#I could probably use a blog template to post fics on if I use it right

[choicesmonthlychallenge]

July 24th is National and International Private Investigator day!

About: Since Crimes of Passion II is currently releasing and our MC is a private detective, I thought this could be a great day to celebrate the book and our detectives with @choicesbookclub. However, mysteries are a part of many Choices stories, making our MCs and fave characters private detectives even if unofficially, so this event is now OPEN TO ALL CHOICES BOOKS and characters

How to Participate:

Shadows & Deceptions: A Royal Murder Mystery + Giveaway with @bayleedrawsx

This is a very open to interpretation event as long as your submission has something do with a mystery, being an investigator, solving a crime, and/or something of that nature it's perfect. You probably have better ideas than I do about how to use this event in your stories/worlds! (Some prompts/ideas to think about below)

* Just tag the blog and I'll share your work: @choicesmonthlychallenge.

* If you are creating for COP, you may also share with @choicesbookclub

I proposed a murder mystery crossover story [here]. In my head it was going to be short and more like a puzzle for you to solve—like, here is the setting, here are the characters, this is the crime, here are the suspects, and this is what happened. When I posted about it initially it was about 1,000 words total. It kind of turned into a full fan fic story at about 5,500 words. I still am posting it as part of the event, but I'll be doing it on my personal blog (@storyofmychoices) since the story and this event kind of got away from me. I still hope it's good and you'll enjoy it!

It will still be posted in smaller sections over the 4 days of this event to give people time to read and hypothesis what happened and who is responsible

Some ideas to get you started

As mentioned initially, there is still a GIVEAWAY!!! (since in my head the first person to solve the mystery would "win"!) @bayleedrawsx has agreed to assist with the giveaway but now you don't have to correctly solve the mystery (especially since the ending has a twist now), you just have to enjoy the ride. Any one who comments on or reblogs with a comment with their theories, thoughts, ideas, ect. will be entered in the giveaway. You can get 1 entry for each part of the story you interact with. (Likes and reblogs without comments do not count).

There will be 3 winners: 1 (one) winner will get a 2 character minimalist commission with Baylee and 2 (two) seperate winners will get a 1 character minimalst commission with Baylee.

create a dossier for one of your characters [Template Here]

create a business card, social media edit, advertisement for your detective (whether they are official or it's just a hobby)

create a detective/investigation fic, moodboard, edit, etc.

create a crossover event [some ideas here]

explore the every day mysteries your character might investigate (friend's secret crush/relationship, who ate the last cookie, trying to find the missing items (sock, shoes, pen, keys, glasses, etc), tracking down a secret recipe)

are any of your MCs, OCs, and/or LIs addicted to the Hallmark Movies and Mysteries channel? If so, what's their guilty pleasure?

did mysteries or detective stories play a role in your MCs / OCs lives when they were children (or later)? Did they ever play pretend? Did they have a favorite author?

create a newspaper/magazine edit/article about a mystery in your characters world and how it was solved (maybe it's a real case, or maybe it's a medical case, or something else)

find a detective/investigation/mystery story to use as a basis for @choicesprompts 's Rewrite Challenge

Guidelines

All creative work is accepted (writing, text fics, social media posts, moodboards, edits, art, songs, head canons, etc)

Use the read more/keep reading tool to prevent long posts

Please tag anything that is NSFW and/or triggering appropriately

Minors, please be responsible and DNI with posts labeled 18+/NSFW

You can combine your submission for this event with the Book Club if it is COP related and with any other events happening in the fandom.

have fun

be kind

This event is kind of a hot mess and I apologize! I really don't know what I thought I was doing lol

Got ideas, prompts, suggestions? Please LMK!

All thoughts and additions welcome!

[iamnathannah]

I posted 717 times in 2022

That's 147 more posts than 2021!

50 posts created (7%)

667 posts reblogged (93%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@angstbotfic

@nakedmonkey

@hufflefluffles

@dollsome-does-tumblr

@strawberrymotion

I tagged 134 of my posts in 2022

#gilmore girls - 24 posts

#paris geller - 17 posts

#fanfiction - 15 posts

#lorelai x paris - 11 posts

#paris gellar - 9 posts

#lana parrilla - 5 posts

#lorelai gilmore - 5 posts

#a major course autocorrection - 4 posts

#paris x honor - 4 posts

#youtube - 4 posts

Longest Tag: 136 characters

#(all i have is a small crack before i ever possessed the car and foggy headlights along with too-eager snow scraping marks but still...)

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

A Quick Statement on Longing...

I got a lovely compliment about Longing on another Paris/Rory story, especially dealing with Louise's relationship with Paris in the past, and I'm definitely thankful for that...and this is a statement that an update will come out soon. I've been dealing with so much during the pandemic and just haven't felt like updating it, even though I have a lot of the latest chapter done, and there's my Lorelai/Paris stories where I do want to write those too.

I do want to touch on something though, as outside the old-style author's notes written back in the FF.net/Yahoo Groups days which have continued on in my template style, when I transferred the story to AO3, I failed to ever account for trigger or content warnings.

I could have never imagined this story would end up in an age where readers would want a heads-up on content, as they're probably dealing with the same things Paris, Louise, and Rory are dealing with through the story; homophobic parents, mental traumas, visible and scarring child abuse, and the gaslighting Dean attempts on not only Rory, but his previous girlfriend, Paris's cousin Beth, along with just the general stresses of realizing who they are and dealing with their peers and authority figures and how they would react to them coming out as gay.

Thus, I sincerely and deeply apologize if my writing, unwarned, caused anyone unwanted anguish and hurt if they clicked on the story and found themselves thrown into, say, the chapter where Paris realizes her mom knows she's with Rory and is bruised and broken from the abuse thrown her way, is recounting the worst abuse with Rory and her therapist, along with Louise being dealt with by Sharon.

I have now added on the appropriate trigger warnings to the story on AO3, and take full responsibility for not doing so before.

My intention with my stories is to write about how I feel about these characters, show how they are outside the bounds of the early 2000s and its network, and hopefully have a reader come out of it thankful to see these characters in a different way than originally presented. The last thing I ever want to do is hurt someone in any way, and if you ever were, know that I would never intend to do so.

3 notes - Posted April 28, 2022

#4

For fic research purposes...

What safe words would Lorelai and Paris use as partners, together?

You know...science. 👩🏻‍🔬

3 notes - Posted January 12, 2022

#3

The Gilmore Facebook page is like 'leave the door open for Christopher' and like...do they not know only six people in the world like him, and two of them are ASP and the J6-loving (Canadian) weirdo who plays him?

5 notes - Posted November 23, 2022

#2

Tumblr please stop sending me TERFs and Depp Defenders 'in your orbit' challenge. 🤬

6 notes - Posted April 30, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

23 notes - Posted February 26, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[chronicbatfictioner]

Reposting something I posted on my main (and linkedin! Ha!) with a few additions to make it relevant here.

Why do people write?

The actual meaning of writing is to arrange words into a sentence that can convey information. The types of information depend on the language used. Legal language (in any language) differs greatly from Medical language which also differs greatly from Engineering language or Marketing language. News language may infuse parts of the other fields, depending on the subject of the article.

Writing showed that there are many nuances and aspects of a language that must not be neglected - one cannot write a news article using Medical language and expect more than 1% of its readers to understand it, or an entertainment event writing its blog in Engineering language; or an Engineering Report made using daily slang.

I write for a living, a job that - thankfully - not only aligns with my passion but also makes a good living. I write reports, that leave a small margin for embellishment, but at times require deliberate clarification that may be viewed as embellishment by its readers. Most of the time I *can* and actually use semi-formal language infused with whatever field the report is about; e.g. if it is about a legal issue, I can put some legal expressions in it; or if it is about the IT industry, there would be some coding lingo in the report.

I also write fiction - ne'er before seen and will probably never see the lights of day. Maybe someday the fiction will be published somehow, somewhat. Otherwise, they will remain in my hard drives, cloud storage, etc.

I also write fanfictions in AO3 - where more fanfics have been posted there than here (because most of the time I forgot to double-post. I labored over those fics, cried (literally) over what I had to put my chars into, dreaded every click of the 'post' button - and worried that no one would read them. Did the obligatory check-counters-every-two-minutes-after-posting. Had a micro anxiety attack every time I see a comment, thinking that "this is the time the commenter will say they don't like my fic..."

Anyway.

I started writing when I was seven - a Hello Kitty (fan)fiction. Mind you, this was in the 80s, there was only the merchandise and that is all. I wrote based on whatever I wanted to write, never knowing the 'backstory' of Hello Kitty or any of the other Sanrio characters. I don't even remember what they were about anymore, and unfortunately don't have the records of them since they were typed (yes, with a Diablo typewriter that was about as old as I am) on scrap papers from my mother's office.

I wrote because there was no available further information on the characters. I was unhappy with the information gap and thus made it up.

Likewise, when I was in high school, I had written fanfictions on bands I'd liked, partly filled with 'their tour lives', taking whatever was published in a plethora of magazines I'd bought as the background/template. Likely for the same reason as my Hello Kitty fiction - there was far and little further information on them and I filled in the blanks on my own.

In high school, I'd also started to write non-fanfictions - kind of. I had crushes on some seniors and some peers, and I did (could) not just come up to them and ask about their lives in detail - I was far too introverted for that. What I knew of them came from other friends, snippets of conversations, and distant observations - nowadays people might call me a stalker. Back in the 90s, it was the only way I could fill in the void of information.

As I grew older (and continued writing), writing became a form of therapy when I lost my brother. My fiction at the time was filled with heroic characters, who changed their world and universe out of sheer will/skills/whatever I had in mind then.

And yesterday I had an epiphany.

I write because I was - *AM *- angry.

I was angry at the lack of information, so I filled in the blanks through fiction. I was angry at too much information, so I distilled it into my work reports.

I was contented a little while ago (or maybe it was the allergy meds), and I found my brain was not willing to write anything. I was not numb, I could reply to texts or write comments, but when I opened a blog to write, nothing came out. I even tried writing my daily life - i.e. woke up at __ had something for breakfast, then out somewhere to do something before lunch... --Nothing. I couldn't write. The fiction side also suffered, left untouched for a good long while.

Then it occurred to me, that everybody else also wrote because they were angry.

Well, okay, maybe some people 'just' write because their jobs demand it - i.e. marketing or legal/law people.

But most people, even journalists, write because they're angry. They have to be 'angry', in order to be able to convey information to their reader and describe what it is that makes them angry without actually saying 'I'm angry at...'

Fiction writers?

Yes, they are 'angry', too. They (read: I) are angry enough at the world they deem inadequate to create another world that makes them happy/contented.

Self-help book writers? Definitely angry. They put their anger into words that show their readers how to adjust their respective selves - either to 'not be angry' or to be 'angry enough to make changes'.

'Angry' has such a negative connotation that people don't want to use it to describe themselves. But it is an emotion that burns. To some it burns inward, causing a plethora of illnesses. To others it burns outward in the same negative breath, causing destruction of the human or their surroundings.

The lucky ones (read: those verbose enough) burn their anger through the letters. The better ones will manage to craft their words to invoke others' anger. The best ones have used their craftiness to change the world through words.

No non-humans will be able to use words to invoke or provoke emotions. Give them a blank page with no further instruction from its *human *programmers, no non-humans will be able to write anything comprehensive and thought/emotionally provoking -- maybe one emotion: anger from those having the misfortune to read it and realize that the thing is a pile of dung that even a dung-beetle wouldn't touch.

Translating - my 'other' job - is not much different than writing on blank pages. It requires knowledge based on the language that will be used to transfer the information between languages. It requires local knowledge - a house and a home in English only have one translation in my language, but if I were to translate from my language to English, I would need to already know whether to use 'house' or 'home' in the narrative.

A machine won't know the distinction unless someone - a human - tells them. A machine holds patterns. The human brain creates *patterns. The human brain may even *crave patterns. However, the universe is not built of static patterns. The human brain's unique ability to tolerate and understand random patterns - and even *create *random patterns is not computeable.

If the machine actually managed to get to this stage, we shall go back to '1984' and adopt it as our holy bible.

Actually, we should do that right now.

Way back in the early days of the internet, we all were told 'Don't Feed the Trolls'.

Today, I'd rather feed them trolls than feed the machine.

"This fic was ai generated—" Cool, so lemme block you real quick

[heartbeetz]

Ok actually I'm slightly tempted to create a wix site just for me to post my writings on... that way they're not really publicly posted but also they're not completely private...

[envythepalmtree]

fma blogs to follow?

Ooh I've actually been planning on making this post for a while too!

Art blogs that ID their own posts that you should follow

@morningsaidthemoon - does ids in alt text! I really love their pieces - they're kinda soft in like. color and lines? and tender if that makes sense. Multifandom, they tag fandoms.

@mildly-artsy - @mildly-nerdy's new art blog! also does them in alt text. Her lines are so clean and I love how people look in her style. Mostly FMA.

Other blogs that write IDs and/or look through the notes for IDs (that you should follow and reblog the IDed version of posts)

@liathgray - they're the author of Blackwell Springs, an extremely popular fic I have not read yet, and the A Hop, Skip, and a Jump series that I'm very much obsessed with. Multifandom, they tag fandoms.

@nerdywriiterchild - bro I love their xerxes fics so much 😔 Multifandom.

@xingeseprince - IDs almost everything. Good descriptions! Sideblog, all FMA.

@princess-of-purple-prose - the meme ID person! (They're one of the people who started a huge doc of ID templates for memes to save people spoons, which is cool.) Multifandom, tags fandoms, mostly not FMA.

Other art blogs I love

I wish I could tag like. every one of my art mutuals but alas I'd be making color of the sky 2.0 😔 So sorry if I didn't tag you, I'm kinda just scrolling through my following list and picking urls at random here, all of you guys are amazing!

@chewytran - their royai college au!! is so cute!! All their royai stuff is just. chef's kiss. Art sideblog, mostly FMA. Other fandoms are tagged.

@wawayu - their use of light and colors man!! Art sideblog, majority FMA. (Also. check their notes when rbing their art because I rb and ID like. everything they post lol)

@neorei - their homunculi art!! Wish I had art-critic-training (is that a thing) so I could properly express the emotions that their art invokes. but. ahh it's so melancholy and kinda abstract, the kind of art that you could find different meanings in. Sideblog, all FMA.

@fmamangacaps - Photoshop counts as art. Their cleaning up of manga panels and tagging system is a godsend.

@humming-fly - you probably already follow them but their team greed comics are just so funny!! I always have at least one of their pieces in my drafts that I'm procrastinating on IDing lol. Multifandom.

@pumi-envy - just. lots of art of Envy. Sometimes I'm looking through the Envy tag and the majority of it is me and this artist. I love that for us. Their style's super cute. All FMA. (again. check the notes on their art 'cause I reblog and ID everything they put on my dash)

One of those Royai writers whom posts from me and my positivity blog mutuals always seem to make it to

Don't ask me why this is a category, it's just funny to me when my positivity blog posts or posts from my positivity moots make it to Royai tumblr.

@firewoodfigs - Xingese squad!! Her prose is beautiful. So poetic and meaningful. And her poetry?? is gorgeous. Ownvoices Xingese Roy content 💚 Mostly FMA.

@lantur - wrote delicate. Go read it right now if you haven't (but also tw for parental abuse and older military officers taking advantage of mentally ill young women while they commit genocide together) Multifandom, fandoms are tagged.

@hanamuri / @royriza - literally the sweetest person and runs like 4 blogs which is iconic. Her psychoanalysis of FMA characters is super interesting. All FMA.

Other writers I love

I have a habit of reserving way too many books from the library meaning that I haven't gotten around to reading most fanfics yet, oops. That's on me.

@ta1k-less - I adore her writing style!! Fun fact, one of her atla fics was probably the first multichap fic I had finished in roughly five years. She's very funny. Love how she fleshes out Ishvalan culture. Also draws sometimes and has started IDing her own art. Mostly FMA, multifandoms, tags fandoms.

@edisacornball - boomer he knows Edward very well, if that makes sense. Like, reading his fics I can tell that he understands Edward as a character very well. His Edwin fics are great. Has been in the FMA fandom for 15 years or something, which is crazy to me. Multifandom, mostly FMA.

@calangkoh - metas count as writing. So not a fic writer, but their 03 metas are wonderful. Obvious spoilers for 03 if you haven't seen it yet. Sideblog, all FMA.

Well fuck, now I'm realizing that I haven't gotten around to reading any fics from the vast majority of the writers I follow. Y'all are such lovely people sorry I still need to read your fics!! I gotta update this list once I get my act together and clean up my AO3 marked for later list, lol.

[yandere-daydreams]

i love the zhongli post, and other posts you've made where there's no dialogue and just. concepts turned fic i guess? loosely called fic. but it makes me feel nice to know that i don't have to have a coherent story to spew out my ideas

also, may i ask if there's like, a list for warnings to put on yandere posts? like the obvious implied __ and noncon and stuff yeah, but certain phrases just to indicate something specific, if it exists. i've been wanting to start a yan blog but i fear that there are certain terms that i don't know because i don't keep track of them and accidentally not tag something.

There is! I usually don’t use them for my drabbles because I never really get dark enough to warrant any warning, by providing trigger warnings is a pretty common practice. There’s no, like, uniform list or anything, but if there’s a chance it could be a source of trauma for someone (e.g. cheating, gaslighting, physical abuse), you should probably let your audience know. Just make sure it’s comprehensive, and use the tags on similar fics as a template, if you have to. As long as everyone knows what they’re getting into, you should be fine.

[gohyuck]

Yes, I think it’s funny to use this badly edited thing of Hyuck as a banner for literally everything.

I essentially used the lovely Jewel’s ( @domjaehyun ) template for commissions for this! Please 1) check out her blog 2) show her love because she deserves all the love in the world.

Okay, so... I 100% will continue to write for free and post long fics on this blog but I also very much need to start saving up to pay rent. I’m a full-time engineering student and lab research assistant, so it’s quite difficult for me to find the time to get a job, especially during a pandemic. I genuinely enjoy writing, and figured that, maybe, just maybe, I could make some extra cash off of it.

I will continue to work on the fics I’ve been working on, such as greaser!Jeno and my recent milestone blurbs. I haven’t forgotten about them and won’t forget about them!

50% of any money that comes from this will go to me, and 50% will be donated to a charity of your choice! Please read the guidelines/etc. below to get more information on this.

Guidelines:

Please message me privately if you have a request. If you’re uncomfortable talking over tumblr for any reason, you’re more than welcome to ask for my discord and I will give it to you. 

Send me your request (read request guidelines below) and let me know specifically whether you want to donate the 50% of the cost to charity yourself (in which case I require that you send me a screenshot of you having done so) or whether you want me to donate it for you, in which case you’d send me 100% of the cost and I would send you back a screenshot with the 50% donation. 

I use venmo, but am open to opening a paypal account if this is deemed necessary. 

You have to reblog this post! This is for exposure purposes. Please don’t delete it right after reblogging. 

If you request anything NSFW, I reserve the right to ask for proof of your age. I do not feel comfortable answering smut/nsfw requests from minors. 

Request Guidelines:

I will not write member x member fics, only member x reader or member x your OC. I will also only write in second or third person. 

I will take a maximum of two requests per person. 

When requesting, please state the following:

tell me what group you want it for, and if it isn’t a group or member i’m familiar with, i’ll ask you to switch to a different group. it’s probably best to request for nct (ot23), bts, txt, ikon, or blackpink.

whether it is member x reader or member x oc (or if you want me to use your name)

the general genre (fluff, angst,  pure smut a.k.a pwp)

whether it will be sfw, sfw but suggestive, or nsfw, regardless of the general genre

whether you want it to be in 2nd or 3rd person

if you would like any AUs, list up to 2 AUs

if you want any specific lines of dialogue, let me know those as well

if you want any specific time period, let me know those as well

if it’s nsfw please outline kinks/limits/etc. for your comfort (and for mine)

list your preferred minimum word count (max. 10k)

Pricing:

Between 1k and 2k words: $5.

Every additional 1k is $1. 

The most I will write is 10k words. If you give me any more than that, I’ll take the $10 and ask you to donate the rest. 

Housekeeping:

I can deny any request, but, of course, I will not make you pay for a request I won’t take. This is why I want you all to message me first. 

If your request is in 2nd person (x reader) then I will post it on my blog. I’ll ask you if you want your identity known and, if not, then I won’t mention it!

If I get any, I’ll start with writing commissions around December 20th! 

Even if you decide not to send in commissions, it would be nice if you reblogged this post! <3 

[gwentoryfics]

so you wanna start a writeblr...

i’m no pro, but here are some tips i have for anyone who’s interested in posting written content on tumblr! this is primarily relevant to kpop fanfic blogs, but some of the more general tips could certainly apply to other writers.

Pick Your URL

if you don’t have an account yet, making one is the first step! think hard about what you want your url to be. as you can see, mine includes the word ‘fics’ to make it clear that this is a fanfic blog, but that’s not a very common tactic. if you’re writing about a particular fandom, i’d recommend tailoring your url to that fandom. and i also recommend sticking with your url once you’ve picked it - i personally always forget who people are when they change their urls. it’s confusing for your followers so unless you have a really good reason to change it, just don’t.

Find a Theme

honestly, this is one thing i still struggle with lol. i think a lot of people probably access tumblr on their phones instead of computers, in which case this step isn’t really that important, but it’s always good to have a desktop layout that looks nice! you can poke around through the free themes that tumblr offers, or search for your own. personally, i just check out the blogs of people i follow from time to time. if they have a theme that i like, there’s usually a link somewhere on the page back to the theme creator’s blog, and then i’ll scroll through that blog looking for something that might work for me. probably the most important thing is to make sure your theme is text post friendly. you want your text posts to take up a lot of space on your screen so that they’re more easily readable - that means any theme that has more than one column is a no-go.

Build Your Bio

your bio should share some very basic info about you, such as your name (or a penname/persona), pronouns (if you’re comfortable sharing that info), and a link to your masterlist. if you don’t know how to add links in your bio, check out these steps. you might also want to include a “most recent” link so that your followers can easily locate the most recent thing you’ve written. and of course, feel free to include anything else that you want to be easily findable for your readers.

Post When Tumblr is Active

this might vary a little bit for everyone, and you’ll get more of a sense for this the more active you are on tumblr, but i’ve found that tumblr is usually most active around 7pm/8pm in my time zone (CST). that could totally be different for you. but try to get a feel for when people seem to be most active on tumblr, and take advantage of that by posting during the high times.

Format Your Posts

there are a few things you can do to make your posts look nice. one thing i highly recommend is creating a custom header image for your fic. canva is an easy and free resource that i like to use - just make a free account and then use their free templates and stock images to throw something together. if you choose to use something created by someone else, like a gif of an idol, make sure that you credit that person.

after your header image, definitely include info about what the reader should expect from this fic. this info helps readers decide if they’re actually going to read your work, so it’s very important that you’re clear. definitely feel free to steal my formatting - i always include genre, character pairing, word count, summary, warnings, links to other parts of the fic, an author’s note, and tags. although my summary is usually a full-fic summary, my warnings are specific to the part they’re posted in. you can indent this info to keep it separate from the body of the fic.

please, for the love of god, use a Keep reading break if your fic is more than a few hundred words. if you don’t use a Keep reading break, then everyone will have to scroll through the thousands of words you’ve written, and that’s SUPER annoying to people who aren’t actually interested in reading it (even if they plan on returning to it later). i’ve very intentionally decided to avoid someone’s writing because they didn’t use a Keep reading break, and having to scroll through it was such an inconvenience to me that i deemed their fics not worth reading. be considerate and use the break - bonus points if you keep all smutty content after the break!

last thing: figure out how you want to break between scenes. tumblr used to have a really simple line that you could insert between scenes to create a visual break between scenes, but it didn’t hide content the way the Keep reading break does. unfortunately, they took it away, so now we have to get creative. i’ve seen some writers just use a single asterisk (*) between scenes. i ended up creating my own scene break image in canva and i just insert it after every scene. this is what mine looks like:

whatever you end up using, just make sure it’s simple so it doesn’t draw too much attention.

Be Smart About Tags

figure out what tags are used for your fandom, and be sure to use them every time you post! i think the first five tags are the most important - i’m pretty sure those are the ones that your post can appear in when someone searches that tag. 

for example, my main fic is a smutty fic that features a few members of the kpop group pentagon. so depending on what happens in the part i’m posting, i’ll usually include tags such as: hongseok smut, wooseok smut, kino angst, hyunggu angst, hongseok scenario, hongseok fic, wooseok scenario, wooseok fic, kino scenario, kino fic, hyunggu scenario, hyunggu fic. 

Join a Network

this tip is a bit more kpop fanfic specific - i’m not sure what kinds of networks are out there for other writers.

networks are a great way to share your works with a wider audience, and they’re also a great way to meet other writers that are interested in the same things you are!

one of the best networks that i’ve joined is @ksmutclub. they have a big following, and they do a really good job of staying on top of reblogs. keep an eye on their blog to see when applications are open. i should also mention that, because it’s a smut network, they’ll only reblog smutty content. this network is also open to all kpop fandoms!

there are also other networks, like @uni-network​, which don’t actually require an application. if you create content for pentagon, tag it with #uninet and it’ll get reblogged. the only caveat is that they don’t reblog smutty content because they want the blog to be open to all ages. you are still welcome to use the tag, though - just keep your smut under the cut!

i’m also a member of @universenet​, but i don’t think they’re active anymore...

Follow Other Writers

this one might be hard to do depending on the size of your fandom, but if you can find other content creators, give them a follow! and if you enjoy their work, reblog it! your blog will benefit from you sharing content that’s not your own (as long as you’re reblogging, not reposting. you always want to give credit to the original creator). plus, you want people to interact with your blog, so do your part and interact with others, too!

that’s all i’ve got for right now, but i’ll add to this post again if i think of anything else! and of course, please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions about starting a writeblr! i’m happy to help.

[shadowofthelamp]

Fandom Trades: Tips and Tricks

I’ve been running a secret santa for five years now, and a few people expressed interest in a sort of ‘guide’. It does take some elbow grease to get things up and running, but it’s very rewarding and gets easier as you go. Click the ‘read more’ for some stuff I’ve picked up over the years! It’s a bit general to try and cover anything, but if you have any questions, you can ask! (And if you’ve run one yourself, feel free to add on!)

FAQ: Something that’s a really good idea to have. Here’s the most important stuff on it that would probably be applicable to most trades:

-Basic summary of what the trade will be- some could be fic-only or art-only, or even specific-ship-only. Mine’s general to ‘all sonic sfw content’, but setting guidelines so people know what they’re getting into is a good idea so you won’t have to answer the same question over and over.

-Deadlines. Make them clear. Mine’s easy (Christmas Eve) but depending on what size the gift is expected to be, the time frame can be adjusted. 

-Related, set up rules for if people need to drop out. It happens, so be prepared. (This is why I ask now if people are alright giving a second gift.)

-Any particular rules for your trade- is it sfw or is nsfw acceptable? (In that case, set age limits.) Are there ships that will or won’t be allowed? Is there a punishment for violating the rules or turning things in late, like not being allowed to participate in the trade again?

PROMOTION:

A promo image is a good idea! I’ve been using the same one for a few years that was put together by a friend no longer on tumblr, but images catch people’s eyes faster than a text dump. Make something that’s easy to understand but gets the point across, and the text below should have enough information without overwhelming the casual scroller. 

Space paragraphs often to make it less intimidating. Include links to the FAQ, the sample entry, and the submit box right in the post, as well as a way to contact you- you want things to be as easy as possible for anyone interested. Here’s my promo post.

You also want to start promotion early- I start posting and reblogging my promo a full month before the entry deadline, to give as many people the chance to see it as possible. Any earlier, and they might not care- (who wants to see a Christmas trade post in October when you’re hyped for Halloween?) and any later and you might not get as many participants as you could have. A month-ish is a good time frame. (I also have a tag for the promo post, so people can blacklist it if they aren’t interested and don’t want to see it 15 times.)

SAMPLE ENTRIES:

Also something that’s good to have. Having a template for what you want entries to look like will make sorting easier for you. Here’s mine. It’s a good idea to scout around for other trades to find out what would work for you.

MAKING ASSIGNMENTS:

Next, setting up how to arrange who gets assigned to who. I personally use google spreadsheets. These are the categories I use, feel free to steal them: Username, medium (art, writing, amvs, ect), whether they’ll work with fan characters, what they’d like to receive, what they won’t do (one year I even added ‘if there’s anyone you won’t work with’ so if it’s a fandom with drama, that one might be good), who they’re gifting to, who they’re receiving from, if they’ve submitted their piece yet, if their piece is in the queue, and if they’re alright with doing backup.

I also had a category for if they’ve confirmed they’re still in once assignments were sent out. (Boy, was that one nerve-wracking during the whole tumblr purge debacle of last year- I didn’t know if anybody had just quit tumblr mid-month.)

You will run into people who only want two or three things nobody else wrote on their sheet. If you can’t find even one match, then just put them with someone who had a wide variety on theirs, or who doesn’t have anything on their ‘won’t do’ list. Trying to match with multiple likes is a better bet, though, so encouraging longer lists of what people want makes things easier for you in the long run!

I personally just went in a line- I picked one person, found who they would give a gift to, and then found who THAT person would give a gift to. Rinse and repeat down the list, and it’ll end with everyone paired. I ended up making a closed loop and then sorting the last 8 or so, which was fine. An easy way to check that you didn’t double-classify anyone is control-f and searching names. If their name pops up 3 times, you did it right.

SENDING OUT ASSIGNMENTS:

Just copy-pasting the part of the entry that includes the person’s name and their likes makes this way easier for you over trying to type them out individually. Ask for confirmation that people got their assignments so you don’t have to worry if they missed it.

HOW TO KEEP THINGS ORGANIZED:

My system is this: I’ve mentioned it before, but I utilize a combination of my spreadsheet and the queue function. Let’s say Sally’s making a gift for Jake, Jake’s making a gift for Taylor, and Taylor’s making a gift for Sally. Sally submits her piece of art for Jake. I mark that off on the sheet, so when Taylor submits the gift for Sally, that gift will go in the queue to be posted whenever the deadline is up because she turned hers in already.

This keeps people motivated to complete their parts of the trade, since they won’t get their gifts until they do. If someone drops out, tell the person making the gift for them- if you’re lucky, they can rework what they have for the person that the drop-out was supposed to make something for, but if not, bring in someone who didn’t mind making a second gift. Person making the gift for the dropout can choose if they want to continue making it or not- if it’s mostly done and not a fan-character, they can just post it on their own blog unrelated to the trade. 

It’s also a good idea to have a ‘hub’ where things are posted. If it’s a fic trade, ao3 has a function specifically for this, but I’ve found having things submitted directly to you makes it a million times easier to keep track of who’s finished their pieces, as well as keeping things ‘secret’ until the big day. (People have gotten confused or excited and posted early before.)

If people want to post elsewhere after it’s posted on the main hub, set your own rules- I say it’s fine as long as it links back to the blog and links the giftee, particularly if it involves fancharacters. You make your own judgement.  

BE PATIENT:

This is one that’s very important. Some people don’t check the FAQ, and some people are going to be new, asking questions that you swear you’ve answered before or thought would be obvious. They generally just want to know, so take a deep breath. They don’t know they’re the fifth person to ask that question. Answer politely, or steer them towards the FAQ. (Running the same event year after year, you run into this a lot- they’re just new, be nice!)

Don’t start an event that you expect to have plenty of people participating if you aren’t prepared to hear the same questions a couple of times. Things might get a little annoying- take a step back for a few minutes, cool off, but try to remain professional. You signed up for this. For me, it’s always worth it to see how happy people are about their gifts, but know yourself and your limits- running a themed week where people post art at their own pace is less hassle, so you could try that if you don’t feel up to organizing a full trade! 

If you can have a friend to bounce things off of, that can help too, but don’t use them as just a dumping ground. Tumblr allows multiple ‘mods’ on a blogs, so splitting work can make things easier, particularly if it’s your first run doing something like this. I had a friend who helped me the first few years before leaving tumblr. Be sure you trust the person, though! They’ll be able to edit posts and delete submissions, so if any drama happens, beware. (This never happened to me, but it doesn’t hurt to be careful.)

TAGGING:

Add tags to the submission box. I don’t know why this took me four years to think of, but it saved me a lot of time last year. If it’s a trade that covers an entire fandom and dozens of ships, you can add the shipping tags as they come in, but adding the ten or so most popular character tags helps a lot. If it’s going to involve potentially triggering content, common trigger tags are a good idea too. (A Halloween trade might need this, for example, or one that involves nsfw content.)

PEOPLE TURNING THINGS IN LAST MINUTE:

It’s going to happen. I think one year I was panicking on the 23rd because I only had half the gifts, and all but one had been turned in by the time I went to bed on the 24th. People procrastinate- if you get in most of the gifts ahead of time, you can thank your lucky stars. Try not to stress over it, but feel free to post reminders in the week before/days leading up to the deadline. My family travels around the holidays a lot, and I managed to get everything queued up properly through airport and hotel wifi more than one year, so you’ll be just fine if you try and stay calm.

OTHER/GENERAL:

It’s absolutely worth it, in my opinion- I’ve been doing this for years for a reason. My favorite thing is knowing I’ve done something that made others happy. Going through all the excited responses Christmas morning is equal or above getting presents from my family, because I know it’s on some level because of me facilitating the trade in the first place. I hear over and over this is something people look forward to, and it genuinely warms my heart. 

It might take a few years to get established, but if you find a niche (there was a blog called sonic secret santa, but it hadn’t been updated in years) you might be surprised how fast you can gather people! I like seeing people show up year after year, it’s how I know I’m doing something right.

It is definitely work, and there is stress involved, (especially if people drop out or don’t send in their gifts on time) but the benefits outweigh the negatives, I say. People are generally understanding if there’s a problem, as long as you make it known you’re working on it.

You have to commit to the responsibility if you do this- people who are making gifts are putting their trust in you that you’ll keep things organized and they’ll get something for the gift they’re giving. You can’t guarantee everything will run exactly as planned, but you can be as transparent as possible when you hit a bump- ‘I’m sorry, but your person said they’ll be late because they were having internet problems/personal life issues and is doing their best’ is going to get a lot better of a response than radio silence. Be sympathetic, but be firm on the rules if need be.

I hope this helped a bit, and thanks for reading!

[yourultraarchive]

Reply to @prurientpuddlejumper​ on this ask:

I’m sorry you’re frustrated or if I offended you somehow, but to be frank I don’t appreciate the tone you’re using here. However, to answer you anyway:

> they def meant the links to these alleged "online generators," because I am in the same boat as anon

First of all, unless you ARE that anon, I don’t think you can say they “def” meant anything, since they never came back to clarify, and I did try my best to answer them the first time, and I seemed to have helped since they didn’t come back to report any problems with my answer.

Second of all, “alleged”? That’s very rude. Just because you cannot see them on tumblr mobile, does not mean they do not exist. Plenty of other people have used them just fine, as evidenced by the many posts submitted to this blog. And as the last two people who’ve asked about mobile access before never came back with problems, I can only assume they simply went on the desktop site to use the generators instead of accusing me that it’s not accessible at all.

>  post after post about how you updated the UI or whatnot with no link to the thing you updated

It was only two posts (so far anyway), and if you read them closely, you may have noticed I said I was only working on new updates, that they weren’t done, and that they aren’t out yet. And also that “the current generators are still up” so that people have a fully functional version of the generator to use, even if it’s not as pretty as the update is going to be. So no, there is no “link to the thing I updated”, because it’s not done yet. And as the point of the post was about the updates-to-come, I saw no need to promote a link to the generators that are currently available. Seeing as you want that though, I shall go correct those posts and link it, for your and future readers’ convenience.

I apologize for the misunderstanding, if I wasn’t clear enough about the updates being a work-in-progress. I was just trying to update my actual followers (of which I noticed that you are not one) that I was working on stuff, since this blog is usually pretty quiet.

> I REALLY wanna see it, and am growing increasingly frustrated about how much work you're pouring into this *thing* without giving mobile users any way to *access it*.

Again, I’m sorry this is frustrating to you, and you do bring up some legitimate feedback about the mobile accessibility. As I mentioned, I’ve answered at least two asks about this issue before, but since it’s been a few years and phones have definitely gotten more powerful I can look into developing a proper mobile version. But a lot of issues come up with making a mobile version, namely UI and responsive design (because I’d have to account for both vertical and horizontal orientation, and again I reiterate that UI design is hard), dynamic coding/image generation/data input/font importing and styling/etc., and how to save the actual generated image or at the very least the export/import save data for later use on a desktop browser. It takes a lot of work (more than most people realize, I imagine), so if you would like to help with that, let me know, otherwise you have no right to shame me for not making a mobile version, taking my time, or doing any of this.

As it is, you can actually still access the generator on mobile, just not tumblr mobile. You just have to go to a browser on your phone (there’s a reason my URL is so simple). However, as mentioned above, the template was not designed��with mobile in mind, so all the fonts and effects and arrangement on the template itself just looks... not like it’s supposed to. Which, again, is part of the issue with the design, but at least you can access it on mobile, against your claims that you cannot.

Also, I mainly made this a desktop site because of how large the dimensions of the template are, in order to make sure the text is visible/legible even in the downsized preview image. Even when I view the template on my phone, I have to zoom in a lot, and with the current live version of the online generators, it would have made scrolling around to input data annoying. The PSDs, as well, would be inaccessible on mobile as far as I know (if Photoshop Mobile has improved enough to handle all the layers, masks, and effects, I’m unaware) so it was a conscious decision to make this whole thing desktop-only when I first started this blog several years ago.

> Even the "downloads" link you just shared just redirects back to this same page. Which is probably because you've hidden all the links away in "pages" which are completely invisible and inaccessible on the mobile app

It’s very much tumblr’s fault, and I really should have thought of that at first, but again, it was a conscious decision to make this a desktop site. Even if I made rebloggable/viewable posts with the links in them (which I plan to do soon, if only to satisfy mobile users like you), only the PSD download links would work (but again, not sure how well downloading PSDs work on mobile devices), as the tumblr app will still loop back to the blog, since the online generator is still one of those blog “pages”. And that is not changing for as long as I don’t have the time or money to host it on its own domain.

I can’t change the fact that tumblr mobile doesn’t automatically open blog pages in an external browser, so the only solution I can offer you is to take the extra step to copy the url and go into your mobile device’s actual internet browser, or just go to your browser and type in my URL manually.

If you actually couldn’t access the templates at all (which should not be an issue if you “REALLY wanna see it” given that not only did I offer you explanations and solutions for the tumblr app problem, but also that it IS accessible on desktop and you reasonably could have just gone on a computer) or had any other problem with them, I have made no stranger of myself and have always been open to help people. They have been polite or nice when they do talk to me, and I’ve always tried to be cordial in return. Your feedback is legitimate, and I appreciate it, but you really could have worded your implied suggestion a little better. And to be quite honest, I was offended by the rudeness of your reply, especially when you called my hard work a “*thing*”. Those asterisks imply a very negative tone, in case you weren’t aware.

I get the impression that you think that your demand will be fulfilled right away if you make enough fuss about it, but I’m not going to be manipulated or guilt-tripped because you feel bad. Maybe you don’t mean it that way, but you can “grow increasingly frustrated” all you want, because not only am I working on this for free, on my free time, and by myself, but I am also not doing this for you. You’re right that I am pouring a lot of work into this, as much work as any fan artist or fanfiction writer will put into their own works, and I’m very proud of it (both as it is now and what it will be in the future) and I have fun working on it, but this is not my job. And you’re not paying for a service.

I’m not working for anyone, and I have no reason to have made more than I originally did--originally I only made the student template PSDs for some friends, and the generator (which seems to be my most popular template, even though my original focus was on the PSDs) only came about because one of my friends didn’t have Photoshop. And I wasn’t even going to release either of them to the public, but I did, and the villain ones came over a year later because of this blog and the people who follow it. No one asked for a user interface update (in fact, more people have asked for a pro hero template), but I’m doing it anyway because I can and I want to. That’s all this boils down to. Also my free time (if you hadn’t noticed, everything on my blog runs on a queue, and when I do queue stuff it’s usually like 3am or so--including right now... it’s currently 5am actually) and motivation (I’m well aware of how few people actually use the templates compared to how many people follow and reblog the posts, and honestly it’s a little discouraging). So if I do make a mobile version, be aware that it won’t be coming out for a very long time. (Also, I think you’re the only one in several years who has complained about it, and you are literally 1 in... what, 3000+ people? Judging by the number of notes on the original post I made when I started the blog and my current number of followers. And again, you’re not even one of them. So to be honest, I’m really not motivated to work on this quickly.)

If you want it faster? Being nice when you show your interest helps, it’s how I got encouraged to make the villain templates. Though I never asked for much other than patience. Or at the very least, the respect any fandom content creator deserves--I may not be cranking out fanart daily or new chapters of a fanfiction weekly or anything, but I am still providing the fandom with something they can enjoy at no cost. And like reviews on fics or comments on art, many people have expressed that they’re grateful the templates and generators exist at all, unlike you, which is really the reason this blog continues to exist and the generators/templates to be updated with new and improved features. I could have just left my original template generator up there and abandoned it, but I know how it feels to find out a fanart you loved years ago was deleted or a really good fanfic was discontinued. So I’ll continue to work on it, and yes I’ll put mobile compatibility for the generators on my to-do list, but I’ll do it at my own pace.

Also I’m not making money off of this, but hey, if you wanna give me incentive that way, hop into my DMs or something and we’ll talk, but I’ve never asked for donations or anything and I don’t plan to. The generators and templates are free for use, and most of that is because of tumblr, which gave it a platform and a home. If I hosted it on its own domain, I’d need a means to pay for that, and I’m personally not invested enough to do that when tumblr is free and works well enough.

If you or anyone else wants to help change that, come talk to me, the ask box is always open.

Otherwise, please visit this blog page on a desktop browser or at the very least something that isn’t just the tumblr mobile app, because nothing can be done about mobile compatibility right now, and I’d hate for you to miss out on seeing the templates. Hopefully I can look forward to whatever you will create with it.

-archivist

[artificialqueens]

How To Motivate, Encourage, and Inspire Writers - A Masterpost

Hey guys! I am reposting this guide because it got mysteriously deleted. This version includes some new additions and advice for readers.

This is meant to be a guide to help people give valuable, inspiring feedback, as well as how to send in prompts and requests that are more likely to be used. Remember that these are simply suggestions designed to help YOU as a reader get more of what you want. <3

Please let me know if you have anything to add, as this post was a collaborative effort and it can only get better with more input.  

*

What Readers Can Do

1. Like and reblog the stories you enjoy. Fanfic authors don’t get paid. Their only “currency” is notes and feedback. Seeing the notes climb, as silly as it may seem, is a huge motivator to write more. If you are shy about using your main blog for this, you can always create a sideblog and reblog the fic you like there. Authors will notice this and it’s also a great record when you want to go back to fic that you enjoy!

2. Positive feedback! A simple “I love this” or “I can’t wait for more” is great if that’s all you have to say, as well as general writer appreciation, but even better...

3. Comment with specifics. What did you like about the story or writing style? You can talk about the plot itself, characterization, dialogue, the writer’s voice or sense of humor, how the story made you feel, what you’d like to see more of...anything, even the smallest detail, that made you enjoy reading it. Nothing is more motivating for a writer than knowing that their hard work is appreciated.

Some examples of great comments with places to fill in the blanks with specifics. Feel free to use all or part of these as templates when you want to send a comment but you’re not sure where to begin:

[Author Name] - your last fic was so [complimentary adjective]! You really [description of something they did well]. Can’t wait for your next [story/chapter].

[Author Name] - I love [Title] so much! I especially love [part you enjoyed].

I hope we get more of [Title] from [Author Name]. It is [complimentary adjective].

Just read [Title] and [exclamation]! I am [emotion or state of mind].

I really loved [Title] by [Author Name]! My favorite part was probably [specific impactful theme or moment in fic], because it really made me feel [emotional response].

I am [emotion or state of mind] over [Title] by [Author Name]. It was so [descriptive adjective] when [describe moment in story].

Some more examples of really great, detailed, inspiring comments.

4. Start an actual dialogue with an author. As mentioned above, reblogging with comments (even just in the tags) is great. You can also send asks directly to their blogs, DM them, or send additional asks when they respond. Authors may have questions for you, and being able to interact can easily spark something or help them find direction where they were stuck. You can find a list of authors’ sideblogs here if you want to send messages directly to them.

5. Direct requests and prompts to specific writers who you enjoy. Start with why you like them and then explain your idea or request. By doing that, they will start off knowing that they are appreciated, making them way more likely to get excited by your suggestion. Try to phrase things in an open-ended and positive way. “I’d love to see how you would handle [prompt situation/pairing/suggestion]” or “here’s an idea, I think you could do something really cool with it.” The more detailed and supportive your prompt is, the more likely it is that someone will get excited and inspired by it. If your request is for “more” of something that exists, include a reason why you like that story, author, etc. If your request is for something different, talk about something else you liked and why.

Examples of how to send in requests and prompts to specific writers, or include a compliment:

[Author Name(s)] is/are awesome and I would love for them to write more [ship or thing you love].

I would give anything for more [ship or request], especially if it’s similar to [Title(s)], they are my favorite!

I love [Author Name]’s style so much, and I’d be so happy if they wrote [ship/thing you want from them].

I wonder how [Author Name] or [Author Name] would handle [idea]? I would love to read that!

[Title] by [Author Name] is so [positive adjective]! It makes me really want them to try [idea] because I bet they would [motivating phrase like “kill it!”].

[Author Name] - have you ever considered writing [prompt]? [Motivating sentence like “I would die for that!”] 

I really love [ship], especially [story title(s)/author name(s)]. I would love to see one where [prompt].

6. Creating artwork, edits, moodboards, or anything inspired by a story you like. This is like, the PINNACLE for most writers. Knowing that someone connected to something you wrote enough to take time out of their day to create something inspired by your story. It’s like drugs. ART IS DRUGS PASS IT ON.

7. If you are a writer, comment on other writers’ stories! You know more than anyone how hard they worked, so please show your fellow authors some love.

Demotivators

1. Anything that sounds aggressive or demanding. You catch more flies with honey.

2. Complaining about the lack of a certain ship, ESPECIALLY if ANYTHING featuring that ship has been posted in the last month of so. Writers are reading these comments, especially if they have posted recently. Can you imagine how demoralizing it is to post a story and then 3 days later, read a comment bemoaning how there’s NOTHING from that ship, that ship is dead, etc? Like this, written about one of the most popular, enduring ships in the fandom with some of the most prolific, talented writers here:

Don’t be that anon. ^

3. Begging and whining, especially for something extremely vague - this sounds way less cute than you think, and reading something like “I will die if I don’t get more [ship]” is more annoying than inspiring. Especially if, as stated above, the thing you are dying over already exists.

4. Giving nothing at all. Most of the writers expect to at least see their work is noticed. If there are no responses at all, they can’t provide you with anything new. And worst case scenario, they lose the motivation to finish it because they think no one is interested.

Notes From Some Writers (and Readers!)

“I’m famously horrendously bad at abandoning fics but about 95% of my will to continue to keep writing is because I know other people are reading and interested that I keep writing, and I’m sure that’s how a lot of other writers operate too. We’re all fuelled by positive reinforcement, so please tell us! Oh, and btw, commenting just to get mad at lack of updates is not encouragement and is actually super irritating and stressful. Just so ya know.” - Edith

“Having an artist come to you and say ‘Hey, I was inspired by your story’ is FANTASTIC. And also encouraging because someone has taken time to create something and say ‘hey, I really liked the thing you made’. It becomes a cycle.” - Kitschy

“Take a look anywhere, on AQ or ao3 or any other platforms. You’ll see (on ao3), probably at most, 10:1 ratio for hits to kudos, alone. There are even less comments. On AQ, probably a 10:1 ratio for likes to reblogs, and the most popular fics only have a little over 100 notes period. Now, consider that it can take a writer months to be happy with a fic they submit. This takes countless hours. Fiction writers, in real life, get money for their work. We get nothing. Nothing, that is, except whatever appreciation you can give us. If we put work and our hearts and souls into something and get nothing, we question our talent, our abilities, our devotion. We refresh the pages where our works are posted constantly, hoping for some feedback, some appreciation, and most readers only read the fiction and give no feedback or appreciation whatsoever.

“All you, as a reader, have to do to make us happy is take 1 to fifteen minutes out of your day to leave a comment, send an ask, send a message to a sideblog. Leave commentary in the tags if you reblog. Any reaction at all. It is all we get for the work we put in.” - Miss Bianca

“My 2 cents I guess is just to get into a habit of acknowledging works that you like. Even for me I'll read stuff and really enjoy it but forget to comment or like it so I'm gonna work on it and I’d like everyone else do it as well. Once people get in the habit of commenting and liking it becomes second nature and with that kind of positive environment it allows writers to grow.” - MissChimKi

“Going back in time, my first work was posted two years ago, and the last comment I got was a huge thank you for writing such a good story and the emotions of that reader, it’s the kind of tiny little things that give me fuel to keep writing.” - Saiphl

“I once wrote 5000 words in a day simply because someone told me that they were reading my smut in church. So, extreme enthusiasm is awesome, but don’t feel like you have to exaggerate and say ‘this is the best thing I ever read.’ A simple ‘I am going to hell...I was in a church service reading Exposed chapter 9’ is more than enough!” - Veronica

“Something that motivates me as a writer is when readers pick out parts of my fic to say why they enjoyed them. Advice for readers would be to never think you’re complimenting too much! I’ve seen some readers cut their asks short because they don’t want to gush too much. As writers we love praise and attention, we’re like Tinkerbell really!” - Vixen

What It Can Feel Like To a Writer to Read the Asks (Inspired by @artificialeevee )

[disregardcanon]

A decade in fanfiction

The meme template was made by me myself and I! Please, if you’re interested go ahead and do it! I would love to see other people reflecting on their writing right along with me :) 

Where can we read your fic? Please give us a link so that we can check these stories out!

my early fics can be read on my ffn The Ficsmith 

on ao3, my pseuds are sunkelles and fullmetal anime

I also have lots of short things here on tumblr. i would try searching a favorite fandom of yours and au on my blog and something might pop up. 

How many words of fanfiction have you written this decade?

On ao3, I have posted  1,031,824 words. I would bet that I posted 40k on ffn before i started posting concurrently to my ao3, and that i’ve posted maybe 80k of stuff just to tumblr? If I estimate that way and don’t think about unfinished works and wips, I’d say 1,151,824 words thereabouts. 

How many stories have you written?

I’ve posted 338 stories to ao3. I am not going to go do the math to add on my stories from ffn as well. 

Have you written on multiple websites? If so, which website is your favorite and why?

ao3 is my favorite website for fic because it’s just so EASY to search through, post to, and get your stats from. plus it’s very visually appealing. 

Have you used multiple pen names? If so, list them and tell us the story behind the name

on ffn, i used a lot of pen names over the years, but i only remember 3 of them 

1. thee sun. this was my first pen name on the internet and it was because back then, my friends and i had series of nicknames going where we were each a part of the solar system. one of my friends suggested that i should be the sun because i was happy and bouncy and the friend group “orbited” around me. it wasn’t really accurate then or now, but sun ended up sticking. 

2. sunless skies was my emo change to that pseud 

3. the ficsmith is my current name there as i thought the word “wordsmith” was badass and decided that ficsmith sounded very, very cool 

on ao3, my primary pseud has always been ��sunkelles”. half of it’s the old nickname and half of it’s another nickname i won’t get into. it’s a very personal handle for me that i love dearly 

my second pseud is fullmetal anime, my anime pseud. fullmetal alchemist was one of my first anime when my old roommate got me onto my weeb phase in my twenties, and i thought that sounded too badass to pass up. 

What is the first story you posted this decade?

I Will Never Leave You Alone: this is a percy jackson fic set after the lost hero. It was my imaging of how the meeting in son of neptune might go if percy didn’t get his memories back. it’s bad, but it was my first attempt at fanfiction. i think that it could have been a lot worse. 

What is the last story that you posted this decade?

Not Willing to Wait for it: this is a tangled the series fic about cassandra. it’s not really my favorite thing i’ve ever written, but it’s not a terrible thing to end the decade on either. 

What is the longest story that you have wrote this decade?  

The Poetry of Time and Space: this is a pipabeth fic with annabeth as the doctor and piper mclean as rose tyler fic that i wrote back in 2013 at the urging of my first internet friend. coming in at 27,842 words, it’s the longest fic i have ever written. 

while i wouldn’t call it some of my best work, i’m still fairly proud of the thing. writing it helped me make a friend (even if we don’t keep in touch anymore), it helped me find some cool poetry, and i did a lot of fun historical research for it! 

i learned a loooottt about the history of spain for this fic and it was really cool. 

What is the shortest?

A Good Listener coming in at 192 words, this pipabeth fic is at the polar opposite end of the spectrum. 2013 was a wild year, my dudes. 

What’s your favorite?

I think that choosing a “favorite” would probably be too hard, but the one that I come back to the most is Over the Shadowy Hills. This fic could have been just good, but my friend was like. girl. you need to sort your shit out. and then i deleted it, worked on it with her help, and fixed it into something that i can still be really proud of. I’m glad that I decided to stick with it and give this fic the time and attention that it needed. 

What story do you feel was your biggest challenge?

I don’t have a fic in particular I would say is my biggest challenge, but one challenge has been the growing pains of becoming a better writer. I’ve moved into a point where I need to tell more thorough, longer stories, but I also don’t have the time needed to do that at the moment and my desire for instant validation is fighting against my desires to not do work and be a better writer. 

I know that right now I’m growing as a writer, but I’m not exactly sure what direction I’m growing in and how to deal with it. 

Which story was your most creative?

All Katz Go to Heaven is certainly an idea that no one but me would have come up with XD the premise is “all of hannibal’s victims from the show hannibal die and are reincarnated in brooklyn 99″ 

Which story do you think demonstrates the greatest growth?

I think that Paint a New Horizon demonstrates a lot of my progress as a writer. 

1. coming in at 23k, it’s one of my longest fics ever 

2. it has some of my best visual descriptions ever, as i decided to write sansa as a painter and it make visual descriptions a FAR bigger part of the story than they normally are when i write 

3. it handles dark subject matter, but i feel like i go into well. i’ve found myself dwelling in this universe a LOT, and i think that i might actually go back and write more of it over this next semester or summer because i just. like being in it. even though it was dark, it was also homey and lively and interesting, you know? 

4. it’s the best romance i’ve written this year, hands down. 

Here, have a snippet 

She dared a glance forward and met Margaery’s eyes- a deep, chocolate brown. They were warm and inviting and Margaery’s little curly bangs framed her face like a heart. Margaery’s head went over the back of the booth and it seemed to almost be floating against the flowery wallpaper. It looked like Margaery was lying out in a field of flowers- the Maiden gazing up at the clouds and trying to make shapes of them.

She could imagine Margaery telling her that this one is a flower, like Tyrell, and this one’s a deer, like Baratheon, and this one’s a dick, like Joffrey. She giggled nervously again and felt her cheeks flush. She’d never felt this giddy and unsteady in her whole life.

“Are you alright, Sansa?” Margaery asked cautiously. She reached across the table and laid a hand over Sansa’s own. The touch was warm and tender, and Sansa felt the blush from her toes to the tip of her head.

“I’m perfect!” Sansa nearly screeched. Margaery laughed at that, but her look was kind.

“Yes, darling,” she said with a smile that was wide and fond, “I think that you are.”

Lesbian. The word wasn’t supposed to fill her with such a warm, hopeful feeling, was it? She wiggled awkwardly in her chair, trying to get situated and stop feeling so silly and excited and vulnerable, but it didn’t fix anything. She felt Margaery’s leg brush against hers under the table. It sent a jolt through her.

Lesbian.

Sansa took a shaky breath. She thought to herself that there might be something to that.

Tell us about your writing process.

my writing process is quite frankly all over the board. sometimes, i’ll sit down and just hammer out a fic start to finish in one sitting, but when i don’t do that i’ll make the thing come together in patchwork. i’ll normally start with some vivid pieces of dialogue that i want to write and then i’ll figure out where i’m going and how. often, since i write in a nonlinear fashion i might end up having to change what i’ve written for the middle or the end, but when i get there and it doesn’t feel right for what i ended up writing, i always decide that i’m better off with what feels more natural. 

Tell us about how you come up with fic titles.

I have 3 different systems for determining fic tiles 

1. come up with a cool title to write a fic around. i wrote Chasing Annabeth solely because i thought that would be badass title 

2. try to find something external to the story, like a saying, a lyric or quote, that works with the message or mood of the story. for If You Believe in Me (I’ll Still Believe), I realized that both Memoria by Nirvana and Holland Road by Mumford and Sons shared a distinct feel with what I was doing with the fic, so I went through the lines of both and identified some possible titles. 

Then, I decided that the line “if you believe in me I’ll still believe” felt the most right. I thought that it best conveyed how much Jeyne believing that Theon could become better again contributed to him actually going through with it, whereas some of the other options didn’t have either the external influence or faint hope that I felt the fic deserved. 

3. find something from the fic itself or the source material! often times, i’ll end up with a motif in the fic that makes a perfect title, or i’ll have something to draw on from the source material. this feels different from the 2nd option because whereas that first one is going outside the world of the fic, this 3rd one is going inside the world of the fic. 

Have you ever used an epigraph? Tell us about your reasoning.

I use epigraphs for the same reason that I use outside sources for fic titles. While sometimes I have that lyric or quote in mind while I am writing the fic, like Washing Machine Heart, sometimes you get to the end of writing and realize that you’ve created something that would be enhanced if you were to have your readers mulling over the theme brought up in a song while they’re reading, like Unfinished Business. 

I don’t know, these are probably the reasons that ANYONE uses epigraphs, but it’s cool to see other people’s thought process. 

What are some of your favorite lines that you’ve ever written?

Here’s a few of my favorite exchanges from my older or more underrated fics!

She swallows the spit that has started to pool in her mouth and continues, "We'll all end up dying and meeting the void face to face and blah blah fucking blah, but the thing is that's tomorrow. This is today. You remember Thalia, so she matters. And you matter because you're alive. Your heart's still beating. You can still do shit. See shit. Be the shit. Annabeth Chase, you can still do anything."

Chasing Annabeth (2013)

Annabeth tsks as she laughs, “You’ve always got to steal the attention for yourself, don’t you?”

Piper laughs and then pretends to glare, “Borrow. I borrow things.”

“Borrowing BMWs is still frowned upon, my friend,” Annabeth says and then everything is back to normal. The future is forgotten, if only for a moment in the company of a friend.

The Fates Smiled (2014) 

“I guess,” Arya mutters, and she walks straight over to the trash. She pops the lid, and dumps the enormous plastic cock unceremoniously into it. Then she lets the lid close. She and Shireen look to the trash can in horror.

“Do you think that we should burn it?” Shireen asks.

She pauses a moment before she adds, “I’m afraid it’s going to attack us in our sleep.” Arya bursts out into laughter.

“I can hear the news anchors already,” Arya says, “women murdered in sleep by haunted dildo.” The Kids Are Alright (2015) 

"I think huckleberry just came out too," Maya stage-whispers back, "two gays for the price of one."

"Bi one get one free," Riley says with a shit-eating grin 

A Guide to Coming Out (2015) 

"Do I look like a man with a plan to you?" He tries to look as crazy as he can. Rachel isn't buying it. "You impersonated a member of the mayor's honor guard, you predetermined and informed us of every victim before you killed them. You're a planner, Joker. You're even a good one." The Joker shrugs. "I'm not a schemer, though. Don't hang my hat on whether or not things work out." In that moment, Rachel understands this man. Rachel understands why he does the things that he does, even though she thinks that he's the scum of the earth. "You wanted to let us know all our plans would fall apart. You wanted chaos." "You're a smart woman, Ms. Dawes," The Joker says, cracking a smile, "you know what I did to you and your boy toy was nothing personal. It was just to turn the schemer's plans on their toes.

The City of Bats and Clowns (2016) 

Zatanna crosses her arms over her chest as she leans against Bruce’s black SUV. The “parking lot” at this camp is a glorified field of grass. It rained last night, and there are muddy ruts left all throughout the field and little muddy puddles scattered everywhere. It’s disgusting and rundown and everywhere that Zatanna doesn’t want to spend three weeks of her summer.

“I don’t want to go to this stupid camp.” Endless Summer (2017) 

Rose feels a twist in her gut. This might be worse than finding out he wanted to desert. This is knowing the reasons behind it, having to see him as human in his mistakes and understand why he made them.

Oh how heroes fall and then stumble back up again.

The Spark That Will Light the Fire (2017)

Sloth is all the memories you have and never asked for, all the feelings you don't know what to do with.

Sloth is your feelings towards two boys who aren't your sons- can't be- because you never wanted them in the first place.

You never asked for this, to be born half-formed and hungry. To be born somewhere between not caring and caring too much, to just go along with what you were told because you don't care enough not to.

You never asked for those two boys to look at you the way they do, like you're something hideous and beautiful all at once. Like you're their sin to bury, their damsel to save. All you've ever wanted is for it all to stop.

The Seven Deadly Almost People (2018) 

What are you favorite characters to write. 

I don’t really have “favorite” characters to write because I bounce around so often. I’ll have a new favorite next year, but my favorite me character that I wrote THIS year was Dabi. 

Which story was the most fun to write.

Out of all the stories I’ve written, Dicks in the Wind comes to mind as being the most fun. The soulmate au where whatever your soulmate draws on their skin appearing on yours might not be my all time favorite, but the idea of spitefully drawing dicks on your own face to spite the soulmate who hurt you while also hurting yourself is both really fun but also really interesting? I really liked getting to explore the implications of that idea, the humor, Sabine’s relationship with Kanan, and the possibility of a reconciliation between her and Ketsu. 

If you use ao3, tell us about your fics with the most

Kudos: The Matter of Soulmates 1,049

Comments: Her Heart’s Duet 63 comment threads

Hits: Golden Cages, Silver Linings 15,272 hits

Subscriptions: The Matter of Soulmates 105 subscriptions

If you could have written one story this decade that you didn’t get around to, what would this have been?

There’s lot of fics that I wish I would have gotten written this decade. I think that if I could have written ONE fic that I didn’t get around to this decade, though, I would have turned my tucker turns ed into a chimera instead of nina tumblr post into a real fic. 

Do you write original fiction as well?

Sometimes! I don’t write it as much as I’d like, but I’ve written some short stories and I have some longer wips. 

Did you ever do nanowrimo this decade? If so, tell us about your projects.

I tried nanowrimo in both 2017 and 2018. My 2017 was a story idea about magic pirates. My 2018 was a story based on a fic idea I had where ed HAD created al like al thought he did in fma 03 for a while. it would feature prominent relationships with characters inspired by winry, wrath, and lust. both of these have about 15k to their name. 

What have you learned writing in the past decade?

I’ve learned a lot about myself as a person. For better or for worse, the easiest way to get to know me would be to go through my ao3 and just start reading. 

I also feel like I’ve learned that I CAN be a writer. While I have a long way to go if I ever want to become any good at original fiction and develop a thick enough skin to get it worked up to publishing shape, I know that I have the skills to at least give it a try.  If I don’t, I’ll always have these stories that I hold closely to my heart and this hobby that’s brought me a lot of joy. 

What are your writing goals going forward?

At the moment, I’m not entirely sure. I feel a little bit like I’ve stagnated and I need to figure out a way forward, but I’m not entirely sure what that way forward IS. I think that the way forward is longer projects (maybe even more original fiction) but I’m going to need to figure out a way to not devote all my mental energy to these projects at a time and also not let them wither and die. 

In the past, I’ve only been able to do proper, well written long fics when I had a LONG time to dedicate to getting the thing done. Like, days and days off that I could devote multiple hours to the writing project. In the future, I don’t think I’ll have that. I just need to find a way to not get SO into it that I can’t do anything else, but also maintain the energy and drive to keep coming back to it. 

Tell us about what aspect of your writing makes you the most proud.

I feel like I excel at word choice. People frequently comment on my fics that there’s something about the wording that just FLOWS, and I would have to agree. I feel like I’m good at choosing words that both sound good and hit emotionally. 

Tell us anything else that you’d like! This is your reflection post, so end on whatever bang you would like!

Thank you to everyone who has supported me over these past nine years! I haven’t been on tumblr for this whole time (i’ve only been here since 2012), but i grown a lot, both as a person and a writer, over this decade.

if you had told me when i wrote my first fanfiction that by the end of the decade i would write the order of the phoenix more than 5 times over in fanfiction, i would never have believed you. 

not every fic that i wrote was fantastic, but every fic that i wrote was MINE, and it’s a memory that i get to come back to when i’m feeling sad or lonely or like i can’t do something. so, thank you fanfiction, for always being there for me. even if you might be there for me a little too much XD

[leftoverbingo]

Leftover Bingo Rules & FAQ

Welcome to the Leftover Bingo

What do we do?

We take your old Bingo cards and mix and match all your unused squares into NEW Bingo Cards. Pretty simple, right?

How will the cards work?

You send us unfinished cards, marking off which squares you haven’t finished. If you have only a few squares, we’ll make you a small card. If you have a lot of squares you can choose the card size you want and we’ll randomize which squares you get.

During sign up, you’ll let us know if you want new squares to boot –

ie. If you have a number of squares that won’t easily translate into a card, you’ll have 3 choices:

A blank (which counts as filled in)

Free Space (fill as whatever you want)

New square (at the discretion of the card maker – we may ask you more questions if you go this route)

What if there’s a square on an old card I do NOT want to do?

No problem! Just tell us not to include it with the rest – or you can ask us to swap it out with something new/random.

Can I donate my Bingo Cards to this Event?

Absolutely - just fill out the sign up form like everyone else and we’ll contact you.

Can I adopt a donated Bingo Card?

Yes! If we have some available, you sure can. 

We will contact you after your sign up to discuss options as needed.

How does an Adopted Card work?

A card that is donated will most likely also be partially filled in, so depending on what is donated, we’ll make smaller cards out of them the same way as the rest and you can pick which one you like the best.

Can I post my card?

Go for it. As soon as you get your card, it’s yours.

What fandoms can we use for this bingo?

ANY – We’ll mark the fandom and/or ship as needed on the appropriate square along with the square's actual prompt, if you happen to play bingos from different fandoms.

Does the content have to be new?

Yes, though you can always add to pre-existing content if you’d like. I.e. A new chapter, or the next part of a series, etc.

May I combine multiple squares into one work?

 Nope. Each square fill should be a new creation. HOWEVER, if you have a multi chapter story, and different chapters can hit different squares – go for it!

What mediums can I use to fill a square?

Anything! Fic, Art, Moodboards – send us an ask or email us if you have something else you’d like to do. It doesn’t matter what the previous requirements were – this is an all new bingo!

Can I make NSFW content?

We will not limit the content you make, however you will need to be mindful of how you put it out there - remember that Tumblr’s guidelines for NSFW content (Specifically of the Visual variety like art/moodboards) is very strict. Links to the art and/or fic seem to work fine, so if you have a safe place to host the art/moodboards, posting on AO3 would work for us.

Warnings/Tags

Make sure to use the Archive Warnings (Aka: MCD/Major Character Death, Rape/Non Con, Underage, Major Depictions of Violence) and appropriately tag your work for anything that could be triggering when posting.

Will there be an AO3 collection or this?

Yes! Because it may be weird (especially if our requirements don’t match the previous bingo's requirements) to add to the other bingo’s collections after the fact, we are setting up our OWN collection – you can always link to/mention the other bingo if you like to say “Inspired to finish up this card from X bingo” or whatever you want.

Minimum Fill Requirements 

Fic – 500 words

Art - decent enough viewing size – 300 x 300 pxls minimum

Moodboards – minimum of 4 images

Can I combine this with another event?

Sure – as long as the event in question also allows it.

What Counts as a Bingo?

You probably already know this, having bingo cards to spare, but anyway:

A straight, unbroken line vertically, diagonally or horizontally across your bingo card counts as a BINGO.

All the squares on your bingo card filled in counts as a BLACKOUT.

Fill as few or as many squares as you like; we can rinse and repeat your card in the next round if you need it. :D

 POSTING Template: (but not limited to)

     Title

     Fandom

     Ship

     Rating

     Warnings, if relevant 

     Square Filled

When posting on Tumblr, make sure to tag the blog in your post (actual post, not the tumblr tags. I will never find them) so we can reblog it during the event. If it’s been a week and you haven’t seen it get reblogged, please poke us. Cause Tumblr sucks.

Other:

Remember to be respectful of each other. The nature of this event will mean the colliding of different fandoms and different ships.

Got questions? 

Email Leftoverbingo@gmail.com or send us an ask.

[noplotnostory]

Test to see if I still can...

A NSFWednesday Monsters in Mythology

So, I’m working on my first ever skelesmut, and I wanted to make sure that the proper skeledick was used in this fic. I ended up going with the most common type of skeledick utilized in UnderTale skelesmut, but this was still a fun topic, so here’s a Monsters in Mythology about it.

Now the reason why this is a Monsters in Mythology instead of a normal NSFWednesday post is actually related to a prior Monsters in Mythology about my favored theory on the nature/origins of the skelebros. Specifically, that they are, in fact, spartae. Or spartoi. Again, the spelling varies from source to source...

But the point is that they are identified as both men and skeletons. Literary sources lean more towards the “man” thing, but visual depictions of spartae/oi are almost always skeletal.

Now this could be because Ancient Greek storytellers had a bit of a bias regarding the “default state of being” as Overly Sarcastic Productions points out in her Trope Talk video about Manly Men (the relevant information here being that much like “white straight male” has been considered the default character template for much of Western Literary History, the default character template in much of Ancient Greek literature was usually “Greek bisexual male”), so describing the spartae/oi as “men” might have been an assumption, especially after they demonstrated aptitude in combat, participated in the founding of a city and began to breed with humans.

Or it could mean they had visible genitalia.

I mean, both skelebros have features that make them clearly not-human-skeletons, so why not?

There’s even precedent for this in animal biology. I didn’t actually know about this until I stumbled upon an article on Cracked.com titled “5 Ways Evolution Designed Your Body To Be Awesome At Sex” and read the final item on the list. Apparently, most male mammals actually have a bone in their penis known as the baculum (have fun writing Sans pun with that), and since there’s a significant amount of monsters with animal features and quite a few have sort of mix-and-matched features, we can’t rule out the possibility of the skelebros having some skeletal features that resemble other species more than the human skeleton. Since this bone basically makes it impossible to not have a boner (unless magic skeleboners can move? Somehow? I’m no expert on this, I’m just trying to get people thinking about all the options) it does make how clothes fit a little questionable, but they were already skeletons so Sans clearly is wearing a belt or has a drawstring or elastic band in his shorts if he’s not actively using gravity magic to hold them up? Whatever. How skeletons wear clothes is a subject I just don’t feel ready to tackle in depth.

Moving away from the “All Bone” possibilities but not quite entering the “ectojunk” category yet...ok, I’ll level with you, the basic idea of this post and several links for reference (which have been supplied thus far, as I believe in providing sources) have been sitting in my drafts for a while. As a result, there are currently two reasons why this section isn’t happening the way I was hoping it would.

Reason One: The Tumblr Purge.

While text posts are still allowed (maybe?), fanart blogs have taken a hit and some have been removed entirely. This includes a blog that had gone by the URL “rexphilia”. I had only discovered this blog and it’s fanart shortly before I even heard about the then-upcoming purge and gotten sick almost immediately after. Between my preoccupation with my own posts, the ongoing conflict between myself and the dreaded season known as winter, and the fact that I had known about this blog and had gathered (now useless) links to include in this post for less than a day before setting this whole thing aside in my drafts to focus on other things, I have no clue where to find this artist, now and therefore am unable link anything to credit them or provide screenshots for reference. Best I can do is provide the name I know them by (rexphilia) and describe what I can remember about their fanart. Which is, coincidentally enough, the thing that I wanted to reference in this post to begin with: Their skeledick design.

Rexphilia’s depiction of skeledick (both Papyrus’s and Sans’s) was black with white rib-like ridges that kind of remind me of the rib-like decor on the jacket of Ghost Lewis from Mystery Skulls Animated know that I’m actually reading that description and was that the inspiration for the design? Was Rexphilia a fan of MSA? Or am I remembering the placement/shape of the ridges wrong because I watched a video reviewing MSA earlier today? OH, CHEESE, I DO NOT WANT TO THINK ABOUT LEWIS’S GHOST DICK! NEXT PARAGRAPH! NEXT PARAGRAPH!

Reason Two: My memory capacity (or lack thereof).

Ok, so I could have sworn for the longest time that I had at one point read a fic where Sans had a black skeledick, sans the white stuff. I also could have sworn for the longest time that the fic in question was puppehgal’s oneshot “The After Show”. But rereading that fic’s description of skeledick leaves me...conflicted... Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a very interesting and unique depiction of skeledick (and skelebro anatomy in general) and the fic itself is still something I would readily recommend to fellow fans of Sans/Reader smut, despite not being tagged as such (it’s told through the perspective of an “Anonymous Human Female” who is referred to in the second person throughout), but this particular skeledick could be interpreted as a visually distinct variation of ectodick instead of a permadick, depending on how much control Sans has over that magical webbing. Since this is a oneshot of what is tagged as a One Night Stand, neither the human character experiencing all this nor the readers enjoying the written version have the context to know either way.

If everything had gone as planned, the Non-Bone Permadick section would have contained an accurate description of rexphilia’s depictions, links to fanart containing said depictions, and a linked mention of “The After Show” that isn’t wishy-washy on whether or not the skeledick presented in said fic is, in fact, a permanent feature of Sans’s anatomy. It would have been glorious.

Now for the fandom’s most prevalent version of skeledick: Ectogenitalia.

I’m not going to bother linking anything because there are so many fanfics and fanart with this particular type of skeledick, it would be kind of pointless. You probably know what I’m talking about, anyways, if you’re reading this post.

There’s a reason this option is the most popular: Depending on your personal interpretation, ectojunk can be a free pass to give the skelebros any type of genitalia their partner (or the content creator) desires. If ectojunk is naturally customizable and the skelebro attached to and/or summoning said ectojunk has sufficient control over his magic in intimate situations, he can have male parts, female parts, change the size and shape of said parts, move or alter said parts while maintaining a position or motion in which the movement or alteration of said parts would probably catch someone off-guard, and possibly, maybe, depending on who you ask, be detachable for long-distance use.

Unless you just want to experiment with other headcanons or aesthetics, color seems to be the only potential problem.

In most depictions, Papyrus’s ectowhatever is always orange and Sans’s is always blue, because these color schemes are the Commonly Accepted Fanon, but there are people who have other theories on what color the magic forming the skeledick ought to be.

This is totally fine. My dear friend @popatochisssp is one of those people and her smut is so delicious that I’ve praised it in three different NSFWednesdays and her reasoning for the magic color she uses totally fits with her headcanons concerning the skelebros and her portrayals of them in said fics.

But people that aren’t decided on their headcanons on what the color should be are left with uncertainty. Since I’m one of those people, I guess I’ll just avoid mentioning the color completely.

@ladyarkytiorofdunans

[miazeklos]

Hey, I love your blog and your fics! I'm a huge fan of your writing and your stories

Hey! Thank you, Anon, glad you’re enjoying them! ^.^ There are indeed many ships to be taken into account and that does make sense, so here it goes. All the ship names are censored through the bright idea of using Cyrillic letters haphazardly so that this post doesn’t look like a coded message and the censoring isn’t obvious.

That’s the template:

NOTP: I don’t really think I have one, tbh? Alec/any woman makes me uncomfortable, though.

no thanks: See above. Unless someone is being particularly creative with the weirdness, I can’t think of one.

wouldn’t read a fic about it: full disclosure; I’ve barely read anything at all recently. There’s just so much going on constantly and. yeah. But there are plenty of ships in this fandom I don’t ever really seek out fic for, to be honest.

overrated: I’m Not Going There, but really, all of the big three get a whole lot of attention - which makes sense, they’re the big three - and sometimes there’s just… not much basis for it.

kinda leaves me indifferent?: Sizzу. I like them as friends, but what we’ve seen so far on the show hasn’t given me much to stand on for this ship.

BROTP: The Lightwood trio are the ultimate one for this category, let’s be real. Also Alec/Clary has potential in the times when, you know, neither of them is dying, presumed dead, or mad because Things Are Happening To Jace And You Did This.

dunno: Based purely on the fact that I never know where I stand on it but do really love the relationship, Jace/Izzy.

no homo: as if

meh: Synonymous with the indifferent category, really.

not really my thing: Clacе, probably? I do enjoy it from time to time but I can count the times I’ve actually invested myself in the relationship on the fingers of one hand.

OT3: Маlace and Неronlightstar for sure. There are a few other combinations here, but these are the ones that actually shine for me.

why not: That’s pretty much me @ the majority of the ships in this fandom. I’m willing to try almost anything.

would read a fic about it: Sарhael probably works for this one. I’ve even written fic about it and don’t often go through the tags purposefully, but I have and I would.

underrated: Sеbjacе and Jаgnus. There’s so much going on with them and the only thing stopping me from saying that it deserves more attention is that if it does get that attention, it’ll inevitably end up in The Discourse somehow.

I’m curious, can I know more?: Again, most ships for this one. Gаrrobаne is a big one, though; I haven’t invested in it much but would like to do so in the future.

OTP: Lightstаr. Don’t @ me. It’s a good ship and it deserves it all. Also Сlimon, for the same reasons.

I SHIP IT: Jаgnus fits this amount of passion well, haha. I need so much more of it.

reads fics about it: Actively? Jаlec, Lightstаr, Malacе, Sebjасе, the occasional Malес.

CUTENESS OVERLOAD: You know, now that this has been brought up, I’m not sure if I could sincerely describe any ship on this show, canon or not, as cute. Сlizzy have their moments, if rare, and so do Сlacе аnd Mаlec, but again, rare.Important edit: СLIMON, how could I forget Climоn.

we need more of it: Jаgnus and Jаia and also Lightstаr. Please I just want these characters to interact in absolutely any way possible regardless of the circumstances how much would this take I’m

the sexiest pair: Not to be obnoxiously bisexual all over this post, but this show consists solely of ridiculously attractive people. I couldn’t possibly choose.

the best OTP of all the OTPs / hELL YES / Soulmates / I WOULD DIE FOR IT OKAY: These are all Jаlec I’m s orry but I’m weak-willed and also trash. But yeah, this is it. The biggest ship. Always has been.

Thank you for the question! It was really fun to do. ;D

[sarah--writes-blog]

Keith’s Galra Biology

Anon: (1/?)What kind of huge changes do u think keef will hafta get used to after he goes full galra? (I was reading your trio about it and wanted to know more ^_^)Personally, I think the eyes would be a big one...Like he can't see that well in normal lighting but when it's dark he has vision like a hawk! And then the ears too! Like he's more prone to motion sickness and the mice's squeaks make more sense...Then there's the problem of claws accidentally scratching everything and feet he's not used to!

(2/?) then there's the possibility of a tail, and getting used to that thing moving around and doesn't know control, and fur would be hard to live with when ur used ta plain skin!Especially when u hafta wear clothes over it and what if since his blood is different then it hurts his human heart? Argh so many angsty ideas!!! .·´¯`(^▽^)´¯`·. Another thing... you mentioned, allergies... Can you imagine if he was allergic to his own fur? Then that'd be terrible until he wasn't human at all anymore...

(3/3) so many things! Well sorry for nothing you! The post wanted anima so here I came to talk about sick fics ヽ❨｡^▽^｡❩┘

(cracks knuckles)

We have much to discuss.

I’m assuming when you said the trio, you meant Being Galra: Without You, Teeth and Diet. I have nine more pieces planned out for this series, and I wouldn’t hesitate to add more if the muse strikes me. I’m not gonna tell you what each of them is gonna be, but I will tell you that you hit the nail on the head in your first ask, and I will tell you that the next one is titled “Ears”. It just kept getting put on the back burner because I had requests I wanted to fill, and Being Galra was much more for me than anyone else so it could wait.

The thing about me is that I’m a selective perfectionist. Stuff that interests me and that I’m doing has to be perfect because that’s apparently who I am. And it kind of sucks. But in this context, it’s perfect, because I love Keith, I love biology, and I love fantasy/sci-fi creatures. Imma go down your list one by one Anon, we’re gonna have a grand ol’ time. This post is almost 2000 words long, you asked for it.

We’re gonna talk about the shit we know about Galra biology first. And by know, I mean what we can see.

Eyes. Absolutely, if Galra have night vision, his daylight vision would be much worse. And I’d believe Galra to have night vision to be somewhat canon, because of how goddamn dark all their ships are. Alternatively, since all their shit is purple, they could be seeing a different spectrum than we are (towards violet and ultraviolet). If Keith were to have that, he’d potentially lose some of his infrared and red vision if the size of the spectrum is the same. His suit and lion would be gray to him. I also like to consider the advanced biology option, where Galra are just more evolved and are better than humans in most ways. So he could have 20/20 day and night vision and see past the visible spectrum. But since he’s transforming and the human eye is the most complicated thing ever, any sort of change would probably warp his vision somewhat, making it worse than normal human and normal Galra vision. He’d probably end up with some form of astigmatism and have to wear glasses (can someone art that? I would like that to be art’ed).

Ears. Gotta give you props on this one for being more prone to motion sickness, I hadn’t considered that (me, a sickfic blog, go figure). I might wiggle that into the next piece if you don’t mind. I don’t think the mice’s squeaks would make more sense since they squeak in Altean? Mouse Altean? But they’d at least be a lot louder. I’m more worried about him and the ship. BIG-ASS SHIPS MAKE BIG-ASS NOISES. Maybe the other paladins would tune it out or get used to it, but he’d hear every little gear and crank moving in the vicinity. Not to mention, whenever an actually loud noise happens, his ear drum would have the potential of being completely shot. Again, he’d probably hear into the higher and lower spectrum. Something else to consider: ear muscles. We all like it when his ear twitches or moves to express his emotions, those new muscles would get sore fast. I remember learning to wiggle my ears, and they hurt.

Claws. Could we even call them claws? Maybe just nails? They wouldn’t come in with the initial transformation. They’d grow in afterward just with his nails. His nails would get thicker and thicker, and since I really doubt they have nail trimmers on board, he wouldn’t have any decent means to cut them without getting hella hangnails (and I personally headcanon Keith as doing anything he can to avoid hangnails because that shit hurts). So he’d let them grow. If they grow with him, he’d be able to adjust, and probably not scratch up things as much as he would if they were suddenly just there. It’s just like growing your own nails out, you get used to them as you go. This implies something interesting, though - nails are made of the same stuff hair is. This doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll correlate, but Keith’s hair could potentially be much thicker/rougher. Again, this would happen over time because his hair doesn’t just fall out.

Which brings us to Skin/Hair/Fur. This is the last thing we really know about, and we don’t even know all that much. There’s a lot of variation on Galra skin/hair/fur, etc. Ulaz has a lot less hair/fur than Thace or Kolivan, but that could be a personal preference of his. But he also has these white markings. The white markings could also be part of a Marmora thing, since Kolivan has them, and Thace wouldn’t because he’s a spy. But Ulaz also doesn’t have fluffy ears like Kolivan or Thace. There is no cookie-cutter Galra skin and hair/fur template that we could apply to Keith. But we see across the board that they have both. There’s a clear line on every Galra where the hairline begins. So Keith wouldn’t necessarily be sprouting fur everywhere, but he could certainly get a lot more when he already has it (interpret that however you like). Would he be allergic to this hair? Potentially. There are some instances where the body rebels against its own cells, and that would make life a living nightmare for him. Unless Coran has some wild antihistamines, he’s in for a bad time if he’s allergic to the fur. His skin might turn a shade of purple, and I personally like to think that different Galras have different shades of purple like humans have different shades of flesh color. He would probably lean towards a lighter purple because of the paleness of his skin in the first place. He might also adopt some white markings because he’s part of the Blades (which is also a thing I want to be art’ed). But the thing about skin is that your top layer is completely dead. He’d turn purple after a week or so, or he’d get incredibly itchy and exfoliate it all off in the shower at once.

So here’s Part 2. What we don’t know. And that can be more fun and more infuriating at the same time.

Tail. The only Galra we see with a tail is Antok, and we don’t even really see him. For all we know, he’s not Galra, and he’s just like Keith - a different species with a splash of Galra blood in him to awaken his blade. As fun as a tail would be, I don’t think that would happen. It’s not a staple of Galra biology that we’ve seen so far. But honestly? Give him a tail, I love that shit.

Feet. FEET HAVE BEEN BUGGING ME EVER SINCE S2E8. The suits on the Blades have room for what we could assume would be toe-claws, but the suits also have very decorative pieces all around - the eyepieces, the hoods, the boob-plates. Zarkon’s suit doesn’t have them. But Sendak’s suit looks like he might. Could it be a Blades thing to have room for claws for decoration? Sure. But I’d be willing to bet they have freaky Galra feet under there and I wanna see them bad. Maybe some Jurassic Park velociraptor shit, I’d really love that. That might necessitate a tail for balance, and would help explain Ulaz’s speed when we first meet him on the castleship. If Keith were to adopt these hypothetical feet, his bones would have to shatter and reform, or something like that. Do you remember that version of The Little Mermaid where it felt like every step was walking on glass? Talk to me about The Little Galra.

Allergies. The only one that I can think of that we can pull from canon is lactose. If we assume that Keith has some sort of Asian heritage (not really a lot of evidence except his name), and we assume that the Galra are very similar to our earth cats (again, not much evidence except the teeth and the fur), he’d have a really hard time with milk and other lactose products. But this is all assumption, so it goes in the unknown category. I’ve definitely played with the idea, I think it’s great, but there’s not a lot of things to back it up with. But if the Galra race as a whole can’t tolerate a certain material, it’s likely that would carry over as well. Keith may already have some allergies he has to manage. But consider the idea: Galras being allergic to humans somehow.

Other Internal Stuff. You mentioned blood, which is REALLY FASCINATING. Because bad shit happens when blood isn’t compatible. Even within human standards, the wrong type of blood in a transfusion can kill you. And I imagine Galra blood doesn’t abide by A/B/AB/O +/- rules. So I’d say the reverse of your idea might be true. His heart may physically change, but his blood may stay the same because otherwise blood changing types inside of him would kill him. Other internal organs, I’d LOVE to know about, but we haven’t seen any Galra sliced up and examined, and I don’t think we will. But any shift in any organ would be absolutely hellish to experience for our poor Keith. The same goes for bones and muscle. How dense is Galra bone? Do they have the same muscles as we do?

Other things I love to consider because I’m a HUGE NERD

Evolution of Galra. They’re clearly an advanced lifeform, I can only assume they evolved similarly to us from tiny microbes.

On that note, could they not be a carbon-based life form? They could be silicon-based, or any other element-based. In that case, Keith is FUCKED.

The sheer amount of food Keith would have to eat to keep up with this transformation, especially if he’s growing a tail and weird feet.

He really wouldn’t adopt any Galra mannerisms without being around Galra 24/7. In fact, he might stay away from those because he wants to prove he’s still human and part of the team in all that shit.

It’s very rare for species to be able to cross-breed and have a non-deformed child, much less an alien having enough human biology to birth a human child, assuming his mother was Galra and procreated by human means. That can link back to the evolution and the carbon-based life form thoughts. Legitimately tell me about Keith’s birth, I wanna know exactly what went down in that hospital room.

Galra genitalia, anyone? Keith would probably be infertile, no matter what junk he ends up with.

Brain rewiring for ANY of the traits mentioned above. New tail? Rewire. New ears and eyes? Rewire. If he has weird feet, he may have to learn to walk again.

Conclusion

This is why you don’t ask me about Galra Keith. You get about 2000 words at 1 am. I didn’t expect to write this much about one topic in one ask, but I had a hell of a time.

I totally left out some stuff that needs to be put into consideration. I actually purposefully left some thoughts out because I’m putting it in Being Galra. Is Being Galra going to be as comprehensive as this? Absolutely not, I just wanna put Keith in interesting situations.

Thank you for theorizing with me! If anyone else wants to yell with me about any of these topics or a topic I didn’t mention, please do!