#a lot of people do use tumblr like their diary and I used to do that to an extent too

[sweetvalentinescandy]

grrriaanwwnananannn i tried to make a cool effect but its not really that cool

sorry fo the casual negativity but im going through the craziest art crisis ever and like im completely overhauling as much as i can from my old art style so all i have rn are doodles ahhhh its so frustrating but i feel like i should post somethin anyway just to make me feel better

[idiaa-shroxd]

HEY HELLO I LOVE YOUR WRITING SM I'M SO JELOUS MARRY ME???/j

awww thank you so so much!! 💗💞 I absolutely would marry you (*´∀｀*) i hope you don’t mind but i checked out your blog aesthetic is literally so pretty?? i’m very jealous of people who know how to make a pretty profile!!! i adore the color it’s so pleasing to the eyes!! i also checked your writing and it’s very nice!! it’s easy to read and understand and i also respect the first post being one about deuce! <3

i also really love the genshin emotes, makes me happy to see another fan ehe so here’s one in response, as faruzan’s got to basically be my main besides wanderer because i adore her so much?? play style is absolutely fun despite only being c4 i crowned her. my wanderer is like triple crowned and has cons with a BIS but I still love faruzan so much—. she’s literally so cute!! (´・ω・)

[semisentient-entity]

went out with my friend had way too much caffeine and noise and a mini sensory overload and i'm very tired but i also had so much fun because i hadn't spoken to this friend all summer.

I go from barely leaving the house for weeks to spending almost my entire day out with my friend, and it was genuinely a very good day and I'm so happy it happened but I think i might crash for another day. Happy chemicals are happening but I'm also very drained.

[look-at-the-stars-tonight]

Girls will say things like “you’re not too much and I wish you wouldn’t try to make yourself smaller all the time” and expect u to be normal about it

[scarletcomet]

i hate when people ask you what you want to do in the future or tell you need to do something

[beamorgan]

Favourite Reads of the Year

I will not be ranking these, because that would hurt my heart. Buckle up folks, there are a lot of amazing books out there

The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells

I know, I KNOW, I'm late to the party but omg this whole series is just as good as people say!!! I know I said I wouldn't be ranking, but if I was these would be fighting for the top spot. I have already relistened to all the audiobooks. I anticipate rereading them literally every year from now on. I would die for Murderbot, which it would think is a stupid thing for a human to do when there is a SecUnit right there. [adult, scifi]

Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett

Sequel to last year's fav Emily Wilde's Encyclopaedia of Faeries, this follows a bullheaded academic trying find the magical door that will let her faerie boyfriend back into his faerie kingdom. Chaos ensues in the Alps. It's fabulous, and the author's approach to using folklore is very similar to my own writing, which I love and also get imposter syndrome about. 10/10 recommend [adult, historical fantasy]

Model Home by Solomon Rivers

Would you like to be repeatedly punched in the gut? Look no further than this story of racism and child abuse in a Texas McMansion, with gorgeous prose and a genderqueer protagonist and the laundry list of content warnings you can expect with the genre. It hurt so good. [adult, contemporary gothic horror]

You Should Be So Lucky by Cat Sebastian

This love affair between a baseball play and a sports reporter was recced to me by the lovely @colubrina and boy was it worth the two-day binge it inspired! Romance can be very hit-or-miss for me, but this knocked it out of the park (please enjoy my pun). I didn't even have to know anything about baseball to love it! [adult, historical (1960s) romance]

The Locked Tomb Series by Tamsyn Muir

Another tumblr fav, FOR A REASON. Gideon is hilarious. Harrow is an absolute mess. Nona is BABY, my beloved. (Camilla and Palamedes have my whole entire heart). Also, the audiobook narrator is fantastic. In the words of the author, the buns are also fried chicken. [adult, sci fantasy]

Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian

This one is @elodieunderglass's fault. Historical buffoonery on boats. The main characters are ridiculous. The sailing jargon is incomprehensible. It's great. [adult, historical fiction]

All You Can Ever Know by Nicole Chung

This is a gorgeous memoir of an interracial adoptee trying to make contact with her birth family while pregnant with her own child. It grapples thoughtfully with reconnecting to a lost culture, the complexities of family history, and the social and legal barriers adoptees face to learning about themselves. [adult, memoir]

Death in the Spires by KJ Charles

I devour everything Charles writes, so I was EXCITED for this mystery. She made it very clear on social media "It's not a kissing book!!" (it's kinda still a kissing book). She wrote a stonking book, as usual, with an underdog protagonist revisiting the murder that happened during his toxic time at Oxford university. [adult, historical mystery]

Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

My favourite literary fiction read of the year, this meditation on Iranian diaspora identity is written by a poet and you can tell. I would suck the prose up through a straw if I could. The protagonist is an addict and also quite suicidal. It was fun :) [adult, literary fiction]

She Who Became the Sun by Shelly Parker-Chan

and the sequel, He Who Drowned the World. I don't even know how to sell this, all I want to do is flail incoherently about how amazing it is. IT'S AMAZING. JUST READ IT. (wait I know: this satisfied the part of me that was obsessed with Mulan as a kid) [adult, historical fantasy]

A Little Trickery by Roseanna Pike

The voicey-est book I've ever read. I screenshot like every other page. It follows an orphaned girl trying to survive in Tudor England through various means, such as faking a miracle in the church where her gay best friend is priest. [adult, historical fiction]

At the End of the River Styx by Michelle Kulwiki

My friend wrote a book! It made me cry!!! They were delighted with this!!! Please give this to any teenager in your life who needs to see thoughtful representation of grief and depression and boys in love. [YA, contemporary fantasy]

[capricores]

if you have strong mutable (gemini, sagittarius, pisces, virgo) placements then you NEED to write things down if you don't already. all those thoughts that constantly swirl in your head: the frequent tasks, goals, feelings, aspirations, opinions, etc - WRITE THEM DOWN. this is not only therapeutic & stress-relieving for you but almost necessary, or you're going to burn out and overload your own mind constantly.

when you bottle, or when you let plans, goals, dreams, to-do lists, projects, etc live solely in your head - you'll notice you can't sleep as well, it's harder to rest, your memory gets more foggy than usual, you feel burnt out and unable to connect, etc. specifically:

write down your feelings. this will be your ultimate (free) therapy. start to journal, write a diary. make a private twitter/tumblr where you spill your feelings, frustrations, thoughts. you will feel an immense sense of relief by writing or typing your feelings out - even if no one is reading it but you. mutable moons especially. our feelings tend to change rapidly, but it doesn't make them less valid. don't bottle out of the fear your feelings will change/you'll just "get over it"!! write it down and let it out!!

write! to-do! lists!!!!! these don't have to be for important things. you want to learn digital art? you want to study coding? you want to learn french? you want to re-decorate? you probably have a billion things you want to do, and then you get overwhelmed by the options, and do nothing. write down all the things you want to do. make a to-do list for these things. get them out of your head and somewhere permanent/physical. looking at the options in front of you will feel much easier.

make excel project trackers (you can even make these for to-do list items/goals/etc)! mutable placements have a tendency to start a lot of projects or tasks, and never finish any of them. make a simple tracker for all the projects you start. you won't forget what you're working on, and you'll be less overwhelmed trying to remember what you have going on (example of the one i always use pictured below)

talking out your thoughts and feelings is also very cathartic. make fake (or real, i support u!) youtube vlogs where you spill your feelings and talk about your plans, your day, what you have to do, etc. talk to someone you love and trust, vent to them about how things are; or about what you're getting up to. i find writing has an edge, because you can go back to it for reference (mutables tend to forget things easily) - but as long as you're getting the swirl of your mind somewhere outside of your head, you'll feel so, so much less stressed.

mutable dominants tend to constantly live in go-mode, we're restless and always doing something. we feel uncomfortable and sometimes guilty about staying still. our minds don't ever shut off. it's very important for mutable placements to learn how to rest, be present in the moment, and learn grounding. this can be done in many ways, but i've found personally that writing works best for me. other helpful practices can be: talk therapy, acceptance theory, yoga, meditation, hiking, camping, etc.

i also want to remind mutable signs: we change a lot. we have a lot of ideas. there's so much we want to do. we often feel like we have no path, no big goal; we can struggle with purpose as we don't often aspire for permanent things or "one big goal". this is NOT bad. there is nothing wrong with changing your feelings, your mind, your goals, your life path. you CAN do all the things you want to do! you have your entire life ahead of you! yes, you can learn all those languages. yes, you can have three different careers in your life. yes yes yes! don't listen to negativity from others. don't beat yourself up for not having one big goal like some people around you might. cherish and embrace all the things you want to achieve and complete (both big and small). learn to follow-through with and finish the things that matter to you (writing things down will really help with this, make action plans/steps - break everything down into smaller pieces). take the time to slow down and enjoy the moments as they come. you got this!

[ms-demeanor]

i really liked OJST in the mid-2010s but i didn’t stop reading cause of the cuck comic - wasn’t there also a comic erika moen wrote about (functionally) harassing lesbians with her now-husband?

In the mid 2010s closet-keys criticized one of Erika Moen's early diary comics and described Erika Moen as "Reassuring a cishet partner that it’s totally okay to use hate speech towards wlw at Pride" and condoning the harassment and fetishization of lesbians because of a 2007 comic that she had made as part of a webcomic she had written about gender and her interactions with her queerness.

The hate speech in question is the partner asking "are you sure you want to hold my hand with all these dykes around?" while they are pretty clearly at a Dyke Day event during pride, and the reassurance that 'it's totally okay to use hate speech toward wlw' is Erika responding "sweetie, I'm proud to be with you."

The comic is still up with a disclaimer that it was written at a different time, and I know that's probably not going to fly with a lot of people but if you were a bi woman in the early to mid 2000s it was pretty common to use statements like "lol yeah i'm into women my boyfriend is fine with it as long as I take pictures" to diffuse the biphobia from straight people AND to say shit like "I'm not a party bi, I actually love pussy, thanks" to diffuse the biphobia from queer people. (if you were a bi guy in the early to mid 2000s i'm sorry and I'm sorry now because we got LUG but that mostly went away and you *still* have to deal with the "gay in waiting" bullshit).

That comic ends with Erika and her partner looking at a woman and saying "I'd totally do her" while the woman thinks "pigs" and if you think that means that they literally sat on the street and vocally commented about lesbians passing by them or that they condone harassing lesbians (in, I cannot stress this enough, a diary comic written by someone in their early twenties who is realizing they are occasionally interested in some men some of the time after identifying as a lesbian their whole life), then I'm gonna go ahead and recommend signing up for some variety or other of literary analysis class. Do we think that Erika is seriously implying that she is going to make her boyfriend gay if she fucks him in this comic from a year later?

If this comic bothers you and you see it as a straight-passing couple giving the go-ahead to harass lesbians, you do you, I'm not saying you have to read the comic or enjoy Erika Moen.

I am saying it's a bit of a stretch, though, and certainly the least charitable explanation possible, and that we should probably give people some space to say awkward things about their sexuality and to make missteps when discussing it in their early twenties and not call them lesbophobic fifteen years after the fact for a college comic.

Moen also gets called transphobic because she has described trans men as adorable/cute in a way that could be read as patronizing in one comic and because she made a comic about wearing a packer for fun and for sexual gratification with her cis male partner as a cis woman.

Appropriately, all of these things feel very "late twenty teens tumblr callout post."

If it bugs you, you don't have to read the comics but I've talked about Moen before and I've gotten the anons in my inbox calling me lesbophobic for recommending her comic when in 2007 she made a comic about catcalling lesbians and condoning street harassment.

Which is frustrating because Erika Moen writes a comic about sex toys that has incredible body and gender diversity and is interested in making sure that people of all sexualities are having safe, enjoyable sex and talking openly about it. This is Rebecca Sugar condones war crimes level discourse over a creator who makes a genuinely good comic and gets dismissed as cringe by people who hate open discussions of sex and gets dismissed as a bigot (in ways that I think are incredibly unfair given the vast majority of her work) among people who *claim* to love open discussions of sex but who *actually* love witch hunts.

[milkymora]

✧ MCL (hsl) flirts - headcanons ✧

~ NOTE: the pictures used are not mine! credit to the respective owners on pinterest. all the headcanons are SFW & written just for fun. hope you’ll enjoy! xoxo, Mora

ꞝ Castiel.

a night owl. he’s naturally more active at night and enjoys playing guitar, especially whenever he can’t sleep.

he’s a huge fan of vinyl disks! he loves the vintage vibe and collecting old school bands’ disks from the 70s/80s, like lynyrd skynyrd’s/pink floyd & deep purple.

secretly super scared of spiders. and bugs. and flying bugs. (he will yell like a little girl whenever he sees one)

ꞝ Nathaniel.

he still sleeps with the blanket over his face sometimes. yeah, like right after he watches a horror movie that “didn’t bother him at all” according to him.

blue is his happy color, it reminds him of waterfalls & water element in general, which calm him down a lot.

has a diary since 9th grade. he loves writing his thoughts and making to-do lists.

ꞝ Lysander.

loves writing in nature. loves nature in general, and willow trees are his favorites.

his bone structure is pretty big, he has broad shoulders, big back and especially veiny arms. he’s hands down the most “manly” of all the boys.

he tattoed all the favorite flowers of his family members on his left arm.

ꞝ Armin.

listens to asmr and is tremendously embarrassed about it. hides it like a criminal, even if it’s usually just no-talking videos of fluffy mic scratching/tapping.

he used to role-play a lot during his middle school years. he loved role-playing about anime characters.

addicted to detective conan. was his childhood, along with dragon ball!

ꞝ Kentin.

is a boomer when it comes to technology, he can barely use the PC, it’s actually hilarious.

he loves leg days at the gym! it’s an addiction to him, he loves jogging and running and use his legs for physical activity. (indeed he has huge calf muscles)

loves cars. he is one of those people who would drool over cars tiktok edits.

bonus!! i wanted to add alexy, although obviously he’s non-dateable ♡

ꞝ Alex.

had a tumblr 2014 phase which he never really got over, he loves polaroids to this day.

neon pink is his favorite color. he’s always wearing pink nail polish, both on his nails & toes.

he cries everytime he watches “titanic”. no joke, ask armin. he sobs when jack dies, lol.

✧ find mcl girls headcanons here!

~ thank u for reading! i had so much fun writing this & making the little edits for the boys. i love them so much, which one is your favorite? :p also, reblogs are super appreciated ^^

[kimbapchan]

I am so thankful to you all

I stepped away from the internet last night to collect myself. I've just now received everyone's messages and comments to my post and i am so thankful to everyone. While i cant respond to everyone, pls know i've read and took to heart all your kind messages.

There are even people who support my work and growth even if they are no longer in the same fandom (danmei) and I am so thankful for those people too! I am thankful to ALL OF YOU who took the time to message me last night.

CW: I will mention my body issues so pls be aware, you dont have to ready any further. I have PCOS so this year, I've decided to go on a weightloss journey and so far I've finally reached my healthy weight through healthy means/lifestyle changes, not from those crash diets. I've started cosplaying again because I finally feel like I can have the confidence to do it. I used to cosplay when I was in highschool up to college but I never felt beautiful or confident in cosplay because of my weight. NOW that I've finally reached a healthier weight, i feel i could and i did start cosplaying with my friend. I cosplay for fun and to help me heal myself with my body issues.

However, even with my healthiest weight now, I have been dealing with body dysmorphia and it's causing me quite a lot of distress and frustration with myself. Everyone around me told me I look good or I lost weight but I myself cant see it, i still see the unattractive unconfident obese girl i've always been and it sucks. Let me tell you, cosplay has helped me slowly heal myself and gain confidence. Seeing that comment stressed me out. But i am going to brush it off and continue what i do. I enjoy bonding with my besties and cosplaying with them. It's a hobby and something i do for fun. Not as a career or for fame. I dont expect everyone to love seeing their comic artist's irl face/cosplays. But i like sharing my fun pictures and cosplays nonetheless and if you also enjoy it, then yay thankyou! if not, thats fine. My comics are not going away, i will still post them. Just try to scroll past and look at my art instead.

also I have been treating tumblr as a little diary because I feel more open and vulnerable here so I also do apologize if I tend to be TMI or i post my ranty stuff here. I appreciate the warm and cozy atmosphere on this site XD

anyways, thats it for now. I think I'll continue resting for a bit, I'm still stressed out from last night but I will take it easy on myself. I am attending a con this weekend (and cosplaying there) so It will help get my mind off that horrible instagram dm. I blocked that person too. Thankyou again everyone! I'm sorry if you've read the whole thing XD but I appreciate you taking the time to do so!

[tempural]

Hi!! I wanted to say that I loved reading about your journey of creating a personal website. I'm still unsure between Vercel and Netlify. I have a small question to ask. See, one of the reasons I want to make a website is to archive drawings and journal/sketchbook. Would you have any tips for creating an area on my website just for the diary/journal, which has tags, files for each entry, etc.?

Bello!

Really happy to hear about your interest in websites! I want everyone to make their own site so I don't have to log into social media and get instant tummyaches ♥

Vercel vs Netlify: I think I settled on Vercel for absolutely no reason whatsoever. I just made a site on Netlify, then tested on Vercel, and now I have like 5 websites on Vercel so I just kept using it LOL. I'm sure a more tech-savvy person would know the difference - I think they have certain integrations with specific programs.

Creating a diary or journal with tags:

There's a couple of different ways you can do that, with different levels of work needed.

you got me yapping again:

This sadgrl tutorial might be outdated and may or may not work, but explains the process better than I can.

Easiest: make a journal on Dreamwidth, or another blogging site (wordpress??) that allows easy tags and RSS feed, and embed that RSS feed onto your site.

This requires almost no HTML set-up, and the easiest to organize tags, but you don't truly have the data on your own site since it's just embedded.

When I snuck into a web design class at college, this was one of the methods that the professor used for a blog within a portfolio site LOL.

Shit like wordpress is what a LOT of ~professional~ sites do for their blog section. They code it separately from the main site haha. It's the most popular thing, but not necessarily the best. And wait til you read on what the CEO of wordpress has been having meltdowns about... he owns tumblr too!

It's made with a tutorial for Neocities if that's what you use.

Medium: Set up zonelets.

It will require some HTML and JS editing, but will help automate making headers/footers for each page of a blog.

I've never used it myself, but I see other people speak highly of it.

HARD FOR ME CUZ I'M A GORILLA: I believe a lot of professional web devs will slap your face with their coding cock until you use a static site generator (SSG) to make your site.

You will need some coding knowledge to set up the tagging system since it doesn't come with it enabled by default. But it's made explicitly to be an alternative to big Static Site Generators which are...

It requires some more intimidating knowledge, because it's a lot of scripts that turn files that are not HTML/CSS/JS into plain HTML.

Also you have to use the command line, and that doesn't come with buttons that tell you what you can do. You have to copy/paste all that shit or memorize the code to 'dev build astro' and it all looks silly.

I've used Eleventy, and now am using Astro. Other people use Hugo or Jekyll or some other stuff with crazy names like Glup Shitto. I hate all these sites cuz none of the words mean anything to me. This is a common theme for me and tech. I don't know what NODES or CONTENT or ISLANDS are!!!

I had the most success attempting to learn how to use a SSG by downloading a template and altering it with github + VScodium. Here's the template page for Astro. You click on a theme you like, and it takes you to its github page. (If you don't want to use evil Microsoft stuff sorry. Skip this entire section.) Follow the instructions on the page for "forking" the glup shitto. When it tells you to run commands, I run those commands through the terminal window in VScodium. These tutorials never tell you what these commands do cuz they assume you already know. Usually those commands automatically install the files you need onto your computer, and create the final files.

You can see my wip here for a "tag system" that SHOULD show members of a web listing haha but I don't know what I'm doing and I have a reading disorder AND don't know cumputer good.

THEORETICALLY this will be the simplest and easiest way to maintain tags and files, because after you set it up you just have to write the "content" of the blog page. And you don't have to set up the header/footer ever again. I see the vision, and potential, but I am not there yet when it takes me 5 hours a day to figure out what any of the words in the documentation mean and I don't want to ask an actual tech person cuz they will be like 'obviously just press the Blip on the Repository and then Suck My Ass in the command line".

(side note I haven't updated fujofans in like a year cuz I'm struggling with this part to make updating easier).

Con: the final HTML/CSS code is really ugly if it's "minified", and a lot of themes use """"""professional"""""" CSS libraries like Bootstrap and Tailwind that I honestly think are ugly cuz that's what every fuckin' tech website uses to style their pages and make them look Professional and Minimalist with stupid code like style="500-w dark-gray-balls D-cup-bra" on every single element. Even Toyhouse uses Bootstrap. Eugh!

But maybe you're smarter than me and can wrangle these things better!

That was really long. Woops. I hope you can slug through this wall of text and find something helpful. Feel free to email me if you have any more specific questions. I may or may not be helpful.

If someone else sees this and has better suggestions for making BLOGS, please chime in. I'm begging you.

[novy2sirius]

Hi, I’ve been following your tumblr for a while. I want to ask, “What kind of appearance and aura do people with Lilith in the first house have?” I’m asking this because I have Lilith in Sagittarius on my first house there especially my Pluto in the first house in Sagittarius, and asteroid Transylvania in the first house. I’m curious.

FIRST HOUSE LILITH AURA + APPEARANCE

people with lilith in their 1st house usually have a seductive and mysterious aura. they may come off as someone who’s got a dark persona, but usually when you get to know them they’re not scary people or anything. many women with this placement struggle to fit in with other women often because they naturally attract lots of hateful jealousy from them no matter how kind they try to be. they have an aura that’s magnetic though and many people secretly admire them even though the hateful ones won’t want to admit it. i’ve noticed these people often have the vibe of like a vampire from the show the vampire diaries. their appearance tends to look similar to what people on social media describe as “dark feminine”. they usually have really pretty eyes and a beautiful body that many men find attractive. everyone always says this, but it really is true, they do get sexualized a lot by men and men may use them a lot for their body. they have a similar vibe to pluto in the 1h people except i would say more mysterious and less intense. i would also say lilith in 1h people (all genders) are much more misunderstood than pluto in 1h people. also random, but so many people i know with this placement will literally just be existing and someone will walk up to them and say something really out of pocket and uncalled for that’s so mean for no reason

thank you for following me by the way! i appreciate it 🩵

note: some celeb examples used have this placement in whole signs system but the rest are in placidus system

[nozomi-kaizoku]

FASHION JIRAIS DNI /SRS

The thing that really annoys me about the reyinblack situation is how they're the ones telling us to "get help" even though a lot of us are already doing that and are just using tumblr as a way to find a support group n shit.

Rey has this stupid belief that you should cope the way other people cope, and if you don't you're "glamorizing it and influencing others", and it genuinely baffles me how completely ignorant they are surrounding both the topics of jirai kei and mental health as a whole.

since when has anyone in the jirai community ever encouraged anyone to self harm? The only self harm shit I've seen coming from the jirai community are literally people just talking about their own struggles with self harm.

Tbh, the only thing I don't like about my self harm is that whenever I relapse I have to hide it until it heals so that my family doesn't get pissy at me over it (especially my dad, cause he deadass once told me "self harm is stupid", and honestly, wtf), but that's just me. People got their own reasons why they romanticize their own self harm.

And I am putting the emphasis on the "their own" part, because this douchebag really missed that part and I don't think they'd bother to care anyways.

Also, "just get a diary" THIS IS MY DIARY, JACKWAD. My therapist knows that this blog exists, i literally showed it to her to look at. And I start intensive outpatient therapy next week, so idk what you're on about when you say I should "get help."

Speaking of "getting help", I do agree that if someone needs professional help, they should try to get it as soon as possible. Walk in crisis centers exist (at least in Colorado where I'm from)

But regardless of whatever it's for, when someone does get help, it doesn't mean that all of your problems will go away.

it means that you are learning the skills needed to cope with them so that you don't end up doing some genuinely harmful behaviors like drugs or risky sex.

Sometimes getting help means de-escalating from a crisis so that you don't try to kill yourself or others.

Or it could be to help manage some behavioral issues or trauma that you had to deal with.

People get this stupid misconception that the minute you go to the psych ward for a few days or start talking to a therapist, that all of a sudden you're gonna be this mentally stable and happy person who has no issues whatsoever. I've been dealing with the mental health industry for 5 years and yet I still haven't gotten better, if anything I feel fucking worse tbh.

And to add on to that, not everyone has that same kind of access to help. Sometimes parents don't believe their kids are struggling and refuse to get them help, sometimes financial barriers can make it difficult to afford it, lots of things.

Japan (the place where Jirai Kei originated) has a major issue when it comes down to the stigma surrounding mental health and mental illness, and getting help is completely discouraged there. That's where the Jirai Kei community comes in to help destigmatize mental health (while looking cute as shit).

but the part that's gotta piss me off the most regarding this situation is how rey is so upset that different ways to cope exist to the point they're literally reporting blogs and getting them t worded ALL BECUASE NOBODY AGREES WITH WHAT THEY GOTTA SAY.

Sheesh, and people tell ME I can't take criticism...

Anyway, just wanna say that if you see reyinblack anywhere, please report and block them. DO NOT ENGAGE WITH THEM.

Thank you.

[the-quiet-youve-been-longing-for]

Okay time for another small (I hope) analysis on IWTV, mainly the way it's written and its place on current television. I'll try my best to format this so it's not ramblings all over, I promise.

IWTV and plot points

I watched a good amount of television in my time, and one thing I noticed here is the fact that it doesn't hold your hand. It doesn't tell you "hey, this thing x is important, now we will tell again why x is important, now here see x being used, the important thing we talked about so far, did you remember, audience?".

Let's take as an example the "don't drink the blood of the living" thing. It's said to a young Louis (telling also to the audience in the 2nd episode how vampirism in this setting works) and then every time it's brought up it's indirectly (Lestat spitting out the sick man's blood, we see Claudia buying Laudanum and we know what it will be used for, but they don't tell us "Hey, Claudia is planning to poison someone so that Lestat drinks it, because remember audience, dead blood kills them"). Sometimes not only it doesn't hold your hand, but shoves you in a different direction, especially in S2. It contradicts himself, backtracks and then it's up to you to spot it.

For example, attentive viewers may have noticed that Sam was in 2 places at once in the trial, one episode before the actual reveal. It isn't a gotcha they came up with in the finale to give more gravitas to the revelation. When they tell us Lestat mass manipulated the audience, it makes sense for the storyline too because we already saw him do that with the soldiers, we have a previous example to refer to, Armand never used that particular power.

In a time where we see so many social media adopt the "short videos" gimmick, like reels and shorts etc, having a piece of media that references back in this way is super refreshing.

2. Character complexity

Complex characters are the backbone of this show. It's easy to place a character in a box and leave them there. You see it with the stereotype of the villain, the best friend, the hero. Some tv shows may have the character shift into a different box, but it's almost never permanent (think of the times where a hero gets corrupted by the Evil Power, but then reverts back to their hero status after Defeating the Evil Power because they remembered the Power of Friendship).

We have Louis, well meaning vampire who is capable of horrible deeds when pushed to the brink. Lestat, who feels so much to the point it hurts the people around him. Armand, whose trauma and fear bring out the need to control, but at the same time he needs to do that without actually controlling. They are all these things at the same time, and it's impossible to see them in a black and white perspective.

3. Details

A line almost always has its parallels to another line in the show, gazes always mean something, props are detailed and shown (I made a post looking at Daniel's notes in 2x05, which were shown for a second only, but you can also think about Claudia's diaries, all handwritten, or the astonishing amount of folders that were in Daniels computer from the Talamasca. That is all prop work done to be shown for a few seconds at most).

4. Analysis

This is more of a fandom thing than the show itself, but I was suprised by the amount of deep analysis that people here on Tumblr did (but also on other social media). Long essays on the meaning of a scene, or on the many many topics the show brings to light (the fallacy of memory, the impact of trauma, the meaning of free will and agency).

Similarly lots of people said that the show brought them back the urge to start creating, whether it's gifs, video essays, edits, fanart, fics, what have you. I started going back to Tumblr after years (last time I was here was during S4 of Sherlock).

And I feel like this is only possible if you give your audience something to work with, something to talk about and to dissect, rather than simple "entertainment".

5. Final thoughts

Of course, this isn't to say IWTV is error free, all perfect, without flaws. Nor is it the only one that has had this amount of labor and impact. But it's still miles ahead from most media we have available at the moment in my opinion, and I really hope its success brings other showrunners or directors to want to try and dare, to trust in their audience, to avoid shortcuts and to pour love in their creation.

If you got this far, I just want to thank you for taking the time to read my ramblings again! Have a cute Louis as a reward, and see you next time :)

[choicesficwriterscreations]

September Creator of the Month: Tveitertotwrites

Please welcome this month’s Creator of the Month: @tveitertotwrites

Each month, CFWC highlights one of our talented fanfic writers or artists. The writer or artist is selected at random. More info can be found on the navigation page. Past COTMs can be found here.

Tumblr Blog Name: Tveitertotwrites

How do you want to be known on Tumblr? Megan

Quick Links:

Tumblr Blog

Masterlist

1- When did you start playing Choices? What was the first book you played? 

I started playing in 2019, and my first book was Rules of Engagement.

2- When and why did you join Choices fandom?

I joined the fandom in January 2022. I had taken a break from Choices for a while but went back in November/December 2021 and started trying to look for fanfiction for Open Heart as I wanted to see if there was more Open Heart content, so I turned to Tumblr and AO3 and decided to join.

3- How did you pick your blog name? 

It was the first thing I could think of. I’m not creative with naming things (if anyone remembers my original blog name, it was openheartfanfiction because I only wrote for OH and couldn’t think of anything else). So I was like, “I’m a fan of Aaron Tveit. His fans are called Tveiter Tots, so why not?”  I then added writing because most of the content I make is fanfiction.

4- Pull up the first post in your archive, and tell us about it! 

It was actually a little intro to my account, but I had deleted it a while back so now it’s this. It is not my favorite. I would definitely redo it now that I have had more experience with text fics. 

5- Do you write fanfiction, create fan art, or are you one of those really gifted people who do both? 

While I would love to make fan art, currently, I only write fanfiction.

6- How long have you been creating for Choices and for any other fandoms?

I have been writing/creating Choices content since 2022. But I have been writing for Star Wars and Adam Driver Characters since 2020 (even though I am on hiatus from it, and I don’t know if/when I will pick it back up). I also wrote some Marvel fanfiction with a friend in 2021. More recently, I have started writing stuff for Aaron Tveit and Cillian Murphy characters on my non-Choices blog.

7- What is your favorite Choices book, and what is your favorite Choices book to create for?

Right now, I would say either Red Carpet Diaries or America’s Most Eligible is my favorite. But I also like Open Heart, High School Story, and others. I want to create more for RCD and AME, but I think I like creating content for OH.

8- Share your first Choices fanfic or fan art that you posted with us. Do you still like it, or would you change it if you were creating it today?

Since I already mentioned the text fic, I chose the next fic I did. It was for my Open Heart MC’s (Claire Evans) Birthday. And I would 100 percent go back and rewrite it. I like the idea of what I wrote, but I don’t like its execution, and I need to go back and rewrite it.

9- What is your favorite piece of fiction or art that you created? 

Right now, I have these two favorites. While I like writing angst, I enjoy writing fluffy stuff like these two fics. Plus, it’s my MC and OC who are besties (Claire and Adelaide), so I had to choose one from both of them.

10- Do you have a fic/art that you didn’t expect to be well received, but it was? What about one you expected to do well but found it could use a little more love?

This was a fic that I wasn't expecting to get notes on. I was still very new to the fandom at the time and hadn’t really interacted with anyone at that point, so seeing people like it was a shock.

Something that I wish I could do better is the content I make for my RCD and AME MCs (Brooklyn Moore and Charlie Howard). I love that people like my OH content, but I don’t see many people liking content from those books (which is fine if you don’t like it).

11- If you could write only angst, fluff, or smut for the rest of your writing life, which would it be and why? 

Fluff. While writing Angst and Smut can be fun, writing fluff is a nice escape from real life.

12 - Do you ever recognize yourself in any of your MCs or in your writing?

Yes, I have put some things from myself into my MCs and OCs, like some personality traits, some physical traits, and some hobbies/things they enjoy. So, I do see myself sometimes, but not always.

13 - What element of writing/art do you struggle with most?

Either coming up with titles or writing bits in between the big parts. Usually, one of the last things I do is come up with a title because I can never think of one. Also, writing the “less important” parts in between the parts I want to write is what gets me sometimes and is why I have unfinished fics that I have abandoned.

14 - Do you have any neglected work you really want to finish?

I have some fics that I had done some previews for (last year or the year before) that I would like to finish at some point. Right now, I am trying to finish a Dancing with the Stars AU for Adelaide and Tobias, so that is my writing priority.

15 - If someone you know in real life (who isn’t involved in fandoms) asked to see your work, would you let them? If yes, what would you show them first? 

Maybe it depends on who it is. While I don’t think anyone would be too judgemental, I would still be very nervous to show them in fear of them hating it or something like that. I wouldn't show them the smut or some of my earlier fics but the fluff I would.

16 - Are there any writers (published authors and/or fanfic writers) who influenced your writing or art? Are there any artists that influence you?

Not really. I have liked a lot of people’s work, but I don’t think that it really influences my writing at all though.

17- Which one of your stories would you most like to see as a movie/series? 

I think my fic “Coming to You” would be fun to see as a movie. Seeing how Ethan and Claire’s relationship grows on screen when they’re in two different worlds would interest me.

19- Do you write original fiction or create non-fandom art? 

I have thought about trying to write an original fiction book, but right now I don’t. I do currently write some original screenplays as I am in college for screenwriting.

20-  What other hobbies do you have?

I like to paint and listen to music. I like to take drives in the morning to get coffee and relax or at night with my dogs. I like to watch movies and musicals (like Moulin Rouge and Six). 

21: BONUS - tell us anything you’d like (if you want to)

Thank you to anyone who has read any of my fics or enjoyed the content I create. It means a lot, and I hope to continue writing content that both you and I can enjoy.

[teoft]

It's like Tumblr has become almost a diary for me, thanks to no character limit and a read more button. This atmosphere of acceptance and understanding helps a lot too.

I'll get back to posting actual art, juggling with Twitter and Bluesky along with commissions is taking up a lot of my time.

Anyway, thoughts about art community and being social

For the longest time I've had this feeling of being an outsider in this vague community of artists that see as colleagues of sorts. Like I meet all the "criteria" of being in the group, and yet don't really feel like I'm part of it. Well, it seems I am right in some way, and the reason is that they interact with each other, while I sit here drawing alone.

Unfortunately I've always been prone to isolate myself from others. I grew up feeling like I should be ashamed of loving to draw, since it was always fanart monsters, creatures and cool guys instead of "proper art" like animals and portraits. Before social media, I only drew for myself and never showed anything to anybody. I hid my art from my family, from the world, so that I wouldn't be judged. I think it is one of the biggest reasons why I have trouble interacting with people in the context of art (tbh I'm shit at being social anyway but that's a whole another problem).

Even when I had a scanner and means to post my art online, I never did, due to the whole "if you put something online it'll be there forever" mindset. My first actual account anywhere online must've been Facebook in 2010ish, where I only had a few friends. It was the perfect place for me to finally post anything online, and so I did: I used to post pretty much everything I drew on there. Slowly gaining courage, I eventually made my original Tumblr account, then Deviantart, Twitter, etc.

Still, all I did was throw my art out there in hopes of somebody liking it. I didn't really know how to interact with the people who commented on my posts, so instead I mostly just... made more art. I did have some friend groups here and there, but either they ended up falling apart or my social battery drained in such a way that I slowly drifted away. I had gotten used to just being by myself and relying only on myself in the online art world.

During my design studies, I started putting more thought and work on promoting myself, so that it could be one career path for me to take. My mindset was that I'll work hard and become "big", even if it meant that one post gained me just one follower. In 2020 I ended up going viral with a meme and suddenly getting tens of thousands of followers. It was great and a welcome boost of morale, but unfortunately 2020 was otherwise one of the worst years in my life.

Throughout the years people have come and gone, so the only constant for me has been myself, and my drive to develop my skills. Thus it's been too easy for me to just isolate myself. In a way it has been my strength with regards to art, but sometimes I wish I knew how to make lasting connections. I think/know I might be autistic to some degree, which adds to the difficulty of being social. Though, to be honest, I don't know if I'd gotten this far without my autistic hyperfixations.

I guess the thing I need to do now to fix this problem of loneliness and isolation is to just... slowly try and be more social. To reply to comments and talk to people. All of which is easier said than done. Still, just gotta take that first step and then keep going.

Despite lacking the kind of community I yearn for, it seems I've made a name for myself, enough so that people seem to take pride in knowing me. Or at least that's the impression I've gotten a few times. But still, I am happy that I've had a positive effect on people. After all, my two main motivators in art are that I like doing it, and I like when people enjoy my art.