#Initially when I was going to start posting links on tumblr I envisioned like this elaborate art piece to go with it

[creativenicocorner]

A strange case takes Reigen and Serizawa to a small (intimately so, a detail Reigen might be hesitant to comment on) village North in the mountains, where they quickly discover things are far stranger than they both realized. Not only that, but they might be more than just a little out of their depths.

Nature, the past, it all has a way of being heard - even to those reluctant to listen.

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Reblogs, Kudos, and Comments are deeply appreciated ♡

[traincat]

I’ve been trying to piece together a few things from your Twitter and Tumblr posts alike and still can’t make heads or tales of things, so would you mind helping out a FF & spideytorch noob? 1) what is currently happening with Johnny in the comics? (I’ve fallen head over heels for this guy, largely all your doing) 2) when’s the last time he and Peter have interacted, canon wise? (And do you think upcoming interactions are likely?) 3) your thoughts on if they’ll have him come out in the near future? (has that ‘biggest change to the fantastic four’ teaser come to pass yet?) Love all your content, thank you!

I'd say no problem but then I started thinking about this current run again and got a headache. But yes, I can do that to save you from reading it, because it is very largely not good.

So I don't think it's unfair to just flat out say the current Fantastic Four run is not very good, largely due to writer Dan Slott's efforts. Slott was previously on Amazing Spider-Man for 10 years, to mixed opinions, but a large portion of Spider-Man fandom, myself included, blames him near singlehandedly for the decline in quality of Spider-Man books over those ten years. I will say, in the interest of fairness, that Slott as a writer has an incredible fondness for the Spider-Man/Human Torch relationship, and that a lot of the recent teamups and interactions between them have been written or co-written by him. So it's all not all negative here. But in general, I personally find Slott's more recent comics (the last seven-ish years especially) to be badly plotted out, messily characterized disasters that feature characters written with all the emotion of a cardboard cutout. That's me putting it nicely.

To explain this fully, you have to understand the position Fantastic Four comics were in from the years 2015 through 2018, both in the fictional 616 universe and in the real publishing world. Following the 2015 Secret Wars event (great if you want some Johnny angst in the background of your plot), the Fantastic Four were disbanded -- Reed, Sue, and their many biological and found family children were presumed dead but in reality were remaking the multiverse, unable, for a reason that was never clearly defined, to reach home. Ben and Johnny were left on Earth. They had an unspecified falling out, likely due to Reed and Sue's absence, and went their separate ways -- Ben joined the Guardians of the Galaxy and went to space. Johnny was featured on both Inhumans and Avengers books. What's notable about this period is that it's the first time since 1961 that there was no Fantastic Four book being published by Marvel. Now the real world reason behind this is both complicated and extremely petty: Marvel really wanted the Fantastic Four film rights. Marvel denied this explanation at the time, stating that the reason was sales motivated, but it was a thoroughly flimsy excuse and Jonathan Hickman, writer of 2015's Secret Wars and overseer of the current X-Men plot, gave an interview saying the decision was film rights motivated. This decision kept the Fantastic Four books off the shelves for three years, up until the Disney-Fox merger, which secured the X-Men and Fantastic Four rights for Disney's Marvel Studios. Marvel then announced that the Fantastic Four book would be returning. So that's a little bit of background as to the precarious place the Fantastic Four currently occupy in the Marvel universe -- it's worth noting that this year is their 60th anniversary, and Marvel has done very little for it. Compare this to the X-Men, whose film rights Marvel also obtained during the Disney-Fox merger, and whose books are currently dominating the publishing lineup. The Fantastic Four definitely occupy an unpopular position, one Marvel themselves is at least partially responsible for forcing them into.

But to move back into the actual content of the book -- the readjustment period Slott wrote reintroducing the Fantastic Four into the Marvel universe can be described as clumsy, at best. It's never fully explained why Reed, Sue, and the kids couldn't return to Earth, something that was explored in Chip Zdarsky's 2017 Marvel Two-in-One, which featured Ben, Johnny, and Doom on a multiversal roadtrip to try and find their family and which I on the whole recommend, despite it having an awkward ending due to being cut short by Slott's announced Fantastic Four main title.

(Marvel Two-in-One 2017 #4)

Instead, the Fantastic Four return to a Marvel universe a little different than how they left it, with the Baxter Building -- formerly the offices of Parker Industries, the company Doc Ock started in Peter's body during Superior Spider-Man that Peter inherited after his defeat and then lost spectacularly when he trashed his own company to fight nazis (good for him) -- occupied by a different fantastic foursome in a plot that goes nowhere and does nothing. This is somewhat emblematic of the early days of Slott's run -- he introduces ideas that fail to go anywhere, including Johnny's rekindled relationship with his other best friend and former college roommate, Wyatt Wingfoot, who he was seen being very cuddly with in the early issues.

(FF 2018 #1) A small group of Fantastic Four fans have argued for a while that if Marvel was to have Johnny come out, a relationship with Wyatt would feel very natural -- they're already close, with Wyatt being an important Fantastic Four supporting character since the '60s. I have some further analysis here on the conspiracy theory that Johnny and Wyatt were supposed to be in relationship at the beginning of this run but that that plot was, for whatever reason, nixed. I don't know that I entirely believe this theory, for the record -- but I do think the pieces line up remarkably well.

Anyway, that didn't/hasn't yet happened, obviously. Slott instead for the most part put Johnny on the back burner for the beginning of his run, up until the Spyre arc, which I have reason to believe is the main story he pitched that he credits with securing him the Fantastic Four title. The Spyre arc suggests that the Fantastic Four's failed space exploration during which they got their powers wasn't just to beat the commies to the moon, as Lee and Kirby envisioned (simpler days), but to reach a specific planet outside of our galaxy. When the team sets out to conquer this mission, they arrive at the planet, but are quickly captured. The planet, they find out, operates like a soulmate AU -- everyone has a fated person that they are matched to via a gold armband. Reed and Sue are soulmates (and Ben is confined to an underground subterranean with the other monsters, because this is a Fantastic Four comic) while it's discovered! Shocker! That Johnny is actually the soulmate of the one the planet's inhabitants, a winged woman named Sky, with the suggestion that this is both why Johnny's previous relationships have never worked and why he loves space exploration -- he was just trying to get to his Soulmate TM.

(FF 2018 #15) "What's going on here? Where are my clothes?" As you can see, this didn't start off super great, with Johnny being separated from his family, stripped naked, and put in Sky's bed with a soulmate armband slapped on him. Did I mention they're only removable if your soulmate takes it off for you? And that Sky has consistently refused despite Johnny asking her to? Yeah. It's bad. (I think it's important to note Johnny's long history as a victim of assault plays into this narrative, whether or not Slott is personally holding that in mind while writing, which I don't believe he is. cw in the linked post for discussions of sexual assault.) There's an additional issue here in that Slott has a history of problematic writing regarding women of color, featuring characters he's created to act as love interests being oversexualized, infantilized, villainized, or some mix of all three, with two examples of this phenomena being Cindy Moon and Lian Tang, both of whom he introduced in quick succession in Amazing Spider-Man. Slott certainly didn't have to write Sky as manipulative or controlling towards Johnny, but that's what he chose to do, and that factors into the bigger picture of unfortunate themes in his writing.

Sky returns to Earth with the Fantastic Four despite Johnny appearing unenthused about the idea and initially generally reluctant to interact with her. Apparently they went on a few dates after this and kind of made up. I don't know because I stopped reading for about ten issues in there but I feel confident I missed very little. It's hard to talk about the Sky plot without referencing Johnny's previous interactions with a character named Lyja, a Skrull whose relationship to Johnny I have a long breakdown of here. It's doubly hard, because Lyja actually showed back up in Fantastic Four during this plot. Lyja's modus operandi has remained consistent throughout almost all of her appearances, which I guess makes sense, because she literally has no storylines that do not involve her being obsessed with Johnny, and this recent story isn't any different: Lyja shows up, Lyja disguises herself as another woman in Johnny's life to get close to Johnny, Lyja gets caught and claims it was all fine because she did it for love. This time she disguised herself as Sky.

(FF 2018 #32) Not gonna lie, kind of proud of him for this one. That's one of my problems with Slott -- very occasionally, he busts out good moments, only to undermine them with the rest of his narrative.

In the same issue, Alicia Masters, the first woman Lyja impersonated in order to get close to Johnny, uses her supervillain stepfather's radioactive clay to control Lyja's mind and send her back to space, and I do think she utilized girl power when she did this. Johnny, left reeling after Lyja's latest attempts to trick him into a relationship, ends this issue by sleeping with Victorious, Dr. Doom's right hand woman.

I know she pegged him. I know it. This scene was a little controversial in Johnny fandom, because a lot of people viewed it as Johnny cheating on Sky and thought that that action was out of character for Johnny. I'm personally of a little different opinion, which is that regardless of whether or not you view Johnny and Sky in a committed enough relationship that Johnny's tryst would count as infidelity when all Johnny and Sky are bound by are magic plot soulmate bracelets, I think Lyja's involvement changes things significantly when it comes to Johnny's characterization. All of Johnny's "playboy" periods, if we can call them that, coincide directly with Lyja having been in and then left his life again, which I think makes a certain amount of sense -- it's Johnny trying to wrest control back after a situation where he had none. None of this is explicitly canon, I have to note, but sometimes in comics you have to do the work yourself. So I think this is a case of something being accidentally extremely in character that Slott accidentally stumbled into because he had these love triangles in mind, not because he put a lot of thought into it.

Speaking of love triangles! Johnny sleeping with Victorious gets more complicated when Dr. Doom announces his intent to marry Victorious -- not because he has any romantic interest in her (this engagement caused a lot of uproar in Fantastic Four because Victorious had been previously referred to as being like Doom's adopted daughter) but in order to install her as Latverian regent in his absence. I'm not going to lie, I love a political wedding. Victorious, for some reason, thinks Doom will be deeply upset that she slept with some closeted blond twink and the member of the Fantastic Four he views least as an enemy and more as an annoyance. Johnny, who Sky is currently not talking to because she "felt" him sleeping with Victorious through their magic plot soulmate bracelets, also feels nervous about Doom finding out about this, which I guess is slightly more valid. Anyway, for some completely ridiculous reason, Victorious decides the best time to tell Doom about this little indiscretion is when they're standing at the altar, which coincidentally the Fantastic Four are also standing at, because Doom asked Reed to be his best man in a not at all homoerotic little setup involving midnight swordfighting and Reed slipping Doom's emerald ring onto his own finger. Sorry to sidetrack into DoomReed territory here but it's just like. It's just a lot.

(FF 2018 #33) Also, Ben walked the bride down the aisle. :,) Look at his gigantic hand.

Anyway then Doom decides he's going to kill everyone in a completely reasonable and not at all overblown reaction to Johnny and Zora having what was most likely both disappointing for Zora and weepy for Johnny sex. And that brings us up to where Fantastic Four comics left us yesterday -- in answer to your "big change" question, that's most likely coming up in the next issue, so it hasn't come to pass yet.

Having gotten all that out of the way -- the last time Johnny and Peter interacted canon-wise was in the recent Empyre Fallout Fantastic Four, at the end of the Empyre event:

It was cute! Slott does right good interactions between them. This is possibly the Stockholm Syndrome talking. I don't know if more interactions are likely imminent -- the Empyre event was fairly recent. On the other hand, Slott does like writing interactions between them. So I'd give it about a 50/50 shot. I was skimming the letter page in the latest issue and someone wrote in asking if Peter was likely to appear in the pages of Fantastic Four again any time soon, so there is definitely a demand.

As for Johnny coming out -- I don't know. It's not a call I feel comfortable making at this moment, which I guess means I wouldn't bet money on it. I'd like to say yes, especially because I think Slott set up, whether that was his intention or more likely not, several good places in his run where Johnny could have come out. The beginning, when he's implied to be living with Wyatt again and where he and Wyatt are paralleled against Ben and Alicia. Ben's bachelor party, where Johnny laments not finding the right person -- specifically person and not woman -- and where Ben tells him to "be brave, Johnny Storm." And the soulmate planet plot, where I think could have had a very different and much better ending if Johnny had told Sky that she couldn't be his romantic soulmate, because he knows he wants to be with a man. But those are just places that I think would have made good opportunities for a coming out story. Instead, Johnny's been involved (dubiously) with three different women over the space of the last 10 issues, which is more heterosexuality at one time than he's been confronted with in the last 60 years. So my thoughts are still that it's going to happen eventually, but quite possibly not anytime soon.

Hope that helps! And that my incredibly long answer about what's currently going on with Johnny in comics sheds some light on things!

[mrs-nate-humphrey]

here’s a thought: if the show had been less cowardly and went forward with incorporating dan’s bisexuality from the novels into the show’s canon, how and when do you think it should have been done? what kind of storyline would you ideally want for him?

hi!! as you can imagine, i was delighted to receive an ask of this nature, and i started writing an answer for this, and then tumblr randomly shut its tab and ate it (biphobia!) so i’m trying again. uhh the short answer is that there was ample opportunity in canon – this post i made about dan dating everyone in the njbc, while sadly a joke, is based entirely on canon situations & dynamics. 

[ more under the cut ]

that post i linked is quite a bit even as is but there are more things in canon that lend themselves to dan being bi which i didn’t think of while making that post, such as:

the thing with chuck, when he was trying to get that story in season 2. it was very fade to black, which means anything could have happened.

dan making nate’s character in inside gay!! like, this was played off as a ‘haha funny’ by everyone, but characters in inside are…. recognisable. blair realised dan loves her for her through an extract from the book. everyone in dan’s life was pissed off with him because they could recognise themselves in the book. why would dan even make nate gay? what purpose does that serve? is it heterosexual to look at your dude best friend and go “damn, i wish he was gay”? nope! (here's a little more on why i choose to interpret it this way, despite the whole nate & eric being one character fusion thing.)

remember that bit in s2 that all of us dairs keep yelling about, where dan gives blair advice on how to seduce chuck? why was blair taking dan’s help on how to get the guy?? what made dan a suitable candidate for this sort of seduction? what made serena –  dan’s literal ex gf – suggest dan for this job? this makes so much more sense if he were bi, seriously.

him thinking of nate & serena having sex at the shepard wedding in graphic detail. i made this meme because, lmao, dan, what are you doing! but seriously – that didn’t feel very heterosexual to me, at all. i know the vibe was supposed to be ‘dan comparing himself to nate’ but the vibe was… not that, lmao.

things i would do beyond this / the direction i would get canon to take:

i think dan would know he liked boys as young as like, 13 or 14, but i think he would repress it and keep it to himself and not talk about it. vanessa would have her suspicions, possibly, but she would never bring it up.

i’ve written this in a fic or two before, but i headcanon dan’s first crush on someone in school to be on nate and not on serena. he meets serena at that party in ninth grade, but i’m assuming that he has classes with nate all the time at school, more than with serena simply because of the way constance/ st. jude is divided.

i think dan would have a lot of internalized biphobia to work through. i don’t think he would initially be happy or comfortable with knowing he likes boys, and he would try to ignore it. dan’s already very much a loner, ostracized by his peers, made to feel different and weird, and to him this would be one more thing that sets him apart from his classmates and makes him different from them.

so, given this, i think dan would be afraid of / highly uncomfortable with the possibility of becoming a stereotype. like “of course dan likes men, he likes to read poetry and watch romantic movies” or “of course dan likes men, he’s so well-informed on fashion” –  i think dan would find that sort of thing uncomfortable and reductive, but in true dan humphrey fashion, i think he would be judging himself more than anybody else is.

this sounds so cliché, but i think dan having a gay arc in college would be best for him. esp given his popularity at NYU, i think that’d do wonders for his self-confidence in general – knowing that he’s found ‘his people’ and that people like his writing and like him, just for who he is.

he would kiss a boy at some party, and the world wouldn’t end, and the boy would give dan his number, and dan… would still be too shy to call but it’d be a life-changing moment of… oh. i can have relationships with boys and still be dan humphrey. this doesn’t change anything about me. okay.

once he’s had that revelation, of course, it gets a lot easier. i’d want dan to have his first serious boyfriend in college. probably not anybody he knows from high school, someone new – an olivia type of person, basically, but a man.

he could still end up with blair, or get to raise milo with nate – i like both nate & blair as potential romantic endgames for dan. blair gets him in a way that nobody else really does, which is fun to watch on the show and very sweet to envision for dan. at the same time, there’s an easiness to the way he is with nate, like, their friendship is so low-pressure and solid and i think that’d translate nicely into a relationship, despite lack of similar interests.

i would like dan to make queer friends at college! i would love that for him. i’d like him to have friends who drag him into gay bars, i’d like for vanessa to realise she’s bi in college (vanlivia always had better chemistry than danlivia, this is the hill i will die on), i’d like dan to finally get to a point where he’s comfortable enough with his sexuality that even if randoms go “of course he likes men, he likes poetry and he likes fashion” he’d just be like, “fuck off, i like men because i like men, not because of the other things,” and he would… not care what people said, basically.

there’s probably more, but this is all i have for now! bonus: here’s a margottenenbaum S3 au fic where instead of serena who has the affair with tripp, it’s dan who does that? it’s a really interesting fic – the dynamic is so different, and it’s in tripp pov, which is kind of a rarity, at least, from what i’ve seen.

if for some reason you want more thoughts from me on bisexual dan beyond this, here’s an iconic conversation @blairwaldorfisgay & i had which started out with nate x dan & somehow ended up at chuck x dan. to this day, i have No idea how that happened, lmao.

[swiftletinthecloud]

Day 3 Emotion: Zuko Gifset - My Gif Making Thought Process

I’ve been meaning to jot down and share my thought process for this particular Zuko gifset I made for the Creatorhub Summer Event 2021.  However, I wanted to finish all 7 days of the event first before I sit down and do so, and at long last, I finally finished and posted Day 7 the other day. This particular Zuko gifset is probably one of my favorite gifsets; the end product turned out very much similar to how I had envisioned it and I’m just so happy with it! This is also more my thought process behind making the set than a gif tutorial.

It all started probably a day or two before May 29, 2021, the UEFA Champions League final between Chelsea and Manchester City when Antonio Rüdiger’s  article was making the rounds on tumblr.  It was one of the most emotional and beautiful pieces of writing I’ve read. Definitely recommend it.  There were also quite a few quotes that stuck with me from the article, including the iconic quote I used for the gifset. “I have lived too much life to have the hope of a child. But I am not hopeless. I am going to continue to fight — forever.”  Like how metal is that quote? Instantly, I knew it was also a very Zuko quote and that I wanted to make a gifset using that quote for Zuko; and so the seed was planted.

I knew I wanted to split the quote into 4 sections: ““I have lived too much life // to have the hope of a child. // But I am not hopeless.// I am going to continue to fight — forever.”  And then it’s finding the scenes that match with them.   

I have lived too much life - for this, I want a scene where Zuko is obviously world-wary.  Initially, I’m thinking a blend of the scene with him in the blizzard in the north pole & the scene of him shouting at the storm in bitter work.

to have the hope of a child. - This scene obviously would be pre-banishment for the hope of a child. The scene with Zuko on his knees before being burned by Ozai would fit, that hope that he would be forgiven instead of what actually happened.

But I am not hopeless. - I’m thinking of a scene near the end after Zuko joined the GAang for some actually hopeful scene. Then, I thought it would be a nice juxtaposition to have the previous scene with Zuko on his knees and this one where he’s not hopeless be him rising up from his knees, which ends perfectly with the scene from his coronation where he’s on his knees rising up with his crown

I am going to continue to fight - forever. - I knew I wanted the “Never give up without a fight” knife.  But then it by itself was a little too plain. I also wanted to show the progression of Zuko fighting even as the years change to highlight “forever” so I thought of surrounding the knife with scenes of him fighting from 13 to old.  And all the fighting scenes I chose, I also specifically chose those where he’s standing up for what’s right and I didn’t choose any scenes where he’s fighting against the GAang.

Once I found all the scenes, cut them, and giffed them, I colored and texted them.  At first, I was thinking of having the quote be in the middle of the gif, but I wanted to do something different and I didn’t want to cover Zuko’s face so I tried putting the text to one side of the gif. I did the blizzard scene first and really liked how the coloring and text turned out.  It also didn’t look as good blended with the scene of Zuko crying and shouting at the storm during Bitter Work so I just used the blizzard scene solo.

Once I made all my gifs, for the caption, I obviously am going to credit Rüdiger with his quote and I also linked the article in case any one wants to read it. I also included Zuko’s quote, “I’ve always had to struggle and fight, and that’s made me strong. It’s made me who I am.” in the caption as well.

[bardic-inspo]

Fic Writer Interview

Thank you for the tag @deacons-wig!! :)

Tagging in turn: @pchberrytea, @diredigression, @gingerbreton, @tanaleth, @valkyriejack if you’d like! No pressure if you don’t! Name: Megh

Fandoms: I really only write for Fallout, but casually partake in other fandoms (like Crit Role, Mass Effect, DA). 

Where you post: AO3, which you can find right here. I don’t post full fics on Tumblr, but do include links to them on AO3. Any WIP memes like WIP Wednesday or similar deals are posted on my Tumblr. 

Most Popular One-shot: No Rest For the Wicked - a sort of pining thing about Deacon showing up to MacCready and Natasha’s place after the fall of the Institute and some sleepy encounters putting Deacon in close proximity with the pair he’s maybe sort of secretly in like with. Overtures of future polyamory and all that. Your gateway drug into my favorite OT3.

Most Popular Multichap: Bring the Gasoline - my multichapter, in-progress slow-burn MacCready x Sole Survivor fic. Here’s a summary for you:

“Six months, huh? How much fast talking did you do to get here?” “Enough to keep me alive.”

“Really? Cause you don’t act like that’s your goal half the time. Hell, you throw yourself at everything like you’re jumping off a cliff.”

Sole survivor Natasha Sokolova is burning through friends faster than she can make them. Robert Joseph MacCready needs all the caps he can get. Problem is, the smooth-talking woman with a pistol and a job offer turns out to be more trouble than he’s counting on. They’re a match made in hell, but their little partnership might be the only thing that can see them through it.

Favorite story you’ve written so far: Bring the Gasoline is my baby, but so far I think I’ve had the most fun writing No Rest for the Wicked. It was the first thing I posted, nobody really knew I was working on it, and there were zero expectations about it. It was something I wrote purely because I wanted to and no other reason. It was also a huge sigh of relief for me to even hint at what the endgame of Bring the Gasoline is like because I’d been hermit drafting for a year while keeping my trap shut about most of what happens.

Fic you were nervous to post: All of them, every single one.  I was a bit nervous about In the Name of Love because it’s sort of an awkward situation. My goal was to balance the awkwardness with tenderness and show a sort of realistic moment where the OT3 have a little hiccup getting used to each other, but they’re helping each other through it. Not everybody’s cup of tea, but I do like how it turned out.

I was also super nervous about We Never Go Anywhere Nice because I’ve never done a gift fic before, and I was kind of trying to do a lot within one oneshot. Naturally, it turned out to be far longer than I initially envisioned, but I’m happy I tried my hand at it.

How do you choose your titles: Whatever strikes me. I try to do something thematic. For my BtG chapter titles, I try to play to themes or something a character says that sort of embodies the idea of that chapter. For my one shots, I’m okay going a little cheesier. 

Do you outline: Yes, I do, but I’m sort of ass backwards about it. I have three different outlines going on within each other like some sort of 3D chess operation. I have a pre-outline, which is the outline before I draft the chapter, usually broad or tentative plans with some specifics but not a ton. Then I have my working copy, which is literally in brackets within the document I’m typing the chapter in, and then I delete it out as I progress pass those plot points. And then, when I’m doing revisions, I bullet point every single little detail into a document called “Actual Outline”. I do this specifically in between drafts as a way for me to find plot holes and fill gaps, or see where things maybe need to be changed. Sounds a little backwards, I know, but it has really, really helped my editing process. There’s color-coding for who’s POV it is, and a scene-by-scene breakdown.

Complete: I have two complete one shots, and a third completed three-chapter “one shot”. But, the series those are nested in is ongoing and has no definitive end. It’s just sort of as I feel like it right now.

In progress: Bring the Gasoline is the only major fic I have in progress. I do one shots as they sprout in my brain, but I don’t have any in progress right now. My main focus is getting edited ahead one chapter on BtG so posting comes a little easier in the future.

Coming soon/not yet started: BtG chapter five is about halfway through a new draft, though I’ll want a new draft of chapter six before posting it. I’m making steady headway there. I have a very smutty WIP in mind for the OT3 with a special focus on Nat/Deacon. The prompt is that the two of them are spending a weekend away together, but MacCready has left some specific instructions as to how he wants them to spend some of that time. Like I said, it’s smutty, but I also want it to be sort of emotionally smutty. I wanted to write the OT3s first time together before writing any other smutty one shots for them, but realistically, I need to finish BtG before that could really happen, because spoilers, so it’s this domino effect waiting game. Which...makes me want to just go ahead and write the smutty one shot anyway. So, maybe. We’ll see. 👀 I also have another idea (also smutty) that might be a one-shot or a scene in a future fic. Basically, Nat and Mac and trying to have some intimacy but Deacon is staying with them which makes things tricky. So they seize the opportunity when he’s stepped out for a sec...but, maybe he’s not gone so long as they were thinking.

Prompts?: I sometimes use prompts as a springboard of inspiration, but I’ve found I’m no good with requests. I have a hard time writing something that I’m not personally excited about.

Upcoming work you’re most excited about: I am really excited about the Gunners plotline for Bring the Gasoline. It’s my first real foray into canon divergence, and the arc I finished for NaNoWriMo last year, so it’s sort of near and dear to me. And it’s right around the corner - not so far as readers might think!  👀 

This is so, so far away, but I also have tentative plans that are starting to have some framework for a multi-chapter fic on how the OT3 get together after Bring the Gasoline. I have a secret wish that this could be my NaNo project next year, but that would involve getting a lot done with BtG, so we’ll see.

[philipreview-blog]

How To Construct an Empire With Blogs

Here is what I hear a lot of; how Do I Blog? When you first start out developing a blog, it's tough to envision what it can end up being an Empire. Most of us have these dreams of running an Empire blog, but with numerous such obstacles to go through, over and under and around.

Running a blog can be a satisfying experience, mainly if it's a blog that teaches. Before we can go about the mentor, we require to figure out only how to construct it and what platform was going to be on. Let's take a look at a few things that we need to go over to make our Empire blog.

Domain Registration

The majority of people would like to have a blog that has a dot com name rather than the name of the real company, i.e., WordPress, Blog, etc. For those that don't know what (DNS) is; Domain Call System is the method of the dispersed calling system for computer systems and services.

Website Hosting

You can run a blog from a complimentary service and never have to worry about hosting your blog. I would advise getting a hosting company to host your blog, one that is friendly for your blogging platform.

Free Platforms Like WordPress

Again I can see you asking; how do I blog? Well, there are a few open blogging platforms on the Web like blog writer, Tumblr, blog, Jux, WordPress, Posterous Spaces, and Weebly. Some are better than others, and to choose one is typically a matter of your individual preference. Nevertheless, I have utilized a couple of them and would most certainly recommend WordPress because of its versatility and functionality. There are a few websites that are offering video tutorials that inform you whatever you require to understand about WordPress from establishing styles, plug-ins, affiliate marketing, and much, so I would not worry too much about understanding what to do here.

Use Headlines Efficiently

Picture writing the best article you ever wrote in your life, to have no one read it. Many of us never honestly believe that the title is necessary. We typically relate the title to something that involves the short article, and without a doubt, that is the way to go. However, you need to make it engaging enough for your reader so that they will click it to engage in your post. Before you create your heading, do a keyword search to discover out the number of contending sites are targeting those keywords; you can use an expression like "How Do I Blog?" Try to try to find fewer places that targeted your phrase. If you have 900 million websites targeting a particular keyword or expression, it is painful, if not painful, being brand-new at blogging that you're going to move up to the top of any search engine.

Have an Excellent Blog Style

When you first create your website, try to make an enticing site because you want individuals not just to read your content but indulge in the look of your website. I have actually been to some locations that look horrible, and it does not take me long to move on to another site.

Leverage Social Media

When you start targeting Facebook and other social network media such as Pin, Tweeter, LinkedIn, and others. Remember, many of these people are your buddies and family, and they going to neglect your post. A post here and there of interest will get them moving along the method, and it will also get them to like your website and start promoting it on their wall.

Recognize Your Niche

If you pick a subject that you do not take pleasure in, you're not going to compose exceptionally much, and as a matter of reality, you're going to fizzle out in about three months. A blog is nothing more than a journal and needs constant updates. Well, your blog is nothing more than merely that.

Keyword Research

Now that you discovered your passion, it's time for you to do some Keyword Research. There's no point in composing without targeting keywords that individuals are not browsing on. Use an online search engine like Google and target a specific word. Google has a keyword tool that you can utilize to target specific words or expressions. These will inform you just the number of individuals are browsing for those keywords. From there, you need to determine the number of websites has those keywords. It's not hard to do from this point; all you need to do is put your keyword or phrase in quotes, and that will inform you just the number of sites that have those keywords. Discover keywords that balance around 50,000 searches each month, which is a little over 1600 searches a day on that specific keyword. If you get 10% traffic to your site, that's 166 potential customers daily; that's a terrific start.

Link Building

No links, no exposure. It's great to write excellent material and desire that everyone will find it. However, the fact is, you must have authority websites connect to your website for your reading to see you. The way to go about doing this is to discover some beneficial article directories and start composing to become an expert in your niche. You can likewise use other blog websites that do not limit the links and link back to your site or short article. To find yourself high ranking post websites, key in Google "high ranking post directories," and it ought to return with a list of the top 50 short article directory sites. This will offer you an excellent starter as you sort your order by page ranking so that you understand which ones rank at the top. Choose yourself a unique starting point like, let's state, five rankings. Any person under 5, you will disregard and utilize any authority site that has a ranking of five or above.

Blog Comment

This might not look like a big deal, but blog remarks go a lengthy method to connect back to your site. You're in business if you align yourself with an outstanding high ranking blog that allows you to enter your signature as a blog link back to your website. As you become more of an expert on that blog, individuals will start to follow those links right back to your site. Not just that, however, the search engines will likewise support those links, and you will get a higher ranking on the online search engine. Every chance you get to attempt to increase your blog remarks.

List Building

A Weber appears to be the big honcho an email reacting to services. I think they cost around $19 a month or something along those lines. An email list is incredibly vital to your blog. There's nothing much better than having an email list of customers that have an interest in precisely what you need to offer. Your subscribers are interested in what you have to say and the offers you make to them when you become an authority in your area. Now, don't put continuously out something that costs them cash. You have to provide exceptional, free things too. The issue here is establishing an autoresponder that has substance. Once again, you can't merely spew total scrap; you usually need to provide something of value, like let's say a free e-book or some academic info that pertains to your blog.

Ping

Pinging Servers promote your blog; they develop a list of a range of blog sites that have brand-new material. Blog online search engines can supply brand-new outcomes quickly by polling just the newly-updated blogs. WordPress features a ping service as a default. Nevertheless, there are tons more that you can fill to your WordPress blog and have it ping whenever your blog has been updated.

Social Bookmark Links

Social bookmarks are excellent services that offer bookmark sharing. The function merely saves the bookmark and share that as a resource. Some services permit dealing with markers, and this helps to get the word out.

AdSense and ClickBank Advertisements

When you initially begin your blog, it's typically not a great concept to plaster a load of ads all around it. You might want to at least look into Google AdSense as a way of getting paid for enabling ads on your site when your traffic starts to grow to perhaps 5000 users a day. You may want to select a specific electronic and then link to your affiliate link, which goes to ClickBank so that when your reader clicks on that to get more details, and they acquire an item, you received some commission.

Learn About Marketing

Anybody can set up a blog, but not everyone knows how to market it. This is essential, and this is the reality; you require to find out how to sell your blog. There are a lot of things to find out and a lot of expressions you hear on the Web about SEO, keyword marketing, short article marketing, list building, and much more. All of these terms concern the growth of your blog, and you need to know something about them. Granted, a great deal of these things can be exceptionally overwhelming, but you must have a reasonably good grasp on each of them. If you're going to be running the blog by yourself, particularly.

Fix Broken Pages

Go through every one of your pages to examine for broken links. Broken links can send an incorrect signal to the search engines, and that would be disastrous. These reports have pages that people have visited, search engine keywords used, linked pages, and also your error reporting; broken links.

Spam

Don't ignore securing your blog. We 'd love to believe that everybody on the Internet is about business and discovering great material and enjoying your site. Regrettably, that's not the case, and there are some extreme head cases out there. When we usually create our blog, we focus so much on the look of it and its content along with the marketing, which we sometimes forget that spammers are out there aiming to publish ugly links. Make sure you have a trustworthy spam filter that will catch the majority of the reply Posts that are unsuitable for your blog.

In my first week that my blog was up and running, someone currently tried to spam my website with a link that went to an unsuitable site. The remark was something like; this is a helpful site with a link to this inappropriate website. The most excellent method to defeat this is not to allow replies to be immediately published so that you can inspect out the post for suitability before authorizing it.

Blacklist

Thus another area we need to perk up on and find out all about the word you do not desire on your blog. You can get them from locations like Google and Facebook, along with numerous other big organizations that deal with this type of thing frequently.

[sunxking]

yikes do u have any advice for someone who's new to tumblr rping?? i'm asking u bc u seem super nice & i really love ur blog /w\

O U T   O F   S U N L I G H T

Hello There! Thank you so much for you kind words! And may I be one of the first to welcome you to the Roleplay Community on Tumblr, as well as ( more specifically?) to the Comicbook Fandom! I’ve been exactly where you are now, my friend, as a veteran of RP from other sites and venues, newly branching into this hot little mecca of writing known as Tumblr!

                                               I think you’re really going to like it here. :) 

Tumblr is an expansive universe where the possibilities are limitless, both within and beyond the fandom your character might originally hail from. It is the birthplace of some truly wonderful things, like SuperWhoLock, Batfamily Shenanigans, and Redemption from Marvel’s Civil War 2 trash. On here, all those usual rules that controlled the way you wrote your character in an RP Community or chat room no longer exist, granting you freedom to interpret them any way you wish (or multiple ways in multiple settings!). Many fandom, like the DC Comics Fandom, are populated by passionate and friendly writers who want to interact with others that feel just as strongly about the universe as they do!

But, and I’m sure you’ve heard this, RPing on Tumblr is not for the faint of heart. All those things that make this place a source of creativity and inspiration also allow for some serious issues. The site itself can be a challenge, not really designed for intuitive, flowing RP threads. The atmosphere of a fandom, usually so positive, is also constantly changing in nature, and populated heavily by free variables (i.e. people), so that there are no comfort zones for anyone involved.

On one hand, this will make you a better writer, a more conscientious interpreter of character motives, and a much stronger RPer overall. On the other hand…. well, even the best fandoms have their fair share of abuse, and no one is immune to having their feelings hurt.

Knowing all this, me and my fellow roleplayers still come online to write our hearts out everyday, because we love to write and Tumblr is hands-down one of the most prolific places for Roleplay on the internet. And I’ll tell you this, lovely anon, hard as it is, tumblr RP is also a breeding ground for wonderful and meaningful friendships that will last far longer than even the strongest OTP. That’s why I’m so pleased to heard that you are willing to give Tumblr RP a try, even if you don’t feel totally certain about how to start.

As for me, I look forward to seeing you in the this fandom community (or perhaps another!) and possibly interacting with you in the future. Thank you so much for trusting me enough with your question. I’m certainly not an expert on being a successful roleplayer (some days I make a potato look like a better talent than me!), but I hope I can offer a few small pointers that might help you get started on your way to RP glory.

First of all, regardless of whatever fandom has caught your fancy, I suggest you research the atmosphere of the RP community here on Tumblr. Use the search feature to scope out RP tags for the fandom, spot promos for characters, and stalk any RP communities currently seeking applications on the site.  All this information will give you a feel for the type of RP experience you’ll have while in that fandom., and may influence your decision to take up a certain character.

If you have a personal tumblr blog, but you want to RP a character in a fandom, then I highly recommend you make another (completely separate) tumblr blog. Sideblogs are nice, but they don’t work well when you’re following others and want to interact via asks, replies etc. Things can get very confusing, very fast, especially in the activity feed!

Many people swear by their ‘About’ pages, and that’s a good thing. Once you’ve created your character blog and start reaching out to others, most RPers on tumblr will bee-line for your ‘About’ or ‘Rules’ page as soon as they see you’ve followed them. This is a courtesy so they can know how to best approach your character and what the important details should be known when RPing with you. So, to hedge your bets in a good way, always make an About Page and include all vital details about your character on it!

Also, keep in mind, there is no wrong way to write an About Page. You can check other RPers’ blogs for examples, but just write it however most makes sense to you. As long as it gives the reader an understanding of your vision with your character, that’s what matters.

Sometimes when you’re starting out, especially if you’re playing an OC or a lesser known Canon character, you’re going to have to be the brave one that reaches out to others and asks for threads. Just posting opens and following other blogs might not get you the responses you hope for, and I don’t want that to discourage you. Don’t be afraid to (respectfully) go after the RPer you’re interested in writing with, I guarantee they’re all super nice people and they will respond favorably to your interest in them!

Depending on the type of person you are, I would recommend possibly getting an instant messenger account for your RP blogs. I know that Tumblr messenger exists, but many RPers prefer to limit access to who can message them via that interface. The most popular instant messenger choices on tumblr are Skype, Kik, and Discord. This is certainly Not a requirement, and please don’t feel pressured to get an account if you are not comfortable with talking to strangers via instant messenger. But, if you love to spazz out over your fandom, and you love to share plot ideas and headcanons, then you will find a great many fast friends in the RP fandoms on tumblr. So many writers (me included!) love to share their inspiration in this quick way, and translate it to writing on the site!

Learn the fine art of tagging posts. Tags are just about the only thing we Tumblr RPers have as a search filter on this website, and some of us follow certain tags religiously. And I don’t just mean our tumblr url, I mean anything we feel is relevant to our character. For example, I track the tags: #sunxking, #apollo, #midnighterandapollo, #midnighter, #TheAuthority, etc. I also generously tag anything I post so that I can easily find it again on my blog, or provide navigation links to it for others to find. (such as #openstarter for all my Apollo RP opens). Additionally, I feel it’s important to be careful in tagging for triggering posts. I always tag with the keyword of the triggering content, and append the triggering keyword with either ‘ts’ (for tumblr savior) or ‘tw’ for “trigger warning.” Keep in mind that if you’re tagging an original post (not a reblog) that only the first five tags are picked up by the tumblr search engine. 

Stay open minded. And I don’t just mean in regards to crossovers and alternate universes. There will be RPers that you will meet that may interpret a well-known character in a way that seems entirely contradictory to how you envision them. And you may like it… or you may not. But sometimes thinking outside of the box produces great rewards, and you never know what innovative idea might spring out of a crack conversation. Regardless, always follow the rule of thumb: Respect others and lead with kindness.

Hopefully these initial pointers will help you hit the ground running with an RP blog on tumblr! There are other things people focus on, like the right theme, or text formatting… but that stuff doesn’t really matter to me. Personally, as long as your writing content reflects your dedication to your character, I am interested in reading it!

Again, Welcome to this amazing place, and I wish you all the success and fun with your character. 

Best of Luck!

– Red

[dazzledbybooks]

Alessandra is tired of being overlooked, but she has a plan to gain power: 1) Woo the Shadow King. 2) Marry him. 3) Kill him and take his kingdom for herself. No one knows the extent of the freshly crowned Shadow King’s power. Some say he can command the shadows that swirl around him to do his bidding. Others say they speak to him, whispering the thoughts of his enemies. Regardless, Alessandra knows what she deserves, and she’s going to do everything within her power to get it. But Alessandra’s not the only one trying to kill the king. As attempts on his life are made, she finds herself trying to keep him alive long enough for him to make her his queen—all while struggling not to lose her heart. After all, who better for a Shadow King than a cunning, villainous queen? The Shadows Between Us by Tricia Levenseller Publisher: Feiwel and Friends Release Date: February 25th 2020 Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy Links: Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35702241-the-shadows-between-us Amazon: https://amzn.to/2CEq5yj B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-shadows-between-us-tricia-levenseller/1130768982?ean=9781250189967#/ iTunes: https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-shadows-between-us/id1474633180 Bookdepository: https://www.bookdepository.com/Shadows-Between-Us-Tricia-Levenseller/9781250189967?ref=grid-view&qid=1573658351433&sr=1-1 Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-shadows-between-us Google Books: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Tricia_Levenseller_The_Shadows_Between_Us?id=kD2LDwAAQBAJ Review: I’ve been a long time fan of Tricia Levenseller’s books. The moment I saw the announcement for THE SHADOWS BETWEEN US, I immediately added it to my to TBR before I even knew what it was about. Later I heard the book pitched as a “Slytherin Romance” and I was all in! Haha. I’m sure I read the synopsis at some point but I had completely forgotten about it by the time I started reading the book. Tricia literally had me hooked by the end of the first page,  “They’ve never found the body of the first and only boy who broke my heart. And they never will. I buried Hektor Galanis in a hole so deep, even the devils of the earth couldn’t reach him.” I mean.... come on! Who doesn’t want to keep reading after a start like that? The story starts with a bang and really never slows down from there. Alessandra has always felt like an afterthought. As the second daughter of a viscount who is bankrupt, she set her sights on the king. Becoming queen would change everything. Once she’s at the palace nothing can (or will) stop her from reaching her goal. She enters an unexpected and unlikely alliance with the Shadow King. She uses the pretense of becoming his friend to help, when really it’s an opportunity to learn his secrets. As the true nature of his shadows magic is uncovered and attempts on his life increase, she wonders if maybe she’s actually falling for him. Which just can’t be possible.... can it? The King is elusive and withdrawn, but for good reason. Alessandra befriends him and gives him a real for his money. His character and several other male characters are definitely swoon worthy (some are even cringe worthy). I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from a “Slytherin romance” when I started reading. I envisioned something dark and moody, with  Frenemies, backstabbing, and illicit trysts. This book was all that and more! I loved how descriptive everything was. This book made me want to wear a pretty ballgown and eat plates full of food. Written in Tricia’s typical style this book is full of sass, humor, fierce female characters, romance and enough mystery to keep you turning page after page. I would call THE SHADOWS BETWEEN a very atmospheric story. If you love delicious food, dashing men and dazzling dresses, this is the book for you!  Extras: Pinterest Board (by the author): https://www.pinterest.com/tricialevensell/the-shadows-between-us/ Official Book Trailer: https://youtu.be/uc76g6mvgPU About the Author: Tricia Levenseller is the author of the Daughter of the Pirate King duology, Warrior of the Wild, and forthcoming The Shadows Between Us. She likes to describe her books as young adult alternate–world historical fantasies with heavy romantic subplots. Initially from a small town in Oregon, Tricia now lives next to the Rocky Mountains with her bossy dog, Rosy. She received her degree in English Language and editing, and she is thrilled that she never has to read a textbook again. When she’s not writing or reading, Tricia enjoys putting together jigsaw puzzles, playing volleyball, playing Overwatch with her siblings, and watching shows while eating extra-buttered popcorn. Links: Website: https://tricialevenseller.com/ Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14358948.Tricia_Levenseller Twitter: https://twitter.com/tricialevensell Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tricialevensellerbooks Tumblr: https://tricialevenseller.tumblr.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tricialevenseller/ Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.es/tricialevensell/ Giveaway: Prize: Win a copy of THE SHADOWS BETWEEN US by Tricia Levenseller (US Only) Starts: 19th February 2020 Ends: 4th March 2020 a Rafflecopter giveaway Tour Schedule:- https://fantasticflyingbookclub.blogspot.com/2019/12/tour-schedule-shadows-between-us-by.html February 19th The Unofficial Addiction Book Fan Club - Welcome Post February 20th NovelKnight - Guest Post Ya It’s Lit - Review + Dream Cast + Favourite Quotes Books and Blends - Review Pacific Northwest bookworm - Review Cluttered Books - Review + Favourite Quotes February 21st BookCrushin - Guest Post Whispers & Wonder - Review Sometimes Leelynn Reads - Review + Playlist + Dream Cast The.magicalpages - Review Shelf-Rated - Review + Favourite Quotes February 22nd Kait Plus Books - Interview Star-Crossed Book Blog - Review + Favourite Quotes @womanon - Review The art of living - Review Starlight Reads - Review + Favourite Quotes February 23rd A Court of Coffee and Books - Review + Favourite Quotes The Reading Corner for All - Review + Playlist @onemused - Review Hooked on Bookz - Review Fanna Wants The World To Read - Review February 24th A Book Addict's Bookshelves - Review Belle's Archive - Review + Favourite Quotes Lauren's Boookshelf - Review + Playlist Foals, Fiction & Filigree - Review + Favourite Quotes The Radiant Reader - Review + Favourite Quotes February 25th Bibliobibuli YA - Interview L.M. Durand - Review Booked J - Review + Playlist Wishful Endings - Review Dazzled by Books - Review + Favourite Quotes Instagram Schedule: February 19th The FFBC Tours TUABFC February 20th NovelKnight Ya It’s Lit February 21st The.magicalpages February 23rd The Reading Corner for All @onemused February 25th L.M. Durand Booked J Wishful Endings

http://www.dazzledbybooks.com/2020/02/the-shadows-between-us-blog-tour-review.html

[emedhelp]

4 Pro-Tips To Be The Best VCSO Mom You Can Be (You’re Welcome!)

If you have a teenage girl, you’ve probably heard it a thousand times, but you can’t figure out the sounds coming out of their mouths …

What. Are. They. Saying???

Then they say it again “… and I oop sksksksk.” Followed by giggling and something about being a … vis-co girl?? What the hell are they even talking about? So you ask. BIG MISTAKE.

You are now met with eye-rolling and sighing and then a loudly whispered “She doesn’t even know what that is?!” to her friend…and more giggling.

If you’re raising a teen or tween girl, welcome. You are completely uncool and unable to understand anything going on in the life of a teenager. Just like our parents never understood “Cool Beans” you will never understand “… and I oop sksksksk”

But I am here to try and help. First of all, it’s VSCO (pronounced vis-co) and refers to the VSCO Photo App that has become increasingly popular for creating a filtered aesthetic specific to each user. The user can create their own custom filter to apply to their photos, giving them their very own VSCO style. They can then share their VSCO link on their Instagram bio … and basically filter life. VSCO Girl refers to girls that embody this filtered, aesthetic VSCO vibe.

Aren’t you glad you asked?

According to the Urban Dictionary, a VSCO Girl is the Tumblr girl of today. A girl that wears oversized shirts, Nike shorts, Crocs, Birkenstocks and Vans, wears puka shell necklaces, messy buns, and always has an extra scrunchie on her wrist (hello, wasn’t that most of us in the ’90s?!). They have Fjallraven Kanken backpacks and LOOOOVVVEEE Jeeps. They quench their thirst with their Redbubble sticker-covered Hydroflasks, have their AirPods at the ready and love saving the sea turtles. Oh, they also shame us when we dare to use plastic straws.

If you’re nodding your head as you read this and experiencing a slight ‘90s flashback … you might have a VSCO Girl. 

In other words: they are basic teenage girls.

With all these “basic” girls being called VSCO Girls it stands to reason we would also have a bunch of “basic” moms out there as well, right? So let’s call them: VSCO Moms.

If you’re starting to feel a little nervous that you fit into this VSCO Mom thing and you have no idea how to live up to your role, this next part is for you!

Pro tips for being the best damn VSCO Mom you can be:

VSCO Mom Pro-Tip #1:

While a VSCO Girl envisions her first car being a Jeep and driving in the sunshine with the top off and the breeze blowing through her hair, a VSCO Mom doesn’t drive a Jeep. We have too many kids, kids’ friends, sports, and activities that revolve around driving our kids back and forth across town … over and over again. We are too damn concerned with gas mileage and having seats for all these kids to drive a Jeep.

So what do we drive?

A Minivan.

More specifically, the Honda Odyssey EX-L. This particular minivan and trim delivers leather, heated seats, sliding doors, and the piece de resistance: a moonroof. Oh yes, if we’re driving a minivan it had better be a kickass minivan with a moonroof—and a hella good sound system!

(Maybe you just breathed a sigh of relief; you don’t drive a minivan, whew! You drive a SUV… with a THIRD ROW! Amiright? Then yes, you are one of us. Trying to hide with your cool SUV… well, you can’t. I see you over there, because once you have that third-row, all coolness is gone. You’re basically driving a minivan, you just have less cargo room when that third row is up and lower MPGs. You are still in this my friend … so keep reading!)

Rest assured, we don’t see ourselves as minivan (or SUV with a third-row) moms. Deep down, we see ourselves as Jeep moms! We’re just stuck in a minivan shell. We are way too cool for a minivan, and yet…

If you’re driving a minivan (or an SUV with a third-row) but you don’t “look” like a minivan mom … you might be a VSCO Mom.

VSCO Mom Pro-Tip #2:

Let’s talk about the look of a VSCO Mom. Yes, there’s a look. We don’t want to be the mom that’s dumpy and frumpy, we want to look hip and cool! But not like we’re trying to be hip and cool. Sometimes we pull it off…and sometimes we don’t. But you can probably relate to what a VSCO mom looks like—or at least tries to look like.

Photo by Rosalind Chang on Unsplash

– Messy buns that take waaayyy too long and are anything but “effortless.”

– We may possibly—maybe sometimes—wear a scrunchie on our wrist… just maybe…you know, for emergencies.

– Dry shampoo is our best friend. ‘Nuff said.

– Our daughters are teaching us how to apply makeup, and we can’t figure out why a hunk of foam calling itself a beauty blender for $20 bucks does any better than our fingers. Doesn’t it just soak up the makeup instead?

– Ripped jeans—OK, ripped jeans are just cool, no matter your age.

– Fake Birks. Because our kids have the real ones and we can’t justify spending $120 on a pair of sandals for ourselves.

– Oversized t-shirts—to hide our imperfect parts, not because oversized shirts are cool.

– Necklaces with our kid’s initials or birthstones. We’ve moved up from the puka shell chokers of our youth, and birthstone “mom” rings are soooo 2000s!

– A Coach purse we bought five years ago from the outlet stores. We don’t get a new one because we have spent all our money on the Fjallraven Kanken backpacks for our kids… yeah, try pronouncing that correctly! Ha!

– Converse or Vans. Hell, they were the shoes we wore when we were kids … you know, back when they weren’t cool, they were just what we got. Now we’re spending $60 a pair for uncomfortable, unsupportive shoes. So, nostalgia for the win, because you’re not wearing them for comfort!

– You carry a Hydroflask of water with you everywhere you go, covered in stickers from coffee stands and breweries. Because, well, hydration is important, stickers are cool, and we drink coffee and appreciate a good craft brew!

If you can relate to two or more of the above items … you might be a VSCO Mom.

VSCO Mom Pro-Tip #3:

Essential oils. Yes, we have taken a tiny sliver of ancient Ayurvedic medicine and made it the go-to in the basic-mom arsenal of medicine to cure whatever ails you.

If you’ve got an ailment, there’s an oil for that!

Headache? Peppermint

Cold or Flu? OnGuard or Thieves® (depending on your EO Brand of choice, of course!)

Don’t like plain water? Lemon, Lime or Grapefruit

Cut or scrape? Tea Tree oil

Tummy Ache? Peppermint

Can’t Sleep? Lavender

Anxiety? Lavender

Stress? Lavender

Trouble Focusing? Lavender

See a pattern here? Yes, lavender cures everything!

We have diffusers in our living room, kitchen and each of our bedrooms to spread essential oil goodness into every corner of our loving and peaceful home.

We just want to spread peace, serenity, and harmony to our loved ones. And when cold and flu season strikes, we will be boosting immunities—one little drop at a time!

Does it work? I’m not sure, but if it makes you feel better to spread your love of basic-mom-hippie-oils throughout your happy home … you might be a VSCO Mom.

VSCO Mom Pro-Tip #4:

Ahhhh … suburban life at its finest. VSCO moms live in nice suburban neighborhoods. You know, the ones that half the town comes to for Halloween because all the houses decorate, and some even give out full-sized candy!

Photo by Wynand van Poortvliet on Unsplash

These are the neighborhoods that always have a plethora of kids out riding their bikes, people jogging or walking their dogs and a neighborhood Facebook page to post about the rude ass person that let their dog shit in someone’s front yard and didn’t pick it up…

Karen Jackson posted to >>> Summer Park Neighborhood Group:

“Who has cameras on the corner of Wildwood and Cascade Park Dr? If so, we need to see who didn’t pick up after their dog between 4:07-4:43 pm on Friday… grrrrr If you can post a link of the video in the comments so we all know who to publicly shame, that would be great! Thanks!”

Yes. We live in THAT type of neighborhood.

We also have kids that congregate on the corners waiting for the bus.

Dogs that bark incessantly when you walk past their house.

A trampoline in every yard (perfect for sleepovers!)

Nicely manicured lawns (except that one house—yeah, you know the one—unless you don’t, in which case it’s probably you … and then you’re definitely not a VSCO Mom!)

If this sounds like your neighborhood or you’ve ever posted on the neighborhood FB page about dog shit in your yard, you might be a VSCO Mom.

Is this your life? (You’re nodding, I know you’re nodding!) Maybe it is, or maybe you’re wondering who the hell these people are!

Either way, you now know if you’re a VSCO Mom … or if you’re not. And now that you know, please take your newfound title of VSCO Mom and use it to its full potential:

Proudly tell your VSCO Girl—and her friends—that you’re a VSCO Mom!

*Watch them cringe*

Be prepared for your daughter to say “Eww … mom. NEVER, EVER say that again. I will literally die if you say it again!”  To which I would reply, in my sweetest voice possible, “Yes honey, we’ll all die … someday.”

This will be followed by much eye-rolling and strange groaning sounds of embarrassment and another “Mommmmmm!”

And if you really want to live up to your VSCO Mom status and elicit the best reaction ever—just practice saying “…and I oop, sksksksk” a few times in front of your kids (bonus points if their friends are there too!) Your daughter, while dying of embarrassment, will tell you “Mom, you’re soooo cringy … that is literally the grossest thing you can say … and you can’t even say it right!” Again, followed by more eye-rolling.

You’ll swear you’re saying it right … but we all know the truth; you aren’t and you can’t.

Why? Because you’re not a VSCO Girl. You’re just a VSCO Mom.

So now is the time to own it, my friend. We’re all in this together!

… Oh hey, can I borrow that scrunchie?

P.S. No VSCO Girls were harmed in the writing of this article, however, one was “totally ready to die” and may never quite be the same.

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