#and not to absolutely toot my own horn

[gabbagabbadoo]

I came out of nail art retirement to say goodbye to The Walking Dead. I did the ones on the right for the season 5 premiere (8 years ago!!) and I wanted to recreate the ones for the series finale in a similar way.

[floatinginlilspace]

it has just occurred to me that I've yet to show my paci on here !..

so here it is !!

I'm very very proud of it :3 it is (in my personal opinion..) the best deco paci ever !! it's my favorite I've ever seen (yes including all the super pretty ones i see online !) I think it's absolutely perfect and exactly the paci I've always dreamed of having ! :p

paci case I decorated as well, and transparent pngs of the paci (for paci edits, moodboards, ect.) under cut !! vvv

[haleandwellmet]

Here's the other new item in my shop!

Middle-Age Man Makeouts is a 22-page zine full of sketches of my two characters Marion (they/he) and Owen (he/him) in different stages of their very gay, gender non-conforming relationship, plus notes explaining their lore, and why I'm so obsessed with drawing these two characters smooching.

It's a love letter to aging and loving while queer, illustrated through digital and traditional sketches hand-drawn by me!

[weirdfishy]

y'all ever go absolutely fucking bonkers for your own writing??? like ik we all go 'meh could be better' n 'yeah ok cool' but like i'm overrun with giddiness n feelings n i haven't been able to go an hour without rereading my punkflower post and just being blindsided with pride n joy at it????? i wrote it in a haze n i am just hands-down in love with it, i keep laughing in disbelief bc its so??????? head-in-hands i was not raised with notions of piety but i've always been interested in gods and the second i stepped into that with punkflower i went total fruitloop, seized by too many thoughts to feasibly put into one post

[starflungwaddledee]

Hey got a question, is it normal for your heartbeat to beat rapidly wherever you look at really tense or angsty scenes?

It's Just a question I had in mind

putting these together because they're clearly related. i admit these have me a little bit stumped, but i'll take this in good faith and do my best! under the cut because of length.

topics include: physiological reactions to fiction, emotional reactions/empathy of creators, and finally addressing the unspoken question present in asks like this.

"is it normal to have a physiological reaction (heart beat, jitters, excitement, sadness, etc) to fiction"

absolutely! i cannot overstate how common it is to have reactions of any wide variety to fiction. the whole point of storytelling is to make you feel things! the reactions you have, their intensity, and the specific media or genre you'll have those reactions to will vary person to person. in regards to angst in particular, like i've said on this topic before: reactions will vary. some people might get excited, others might get sad, others might feel it like a gut punch but in a really good and cathartic way. none of these are better or worse or more normal or more abnormal than the other.

"do i as a creator have an emotional reaction to the work i'm creating?"

i personally do, sure. i was actually quite explicit in the tags of the comic that came right before this ask that i found it hard to draw, because seeing kirby so sad was emotionally pulverising to me. do all creators? no. do i feel a strong emotional reaction to all scenes? no. or all types of content creation? no. for me, prose is actually much easier to tackle than illustration; i can write trauma and suffering and psychological devastation until the cows come home, but drawing it is a different matter. consuming the work of others is different again. and this is different for everybody. am i somehow morally better or more empathetic than an artist that doesn't struggle to draw characters sad? hell no! being able to represent- in fiction- a strong emotion generally requires that you empathise with or at least understand that emotion. sometimes creators actually have to be able to turn this off to be able to create the content we make; the way we turn off strict adherence to reality in order to write fantasy. if we couldn't do this, content across the board- art, movies, novels- would be flattened to nothing but the cheeriest and most mediocre parts of our day to day lives. no fun monsters (because those aren't real). no challenges to rise above (because those make us sad). no characters who have different experiences to us (because how could we imagine or feel for that). and it would be okay for like... twenty minutes of all books containing 'the sun was shining and i woke up on time and had a yummy breakfast', but then it would suck, sorry. conflict and imagination are the root of content.

"it's just a question I had in mind".

a way to think about this might be; would you ask these questions about genres that aren't angst? would you ask "is it normal to be happy when these characters finally reunite" or "is it normal to feel resolution in response to a happy ending" or "is it normal to feel excitement when a character has their cool hero moment". perhaps it's because your reaction to angst is something you construe as negative, but if you wouldn't doubt your reactions to cheerful content, then there's no reason to doubt the reactions you have to angst either; these are just reactions! fiction is designed to make us feel things, but what you feel will be up to you. no one feeling or response is better or worse than any others.

lastly, i feel like there is an unspoken question here that i don't like.

and maybe you didn't intend it. i'm going to extend that grace to you, and because you seem to need reassurance about this (though i will not be reassuring about this further. i do not like reassurance seeking from strangers and this is a boundary i am setting right now), this is not an attack or even a criticism. your questions are fine if they are coming from a place of curiosity and- i simply assume- that these are new or difficult concepts to you that you have yet to have explored or explained.

but on the good faith assumption you didn't intend it, and wouldn't want to do this again (especially if you message other creators), i think you should be aware.

because it sounds like this: "do the people who make sad/angsty/dark content care at all or are you heartless to the suffering (of these characters). is angst/dark content made by bad people?" i felt it the previous time i got a question like this too when it explicitly stated "you seem like a nice person", as if being a nice person was in contrast with what i was creating.

please. we are just people. the relative light or darkness of the content you make says absolutely nothing about your morals, your real life attitudes, or your ability to be an empath.

someone making cute animal art could be a school yard bully. someone writing a complex sci-fi warhorror fic could be the most altruistic and compassionate soul in the world.

in my experience, creators are some of the most empathetic people i have ever met, and many of them know their craft intimately. these are people capable of stepping into the shoes of others as easily as breathing. of sitting down at their work station every day and finding inside themselves a way to answer "how would this really feel?" so clearly and honestly that they can put it onto the paper for you to feel it too.

[bloodiedrogue]

guys i truly think i might've popped off with this horny one shot i'm writing

[reallifehumansunshine]

pov: you are sixteen and you’re kissing your best friend who is way out of your league (they are both thinking this)

[delirious-donna]

You ever read something back that you wrote and think… who was that person?!

[k3rplunked]

yooo what is up and like happy holidays everyone !!! these mfs can celebrate anything you want so my boyfriend told me to make them christmasy so we can match with it because we are homosexuals who celebrate christmas in the capitalism way

no much to say just got these gay guys sharing a scarf looking gay as always. i don't know how to draw shoes in a way that doesn't look like they got the club penguin shoes on idk anyways happy holidays again i hope you're having a good day!!

[pandora15]

also highkey it's amazing what writing two little whump prompts for a challenge month will do to my motivation to write like.

I have been struggling, but after spending like. an hour or so writing, I'm now really excited? And I'm planning on working on more prompts tomorrow?

hopefully this will also give me motivation to work on my longer WIPs, too

[arsenicflame]

fanfic trope: only one bed and amnesia

thank u !!! ha somehow i managed to get two with these exact tropes '''':)

Only One Bed:

C: Neutral. A good author might be able to sell it, but a bad one will kill it deader than dead.

in izzy fic we jump to:

B: Like it. Not one of my bigger cravings, but it can scratch a certain itch if I’m in the right mood.

its a fine trope, i just, have feelings about the plausibility of it. i like it used tactically in a story, not just thrown in there for the hell of it, yknow? it gets a big boost in izzyfic mostly because of the setting. 1) options are limited on a ship. 2) options are limited in port because its 1717. cant book ahead at all, bedding is expensive, it just feels More viable to me (though then i get thinking abt historical view on homosexuality and it becomes a whole thing i take tooooo seriously)

its not exactly only one bed but im a HUGE fan of scooping an injured Izzy into the captains bed (to keep an eye on him/because its the softest/etc) and then Ed & stede curling around him anyway, because its their bed.

Amnesia:

A: Love it. Spend my time combing AO3 for it

i already said a little earlier how i love whump, & this especially is so good. ive read it with a lot of ships i like, but for izzy specifically, i like playing around with who he might have been in the past. its not just about the loss of memories, its about remembering who he used to be too. its about the crew seeing a new, less stressed side of izzy, its about reminders of how ed & izzy's relationship used to be, theres so many layers to it that work especially well for these guys in particular! im also fond of how it can affect the stizzy relationship too (with either of them losing memories) and thats not even touching on sam... its always so good i swear

Give me a fanfiction trope and I’ll grade it

[the-kipsabian]

man i can already tell im going to enjoy writing this fic way too much honestly

like im 400 words in to the opening scene and its already like. OUGH

and its only gonna get worse :)

[dahldahlbills]

i had a dream that watcher announced a new show on netflix (!!!???) but they did it in such a bizarre way.. they first announced it to a small group via a private post on tumblr (couldn’t interact with the post AT ALL) three hours before the official announcement everywhere else. except anyone who was given access to view the post had their screen locked so they couldn’t exit out for those three hours until after the official announcement was made to avoid spoilers. Anyway the new show was abt shane and Ryan teaming up with maintenance workers to do repair work on rundown haunted locations, where they had to fulfill a particular task alone at night as part of their solo investigation

[c-e-d-dreamer]

LISTEN HERE. I adore your Nessian and I plan to devour it all. All of it I say!

So here's my question... Which fic is your favorite? If you could say "OH read that one, read that one!" which fic would it be?

Already read Who's Counting, and Falling for your Fool's Gold has me in an absolute chokehold. So just tell me where to go from here 🥰

First of all, thank you so much for sending and for your kind words! 🥺 I know every fic author has their own way of writing the characters, and I'm so honored that you're enjoying my interpretation of Nesta and Cassian 🥰

But to answer your question...

Haveeee you read my kid fic (and on AO3)? Let Our Hearts, Like Doors, Open Wide is in fact my fic pride and joy. 10/10 in my totally, unbiased opinion lol. But I also love kid fics, so no harm if not your thing!

If you enjoy angst, my Can You Come Get Me? series is also a personal favorite. Really quite proud of that one. Although it is gut wrenching (with a happy ending though!)

If you prefer a one shot, I won't lie, I sometimes go back and read Still In Love With You (and on AO3) from time to time myself, but that also has angsty undertones so if you want pure fluff, then Two Minutes For Hooking (Up) (and on AO3) which is just hockey meet-cute is also a fun fave.

If you want just pure smut, Naughty Girl is the filthiest thing I've ever written...

And if you prefer canon-verse, I've always been super proud of my Kelpie Aftermath fix-it/rewrite fic (and on AO3). I also have another fix-it/rewrite fic that I absolutely adore, but I'm currently in the process of potentially revamping it to turn it into a full blown fic so maybe don't read that one yet.

I hope this helped! And thank you so so so much for reading my fics 🥰

[boggleoflight]

Sexy nerdy catgirl mage enjoys the crisp Sharlayan morning.

[ikjun]

idc much about gifmaking it’s whatever for me but when i make gfx ... love to remind myself that i am actually cool and creative and can make fun stuff