the room in different directions, their bodies thudding against the walls. She got to her feet. Nobu, fazed and angry, bolted upright and lunged for her. In a split second, Shinza’s eyes went to the fireplace. Her hand shot out, summoning the smoldering embers forward. Then she thrust her fist at Nobu, sending them into his eyes.

Nobu screamed, clutching at his face and falling to his knees. The smell of charred flesh permeated the room.

Behind her, Yanyu drove her bony knuckles into Shinza’s spine. Once, twice, but before she could land the third blow, Shinza whirled around, catching Yanyu’s arm in her grasp and twisting until she heard a loud pop. Yanyu yowled defiantly, her hard green stare daring her to continue. Shinza yanked her other arm forward, gripping it hard and twisting at the shoulder so Yanyu couldn’t move.

“You wouldn’t dare,” Yanyu growled.

Shinza snapped her arm with a nauseating crack. “You will never block anyone’s bending again.”

In the recesses of her mind, Korra whooped and hollered triumphantly, and then slipped away. The white glow receded from Shinza’s eyes, and the gale subsided. The room was in shambles. Yanyu lie passed out on the floor, and Nobu crouched near the crooked bed, wailing, blinded, burned.

“Why? Why would you do this?!” Nobu cried. 

Shinza sank to her knees near him. “Would you really have let me go if I’d asked politely? I don’t think so. I don’t believe you would have reasoned with me.”

“The Avatar is not reasonable,” Nobu argued miserably. “You’ve proven that today.”

“I’m sorry you see it that way.”

“I don’t see anything now because of you!” he spat viciously, lunging at her in rage but toppling, unwilling to remove his hands from his blistered face. He sobbed. “It wasn’t supposed to go this way. I was supposed to turn you in, collect my bonus, and retire.”

Shinza studied him. Greying at the temples; muscled, but he probably had to work harder to stay fit than he used to. Maybe he had a wife and grown kids. This was just a job to him - one with a good pension, by the sound of it. Nothing personal.

“What do you really think of the Organization?” Shinza inquired. “Of the Avatar?”

“I don’t know,” Nobu sniffed. “I don’t care anymore. Leave me alone.”

Shinza’s gaze narrowed on him. Was he really letting her go? “Okay then. I’m walking away.”

“Go. Get a head start before I change my mind. Just know the big man won’t be pleased when you don’t arrive. He’ll send out another crew, a better one, and they won’t treat you well.”

“That’s fair,” she said. Then she turned for the door, stepping carefully over Yanyu’s prone body and opening the door. With one foot over the threshold, she turned back. “By the way, the healers in Republic City are top notch. They’ll fix you up.”

Nobu scoffed. Shinza stepped into the chilly air, sticking her thumb and index finger into her mouth to whistle for Xia. But before she could make a sound, the ground rumbled beneath her feet. Shinza turned back to see the pointy end of a shard of concrete leveled at her face. Yanyu directed it with her feet and sent it forward. Shinza ducked, but the corner of the block caught her shoulder, ripping her clothes and the skin beneath it. An ugly black bruise began to form immediately. Shinza growled furiously, cocking her fist--

A plume of sweltering flame blasted through the doorway, missing Shinza but engulfing Yanyu, as Xia drove relentlessly forward into the building, arching upward in a loop like a roller coaster once she’d cleared it and doubling back to reign more fire. 

“Shit,” Shinza murmured. The inn began to burn around her. “Oh, fuck.” 

Xia made another loop and slowed down just enough for Shinza to throw herself onto her back. Before she knew it, they were speeding into the air as the inn was consumed by flames. In the distance, she heard police sirens.

Reeling, Shinza clung tightly to the dragon. She’d managed, just barely, to wriggle out of her own kidnapping, but she’d had to physically maim two people to do it. Her dragon had just committed murder by arson. The Organization, she knew, would be out for blood. She could already see the propaganda flyers littering the streets of towns across the globe: Avatar brutally murders her opposers. 

The visceral feel of Yanyu’s limbs snapping in her hands pulsed in her head like a sick heartbeat. The stench of Nobu’s charred flesh was embedded in her clothes - a smell she’d never be able to wash out. 

Clinging tightly to Xia’s back, she planted her palm firmly onto the slick, scarlet scales, closing her eyes and communicating with gratitude: I couldn’t have gotten out of that without you.

_______

They touched down in a town a comfortable distance away from Gaoling. Shinza parted with Xia, wearily found another inn, checked in, and immediately collapsed on the bed. Though she slept hard, she dreamed a familiar dream: black sludge oozed out in sticky tendrils from her eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. But this time, she let it flow, watching it collect itself into a neat blob and flow back into its little glass bottle.

In the morning, she felt as if she’d been hit by a Satobus. Bleary-eyed and sore, she made her way to the bathroom, noting the ugly blue bruise and the throbbing, bloody scrape on her shoulder. Her reflection stared back at her, hollow-eyed, pallid. Her freckled face was framed by a tangle of dark hair. There were no mirrors in the Eastern Air Temple; with the exception of the pond in the early, tranquil morning, she hadn’t seen herself in months. Shinza scarcely recognized the woman she saw. In her own mahogany eyes, she saw exhaustion, anger, sadness, and what Shinza could only describe as freedom. Though she smoke and char from the inn in Gaoling still clung to her skin, and though she could still hear Yanyu’s yowling and the snapping of her bones, she felt as if a great weight had been lifted from her. Carefully, she cleaned the wound on her shoulder and bathed. She’d lost her bag, she realized with a sigh, and reluctantly slipped back into the soiled and torn clothes she’d arrived in. 

Then, with a growling stomach, she went out in search of food. A block down from the inn was a noodle house; Shinza stopped in and slipped into a booth. A waiter came by to attend to her - a young man with a tapestry of tattoos covering both arms.

“Morning,” he greeted, clearly pretending not to notice the state of her clothes. She had a feeling he wasn’t one to judge. “What can I get you?”

“House special, please,” she replied. The young man bowed and returned momentarily with a steaming bowl of fresh noodles drowning in fragrant broth. Her stomach rumbled again as she unsheathed her chopsticks.

“Anything else I can get for you?” he inquired.

“Actually,” Shinza paused, studying his tattoos as surreptitiously as she could. “Will you tell me where you got your ink?”

“Pretty sick, huh?” He took a moment to admire the intricate, colorful designs on his skin. “Old man Guo hooked me up. He does it old-style with a poker, not metalbending. He’s over on Shi Street and Main.”

“Thanks,” Shinza replied, and tucked into her noodles.

_______

Shi and Main was a short walk. Guo’s place would have been all but invisible to those not looking for it, save for the wooden sign that had fallen off its little hooks on the awning and sat leaning against the outside of the storefront. Shinza entered and found a man - old, indeed - perched on a stool behind the counter, apparently asleep.

“Excuse me,” she said. “Are you Guo?”

As if he’d been awake the whole time, he smiled brightly, toothlessly. “Oh, yes, that’s me. How may I help you?”

Shinza peered at all the artwork that lined the walls, some of it on old-style parchment scrolls, some on paper. Not a measure of wall was without a drawing or a painting. Spirits, beasts, curvaceous women, and poems in elegant calligraphy abounded.

“I’d like a tattoo,” she said. “A big one.”

With the enthusiasm of a child, Guo stepped off his stool and hobbled around the front counter. “What strikes your fancy?” he inquired in his thin, airy voice. His cloudy eyes traveled over the torn fabric of her shoulder.

“Don’t ask,” Shinza said flatly. Guo met her gaze and winked. Then she rolled up the sleeve on her opposite arm. “Are you familiar with the red dragons of the Island of the Sun Warriors?”

The process took nearly eleven hours, but meditating with Lo Sang for months on end had prepared her both for the wait and for the pain. The pain was intense and prolonged and entrancing; once Guo had sunk the inked needle into her skin for the last time, he carefully and reverently cleaned her skin and gestured for her to take a look in the full-length mirror nearby.

The tattoo consisted of strict, uniform linework and painstaking, meticulous shadow stippling in pure black ink. It started at her clavicle, where the likeness of Xia’s head breathed fire toward Shinza’s heart; the dragon’s body extended down the entire length and surface of her arm, ending with the detail of Xia’s tail wrapping delicately around her fingers, over her scars.

“It suits you,” Guo said, admiring his work. “Your spirit companion will be quite proud.”

“How do you know I know this dragon?” Shinza inquired casually. 

Guo peered up at her and offered another toothless smile. “We have long awaited your return, Avatar,” he whispered. “Go in peace.”

Guo refused to accept the last of her money, claiming no payment was greater than to be allowed to tattoo her. Shinza cast him one last inquisitive look before closing the door behind her and whistling for her dragon.

_______

@chromecutie @hetapeep41 @jaymzbush @newyorkerqueen @my-remedy-is-euphoria

[expelliarmus]

I saw that ask meme with questions for gif makers going around, but I felt like answering them all on my own lmao

1. What are your top 3 favorite sets you’ve made

This one, this one (if the timing works lmao), and this one (I’m so proud of my AU gifsets... where did all that creativity go??)

2. What is your least favorite set you’ve made

I honestly don’t know... I don’t think I hate anything I’ve posted though. If I don’t like how it’s turning out, I just won’t post it lol

3. Which of your sets has the most notes

The most notes ever is this one I think

4. A set that flopped but deserved better

I don’t know... there’s a bunch, but I’m fine if a gifset flops

5. What is your favorite movie/TV show to gif

DOCTOR WHO

6. What is your least favorite movie/TV show to gif

I really don’t gif anything else lmao...

7. Who are your top 3 gif makers

I’ll just pick 3 people off the top of my head :) @shatner​, @melodyspond​, @stupidape​

8. What gif trend do you hate

The pale/black and white gifs that are so hard to see.......

9. What/who inspired you to start making gifs

I wanted to gif my favourite parts of DW that I didn’t see anyone else doing, so I was like alrighty, time to learn how to do this!! I think the people that inspired me are long gone from tumblr, or I’m no longer following them because they’ve moved blogs (Natasha aka lumos-maxima... wherever you are, I MISS YOU... also Courtney aka needlebug I MISS YOU TOO)

10. What was the first gif you ever posted

THIS ONE! I remember being so happy about posting it, haha. Also, I still love that Confidential episode so much. I miss my space hipsters...

11. What is that one set you made that just won’t die

The Zoboomafoo one

12. What is the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever giffed

Everything I’ve ever posted

13. Where or from whom did you learn how to gif

Various tutorials on here and just by experimenting. I don’t even think I used Photoshop to begin with, since back in my Neopets days I used Paint Shop Pro to make graphics so I think that’s what I used first to try making gifs of videos.

14. How long does it usually take you to make a set

45 minutes to an hour or so?? It’s been taking longer and longer because the screencaps are so huge though and my poor laptop can’t handle it.

15. Have you ever had gifs stolen and reposted

Yes, and don’t think that I can’t tell when those are my gifs, even without a watermark!!

16. How long have you been making gifs

Since 2011...... my god

17. 10 sets, 8 sets, 6 sets? How many gifs to you prefer in a set

As many as it takes!!!!! But usually between 6-8

18. For the aesthetic, for the laughs, or for the feels what your preference

For FUN!

19. What is your gifting process like

Open video, find scene, screencap, load screencaps in Photoshop, resize to gif dimensions, add colouring, curse myself for picking a hard-to-colour scene, continue adjusting colouring and become increasingly frustrated because it’s not turning out the way I want it to, give up, add text, save gif, POST!

20. Mac or PC

PC

21. PSDs or original coloring for each gif

Original colouring. PSD who???

22. What fandom/movie/show/person etc do you gif the most

DOCTOR WHO and more specifically, David Tennant... I think his tag has the most :’)

23. What is the thing you gif when you don’t have anything else you want to gif

Any episode with Ten and Donna, or The Eleventh Hour, or the Day of the Doctor, or Blink

24. 480p 720p 1080p? What is the minimum quality you’ll gif from

I used to be all good with giffing 480p back in the day, but I guess now it’s 720p since the gif limits have gone way up.

25. Old dimensions or new dimensions and why

New dimensions because they look nicer on the dashboard.

26. How many un posted sets are in your drafts right now

ZERO.

27. Have you ever made a set, decided you hated it and deleted it? What was it

Probably at least one or twice, but I don’t remember.

28. Have you ever posted a set, regretted it and immediately deleted it

No, I don’t think so. I’m leaving my mistakes there for all to see!

29. Have you ever posted a set, realized you made a mistake later but it was already too late

Yes, I did this just the other day with that Missy, Bill and Nardole set. I got the dialogue slightly wrong lmao..... shh

30. How frequently do you like to post

I try to do at least one gifset a day if I can!

31. Do you schedule/queue posts or do you post right after you’re done

Right away. These gifsets are fresh off the grill.

32. What is your favorite tool/adjustment layer in Photoshop

Selective Color or Color Balance

33. Do you like to/can you make edits and graphics too or only gifs

Yes, I can do both but gifs are way more fun imo

34. A set that took you a long time/was really hard but you’re really proud of how it came out

I’m gonna say this one again because I was so proud of it when I made it, and I can’t believe I used to put that much effort into my gifs.

35. Do you change your giffing style a lot or do you have a set routine

I have a routine, as described above. My gifs are pretty much all made the same way as I describe in my colouring tutorial too.

36. Do you gif with something specific in mind or do you just wing it

Usually a mixture of both. I like to try to gif a different Doctor each day, so I’ll know who I have in mind but I’m not planning on a specific episode. I’ll just open up one of their series and go from there!

37. What sets if any do you have planned to make in the future

Idk, I was thinking of doing yet another gifset with Donna in it since I just finished her Big Finish series... but maybe I’ll do one with Eleven and the Ponds??? We’ll see.

38. What are you really excited to gif that isn’t out yet

The next Doctor Who holiday special?? :D

39. How often, if ever, do you delete old sets that you don’t like anymore

Never!! I love seeing how my gifs have slowly changed and improved over time.

40. Why do you make gifs

Because it’s fun, and it’s a way for me to relax after a long and busy day at work.

41. What is your least favorite part about your gif making process

When it takes forever for my screencaps to load, and when it takes forever for my gifs to save sometimes

42. How is your gif folder organized? Is it organized at all?

Lol nope.

43. Do you keep videos forever or delete them once you’re done giffing

I keep the episodes forever, but honestly I think I keep everything forever because I forget about getting rid of the other stuff like trailers and interviews... I should go through my downloads folder.

44. Ever had a gif become a meme? Would you like that if you haven't

I’ve had people use my gifs as reaction gifs and it is a weird feeling, especially seeing the gifs being used on websites other than tumblr. I remember seeing one of my gifs used in someone’s book review on Goodreads and I was like “WAIT THAT LOOKS FAMILIAR!!”

45. Ever gotten hate over a set

Not really hate, but I do get a lot people that are like “WHERE IS ______?” in their tags. And sometimes I just want to be like “Make your own gifs if you think they should be there!!!”

46. Ever gotten a really sweet compliment over a set

Yes :’)

47. Any advice for novice gif makers/people who want to start making gifs

Don’t give up!! Make gifs of whatever makes you happy, don’t worry about the notes too much, and use your tags! KEEP PRACTICING!

48. How would you describe your giffing style

I don’t know??? If someone else has a way to describe my style, then please let me know haha

49. How much would you say you’ve improved since you first started giffing

It’s been almost 9 years since I’ve started, so I hope I’ve improved quite a bit! :P

Well, that was fun. Congrats on making it to the end of this post!!! Now I will go make a gifset.

[imxthexhandler]

OOC

Hey, everyone.

So, I can’t really say I’m better than what I have been the past couple of days... Well, I take that back. I managed to be a little bit productive today, so I do feel a LITTLE bit better than I had earlier.

At the beginning of the week, I had 331 items in my drafts. Today, I am down to 163. Less than HALF of what it was on Sunday.

It might be a little vain or pointless since it was either things to go into my queue, survey/graphic memes to do, or organizing my remaining replies, but I’m proud of me.

Now, I’m going to take a break from my drafts folder and work some on my asks. I’m gonna post ten memes (not ALL at once, don’t worry), and I’m going to be in my ask box for most of the night. I might do couple of replies here and there, if I have the muse.

Let’s get started.

[wetookanoath]

personal struggles, the fate of this and other blogs and apologies.

This year so far has been strange and not good for me and this blog. Some of you know my long history with hate in this fandom and while it’s always nice to hear your kind words, the hate I get is every day worse to the point I had to take off the anonymous option on this blog, my personal, the Library, the writing events and even the damn porn blog.

A few months ago I said I was gonna delete all blogs, and as promised I also deleted my twitter account, passed the instagram account to someone else (who hasn’t done anything with it yet), deleted other b*zzf*ed related blogs I ran, and left others I helped in.

I answered to every and all asks on this blog and the porn blog (most asks now on queue or drafts, waiting to be posted slowly to not spam), finished the event that didn’t went as good as it seemed and passed the administration of the Library to my personal account to never left it die down.

During this time, something happened in my personal life and I found myself in a very dark place I never thought I would go back to after it happened to me many years ago. But it did, and I had to dealt with it all over again, but this time there was a difference, this time I knew were to start and it helped me because I was able to ask for what I needed and get help.

I’m on meds again. I’m not proud of it and it... makes me angry that I’m ashamed to admit it. I’m making less money, lost a person, stopped writing, entered a rehab therapy for two weeks for depression (I didn’t tell anyone but my family, which won me a very long fight with my best friend and two of my best friends online), ended in the hospital last month. 

That long period I spent away from this blog, forgetting to answer replies I got e-mails for and the days of check-in and whatnot for the Exchange, god they were so good even with all that mess going on. I watched and read so many things, even if suffered not writing and other physical things. But I felt good, I really did. Which I think it’s why I was happy to get back here, just to find hate on my inbox yet again (from the same person as always, by the way. This woman really is the saddest person on the planet. Yes, it’s about you. I know you are reading this), and I really thought “why do I keep doing this to myself?”

And then weeks ago I finally realized why. And it’s because I like this show so much. I like the pictures and the stories, the chat group I’m in even if sometimes I feel like they don’t like me, and most important, in spite of all the hate we get here, I love the stories I write for this fandom, and my ship. I’ve never wrote this good, gotten the chance to improve and learn better english too.

I love the writer I am in this fandom and I have wrote so much these past few weeks, and all because I started to write shy*n again. 

So what do I do?

There are days when I forget this blog exists. It’s been so boring, this hiatus and how things have changed, the lack of content makes things dry and easier to forget. I just forget it exists, but then when I get in, it’s fun when there’s no hate. I find it entertaining to go into my blogs and tag everything properly, organize tag pages and make lists of films based on things, make edits, answer old asks I didn’t have time for before.

Since now that anonymous is off I don’t get any asks, I had have the chance to answer in depth so many things I had left behind before, it’s been fun. Like it used to be, January-July of 2018 came again to remind me of how things were before The Change. I enjoyed preparing this blog for my deperture, and I found myself not wanting to go.

My first thought after that revelation? “People is going to hate on me on anonymous for changing my mind”. Isn’t that fucking sad? That I have to condition everything I do so people won’t hate me on anonymous and say horrible things just because I complain bout things, then calm down and change my mind like any other normal person does on a daily basic... on my own, personal blog? 

So, so far, this is what will happen:

The blog reminds, since it’s also kind of an archive for this fandom with how much has been posted that I know it’s resourceful to people for all kinds of things.

Anonymous will perpeturally be off in all my blogs. The Library’s inbox will remain closed.

I’m still going to take my long periods of ignoring this blog, so I’m sorry if you sent me any qs and I don’t answer right away.

It will be on perpetual semi-hiatus, since I will come back once a week to answer things, tag stuff, stock the Library’s queue and the one on this blog.

About the updates, I’m just going to post things I would like to archive myself.

New fanfics/chapters of fics coming every Saturday until I’m done posting everything I wrote these weeks. I’m still writing, so I guess my day of the week to check replies, messages and asks will be on Saturday.

I don’t think I will be around for the new season, not the way I used to. I’m so gonna watch it, but no posts from me anymore. This is a big maybe, since I’m not sure of many things right now, especially with my health as fragile as it is right at the moment.

There’s, so far, 131 original posts on queue. These are: lists that were requested on this blog on such things like all episode Shane called Ryan ‘baby’, personal favorite shyan moments with links (I worked so much in this one, I ended up hating it), etc., edits from many things, included shoots found in old articles and so on, the ongoing ‘fave insta pics’ series of Ryan, Shane, TJ, Sara, Kelsey and the boys in other people’s instagrams, more favorite fanfic edits, and more buzzships edits. Also, a few headcanons, rec lists and solo recs.

Queue will post three posts a day, one original text, one reblog, one original edit. Texts are less than the edits, so when they are over, it will be two edits and one reblog. I will be stocking the queue during my weekly visit, so I don’t know if it will eventually run off original posts or not. 

Library reminds what it is, inbox closed until further notice.

Writing Events is over, though. I’m too tired for that. At least for a long break.

This really all depends on my health and how things are once the show is back. I miss the interaction a lot, so having lost the anonymous option it’s really a big bummer for me, and maybe to the people who did like to interact with me and the blog’s content in a positive way via this option. We’ll see.

And finally, I want to apologize not only for the long of this but for my negative reactions months ago. It was wrong, childish at times and out of character. I didn’t realize I was getting bad, and when I did it had already gotten worse. I can now look at all those desperate posts and see how bad I really was at keeping it together and how desperate I was to be okay. 

While I still believe I didn’t deserve the harassment I was getting, I should had never given onto it and answer back. I shouldn’t. It was not only bad for me, but to the people who followed/follows this blog and engaged into the negativity too. 

I caused that by acting exactly how the hateful people wanted me to, and instead of showing myself as the imperfect human being I am, all people saw was a crying girl asking to be appreciated and loved back. And the reality is that forcing those things to happen won’t make it any better, on the contrary, it makes it worse.

All those times I said, “why does people have to insult me for you to care about me?”, it was because I made it happen. I decided to posts those answers and reply to the hate, and it made people, worried by my answers and the tone of them (yeah, I was pretty suicidal and paranoid, I didn’t realize until recently), send their support. It made it look like that was the case, that I needed to be hurt for people to appreciate me.

But now, I don’t post those things. Had to shut down anonymous asks. And last week I got one ask, just one, of someone saying they love this blog. There was no reason for it, just someone who saw me online and send in their positivity. And it was the best thing in the world, those short words, the best ones.

So yes. My sincere and deepest apologies to everyone, involved or not, for having acted, well, toxic in the past months. Hopefully, it won’t happen again. Meds, no anon and semi-hiatus will make a difference, I hope. And things will be fine.

Thanks for the support, the kindness and the love. And thanks for reading this bible.

Love you,

Nina.

[cultml]

Ranting about this Moment

This moment in time is a gray paste. It means nothing... and i need done with it. There is no great tragedy or torment in my life. I am never the less tired in all the way humans get tired.

The lethality of the virus will not be know for IDK ever. their methodology is garbage and they can’t see it...IDK don’t care ...done

Masks...  "masks don’t work” ..childish technocratic  BS ...don”t care done

New guidance from CDC... that’s funny . no

the press is .... NOPE   done

Trump is a self aggrandizing carnival barker so let let him give a press conference everyday and spent half our time arguing about what he said... meant.. or fantasize about he said or ..........no done

congress is.................NO done

China is bad.... and some ignored it.....and some are helping them..... and lets take them to court over this pandemic?  Anything that doesn’t start with an eye to the removal of the CCP and a plan for sustained mockery of communist nonsense .....waste  time    no    done

Europe is nope... NY is ...nope

Things will never go back..... yeah...oh wait that's not what they mean... they just get to lock in a whole new set of rules / IDK and nope

The Globalist Conspiracy to.............. No human behavior dictates that over long period of time significantly democratic organizations lean left. People want safety they want protection.... thus is human nature.......... some will take advantage....... Is not ... plot ...no done

Cut paste.. “ Virtue ….. Puffery?  It’s not virtue signalling, there is a semi virtuous act involved. Having a kids plat a concert out side the door of your elderly neighbor, or showing Grandpa your engagement ring through the window or going to the store for them is What Your Supposed to do “   done

Police and fire men and Drs. and nurses knew what they where singing up for...... doing your job doesn’t make you a hero in my book. Are they working 48hr sifts? What is the above and beyond here??????? And those stocking selves...... How much more exactly are they risking ..... IDK and IDK what my threshold for calling someone a hero is but that isn’t it...... done

The idea that crisis accelerates the patter it doesn’t change it looks to be the case.... and frankly I’ve been a little angry about it. It’s sliding in to quite frustration will eventually y be some sadness and acceptance that that is really whats happening. .......

The progressive collectivist decided not to go nuclear so, the slower freight train to our collectivist hell it is....and  it looks and sound a lot less scary than the Bernie Nuke... On the other side the “common good” conservatives, the new theocrats... the enemy the good is perfection as is the enemy of the new(better or not) is the good.  IDK if they think it is better to take power and use it to “fix” things than act thought the culture and convince the mob things are better their way or they aren’t thinking... and the rest are opining on conspiracy and shadows

Either way collectivist hell here we come.  If we could understand the the battle isn’t just the battle between the individual and government or just a battle with ourselves we might have a chance at something different... I done see that happening.

Any who going to try to post some of the misc. good and bad with out much commentary either way today.. tomorrow. catch up the Covid19 tag.  Going to stop ML-PNP for a week or so.  I am going to move the drafts to the queue on the dormant Tourist Camera. there is a few gig of picture i can play with and some water paint I never got to play either. It seems the time to do so

[izzy-b-hands]

15, 19, 22, 30!

Ayy sorry it took me a bit to answer these; thank you for asking!!

15. Where does your inspiration come from?

Anywhere lol. Sometimes places I don’t want to admit because they’re just weird or unexpected (for example, zoning out and staring at my own hand while tipsy for...I don’t even know. It was at least fifteen minutes. I’m not proud of it, but after I finally came back round I got the idea for a particularly saucy bit of smut between Ainsley and Eggsy...that is in a WIP I can’t seem to get finished, so may never be published, but I am trying, I swear!) 

Certain recurring ideas and themes in my original work come from stuff I spend probably too much time thinking about. My last original story that I posted on here, for example, came about because I was thinking about how I was starting to not feel well (and now here I am with what I am hoping are not actual COVID symptoms, and are just a summer cold or something) which led to me rewriting my will the night prior to writing the story, which then led to me going ‘man, I hate the idea of the Christian Heaven and Hell and it doesn’t mesh at all with what I actually belief despite it being what I was taught, but what if like the afterlife was a wasteland and you basically had to go explore it to make the afterlife into something you want? How fucked up would that be?’ Also I’ve been wanting to buy myself a nice suit and was craving an apple at the time, so I gave my characters suits and some apples. I’m a simple man, at times. 

19.  First line of a WIP you’re working on.

“This isn’t done to punish you, Eggsy.”

(I’m excited for this one, but I’m trying to write it and some Sledgefu and the rest of After the Afterlife, so it is...slow going, lol.) 

22.  How many drafts do you need until you’re satisfied and a project is ultimately done for you?

Ah. Yes. Well...I am, how you say, a bad writer, in this regard? 

I don’t draft, not really. Most of what I publish, I’d say a good 95% is first draft, published the day I started it with few minor edits (usually typos or me accidentallying a word and actually noticing it before I publish for once lol.) Any poetry you see from me? Almost definitely a first draft I banged out and tossed in my queue lmao. 

Even my WIPs that I have sitting will go out mostly in their original form, unless I decide to make a major change to the story. But otherwise, I don’t ever really sit and rewrite out the whole thing to see if I want to change it (and believe you me, if y’all potentially hate that fact,  my hs writing teacher hated finding it out even more, after not believing that this is my usual method of writing. I had to show her time stamps on my words docs before she believed it, and after that hounded me to start drafting properly. Sorry Dr. Werner, old and bad habits die hard, and in this case not much at all!) 

It might not hurt me to start doing it someday, but for now, my bad habit works for me lol. 

30.  Favorite line you’ve ever written.

Oh shoot. This one took a bit; I’ve got a few lines that I admit make me vainly go ‘oh that was nice, wasn’t it?’ 

However, I’m not organized so I don’t have them like...notated anywhere lol. So I had to do a bit of fic rereading to find them again and make sure whichever one I chose for this answer I would be quoting the right fic. 

That said, I decided to choose a recent one, from After the Afterlife Ch. 6: 

‘ Things wouldn’t be the same after this, but that was okay. They were going to be better. ‘

I wrote that when I was feeling pretty down about my own situation, but it gave me hope, and it still does. Because it applies to the story, but also to things in general. Things change, and they will continually, for the better and for the worse. But the belief that gets me through my days now is that there will always be better somewhere in it, even if the change itself is difficult. I didn’t gain that belief until the last few years, and it’s a work in progress to maintain hope like that. But I prefer it to what I have before, which is why I wanted to give it to Eggsy and crew in this fic as well. Hope can be as bitter as a lack of hope, but there’s just enough sweet notes in hope to make it taste better, if that makes sense. 

[last-of-the-lot]

Caleb owes Caduceus and Fjord owes Caleb (meta ramblings)

(This has been in my drafts for too long and the game/relationships keep changing and this will all be rendered pointless if I don’t post it now so let's go)

This has been eating at me for a bit now, I don’t know if it is because I went back to when Caduceus was introduced and watched the conversation of them convincing him to come along with them, or if my brain just wants me to know more about the M9′s resident pastel death cleric, but Caleb owes him. And that is slightly terrifying. Everyone talks about the deal that Caleb made with Fjord. I have seen a few posts about it and they all talk about what could come of that deal, knowing what we know about Caleb and his plans. That blood pact is usually a topic brought up when it comes to the relationships the M9 have with each other. But his deal with Caduceus actually predates his deal with Fjord. Here are my very disorganized thoughts on the matter, with a small dosage of what impact fjord can have on all of this cause my brain can’t seem to just focus on two characters. 

When the M9 and friends first meet him, they ask what would they owe him, what does it cost them, if he requires anything, (which speaks to the backgrounds of these characters but that is another post) and he very clearly says he does. Which is one of the only times in my memory we get a very straightforward answer from Caduceus. Obviously, when Cad joins they are in a tense and time-sensitive situation, emotions are running high and they just lost four friends to slavers and are working with what they got. Caleb takes initiative and says “You’ll have it.” Repeatedly. It isn’t a deal per se, but it is a sort of promise. This draws Caduceus’s attention to him, getting what is probably a throw-away line as a response. BUT, two episodes after that one, he says “I’m here to help. I made a deal with this one.” This solidifies ( at least in my mind ) that Caduceus sees this as an exchange. He made a deal. He is smart enough to know that. Now the others know it was a deal. You’re stuck, Caleb.

Now, maybe Caleb just said what he believes Caduceus wanted to hear so he could go save his friends, but when push comes to shove I believe that Cad is going to hold him to his deal. I think this deal could come back to haunt some storylines. And queue reasons!

Caduceus is CREEPY. The fandom paints him as pastel goth cowman, ( I do too. This is not a bash against anyone ) but the dude lived in a graveyard, won’t tell anymore his backstory even when directly asked about it, obviously has some secrets up that long flowy sleeve or his, and seems to have a few buttons that if pushed bring out a scary side. Think the hydra fight with Jamedi. The normally soft-spoken one was ticked off. I would hate to see him truly angry at someone or something. 

The dude can motivate and be firm if the situation demands it. When his storyline eventually pops up, ( and after episode 70 it almost seems guaranteed for them to be heading that direction) we will see a different side of him. This is why he left. He wants to save his home. He will do anything to do that, the group and their beliefs/ways damned. 

This is kind of part of the last point but we now see him more determined to get what he wants. He is going to be more vocal about what he believes is right. We saw it when he was talking about them having to go back to the Bright queen. His ideas aren’t very formulated, but he keeps putting them out there so they can stick in other people’s minds. 

I don’t think the thing Caduceus will want will be small. I think that it will be something that is uncomfortable. Something Caleb is working against or something that will end up messing with his big overarching plan. But like I said, I think Cad will get his way.

Caleb is an analytical mind. He runs the numbers and sees if it is worth the risk ( ”three in the cage is worth one to the dirt.” He says more to himself than anyone in ep. 28 ) he will hold up his end of the deal. After episode 69 I believe he would be more inclined to go with what the group wants to do because of the realization that as much as they skirt around the issue, they are close as a group. Maybe even the beginnings of a found family. But if Caleb thinks that he can bend the rules of his deal to still keep something he needs, or even to get something out of it, he will do his best to try to do so. But if he tries that he then sets a precedent. Deals can be altered after they have been made. 

Which now brings us to Fjord’s deal with Caleb and his relationship with Caduceus. Fjord has found himself factoring into an already complicated deal that he might not even be fully aware of. Fjord is seemingly a set in his ways man. He worked on a ship. That makes sense. When he sees the fact that Caleb may be bending his deal, that means he can do it too. Right?  Rules apply to all or to no one at all. Caleb sets the rules and Fjord plays by them. He is returning a favor. He doesn't work for him, his life isn't hanging on the fact that Caleb likes him. Now I think that Fjord can be a fiercely loyal person, but not the way he is now. There is too much of his past that prevents him from fully trusting a person like Caleb. He will bend the rules if he can and sees some form of rule-bending in another deal. 

Which is why turning to Caduceus is so amazing. I think that the relationship between Fjord and Caduecues is what is going to cement them in the group. They are both drifting still. While Caduceus might have seen himself as a guidance counselor to everyone and a spiritual advisor when he started to share about his god, it has grown past mentor and student. It is slowly making its way to equals. Their friendship and connections the other has will gradually pull them into the group. 

So, recap. The resident squishy wizard has a deal made, not in his favor, with the pastel death cleric that they honestly know very little about. He also has a deal, in his favor, with a warlock looking to get out of his pact, that has turned to said pastel death cleric for help in doing so. In real life, this scenario is a recipe for disaster. In a fantasy setting where gods have a say and one of the main characters has said canonically they want to bend reality to their will? This is all going to go off the rails at some point. I for one can't wait to see the story we get out of all this, for better or for worse. 

[actuallylorelaigilmore]

Hi, I've been anon here before. (Julia Nunes anon) I wanted to say - be as serious or non-serious about writing as you need! At one point I was "Pursuing Getting Published" and I burned out. For now, I'm loving it as a hobby. There's no wrong way to be a writer or one correct journey to take. I've "won" nano and "lost" nano in different years and I've felt good every time.I hope you have a great writing month, but mostly I hope you have a healthy, happy month. We're all rooting for you!

Hi Julia Nunes Anon!! I remember you fondly. And I thank you, very sincerely, for this message.

Your journey is very similar to my last 5 or 6 years, as I threw myself into Finally Getting Published with determination and creativity but little focus and ability to plan. Becoming one of those authors, who gets to see their book on a shelf, is a dream I’ve had since I was old enough to understand how books worked. 

But after starting a dozen novels in three years, only finishing a few drafts, and only successfully revising and querying one of those, I burned out too. Between relocations and poverty and mental health issues…I didn’t enjoy anything about writing anymore–and no wonder, since I was sure I had to draft 6 books a year if I hoped for financial success. 

My dips into fic writing to clear my head went from ‘I’ll write fanfic for a while until I feel less burned out’ to ‘writing fanfic reminds me that writing can be fun–it makes me happy and trying to write novels doesn’t so maybe I’ll just stop trying.’

That nagging dream is still there, though, and I saw this great post recently (that’s either in my queue now or waiting for me to queue it later) that explains that there’s a difference between being an artist and a project manager and seeing it phrased that way sort of added a whole new dimension to my brain.

I am good at being an artist. 

I have ideas! I have words! I like making things!

I am a TERRIBLE project manager. The worst. 

I finish nothing, I can’t get or stay organized, I can’t hold details together or shuffle them around and see the bigger picture.

I have multiple worlds inside my head where I can see what the series could be, I’ve written some or all of the first novel, but as soon as I need to be able to take that draft of a story and make it better, I’m lost. 

And I know you didn’t ask about any of this? But I’ve been thinking about it ever since I saw that project manager post. It’s oddly comforting. Because if I don’t suck as a writer, but I lack a specific skill set, maybe that’s something I can learn. And with ADHD meds finally being on my horizon, we shall see. 

So. I try to enjoy Nano every time I do it, win or lose, because it always helps me write more than I would without it–and I’ve made great friends through Nano that I like getting to chat with as we all write. I’m hoping to do well at the writing parts this time because I’m tackling the project more aware of my brain style than I used to be. 

But whether I do win or lose, your last line made me tear up. I’m finally starting to level out again in terms of being healthy and happy, and you’re right, that does need to matter–especially for a manic!writer like me who can bust out a complete draft in three weeks if I don’t sleep at night and live on coffee. Thank you for rooting for me. I’m so grateful to have friends who are rooting for me. I promise to remember that when Nano is driving me crazy in a few weeks. :)