#I thinkI i

[classic-coquette8495]

Me waiting for him to reply -`♡´-

[twams]

[ao3commentoftheday]

the stats spiral

That's what I call it when I start obsessing over the numbers I get on fics or posts. When I refresh AO3 every five or ten minutes to see if I've got more hits or kudos. When I keep my tumblr activity page open in a tab to see new notes as soon as they come in.

It's not fun. Not really. Even when I sometimes tell myself it is.

You see, it starts out exciting! I've put a thing out there and now I get to see the reactions to it! I'm like a kid on their birthday who can't wait to see their presents. What are people going to say? Will they like it? Will they talk to me about it?

I'm lucky enough that I do get notes on tumblr posts and I do get comments and kudos when I post on AO3. But depending on how excited I am about the thing that I made and depending on how uncertain I am of whether it's any good, I want to get a lot more attention than I end up getting.

I know that that's a normal feeling. I know it's even a rational one! I've put a lot of effort into making something, or I've made something that I think my community will like, and not hearing back like I'd hoped can sometimes feel like rejection. It can be a huge disappointment that makes me doubt myself, my abilities, my connection to my community.

That's why I say it's not fun. Because even though 'engagement' can give me a really high high, it can also give me a really low low.

When I finally realize I'm in one of those lows (and it sometimes takes me a while to realize that I am), that's when I know that I need to step away.

When it's really bad, I just stop posting until I'm in a better mental space. For me, I now recognize that those feelings are often coming from me wanting a connection of some kind. The need for attention is coming from a feeling of loneliness or isolation, and so I need to counteract that by reaching out to people I know and care about to have a chat or a meal or just some time spent doing something communal.

When I can catch it early, then I force myself to close the activity tab here on tumblr and hide whatever stats are making me spiral on AO3. I've learned to recognize that I'm looking to those metrics as a way to feel important or special or cared for in some way and that I need to figure out where I'm feeling insecure in my life and how to get some reassurance - because strangers on the internet won't be able to give me what I need.

If you're currently spiraling, first of all lemme give you a hug ❤️ I hope you can take some time and figure out what it is that you want those stats to tell you about yourself or what it is that you think those stats will give you that you're not getting from somewhere else.

And if you haven't heard it lately, I'm glad that you're in this world - no matter what kind of numbers you have on your posts.

[pinkysberg]

y'all piss me off. "i love mel but" "mel is beautiful but" and then they rehash the basics of her character without a modicum of time spent actually thinking about her actions or having a degree of empathy for her in the way they seem to for other characters.

i'll explode every one w my mind who dares utter the idea that mel didn't care for or love jayce. and here i naively thought that we love ship dynamics where one person gets involved for personal gain only to actually fall for them.

yes, mel uses jayce. yes, mel also loved jayce. that becomes very evident when she confronts her mother in his defence, or when she takes of her family insignia to support him, when she attempts to keep hextech out of the zaun invasion for his sake. she is immediately concerned over him despite her own circumstances when returning to piltover after being magically kidnapped by mages. what is she gaining here other than merely showing jayce she supports him, even when it DOESN'T benefit her.

ambessa medarda would upend the world for her children, and i stand on that. imperfect as she is, she loves her kids. she uses mel. she uses her politically, and she clearly had full intent to use her as a weapon. mel has been primed her entire adolescence to be "the fox" and she does it WELL. to the point it is inherent to her arcane persuasion.

mel is living under insurmountable expectation. the only kind word that we see her mother speak to her aside from "you're alive!" is literally said after mel has killed her.

and this fandom waters her down to jezebel, temptress, "i love her but-" ENOUGH. you're weak. i love mel because she manipulated jayce, what now? i loved mel before she had the cognizance that she was mistreating jayce. AND WHAT?

jinx gets to do terrorism and viktor gets to do cosmic eugenics and it's aaall okay but let my beautiful black queen model the behaviours of those who raised her and suddenly it's a problem.

[purpleminte]

Not me getting secondhand anxiety looking at the absolute chaos of this hypothetical discord user’s life based on these messages-

This person is apparently

• Travelling internationally likely very soon

• Currently having homework for an active biology class

• At least somewhat present in the moderation of a server

• Actively involved in competitive sports

• Has an engagement or event currently planned (that is understandably being ignored)

Maybe I’m lazy or something but this is enough to make me curl up and die

[obsob]

despite, despite, despite!!

[tarysande]

The best part about coming back to the source material after a looooong time is you sorta get a fresh look at canon in comparison to whatever the dominant strains of fanon have become. Or, in fact, whatever your own dominant strains of headcanon have become.

I mean, yes, Garrus “I’m not a good turian” Vakarian gets infinitely cooler (and more competent!) by pretty much every metric as the storyline progresses. He does. But fresh out of ME1 and into ME2 through his recruitment, I find myself genuinely amused by how thin the veneer of badass is over a pretty dominant core of straight-up nerd sprinkled with idealism mixed with self-doubt.

When you have Garrus in the squad all the time (and thus get all his ambient dialogue and remarks), you really pick up on the number of times he calls out bad behavior, unethical actions, cruelty, and rule-breaking, especially in ME1.

He’s not actually a hothead who can’t abide rules of any kind. In fact, most of the time he’s pretty pro-law-and-order, and he gets amusingly hall-monitorish when people are breaking rules he considers important and worth following.

Fundamentally, Garrus chafes when his sense of what is just is at odds with what the authorities do about that injustice (or what they stop him from doing). And I would hazard a guess that the reason his actions seem so intense or harsh or "of course we should have shot down that ship in the middle of the Citadel" is indicative not of his impatience but of the degree to which he thinks the authorities have failed to uphold that justice. We know he can be patient. He's a sniper. His whole modus operandi on Omega is precision kills without civilian casualty. But when that long fuse finally burns down, he goes from zero to shooting down ships in the middle of the Citadel in what looks (from the outside) like a heartbeat.

And yes, injured pride hastens the burning of that fuse; he doesn’t like losing. Or admitting defeat. Or failing.

Having just replayed his recruitment mission, a few things really stood out to me this time.

The merc bands really hate him--and they also reluctantly admire him (he's described as smart, resourceful, dangerous, idealistic, brave, slippery; they all agree they only way they managed to get this far is by isolating him and employing dirty tactics). I mean, there's literally a station-wide announcement that Omega can return to "business as usual" once Archangel is out of the picture because he was disrupting things so completely.

The way Garrus blames himself for the deaths of his squad is so freaking turian. Failure reflects on the leader who places his people in danger they can't handle, not the individual who fails. Heavy is the head that wears the crown. Yes, Sidonis betrayed him, but the person Garrus blames the most? Is himself. For trusting Sidonis in the first place. For raising Sidonis to a position where he had the means and opportunity to harm others--and the weakness of character to turn coat, to save his own hide, instead of dying to protect the others.

Garrus mentions more than once that he was trying to emulate Shepard. And his tone always implies that he knows he failed because Shepard would never have let a Sidonis into the fold. Again, he's blaming himself. Like a good turian. Yes, he wanted to avoid the red tape and bureaucracy of C-Sec, but his code--Archangel's code--certainly aligns with Paragon Shepard's morality (with a Garrus Vakarian twist).

And since it wouldn't be meta without adding a Tara's Headcanon Twist ... I've always wondered why "Archangel" when it's such a ... human concept. But this time, when I noticed how he spoke about Shepard's influence, and how quickly he brushes aside the name when she asks him about it, I wondered if it wasn't actually his way of honoring the mythology of the dead woman whose example he was trying to follow. Not that Shepard is a God he's worshiping, but ... there is something about the way he talks about her. Garrus doesn't make himself over in the image of a God, though; he's the soldier, the right hand, the avenging angel responsible for carrying out divine punishments suited and proportional to the crimes committed, the rules broken, the selfishness or cruelty of the perpetrator.

[mothscotch]

hey uh no one made an offtober prompt thing yet so here

feel free to @ me if you use it :3

[impsandstars]

Blitz saving Stolas’s life.

I think Stolas is beginning to understand the depth of Blitz’s feelings for him (since Blitz STILL hasn't said anything aloud like Stolas has) when he saves him from Andrealphus. .

It’s important to remember that the last time these two have talked with one another was during Apology Tour, where we get this exchange between them. Stolas is being sarcastic but Blitz (who was lashing out here because he’s terrified of losing Stolas and doesn’t feel he deserves him so he pushes him away) confirms that yes, Stolas doesn’t need anyone to save him because he is a powerful Goetia. So Stolas believes (and I’m speculating here) that Blitz wouldn’t go to any lengths to save him. Not for him. Not now.

Let’s go back to the first instance that Blitz saves Stolas’s life (technically, if you squint, Blitz saved his life the very first time at Loo Loo Land but we the audience know that Stolas was never really in any danger to begin with so I don't count it).

Blitz interrupts Striker, poised and ready with a genuine carmine sniper rifle, who is about to kill Stolas at the Harvest Moon Festival. After that episode I believe many speculated whether Blitz actually told Stolas or not but we got confirmation that he did not in Apology Tour, meaning that Stolas did not know that Blitz had risked his life to save him. Stolas here is more focused on the fact that Blitz didn't tell him after the first attempt (plus is angry at Blitz right now for everything that went down during Full Moon) than he is about the fact that he saved his life. He sort of glosses over that part.

The next time this happens, in Western Energy, Stolas isn’t giving off the vibes of really being in danger and although we the audience know that Blitz was definitely ready to go straight to Stolas and save him (Stolas was cut off by Striker destroying his phone before he could hear that Blitz was going to choose him first), M and M volunteered instead. Blitz (now that we know his reason for feeling okay sending them) chooses Loona.

It was more saving him by association but it’s important here that he was 100% ready to go get and help Stolas.

For me those times are a bit tarnished and I am glad that Stolas, at the time, didn’t know Blitz saved his life. I think, back then, he might have seen it as some heroic act of his knight (a fantasy) coming to save him and not as an act out of actual real love and care. Blitz, at the time, would probably have outwardly waved it off as saving his meal ticket (while internally very much not wanting Stolas to die because Blitz cares about him and is actually a good person).

So when we get to this scene from Sinsmas, Stolas, I believe, still has not seen/been privy to what Blitz is willing to do to protect him when his life is in danger. He is still under the impression that Blitz would not go to such lengths to save him because he believes Blitz has never done it before. Why would he? Blitz just sees him as some privileged royal.

That's why he starts out looking confused.

So although this is not the first time Blitz has saved Stolas's life, for Stolas, it is the first time.

I think that’s why he kisses him. A simple hug or a thank you wouldn’t suffice for all the emotions that are running though Stolas at that moment. Look at his face, it is one of adoration, of relief, of happiness and joy. He is so overwhelmed by this revelation that he just has to kiss him. And at the back of his mind, a beautiful little flame of hope is starting to awaken because this means that maybe there is still a chance. Maybe they can work this out and be together for real this time.

[pinkusmaximus]

thinking about Wade and Logan physically shielding their partner from danger in a dire situation, caging you in between their bodies and muffling the cries and sobs that rip from your throat and leave your esophagus raw and bloody as you’re forced to witness your beloved men be ripped apart, shredded by bullets or explosions or forces incomprehensible to the human mind. it’s not that you haven’t seen the aftermath before, but this is different. so intimately close to the danger, the heart of the threat, the hearts of your partners throbbing and palpitating between your ears as their bodies act as a shelter, this time in the most physical sense possible. your face is being pelted with bits of blood, flesh, bone, gristle, trembling with visceral horror as you bear witness to the gruesome, though temporary, undoing of their physicality. all for your sake.

[sunlitlemonade]

what's better than making a suicidal idiot immortal

[on-leatheredwings]

Secret Admirer

Yandere! Dick Grayson / Yandere! Green Lantern! Gender Neutral Reader

> romantic > tw/cw: yandere behaviors. Kissing. Heavy petting. > rated M > summary: You should stop playing with fire. Because when you do, you make him want to be crazy. Crazier. And Dick’s worked really, really hard to wrap those habits up. > a/n: wow nothing truly despicable in this one i’m so vanilla now <3 the reader is male to me but feel free to imagine what you want. I rlly like writing pre-yandere + pre-relationship stuff, it’s so fun . may write more for actual smut possibilities > word count: 1472

Newly-acquired powers or not, you are really poking the bear here. 

Dick has known you've been following him since yesterday. He allowed it because who was he if not a performer? He thrived on attention, and especially yours. But today, you had gotten too close to a fight. Sure, you had stayed an appropriate distance away, but the fact it had happened at all was worrying. It made him distracted. Distracted enough that he wasn’t pulling his punches on criminals like usual. 

“Now that it’s getting quite late–” he begins, to which you audibly gasp. An adorable sound. “–how about you finally come out and let me help you?”

He turns around to a swath of darkness that paints the rooftop’s entry door in black shadow.

Behind the corner, you curse. Damn it, he caught you. … Well, you could’ve told yourself this would happen. Dick, the fine friend he was, surely said it would. No one really ‘sneaks up’ on one of the Bats. And definitely not Nightwing, the most tenured of them all aside Batman himself.

You got caught, and lord knows what Nightwing will do to you. You bite your lips, mind running wild. Who knows what Nightwing will do to you, indeed? You feel a pang of arousal at the thought. 

You step out of the shadows, trying to act natural. Nightwing’s eyes lock onto your humble form, and you find yourself warming over every inch of your body. You want him bad.

His body stiffens, for reasons you can’t discern. It doesn’t seem like hostility… you think?

You adjust your domino mask, cursing silently that the adhesive is finally starting to give after a long night of following him around. Stealth isn’t really a natural gift for a Green Lantern, either. Turning down your glow while using your powers to maintain soundless stalking was hard. Harder than expected. 

“What are you doing here?”

You smile, hoping your giddy expression is hidden by the hoodie you’ve chosen to wear on your escapade. 

It certainly is not, which makes Dick pleased.

Now that you've made contact with him, his first thought is that he ought to tell Batman about this. And the rest of the team, while he’s at it. Dick Grayson knows that Nightwing is your 'celebrity' crush, and that you're enamored with the rest of the Bat Family. What if you confronted them someday as well?

On the Batcomputer is a file on John Stewart, complete a footnote that is you. Said footnote has graduated to its own page, now that you have your own hero exploits to document. They'd be less welcoming and more wary of a hero on their turf. He has to protect you.

“I… I…” you croak, tongue heavy with anxiety. You can’t help but be nervous. 

“Sometime tonight?” he teases. 

“You’re beautiful,” you blurt.

He is taken aback, before he recollects his wits. 

“I really like you,” you say again, stepping forward. He lifts his hand in warning. Stay back. You get chills, but don’t stop treading forward. You can tell his eyes are narrowed beneath his mask.

When he’s finally in arms’ reach, you are pushed against the wall. And not roughly at all, you notice. You smile with delight, your hands immediately landing on his shoulders. Nightwing’s glare doesn’t feel hostile at all. Suspicious, maybe. But not hostile.

“... What do you mean by, you “really” like me?” You suspected that he probably wouldn’t believe you.

“Well,” you fluster, “I mean that I really like you.” Dick’s heart jolts. “And I want you.” It nearly flatlines.

Oh, don’t say that, don’t say that, Dick thinks, despite the elation that begins to tighten his throat. You? Want him? If he had known all he needed to do to grab your attention was put on the suit, he would’ve done that ages ago. He felt nearly invisible to you during the day, all his flirtation falling on deaf ears and blind eyes.

At Nightwing’s silence, you lick your lips. An action that makes his eyes dilate behind his mask. 

“I-I’m serious!”

Nightwing leans in closer, as if inspecting the truth in your expression, raking over every atom. 

“You’re playing a dangerous game,” he breathes.

“It’s not a game at all to me,” you say, feeling lightheaded from the small distance between you two. This doesn't feel real.

To love and be loved is all you’ve ever wanted. You’d think that would give you the violet ring of Love. Instead, the ring that had appeared in your hand one fateful night was acid green, sparkling and mesmerizing. Apparently, instead of embodying love, you simply were driven enough to seek it at any costs. Driven enough to never be alone ever again.

You have the ability to overcome great fear. Welcome to the Green Lantern Corps, it said. You had taken it without hesitation.

“Kiss me,” you say, hands rising to cup his jaw. As if he’s not already leaning in.

Your lips meet in an unabashed frenzy. You’re nearly blown away by the pure amount of feeling in his kiss – that's quite a lot of emotion for a stranger. Not that you aren’t equally impassioned. You feel so raw and naked, kissing him. You hope he can't feel all your insanity, your obsession, your infatuation.

However, Dick certainly does, so much that he moans openly, the sound making both your lips buzz.

You make him want to be crazy. Crazier. And he’s worked really, really hard to wrap those habits up. 

You shudder, feeling the pressure of his cup press in between your thighs. God, you wished you could feel the real thing. Your hand slips in between you two, tracing the lines of his abs. Dick shivers. He peels off your domino mask, but you don’t even flinch. You don’t care if he knows who you are. You want him to know everything. Inside and out.

Your eyes flutter open as you gyrate against his hips, sinful and frustrating. You peer up at him, cheeks blazing. You want him.

He looks into your eyes, and it's as if he can read your mind. He wants to swallow you whole. He wants to map every inch of your body. His cock is painfully straining against his suit. You are not a want, but a need.

But Dick is trying to be good, he really is. The night’s not over. He’s still on patrol, technically. You may want Nightwing, but do you want Dick Grayson? If he fucked you on this rooftop, throwing restraint into the wind, would that be taking advantage of you? Do you just hero worship him? All the questions fly through his mind at rapid speed, and he wants them to quiet, before the Angry Orphan inside him decides to just stop caring completely. 

But he… he’s strong. We don't have to be, his mind interjects, screaming at him. But he quiets it. He whimpers at the tightness against his groin, a sound that makes you look at him curiously. You are completely blissfully ignorant to his inner strife. Completely innocent.

Dick narrows his eyes, channeling his best Batman impression.

“You should go home.”

You balk almost comically. “W-wait.” Nightwing retreats, but not before you can grab his wrist. “At least– at least, can we go on a date? Or even hang out? Or–” His thumb traces the curve of your lips, silencing you with a shiver.  

“Go home.” Firmly said, yet gentle.

You frown, though it’s more like a pout. Man, you’re cute, he thinks. “When can I see you again?”

Dick certainly isn’t strong enough to be responsible and say “You can’t.” 

So Nightwing just stares at you, looking… hesitant. The pieces click in your mind. Ah, so he liked it. Your lips curl, like a cat with cream. You take that as a victory.

“... I-I’ll come back tomorrow night,” you state boldly, stealing a chaste kiss before he could argue. Dick has to basically pull himself away, despite his desire to keep your bodies flush and perfectly fitted against one another.

You slip your ring onto your finger, and your entire body glows, rampant with Lantern light. You begin to float.

“Tomorrow!” you blurt, already wanting him again. You zip away, flying home. All the while, you slap at your warm cheeks, trying to see if this is a dream, laughing with glee, mind going haywire with heated fantasies. You kissed Nightwing. You basically groped him. And he didn’t stop you. Oh god, wait until you tell Dick. 

The confrontation went better than expected. At worst, you figured Nightwing would shoo you away, reject you. Despite the abrupt ending, he at least seemed… interested? You try not to dwell on it too much. It doesn’t matter.

You’re a Green Lantern. You’re powerful. Willful. He will be yours, someday.

[thestarfishface]

tfw you have a loose collection of ideas for a new story but it's still really early on so most of it's really loose concepts and not anything solid enough to fully brainstorm, but you REALLY REALLY want to get to the point where you can DO something with it

I have essentially planted a mystery seed in the garden and am now staring at the little patch of soil waiting for something to happen and it's driving my CRAZYYYYYYY

[ao3commentoftheday]

While looking for something else, I found an old ask I answered about "ideal chapter length" in terms of word count.

I've been asked this probably a dozen or more times, and each time I need to take a moment and adjust my thinking to take the asker's point of view into account. Because the thing is? The only time I ever try to factor the word count into how I write a story is when I'm aiming for a true drabble.

For whatever reason, this difference in thinking stuck with me today and I actually considered why that might be. And I think it's because I'm in my 40s and the first 25-30 years of my life, any stories I was reading were printed on paper and bound into physical books.

When I imagine a novel, I still think of a mass market paperback on my bookshelf. An average one would be maybe an inch thick, probably in the neighbourhood of 300 pages. A long one would be maybe as much as two inches thick and 500 or more pages long. A short one was always nice to have because it filled in the gaps in the shelf because 200 page books were so much narrower. Or so it seemed.

When I started posting my fic online, I still thought in terms of pages. I'd type them out in whatever word processing software I was using at the time, and I'd usually get a chapter's worth of ideas into 3 or 4 pages. Turns out that's about 1000 words, which makes sense with the number of 1000 word essays I wrote in high school. I'd been trained to encapsulate an idea into approximately that length.

And that's what it comes down to. The thing that always made that question seem weird to me. A chapter isn't about how many words there are in it, just like a cake isn't about how many cups of flour exist in each slice. A chapter is a an idea that helps make up a bigger idea called a story, and it needs to be however many words that idea needs to be to get it out.

[pinkysberg]

i think at some point, after everyone had died or left, and dutch was isolated in the mountains, he started talking to hosea again. in the dead of night, surrounded by obedient strangers and people he doesn't care about, he'd start holding one sided conversations with his grief. he'd argue with his subconcious. always taking hosea's form, carrying his voice and even traces of wisdom he'd imparted all those years ago. but dutch is beyond ancient wisdom now. he's a modern man. he doesn't need wisdom or advice, he needs company.

he longs for the times he could call his friend out by the litany of endearing names he'd forged for him. they'd read and they'd talk, he yearns for the only man who understood his nature and walked alongside him in spite of it. but all he has is ghosts and self doubt, so hosea becomes his doubt personified, his last shred of empathy, his sole tie to humanity. and on good nights and bad nights alike, the men who call him a leader choose to ignore the way he rambles to the dark.

[aimless-dubs]

we’re gonna have to kill this guy burning spice..

wonderful art made by @mmmayro !!