#''I like the art but if the subject of the art and the artist who made it ask that I not make a weird comment-

[chronosdawn]

Hi, what would the LIs do in a situation where the reader lives as a middle/lower middle class and cant afford to provide for another person. For example im a student who lives on my scholarship, and its kinda hard to provide for myself, let alone someone else. What would they do? They can't exactly get a legal job since they don't even exist in this world :^, I think that'a fun scenario :)

Anon you're so valid for thinking about this. I'll start by saying upfront that absolutely none of the LIs would let you struggle for money, and would likely get very frustrated at the whole legal side of things.

I think Rafayel has the best skillset for getting around the legal issues of trying to get a job without a valid ID, as while he would be an unknown artist in our world, he is still a very good artist and you can sell his work under your name. If you already have art supplies lying around, he can use those, otherwise the local college's art department might mysteriously find a couple of things go missing. He's initially pretty offended by the idea of taking commissions but if you're desperate he'll eventually cave. Admittedly he will complain the whole time and expect a healthy amount of gratitude from you in the form of your undivided attention.

Zayne is probably in the toughest spot when it comes to the ability to do his actual job in our world, as on top of the usual paperwork, he also doesn't have a valid medical licence here. However, if your willing to loan him your laptop or tablet for a bit, I do think he would be able to set himself up as an online tutor (even if it did require a bit of photoshopping to fake a couple of certificates) and he'd be good at it as well. At least one med student messages him after their lesson telling him's saved their life.

Now Xavier is an interesting case as he's been through this scenario before, just with the LaDS version of Earth rather than our version of Earth. He admittedly doesn't have access to a lot of the resources he had there, but I reckon if any of the LaDS LIs could fake an ID here, it would be him. As for what he uses that ID for, well his priorities for a job are as follows: 1) earning money for you, 2) still being able to spend time with you, 3) sleep. I think if you're a student, he ends up getting a job at your university, likely in the physics department. He still sleeps on the job, but he has a better understanding of the subject than most of the Professors so he somehow gets away with it.

I'll be honest with you, I really struggled with coming up with something for Sylus as while he also had to establish himself in the LaDS Earth, he did so by becoming a crime lord. However here is what I think goes down in this scenario: it starts with you bemoaning your money troubles as you go through your grocery list for the week. Sylus listens to you, a serious expression on his face and then tells you to go to bed, while he goes out for a bit of fresh air. You're woken up by him letting himself back into your room at 4am and dropping a thick wad of cash on your desk. Where did he get it? Well, if you really push him, he'll tell you but it's probably safer for you if you remain ignorant.

And finally we get to Caleb, who is in a similar boat to Zayne in the way that there is no chance of him being able to pilot a plane while lacking any sort of valid documents. I think Caleb has a lot of skills, but the one that it would probably make it the easiest to earn money without getting you in trouble with the law would be his cooking. It's easy enough to set up a baking business under your name, while he does all the actual work. Caleb would rather just cook for you but if this is what it takes to put food on your table then it's what he's going to have to do.

[storytellers-contest-tjac]

Storytellers Contest: TJAC FAQs

(x)

FAQs (subject to change)  

Participants will receive a welcome packet with additional information. If you have questions not answered below or in your packet, please DM us on Tumblr or Discord.

What characters can I create for?

Below is the list of characters that can be used for this contest. Jensen* RPF is also welcome.  

Tom Hanniger (My Bloody Valentine)

Dean Winchester* (SPN/The Winchesters)  

Jack Durfy (Buddy Games)  

Soldier Boy/Ben (The Boys)  

Beau Arlen (Big Sky)  

Russell Shaw (Tracker)  

Mark Meachum (Countdown)  

*Jensen or his character should be over the age of thirty within the piece. 

What is the minimum word count?

There are two options. Each category will have its own prize levels.  

Novella (5k to 15K words)

Magnum Opus (25k+ words)

Can I include ships?

Yes. Except for the following (stated or implied).  

No J2/Wincest  

No Destiel/Cockles

Does the relationship of the main character(s) have to be romantic?

No. Platonic, gender-neutral, sibling, and parental relationships are also acceptable. No underage (18) sex or incest allowed.

Characters in romantic/sexual relationships should be 30+. 

Can I combine with another contest, bingo, or challenge?

No.   

Are crossovers allowed?

Yes. Crossovers with other fandoms, even ones Jensen is not involved in—MCU, Doctor Who, Sherlock, Star Trek, etc.—are allowed. The story's primary focus should still be on Jensen or one of his listed characters.  

Is there a drop-out date or other checkpoint dates?

Yes.   

Drop-out deadline: December 31, 2025  

Check-in: March 15, 2026   

Posting

Fanworks must be completed, edited, beta/alpha read, and ready to post by June 13, 2026  

Works should be posted, in their entirety, between June 14 and June 21, 2026, to be eligible for judging and prizes.  

Works posted before June 14, 2026, will be disqualified from the judging process.  

You may post on Tumblr or AO3. 

Please add it to the Storytellers Contest Collection here: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/StorytellersContestTJAC

If posting on AO3, please create a Tumblr post with the link so we can reblog it.  

Where do I submit the link to my post to be reblogged?

A link to the post should be shared in the submission channel on Discord between June 14 and June 21, 2026.   

   Where will my posts be reblogged?

Submissions will be reblogged to the @storytellers-contest-tjac blog from June 22 to June 28, 2026. If you do not see your post reblogged, don’t hesitate to contact @mod on the Discord server. Or ask in the @storytellers-contest-tjac DMs.

When does judging take place?

Judging begins June 30, 2026, and ends July 31, 2026.

The Reader's Choice voting form will be available beginning June 30 and will close on July 31, 2026.  

How will readers find my work for judging?  

Our admins will create a master post with links to all the submitted works and will reblog the post several times throughout the judging time frame.  

You may also reblog and promote your post as often as you'd like after the submission deadline.    

When are the winners announced?

August 8, 2026    

Images  

All images used in this event MUST be credited to the original creator/site unless pulled from a Creative Commons website.  

A source link must be provided. Please ask for permission before using photos taken by con photographers or attendees.  

Place source links in the post however you'd like.

Here is an example of how to keep it clean and unobtrusive - https://deanwinchesterswitch.tumblr.com/post/763369272735137792/source-x-x-x-x 

Artwork  

We will not be matching artists and authors for this contest.  

You may use artwork throughout your piece.  

Please indicate if you are the artist.  

If you are not the artist, please indicate if you have permission to use the art and give proper attribution.

[bonesmarinated]

Last year I done some outfits for Lacazette (x) including casual and stage gear, I wanted to do some armour for him but undecided between buhurt or LARP. After spending more time learning how a set of armour work and look into a lot of fabulous manuscripts I decide jousting is his hobby now :))) 🦢🦢 He's not a professional jouster but he's well served in the sport, an intense opponent who loves wreaking people. He has logged thousands of hours in his armour, run thousands of joust courses, fought on foot and in the tourney. The Norwegian 🦇 The Belgian 🦢 The Arbëreshë 🐬 The Brit ❤️

[kipsa-hoy]

Etho and his weird eyes, even the normal one, yeah it's weird to

[ink-the-artist]

You draw mouths like people who like vore do

[misternibbs]

tell me that I still have stars in my eyes

(jashzine art! read under cut to find link to twt post :3)

EYYYYYYYY JASHZINE IS OUT BAHBAY THAT'S RIGHT. HOLY FUCKING JASHBALLS. I'LL LINK IT WHEN I FIND THE POST FOR IT ON HERE BUT UNTIL THEN HERE'S THE TWITTER POST yyyeeeeEEEEAHHHHHHH CHAT WOOOOOOO

in all seriousness I feel so honoured to be featured alongside some really, REALLY TALENTED PEOPLE. LIKE HOLY BALLS. MY ART DOESN'T NEARLY COMPARE TO . EVERYONE ELSE'S DUDE LIKE. OUGHHHHHHHH FUCK EVERYONE'S SO FUCKIN TALENTED AND TOTALLY TUBULAR I CAN'T. honestly I shouldn't be here, think I walked into the wrong building. I suck balls this art fucking. I fucking loathe this piece anyways here's the progress

(^^^^ alt colour version. should've gone with this everypony we were ROBBED it fits the song more. Aughhhhhh)

and before you get on my ass for his body type being so fucking wrong here's a doodle I did around the time I was working on this with a more correct body type. I unironically think it's better (plus you get closeup on face)

again, please check out the jashzine, AND FOLLOW !!! FOLLOW THE ARTISTS !!!! WHO DID THE ART !!!!!! PLEASE THEY'RE SO SO SO SO COOL AND TALENTED OH MY GOD PLEASSSEEEEEEEE thanks for reading this btw comment "teapot" down below if you reached this point in the video hhahah fucking . kill me

[amtrak12]

After a conversation with a friend about this weird trend of fic readers who only want epic length fics (and also what seems to be a massive misunderstanding between parties on terms and their definitions), I went searching for the fandom sources I cut my teeth on. I don't have much bookmarked from those days anymore, but googling got me to this fiction length/terminology breakdown from a Livejournal blog. (Which also has good fandom definitions for other terms like A/N and fanon too, so if you're super new to fandom, go check that out.)

The definitions come from the publishing world (hence the page counts), but fandom and fanfic has always borrowed heavily from official publishing terminology. Flash fiction (aka, anything less than 1k words) is called a 'ficlet' within fandom. We call everything else a fic until it reaches the novella mark -- which may start at 20k words but as synecdochic breaks down on their Dreamwidth blog, there's a lot of overlap between short stories and novella word counts. Because, when you're not constrained by physical page counts, the real dividing line between short stories and novellas are the number of plots and themes you're using. (Seriously, go read their meta on this topic. It's fantastic!) Either way, once you're hitting tens of thousands of words, you're in longfic territory. And then if your fic is even longer than that -- 100k+ like shown in the screenshot above -- it's called an epic fic.

And these terms, longfic and epic, are important because they're used to differentiate these stories from the average fic. Because, at least in the 2000s up until the 2020s, the most common fic lengths you ran into were between 1k-20k words. "Fic" made the reader assume only a few thousand words at most. It's only when you changed the term to drabble or ficlet or longfic that they would realize 'oh this is going to be shorter or longer than normal'.

I don't really understand why that baseline assumption has changed amongst the newer demographics (and maybe amongst some long-running fandom members too?). I've seen a lot of theories and 'tiktokification' complaints, but I honestly don't know what's true. And I don't want to start a fight or even try to change anyone's minds if they are dead set against reading short story length fics. You can do what you want!

Just maybe shift your attitude about it a little bit? Remember that it's a personal preference the same way tropes are, and that one story length isn't better than another. Just like tropes, each story length serves its purpose. Some stories are best told in 1-2k words. Some are best told as 100 word drabbles -- or even a single sentence! And then, yes, some stories do need to be 100k+ in order to be told properly.

But that's not every story. And it shouldn't be expected of fic writers to pad a 1500 word plot into some sprawling epic just because they left it on a cliffhanger. The cliffhanger is probably the point of that fic! Short stories are an entirely separate art form to novels and as such are able to cover different topics than novels can or cover the same topics differently. And that's what makes them special!!

And look at that word count breakdown by genre! That's mainstream publishing standards! Now, go back up there to the definition of a novel and notice that the average published novel is 80k words long.

Let me repeat that:

The average length of a published novel is 80,000 words long.

Could a novel go longer? Sure! And if you're dipping into adult sci-fi or fantasy, absolutely it will be longer! But does your fic need to be longer than the average novel in order to be good? In order for you to feel satisfied when you finish reading it? Why does the length of the fic matter more to you than the content?

idk just some rambling food for thought, but I guess too long, don't read:

~✨~ Every story length is valid ~✨~

It just depends on the plot you have and the structure you want to use to tell it.

[thatskindarough]

My actual only request and probably unpopular opinion for season 3 is that they tone down the color grading. I think season 1 looked a lot better. Season 2 was way to saturated. Crowley’s skin looked orange.

[sergle]

Do yall see the kind of stuff I gotta read in my notifications on a regular basis

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Hi!! I love this series so much, and as someone who hasn’t really drawn since they were a kid but wants to start as a hobby, do you have any advice for sort of learning to doodle on paper and get better at it? I want to start but I don’t really know how/where

The most important step in getting better at any skill is Persistence and Consistency. Practice and keep practicing! The best way to do that is to keep it fun! Picking a project helps generate ideas (e.g. drawing Pokémon, or characters from a series you like). There are also a ton of monthly prompt lists out there!

I also highly recommend scheduling in a 'drawing/practice' time in your day. For me, I started with 30-60 min before bed (bonus: its a good 'no screentime' activity), and the habit took root there.

There are a lot of 'technical' things to study but find the fun first. At a certain point you will discover you've hit a wall, and have a specific aspect/goal you want to target (colour theory, anatomy, lighting, comic layout). Then it's time to go looking for resources.

Once you have the habit and some goals, go collect some inspiration! Find people who inspire you and study their work!

Another little 'art skill builder' I recommend is the Shrimp Method! Only if you find technical challenges like this fun though (Example of one of my studies below)

[royaltea000]

burnt out sorry - do ya wanna see my ocs (not giving you a choice)

Old designs -w-

[mandizo]

woike up and remembered hiow artists are treated in chinese fandom spaces and i threw up all over the floor

[genericpuff]

working on my biggest fix-it / "foefic" project ever

and i'm already stuck on the 'chronically overthink what style to draw it in' stage because ofc

[zetsubobu]

if you see this, what is a topic that you would love to talk about but no one ever asks you about it?

[longagoitwastuesday]

Every day I am haunted by the fact JJK could be amazing but it will be just idk Bleach or something

[mortimer]

if youre wondering what criteria i use to decide to tag/categorize something as either painting or illustration, the answer is that it's almost completely arbitrary