#I want to be a tumblrina but I don’t even know how to use the settings

[cryingoverdeadgaywizzards]

I do not get tumblr culture at all, I’m just here man.

[anachronistic-falsehood]

hey guys wouldn’t it be funny if the suckening characters had tumblr

😈 phantom-flipper-official ✅✅

omw to burger king gonna get the no whopper whopper who wants anything

🕷 gabrielmontezfuckingrocks

FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCKV YKU FUCKG HUOU

😈 phantom-flipper-official ✅✅

suck my entire dick and balls

👑 shilo-bathory

Hello It’s Me Shilo Bathory Son ofthe Wueen hello 👋 what’s Is That There Is A Hand oon the Light Box Whose Hand Is that There Is A Tiny Man Inside The Lightbocx

😈 phantom-flipper-official ✅✅

you pressed the emoji button after typing hello see here i can do it too hello 👋

👑 shilo-bathory

Who Are Yoy Is This your Hand In The Light Box

😈 phantom-flipper-official ✅✅

why are you typing like a homestuck character

👑 shilo-bathory

Wghat is Home Suck

🦇 iamthevoid

The darkness is my only friend… my one constant companion in these long decades of breathless life…

😈 phantom-flipper-official ✅✅

edgelord alert

🦇 iamthevoid

Boy you have no idea what horrors I have seen. I have witnessed wars and massacres the likes of which would give you nightmares. You have seen nothing yet.

#darkness #my twisted mind #lonely #depression #no one understands #despair

😈 phantom-flipper-official ✅✅

@/iamthevoid stop typing like that youre clogging up my dashboard

🦇 iamthevoid

It’s what best suits my dark and twisted soul… if I even have one.

😈 phantom-flipper-official

who tf got peepaw a tumblr account

👑 shilo-bathory

Hello Emizel It Is me Shilo I Helped Arthur create a “tumblr blog” like You Did For Me ☺️ I Know How To Make The Smiley Faces now

😈 phantom-flipper-official ✅✅

👑 shilo-bathory

Emizel Hwo Is This Man inthe Lightt Box. Who is That

🦇 iamthevoid

Prince, I believe that is Keanu Reeves.

🗡 fromthetoprope

@/shilo-bathory Actually My Prince, that is Ben Affleck! He is an “actor.” I learned about him while watching the large light box!

👑 shilo-bathroy

grefgor

🥤 the-soda-man ✅✅

hey guys, i’m shutting this blog down. my soda addiction was getting really really bad, and i think it’s best i don’t post about vintage sodas anymore. i’m rebranding to the nalgene man

😈 phantom-flipper-official ✅✅

CONGRATS ON THE TRANSITION 🥳

🥤the-nalgene-man ✅✅

THANKS BRO YOURE MY NUMBER ONE ‼️‼️

😈 phantom-flipper-official ✅✅

the no whopper whopper is not worth the twenty five dollars

🕷 gabrielmontezfuckingrocks

YOU SUCK SO BAD

😈 phantom-flipper-official ✅✅

DUDE GET OFF MY DICK

🕷 gabrielmontezfuckingrocks

I’LL GET OFF YOUR DICK WHEN YOU GET OFF MINE

😈 phantom-flipper-official ✅✅

GUESS WERE GETTING OFF EACH OTHERS DICKS THEN

🦇 iamthevoid

I’m reporting this post for sexual content.

🕷 gabrielmontezfuckingrocks

WHATS YOUR FUCKING PROBLEM YOU WANNA GET OFF MY DICK TOO

😈 phantom-flipper-official ✅✅

YOU CANT GET OFF HIS DICK YOURE SUPPOSED TO BE GETTING OFF MY DICK

🦇 iamthevoid

😈 phantom-flipper-official ✅✅

WHO SHIWED YOU HOW TO USE REACTION INAGES?????>?>?

👑 shilo-bathory

Emizel We Are Learning ☺️ Grefgor Knows All

😈 phantom-flipper-official ✅✅

whoever showed arthur homophobic dog im going to strangle you he wont stop saying “i know what you are” and “dont tell me youre one of them” whenever i do anything i was washing the blood out of my clothes at 2 in the morning and he passed by the bathroom and said “i dont think thats normal” im going to fucking rip his throat out

🦇 iamthevoid

😈 phantom-flipper-official ✅✅

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOR

😈 phantom-flipper-official ✅✅

WHY IS THIS GETTING NOTES

😈 phantom-flipper-official ✅✅

you guys HAVE to stop asking me about arthur hes not my fucking dad i was an orphan your assumptions are offensive im not related to him i called him peepaw AS A JOKE

😈 phantom-flipper-official ✅✅

i AM related to the other guy but thats not relevant

🦇 iamthevoid

😈 phantom-flipper-official ✅✅

WHO GAVE YUO MORE IMAGES

👑 shilo-bathory

His Arsenal Is Expanding ☺️

🦇 iamthevoid

What is a Tumblrina and why are the people in my inbox calling me one?

😈 phantom-flipper-official ✅✅

im gonna fucking kill myself

👑 shilo-bathory

Okay 🥳 See You when youu Come Back 😊🥰

😈 phantom-flipper-official ✅✅

[tryingtimi]

Books of 2024 (in no particular order)

Hi, hello dears! Since I’m out here trying to bring back things, I’ll give a shot to this one too from last year. The “rules” were to list 9 books you’ve read and loved this year, and boy I’ve got recs to gush about. (somehow I could read 40+ books which is just insane)

No pressure tagging: @bloodlessheiratnight, @the-void-writes, @barbex, @indigowriting, @aalinaaaaaa, @approximately20blorbos, @wildswrites, @dyrewrites, @odysseywritings, @jadefyre, @goldfinchwrites, @sodaliteskull, @astarlightmonbebe, @tc-doherty, @forthesanityofstorytellers and anyone who’d like to join!

So Let Them Burn by Kamilah Cole. ya fantasy, Jamaican-inspired, dragon riders, M/F and F/F focus

God I wanted to yap about this one for so long. This book literally got me back to reading, so naturally it became an instant fav and a life-changing book. And, honestly, gave me hope for some YA since I’m not the audience for those usually. The setting is as breathtaking as fresh within the genre, and the story is a very exciting one with all the dragon riding, the academy and the gods that would loan their power. Not to mention the characters which I surprisingly grown to love very much. (And man the romance part made me kick my feet and squel in excitement at some point). So yeah, give it a try please all. Like, now.

Why We Swim by Bonnie Tsui. non-fic, great audiobook, title says all

The read that rekindled my love for swimming and being in the water. A very interesting little book about incredible lives that were saved by or moved by swimming and the waters, while it also shows light on some beneficial aspects that not everyone might know. It’s a half memoir/biography too, but that part wasn’t as impactful I’d say. However the rest did make a strong impression on me so I’d recommend this to everyone who wants to know whats the swimming and water crazed people’s deal.

Jade City by Fonda Lee epic&urban fantasy, east-asian martial art movies and the godfather vibes, grimdark

And here we come with the big guns. I didn’t know this story is gonna be the second all time fav fantasy series on my list, nor that Fonda’s gonna become the tradpub female writer idol for me, but life’s just that unpredictable. Seriously, this book has me by the throat and I don’t want the grip to soften. All that you can imagine from the bleak, smoke filled gangster life to the flying-jumping double kicks of Michelle Yeoh, it’s in it. The story also very heavily leans onto the political intrigue, and lore aspect so keep that in mind. Oh and the best ever erotica (for my taste personally) is sprinkled around there casually too, so there’s that.

Penance by Eliza Clark litfic, fake-true crime, thriller

I was never a true crime girlie, but I was a litfic one. This book is kind of a satire about how true crime impacts people, especially teenage girls, and what's up with the obsession over it. It also explores where reality and fiction blurrs, and how that can impact lives. A brutal read, in my opinion, and I ate it up in two days smh. Also, I'm going to be real honest with y'all here; I was very confused at the beginning because I never read a fake investigated interview/essay before, so I completely believed it to be true (even tho I found it in the fiction genre). So yes, Eliza Clark is brilliant in that sense, will definitely check out her other books, and will never forget the true tragedy she based the crime in the book. Oh and when she brought up tumblr and tumblrinas in the book... ugh.

Cultish by Amanda Montell. non-fic, great audiobook, title says it all

2024 was the year of litfic and non-fic on my end, or at least I tried and am still trying to get back to them. This one was a very interesting book about cults and how cult leaders use language as a tool to create their communities. Or, well, not just them but everyone. I love learning about how and why we use language as we do, and I also love learning about anything cult related even tho they make my skin crawl. This book luckily did justice on both ends.

Daisy Jones & The Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid. litfic, fake-rockumentary, fleetwood mac/stevie nicks-inspired

Continuing my march on the "reading the books my favourite series and movies are based upon" journey. Daisy Jones is something that was great in book, but excellent on tv. The whole fiasco and the documentary part works better on screen I think, especially after they literally wrote, produced, sang and perfomed songs. Like what the hell. Still listening to the songs cuz some of them are peak 70s. However, the book and the series has the same vibe, so that's why I could enjoy both. (not to mention it inspired me too) What I would really highlight tho, it’s Simon’s story in the series because my god I love her so much. Sometimes even wish it would have been about her than Daisy, lol.

The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang. (ya) historical fantasy, very heavy war stuff, chinese mythology

It's not ya, okay? There are elements that match that, but overall, it's just not. What the book (and the whole series) actually is tho, is a raw portrayal and an essay about the horrors of the Second Sino-Japanese War, and what went down there, coated with a touch fantastical world and some magical/mythical elements. Loved the first book to pieces. This one might be the closest to ya, with all the academy time, the hint of enemies to whatevers, but only up until the half of the book. After that it blurrs and morphs. Still, the whole series is the most educational fantasy I've ever read, and will always keep the first book as a favourite. It's something everyone should read at least once, I think. But never ask me about the last installment.

The Red Palace by June Hur. ya historical fantasy, mystery, romance

Imagine a book that literally reads like a korean period drama. I mean, literally. Funny enough, I needed a second try to get to this book, but after that, oh man it checked all the boxes. It's easy to read, a fun little murder mystery in the palace, and a great experience if you're a kdrama junkie like me. I still think about this book from time to time, and will read all the other works from the author for sure. (fun fact: the royal family stuff are usually historically accurate because that's June Hur's whole sthick, which i love that for her)

We Will Devour The Night by Camilla Andrew. gaslamp fantasy, court intrigue, light vs dark, some impeccable erotica

We all know and love Cammie. And trust to bring an amazing next installement to the The Essence of the Equinox. I loved the book to pieces, because it contained everything I'd crave in a continuation. An interesting and gorgeous expanded world, escalating political intrigue and a ton of great character interactions. While, of course we still got to spend time with our best girl Laila, and best dick Darius.

[applebuttercringe]

Arcane episode 8 immediate thoughts

-NGL this is not the direction I thought Mel was going in.

-cool that she is a magical girl though, and made of gold.

-oh it’s the girl her mom killed.

-Mel’s outfit is very fan service

-Leblanc

-this is a lot to introduce in the second to last episode

-Well that didn’t take a lot of convincing…

-Richters funeral

-Time for Viktors T-shot

-Is Ambessa gonna lecture him into living?

-Viktor Machine Herald voice!

-No Viktor you are anti war.

-Oh, so Sky is her own will, disturbed by his actions.

-Do we not see Caitlyn’s reaction to Jayce.

-Ah she thought Loris was Vander

-Caitlyn’s haircut is hot.

-Is she still with Maddie?

-Maddie knows she is about to be cheated on

-Jinx isn’t eating, she is suicidal.

-the hair down

-The Jinx pain train is brutal, this is a lot even for Arcane.

-The Jayce Mel reunion?

-If Mel is untwined with the Arcane then Jayce’s mission will be to end her as well.

-Excuse me what?

-Viktor achieved the ultimate tenderness form? Mannequin.

-Why not come as Huck?

-Well, the Polycule is back together again. This time it is a three way breakup.

-Mel knows how to do the magic at will now?

-Why not explain what you saw? It might not change anything, but he didn’t even try.

-Viktor wants his evil BF back

-Aw man. Villain Viktor. That idea sucks.

-Once again Jayce rushes to Mel lol.

-Is Viktor gonna get broken up with on the astral plane?

-Jinx is finally hearing and seeing Silco hallucinations.

-Killing is a cycle and yet in Ep 7 Vi dying ended the cycle and healed its wound?

-Doesn’t the metaphor not work for Zaun? How do they walk away. They are trapped in the mines working forced labor and banned from Piltover institutions. Is the moral to become passive? Cease to care? How do you forgive and walk away when the crimes are ongoing and inescapable?

-The hug is good

-IS JINX GOMNA KILL HERSELF?

-That’s her resolution?

-Jayce’s self made leg brace perfectly fixing his untreated wound is bullshit.

-The shoulder armor is a CHOICE Jayce.

-How did he manage to get them together? They hate each other? His proposals for peace don’t work but he can get them talking and civil from off screen? Arcane is really abandoning the Zaun v Piltover thing. Like, straight up pretending it was never happening.

-Caitlyn gasses these people like a month ago.

-Yeah, start treating the Undercity as people so you can draft them. Whatever.

-Why the emphasis on the pianist

-I knew they were gonna abandon it but this is unreal to watch.

-Sassing your gf during her mental breakdown is insane

-Caitvi sex scene in a prison cell lol

-Maybe care that this is cheating

-Freaky~

-Damn

-The Tumblrinas are gonna love this

-The Medea’s scene is good

-She can touch embers with her bare hands

-Ambessa you’ve been trying to use Hextech for magic, TF do you mean you hate magic.

-Is there a delay on Viktor saying stuff and the clones saying it? Cause that happened a while ago.

-The song. So this was real Sky all along. She just really wanted him to use the Arcane this way. If this was the intention she should have had more S1 screentime to build up their relationship.

-He is letting them kill her again

-He’s gonna become Warwick?! That is a twist

-EW THE FEET SHOT

-He’s kindred? It isn’t a mask? It’s his head?

Ok so thought: This is a fumble for me. It feels like they are abandoning all the pre established plot and just rewriting the characters into new plots and then rushing those new plots to hell and back. They aren’t finishing what they started. The Jinx pain train is disappointing. Like, more Jinx being self loathing and suicidal, cool. Likely she will have a turn around in this last episode but. IDK. Did I like the time I spent with Arcane? Yes. Is it peak anymore? No. Sorry.

[wish-i-were-heather]

This is a long post but not a vent its the opposite of a vent ykwim like a long happy rant

I love you all so much.

Maybe I’m just all dramatic and emotional because I’m on my period, maybe because I’m writing this late at night and I’m gonna think it’s really cringe in the morning, but I love you guys so much. Tumblr has brought me so much joy. I’ve been here for maybe three or four months now? And I can’t really think of a time in my life where I was happier. 

I first made an account after scrolling aimlessly. I would go onto the tumblr website and it would let me search a bit until it was like “you need to make an account to keep going!!” And then I’d just close it and move on. But then one day I decided  hey what the heck just do it. So I made an account, and I didn’t really know what I was doing. I came up with this username because I liked conan gray, I gave myself  a daphne blake profile picture because she has red hair, and just kinda explored. 

I looked through tags of fandoms I love like the inheritance games and pjo and shatter me and even scythe (which was when i was then brought to the realization that the aoas fandom really is dead everywhere even here😔). But I just kinda explored.

Then I found all you guys, the cute aesthetic tumblrinas! And omg I thought everyone was so cool. Pretty much everyone I’m mutuals with now is someone who i found their blog and was like OMG I WANNA BE ONE OF THEM!! I loved the friendships and the connection and just seeing everyone interact made me so happy. I think one of the first people to follow me back was Belle and I remember I legit freaked out because omg!! Shes so cool!! 

Now that I’m telling the story it’s a little embarrassing, but it’s fine. I just know I was slowly growing my blog and meeting new people but I still didn’t feel like I had real friends, it hadn’t been that long. But I think it all kinda happened after I accidentally deleted my account, and I sent panic asks to everyone. And you guys were so nice and so sweet and for a lot of people it was some of the first interactions we had. 

I have the world’s worst memory, but it just kinda took off from there. 

And now I am friends with all you guys!! I’m so incredibly glad I decided to make this blog that day because omg. I’d seen people talk about online friends but I’d never had any. But now?? OMGG I UNDERSTAND!!! I finally have people who are just as obsessed with the books/tv/movies/music/everything that I am!! 

My friends IRL are nice, they’ve read the books I read, but I cant talk to them the way I do you guys, yknow? Tumblr is literally just such a safe space for me. I have a bad day, come online, and my mood is lifted. It makes me so happy and it also makes me feel so validated for whatever weird interests or feelings I have! I have a weird thought? Post it to tumblr! It’s just so amazing, how there’s people all over the world who care about me even a little, even just enough to like my shitposts. 

I’ve even infiltrated both the shatter me and tig roleplays, and I’ve really just done everything I could’ve hoped for when I joined tumblr. I used to be the one watching everyone interact, and now I am the one interacting! I don't think you guys understand how much you all mean to me. Especially as someone with bad social anxiety, who struggles with making friends irl. I also don’t believe in popularity in schools, thats stupid, but technically i’m not a “popular kid.” So I have friends, but not a billion. But here? Everyone is friends on tumblr!! It’s so amazing. I love you all so much. 

That’s long and honestly pretty sappy, also yall probably don't care about my whole tumblr history and how i got here (plus no one asked), but I felt like i wanted to share. There’s so much more I wanna say, but surprisingly enough as a writer, I’m not always the best at expressing my feelings over writing. My love language is physical touch, not words of affirmation. Which suckss cause i cant give you guys that. But this is as good as i can get. 

So thank you to everyone, my mutuals and followers and whatever. Thank you for being so loving. Thank you for being stupid with me. Thank you for listening to me rant about nonsense. Thank you for liking my posts. thank you for being here. Thank you for making me feel safe.

Cause every time I get a notification, I smile. It’s hard not to, when I know everyone is so amazing. I hope you think of me when you listen to heather, because I always think of you when i listen to online love. Anyway, I love you all. I hope we meet one day. Actually, scratch that. We will  meet one day. That is a threat :)

LOVE YOU ALL MUAH MUAH MUAH IM BREAKING INTO YOUR HOUSE RIGHT NOW BTW WERE GONNA WATCH HALLOWEEN MOVIES AND HAVE HOT CHOCOLATE AND GO TO THE PUMPKIN PATCH AND DO A BIG GROUP COSTUME AND GO TRICK OR TREATING TOGETHER GET READY 😋😋

[books]

Writing Workshop Week 4:

A Narrative Imperative

My dearest Tumblrinas—

Sadly we’ve come to our final week of workshop, but I’ve saved the best for last. Rather, I’ve saved my favorite for last. This week’s prompt is one I’ve taught in every class, from developmental composition to advanced creative writing courses. In the hundreds of fills I’ve read over the years, I haven’t found one that has been poorly written or uninteresting. This prompt tends to bring out the fire in everyone, and I’m jazzed to see what you do with it.

Last week we talked about setting as a function of narration. This week we’re talking about narration as a function of…nothing.

The reason I say narration is the function of nothing is because you can strip a piece of writing of every craft element—conflict, character, imagery, etc.—and you’ll still have narration. Even emails have narrators. A narrator is simply the acknowledgement of a mind behind the writing, the vehicle of comprehension. 

Click through for this week's workshop and prompt:

Point of View

So many people know what a point of view is that we often see it as the acronym POV. It’s so commonplace that it’s almost difficult to pin down, but the definition we’ll use for the purpose of this workshop is the relationship of the narrator to the events of the story. 

In contemporary writing, the narrator is generally limited to a single character who exists in the narrative. This is called a homodiegetic narrator. A heterodiegetic narrator is one that is not a character in the story. For example, fairy tales often have a heterodiegetic narrator, a disembodied voice that’s telling you the story as if speaking it aloud. 

It’s only in the past century or so that we’ve seen a shift into the limited homodiegetic narrator as a kind of default technique. In fact there are some writers (and writing teachers, sadly) who are so dedicated to this style of narration that they consider any work that deviates from it “bad writing.” 

When we talk about limited narrators, we’re talking about narratorial access. In the mind of a single character in the story, we don’t have access to the minds of the other characters. Access is what creates an unreliable narrator—a character whose perspective of the external events of the story is in some way distorted, either in the literal facts of the events themselves, or in the interpretation to those events. An unreliable narrator is one who might lie in order to persuade us their actions are justified, or perhaps they struggle to perceive reality clearly.

Access also refers to how close we are to the narrator. How much access does the reader have to the true thoughts and emotions of the character we’re following? Back in Week 1, we talked about “show, don’t tell,” and if you abide by that rule to an extreme, you get a narrator who offers us little to no access to their perspective. Conversely, we can be so close to a narrator that we only have access to their thoughts and we lose sight of the external events of the story completely. (More on that in the Point of Method section.)

It’s possible that we could have access to multiple perspectives of the story, either by alternating limited perspectives or creating omniscience. The difficulty of omniscience, which is sometimes derogatorily called head-hopping, is that you’re tasked with infinite access. In Week 3, we talked about decision fatigue. Omniscience requires deciding constantly what information is given when and by whom and why. It’s exhausting. I don’t want to deter you from omniscience if that’s what you’re interested in writing, but I do think it’s more difficult than limited narration. When people refer to “head-hopping,” they’re usually saying the shifting access of the narrator is hard to follow or illogical. Your work, of course, is allowed to be hard to follow and illogical. No one is obligated to clarity. But if clarity is one of your goals as a writer, know that omniscience is often more obfuscating than illuminating. 

Point of Telling

Put simply, a narrative is a sequence of cause and effect. Thing A happens, and because of it, thing B happens. Because thing B happened, thing C then happens. The sequence doesn’t have to occur in order or chronologically. However, all narratives possess an order and a chronology. In other words, all narratives exist in time and space.

We talked about space last week. So let’s talk about time.

Unlike point of view, the point of telling is the relationship of the narrator to the timeline of the story. Here’s where things get confusing, because English has tenses, but in prose, past tense doesn’t always denote the actual past. You can write a story in past tense that doesn’t have an implied present. You can also write a story in present tense and give the narrator access to the future of the story via some kind of narrative magic or prophecy. So when we talk about point of telling, grammatical tense is irrelevant.

Currently the default of contemporary writing is to have a narrator who is experiencing the events of the story as they’re happening, which means they have access to their past but not their future, and their development unfolds accordingly. A narrator who has no access to their future is one who is limited to the biases of the present. 

However, you can also have a reflective narrator—one whose point of telling is the present and they’re reflecting on the past. Backstories and flashbacks can be reflective. Frame stories can also be reflective. What’s unique about the reflective narrator is that they have access to all the events of the story, and are unfolding them in a specific sequence, rendering them from the position of growth they’ve achieved from living those events. You can do cool foreshadowing stuff with a reflective narrator, like, “What I didn’t yet know was…” or “I would go on to believe that…” 

To me, point of telling becomes clearest when you have a child narrator. A child telling the present would possess a childlike narrative voice, but an adult character reflecting on childhood would have an adult narrative voice. The events of the story are the same, but the point on the timeline from which those events are told can vary, and therefore so can the voice.

Point of Method

Point of view is ubiquitous; I can’t remember where I first heard of point of telling; but point of method is a term Percy Lubbock defines in his book The Craft of Fiction. The point of method is the relationship of the narrator to the rendering of the story. Lubbock separates point of method by pictorial and dramatic, arguably the beginning of the adage “show, don’t tell” that we talked about in Week 1. A pictorial method is one that renders or “shows” a story; a dramatic one is one that “tells” a story. But The Craft of Fiction was first published a century ago and narration has changed a lot since then, so I’m going to offer some other ways of defining point of method.

Although it’s a false binary, I like to think of point of method as “in scene” or “in summary.” Screenplays are beholden to scenes—film is a visual medium and so it’s limited to what literally can be shown. In its simplest form, a scene is a discrete section of a story where a character interacts with their environment in some way. A scene is often portrayed in direct discourse, which means free and clear access to the actual dialogue the characters are speaking. In other words, we can trust the words in quotes to be what is really said—not an interpretation, summation, or distortion of what is said.

Many writers I work with develop a block when they pigeonhole themselves into scenic writing. Fanfiction is largely written in direct discourse and relies on sequences of scenes, I suspect because a lot of fics are based on canonical texts of visual mediums. When I point out that fanfiction is prose and can therefore access the interior thoughts and perspectives of a narrator, I think it can be pretty freeing for some writers. In prose, scenes are optional. 

On the opposite side of the scenic spectrum is summative writing. Writing in summary is kind of a zooming out of the narration, where events are rendered in a single paragraph or sentence. Summary can evoke indirect discourse, or interaction between characters conveyed within the narration. For example, “‘I’m sorry I rang the doorbell,’ she said” is direct discourse. “She said she was sorry she rang the doorbell” is indirect discourse. 

It’s important to remember that all narration is a negotiation of the internal and the external, or what I call interiority and exteriority. Interiority encompasses all thoughts, feelings, and interpretations of a narrator. Exteriority includes everything outside the narrator. “She heard the doorbell ring” is an interior sentence. “Someone rang the doorbell” is an exterior one. 

Scenic writing is not inherently superior to summative writing. Direct discourse is not inherently superior to indirect discourse. Exteriority is not inherently superior to interiority. They’re all just spectrums, and you get to define where your narrator lands on each of them.

This was a lot of vocab to throw at you. I’d like to offer a brief caveat that many of these terms are narratological, intended for criticism and interpretation of existing work, but I’m appropriating them as craft terms. To me, craft is the process of writing, and creating a lexicon of craft terms (ideally) helps us as writers to make more intentional decisions in our work and approach it with more confidence. 

Prompt time!

Although I’ve just told you about narration in relation to a sequence of events, we’re going to strip our writing of a formal narrative in order to focus solely on narration. 

First, I’d like you to read/listen to Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl.” (It’s short, about 700 words.) You can find it here, or you can watch Jamaica Kincaid read it on YouTube.

What I love about this piece is that it’s not technically a narrative, it’s a lyric essay with not one but two narrators. There’s the voice giving the orders, the series of imperative sentences, and there’s the italicized voice questioning the orders. So even though we’re not given a discrete scene or bodies moving and interacting in space and time, we still have two characters: a mother, presumably, and her daughter. The mother is teaching the daughter the “rules” of womanhood, which are contradictory and overwhelming.

In lacking a narrative, this piece allows us to separate it from our understanding of writing grounded in time and space. In essence, it’s the opposite of last week’s prompt. It also questions our understanding of sentences in English requiring subjects, because all imperative sentences have an implied subject: you. This prompt is an experiment in how voice and style develops narration.

Next, I want you to write a piece in the imperative style of “Girl.” Here are some ways you can approach it:

If you want to write fiction, write a piece about the rules your character lives by. Consider how they feel about those rules—do they follow them or defy them? Consider also who is giving the rules and why. Is there someone who has power over them? Or perhaps they’re rules they tell themselves, that they’ve developed over time.

If you want to write nonfiction, write your own version of “Girl” using the rules you’ve been taught regarding some aspect of your life. Like “Girl,” you could focus on the rules of gender and culture, or perhaps you could take a more literal spin on it—the expectations of a job or a sport.

If you want to write something experimental (even though this is already experimental), write a version of “Girl” from the italicized voice’s perspective, perhaps a series of questions rather than commands. 

A second voice within the piece is optional. And because this prompt is already lyrical, I don’t think I need to list a separate approach for poetry. 

Bonus prompt

If you’ve filled any of the prompts these past four weeks, I would love to know what your biggest takeaways have been. What new insights have you gained about your own writing? Have any of your perspectives or goals changed as a writer? Feel free to sit on this one for a while; I know that it takes a long time for me to reflect on the things I’ve learned. So I welcome you to send me an ask or tag me in a post at any point in the future. My favorite thing is when writers update me on their progress and growth.

In parting, I want to share my lowkey writing-related newsletter, in which I write about craft and process as well as offer a roundup of all the writing advice asks I answer on my Tumblr. I also provide updates on the Fanauthor Workshop (currently accepting applications!) and OFIC Magazine. If you’re pleased with any of your prompt fills from our workshop, you’re welcome to submit them (or any other original work) to OFIC. Submissions for Issue #8 open September 1st. 

Lastly, if you’re interested in one-on-one guidance and feedback on your writing, I’m a full-time writing coach. I help writers at all levels reach their goals, whether that’s completing a novel, querying agents, or applying to creative writing graduate programs. Here are some testimonials from current clients. 

A huge thanks to @books for hosting these workshops! I hope they’ve been as fun for you as they have for me. I’ve had a great time reading your prompt fills, and I wish you the best of luck in your writing journey.

Questions? Ask ‘em here before EOD Tuesday so @bettsfic can answer them on Wednesday. And remember to tag your work #tumblr writing workshop with betts if you want her to read your work and possibly feature it on Friday!

And, for those just joining us: @bettsfic has been running a writing workshop on @books this month. These prompts will stay up for you to fill at your leisure. Want to know more? Start here.

[formula-ghost]

hiii I was wondering if you had any general advice for writing fanfic. unfortunately, I didn’t go through the wattpad phase and it shows 💔 I have some rough ideas for what I’d like to write but it’s hard to flesh out when I start writing scenes it doesn’t quite feel right too much imagery not enough progression you know 😭

-🍿

Hello Popcorn!

I have plenty of tips below the cut (thank you for letting me indulge my inner teacher):

- Unfortunately, everyone goes through their Wattpad phase, even if it’s not on Wattpad (or Quotev, which was my platform of choice before I became a tumblrina). The thing about writing is that there’s never really a mastery of it, it’s an artistic skill that is constantly growing, but you have to start somewhere. It’s easier if you start as a kid because you don’t realize how bad you really are, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t start later, you just have to make peace with the fact that whatever you write isn’t going to be as good as the story in your head and that’s okay. Seriously, perfection is the enemy of progress. Be okay with being a little cringe, because that’s the only way to improve over time.

- Read!! Seriously, read and try to analyze the fics you like and what specifically you like about them, and try to emulate that to the best of your ability. You can also make playlists to help you cultivate the vibes, and if you find a cool thing in a song or fic you can always incorporate it into your own work. All writers are thieves by nature :)

- I also used to struggle with too much buildup and internal feelings of characters versus action. I think the best way I’ve been able to work on this is to practice visualization, so like imagining my fic like a movie and describe how the characters are physically moving around the scene. Also, writing dialogue is great for this. Try to write a small snippet with just dialogue; no internal thoughts, just movement and speaking. Looking at screenplays/movies can help with this, and read/watch them with an eye to how they pace the story. When do they let things build, when do they cut between scenes? (Of course, genre influences this; action movies are going to be more external than psychological thrillers, for example, so study things with the general vibes of what you want your fic to be)

- With progression, having a rough outline can help. So for example my outline for the initial chapter of Wildflower, I had the three scenes as bullet points, so I knew where the story was going, but then when I actually wrote it I still had the freedom to play around with internal dialogue within the scene. You want to strike a balance between being too loose that your plot is a mess and too tight that you have no room to let naturally emerging elements grow.

- The only way to get better is to just keep writing! It helps to do exercises or random prompts so you can practice without the pressure of feeling like you have to produce something perfect for people to read. Trust me, I have dozens of cut/practice scenes that will never see the light of day 🙃

- Connect with others, but don’t let them define you. It’s always a good thing imo to talk to other writers because you can bounce ideas off each other and it can help massively with plot and character development. Fic is a uniquely social form of writing, but with that comes disappointment when people don’t connect with your work in the way you want them to. You can’t let that discourage you: you have to write because you want this story to be told, not because you want others to read it.

If you ever want to talk more in depth, my DMs are open! I tried to give more general tips but I’d be happy to talk over a particular draft as well and give you more individualized feedback. Wishing you the best of luck, I believe in you 💙

[communistkenobi]

this is maybe silly to tell you about but i'm very envious of how smart you seem and the level of grasp you have on theory that feels incredibly scary to me. i was in uni for sociology, and save for one text that i understood from start to finish, the rest of it always felt like it was deleting my brain cells slowly and made me feel stupid, even as smn who had grown up being a "literature" person. i think it's just a matter of getting started, but it all feels embarrassing >>

what I’m about to say is going to sound very masturbatory and self-aggrandising, but that can’t really helped on account of the fact that the topic is what a smart little boy I am

one, thank you! I’m always very flattered when people give me this compliment. I don’t think it’s silly at all. two, I’m pursuing a PhD in the social sciences with the intent to stay in the academy after I get my doctorate, and my particular field of study skews towards critical theory. on average only 1% of people in canada have a PhD, and a fraction of that percentile have my particular academic trajectory - all of which to say, I am an outlier amongst a peer group of outliers, so I’m an extremely bad measuring stick to use when judging your own critical capabilities. I’ve been in post-secondary school for roughly 7 years now and will be in it for at least four more, and for the past 4ish of those years my main source of employment has been teaching and research, so I am both paying for and being paid to read theory and teach it to undergraduate students in small classroom settings. By the standards of academia I’m very junior, but I have a lot of specialised training in talking and reading, which is to say, it’s taken me a very long time to be where I am now. My academic career depends on my ability to produce original thoughts and write them down in a way that both speaks to existing scholarship while contributing new things to said scholarship, so I’m in an environment that enforces a very particular kind of discipline that is not remotely common or normal. Being a graduate student isn’t a rich profession by any means, but you are paid to learn information and write it down - something I would not be able to do if I was working a full time job.

I also frequently don’t understand the shit I’m reading! It’s extremely difficult to read academic texts because they’re meant to be read in classroom settings where you’re forced to voice your confusion, speak with other people about what you’re reading, defend your positions, connect it to other work, synthesise it in essay format, and so on. My live-blogging of books I’m reading is an attempt to simulate that, because I tend to learn best when writing out why I have the opinions I hold. Being confused isn’t a sign of stupidity but rather a simple fact that you’re brushing up against concepts and theories that take people their whole careers to develop and publish.

My own background in academia is also very eclectic, so I know a little bit about many topics, but there are very little topics can I speak authoritatively on - I can’t speak about the state of knowledge on, say, international relations, or critical race legal scholarship, or employment disability policy, but I know vaguely of those things. I’m not even a well-read marxist lol

All of which is to say - I am a horrible metric to compare yourself to. I am one of the few sickos who genuinely wants to remain in the academy for the rest of my life because I sincerely believe in the pursuit and production of knowledge, and my chance to do so is largely dependant on my ability to explain myself to other people. Put another way, I have spent my entire adult life training to be a marginally popular communist tumblrina on a website primarily known for producing supernatural actor porn. So either way don’t feel bad about it

[markparrish]

FANTASY HOCKEY FOR TUMBLRINAS: A GUIDE

been curious about fantasy but have no idea how it works? and whatever guides google deigns to give you are not helping? do you live in canada or minnesota and have your coworkers managed to press-gang you into their fantasy hockey league and you don’t want to embarrass yourself? welcome! i have one whole season of fantasy hockey experience and managed to get second place in my league so i’m probably qualified to take you through this. strap in and hopefully this isn’t incoherent because i have extremely limited visual aids available!

PART 1: HOW IT WORKS

first, the two major fantasy sites are going to be yahoo fantasy and espn fantasy. which you use is probably determined by which one your league commissioner (person who made your league) likes better. disclaimer: basically all of my experience is with yahoo fantasy.

so before we get to talking about the draft - the first thing you do in your fantasy sports journey - let’s talk about what you’re drafting your favorite little hockey men for.

the goal of fantasy hockey is to win either head-to-head matchups or your group as a whole (depending on the settings of your league, to my knowledge head-to-head is more common) in individual stat categories that fall into two groups - skater stats and goalie stats. for instance, if all your skaters got more goals over the course of a week than your opponent’s skaters, you would win the point in that category. if your opponent’s goalies had a better average save percentage than your goalies, they would get the point in that category.

all stats are cumulative across your entire roster, for the record. even save percentage and goals allowed average for goalies, which are averaged out, use every goaltender appearance.

if your win-loss record is good enough (for some leagues, each category separately counts towards your record - for example if your league has 11 categories and you win 6, lose 4, and draw 1, your record is 6-4-1, not 1-0 - and for other leagues, each stat adds to a cumulative point total in different weights, i.e. goals worth 1, assists worth .5, etc., and whoever's total is higher wins), towards the end of the season you make your league’s playoffs, where you duke it out for the title.

there are two commonly-used sets of skater stats, which have become the ways people define fantasy hockey leagues as a whole: points leagues and “bangers” leagues.

points leagues use, as you can imagine, different points categories for skaters. the most common set of these is goals, assists, and power play points. potentially plus or minus shorthanded points depending on your league. bangers leagues, on the other hand, usually use those three stats plus shots on goal, hits, and blocked shots. this makes player selection more multifaceted and interesting and shifts the balance of who has more value in a given league. brady tkachuk is maybe the exemplar of a player who gains a ton of value in bangers leagues due to him having good points totals while also putting up a lot of value in those banger stats. i had esa lindell in my team last season, who put up a whole 24 points, none of them on the power play, but was still valuable to me because he had a lot of hits and blocked shots and helped me win those categories on a pretty regular basis.

you may be looking furiously on normal websites to figure out a player’s banger stats. you will not find them. ask me how i know this. your most reliable source of player stats is going to be the fantasy websites themselves, and you can look through player databases without having a team. yahoo, at least, even lets you do mock drafts, if you want to get cozy with the ui and the experience before you do it for realsies.

(a sample of what a fantasy stats page might look like. this particular one is displaying player stats from last season. if unfamiliar with stat abbreviations, in order, they are: games played, goals, assists, power play points, shorthanded points, shots on goal, hits, blocked shots.)

(same as above, but for goalies. stats in order: games started, wins, goals allowed, saves, shutouts, overtime losses.)

goalie stats are usually wins, goals allowed average, saves, and shutouts. plus or minus save percentage or overtime losses, depending on your site and settings. these are all pretty straightforward, with the small wrinkle of “do you take a better goalie on a worse team knowing he’ll win less but have better other stats” vs “do you take a more average goalie on a better team knowing he’ll be better supported by his system which might help his stats and definitely get him more wins”.

PART 2: THE DRAFT

now that you know what you’re looking for, let’s talk about the draft.

most fantasy drafts are “snake drafts”, meaning the pick order flips every round, in interest of fairness. while most pro sports drafts are the same order every round (1→16, 1→16, 1→16, etc.), they have history to fall back on. poor teams need better players to build around, while better teams already have those players. but in the average fantasy league, everyone is starting from zero. so the order goes 1→16, 16→1, 1→16, etc. for as many rounds as your draft goes. the person who picked last in the first round gets to pick first in the second round, and so on.

what you’re looking for here is highly dependent on your team settings. does your league just distinguish forwards from defense from goalies? or does forward position matter? (if it does, know a player is not locked into a spot once you use him there - he can play any of his listed positions at any given time, whether or not he actually plays that spot in the lineup. for instance, joe pavelski is listed as both a center and right wing - despite the fact he rarely plays center, you can deploy him there on any given night. or you could deploy him at right wing, if that’s where your opening is.)

i’m going to take you through this with the settings used by my last league.

in my league, you had 16 guys on your roster. 2C, 2LW, 2RW, 4D, 2G, and 4 guys on the bench (who, if they played that day, their stats would not be added to any of your totals, although this was rarely an issue). so on my team, i usually had 8 forwards, with at least 3 people able to play each position, 5 defensemen, and 3 goalies. your league might have a bigger roster, it might not have a bench, it might not care about where forwards play as long as they’re forwards, and this all influences the spread of who you draft and when. if your league calls for - in the case of espn’s default league settings - 9 forwards, 5 defensemen, 1 utility player (put another way, any skater), 2 goalies, and 5 guys on the bench, well, you probably take 12 or 13 forwards, 7 or 8 defensemen, and 3 goalies, and it’s on you how you prioritize the order of that.

really, the important parts of the draft are the first few rounds, when you pick the really high-end guys. later-round players are easier to swap out for each other - which you can do! any guy not drafted is considered a free agent, and if you draft a guy who’s underperforming, you can swap him out for an undrafted guy who’s doing better. so don’t sweat the later rounds too much beyond what roles you need to fill. you can let your fantasy site’s ranking board help you out there.

lightning round q&a:

when do you pick a goalie? generally people go the same way nhl teams do in the entry draft - probably not in the first round unless he’s a really sure thing to an extent that he’s more valuable than whatever top skaters are still there.

can you run with just 2 goalies? if you are extremely confident that your 2 goalies combined can match the output of other teams going with 3 goalies. if you have a vasilevskiy or a sorokin or the type of goalie who is a clear starter and plays at a high level for those starts and your other goalie is giving good starts, then yeah maybe you can run with 2. i did for a bit. take the third goalie though, it’ll make your life so much less stressful, especially if your league has a minimum amount of goalie appearances requirement (mine did - your goalies had to make 3 appearances a week for their stats to count at all).

when do banger stats become more valuable than points? i wish i had a clear answer for that. you just gotta feel it out, man. broadly, when a player’s point total starts to get into average territory, then probably start really looking for those banger stats to maximize value. but if a guy has notable banger stats then maybe you take him before point totals get average. no good answer to this one, sorry

is there any reason for mcdavid not to be 1oa, even in bangers? no, and anyone who tries otherwise is being contrarian for the sake of it. if you luck out getting 1oa just take mcdavid. come on.

if you pick last in the first round, are you boned? well i picked last and got second place, so no you are not :)

when do you make a “reach” pick? as you’re drafting, you’ll have a list of players ranked by the site in front of you. use that to help but not as a bible. you reach when you think someone will take a player before you get to pick again, and the difference between that player and the next player on your list is worth the risk.

idk if people have more questions i can make another post or something. maybe you don’t have any of these questions. i hope it was useful anyways

PART 3: FANTASYING

here’s the meat-and-potatoes nitty-gritty of it all. here’s a very retro view of what your team hub might look like - note the ui absolutely does not look like this anymore:

you can actually see on here what i was talking about earlier with that “guys who play multiple positions can be used in either/any” thing. malkin is listed as both a center and a right wing, and is deployed as a center here, but if, say, this person wanted to bring in derek roy but still use malkin, he could put roy in malkin’s center spot and move malkin to bump selanne or jagr to the bench.

good news! i did manage to find someone’s screenshot with something similar to current app ui:

player stats for the week would be under where it says no game, but you can actually see the ir+ spot in use and what the general layout looks like. actually, speaking of ir-

let’s talk about ir real quick. and this bit is all based on yahoo fantasy, so if espn does this different, i’m sorry and you’re on your own

so! if your team has a dedicated ir+ spot, you can put any guy who is officially listed as out (O, as keller is above), injured reserve (IR), or long-term injured reserve (LTIR) there, and he will not count against your roster total. you have a limited amount of these spots, so probably don’t get landeskog, confirmed to be missing the whole season, and stick him on there, although you can and it won’t affect your main team at all. it would only be a problem if with him you have more injured guys than there are ir+ spots. with this, you could even draft a guy starting the season injured, like a brandon montour, stick him on an ir+ spot, and get a fill-in guy out of free agency afterwards (since you’ll only be drafting enough players to field a team without any injuries), if you think that when he’s healthy, he’ll boost your team enough to be worth missing out on a player of the caliber of where you drafted him. so if a player on your team gets injured and you have ir+ spots, use them! pull a guy out of free agency to take the injured player’s spot and go about your merry business knowing you can still field a full team.

anyways - as before, only the players off the bench (in the white spaces on this ui) count towards your totals. so, and i cannot stress this enough, MAKE SURE YOUR PLAYING PLAYERS ARE ACTUALLY PLAYING AND ADDING TO YOUR STAT TOTALS. much heartbreak has been had by people who have forgotten to do this. yahoo has a fun little button that will automatically do this for you, but only for the week, so keep up with that, too. (for purposes of fantasy, weeks start on mondays btw.) it might also not always start the people you want starting if there’s more guys playing that night than there are spots on your starting roster, so watch for that, too. like if you have 4 defense spots and you have 5 defensemen playing that night, decide which one’s stats you’re most okay with missing out on. players only lock in once their game time comes around, so you do usually have the entire day to decide. you might be influenced by where your matchups are standing - if you’re definitely losing your assists matchup, but your hits matchup is close, you might sit your points-producing defenseman in favor of your big hitter. stuff like that.

and that’s actually pretty much it! even playoffs work the same way. once you’ve got your team, the day-to-day of fantasy is pretty simple. make sure your players are playing, adjust your team with free agents if necessary, conveniently ignore trade requests if they suck (as far as i can tell trading is more prolific in irl fantasy groups where people know each other better, we had like no trades in my online league of strangers last season), root on some guys you’ve never heard of before because you need them, and have fun!

[us-the-voices-and-more-voices-2]

well, new knowledge acquired.

this makes way too much fucking sense, and why I have this stupid ass uh code switching god the code switches.

I am fluent in the old ways, I know how to do shit the old way. but man you can LITERALLY feel the difference and disconnect, I like talking with you guys online because well. You understand it, my friends almost understand what I mean. But yeah it’s weird.

I’m not a digital native first gen, I didn’t get on til the mid and late 2000s. And then the old web had basically was gone.

so new disconnect between old gen digital natives and new internet natives, like different again.

personally I prefer old digital native shit, I like the vibes and the culture since I grew up in the last hurrah of the old web.

new web is weird, I only know what I know because I LITERALLY grew up on here.

a computer and a mouse or a touchscreen and my wits are as natural to me as walking, which is weird.

sometimes the culture slips in and I reference shit that makes no sense and people look at me funny.

I so desperately want to indulge in basically the stories and shit of my childhood, but it doesn’t make much sense.

It’s all pretty crude and unsettling, and like I don’t “behave” right.

like boo, lemme be super weird and happy about being in the internet.

I know most think that it not important or something but shit the culture on here is my culture, it doesn’t matter where the fuck we live we speak the same shit.

even if it’s not the same language, it’s weird.

I bite my tongue even though I shouldn’t lol, I don’t say things how I normally do because it’s so “strange” to people.

yeah I sound like a walking YouTube video sometimes!

How the fuck else am I supposed to talk? I was literally raised there I was raised on here it’s my fucking blood.

I don’t know what’s going to happen in the next couple decades what new cultural practices will appear for us internet natives.

will we inherit our parents social media and or email accounts?

what will be considered normal for us, are our internet accents and dialects going to diverge into their own languages?

what’s going to happen to the digital natives who grew and lived on social media’s that died? What sort of culture do we leave behind?

I already am learning so so much about tumblr I ain’t a tumblrina though, YouTuber over here.

what the fuck is the future going to be like, we are 2 generations deep now in the budding internet culture and history.

we might as well be our own thing, which is weird.

I have adjusted so well to tumblr because well Tumblr and YouTube are so similar, the culture is so different and the language and accents and history are too.

but it’s weird, because well I feel happy and welcomed here.

some of us settle down into our own little cultures and lives and fuck it’s weird.

we are literally dubbed with our own new names, and you can tell where people hail from.

some people speak so strongly internet accented, we are genuinely a generation or 2 away from our own internet dialects becoming languages.

why do you guys think you don’t here skibidi and rizz and “REAL” on here?

I’m literally just straight up speaking YouTube, I have been my whole life. whatever the fuck this means for me, I don’t sound like a tumblrina I won’t ever. I can’t get it right, but man we literally are diverging our own languages at this rate.

[arcofacatboy]

I find it so funny that Neal’s tumblr is so dead, no one interacts or even LOOKS at it, the only thing he can get more than 1 or 2 notes is when he reposts scythe fanart desperately trying to gain those fans back

I think anyone with the capacity to understand what AOAS, The Unwind Dystology, & Dry were about, condemns Neal’s actions, considering he condemns his actions within the context of his own books, so of course the people in his fandom left.

No one told the scythe Reddit about Neal’s Zionism, so I told them, and it was a big mistake, they insulted me relentlessly. This proves my theory that most people who are still active fans of him (who know about the situation) are very young & entitled people who don’t care about anyone but themselves. They want to pick internet fights and enjoy things uncritically above all else, so they’ll call me a druggie for calling Neal a Zionist.

But yeah @scottishgremlin and I were talking about this (sorry to call you out bestie) the fandom has been dead since everyone with a brain cell left. Us who were most passionate about the series felt disgusted by Neal’s neutrality and wanted nothing to do with him, because our passion could be taken as agreeing with his views. And when the truly passionate moved on, the fan content dried up. (At least, I assume it did. I don’t go looking for it.)

But, I think Neal’s tumblr has always performed poorly since the dude doesn’t know how to tag posts 😭 he’s only been tagging them AT ALL within the last year, and now that he does tag them, he doesn’t use spaces. (for example, #NealShustermanBooks rather than #neal Shusterman) this is why you don’t have a social media manager for ur tumblr, if you’re gonna have a tumblr you need to learn to post like a tumblrina. Except fuck Neal, I disown him from tumblr

Sorry if this is unhinged my thoughts are scrambled. Basically, Neal made his bed and now he’s laying in it

[perdvivly]

Not waiting for chance or fate to dictate the terms of how annoying I’m allowed to be on the internet. I am choosing to answer them all now, unasked as I am.

1) This is mildly variable depending on the amount of effort I’m willing to expend. Typically the common theme is no adulterants. No sugar, no milk, no queen of England. If I’m getting fancy with it I’ll make an effort to time the brewing duration, 3mins for a black tea, 5mins for a green tea, 7mins for a herbal tea. But honestly the sort of depression chic I’ve been serving lately has been leaving the bag in and drinking it straight, tannins be damned.

2) Mandarin. Just seems like it’d be the most useful innit. Also, relatively harder to pick up non-magically given my native Englishhood.

3) God. I try not to honestly. No, but seriously, my sleep schedule has been all sorts of out of shape recently. I should work on that. At the moment it varies wildly day to day and depends on my responsibilities the days before and after the sleep. I’ve pulled a couple of all nighters recently and it gets screwy.

4) Maybe atla? I remember really liking it when it came out but not fully understanding the whole plot because I didn’t see it serialised until later. Maybe the simpsons? There’s something to say here about the earnestness of the earlier seasons and seeing a deeply dysfunctional family care about each other in ways they struggle to express—that gets glossed out as the production value rises in the later seasons—that’s like heroin to someone trapped in an irony poisoned world. But maybe that’s cope? Maybe it’s just the show I had the easiest access to as a kid. I guess I didn’t watch a whole bunch of tv or at least not a whole bunch that stuck with me.

5) Summer ez. (Have you seen her baphomet pics? 🥵)

6) In general, I doubt very much that either the optimist or the pessimist considers themselves such. It’s not really the sort of thing that admits of self-diagnosis in that way… Philosophically, the broader question is what? Do I align with Schopenhauer, Voltaire’s Leibniz, or Russel’s Leibniz? I’m not sure the tumblrinas care about the history of philosophy. I guess I’ll say to the extent that Schopenhauer relies on Indian mysticism, which I think is typically underrated, he’s simply mistaken about the world as will and representation. I’ll say that, I’m *not* a Buddhist. I think the doctrine of dukkha misses fundamental aspects of human existence. I’ll say that people have richer inner lives, deeper felt internal experiences, than you might assume from reading their little words on the internet. And that, on the whole, these are good things.

7) I mean, both ideally. Variety is the spice of life. If I had to choose I suppose it would be sunshine. But I’m terribly glad I don’t live in a world where I have to choose.

8) I have the cutest little book marks. My primary two at the moment are the sun and the moon, which I use for main text and end notes respectively. Though, I have been known to dog-ear in my time. I once got yelled at by my aunt for turning the corner of the page on my copy of Harry Potter and the order of the phoenix because it was a first edition and she was under the impression that it may be valuable some day. I was like, come on man, I’m 7. Don’t even piss. <- I didn’t say these things, but I was *like* that.

9) For the longest time I *only* wore steel toe capped boots because I ran myself over with an electric pallet stacker and tore my toenail off and decided I didn’t want that to happen again. I don’t do that anymore because I interact with heavy machinery less than I used to. Now all that matters to me is that they’re waterproof.

10) *My* signature scent like, I produce it? Or like I like it? I guess one of my favourite scents is lavender. But I've been told... Okay, it's important you guys know I do *not* have a yeast infection... I've been told some parts of my body naturally smell like bread, like, that sort of doughy yeasty (I s2g I do *not* (I did not hit her. I did not! oh hi mark)) smell that you get with bread sometimes. Is that what the question was asking?

11) I mean... That's broadly not for me to decide right? Unless the sort of dragons you're imagining have some sort of glamoury illusion magic, which seems plausible. Anyway, do you guys remember in Moby Dick when he goes on this wild tangent about how St. George and The Dragon was acutally about whales? And St. George's horse was actually a walrus or something. What was that about??

Okay, author's note, there's a time skip here. I've been scrolling through lists of dragons in popular culture for a while now and there are a pretty neat and widely varied selection of designs. I'll get back to you on this one.

12) It depends on why I'm writing! If it's a quick note to myself for future reference it'll generally be cursive, if it's an important document that will be read by other people generally it'll be print. If it's time-sensitive it'll be cursive. I remember writing essays for undergrad that I'm sure were totally illegible by the end of them, I think literally just a line on a page with occasional lifts and dips.

13) There is more information on wookieepedia than existed in my philosophy but a few minutes ago. The typology I've discerned is thus: blue - jock, green - nerd, yellow - geek, red - edgelord. And I'm a little bit of all of these, so I think any would be fine. Realistically though, I'm not sure a lightsaber is the best weapon in fantasy space-past-future where spaceships and lasers are common. Like, I'll let it slide because the original trilogy was doing a kirkegaardian faith thing and the prequels were doing a logic doesn't matter it's cool thing, and those are both respectable motivations to leave logistics aside for a bit.

14) Sad

15) Ice skates! I love ice skating!

16) I'm a youngest. I have an older sister, I think I talk about her here from time to time.

17) Well, how I would use it would depend massively on what it was. If the question is which superpower I think is the best then why not ask that? Which superpower would I have has a faint ring of incomprehensibility about it. It's really not clear which counterfactual is under consideration. *If* what?

Anyway, I think time control powers are up there right? Top five at least, easy. Imagine what you could do if you could stop time and sleep whenever you felt like it. I feel King Leerish about the ability to just be well rested. I would do such things, what they are yet I know not.

18) The problem with romantic relationships is that eventually, all of your most interesting clothing will end up in someone else's closet. I think my day-to-day wear tends to be mostly blues, blacks and whites. Not hugely interesting colourwise.

19) Snake, I think, they have fewer demands and I can't really handle any more pressure in my life than I already have. I would hate to be a bad bird mom... I would hate to be a bad snake mom too, but I think it's easier. Typically regarded as easier. I don't know.

20) Okay, so, it's like this right: medieval battle = will probably die. And it's also like this: behind city walls = safe, my friend and lover and confidant. And so, for very obvious reasons, it's gotta be a bow right? Like, I'm standing way out of the action and I'll shoot some arrows long range. But if that's against the spirit of the ask then it's gotta be some kind of polearm, like a halberd or something. Not even close. The advantage you get from distance is hard to overstate. Yeah, polearm for sure.

21) Mint choc chip, it's just such a classic. But also, I had a "london fog" flavour recently that was really compelling. It's just earl grey and vanilla but it's so good.

22) I'm more of a herbs person than a spices person. Like, hmm, I do really enjoy paprika and ginger and stuff like that, don't get me wrong. But it doesn't really hold a candle to the sheer universality of parsley or basil or oregano or mint. Herbs stay winning.

23) These days it's aptos because I am the worlds most basic bitch. And yes, I do still have a fondness for arial.

ask game that tells a lot about you.

how do you take your tea / coffee?

if you could be fluent in any language at the snap of your fingers, which one and why?

when do you wake up?

what was your favourite tv show as a kid?

summer or winter?

realist, optimist, or pessimist?

rain or sunshine?

how do you mark your spot in a book?

what are your favourite shoes like?

what would your non-perfume/cologne signature scent be?

if you were a dragon, what would you look like?

is your handwriting more print, cursive, or a mix?

what colour would your lightsaber be?

what is your defining personality trait?

roller skates or rollerblades or ice skates?

are you an only child? oldest / middle / youngest?

what would your superpower be? how would you use it?

what’s your clothing colour palette?

pet snake or pet bird?

weapon of choice in a medieval battle

the best ice cream flavour

what spices do you always use when cooking?

default font when typing?

[korofessions]

okay i don’t know how to put this in a normal way but. a lot of mogai/edit/whatever-blr has a problem with dni lists…

like i’m sorry. we are grown ass people here. we should be allowed to interact with eachother even if we disagree on certain things. it should be up to US and our OWN MORAL CODE whether or not we interact with someone based off of THEIR STANCES.

this is why i don’t have a ‘dni’ list. i state my opinion on common controversial topics, and let other people decide if they want to interact with me based off of that.

for example— i personally wouldn’t interact with someone who doesn’t believe in mspec labels (lesboy, etc). but! as a system who is pro/neutral-endo, some of my closes mutuals are systems who are anti-endo!! why?? because we are People Who Touch Grass and can have Respectful Disagreements about shit!!!!

(while i’m here. i hate syscourse so much bro. plurality is already so vague, why is there a whole side of tumblr dedicated to arguing about this….)

anyway my point is. your boundaries are valid or whatever. just… like. think a little, maybe. go outside. touch grass. is it really worth drawing these invisible lines in the sand over discourse that no one besides a bunch of tumblrinas care about.

Not really much to say here. I agree with the majority of it.

[evasivaardilosa]

The overreactions about the new game annoy me so much

Specially when they’re surrounded by misinformation like. At least half of the people complaining about the invasion story don’t seem to even know what the story is. Some people are treating it like game canon, someone said it felt like a tower ending and some people are talking about it like it’s an actual tower ending. For fuck’s sake, for all we know Hanzo isn’t even actually in the game

Did you guys ever read the flavor text of the towers of time? Do you guys know how much bullshit happens there?? Do you guys know how disposable most of the actual arcade endings are?!

And that. That fucking post that haunts me since I created this account. That one about how everything that people dislike about mk11 was a deliberate decision to hurt lgbt+ fans specifically. Some of you guys truly believe that shit huh

(Yes Hanzo died and past Scorpion (a full grown adult) stayed in the present specifically so you puritan subscorps would be mistaken for shipping an age gap ship) (Yes Sonya died because lgbt+ people ship straight ships too)

The game isn’t even out yet. I am sure it will be full of story points that all of us will hate but like. Why not wait until seeing what they will actually be instead of trying to guess from promos that are deliberately hiding stuff and unconfirmed leaks? Or not, you don’t have to buy it, you don’t have to play it. You don’t have to even acknowledge it if you don’t want to

And like. Remember it was probably made keeping in mind the dudebros who spend tons of money in dlcs and merch and participate in competitions than you, random tumblrina who posts fic on ao3. We’re not their main market, we’re probably the least of their worries, for good and for bad

[shego1142]

So in an interest to defeat the potential influx of celebrities and or brands, along with blocking them as they crop up, I suggest we return to our tumblr roots in another way:

URL Hoarding.

For anyone who wasn’t here at the time or doesn’t remember, urls used to be as valuable as gold here on tunglr dot net

Getting the url you wanted, pristine and unhyphenated with no numbers added to it (like tumblr user pizza for example) was a battle only the stubborn dared to take on.

Because it was notoriously difficult.

Why was it difficult?

Because you can’t just message staff and say “Hey! I’m important and powerful and I want that username now!!!”

No you have to message the blog that owns the url.

And haggle.

And it wasn’t even some money making scheme half the time! A lot of the time the person wanted like art commissions!

So what url hoarding was, was making a bunch of sideblogs with every version of the url you could imagine someone wanting and then sitting on them and waiting. You can make 10 sideblogs a day and some people did this like it was their job.

Do you see where I’m going here now? Do you see how funny of an idea this is???

Imagine. Imagine a “powerful” “influential” corporation wanting to barter and trade with us tumblrinas. Only to realise we want sonic the hedgehog porn or a $100k donation to ao3 in our name.

Or to realise that we absolutely can not be haggled with whatsoever.

I don’t know about you but I think the absolute funniest option is to just refuse to haggle with them.

Use their coveted url to reblog complete nonsense.

Watch them cry and squirm when they realise their powers don’t work here.

I mean as long as you rinse them for all their worth (IE don’t settle for $10k from a multi billion dollar company) if you do go making bank off of some determined corporate jerk then like, more power to you.

I just love the idea of a celebrity or a company coming to tumblr and having to have a ridiculously unofficial looking url.

“Wal-mart-1982-official-real” because tumblr user Walmart already exists or something

[acespec-ed]

This could just be me, but being gray ace kinda sucks sometimes.

It’s extremely rare that I experience sexual attraction, but I have. And occasionally that fact makes me feel like shit.

Not only is sexual attraction annoying and inconvenient, but it gives me major imposter syndrome. It doesn’t help that I rarely see other acespecs talk about the times they experience attraction. Or when they do talk about it, it’s about a case so weak and minor that, they could get away with calling themselves asexual if they wanted. So at times it feels like I really am just the average allo.

But half the time I venture outside of ace spaces, I stumble upon some sex-related conversation that makes me go ??????? and leaves me so confused and makes me feel like I’m on another planet because I straight-up cannot relate to their feelings or experiences I just can’t! I relate to aces far more than allos.

There’s been times I’ve seen aces make jokes about sexual attraction being fake and how weird it is people feel that, and I mentally join in for a second before I remember that, wait, I experienced that I know how it feels. And then I feel like I’m just, faking everything to fit into a space I don’t belong in. As many drawbacks as sex-repulsion has, I’m relieved whenever I feel it because it reminds me that yes, I actually do belong in the ace community. 

The worst part of all of this is the fact I learned about the ace spectrum during the whole “are asexuals real?” dis/course, where I couldn’t go 3 fucking days without seeing some asshole calling aces special snowflake Tumblrinas. Without someone saying gray aces are “normal.” “Everyone is like that.” “No one experiences sexual attraction all the time.” I came across that shit multiple times a week for God knows how long!

So every time I experience sexual attraction, or, hell, even remember the fact I have experienced it, I hear those words over and over like it’s 2013 all over again. “Nobody feels sexual attraction all the time.” “Everyone experiences it like that.” “You’re normal.” “You’re just looking for attention.” “You’re being a special snowflake.” “You need to go outside.”

And then there was the second wave of ace dis/course. Which just piles up on all of it. “Cishet aces aren’t LGBT.” “Cishet demisexuals aren’t LGBT.” “They’re just using that as an excuse to invade LGBT spaces.” “They’re hogging resources.” “Why do you wanna be oppressed so bad?” 

Nevermind the fact I’ve never set foot in an LGBT+ center or attended any LGBT+ events, and don’t plan to. But since I’m cis and heteromantic, and have only been sexually attracted towards the opposite gender, I feel like I really am just looking for an excuse to be oppressed. That I am looking for attention. That I’m Straighty McStraight Straight trying hard to fit into a space I have no business being in. And I feel like that’s true, because what hardships would a cishet gray ace even have? At least I’m capable of experiencing sexual attraction and have a chance at a “normal” relationship, unlike actual asexuals.

It’s, like, I can’t relate to allos. I can relate to aces, until one of them says something that triggers the imposter syndrome. So I end up feeling like shit and like I don’t belong there. It’s like I don’t belong anywhere. I’m not any of the other LGBT+ identities, which puts me in the cishet category, which shoves me in with the allos I can’t relate to.

It’s such a minor issue in the grand scheme of things, I know. I really shouldn’t complain. But it gets tiring, feeling shoved aside and alienated in every possible space, be it allocishet, ace, or LGBT+. Which kinda sucks.