#It took me twenty years. TWENTY. YEARS.

[cupcakeshakesnake]

So many of my childhood experiences can be explained away with 'I was a little bit gay' and it took me TWENTY YEARS to connect the dots

[avicecaro]

i think it’s important everyone knows about the little roman girl who died at only five years and seven months old, and her grave reads "dum vixi, lusi" or "while i lived, i played"

[jabesa0]

Sorry I’ve been gone everypony college has been taking up all my mammon drawing time but here’s a wip that I have been working on in between all that, hopefully I can finish it soon :P

[youngdutchishot]

Hey so we all think about this a regular amount..

Like I'm not the only dude thinking of Hosea and Dutch and their suits having the exact brooches, right??

I even went to search which these could be, and their meaning. Apparently, white flowers symbolize purity and innocence — and whatever flowers these may be ( google had given me carnations and camellias—If anybody actually knows what flowers their brooches are, do say!! ). I also, believe that white carnations usually(?) partake within a wedding? Because they too symbolize "pure love" and from what I had quickly found, "devotion". I seriously do not know, I'm not at all understanding of flowers so take what I yap to a grain of salt. I just felt silly today and wanted to look into this because I had to replay The Glided Cage mission!! Okwy im done yapping im gonna make a dutch edit- everyone please have yourself a wonderful dayyy!!!! Mwahmwahhh <3

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

ily and I love your writing but can I just ask /how/ does one manage to write/post 180k in 3 weeks? I need tips and also your stamina

Okay to be really serious.

Practice. I've been writing every single day for two decades. A lot of it really is practice practice practice. You do something every day, you get good at it.

Write terribly. You gotta write a lot of shit before you can write a lot of good shit. Quantity doesn't equal quality. So get ready to write a lot of shit first.

Hold yourself accountable. For the past decade I've worked professionally in the publishing industry in one capacity or another. That means I've had to work to deadlines. I just got used to it. I don't recommend setting yourself a deadline if you're just starting out - that'll just put undue pressure on yourself. But if you've got a good rhythm going, it can help to set yourself a posting schedule for a fic (say, a chapter every week) as a form of self-accountability. It sucks but self discipline is sadly necessary.

Having said that...

TAKE. BREAKS. Stop if you're not having fun, and adjust your goals if you feel burnout approaching. At the end of September/start of October I had a very bad few weeks where I didn't think I could get all my planned Halloween fics out this year. So I was honest with my readers, and adjusted my schedule accordingly. You don't owe anyone else a damn thing, but you do owe it to yourself to take care of yourself.

Carrots, not sticks. Frankly? Treat yourself like a dog or a kindergarten student. Reward yourself! Gold star! You wrote 1k words? All right, a piece of chocolate or an episode of TV for you! Writers are so hard on themselves and that's just not how brains work. Teach your brain that writing gives you rewards! Writing gives you good things!

It's a marathon not a sprint. Stamina is something you build up to. If you want to run a marathon, you need to start training at least six months ahead of time, and you start very small: two miles. Not even five. Two. You build up slowly. And then, do you know what you do when you get close to twenty-six miles?

You drop back down. You run eighteen. Fifteen. Ten. Until for the last couple weeks before the marathon, you're down to just two miles again.

Then you run twenty six.

And then after that? You rest. You want to run another marathon? Great. Rest first. Then we build up again.

You can't run twenty six miles over and over and over. You will burnout. I burned out. I wrote 375,000 words last year for October. If you go into my Ao3 and look, I didn't write much of any fic the rest of the year. I wrote a Wednesday fic in February for a friend, two Xedgin fics in April, and then two more Xedgin fics in June. It was that break that allowed me to write so much for October.

I wish I had a ton of cool tips and tricks, but it really is simple, at least for me. Practice. For a long time. For years. Write a lot of shit so you can write a lot of good shit. Take breaks when you need to, use deadlines strategically, and reward yourself.

I hope any of this is helpful, nonny. Best of luck! ❤️

[leonardcohenofficial]

it really does amaze me that i got to write a whole dissertation project on brecht and the monkees and nina simone and bob dylan and leonard cohen and phil ochs and star trek and starsky and hutch and the smothers brothers and harry belafonte and all these subjects and pieces of art that have meant so much to me that i absolutely love and while it did feel like it was held together by glue and popsicle sticks and string at points i had a committee who really understood my project and were so supportive of me writing about this era of performance and protest and alienation and while it was one of the hardest things i've ever done i am so happy not only that i finished with a phd but that i got to forge so many amazing connections along the way and that would have been worth it alone

[loopnoid]

the beejcage...

[zipadeea]

Okay friends, but did Zeus turn Thalia into a tree as she lay dying because of Hades? Like, did he assume that Hades wouldn't let Thalia into Elysium because of what Zeus did to the di Angelos? Hades was the one who hunted Thalia the most, and tbh until the whole master bolt/helm fiasco, Hades left Percy alone. I think Zeus figured, probably correctly, that Hades would torture his daughter in the Underworld just to spite him and that's why he turned Thalia into a tree.

[stellewriites]

speaking of fumbling in that lrb,, there was a girl at my last job who was always so sweet to me and always tried to match our lunch breaks when she could and then bought me a leaving gift from her own money and signed the card ‘to the beautiful [redacted]’ and ‘you know where to find me, come say hi don’t forget about me’ and i STILL THOUGHT SHE WAS STRAIGHT

[beuatifulbuttercup]

Ben Clark Moodboard

It took me too long to finish this one

[jamiesfootball]

Always lowkey simmering a Leverage AU in the back of my head hear me out:

Ted is an ex-insurance investigator who was able to get his son life-saving medical treatment because his first, original Crime Pal Beard was like ‘Ted if your company doesn’t come through with the coverage, we’re doing things my way.’

The company did not come through. The company did let him go due to suspicion of Ted’s involvement in the incident, but Ted will happily remind folks that no charges were formally pressed. Henry is alive and healthy and living with Michelle, who divorced Ted shortly thereafter (not just because of pre-existing marital problems, but because Ted wouldn’t tell her anything about why the doctors “””suddenly decided to do the procedure for free”””). Shortly thereafter, Ted fled the country.

What Ted learned from the whole experience is that there’s a lot of people out there, good people just trying to live by the rules, but sometimes things happen that are just out of their control. And well- if we’ve got the means to help the good people out when no one else will, then shouldn’t we try?

“We’ve got means,” Beard agrees. “And motives.”

They do things Beard’s way now.

[fishareglorious]

Cloud Retainer stocking up fish on Mt. Aocang's pond so we can keep coming over.... ohg my god she....

[spearxwind]

Just wanna let u know all your art slaps and I love it so much and ur a very funny person so congrats on being one of my fav blogs of all history

Also do u have any tips for drawing dragons because they (your dragon OCs) are all so cool looking and I have some of my own but I wanna spice them up a lil so I wanted to see if u have tips and tricks for that stuff

AUHGHGHGH THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! Im super glad you like my stuff!!!

And YES ACTUALLY I do have tips, but they're not my own!! Whenever someone asks me for tips on dragons I always love to redirect to the tutorials on dragons sammy torres did, all of which you can find [ HERE ]

These tutorials are like The Bible for drawing anything dragon related. Not only are they beginner friendly, they are expert friendly as well, in my opinion. These are an immense help to anyone looking to do dragons, and there is one for every different part that one might have trouble with! And honestly, I feel extremely confident linking these because they word everything much better than I could

Other than that, I think dragons are generally really subjective as creatures. There's classic dragons, but the term 'dragon' applies so broadly to so many shapes that its extremely hard to go wrong with designs. Theyre one of the things that lend themselves the most to experimentation with shapes, bodies, features, etc, so even though these tutorials might nudge dragons in a specific way dont be afraid to experiment with anything youd like to explore :]

My one wish however is to make sure every dragon has proper wings though for that refer to [ THIS ] post of mine thank u for ur time

[puppyeared]

save me old flipnote studio MVs.......

[pardonmydelays]

clancy

[neon-merrick]

there's something poetic about how i saw bandito tour in 2019, my first ever concert and it was for pilots, and now in 2024 i'm going to see the end of the story during clancy tour in the same venue.

starting and ending this story that saved me and changed me in the same place almost 5 years later.

i don't know, something about ending a story where you began...