#and the top posts have more or less a similar number of notes to some posts under the other trends

[whyissupernaturaltrending]

Hi! Sorry, could you tell me why is supernatural trending? And in fist place at that??

it's the fifteenth anniversary of the episode 4x01 lazarus rising so it's only fitting for spn to rise from the dead. essentially 15 years since castiel first appeared on the show. why it's trending in first place - i have no idea unfortunately, i would love to know the exact mechanics though

[drunkinyourbenz]

YOU DON'T REALLY NEED A BREAK

☆ SYNOPSIS: in which billie is stressed, so naturally she needs you more than ever. unbenkownst to her, she takes it too far. ☆ PART ONE ☆ RELATIONSHIP: dom!billie eilish x fem!reader ☆ WARNINGS: SMUT, use of safe word, angst, fluff, comfort, mean billie, reader is a little bratty, situationship/fwb, angry sex, crying, strap-on, edging, degradation, petnames, name calling (slut, whore, brat, etc.), choking, hair pulling, humiliation, dumbification, toxic dynamic (except less so because billie's realising things hehe), unedited. ☆ REQUESTED: yes, by a bunch of anons ☆ NOTE: y'all read my mind with these reqeusts i was already thinking of writing a part two abt exactly this and you all had the same idea!! sorry this took so long lmao exams are kicking my ass :/ this is very unedited sorry for any mistakes i read it through once and then posted it lmao read part one first for it to make more sense ☆ WORD COUNT: 3.5k words

billie hadn’t texted you in a little over a week, and you almost thought that she wasn’t ever going to again. the last time you’d seen her had ended like all of the other nights, she’d cleaned you up and then left you alone in the silent hotel room. usually, she’d text afterwards, just to make sure you were feeling okay, but there was nothing. the last text between the two of you was when you’d asked where she was when she was late that night. 

the two of you normally hooked up at least a few times a week, and you’d never actually gone a week without her since you started this four months ago.

you thought the worst: someone else had replaced you as her favourite. you’d always thought it would happen, but you thought you might have a few more times before it was over. but from the looks of it, you weren’t ever going to see her again. 

which was fine, obviously. you didn’t care—or that’s what you kept telling yourself. you had agreed to a no-commitment thing when you two started whatever this was, and she could do whatever she wanted. it stung a little bit that she wasn’t doing you, but ultimately, there was nothing you could do about it. 

so when you got home from a long day, thoroughly exhausted, your plan for the night was to hide in your bed and watch 2000s tv shows until you passed out. you showered, taking your time to wash your hair and feeling your tense and tired muscles relax under the hot stream of water. once out of the shower, you changed into some comfortable clothes, flopping down on your bed in relief. you were ready to finally just cuddle up under the blankets like you’d been wishing you could do all day.

about eleven minutes into the gilmore girls episode you were up to—rewatching for the hundredth time—your phone pinged, and you almost just ignored it, but you picked it up with a groan. 

your eyes widened when you saw it was from billie, the last number you expected to text. your heart almost skipped a beat.

billie: come over?

you paused for a moment, conflicted. you truly were exhausted, and it had been such a long day, and all you wanted to do was sleep, you honestly weren’t in the mood for what you knew billie would want. but… it was billie. 

so, inevitably, you ended up at her door. you were still in the clothes you’d changed into the moment you got home, just some comfortable sweatpants and a top—billie wouldn’t care about what you wore, she wanted you to be comfortable. plus, you knew full well that you wouldn’t be wearing them for long. 

you knocked on the door, and it opened within mere seconds, almost as if billie had been waiting by the door for you to show up. from the look on her face, you wouldn’t be surprised. she looked stressed, angry, and desperate. you looked her up and down, your eyes settling on her face. she was wearing a pretty similar outfit to you, sweatpants that hung low on her hips, the “HIT ME HARD AND SOFT” waistband of her boxers peeking out, and a white tank top that you could see the slight hint of her nipples peeking through. her arms were bare and your eyes seemed to gravitate towards the toned muscles there, which never failed to make your brain short circuit. paired with the noticeable outline of her strap in her pants, it was almost too much for you to take. 

you noticed the way her eyebrows were slightly furrowed and her eyes were narrowed in a firm gaze, the frustration was clear on her face. “rough day?” 

she groaned, and when she spoke, her voice had a slight rasp to it, “you have no idea.” 

the two of you fell into silence, just staring at each other for a few long moments. it wasn’t a comfortable silence, it was one that hung in the air around you, a claustrophobic silence. there were words left unspoken between the two of you that poked their heads around the corner but never truly revealed itself, it left you wondering when it would snap, but it never did. the two of you stared at each other for what felt like lifetimes, you waiting for billie to do something, and billie simply savouring the feeling of having you in front of her again. 

finally, she spoke, her voice still holding that same raspiness—which alone could get you on your knees for her. “it’s pathetic that you’re here so fast, considering i ghosted you for a week. you’re just a desperate slut for me, aren’t you? not that you’d be good for anything else.”

the bluntness of her words sent a chill down your spine, this was exactly what you’d expected. why else would billie text you after a week of not talking, if not to use her favourite girl? 

billie continued talking before you could even get a word in, it was like she’d read your thoughts. she leaned closer, her lips brushing your ear as she spoke, “you know i could just call over any of my girls and they’d be here in a heartbeat, and they’d be exactly the same. pathetic, desperate, and begging.”

you raised an eyebrow at her words. you knew what she was doing, trying to wind you up, get you to act out. you had honestly intended to just be her good girl tonight because you were so tired, but you knew she adored it when you acted up. so you spoke with the bratty tone you knew she loved.

“sure you could. but none of them are here now, are they? you called me.” 

the brattiness, especially when she was in a mood like this, made her eyes light up. your brattiness was her favourite thing, she loved it when you gave her an excuse to be harsher and meaner than she was on a normal day. so, when you talked back to her, she lets out a dark laugh. “don’t fuckin’ test me, mama.” 

you let a soft scoff fall past your lips, “or what?” 

“you know i’ll put you in your place, i’ve done it before.” and then you realised, this was what set you apart. this was why you were her favourite. you weren’t afraid to act up, so she didn’t have to be afraid of taking it too far. she could push you, because you pushed her. “maybe you should. you want to blow off steam, don’t you?”

at your words, her lips twitched upwards into a slight, barely noticeable smirk. you knew she would be taking them as a challenge, “you’re gonna have to drop the bratty attitude eventually, mamas.”

“maybe you should make me.”

that was exactly what she wanted—she wanted you to keep going, keep winding her up. she wanted you to give her a reason to pin you down and tear you apart; and you gave her that reason with that simple suggestion.

she took your wrist in her hand, her grip almost painful as she tugged you behind her to her bedroom. the air felt different than it normally did when you were here, everything felt so tense. her entire body language screamed irritated, dominant. but it wasn’t the normal kind of dominance she normally exuded. billie always had this kind of casual dominance that just hung around her, her presence was just effortlessly assertive. this is different, she had a look in her eyes you hadn’t seen before—she was always mean, but this was her normal level of mean times ten. 

she was clearly in a whole new headspace, not one you were familiar with. this wasn’t just dominant, wasn’t just mean, no, it was something else. she wasn’t just a little stressed, she didn’t just have a little bit of frustration she needed to take out on you, this was worse. it was an almost animalistic kind of energy, one that’s so raw, so intense, you knew you wouldn’t be able to walk by the time she was finished with you.

she took one of the belts from her merch from her dresser, shoving you backwards onto the bed and tying your hands to the headboard. she tugged it slightly, making sure it was firm but not too tight. it sent a rush of excitement through you, and you knew she felt the same. 

“gonna use you, mamas,” you knew from those words that she was going to absolutely ruin you, and you could tell by the look in her eyes.

sure enough, no more than five minutes later, she had her strap deep inside of you and was pounding into you at a bruising pace. the strap was bigger than the one she usually used, and it made you ache with a constant stinging pain. she hadn’t given you any time to adjust, and had started as she meant to go on. you were naked and on her bed, with her on top of you, fucking into you at a brutal pace. your hands were still tied up with her belt and the ache it brought only amplified the pleasure. one of her hands had your hair in a firm grasp, solely to make you feel the sting of pain it brought. she wanted to bring you to tears. her other hand grabbed a handful of your ass, squeezing it before letting her hand fall down on your ass in a harsh slap. 

the intense pleasure of her cock inside you and her finger circling your clit was a perfect contrast to the pain her hands brought you, and a trail of moans fell from your lips. “b-billie-” 

a mean, almost cruel laugh left her lips, “god, you’re such a slut.” another slap landed on your ass, “it’s pathetic, really. i mean, i can ghost you for as long as i want,” another slap. “and you’re still at my door in five minutes as soon as i ask.” slap, “pathetic fuckin’ whore.” 

you whined, which simply made her laugh. in her own sadistic way, she was enjoying this. 

this continued for what felt like hours—maybe it was, you had no idea. every time you got slightly close to your orgasm, she’d pull out, tugging you away from the edge. by now, you had tears rolling down your cheeks, and the fine line between pleasure and pain was slowly but surely being crossed. 

“fuckin’ take it,” she breathed. “god, you look so dumb around my cock. all you’re good for, hm? spreading your legs and taking it like the slut you are?”

you whimpered, and she simply slapped your ass again. 

this continued for much longer, and she wasn’t even mad at you for being bratty, not in the slightest. she just needed an outlet for her bad mood, and that was what you were. merely a way for her to release her frustrations. 

you let out a choked sob, your body trembling, “billie, please, i can’t—” 

you knew she wasn’t doing this because she had anything against you, there had been something deeply wrong with her day. she had never been this downright cruel before, and you knew her well enough to know that she wouldn’t act like this without reason. but it was too much, and you weren’t sure how much more you could take. she hadn’t asked for your colour even once tonight, and that thought alone was putting you on edge. sure, her being rough turned you on, but right now it was scaring you just as much. this was darker than you’d experienced in all four months of your friends with benefits situation with her, and you weren’t sure if you liked it. 

you felt the strap hit your most sensitive spot, and you let out a sound that was a mix of a moan and a sob. “billie–” 

“like being used by me, yeah? taking everything i give you like a slut?”

you weren’t sure when you realised that you actually weren’t enjoying it anymore, but it was obvious all of a sudden. it hurt, and not in a good way. you were exhausted from both your day and the sheer amount of time she’d been edging you for. the way your arms had been tied to the bed for so long was making them ache painfully, and at some point down the line, your tears of pleasure had turned into tears of pain. 

you normally had the safety net of knowing that she was paying attention to your signals, knowing that she didn’t want to hurt you. but it didn’t even feel like she was aware of what she was doing, she was so caught up in herself and drowning out her own frustrations. you hated that lack of awareness, it was like she wouldn’t even notice if she actually hurt you. 

she looked like she was about to speak again, so before she could get out another degrading comment, you gasped out, “red, billie–”

whatever half formed sentence billie had been about to say died on her tongue, your gasped words making her freeze inside of you. her mind suddenly went silent, her frustrated thoughts about her day coming to a halt as she looked down at you with wide, almost scared eyes. you’d never actually used your safeword—obviously it was something that the two of you had communicated, but billie had never expected to actually go too far, to push you to that. she was meant to check in on your colours, and she felt an intense pang of guilt when she realised that she hadn’t done that. 

as she looked at you, noticing the tears and the exhausted expression, as well as the way your wrists were visibly sore from being tied for so long, she felt a sense of dread. she was overcome with shame and she didn’t know what to do about it. her breath caught in her throat as she processed what was going on.

“shit, i’m so sorry.” after a moment, she shook herself out of her paralysed shock, she would’ve pulled out immediately, but she was aware that that would just hurt you even more. so she leaned over, quickly untying the belt around your wrists and letting it fall to the ground beside the bed. she massaged your wrists gently for a moment, trying to soothe you. 

her hands moved over your tense muscles, trying to ease some of the soreness. she brushed some of your hair out of your eyes, her touch soft and cautious. “i-i’m so sorry, baby. i never wanted to push you that far.”

you knew that. you knew that she would never actually intend to hurt you, you knew that she wasn’t herself. you didn’t need her to over explain herself, you just needed her to hold you. the hand that had been pushing your hair out of your eyes moved to stroke your cheek, and you could see the intense guilt in her eyes. 

“i’m gonna pull out now, okay?” her voice trembled slightly as she spoke, eyes fixed on your face. 

you simply nodded, hissing slightly in pain as she gently pulled the strap out of you. billie felt her stomach twist at your obvious pain, knowing that she had done that. “i know, i’m so sorry.”

once she was out of you, she climbed off you and gently shifted you so you were sitting further up the bed, propped up on the pillows slightly. her mind was clearly racing with what she could do to help, “do you need anything? water, food, whatever?”

you shook your head softly. if your brain hadn’t been so exhausted, you probably would have thought more rationally about this. but you didn’t, and you didn’t once consider the limited affection in your dynamic. “can you just hold me?” 

billie didn’t hesitate, she just nodded instantly. “yeah, of course i can.” she joined you further up the bed, pulling you into her arms. she held you against her chest gently, her fingers soothingly running through your hair while her hand rubbed your back softly. 

you could hear her heartbeat, it was fast and a clear reminder of how stressed she was. you spoke softly, “it’s okay, seriously.”

but it wasn’t okay, not to billie. she had hurt you, she had pushed you too far, even when you were already clearly tired. she should’ve known better, and the guilt was weighing down from her and eating her up from the inside. not to mention she was terrified that this might be your last straw, that you might never want to see her again, that she might have broken your trust. wondering why she cared so much about her casual fling’s feelings was something that would have left her perplexed on any other day, but it was not currently at the forefront of her mind. “but–”

“it’s okay.” you said firmly, “i wouldn’t be asking you to hold me if i was uncomfortable around you.” 

those words seemed to ease billie’s nerves slightly, and she tightened her arms around you, holding you close. after a few minutes of this, she gently pulled you to sit in your lap, and you shifted so that your head was buried in the crook of her neck. you could feel her breathing on your skin, and you could feel her chest rising and falling with each breath. it was incredibly grounding, the feeling of just being close to her. ever so slowly, you felt your breathing calm and your heart rate slow down. 

at least an hour passed as you were just laying there in her arms, your breathing syncing with hers as her fingers ran through your hair. it was a foreign thing, for the two of you to be this close without sex, but it felt so right. it was like you were made to be in her arms, despite the situation that had brought you here. you could sense her guilt, and if you’d been a bit more aware of what was going on, you probably would’ve realised that there was something more behind that guilt—something deeper than just feeling bad for pushing you. but you were unaware, it wasn’t really what took place at the front of your mind. 

the room was filled with only the sound of both of you breathing, and your mind was taken over by the calming feeling of her playing with your hair. after a while, she broke the silence. “d’you wanna borrow something to wear?” 

you couldn’t deny that you liked the feeling of this skin to skin contact, but you also knew that it was a good idea. so you nodded quietly, and she delicately lifted you off her lap and set you down on the bed. she walked over and grabbed you an oversized t-shirt to wear, and she walked into the ensuite to grab a damp cloth. she came back over and gently wiped your thighs with the cloth, at this point you didn’t flinch too much because it had been so long. she held out the t-shirt, which you recognised as one she had worn at some point.

“arms up, darling.” that was a new pet name, but you didn’t comment. instead, you just lifted your arms and allowed her to slip the top over your head. it smelt like her, which somehow just added to the comfort. 

soon enough, she was back on the bed and you were back in her arms. she was laying down and you were laying with her, partly on top of her and partly just cuddled up to her side. this hadn’t happened before between the two of you, but you certainly weren’t complaining. her bed was comfortable, and her arms around you felt like a cocoon you never wanted to grow out of. 

gradually, your breathing started to slow as the exhaustion caught up on you, both from the recent events and your already tiring day. your head slumped onto her shoulder as a yawn fell from your lips, to which billie smiled softly. 

“do you want to stay the night?” 

that was not something you’d ever expected billie to say, but you hummed softly against her shoulder. “if that’s okay, yeah.”

you could’ve sworn you heard a sigh of relief from billie, “of course it’s okay, please stay. i want you to stay.” 

and so you did. you stayed that night, wrapped up in billie’s arms. it was so new, but it felt so right. that night had been an irreversible shift in your relationship, for both obvious reasons and more hidden ones. you knew that the two of you would have to talk about some stuff in the morning, and you knew you’d have to set some more boundaries. but you also felt closer to her than you ever had, somehow. 

little did you know, that night was just as  meaningful for billie as it was for you. she had had a revelation, one that she would likely keep to herself for a while, although there was no doubt you would find out eventually. 

but there was no doubt that billie wanted you to stay, longer than she’d ever thought.

[spitdrunken]

i keep thinking about essentially being like. velvette's 'charity case' model and how your relationship develops from there.

notes: fem!reader, velvette calls you ugly LMAO, beyond that... no warnings, really. surprisingly the most healthy vee relationship ive written yet!

velvette's typical models all look similar, reminiscent of the modeling industry back when you were alive. tall, skinny and, more important than anything else, human-looking. most of them could pass for humans in a costume.

you… do not. you just didn't get quite that lucky with your demon form! really, you can say that the vast majority of people drew the short end of the stick, at least by the kind of standards that people like velvette set. maybe you're a bat, with a snout you've deemed as pig-like taking up most of your face. or a sheep, your single-slitted, dead eyes making even you uncomfortable. perhaps you're more formed after an object than what you would consider a person, or plant-like in nature! in any regards, due to the way lucifer chose to have you reborn you firmly do not fall within hell's beauty standards.

all of that means you were absolutely not expecting to be accepted when you went ahead and applied to a job with someone as famous and perfectionistic as velvette. it had started as a joke, really. you'd posted a purposefully horrible picture of yourself on vitter, with a stupid caption like; "do u think that :skull::heart: would kill me for submitting to open casting looking like this lmaooooo" (you have to use emojis to talk about the vees, as the socials owned by them are notorious for taking anything remotely negative down.)

and unexpectedly, your post randomly did some pretty big numbers, with people egging you on and some practically begging to tell you what kind of insults she would sling at your head. you saw some people copying your original as well.

so you're like! whatever!!! you don't think that you'd even get through the application process, much less velvette herself. nothing will end up happening, so, who cares? but then, somehow, despite everyone and their mom wanting to model for velvette, you get… through? and you even get an interview scheduled with velvette herself?

she takes one look at you as you walk in, and just goes: oh my god. this really is grim. and you're hardly seated, before she continues. look, i don't have the time for niceties, and introductions are entirely unnecessary. i'm sure you already know this, but you're not here because of your looks.

yeah. you figured that. …i guessed so. but i'm still sitting here. so, why?

instead of getting a real answer, you're shuffled off into a shoot, different outfits flashing on top of your body, faster than you blink, velvette's face settled into a scowl, till it suddenly lights up. it doesn't go… super well, you've never really done this and, if you had, velvette's attitude surely wouldn't help. you never really get clarity as to why you're being hired, when a contract is shoved in front of you.

(the reality of the situation is that velvette had seen you trending, not trending-trending, but still a noticable. she realised the demand for someone like you, a 'relatable' every-demon being thrust into this new world, and documenting it online. her company can claim they accept 'all kinds of demons', and some poor suckers will feel less excluded when looking at her fashion, buying it more quickly. win-win-win!)

she tells you to you're face that you're the ultimate challenge. if she can fix someone like you up to in a half-decent model, it just shows that she really is a fucking goddess. maybe you're not as pretty or as used to everything as the rest of the models, but that doesn't mean you don't put in any effort now that you're there. the other girls won't associate with you whatsoever, but you do listen in on their conversations, pretending to mess around on your phone, coming to know the kind of make-up velvette likes. you tirelessly browse online, mostly on vikvok and vitter, figuring out the current trends. and after a while, velvette takes a look at an outfit you picked, and actually says…

this is pretty decent. it won't look good on you, but i can use this. maybe, somewhere along the way, you become more of an assistant or outfit suggestor for velvette, only occasionally stopping in for shoots. velvette never accepted anyone in a similar position to you, even though vox tried her to get an assistant for ages, and she wouldn't have accepted you either if you'd obviously being vying for the position. but you weren't, and your position just kind of naturally developed that way.

your shtick as a 'charity case' has somewhat been abandoned, though velvette still dumps clothes in your arms sometimes and tells you to try them on. maybe you're one of the few people who gets her to laugh, and the only one who she freely bitches to about all of her models. (she does this to vox and valentino too, but it's not the same. they don't care as much, nor do they really know who she's talking about.) she lets you sort through some of the open casting applications and help pick out the theme for a shoot.

of course, absolutely everything you do has to go through velvette first, and she still criticizes you aplenty, but you can't help but feel she has grown… fond of you, in a sense? sometimes, you swear you see her wearing outfits you'd picked out for another model… and while she shittalks everything that moves, you just happened to listen in on her giving a model a tonguelashing for talking bad about you. either way, you've certainly come to like her a lot more. you're now even mutuals on vitter and vikvok! much to the delight of the tiny following you'd grown on there. she even posted a picture of the two of you on there! …that means you've really made it.

maybe at some point, when her company has hit a new milestone and, in a rare slip-up (or perhaps valentino gave her a super strong drink on purpose, thinking its funny) she gets pretty drunk. you end up sitting opposite of each other in a bar, with her having decided on the spot to put some make-up on you, leaning in close to check her work, fingers gliding slowly over your skin. a situation that feels entirely too intimate for this setting, not helped by the half-lidded look in your eyes. …i have changed my mind. she mumbles, slurring her words are little. you can look pretty, after all.

you sputter out a oh really, and you only realised that now?! in order to break the heaviness of the air, the unspoken tension that makes your heart skip a beat, and velvette laughs.

(maybe there's hope for the two of you yet.)

[antimony-medusa]

MCYT on Ao3 - May '24

It's that time! It's the time for numbers! I am stitching this in around meeting I have to to do today! Let's look at some spreadsheets.

Some Notes:

Two new fandoms this month! SDMP | Sleep Deprived SMP and SkyBound SMP were both new. And after being added last month, Aimsey SMP had a very good month, posting almost the highest grown in the small and micro fandoms, 18 fics.

Fics are still primarily in english, but we have three exceptions with significant spanish fics. Karmaland (779 of 896 are in spanish, from 764 last month), Tortillaland (113 of 119 are in spanish, from 110 last month), and QSMP (992 of 9,359 are in spanish, from 925 last month.)

QSMP also shows 48 fics in French, same as last month, and 519 in Brasilian Portugese, up from 463 last month. While I did not check every language this month, I checked on the languages I knew had a fic in QSMP and we see 1 fic in Bahasa Malaysia, 1 fic in Dansk (Danish), 2 fic in Deutsch (German), 1 fic in Esperanto, 1 fic in Filipino, 5 works in European Portugese, 2 fics in Polski (Polish), 9 fics in Русский (Russian) (up from 7 last month), 1 fic in Suomi (Finnish), 1 fic in Svenska (Swedish), 1 fic in Tiếng Việt (Vietnamese), and 4 fics in 中文-普通话 國語 (Mandarin Chinese, I believe). While several 한국어 (Korean) speakers were recently added to the QSMP, there are currently no fics in 한글 (written Korean).

In the small and micro fandoms, HBG finally stabilized after several months of fluctuations, showing an increase of 1. The standouts were Aimsey SMP, with 18 new fics (possibly connected to the finale), and SOS SMP, with 19 new fics. Notably, there were no negatives this month!

In the mid-sized fandoms, Evolution SMP posted another good month, going up by 27 fics, but the standout continued to be Mystreet, with 37 fics.

In the larger fandoms, we saw things sort of stabilize into what I presume is the new normal, with most fandoms posting similar numbers to the previous month. Dream SMP saw an increase of 224 fics, which seems more reasonable for a fandom of that size than last month's 113, but is still beat three of the fandoms over 5k, and again, is far below February's 591 and January's 918. QSMP posted only slightly lower numbers than last month, 421 this month in contrast to last month's 443. (Again, much reduced from February's high of 729, when they were the highest overall MCYT fandom). Empires increase of 144 was lower than the previous month's 151, but still beat the previous month's 142. 3rd life, decreasing from the high of their April Fools instalment, posted 471 fics, lower than the previous month's 553 but more than the previous month's 398. And Hermitcraft's 648 was the highest single MCYT increase, though it was lower tha the previous month's 805 and the month before's 628. The top three fandoms by increase were Hermitcraft, 3rd Life, and QSMP.

Minecraft STILL posted a deletion, as they went down by 49, but that was less than the previous month's 217, and the month before's 1,555. Video Blogging RPF saw an increase overall of 2,511, which beats the previous month's 2,330, but is down from the increase this time last year, 3,768.

[avicebro]

fate fandom poll results! (higher res, since tumblr has crunched it)

these are the big patterns i noticed. if you want some more commentary on the numbers, come and join me in the read more:

I first want to reiterate that I did this as a way to see if I was in a bubble. By the end of the poll, it received 93 results. A lot of these responses did come from tumblr and twitter (thank you friend for posting onto your twitter), and so, the demographic that is being polled is biased. Please keep this in mind.

Overall Age/Satisfaction:

Overall, more neutral or people upset with the fandom.

Older fandom - these numbers also do align with the perception that fate fandom grew in size with the pandemic

Shoutout to the 1 person who said they were in the fandom for over 15 years. I'm saluting you

Shouldn't have been surprised there were zero 20+ years responses, but hey, yk, if you don't put it there.

Gender:

I also did this because I wanted to know how gender of characters played into whether a character had 'nice' or 'rude' fans.

Note: I put any characters that have gender ambiguous or gender: unknown in the non-binary section. So this does mean that characters like Astolfo, Caeneus and D'Eon are in this section. While the general fandom may not see some of these as non-binary, it's easier than doing a big asterisk. I'd love to run another poll examining the way trans and non-binary characters are viewed by the fandom, but that's for another time.

Thus, my method was: I read the response, and for each character listed, I sorted them into one of the 3 gender options and tallied it as a point. So, for example, if someone said Avicebron, Medea and QSH, then that would be one point for male, one for female, and one for non-binary. Groups, unless they are specifically one gender, were not counted, however I did keep them in mind (see: later on).

If someone specified popularity, I tallied that as well. For the 'nice' fans, there were only nice comments about 'low rarity/less popular' characters, with the opposite being true for rude fans and popular ones. Hence their bars.

I also included the 'none' section, as there was a non-zero amount of people answering with none, for both.

Male characters' fans are perceived to be kinder 1.8 times more than fans of female characters

On the other hand, female characters' fans are perceived to be meaner 1.7 times more than male characters

Specifically, some stated that they do not trust 'male fans' of some characters

Some gender non-confirming and/or non-binary servants (like Astolfo, Mordred) also have a similar rule, aka "do not trust male fans"

Younger characters like Taisui and Voyager often have 'nice' fans, while younger female characters have 'rude' fans

In the future, it would be interesting to take data on gender to see the main demographics answering these

As I am trying to remain as unbiased with this data presentation as possible, I will just leave the data here. Again, if I redid this poll I'd ask for gender metrics, and maybe try and spread it to reddit spaces for less polling bias.

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

When looking at specific characters, I sorted through the responses and counted how often certain characters appeared while accounting for repetition. Simple as that.

Top 10 Characters Associated with 'Nice' Fans:

Arjuna (16)

Dantes (10)

Gilgamesh (10)

Voyager (9)

Diarmuid (6)

Cu Chulainn (5)

Enkidu (5)

Ashiya Douman (5)

Oberon (5)

Mandricardo (5)

Couple extra things to note:

groups mentioned often: GUDAGUDA, KOTRT, Hindu Servants

Kintoki mentioned rather often, too

People highlighted that they like seeing people talking about characters that are less known/less popular.

Avicebron did appear on the top 10, however I have excluded him from the list as it is likely due to polling bias. Thanks, though.

Besides Enkidu and Ashiya Douman, the top 10 list is dominated by male characters.

Top 10 Characters Associated with 'Rude' Fans:

Morgan (20)

Artoria (15)

Cu Chulainn (13)

Melusine (12)

Rin (12)

Astolfo (11)

Jalter (11)

Gilgamesh (11)

Arjuna (10)

Castoria (9)

Couple extra things to note:

As mentioned before, some replies were 'Saberface fans', 'Prillya fans' or 'male fans of x'

People highlighted disliking fans of 'popular characters', some specifically stating their dislike stemming from fans pushing a 'need to roll' mentality upon the fandom.

Male Ritsuka appears more frequently as 'rude' versus female Ritsuka.

'Rude' fans are often associated with being fans of non-FGO properties (namely: Prillya and F/SN).

People who show up on both top 10s: Arjuna, Cu, Gilgamesh.

There are also some less popular characters who were highlighted more often as being 'rude'. However, considering the fact that these characters likely do not have that many fans, I have not included them in the data. That being said, if you wish to DM me about them I'll share. I just do not want to drag anyone, you know.

What's Next?

Maybe in a year, I'd like to re-do this poll. Namely to see if the overall satisfaction changes. But, there's there's a few things I'd like to add to the questions next time:

Gender and Maybe Sexuality Preferences

As mentioned above, I think actually taking data on the gender of the participants would be helpful. Further, sexuality would help understand the data. I do not think it's a big leap to suggest that this poll is low on responses from male fans, specifically straight men. But I would like to have the actual data, and not just a hypothesis.

"Which character's haters do you find rude?" question

As my friend pointed out, as well as some of the responses - some of the haters of a character are ruder than their actual fans. I think this would be interesting, too.

Branching the poll out so it catches more attention from the other side of the TM fandom.

While I would like to keep this predominantly to the tumblr and twitter side of the fandom, it's clear that the results tend to veer on the side that is more FGO-focused. I'd like to get some more data from those who don't play FGO or focus their time on non-FGO property.

Post it to other places.

This was a fun trial run! Maybe I could run a separate poll next year, so there's two: one shared only to tumblr, and one to twitter/reddit. I am, at the end of the day, someone who loves data and would love to compare and contrast fandom perception.

Have an option to share characters who's mind you've been changed on.

Sometimes, it really just takes one person to change your mind on a character. I'd like to highlight that.

I believe? That's everything? I tried my best to be as unbiased as possible in presenting the facts. In a reblog of this post, I'll share my further (biased) thoughts at a later time.

I'm curious to see what you guys think! Did this make sense for you? Are you maybe surprised? Ultimately, thank you for responding to my silly lil poll, and I hope that these numbers don't make anyone upset.

Adet

[pottedplant53]

Oumota Post [Contains Spoilers]

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Something I don’t hear talked about enough in relation to Oumota (or just Kokichi and Kaito in general) is the SHEER NUMBER of parallels that they have with eachother, beyond just their narrative roles. Their philosophies of Faith VS Logic and their respective Hero/Villain personas are undoubtably the most interesting part of it, but there’s so much more to be said than just that. Even their physical appearances are designed to contrast. Here's a list of some of the similarities I found.

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•Kaito is tall with broad shoulders, while Kokichi is short with a small frame.

•Their hair colours are almost exact opposites on the colour wheel. On top of this, while you don’t really see it due to their respective hairstyles, they both have roughly shoulder-length hair.

•Tying into the previous point, they have very similar colour schemes. They both wear white shirts, and have red, yellow, grey, and white accents scattered around their outfits. They’re also both heavily associated with the colour purple, with Kaito being more aligned with magenta (pink) and Kokichi being more aligned with indigo (blue).

•Kokichi is especially pale compared to the rest of the cast, while Kaito is noticeably tan.

•Kaito’s eyes are upturned, and Kokichi’s are downturned. I’m not sure how to word it but it’s almost like their eyebrows are going in different directions, too.

•They both wear capes that fan out in their splash arts. Kaito’s is a coat, but it has the same effect.

•They’re both bilingual. Kaito can speak English, Japanese, and Russian thanks to his astronaut training, and while it’s unclear why Kokichi can speak multiple languages, we know that he can thanks to his second FTE with Kaede, wherein he says ‘common sense’ in English, Japanese, French, and Spanish. ‘Common sense’ isn’t a commonplace word that new speakers of a language would know, implying some level of fluency.

•In the original Japanese script, Kaito had quite a few homophobic, misogynistic, and transphobic undertones, all seemingly stemming from internalized toxic masculinity. Kokichi was very much the opposite of this (read: not straight), as is discussed in-depth in the trivia section of his Wiki page. [We do not talk about Japanese Kaito in this household].

•Kokichi’s birthday is the 21st, an inversion of Kaito’s birthday, which is the 12th.

•Neither of them portray themselves 100% authentically. Depending on how you read their characters, you could almost argue that deep down, they’re more similar to the other’s persona than they are to their own.

↓

Though he’s often referred to as an idiot due to his stubbornness in the trials, Kaito is actually rather analytical when he so chooses to be, seeing straight through Maki’s lone-wolf act and understanding her needs startlingly fast. He was intelligent enough to pass his astronaut entrance exam (which would’ve involved extremely complicated scientific concepts and a basic understanding of medicine) and has proved himself willing to cheat and lie to get what he wants (i.e, forging an I.D to get early acceptance).

This isn’t the only instance of him lying when it wasn’t strictly necessary, another notable example being the entirety of his Free Time Events; he lies about his impossible summer escapades and brags about how many famous people achieved success because of his influence, seemingly just to boost his own ego and to make himself look more impressive to Saihara. Shuichi internally calls him out for this, more or less verifying that it was all a lie.

He repeatedly lies in the trials (like when he tried to insist that he was the one in women’s underwear in chapter 2), and of course, hid his illness from the others by pretending he was fine, when in actuality, he was on death’s door.

None of this makes Kaito’s passion and kindness any less real, but it’s important to note how he’s not as saintly as he seems. He’s a lot of things, but he’s also an Egotistical Liar, much like Kokichi promotes himself to be.

Moving on to Kokichi, while it’s hard to say with 100% certainty what kind of person he is, we’ve seen him become emotional a number of times throughout the game, most notably in Gonta’s trial. There’s a lot of debate over whether his tears were genuine or not, but the general consensus is that they were. He shows anger here, at both Gonta, the situation, and more likely than not, himself. He clearly feels a lot of shame and grief, but ultimately continues to push on with his plan for everyone else’s sake.

He shows mercy to Yumeno in chapter 3, when he asks her what she was holding back at the end of the trial. This is seemingly done in an attempt to help get her in touch with her feelings, with no obvious ulterior motives or mocking undertones. Him calling her out earlier in the trial can be chocked up to his hatred of hypocrites – as is seen with his overall relationship with the rest of the cast, specifically surrounding how they gang up on him and treat him like a monster for lying when it’s something that they themselves do – but this interaction shows that he sympathises with her, proving that he has some level of empathy.

Kokichi is EXTREMELY selfless, something that’s proven over and over again to the point that if I sat here and tried to list every example, we’d be here until the release of the V3 anime [forever]. He actively plays devil's advocate, knowing that this would lead to the rest of the group disliking him, and his entire plan to end the killing game centred around villainizing himself, all so that he could die to save the rest of the cast. He’s shown to have spent time, likely days upon days, thinking about how to end the killing game – if his room is any indication, he’s poured a lot of toil into making that a reality. Much like with Kaito, none of this changes how Kokichi chose to act – he’s still a bad person who did inexcusable things, but there’s some merit to the fact that beneath all of that, he’s a human being.

 In the end, he dies as a Selfless Hero, trying to save a group who he surely must’ve known would feel no gratitude for his sacrifice. He's the exact kind of person that Kaito would approve of, were it not for the other, less pleasant aspects of his personality.

--------

Again this is all just my interrpretation and what do I know but I thought it was interesting so here :3

[alicesadventuresinffxiv]

What are the most popular F/F Final Fantasy XIV ships?

(*on AO3, as of October 13, 2024)

I like writing femslash, so while I was doing the FFxivWrite challenge, I had the thought: wouldn’t it be fun to try writing each of the top 10 most popular FFXIV F/F ships? 

I figured it would be a good way for me to learn to write characters I wasn’t used to, plus hopefully it would mean some of the well-liked but rarely-written pairings would get more fic for them!

But then I ran head-first into the question: what are those F/F ships? I hit some interesting challenges attempting to figure that out, so here’s a post about how I reached my answer!

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First things first: I’m using AO3 stats for this analysis, entirely because AO3 has the most robust searching and filtering tools. Trying to wrangle this kind of analysis on tumblr or twitter would be a nightmare, as much as I’d love to know the answer on those sites!

Second, let’s quickly double check my assumption that F/F ships are indeed rarepairs in this fandom.

Yep, if you’re at all familiar with @centrumlumina's work on AO3 stats (which this analysis is somewhat inspired by ^^;), this is exactly in line with general fandom trends! For reasons that I understand intellectually but not in my heart, F/F fics tend to hover at around 6% of AO3 output overall.

Interestingly, this small slice of femslash makes FFXIV more similar to large, broad fandoms like the MCU or MHA (pictured above), and less similar to other online multiplayer videogame fandoms (pictured below). You might think that given its friendly reputation, FFXIV would attract more women and/or LGBTQ+ players and therefore have a higher proportion of femslash. But nope!

(Admittedly, pitting FFXIV against the fandom that contains Arcane feels a little unfair... :P)

.

So alright, with that out of the way, let’s start by doing the obvious thing. Hey AO3, what are the top 10 relationship tags when searching FFXIV on the F/F category?

[Note: Since the Warrior of Light is typically written as the author’s original character - especially in cases with multiple WoLs - I am combining the WoL/WoL and WoL/OC tags together.]

If you’ve been in FFXIV spaces for a while, you probably already guessed the #1 result! But as someone relatively new to the fandom, I was actually quite surprised. None of my previous fandoms had nearly this much focus on original characters!

Indeed, WoL/NPC ships and OC/ OC ships absolutely dwarf the numbers for any NPC/NPC ships, with the exception of the three largest M/M pairings (Aymeric/Estinien, Emet-Selch/Hythlodaeus, and Thancred/Urianger). Also, given that not everyone tags their OCs using either of the WoL or OC tags (ack! please use tags, your works get lost otherwise!)… you can always expect results for OCs to be an undercount. Woah!

Anyway, since WoL ships are so huge, I decided it made the most sense to give them their own list:

Another thing that surprised me is that male characters in FFXIV are so many times more popular than female characters that genderbent M/M pairings will show up in these F/F lists.

And… I wasn’t quite sure how to count those ships in my tallies.

On the one hand, genderbending (not to mention trans headcanoning-ing!) characters is a fun and often subversive way to approach popular ships. More power to everyone doing it!

On the other hand, part of the underlying motivation for my own writing goal was that I wanted to write pairings that fandom somewhat overlooks. 

As such, I went with a compromise: I’m including pairings with canonically male characters in my graphs (those are the pink bars), but I kept the lists going until I reached 10 pairings involving characters who are portrayed as women in the source material.

(There were no nonbinary FFXIV characters which placed on any of my lists, sadly. Apologies to Feo Ul, who is still the loveliest of branches in my heart.)

Other than that caveat, the results here aren’t too far off from my own guesses. Anecdotally, I’d seen that a lot of WoLs are self-inserts for their players, so it makes sense that typical WoL ships are with NPCs that are generally considered to be attractive by the fanbase. Correspondingly, the Reader/Character fics that are somewhat common in other fandoms don’t even rank on these lists, which might suggest WoL/NPC ships are largely fulfilling that niche.

(Something something, FFXIV is a dating sim with combat, in this essay I will…. :P)

.

Anyway, WoL ships are nice, but what I actually wanted to write were NPC/NPC ships. So let’s add a bunch more excludes to the filtering… and…

Hm. That's interesting. There's a bunch of F/F ships that I know I’ve seen fic and art for that are missing from this list!

Out of curiosity, I did a few searches specifically on these missing pairings, in case they were so rarely tagged as purely F/F (or so commonly shipped alongside a WoL ship) that trying to find them via excludes didn’t work. These were:

Alisaie/Tesleen (20 total, 13 tagged F/F)

Krile/Tataru (14 total, 7 tagged F/F)

Ysayle/Heustienne (5 total, 5 tagged F/F)

Wuk Lamat/Sphene (4 total, 4 tagged as F/F)

[Note: The first number is what I used during the writing challenge last month… which is how I ended up putting Krile/Tataru over Lucia/Hilda. Oops! But the second number is more in line with the rest of the analysis here, so I will use that going forward.]

Seems my expectations were flat-out incorrect! Of these four, only Alisaie/Tesleen makes the top ten. Meanwhile Wuk Lamat/Sphene is a pairing consisting of very new characters... so perhaps it will grow over time!

Right then, let's add Alisaie/Tesleen in, and while we're at it, let's run direct searches on all the potential candidates rather than using excludes to ensure no fics are getting needlessly thrown out.

With those adjustments in place... I reached my final top ten!

Not bad! Predictably, pairings that get more focus in canon (Gaia/Ryne and Sadu/Cirina) tend to place high, as do pairings involving Y’shtola (since she’s a very popular character overall). 

As a Lyse-enjoyer, I found Lyse getting 3/10 spots on the list to be pretty funny, as was the heavy presence of Stormblood characters! Apparently I’m not the only one who thought StB was a good expansion for lesbians. :D

There are also a few pairings here that I hadn’t ever considered before doing this analysis. But hey, that was the point of making the list! And trying to figure out the dynamics for pairings I didn’t usually ship did indeed turn out to be a fun writing exercise last month.

So what do you all think, tumblr? Did the results surprise you like they did me? Or did I overlook a pairing that really deserved to be included?

In any case, I hope you enjoyed reading this analysis!

[kanna-12r]

Hi!! I wanna know and see your OCs! Tell me more about themmmmm- Lens/Birdie

Birdieee!! 💕

Sorry this took way too long! ;;;;;

I lost this draft a few times so I was about to make it its' own post, but thankfully I found it!

This is a post filled with several tidbits about all eight of my children! Beware, it is very long 💦

This sweetheart right here is S-2508, with gifted name "Lady" 🤍

She was a frontline medic, now mostly stays as the medbay's psychological nurse/caretaker and [redacted].

Considered 'defective' or valued less due to her being a non-combatant, her inability to disregard distinguish emotions, and unawareness towards danger long before an incident that renders her broken.

Post-incident, she regularly steams out smoke when experiencing negative emotions. This could lead to a full-blown glitches and seizure. (Reference: Barbara Shadow from Shadow House)

Her veil and vial necklace is inspired by Victorian mourning attire. The vial is a memorial piece of sort.

She tends to unconsciously avoid other agents out of habit.

Although it takes a toll on her, Lady spends most of her time watching the live broadcast, sometimes making notes in order to be able to care for injured agents straight after.

The arm cuff on her right arm is a gift from her 1st partner, Faerie.

This darling over here is C-0209, you may call her "Faerie".

She was a weaponsmith and a battle agent like any other, with a scythe as her preferred weapon of choice.

A polaroid camera-head. In contrast with her peers, she couldn't record or broadcast her views.

Her wings and headwings are her personal customization. You may pet them if you ask for permission.

Capable of at least carrying two people when flying up in the air.

Friendly, but considered as some sort of an airhead and unserious agent.

Has a massive crush towards both Lady and Mystic. She was the one who gifted them their current personal names!

Gave one of her arm cuffs to Lady when they got paired to be partners.

Considered dead non-active post-incident, due to her core energy being shattered. There's a chance for her to be revived, hence Lady's vial.

This woman right here is TV-1309 with personal name "Mystic"!

She's an supervisor / overseer and Lady's 2nd partner / guardian.

Rather monotone and harsh, only has a definite soft spot crush towards Lady.

The only one out of others that was created prior to the war (as a companion), has met and worked for humans before.

Prone to jealousy, considers herself as inferior against her TV peers due to her original nature.

Dislikes comparison in general.

The dogtag necklace has her serial number and personal names engraved onto it.

Acts rather indifferent towards the Alliance, despite her diligently working for them against the damned toilets. Reasons are [redacted].

If you have no business with her, please remember to never come near. For your own safety.

This man is a medic cam numbered C-1311, with personal name "Chevron".

The leader of Lady's team. Takes high pride in his job, and is very pressured by others' expectations.

Acted rather apathetic towards his members, adamant with his commands, and prioritized their performance on top of everything else despite the relentless shenanigans that they caused.

Does not acknowledge weaknesses and disregards anything that he deems untrue in his view. Your opinion does not matter, it's better to not fight him.

Similarly to Lady, he does not understand emotions. But in contrast with that, he is similar to Mystic in regards of harboring jealousy towards his comrades.

Post-incident, he lost his pride and swore to keep a closer eye to the surviving ones he has left.

Fought the higher-ups twice due to him refusing to let any of his surviving members being dismantled or thrown away.

This big guy is LS-1410, and was gifted the name "Ornate"!

The vice-leader, a big softie and gentle man who acts like the opposite of Chevron.

Still a pretty strong and relentless guy, a very good combatant despite his main job as a medic. Why is he even a medic if he has the capability necessary for fighting?

Acted as Lady's unofficial guardian before Mystic. Was valued similarly due to his meek personality.

Post-incident, he begged to be taken away with others for not being able to fulfill his role in the Alliance despite his fixable injuries. His wish was not granted.

He taught Lady on how to deal with her emotions and steaming habit.

Has similar cracks like Lady at the back of his head.

Usually tasked to take care of the non-surviving agents along with Lady. Mostly because they're the only ones who are seen as dedicated enough.

This sassy-ass guy is S-2110, you may refer to them with their gifted name, "Euphony"!

A speaker medic that thrives from causing chaos and shenanigans within the team, which commonly isn't seen from a medic. Nowadays, they're more melancholic though.

Has an infinite amount of energy that's more fitting to that of a battle agent.

A pretty good combatant. Others wonder why are they even a medic in the first place?

Elegy's lover. Loves dragging him to the crimes they're about to commit.

In contrast with the chaos, they like to sing in a very soft, elegant manner. The one who taught Lady to regulate her singing.

Lost half of their core and both legs during the incident. Their legs got fixed just fine, but now they have trouble staying active for a prolonged amount of time. (Reference: Padparadscha from Houseki no Kuni)

Still helps around as a medic in the medbay along with Lady. Don't piss them off though, they know what they are.

This guy right here is C-1310, he's gifted with the name "Elegy".

A laid-back cam that loves tinkering and fixing machinery, hence why he fits as a medic, yet also not.

Pretty calm and level-headed, but also an enabler to his lover chaos. Could go batshit insane if it's anything involving Euphony.

Was a battle agent before being sent to the medbay along with Euphony. Reasons are [redacted].

Has personal grudge towards Chevron due to the incident. Or maybe he's just a hater, who knows? Euphony knows.

Ornate is rather intimidated by him.

His favorite pastime is to listen to the speakerheads in his team sing.

Post-incident, he likes to spend his time sorting through the Alliance's collection of documents and records, acting as a librarian or some sort while still helping as a medic.

He could ruin anyone, figuratively or literally.

Lastly, this big baby right here is "Arete", a clock mimic that is based on the setting from our dearest Cosmica!

They spent their entire young phase alone, with no parents nor guardians, hence their lack of understanding about the world. They still do not have any friends, although they know other mimics exist.

Loves plushies and dolls. They love collecting them within their nest as a form of safe haven.

Their name is a piece of memorial. The necklace and bow were also part of it.

Was found by S-2508 (Lady) during her rare journey outside of the base.

Refuses to talk to anyone else besides Lady, and communicates mainly through acted out signs (usually using a plushy they carry at the time).

Has an irregular 'eating' habits, causing the life energy glow to be all over the place and prolonged sleeping cycle.

These ones are characters that are present in my fic series so far. They're not OCs since they are not intended to be specific individuals with their own backstories, but I'll drop these doodles here just because.

There are "you" or "y/n", the speaky-cam pair we met in the first chap, our worrywart Scientist Cam, Large Speaky, our big boi Strider Speaker, and our darling TVman (he's not pictured here cause I ran out of place, too much pics).

Idk if I'll actually post 'em anytime soon since most of them are nonsense scribbles, but yea!

[space-writes]

Obsidian Tutorial - Making & Using Templates

God I love templates. Consistent layouts of notes AND less typing? I’m a simple man with simple pleasures. There are a lot of things you can do with templates, and with certain plugins they can get quite complicated, but the basics are pretty straightforward.

[ID - a purple decorative divider]

Head to the settings menu and find core plugins. Toggle on the Templates plugin.

[ID - a screenshot of the Obsidian settings menu, in the Core Plugins section. The ‘templates’ plugin is highlighted and toggled on.]

Under the core plugins section in the settings menu, head to ‘Templates’ to set up a few basics

The most important one is your template folder location - this is the place you’ll save all your templates. I have one in my Meta folder just called ‘Templates’ - I recommend making a similar, clearly named folder so it’s easy to find

The date and time format options are slightly more complicated additions: there are certain formats you can use in basic templates to automatically fill in date and time, and this is where you set how you want that format to look. Don’t worry about it too much - you’re safe to leave it as the default if you want.

[ID - a screenshot of the Template plugin settings in Obsidian. At the top, the template folder location is filled out as ‘00 Meta/Templates’.]

Once you have your folder location set up, you can start making templates!

A simple example might be a character profile: create a new note, and lay out the text the way you’d like it to look, but without any specific details in.

Make sure the note is in your template folder

You can now use that note as a template! You can insert it into a new note either by using the command palette and the ‘insert template’ command, or you can assign a hotkey (I use Ctrl+T) and use that

Congratulations, you have now saved yourself approximately a million years of repetitive typing, and the stress of remembering how you want to lay out character profiles, journals, blog posts, and any number of other things

Bonus - free templates!

I have a handful of templates I’ve made, and you can grab them for free here:

character profile

country

fictional organisation

fic

scene yaml

RPG NPC template (requires dataview & metadata menu plugins for full automation, but you can delete those parts and use it manually as well)

RPG location template

Monthly planner (requires dataview)

Note: some of these make use of the ITS infobox custom CSS - i wrote a rough guide to installing it here

[ID - a purple decorative divider]

check out my obsidian tag for more posts

check out the tutorials tag for other obsidian tutorials

obsidian resources masterpost

download obsidian

got questions? tutorial suggestions? want to say hi?

[wordsandrobots]

IBO reference notes on … the Gundams (Addendum 1)

[Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Addendum 1]

Calling this the first addendum because hopefully, at some point, I'll be doing another to cover the Baklazan Family's entry in the list. In the meantime, let's take a gander at the two 'suits released to the world since I wrapped up my posts on the Gundam frames.

ASW-G-16 Zepar

(With apologies to Gundam Info, who had a higher resolution version of this image than the actual MSV site).

When I separated the Gundam frames into groups for the purposes of not having an extremely over-long blog post, they naturally fell into three groups: relatively simple designs, armed relatively simply; more busy designs featuring some kind of added gimmick; and the freaks and weirdos representing increasingly arcane strategies for beating mobile armours. Seems the official designers intend this to be an actual in-story progression since Zepar, as a low-numbered machine, neatly fits into the first category.

Excepting the 'cape' of shield-wings, Zepar is remarkably unadorned, comparable to Barbatos in its straightforwardness. That a pilot armed only with a sword and shield should have gained a position among the Seven Stars speaks to Embrilla Kujan's skill. True, the shield is motorised so it can be turned into a large-bore drill (handy). But that in itself demonstrates this Gundam did its fighting at close range, further underlining Embrilla's capability. There are undoubted similarities here to Agnika Kaieru's trademark two-sword combat style, which probably looked very good in the late-War propaganda. Indeed, few of the other Gundams seem as gloriously heroic as this in their resting appearance. Put Bael and Zepar in the same place and you're looking at a pair of elegant warriors. Champion dragon-killers, here to save the human race!

Before we get too caught up in the aesthetics, however, let's consider the realities of the Calamity War's outcome. Going by the seating plan, and assuming this maps seniority within the Seven Stars (based on the Issues being positioned at the top of the table), the Kujans and the Fareeds lie at the bottom of the heap. This would actually track quite well with Iznario Fareed's scheming. Lacking the comfortable entrenchment of, say, the Falk Family, he sought to gain other advantages by breaking Gjallarhorn's ostensive political neutrality and acquiring allies among Earth's governments.

Perhaps this also explains why the Kujan Family apparently has connections to underworld figures such as Jasley Donomikols. I'm not going to claim any of the noble families are less than extensively corrupt. Gjallarhorn bends to realpolitik at all levels. But it is notable that the Kujans should have a relationship with the JPT Trust that possibly extends as far as getting them a Halfbeak class spaceship for their boss to ride around in. Is a Jupiter mobster not a rather petty ally for a high-placed house? Or does this represent the level on which such a low-ranked member of the elite can operate?

Without knowing much about Iok's father beyond his earning the adoration of his troops and the above-mentioned connection, it's hard to say for sure. If the Kujans are indeed the runts of the Seven Stars, it seems our red-glad knight was surpassed quite comfortably by peers using different, more pragmatic strategies. Given the drive towards greater complexity in later designs, we might take this to be something the people fighting the War were themselves aware of. At some point, the base Gundam form was judged insufficient for the task at hand.

Then again, the Kujan progenitor still made a place among the seven, however lowly. And, lest we forget, the Falk's Gundam was the fourth in the sequence. The simpler machines cannot be counted out just by virtue of being simpler.

From the Ars Goetia:

The Sixteenth Spirit is Zepar. He is a Great Duke, and appeareth in Red Apparel and Armour, like a Soldier. His office is to cause Women to love Men, and to bring them together in love. He also maketh them barren. He governeth 26 Legions of Inferior Spirits, and his Seal is this, which he obeyeth when he seeth it.

There's an obvious joke in here about preventing Iok's from having been around to screw everything up. That aside, Gundam Zepar is most exactly a 'soldier in red apparel'. Further, on the theme of love, its heroic appearance and the way that Iok's father is talked about in the series seem to mesh well together. Perhaps in Zepar we see the epitome of Gjallarhorn as a positive force -- on the surface, at least.

ASW-G-61 Zagan

16 at the bottom, 61 at the top. I wonder if that was on purpose? They share a designer out of fiction, and seem to share more design cues in-universe than most other pairs of Gundams we could pick. These are perhaps the pair it is most easily to look at and say 'the second is developing on the first'.

Anyway. Gundam Zagan. Original pilot: Arzona Issue. The most prolific mobile armour killer of the Seven Stars. Perhaps *the* most prolific of all the Gundams, depending on whether we assume Bael took the actual top spot and whether the Seven Stars bagged most armours overall, not just out of the surviving pilots.

If Zepar represents simplicity of form, Zagan is a triumph of function. Its numbering places it in the top third of the 72 frames, which by my breakdown classifies it as a freak, and, well. Those aren't just shields it's got there: they're Zagan's main weapons.

With three canonical fights against mobile armours under our belts, we can safely say the goal in such encounters is to rip the 'armour to bits. Whether it be Marchosias dicing Harael with a show of expert swordsmanship, Wiz and friends ganging up to wear down Mebahiah by sheer weight of numbers, or Mikazuki clobbering Hashmal until he gets an opening to stab it in the central processor, a certain degree of dismemberment seems par for the course. This ties into the 'medieval' combat style of the show, but also fits with the general sense that the 'armours are such juggernauts, their defences need to be peeled back to expose any trace of weakness.

A Gundam outfitted with a part of giant tin-openers, therefore, feels like exactly the kind of thing you'd want on the battlefield. Moreover, in his (brief) usage of Zagan, erstwhile Issue Family-supporter Londo Bron demonstrates the sheer brute strength of the machine, effortlessly dispatching a squad of three Grazes, including one he quite literally punches to death. Like Gusion in its Brewers form, this Gundam is built thick, the limbs set wide on the frame. It's the most brutish 'suit we've seen since Gamigin and where that appeared built for heavy-lifting, this one seems designed to be a berserker. Close-range, like Zepar, but discarding swords or spears in favour of crushing force.

Again, it reads as an extension of previous attempts, pushing the envelope in the pursuit of victory. Like Murmur, this looks like a case of incorporating the enemy's strengths: those claws would be at home on a mobile armour -- riffing on Ananel, perhaps? It is certainly building on the kind of equipment Marchosias used, moving from providing auxiliary limbs to making them the Gundam's primary offensive capability (remember, Marchosias' main weapon remained its long sword/club; the other articulated blades were in addition).

What strikes me most of all is how this circles around to what Barbatos will become under Tekkadan's watch. Gjallarhorn might assay the heroic appearance of Zepar, with ornate uniforms and aristocratic trappings, a proud bearing in the face of a grubby world. But the most powerful group among their leadership for three centuries was founded by someone who flew a machine like Zagan, which would be quite at home alongside Barbatos Lupus Rex.

All kingship is rooted, ultimately, in conquest and brutality. The trappings of honour and martial splendour among which Carta Issue dies in PD 323 are a veneer over the horror of a devastating war -- and the horrors required to end it.

One has to wonder what she would have made of her ancestor in their prime, tearing armours apart with their all four of their bare hands.

From the Ars Goetia:

The Sixty-first Spirit is Zagan. He is a Great King and President, appearing at first in the Form of a Bull with Gryphon's Wings; but after a while he putteth on Human Shape. He maketh Men Witty. He can turn Wine into Water, and Blood into Wine. He can turn all Metals into Coin of the Domninion that Metal is of. He can even make Fools Wise. He governeth 33 Legions of Spirits, and his Seal is this, etc.

'Bull with gryphon's wings' is a certainly an apt description of the form and with respect to what I was just talking about, putting on a human shape 'after a while' feels like a theme to run with more than in the other metamorphoses we've read about. Indeed, there is much here to do with the transformation of baser things into the stuff of civilisation: wit, wine, coin, even wisdom. Is this not what the Issues led, the refinement of an organisation dedicated to ending a war into the bastion of a new age? Or, if we are to be cynical about it, is it any surprise a demon's production of such things should only run skin-deep?

Other reference posts include:

IBO reference notes on … Gjallarhorn (Part 1)

IBO reference notes on … Gjallarhorn (Part 2)

IBO reference notes on … Gjallarhorn (corrigendum) [mainly covering my inability to recognise mythical wolves]

IBO reference notes on … three key Yamagi scenes

IBO reference notes on … three key Shino scenes

IBO reference notes on … three key Eugene scenes

IBO reference notes on … three key Ride scenes

IBO reference notes on … the tone of the setting

IBO reference notes on … character parallels and counterpoints

IBO reference notes on … a perfect villain

IBO reference notes on … Iron-Blooded Orphans: Gekko

IBO reference notes on … an act of unspeakable cruelty

IBO reference notes on … original(ish) characters [this one is mainly fanfic]

IBO reference notes on … Kudelia’s decisions

IBO reference notes on … assorted head-canons

IBO reference notes on … actual, proper original characters [explicit fanfic – as in, actually fanfic. None of them have turned up in the smut yet]

IBO reference notes on … the aesthetics of the mobile frame

IBO reference notes on … mobile suit designations

IBO reference notes on … the Gundams (part 1)

IBO reference notes on … the Gundams (part 2)

IBO reference notes on … the Gundams (part 3)

IBO reference notes on … the Turbines, or ‘Tekkadan done right’

[crsbysdot]

One of the most important posts I will make on this blog.

This is a video Steph did last Summer, in which she attempted to prove that Dena Danzig was/is the person behind the Recaps With Bobby Youtube channel. There's a number of quite compelling things in this video, such as:

1: A picture Bobby posted, supposedly of the cat he based his channel avatar on, that shows an American electrical outlet that wouldn't exist in a UK home. (Bobby claims to be in the UK.).

2: A geotag on one of his videos linked to a place called Clermont, which according to Steph, is the name of the county where Dena lives in her state.

There are other things such as the fact that supposedly lied about changing his Paypal, his Cashapp is in dollars rather than pounds, he uses similar terms to describe Steph, has a similar issue with her bookshelf..When this video was initially put out, it WAS compelling. However, there are a number of things that are very wrong with it, that she has not addressed.

1: Who The F Even Made This Thing?!

First off, Steph is using an AI voice in this video and more or less pretending not to be herself. She didn't disclose that she was going to be doing this until several hours after she uploaded it, and while I DO think it is a jab at Bobby's use of a fake voice, it was weird. It had some people confused as to who actually made the video. The fact that she never actually directly credits the "village" that supposedly helped her put this together, and never names who the other people were who supposedly were talking about this behind the scenes, makes it all the weirder. To this day she has not credited anyone else for this video. She didn't even get permission from EKCPeopleSuck to user her content in the video introduction.

Here you can see EKC reacting to the video, demonstrating that, 1, she doesn't even know who Steph is, and 2, she didn't understand why HER face was used in the video. Now it is worht noting that EKC has supposedly been caught lying before, so take this how you will. But given the other shady sht about Steph's expose, I'm inclined to believe EKC's clueless reaction was genuine. On top of being weird, it's bad form to not get permission from other creators to use their content as garnish to your own. If Steph had been doing commentary on ECK and giving HER criticism, I'd see not asking permission to do that. but she was clearly using that video to show other people having issues with Bobby.

And what this entire introduction looks like to me is that Steph was trying to make it look like this video on Bobby was some community effort. The fact that EKC doesn't even know who she is, and Steph herself has not named anyone who helped her with this, is suspect, when scrutinized against this claim that other people helped her.

Here is a tweet Steph put out about 13 days prior to uploading this video when she was trying to gin up attention to this proof she supposedly had. She had been going back and forth with Bobby on Twitter and the YT community tabs when she made this tweet, basically saying she wasn't going to take kindly to the community being silent on Bobby. Now I would think that if multiple people had been involved in the creation of this expose, they WOULD be backing her up on it. And yet, here we are, almost a fking year later, and this tweet she made about this supposedly dangerous person she and her posse were about to expose, has not one fing Like or retweet on it. (It says there's a like, but when you go into the engagements, it says there are no likes...)

There are several people I would assume would be among the people who WOULD help Steph with something like this, if they actually thought she had something worth putting out there. At least one of those people is on Twitter herself, and that would be Marissa (Not Another Housewife). But Marissa didn't endorse that tweet, now did she?

Edit: Also I want to add that in the beginning of this video, Steph says that she is okay with people disagreeing with her theory. However, not only does the aforementioned tweet suggest otherwise, so does this community tab post she made where she says she's "ready to burn the whole community down".

-

2: Clermont

As I mentioned above, one of Steph's most compelling points is the fact that one of Bobby's videos has a geotag shown in it linked to a place called Clermont. The thing is that there are no fewer than 8 places called Clermont (same spelling and everything) in the United States alone. And the issue with this is that Bobby has been accused of being multiple people in the community, including AZ (Tea Spiracy), Roadhog, JustSayin', Muzz and even Bambi's Rambles. There happens to be places in Roadhog's state, JustSayin' and Muzz's country and Bambi's country, that are also called Clermont.

Furthermore, this geotag was only shown on a screen recording Bobby had used in one of his videos. Meaning that there was no way to click on that geotag to verify which of the 9 million Clermonts on planet Earth it was actually linked to.

-

3: "No One Knew Steph Was From Texas..."

Steph claims in this video that before Bobby started calling her "Big Tex" the only person in the community who knew Steph was from Texas was Dena. This is also bullsh*t.

Bobby created his channel in September of 2021. He didn't start calling Steph "Big Tex" until he started having issues with her several months later. We're talking December of 2021 and into 2022. This is significant because in the Summer of 2021, Steph did no fewer than 2 livestreams... PUBLIC livestreasm, in which she literally and explicitly said the name of her home town. She held one stream, telling the whole community where she was from, A good three months before Bobby even created his channel.

And again these were PUBLIC streams in which she told, practically anyone with internet access, where she was from. These weren't private conversations she had with a select few people. Everyone in the community had the opportunity to know she was from Texas for months before Bobby started referencing Texas in his insults.

--

4: Raven And A Unicorn

Part of Steph's so-called "evidence" that Bobby and Dena are one-in-the-same, is the art style they supposedly have in common. Specifically, Steph cites a similarity between a free-hand drawing Dena had made of a Unicorn skeleton and this animation:

Now, you might be wondering what Kiszkiloszki has to do with all this, and the answer would be nothing. Nothing at all. You see Recaps With Bobby used this animation-with Kiszkiloszki's watermark cropped out-in one of his videos, and Steph saw this and assumed the person behind the Bobby channel had made it themselves, and naturally concluded that since Bobby and Dena both drew skeletal unicorns, they must be the same person.

A simple Googl search of the phrase "unicorn skeleton running gif" would have yielded the above result, attached to a verified Kiszkiloszki Giphy account.

But it gets worse.

In trying to further prove that Dena and Bobby share an art style, Steph introduces us to a Youtube channel that, at the time she made the video, was called The Raven's Hearth. Bear in mind that at one point, Dena (as in actually Dena) had named her channel "Pale Raven Hearth". Steph explicitly states, as if it is 100% face that "This is Dena's old channel". She shows us some (and I do mean only SOME) of this channel's content, trying to establish the channel's artistic aesthetic and the skill level of animations it featured. Again, bearing in mind that she's using that Kiszkiloszki animation she didn't realize bobby had (likely) stolen, as a basis for comparison.

She then goes on to show us the Deviantart account that The Raven's Hearth has linked in their about tab. And she also states that this is Dena. Raven has pictures of a black cats and witchy sht on this DA, which are aesthetics both Dena and Bobby have employed, so naturally, Steph concluded that this is the same person. She suggests that the black cat on Raven's DA might also be the real Bobby...

There's just one problem with this.

This is Dena, as in Dena Danzig/Pale Raven Hearth.

This is a screen recording someone took to react to Dena's mess before Dena deleted her content.

THIS is Raven, as in The Raven's Hearth.

This is a video from the channel Steph said belonged to Dena. It's the only video (that I know of) where Raven can both be seen and heard speaking. And Steph didn't show this video in Fraudulent Feline. Sometime after Steph's video, Kalista (of all people) ended up reaching out to Raven, and this is probably why Raven ended up changing her channel name.

This woman is obviously not Dena. And having done a little bit of extra research, I've found even more evidence that shows that. I'm not going to dox Raven or expose her other socials to anymore of this nonsense. But she isn't the same age as Dena, she isn't the same build, doesn't do the same work and isn't in the same state as Dena. She doesn't even look that much like Dean when you see their faces side by side.

Now, Steph posted this stupid video in June of 2023. Later on in July, Kalista did a video as well, going over that proof. Here we have Steph acknowledging, not only that she saw Kalista's video, but that she made some good points in it. However, here we have here on a panel, dddenying wrongdoing. Here she is on her one stream, denying it again in October.

It is now April, going on May of 2024, and she has STILL not acknowledged that she exposed the wrong person. And one of the reasons this is so problematic is that The Hogs are involved. It is known that Roadhog has said disgusting things about women AND children. In fact, here you can see Steph citing the fact that he's been investigated for "child SA", as gotcha points against Dena.

Now, I want it known that he was likely cleared in those investigations and has no convictions for such things (to my knowledge), which is something The Designated Goodguys don't like to acknowledge (part of why I said Jayjay was partly right about people poking the bear). But still, the perception on "this side of the street" is that he's a pervert who's not above being nasty about kids. And guess where Ravan has pictures of her kids. The Deviantart account Steph directed everyone to. Guess who showed some of those pictures in their stream that debunked Steph's claims. Mrs. Roadhog. Steph now has a restraining order against Mr. Roadhog and has still not acknowledged that she is responsible for him now having access to Raven's family photos.

Editing to add: Most of Raven's other social media IS under a newer moniker, and for that reason, Steph would not have known to look for them. Thus she wouldn't have seen the things I saw that further prove Raven isn't Dena. So I have to cut her some slack on that one. However, there are other things that kind of fly in the face of what she was trying to say in this video.

First off, we have the fact that Bobby cropped out Kiszkiloszki's watermark. At some point in Fraudulent Feline, Steph talks basically about one channel blatantly taking content from someone else, and cropping the previous uploaders' logos and stuff out of it. Iirc, she's was basically trying to say that this was Dena recylcing content from channels she was running herself, and trying to hide the fact that it was all her.

Bobby also allegedly basically stole that Kiszkilozski animation. Cropping out an original creator's logo/watermark is a common digital art-theft tactic. Yeah there IS a very tiny chance that he either had permission from Kiszkiloszki to use that gif in his drama video. There's even a slight chance that Bobby may actually be Kiszkiloszki, if we really want to be THAT obtuse. But neither of those things is very likely at all. (And if Bobby WAS secretly Kiszkiloszki....he would still be a man and not Dena whatsoever.)

If Bobby was willing to crop out an artist's logo, would he not also be willing to crop out another video creator's stuff as well? If so, how can we be sure that he was recycling content, possibly from Dena, and removing her sh*t to hide the fact the he is also Dena, and not just to rip off the content?

[happiestplacehq]

Task Eleven → Intro & Connections

Welcome to our first mandatory task! As I’m sure you have all heard me wax poetic about by now, this task has been created with the intention of helping you all connect better to your fellow writers, and to give you and your partners a head start when it comes to plotting and coming up with connections for your characters. Below you will find a list of plot and connection ideas to help you get started. Now, let me explain the task at hand.

Firstly, treat this like you might do an intro post.

Using the template below as a guide (you can set it out any way you wish, this is just to help you get started) each player must create a post detailing things they are looking for for their characters. There are suggestions in the template for what other things may be useful to include. Anything that is required is marked in bold with an asterisk*. I would then like this post to be pinned to the top of your character blog, or added in some way to your current pinned post, so it is easily accessible to all players. It is up to you if you link it in your theme.

For each character you should have a minimum of 3 connection types, and a further 3 fleshed out plot ideas you are looking for. The more specific you are, the better, but I understand that sometimes a vague title is enough. If there is a plot you really want for your character, put it here! The people need to know.

If you have multiple characters you do not need to fill this out for all of them immediately, but should all be completed by the end of next month. Start with your characters that have less connections when in doubt. Please note that your connections should be varied, and not all focus on shipping and romance, in order to get a good range to work within.

I’m borrowing one of Paige’s as an example of a more fleshed out connections & intro post [here]. This one by Claire is also in depth [here]. I know a few of you have similar posts already but please take the time to make a new post for this task so I can reblog it to @redwoodhollowreview and make sure to tag the blog as well!

Please tag your posts with #happiestplacetask and #happiestplacetask11 so everyone can see. This task is mandatory and will be reblogged.

TEMPLATE

Character Information*

Brief outline about your character, as formal or informal as you like.* Can be paragraphs or bullet points. Include Name, Age & Occupation

Outline of their personality & how they vibe with others.

Anything that you think is important about their past or present that will affect plotting.

A link to their bio on the main, or a more in depth description of their history if you want.

Wanted Connections*

Connection 1

Connection 2

Connection 3

Another? 👀 

Wanted Plots / Plot Ideas*

Plot Bunny Number 1 - Short Description, 1 paragraph. You can link inspo posts if you have any.

Plot Bunny Number 2

Plot Bunny Number 3

Taken Connections (like Naomi’s post [here])

Connection 1 e.g. The Best Friend, Name, Info about connection

Connection 2 e.g. The Enemy, Name, Info etc.

If you think a connection is important or may help connect your characters to other characters through mutuals, this is an excellent way to go.

Other

One character from the open tag [here] you would like to see taken / added to the Most Wanted page*

One Character you want to see a bio for in relation to this specific character

Plot Ideas 

Plot ideas should be fleshed, giving specifics of ideas you’ve had for your character that you want to play out but haven’t found someone to write them with yet. For example, they can be as simple as a thread idea (Muses visiting IKEA) to something more long term (Muses are mortal enemies but have to pretend they’re best friends in order to progress in their job).

[helpersofindie masterlist of plot/ connections masterlists]

[The Plot Masterlist Tag]

[More idea masterlists by winterhelps]

Connection Ideas

Childhood Best Friends / High School Best Friends

Colleagues (current or former)

Neighbours

Roommates

Ex Partners - on good terms, or bad terms

Ex Friends - on good terms, or bad terms

Mortal Enemies

Tinder / Grinder Match / Old One Night Stand

Previously been through a traumatic experience together

Previously been through an amazing experience together

The one person that just really, really gets on their nerves

The secret crush

Their school bully

Confidant

Role model

Classmates

Ride or Die

One part of a wider friend group

Secret Friends

Cousins / Aunts / Uncles / Related through marriage

Friends because their parents, siblings or grandparents are friends

Attend a club together such as bowling, swimming or yoga

First Kiss

Childhood Crush

Publicity Partner

Someone they hired either recently or in the past

Frenemies

Rivals - in the same field of work, in a club like swimming, in a group of friends, over the same love interest

Share a secret - they share a secret and both are always on edge the other will tell the secret

Study Buddies / Tutor

Have mutual friends - they either do or don’t get a long

Babysitter

Thanks to [Connections Masterlist] by shroyers for some of the inspo, [iridcscenceq] and [Character Connections] by activisthelps for more ideas.

If you need any help with this task or just want some help coming up with ideas, don’t hesitate to ask me!

Please like this post once you have read it !!

[alister312]

Yo, Tips for reach on A03?

Well, the thing about ao3 is that it doesn’t have an algorithm so there’s no such thing as “increasing reach” directly on there. However, here’s some things you can keep in mind to help draw more people into your fic!

ao3 automatically sorts fics by “most recently updated (/uploaded)” in whatever category a reader is browsing. This means, if you want people to see your fic, it’s a good idea to update often (to keep it at/near the top) and maybe try to upload during times when you think a lot of people might be opening ao3 to browse. Maybe this means on the weekends, when people have free time. Maybe it means at night, since lots of people like to read fics as bedtime stories. You can figure out what works best for you.

Here are the other things ao3 sorts by. I don’t have any data to back this up, but I feel safe in assuming that the main things people choose besides Date Updated are Hits, Kudos, and Comments. Maybe also Bookmarks. After all, those are all indicators that other people have read (and probably enjoyed) a fic, which means it’s worth checking out.

Hits are just how many people have clicked on and opened the fic. It doesn’t count how many people have actually read it, or how many times one person (or more accurately, one IP address) has read it. If you want to increase hits, plug your fic on outside sources often. Put the link out there as just fic advertisement, draw art or commission art for it and include the link with the post, share it around in discord servers— whatever level of shameless self promo you feel comfortable with. It’s wonderful if you have friends who believe in you and can also share and promote your fic, but you can always guarantee that YOU will be your own biggest advocate so use that to your advantage.

Kudos are similar to a Like button. IMO if you read a fic or a chapter of a fic and reach the end without clicking out, you should leave a kudos, but I also know people who are very selective about their kudos so to each their own. But basically, they are something a reader can leave once. They can click it a second time and it doesn’t unkudos but it doesn’t add another either. There’s not really a way to increase them aside from kudos-ing your own fic and/or asking people you know to please leave one. This one’s on the readers! The same basically goes for Bookmarks. There’s slightly more effort involved (instead of clicking one button, people have to click a whole TWO buttons) so it’ll probably happen less often than kudos.

Comments are, well, comments. Pretty self explanatory. Since people usually don’t leave comments unless they have something to say about the fic, you mostly just have to hope people have something to say! A “Comments are always appreciated :)” in your author’s notes never hurts too. You could also take the time to reply to every comment you get if you don’t feel overwhelmed about replying to all of them! This will increase comments obviously but more importantly, it lets the commenter know they were heard and appreciated. Everyone likes knowing that, and it’ll hopefully create a positive feedback loop where they will comment again so you can reply again and so on and so forth.

If you’re in it purely for the numbers game, you can also check out your statistics page often and play to those strengths. Putting that below the cut since this is already pretty long!

As you can see, the statistics tab lets you compare your fics in a bunch of different ways. That way, if you’re trying to get better at one specific thing, you can see what fics do better in that sense and figure out why they might’ve done better.

For example, my #1 in terms of Hits is Just Business, a multichap fic. This makes a lot of sense to me, since multiple chapters meant multiple updates, pushing it to the top of most recently updated more often where people could click it. I also advertised the fic on tumblr any time it updated, so that was even more opportunity for people to literally just click through. Plus, I published new chapters weekly, specifically on Wednesdays while a new season of the show was airing so I knew it was more likely that a lot of people would be browsing the South Park tag. However—

Just Business is nowhere near the top in terms of kudos. Even though a lot of people clicked on it, they didn’t leave a kudos. This is probably because the main pair featured in it, Gregstophe, is a rarepair. I make this assumption because my #1 fic for kudos is Sweet, Dude, which is a Style fic and Style is one of the most popular South Park ships.

Then for comments (or comment threads, which means it doesn’t count back and forth replies, just new comments), once again Just Business is at the top with my other multichap fic What Makes Cloves Grow right behind it. This is because returning readers will often leave a new comment every time you update. It’s also interesting to see that my two fics that feature Dip as a pairing are in the top 5, so that means Dip fans are probably more likely to leave a comment!

Now based off of all this, if I wanted to publish fic purely to get ahead, I know it would be smart to publish a multichap fic on a consistent schedule so I can advertise it often. Maybe it’d be good to publish alongside new episodes airing, or right around the time of a new special or game so hype is at the highest and the tag has the most eyes on it. The main pair should be Style, Cryle, Creek, and/or Dip, as those have all demonstrated the most engagement from readers. There’s other stuff to factor in too (such as the fact that many of my top fics have Fluff or Domestic themes so that means the fandom these days probably likes to read Fluff and Domestic stuff) but that’s the gist of it!

[fabdante]

20 Questions For Fic Writers

I was tagged by my dear friend @thevampireauthoress on this post ! I tag all the fic writers who follow me and see this because I want to see what you guys are up to!!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Five! I write every day but only started posting fan fic a year ago and I have more I'm cleaning up to post!

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 36,380

3. What fandoms do you write for?

A Lot. If post about it odds are I've written something about it in some form or another.

The ones I have public fics for are DmC: Devil May Cry and ATLA. I frequently write for World of Warcraft (mostly ocs) privately though and have been making my way back to TF2, Borderlands, and Bioshock works lately.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Since I have only five I can give the whole rundown asdfghj the Zutara fics are, unsurprisingly, the heavy hitters

An Inexact Science

Detours

Pinky Promise

Crossroads of Catharsis and Contemplation

A Series of Mild Prophesies

Also the stats chart cracks me up:

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try to! I get to most of them! Sometimes when a fic is older and someone just leaves a short little 'this was nice!' or whatever, I don't respond but other then that I do. I get very excited when anyone likes any of my works asdfghjkl

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Uh...probably Swan Song, which is yet to be posted. Swan Song will definitely probably have the solidly most angst filled ending.

7. What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Just limiting myself to what's already posted on AO3, anything in the Circumnavigators of Celestial Bodies series so far has had pretty happy endings. It's not tinged with the like dramatic irony of anything in Drafting A Swan and both fic's thus far in Circumnavigators end on fairly positive notes I think

8. Do you get hate on fics?

As of now, no

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind?

I have but I haven't published any of it yet and I'm not sure I will ever. My favorites to write are definitely monsterfucking related, followed by more general kink but like monsterfucking is the best to write.

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I am an avid lover of crossovers, particularly crazy crossovers. I feel like I have several contenders for the most crazy.

First up would be the massive multi fandom high school au my girlfriend and I developed containing like every video game we liked at the time which I still sometimes write because I find the character dynamics fascinating but I doubt, due to the highly niche nature of this crossover, that it'd ever see the light of day (if you ever wanted August Borderlands and Rachel Amber Life Is Strange to talk on the roof of a trailer in the trailer park they both live in though, I am the gal to ask I guess because boy do I have that and I will provide)

Second up would be in a similar vein but like somehow even less attached to any of the serial numbers qualifying it as fan fic. That one is set in a Bioshock AU where Rapture lasted until the 80s somehow under different leadership. It is also a massive multi fandom AU but this time with gang warfare under the sea in a very AU'd version of Rapture. Similarly, it will never see the light of day with the serial numbers attached because it is just so niche as it is that like...I have no idea who would want to read that asdfghjkl I rarely write it anymore despite loving a lot of the concepts and dynamics, and I feel like it'd just be more effective to just rip off the remaining serial numbers and let it be free if I ever wanted to publish it somewhere.

Third craziest is perhaps less crazy but just very weird. But I have an ongoing series of fics where Brigid Tenenbaum from Bioshock 1 and Booker Dewitt from Bioshock Infinite just sort of hang out in this space beyond time and space and just get very cerebral about their oddly parallel lives and similar traumas because a hill I will die on is that they are the parallels of one another between those games, not anyone else. They're very written 'For Fabdante' so they are not very polished and I call them 'Bioshock Void Fics'

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I am aware of

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not that I am aware of

13. Have you ever co-authored a fic?

When I was waaay younger yes! Those are really old and locked away on fanfiction.net though.

14. What is your all time favourite ship?

Vergil and Kat/Verat from DmC: Devil May Cry. They are my everything.

15. What is a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I never want to say never because I do intend to finish these things but here's two:

I have this ATLA fan fic tentatively titled Avatar Champloo which isn't exactly a crossover, more just like an Avatar story featuring the Ba Sing Se kids (Jet, Zuko, and Jin) that plays homage to the vibes and general essence of Samurai Champloo, extrapolating on the already very heavy Samurai Champloo vibes of ATLA. Samurai Champloo is like one of my all time favorite shows so living up to it has been a tall order for me and I fear I will never finish this fic asdfghjk.

I have a few Zelda/Zelgan WIPs that I fear I will never finish. One being a very long one shot based off the idea of a Zelgan romance from the perspective of a bodyguard Link which I'm really fond of, but just have a lot of trouble editing. To give perspective, it was the first fic I ever considered publishing on AO3. And it's still not done to satisfaction for me and thus, not my first fic on AO3.

Obligatory Swan Song (my really long multichapter DmC: Devil May Cry, Verat based, prequel) mention. I don't doubt I'll finish it one day exactly, but when that day will be is far beyond my comprehension asdfghjk

16. What are your writing strengths?

Uh...ngl I have no idea lmaooooo I like how I handle small moments, I guess. Most of what I like to write is small moments between people, and I think I'm pretty ok at that. I'm good at rambling.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Writing multichapter things, I feel. Because I like small moments too much, I struggle to keep things relevant I feel. The biggest issues with Swan Song, I think, are just there being a lot of useless scenes. I struggle a lot with knowing how long scenes should be in something thats more then a one shot and how to transition between those scenes effectively.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in fic?

I don't know any other language confidently enough to write it, so it's not something I ever do nor have an opinion on. I do write a lot of multilingual characters, and when I do I just tend to write the dialogue in italics then notate that the character is now speaking another language in the descriptor so that the reader knows what the italics mean.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Probably ATLA when I was a waaay younger. Writing Circumnavigators has been a return to my roots, I suppose, asdfghjk

20. Favourite fic you've written?

My favorite posted fic is definitely Crossroads of Catharsis and Contemplation. It's got everything for me and is exactly the type of thing I love to write the most.

Unposted? Depending on how it goes, I might have a runner up that is a preboot DMC fic which is a grunge band AU told through excerpts from a biography novel and the interviews within about said grunge band. Similarly, it has everything for me and is exactly the type of thing I love to write asdfghjkl

Thank you again for tagging me!! And once again, I mean it when I say please count yourself as tagged by me if you want to answer these because I really, really would love to see what you guys are writing!!

[evilliyes]

Depending on who you are, this type of post is probably much less exciting than the sort of thing I would usually put on this blog.  However, for those who are curious, these are text announcements as well as gacha odds of the Memoirs of Wrongdoings and Evillious event.

The top picture is the announcement for the Evillious announcement’s beginning, and what to expect during the campaign.

The second image, which you may have to open in a new tab to be able to read, is, if I recall an announcement that preceded the previous one.  This gave the details of the Memoirs of Wrongdoing gacha and the new characters that could be obtained, as well as some of the general mechanics of Proseka’s gacha events and how they’re used specifically in Memoirs of Wrongdoings.

The third image is extremely similar to the second, but with more details added, and was posted on the start of the gacha event.

Similarly, the fourth image is very close to the first image in text, but was posted when the event began, rather than an announcement of the event.

Moving onto the third row, these are announcements of the three new songs added in honor of the event, in the following order (one per each image): The Daughter of Evil, The Servant of Evil, and Waltz of the Deceased (also known as Waltz of the Departed).

On the last row are images taken from the gacha page itself.  The first image gives a summary of the gacha, including the new cards, as well as an explanation of how the gacha works in extreme detail.

The second gives the odds of drawing any given card.  Even in a new tab at full size, it’s a bit difficult to read.  The very top gives the general odds of drawing a certain level of card (4☆ being 3%, 3☆ being 8.5%, and 2☆ being 88.5%; keep in mind all Evillious cards are 4☆ cards) as well as the specific odds of drawing a given card.  For example, if one wanted to specifically draw one of the Evillious cards, there is a 0.4% chance of it happening on a given draw.  Other 4☆ cards have approximate odds of 0.009% chance of appearing.  If someone would like me to transcribe a specific card name or odds, please feel free to DM me.

The final picture gives the odds of a “Guaranteed Drop Rate��, which is when a card that is either 3☆ or 4☆ is guaranteed to the player.  There are a few different ways this can happen, but the most common is using 3,000 crystals to draw 10 cards; of the cards drawn in that lot, at the very minimum, one 3☆ card will be given to the player.  One may also get multiple 3☆ cards (say, seven 2☆ and three 3☆ cards), a 4☆ card with the rest being 2☆ cards, or, if lady luck is feeling quite generous, a mix of 4☆ cards, 3☆ cards, and 2☆ cards.  For the guaranteed drop rate, a 4☆ card has a 3% chance of appearing, and a 3☆ card has a 97% chance of appearing, with odds for specific cards listed.  If anyone wants the names or drop rates of specific cards, please message me.

Note that these odds will not necessarily carry over to the re-run of the gacha; many new cards have been and will be added to the game between when these pictures were taken and the re-run, and the number of cards and their odds are bound to change.

[accessibleaesthetics]

[Image Description: GIF reading: Tumblr 2022 My Year in Review. End Image Description.]

I posted 2,804 times in 2022

That's 1,285 more posts than 2021!

191 posts created (7%)

2,613 posts reblogged (93%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@keplercryptids

@tmoblrina

@the-unicorns-of-nienna

@glacier--freeze

@usergrantaire

I tagged 1,545 of my posts in 2022

Only 45% of my posts had no tags

#aesthetics - 556 posts

#long post - 115 posts

#stim - 85 posts

#functionally described - 53 posts

#poetry - 42 posts

#lovecore - 39 posts

#resources - 29 posts

#toh - 26 posts

#easter - 24 posts

#disability pride - 24 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#honestly the weirdest thing on this post is that your therapist thought you were the only one with non-visual or non-auditory hallucination

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Informative Hyperlinked Text

Creating posts with informative hyperlinked text really helps boost the accessibility of your content for a number of reasons

Screen reader users don't have to listen to a whole URL read out

All users get to have an idea of where the link will take them before selecting it

Your posts look less cluttered overall

In relation to that second point in particular, keep in mind that your hyperlinked text should (ideally) be able to stand on its own even without context. That means not making your hyperlinked text vague like:

click here

here

more

read more

info

link

Now, I'm certainly not perfect about this; sometimes I will make my hyperlinked text read "this post" or something similar. But it's still a good think to keep in mind.

You should also avoid putting redundant info in your hyperlinked text. For example, there is no need to specify that a link is a link; screen readers tell users when they come across a link, so something like link to my blog might read as "link to my blog link" or something. Likewise, tumblr will underline linked text by default (at least in dashboard view), so users who sight read will be able to tell which things are links too.

Note: since underlining is such a common way of indicating a link, it's best to avoid using underlined text for anything that is not a link to avoid confusion.

Finally, you want to be concise with which text you choose to hyperlink. This means that it's probably best to post tags as plain text, even if it automatically copy/pastes as a hyperlink (you can remove that formatting).

It also means that you need to be purposeful with which text you choose to hyperlink in your post. Providing context around the hyperlink to further inform users of what it is and where it will go also helps.

Too Vague:

You can learn more about visual disabilities here.

Click here to learn more about visual disabilities.

Too Long:

You can learn more about visual disabilities on WebAIM.

Nice and Concise:

You can learn more about visual disabilities on WebAIM.

You can learn more about visual disabilities on WebAIM.

Concise and Uses Clear Page Titles:

You can learn more by visiting the Visual Disabilities page on WebAIM.

You also don't always have to stop the flow of your writing to point out the source; a link implies there is more information there. So, for example, you could just as easily get away with this:

There are many different visual disabilities that benefit from accessible content.

Final note: the length advice is not set in stone. Sometimes you need longer pieces of hyperlinked text. Just try not to hyperlink more than is needed!

959 notes - Posted July 16, 2022

#4

Legal Blindness

When people ask “what do blind people see,” I often hear things like “literally nothing, they don’t see black because they literally can’t see.” And that’s true...for some blind people. 

However, many legally blind people do have varying degrees of remaining vision. What that looks like depends a lot on why they are blind. For example, when asked to describe her vision in 2012, Christine Hà said it was “like if you take a really hot shower and then you look into the foggy bathroom mirror, where you only see vague shapes and shadows.” Christine was not born with this level of vision; she has Neuromyelitis Optica Spectrum Disorder, so she progressively lost vision later in life.

There is a wide range of answers to “what do blind people see,” so I wanted to provide just a few resources for people who are curious or want to write a blind character with some remaining vision. While looking up various conditions on medical sites is a good starting point, nothing beats first-hand experience.

Fashioneyesta discusses some of her experiences with legal blindness related to a combination of Optic Nerve Hypoplasia, Septo-optic dysplasia, and nystagmus.

What I Can and Can’t See? | Fashioneyesta

What is Optic Nerve Hypoplasia?: Why I’m Registered Blind | Fashioneyesta

Living with Septo Optic Dysplasia | Fashioneyesta

What is Nystagmus? Why My Eyes Wobble | Fashioneyesta

I'm Visually Impaired and I Don't Wear Glasses: Here's Why | Fashioneyesta

Cayla with a C discusses some of her experiences with legal blindness related to Retinitis Pigmentosa.

What I Can See As A Legally Blind Person

How Retinitis Pigmentosa Affects My Vision

Why Do I Wear Glasses If I’m Legally Blind? + What Size Font Can I Read?

How My Vision Has Changed

I’m Finally Too Blind for Glasses

Molly Burke discusses some of her experiences with legal blindness related to Retinitis Pigmentosa.

I'm Blind, This is What I REALLY See!

Living with Retinitis Pigmentosa: My RP Experience - Molly Burke

Steve Saylor discusses some of his experiences with legal blindness related to nystagmus.

BLIND GAMER - What I see when playing Video Games

Are you REALLY blind? - BLIND GAMER FAQ

James Rath discusses some of his experiences with legal blindness related to  nystagmus and albinism.

What I Can and Can't See as a Legally Blind Person

Describing What I See Legally Blind

Casey Greer discusses some of her experiences with legal blindness related to ocular albinism, nystagmus, and Hermansky-Pudlak syndrome.

Being legally blind (Ocular Albinism)

I have PHOTOPHOBIA

They Don't Know I Can't See

Learning to Accept My Nystagmus

See the full post

1,138 notes - Posted March 20, 2022

#3

I don’t know which disabled person needs to hear this today, but all the writing advice you see about how portraying disability as a tragedy is disrespectful and bad? That’s not for you. That’s for people who don’t have your condition.

If you want to write about the struggles of being blind or deaf or autistic or a wheelchair user or whatever, you are allowed to. You can make it sad, you have every right. That is absolutely your story to write if you so choose.

1,400 notes - Posted March 1, 2022

#2

[Image Description: Bernie I Am Once Again Asking For Your Support Meme reading: "I am once again asking people to include image descriptions in their Disability Pride content." End Image Description.]

Mobile users still can't see the alt text, and often I don't even see that much. Please, include all disabled people in your Disability Pride content.

1,927 notes - Posted July 2, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

This is only sort of an accessibility thing, but it's an issue that I've run into several times, so I wanted to talk about it briefly here.

We need to provide people more info when it comes to neopronouns.

You are never, ever required to list your pronouns anywhere. However, if you do, and they are neopronouns (pronouns that are not conventionally established in the language), it would really help to provide explicit instructions on how to use them for everyone.

In English, there are actually five functional pronoun cases:

Subjective. (For example, "they," as in "They would like a grilled cheese.")

Possessive Independent. (For example, "theirs," as in "That burnt grilled cheese is theirs.")

Objective. (For example, "them," as in "Bob told them about the best grilled cheese recipe ever.")

Reflective. (For example, "themself," as in "Eliza made the grilled cheese themself.")

Possessive Dependent. (For example, "their," as in "Grilled cheese is their first love.")

If someone lists preferred pronouns as it/its, I can look up what all five cases for that are in English no problem. But if someone lists preferred pronouns as "fae/faer," I have no way of looking that up. As a native English speaker, I can assume that it follows the same rules as "she/her" based on similarities in sound, but that's not going to be as easy for someone with English as a second language (especially since "faer" sounds like both "her" and "their.") And my assumption might not even be correct anyway! And if it's something like "egg/eggself," I have no idea where to start grammatically.

So please, if you choose to list neopronouns for yourself, consider providing all five case usages with examples (since even native English speakers might not know what a possessive dependent or reflective case is.)

It would also be helpful to include whether the verbs used with the pronoun should be conjugated as singular (like "she is" ) or plural (like "they are.")

Edit: You can use the pronouns page to link people to all the usage cases of your personal pronouns! Thank you to the follower of mine who pointed this out.

4,017 notes - Posted July 17, 2022

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