#and then just as I'd finished the first time tumblr decided to delete it all

[katnissdoesnotfollowback]

kdnfb's Ten Years of Fanfiction Mania

Featuring: Unmasked

Summary: Written under an Anonymous pseudonym ~M~ to fill the following prompt ~ Historical Katniss and Peeta hate each other. They attend a masquerade ball and for some reason end up kissing each other. Sparks fly everywhere. Katniss tries to find the man behind the mask but Peeta knows it was Katniss though he doesnt say anything. They end up bethrothed even if they 'despise' each other. How they fall in love is up to u and how katniss figured out it was peeta is up to u

Rating: E for explicit sexual content, explicit language, implied/referenced rape/nonconsensual (not everlark), implied/referenced child abuse, implied/referenced suicide, implied/referenced miscarriage, discussions of illness, war, and injury in a historical setting, ptsd, minor character death. They worst of these tags happens offscreen and is merely discussed and dealt with rather than shown here.

A/N: ~Unmasked~ is my longest fic in terms of word count (around 234k), although Outside Chance and Spellbound are not too far behind and are both incomplete. Unmasked started as something meant to be fun and cathartic, then turned into a ridiculously long and self indulgent fic that I still, to this day, have no idea if the anonymous person who submitted the prompt to @everlarkficexchange even read, let alone whether or not they liked it. But I love what I produced for this fic.

Why write it anonymously and only reveal myself later? A couple reasons. 1) Historical is not my wheel house. At least not writing it. I am a shameless consumer of historical romances. I did some research for this fic but not nearly the level I would've liked to have done. Eventually, I said screw it, it's about the vibes not the accuracy. 2) I had a pile of unfinished wips when I started this, to include Outside Chance and Spellbound (both of which are still unfinished hmmmmm) and I really didn't want a lot of questions about when I was going to get back to those while I was working on this because 3) I'd just gone through a small slice of writerly hell to the point that I seriously considered deleting my entire tumblr and all of my fanfic. Details are not important right now, the result is. That's probably the closest I've ever come to calling myself done with fandom.

Then this prompt posted to EFE and wouldn't leave me alone. Eventually, I decided that if I was going to write it, I wanted to write it with as little pressure as possible. So I chose to write and post it as ~M~ until it was finished. Plus, I thought it might make it fun for people other than me if there was a bit of mystery behind it. And I don't regret doing that.

Writing behind a mask allowed me to be as long winded and self-indulgent as I wanted to without worrying about how tight the storyline was or how accurate the historical details were, or wondering if I'd be walking into my tumblr and a barrage of the kind of messages I'd come to dread receiving. The only thing I worried about, really was if the amount and kind of smut I included gave me away prematurely lmao.

While this was my first real foray into the realm of historical fics, I am hoping it's not the last. I've got too many ideas and half started pieces to back out of it now. But those, like this one, will probably remain untethered to a specific real place, and a specific time, mainly because I just don't have that kind of time for research if I'm not getting paid to do it lol. They will be works of love if not works of accuracy.

Unmasked on AO3

[demonicsoulmates-art]

SPN Angels & Demons Reverse Bang 2024 Art Masterpost: The Fool's Journey

This year the Angels & Demons Bang (@spnangelsanddemons-rb ) was a Reverse Bang, meaning the artists would go first and authors would choose what art to write from. Since last year I had an amazing time as an author and, since then, I've started sharing fanart, I decided it would be a good idea to join this reverse bang.

Due to the artistic nudity of the piece I submitted, the drawing on tumblr will be censored. You can find the uncensored version on my Pillowfort. My favorite spn angel is (surprise, surprise) Gadreel, so the piece was all about him.

The drawing was chosen by @ladyknightskye, who wrote an amazing fic for it which you can find at this link.

I'd like to thank @hawkland for organizing this and giving us a change to love our fave characters.

The post is quite long, so I am going to add a read more.

My idea was to make a first piece in my SPN Tarot Project. When I read the description of the Major Arcana of the Star, I immediately thought of Gadreel, and I decided to pick the main symbols of the tarot card for the piece.

Gadreel (as Tahmoh Penikett) is shown kneeling by a river of pure water in the Garden of Eden, holding a cup and pouring water into said river. His other hand is touching the grass, and a serpent is wrapped around his arm. Behind him, you can see a clear sky and a set of stars, one of which is much bigger than the others and is right behind his head. In the distance, you can see an apple tree. The light is almost whimsy, ethereal.

I really wanted to show both the tree and the snake to give a shout-out both to the biblical story AND Gadreel's canon SPN background as the keeper of Eden. The serpent, though, is not supposed to be a temper of sorts - in many cultures, the snake is considered quite wise, and my idea was for the snake to have shown Gadreel that there are other ways than just blind following the one in power, that he had a will of his own.

Unfortunately, I had a mishap happen while making this first piece - aka, I was an idiot and permanently deleted the file from my laptop before it could be finished, so I had to remake it completely. This second version took 11 hours and 41 minutes + the time I took to pick the decor etc. Probably one of my most complex drawings recently.

I also wanted to make a second complete piece as well as a banner, but in the end, I could only make the banner:

The banner shows Gadreel, this time with wings, in the front of the piece. He is standing in the Garden, this time at night. The only light comes from the full moon. He's blindfolded, and in his hands he holds a white rose (symbol of innocence) and a pomegranate. This last detail is taken from Judaism, where it represents the mitzvot, and it's meant to show the "baggage" Gadreel has with Chuck/God, when he follows Chuck's orders blindly, without thinking about them. Eventually, Gadreel will have to choose to submit to his Father's will or rebel, choosing free will.

In the background, we see a mountain and the apple tree, which this time is closer, as if tempting him.

This piece took 5 hours and 47 minutes to make, another detailed piece for me, but so much fun!

Apart from the first mishap (sigh), this was a great experience, and it's the second time I work with Meg in an event (I see the beginning of a pattern).

Please read the fic and let us know what you think!

[raevenlywrites]

Raev's Fic Masterlist

Since tumblr can be a little allergic to links, I thought I'd take a second to ramble about all the various little (and not so little) fics I have up on Ao3

Den of Shadows

Jaguar's Midnight: Currently a single chapter of me exploring ideas of a Midnight that is more blatantly BDSM and less human trafficking. Maybe more to come? Who knows

Unpublished Turquoise thing about her time with Daryl (pester me about if it you're interested)

Hawksong/Kiesha'ra

Ties that Bind (ongoing, 30 chps) A queer, polyamorous, Romeo and Juliet with shapeshifters set on a backdrop of the first tentative peace in a thousand year war. Canon's hotter cousin. Not currently explicit but plans to potentially get there

Frayed Knots (ongoing, 20 chps) The place where all the scenes I thought would go in TTB but didn't wind up. Some one offs, some deleted scenes. A mixed bag of spicy adult stuff and just fun character exploration. Iirc spicy chapters are marked as such

Dasi High (abandoned, 4 chps) Highschool AU of Maeve and Kiesha and Co, if their story was on the CW

Forbidden Skies (hiatus, 2 chps) Crossover with Forbidden Game. Julian is a falcon and Jenny and co are avians and serpiente. Basically FB's chars and plot cosplaying as K'r

Forbidden Game

Forbidden Skies, see above

Holy Fire (one off) A sort of song fic where Zach thinks way too hard about Jenny and tries to become a magician

Hearts Desires (ongoing, 2 chps) Still playing with Zach the magician, this one is meant to be a fairly short exploration of magic/runes, Zach's obsession with Jenny, his inability to readjust after the game, and coming out to himself. And tree sex. It's a weird one.

Unpublished pre-canon Jenny thing where she's kind of aware of something (Julian) watching her at night (spicy, pester me about it if you're interested)

Longer descriptions under the cut

Ties that Bind: A queer, polyamorous, Romeo and Juliet with shapeshifters set on a backdrop of the first tentative peace in a thousand year war. Anticipated f/f, m/m, and many other shapes of m/f/m and/or f/m/f, potentially kinky if I ever get it there. Also potentially ace/qpr stuff if I can ever figure out my MC and what is true in this fic vs what belongs in side projects. Canon's hotter cousin with more magic, more setting development, A LOT more romance, and a distant relation to the original in the way that Vaporeon resembles Eevee. It wants to still fit in canon's clothes but really needs to admit its grown too big for that.

This is the big one. I realized revisiting my favorite childhood series that the big epic romance I always remembered was mostly in my head. So I decided to get it out of my head and onto paper. That is... not what happened XD It follows the basic Romeo/Julietness of Hawksong, but I decided to really explore the world and characters and so made a lot of executive decisions bc there actually isn't that much about the world/characters in the original. It's diverged wildly, spiraled out of control into a 30+ chapters novel (lets be honest) and isn't ending any time soon. It's the one I most want to work on so send me asks and encouragement about it so I can get working on it again :P

Basically, Zane and Danica are still deeply dedicated to peace. They think the idea of getting married to achieve it is ridiculous, but they're desperate enough to keep it on the back burner. Dani gets to know Zane (and Adelina) as friends. She explores her relationship with Rei. She struggles with bureaucracy and a well-meaning mother that doesn't always support her in the way she needs. Also there's a bit more magic, a lot more setting, and a bunch of characters I kinda made up to help flesh things out (hello Vasili's made up cousin). Current plans include finishing it with some sort of marriage, but I haven't decided if Zanica is endgame or not (the dynamic currently in the lead in my head is Dani takes Adelina as her Alistair, Zane takes Rei as his Nag, and the four of them all kinda co-rule. We'll see. Everyone is going to kiss everyone else before its done that's for sure)

Frayed Knots (ongoing, 20 chps) The place where all the scenes I thought would go in TTB but didn't wind up. Some one offs, some deleted scenes. A mixed bag of spicy adult stuff and just fun character exploration. Iirc spicy chapters are marked as such Current offerings include: abandoned TTB starts, some BDSM scenes with Z/D/R/A, Dani getting herself off and thinking too hard, an alternative Snakecharm opening from Kel's POV, some Oliza stuff, some Marus/Urban stuff, and some Dasi High stuff. Really, Frayed Knots is a great place to start if you wanna read TTB but are kind of intimidated by its scope. Most FK entries are 1-3 chapters. A sampler platter of my nonsense basically :P

Dasi High (abandoned, 4 chps) Kiesha and Co Highschool AU, basically what if the Dasi was a show on the CW. A fun idea, but not actually my cup of tea. Would probably be more fun to ramble about in discord than actually write

Forbidden Skies (hiatus, 2 chps) Crossover with Forbidden Game. Julian is a falcon and Jenny and co are avians and serpiente. Basically FB's chars and plot cosplaying as K'r. I really loved the idea, but I don't know if it grabbed me enough to make want to wrestle it into submission like I do TTB. With TTB, I don't know the story yet, so I can trick myself into working on it bc I wanna know what happens. With FS, I know what my intended plot will be, so this one would need a lot of outside hype to get me working on it again. But I think it could be really really cool if I did. If this crossover sounds like your cup of tea, pester me for more

Forbidden Game

Forbidden Skies, see above

Holy Fire (one off, post canon what if) A sort of song fic where Zach thinks way too hard about Jenny and tries to become a magician. I have these ideas about Jenny half light faerie, hence Julians obsession with her. In this fic, Zach is trying to learn magic to protect Julian so FB doesn't happen again. He winds up getting the attention of a light faerie, who tasks him with being Jenny's knight until they're ready to come bring her home. Basically, the song Holy Fire by Seeming wouldn't leave me alone one day and this fell out.

Hearts Desires (ongoing, 2 chps, post canon what if) Still playing with Zach the magician, this one is meant to be a fairly short exploration of magic/runes, Zach's obsession with Jenny, his inability to readjust after the game, and coming out to himself. And tree sex. It's a weird one. Basically, I woke up one morning with the ending of it circling around in my head, wrote that, and am now trying to build up the beginning so the ending has anything to jump off of for impact.

Unpublished pre-canon Jenny thing where she's kind of aware of something (Julian) watching her at night (spicy, pester me about it if you're interested) This one I do have plans to publish, I just need to get it (and myself) ready to show to the world. It asks the question "What if Jenny kinda like the idea of feeling watched all the time and deliberately got off for her imagined (or so she thinks) Shadowman?"

[constantcrisis19]

20 Questions for Fic Writers (& Artists)

AN: I wasn't tagged, but I saw this and just had to do it!

1. How many works do you have on ao3(Tumblr)?

34 works on ao3

51 works on Tumblr

2. What's your total ao3 (Tumblr) word count?

559,311 words on ao3

84,623 words on Tumblr

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Honestly, whatever I'm into at the time (but I have a tendency to bounce around a lot) so I'll just list off a few of my favs to write for:

Call of Duty: MW2

Spider-man: Across the Spider-verse

Rick and Morty

Teen Wolf

Stranger Things

Supernatural

The Walking Dead

4.What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

What Is Meant To Be (Always Finds A Way) | Geraskier | 2,841 kudos

Tell Me Every Terrible Thing You've Done (And Let Me Love You Anyways) | Montgomery Gator & Gregory [Gen] | 2,425 kudos

The Goal Isn't To Live Forever (It's To Create Something That Will) | Winterberg | 2,035 kudos

Sometimes Peace Come From Painful Things | Winterberg | 1,252 kudos

It’s Funny Only Just A Moment (Can Reveal The Universe Intent) | Winterberg | 836 kudos

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

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

I don't always respond to comments, since I usually leave that task to my co-writer (and partner in crime) Tibby. It's the most convenient way to do it because we both collaborate on most of the fics I post and they're much more comfortable with responding to comments.

But if it's a solo fic, then I can usually manage to work through my anxiety and respond to anyone who's kind enough to leave a comment because I genuinely love getting feedback, and seeing people enjoy my work really inspires me to keep writing!

Uhhh... That's gotta be my newer oneshot, Free Fall. It's a SoapGhost fic and a rewrite of the ending of MW3 (Yeah, you know the scene).

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

I've got a few (cause I'm a sucker for a happy ending) but the one I'm gonna go with has to be The Goal Isn't To Live Forever (It's To Create Something That Will). It's a part of the list above and it's currently one of my only completed, multi-chaptered fics.

8. Do you get hate on any fics (Art)?

Unfortunately, yeah. I recently got a particularly rude comment accusing me of using chat ai to write my Geraskier fic, even though it was first published way back in 2020, before chat ai was even a thing that people used regularly.

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

Yup. I usually stick to my comfort zone and write M/M stuff.

Though, in my longer fics, the smut isn't really the main focal point so I tend to keep it pretty tame.

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

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Oh boy. My co-author has actually got me hooked on a crazy rare pair to the point where we wrote a whole fic for it (and are working on the second in the series). It's a Daryl Dixon/Dean Winchester pairing set in the TWD universe.

Nope, thank god.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yup! Someone reached out to me and asked to translate my FNaF: SB fic into Russian.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Sure have, but only with one other person.

14. What's your all-time favorite ship?

Omg, no! I have to pick!?

Well, if forced with a gun to my head, I supposed I'd have to say Rinch (John Reese x Harold Finch from the TV series Person of Interest). I love the show and the characters and the story and the world building. It's just a pairing that I will always keep coming back to no matter how many other ships/fandoms I fall into.

15. What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

My KiriBaku x Among Us crossover fic. The main page, where I had planned out the entire fic, was accidentally deleted and I don't know if I'll ever recover from that since I'd have to rehash the entire rest of the story from scratch if I decided to one day come back to it.

However, that being said, I'm still holding out hope that I'll randomly get a burst of motivation for the story. Who knows.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I'd say my strengths are writing angst, witty banter, and transition paragraphs (since my co-author often gets stuck going on tangents and writing really detailed scenes so they often ask for me to make a segue in order to get us to the next plot point, which works out for everyone).

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

My weakness is definitely in-depth, detailed scenes, hands down. It's kinda embarrassing, but my writing can sometimes lack the descriptive, engaging language necessary to make the story/situation/characters interesting (especially when it's decidedly not a writing day) and it often reads like boring exposition.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I am not fluent in anything other than English, but that doesn't exactly stop me from relying heavily on google translate in order to use other languages in my fics, especially if the character that I'm writing for prefers another language. Take Miguel O'Hara for example, who is canonically bilingual.

The same kind of goes for accents too. I try my best to emulate how the words would sound if the character was actually speaking while writing dialogue. Take for example my SoapGhost fics, where both characters have a thick, distinct accent.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Unofficially (as in never posted): Vampire Diaries.

First fandom I posted to Wattpad (yikes) when I was like twelve: BBC Sherlock

20. Favorite fic you've written?

Jeez, another difficult question. Um... I'm gonna go with What Is Meant To Be (Always Finds A Way), for several reasons.

It was the very first fic that I posted to my ao3 account.

It was the first multi-chaptered fic that I'd ever completed.

I managed to finish and post the final chapter on my birthday (which was a pleasant surprise).

I love it so much that my co-writer and I are actually currently in the midst of lovingly revisiting/revising the entire fic to make it even better!

_____

That was fun! Now for the tagging!

@mistertiberius, @ghostao3, @captain-mj, @fogsrollingin

[whoseafraidofliloleme]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Saw this and decided to do it myself... Obviously no one tagged me. As I carry on procrastinating the final chapter of HYGTG, lemme do this 😂 Also gonna change from AO3 to Tumblr 😊.

1. How many works do you have on Tumblr?

I've got 21 works, majority of them are Enhypen smaus and then there's the few one shots/Imagines. And my longest fanfic which is Invisible a Han Seojun fanfic.

2. What's your total Tumblr word count?

So this is just counting Invisible and the one shots Ive written, 41k... Majority of that is Invisible

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Kpop, specifically the group Enhypen. I add Harry Potter into that.

4. Top five fics by Notes?

Invisible at the top with the masterlist having 649 notes... Ngl seeing this makes me want to rewrite Invisible...

Unexpected Partners has 468 notes. Which makes sense, my Jungwon fics tend to be quite popular.

Peace has 365 notes. This was my first Enha & Harry Potter fic. I do love this one.

You Belong With Me has 337 notes. Another Harry Potter AU with a Jungwon redemption arc...

The Second Choice has 307 notes. Another Jay smau but this one is a Office Au with a toxic bestie.

Honestly apart from Invisible and Unexpected Partners being top 1 and 2, I wasn't expecting any of the other ones on this list.

5. Do you respond to comments?

Yep, I wish I got more comments but I always reply to the comments I do get.

Shout out to @shinkenprincess-oh for always commenting <3

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

I am very much against angsty endings. Happy endings all the way.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

All my fics have happy endings so I don't even know which one has the happiest ending...

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Havent gotten any yet and I dont want to get hate either please.

9. Do you write smut?

Nope and I never will.

10. Craziest crossover?

I guess constantly mixing Harry Potter with kpop is as crazy as my crossovers get.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Thankfully no but I'd like for it to not happen.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope but I am open to it if anyone interested.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Nope, that would be interesting to do though.

14. All time favorite ship?

Okay so thats a hard one... I'm gonna go with my top 4.

Harmione {Harry Potter and Hermione Granger}. I am a diehard Harry and Hermione shipper. I just love them so much.

Olicity {Oliver Queen and Felicity Smoak}. I was shipping them from the moment Felicity was introduced on the show.

Damianette {Marinette Dupain-Cheng and Damian Wayne}. All my knowledge of DC has come from reading Maribat fics and I do not regret that in the slightest.

Rogan {Rory Gilmore and Logan Huntzberger}. They will forever be my ultimate ship. In my headcanon they ended up together happily ever after.

15. What's a wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Its more like whats an idea that I actually want to write... Its a hard one cause I have so many ideas running about in my head that very few of them actually make it to being published...

16. What are your writing strengths?

I guess coming up with backstories for my characters? Making people care even though you are only seeing the story through texts and tweets? Character development and growth?

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Haha... Everything?

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

I think its quite interesting but I would like a translation somewhere so that I at least know whats been said. Unless its important to the plot then its fine.

19. First fandom you wrote in?

Technically it was Pixelberry Choices Mobile Games stories(? dunno what else to call them) specifically I wrote for High School Story and High School Story Class Act. I have since deleted those fics from my tumblr and Wattpad, they are still on AO3 but I've orphaned them.

Invisible my True Beauty fic is the one that I count as the first fandom I wrote in.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

I legitimately cant pick one, so shameless plug for whoever comes across this to check out my Enhypen Masterlist and True Beauty Masterlist.

Whoever wants to do this, go and have fun cause I have no idea who to tag...

[xxwritemeastoryxx]

Updates and Announcements

Wow I haven't done one of these in a while so I think it might be best to do one, right?

First and foremost, welcome to the new followers! I haven't had a chance to welcome you guys in some time. But I appreciate you being here! I hope that whatever it was that helped you to decide that I was worth following continues to happen!

Lets talk about a few things. Remember when I said I was going to move all of my 18+ work over to an after dark page? Well that happened forever ago and I NEVER posted on it again. I made pretty banners and everything for my masterlist and nothing came from it. SO after thinking long and hard about it, I will be deleting that blog altogether and moving everything back over here.

But Dom, what about the Minors that follow you? You see, I thought about it. I thought about just deleting the few fics I have and just moving on, but that feels like a lot like book burning and I'd rather not. So while I can put up several warnings and tag the living crap out of that fic, I can't stop them from ignoring all that.

But to ease my conscious a bit, here are some tags that I'll be using for all things of age. #babies not included #18+ #Dom's trash If you are currently under age, I'd greatly appreciate you adding these to your filters! Thanks!

With that being said, fics like Business or Pleasure and What the Future Holds will be added to the Masterlist here. BoP was simply linked to the afterdark page and thankfully I don't have to repost that. Cause I would absolutely hate to lose all those notes. What the Future Holds will need to be reposted since I'll be deleting the blog it's currently attached to.

I'll be adding a legend to my masterlists. That way it's a little easier to figure out what's what before clicking on them. I used to do this in the very beginning but somehow managed to stop. So that will be starting back up again.

Let's talk fics, next! In case you haven't noticed, some fics have a '-discontinued-' notice right next to it. For the time being, I will NOT be completing those fics. Its not that I don't want to finish them-especially with some close to the end-its just i have no motivation to finish them. Maybe one day I will come back to them. ALSO! SEQUELS! Many requests and comments have been about sequels. Second parts don't always get the same attention as the first. I've been so grateful that Phantom has been getting as much interaction as it has been. But that's because of all of the interactions it had been getting. So what I'm getting at is that I won't be continuing a fic if the interaction is low on it. I'm always happy to make a second part of something, so long as its getting notes. So be sure to interact with your favorites if you want to see it get a second part to it.

Interest Posts will be happening at some point again. I of course want you guys to be enjoying the things I post. I know there has been some notice that I've fully been focusing on Phantom a lot more than anything else. It honestly goes back to the interaction it is getting that is fueling my writing muse for it. So again, be sure to interact with the fics you like.

Remember These Violent Delights? As much as I loved Adriana, she didn't seem to be accepted here on tumblr like I hoped she would and I had eventually taken down that series. So now I wanna give that series another shot as a reader insert. I've been working on it a bit behind the scenes and I hope that this fic will have a better comeback as a reader insert than an OC. Posting dates for that will come soon!

Requests are OPEN! So send in those requests! Incase you need a reminder on who and what I write for, here is a quick list!

Fandoms: The Vampire Diaries Universe Marvel Cinematic Universe

Characters I write for: Elijah Mikaelson * Klaus Mikaelson Kol Mikaelson Damon Salvatore Jackson Kenner Tony Stark Loki Steve Rogers Bucky Barnes* I can write for others if the inspiration is there as well! *Indicates most read/requested fics, along with a larger quantity of fics available to read

I believe that is all I have for now. If you stuck around this long, Thank you so much for doing so and I look forward to interacting more with you guys!

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Report on new directions/future plans in my longterm comedy podcast listening.

Well, I’ve reached the end of the long-term thing that I listened to constantly and nearly exclusively for four months. The Elis James/John Robins XFM/Radio X years, plus a side project of anything else John Robins did at the same time. When I got to the end, I said in a few posts that it felt like it in its last few months it was changing direction a little bit, in a way I didn’t love quite as much, and I knew it the move to the BBC would send it sharply more in that direction (more mature, more professional, among a few other more specific things).

So I wasn’t sure if I would jump right into the BBC episodes, even though I have them all downloaded. Because a while ago I got concerned that they were deleting old episodes, as I’d opened a podcast feed once to find them there and then again later to find the first 24 gone. I’ve since realized those were two different podcast feeds, the official one that for some reason is missing the first 24, and an unofficial one that has them all. But anyway, I became concerned about whether they might disappear, as I always do with any media I like but do not own (in the form of an mp3 or mp4 saved to my hard drive, not just accessing it through some other platform). So I got a very helpful friend who knows about programming scripts to download them all off BBC Sounds and send them to me, and did the same with the XFM/Radio X episodes for good measure, so now even if the podcast feeds take those down for whatever reason I’ll still have them. Not that I expect that to happen but, you know, it does sometimes. Also, cutting out clips is easier if I already have the mp3s and don’t have to keep downloading it every time I want to do that. I am probably a bit overly meticulous with my need to download and save everything I like on the internet, not trusting that it’ll just stay up there. But I’d rather be overly cautious than not cautious enough and lose stuff when it disappears.

I thought I might just move on from the Robins/James stuff after I achieved retro oner status from the Radio X years, but then I went exactly one day without it and immediately found I missed it. It really was perfect for my purposes. I had in on constantly for months during the commutes to and from work, on break or while doing admin at work, and most of the time I was at home. I took a break for a few weeks just before I finished all the episodes, and missed it then. I just got used to it, that many hours of this one type of humour, I decided a day later that I couldn’t just leave it there after all, and I would at least start the BBC ones.

And then. Okay. This is fine. This is objectively fine. It upset me for entirely subjective and pointless reasons. But. Okay. Some time ago – maybe six weeks, I’m not sure and I don’t want to look it up and check – I posted an old video I found on YouTube featuring John Robins. It was a nice video but also clearly from a long time ago and not something he’d chosen to upload as part of his current career, and as such I almost hesitated to share it, but then I did anyway, because it was a nice video and it’s fine.

The other day, it was brought to my attention that that video has been taken off YouTube. I had previously been aware that some people connected to that video had seen my Tumblr post about it, and that freaked me out enough, but I didn't find out that the video got taken off the internet until, fortunately, just after I finished listening to the radio show (fortunate because I'd have found it hard to finish the show while knowing that). It's definitely my fault. It sat there unnoticed for 14 years, since it was uploaded in 2010, and everyone forgot about it, and it was doing fine on there. Then I share it on Tumblr, which brings its existence to the attention of people who’d forgotten about it, and it almost immediately gets taken down.

I of course still have the video, due to my policy that I’ve already outlined in this post. I downloaded it immediately after finding it. But while I downloaded that one, I did find myself thinking, this is a bit silly, even for me. Obviously I don’t need to worry about this one disappearing from the internet. It doesn’t have any kind of copyright issue that could get a strike, it’s a home video just owned by the people who appear in it. It’s been there for 14 years. That’s not going to suddenly change. But I downloaded it anyway, because, I don’t know, what if there’s some wild scenario where they suddenly remember it’s there and get rid of it? It did not occur to me for a moment that me sharing it on Tumblr would be the event that causes that happen. But that is definitely what happened.

Normally, in a case like this, I would make a Tumblr post about how a video I liked has disappeared from the internet, but don’t worry, everyone, I have heroically saved it, and I’ve now uploaded it to Tumblr so people can enjoy it once more. But I won’t do that with this video, because this time, they took it down for the specific reason that they did not want it shared on my specific Tumblr blog. That’s the thing they were trying to prevent.

I will of course respect it, but also, what the hell? Something getting shared on my Tumblr blog does not mean it will be spread around. Any given post of mine is read by like four people. There is no one here, guys, it’s absolutely fine. I do try to have some amount of respect and discretion on this blog with the things I get to listen to that aren’t supposed to be a matter of public record, but I pretty much do that out of theoretical, hypothetical principle. I could say anything, it wouldn’t matter, because no one is reading this. Okay like four people are reading this, but statistically, in the grand scheme of things, no one is reading this. And I promise I won’t tell Steve Bennett. It’s all fine.

It doesn’t actually matter that a short video got taken off YouTube. I’m pretty sure no one actually saw my Tumblr post and thought it was a huge problem and I’d committed a grave error by sharing it. It was an 86-second video of a digital DJ singing a Bob Dylan song in 2010, he wasn’t saying racial slurs or anything. But I had been posting a lot about that radio show over the last few months, including posting some stuff that was probably too personal and getting too into digging up all the stuff I could find around it, and did feel self-conscious that I was taking the fandom too far, and now that I know something I put out there actually did come to their attention and cause them to decide they don’t want that out there, I feel like a child who played with a toy too hard and broke it. And now I don’t want to poke at that toy any more in case I break it further. By which I mean listening to more John Robins at this point will induce what he refers to as the shame well.

So I’m going back to my decision to leave the BBC podcasts, though I will keep them downloaded in case someone suddenly decides to remove them from the internet. And instead, for my next long-term thing that I play on the way too and from work and whenever I get a break or any free time nearly anywhere… I’m not proud of this choice, and I’m not saying I’m definitely going to stick with it. It is possible that this brand of terrible offensive humour will get old quickly, and I’ll want to move to something else because I listen to all the hours of this. But for the moment, I have downloaded every episode of the Ray Peacock Podcast and the Peacock and Gamble podcasts. Downloaded the mp3s off Fourble, because the RSS feeds seem to be missing some stuff, and I just like have these things saved.

I listened to the first seven or so episodes of Peacock and Gamble a while ago now, it repeatedly made me laugh but also made me check to make sure my headphones were definitely connected and no one in the centre for disabled children where I work could hear the kind of filth I was listening to during my breaks. Elis and John never made me feel the need to check on that, which was nice.

I’m just really craving some unprofessionalism in my comedy right now, and that’s got to be the best way to get it. I listened to the first three episodes of the Ray Peacock Podcast today, and Jesus Christ. A lot of different types of offensive going on there. Some that I think are objectively fine even if offensive to some (explicit sexual talk), some not so much (no need to get too specific about that, I’m sure you can imagine). But it was really funny. Made me laugh out loud on the bus, and also check to make sure my headphones were definitely connected on the bus. I'm pretty sure nothing that comes out of Ray Peacock's mouth is true, so that does help.

It's a very easy listen, the way drunk food that's terrible for you is easy to eat. Twice now, I've reached the end of an episode and been surprised because it didn't feel like I'd been listening for that long.

Any comedy radio show or podcast where someone unironically plugs their MySpace page - that's my favourite era. And that's right where we are, in the early Ray Peacock Podcast (I started with Peacock and Gamble when I was just trying it out months ago, but as I might stick with it this time, I'm starting from the beginning). Ed Gamble appears for the first time in episode 4, so that’ll be fun. I haven’t even got to him yet.

That’ll be fine, right? Peacock and Gamble doesn’t feel like a toy I could break, because it has so little respectability to begin with that I couldn’t tarnish it. And unlike John Robins, it’s not like Ed Gamble said anything in a recording around 2010 that he’d prefer not to have someone dig up in 2024 and share on a blog. (That was of course sarcasm, but also there genuinely isn’t a danger of that, because there’s a difference between what level of unacceptable joke I’m willing to laugh at privately, and what I’m willing to publicly endorse by sharing on Tumblr. Someone might cancel Ed Gamble someday, but it won’t be me. And it wouldn't be me even if I posted transcripts of the eight most offensive things he said in 2009, because there are a maximum of four people reading this.)

Seriously though, I might get sick of this after a few more episodes and go back to where I left off the Pappy's podcast, which is my other option. Or even back to BBC Elis/John, after some time for the initial shame well to dry a bit. It's fine. It'll be fine.

[mayalaen]

20 questions for fic writers

@whataboutthefish tagged me - thanks Fishie!!

First, my AO3

How many works do you have on AO3?

191

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

2,150,989

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Supernatural, Stranger Things, Fargo, Stargate, Dickensian, The Blacklist, The X-Files, Angel the Series & Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and I'm probably gonna pick up a few more soon.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

CONventional Psychopathy 'Verse - SPN AU Tumblr Ask Box Requests - SPN 40 ficlet challenge Alpha House 'Verse - SPN AU Resonance 'Verse - SPN canon verse with angel sounds Best Brother Ever - SPN with a technique that has gotten me the most questions from readers saying "does that really work?" Yes it does.

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

I do, but sometimes it takes me a while to respond because I get weird and shy about it at times. I love comments and read them over again when I need a boost!

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

I don't usually have angsty endings, but with CH challenge fics I go ahead and do shit I don't normally do - so Inside (SPN) would be the angstiest ending.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Probably Splintered - ST fic where I throw a lot of shit at the guys but they all get a happy ending.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Yup. I delete comments and asks immediately though so readers and followers hopefully never see any of it. I don't play that game.

9. Do you write smut?

SO MUCH. SOOOOO much.

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

Open Sesame Street Walker has to be the wildest one I've done. It was a challenge fic. A choose your own adventure style thing, and I wanted to make every outcome disturbing. I did it, but at the cost of ruining Sesame Street for myself and others 😂

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yup. CON 'verse is still being sold on a bunch of sites and the "author" is continuing to add more books to the series. I've tried a few times to get them taken down but only succeeded in getting things taken down for a few months. Out of all the fics that could've been stolen, that's the one that's the WORST because I'm also writing it as original fic and have been for years. I've got proof of that, but if retailers fight me on it when I try to publish, it's gonna suck.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes. A few.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I wrote a few years ago but haven't in a while. I'd like to do it again!

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

No way I can answer that. I'm definitely a multshipper at heart, and I can't even decide on favorite characters, let alone a favorite ship!

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Rewritten in the Stars is something I'd love to finish, but I don't know if I'll ever be able to get in the headspace again. It's complicated and rewrites aspects of the characters while sticking closely to canon with a lot of moving parts over a 30-year time frame. The first part of the series feels complete if you read it, but I have 30k written of part 2 and a full outline for part 3.

16. What are your writing strengths?

The thing I get complimented on the most is my worldbuilding. I also think I'm good at natural dialogue - making it sound like actual speech instead of written word.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I have trouble condensing things and it gets wordy 😭

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I've kinda sorta done it with alien language and angel language, a few words here and there of other languages - most of it just English in italics to show that it's not being said in English. I don't think I'd ever try and use an actual language I didn't know for more than a word or two.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Stargate SG1

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

CON 'verse is and probably always will be my favorite. 💜

Tagging from my activity list with no obligation to do it: @actualalligator @medusapelagia @wheels-of-despair @kallisto-k @ltleflrt @peachonified @underwater-ninja-13

If anybody else wants to play, please tag me so I can see your stuff!

[hummingbird-games]

Dev Diaries

March 5th, 2024

So. We're 3 months into the new year. Huh.

Updates from me? I started a new job! I've been reading/catching up on a toooooon of manga lately (I'm also sloooooowly making my way through a nonfiction read and can't help thinking how Corey would heavily sympathize with me. Sigh.)

I also got another free month of Spotify (lol, I think I'm the only person I know who only uses the free plan because I'd rather spend that money elsewhere??) so I've been on a listening spree and flagging songs for a writing playlist I will use for the majority of the HSDJY 2 drafting process moving forward.

I still have yet to play BG3. My family gifted me the physical edition, so I've been impatiently waiting for it to ship out. It's been 84 years JFJEHFJHJF!!

Hmmm...nothing else interesting has happened to me (that I can publicly share ☠️) so on with the game development updates!!!!!

What Has Gemini Been Up To? -> TKD (again)

March 16th!!! Y'all, this is the deadline the team and I are working towards for a finished and published game 😭 unfortunately my plans for full voice work won’t be realized by then (but they will be realized. Just in a few months. Honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me if y'all get the updated HSD 2 demo before the fully voiced TKD….)

What Has Gemini Been Up To? -> HSD:JY and Ko-fi

Ko-fi first!!

It’s only been a few months (since November??) but I’m super proud of my posting consistency! Granted, I’m a little anxious about how posts will look moving forward once I start moving major updates and general silliness to Tumblr. But. We shall cross the bridge when it appears.

March snuck up on me and I only have the free and any-paid-support ready, but the subbies are just There™️. That being said...when I'm quiet or posting non-Hummingbird content here, there's 99.9% chance I've made a free post on ko-fi.

Tumblr is looking like the other social media platforms right now with its flagrant support of AI, and it gives me a headache trying to decide how to keep everyone informed as well as share posts from my peers and new kids on the block. Anyhoo!!!

High School Daze goodies??

At the time of this post, a couple things have been happening that I haven't had the time (or the energy) to talk about. The obvious? HIGH SCHOOl DAZE: JUNIOR 2 HAS AN ITCH.IO PAGE!! I...have no idea when the full game will be out. I have an idea...but I don't want to say it and feel obligated to make that deadline just so I don't disappoint players. (I'm well aware that some people took one look at Crushed, went "Aww, that's nice, Gemini. Now where's HSD??" 🤣)

The first round of sprites have been commissioned!! If you peeped the key art (also done by my sprite artist, heehee she's lovely) you might notice some new outfits, some new hairdos. Fingers crossed I'll be able to update the page--to mirror the debut game's page--at the same time the new demo goes live (which will showcase all of or at least 75% of the common route of the full game. Stay tuned to find out if we'll focus on the friendship route or if I can defeat the Coding Monster to include all the variations for the romances too aha).

Writing wise? Five of the six total routes are outlined. (Florence's I've…barely started 🥲…this pre-production thing is kicking my ass). I’ve started drafting out the friendship route too, as seen by the random posts I’ve made about HSDJY 2. Well, a combination of friendship route + the common route with its lovely variations that aren’t a nuisance at all. Nope. *eye twitch*

I alsooooooo discovered that all the raw and edited music I created for HSD and for personal projects over the years using GarageBand were deleted. And I never backed them up. So. The tracks I made, the jingle for the splash screen, the main theme and it's 2 variations, and alllllll the little cute things I made that are as old as my own high school days are....gone.

Poof!

If I sound very calm about this, what an astute observation! But my anxiety is being used elsewhere, and I decided that I while I can't go back to the original files to tweak them, I've backed up the other files. And I don't mind starting from scratch with this.

But also y'all, please back up your shit. Please. Don't be caught slipping.

That poll I made a while back that now has results and I totally didn't forget about?? The boys won!! And I'm not surprised 🤣 I haven't decided yet if I'll do a live developer stream or a prerecorded one, but either way it'll happen closer to October, the 2nd anniversary date.

What Will Gemini be Up To?? -> Rest?!?!?

I assumed a lot of things about what would be done or not done by March, and that led me to loosely block out March as a 'rest' month. I wouldn't work on any projects, and instead would read, play console and computer games, and basically take the break I didn't take in December.

Well. The Knight Dance is still in production. And I commissioned sprites earlier than expected. And I didn't plan enough ko-fi content to be scheduled in my absence. LOL and I started a new job!? 🥹

But!!! But but but, I do need to take some type of break so I'll do my best to be scarce in this space (and lower the temptation to work because I see y'all are working LOL). Cool? Cool!

- Gemini 💛

[gobs-o-dice]

If I may wax nostalgic for a moment:

So, yeah, this account got deleted by hackers, which sucks, but I can always rebuild it, bit by bit.

This is way more of a huge personal essay than I'd normally do, especially on this sideblog, but it's about this blog specifically, so I think it's really only appropriate that it goes here.

(Rambling got long-ish, so putting in a cut to keep your dashboards clear of clutter - Because it turns out I have some feelings about this blog)

(TL;DR: Thank you all for your kind words and support over the years. This blog meant something to me, it still means something to me, and I'm going to keep working at it - Rebuilding it one piece at a time. I look forward to continue engaging and re-engaging with you all again as I do so)

I had my main tumblr account for something like 5 years by the time I started this sideblog. And I never really had any sort of focus on my main, I was just your general nerdy blogger.

But at some point - 2016-2017, judging by my photos timeline, I started getting really into collecting sets of dice. In as much as I was accumulating them at a much, much faster rate than I'd ever done so before.

My first set was bought when I was still in high school, probably no later than 2003-2004. I know I had at least 5 total sets by the time I finished my first undergrad degree in 2009 and moved across the country for a job. I'm pretty sure I got the 6th set on a trip back home to visit friends during that year I was working. The 7th, I honestly can't remember. Maybe 2011 at a con? That seems like something I'd do.

My 8th set was definitely purchased in the lead-up to my sister's wedding in 2014 - I specifically bought it to match their purple and blue colour scheme because we used the d20 to stop people from clinking glasses to get them to kiss (if people wanted to get them to kiss, they'd have to roll 10+, otherwise, they'd have to find someone to kiss, themselves).

I wasn't taking photos of sets as I got them yet, so this has been a bit of guesswork and memory.

I can confirm that by the end of 2016, I had bought my 15th and 16th sets. I started showing off my shinies, probably here and on twitter. I think even some basic photos made it to facebook/instagram before I realized not many friends and family cared too much about them over there.

2017, I can see set #23 appears in a photo, among others previously.

By September 2018, Sets #44, #45, and #46 were bought at a convention - These are the three sets you can see in the mouth of the yarncraft mimic in my profile picture (also bought at that convention). So, yeah, definitely a steep acceleration in my dice-buying (this was about the time I started buying dice online rather than just in physical stores, I do believe). Overall, a huge shift in my approach and drive towards collecting dice around this point.

It's around here I really start taking photos of my dice, playing around with my flashlights and such for different lighting effects - Basically the first forms of the kind of photos that would become my "brand", such as it is. I think it's here too that I started aspiring to make a character to pair to each individual set (While I do have many, many characters, I can tell you that some of these first sets still don't have characters for them yet. So, y'know, I'm nothing if not consistent in my inability to focus).

The first bunch of these sort of photos were posted to my main, but eventually I decided to start doing the dice posting on a sideblog, so as not to completely flood my main with not only my dice, but all the dice I was reblogging, as through my posts, I had found that there was indeed a community here of dice fans - Often posting their own creative photos.

Now, I've never been exactly quiet about what was going on in my life at that time - The summer of 2018, I had to take a medical leave of absence from my PhD program in university, because my migraines had been worsening from episodic to chronic over the past year or so. I had thought that maybe it was burnout, and I'm sure that's not an insignificant part of it, along with the then-undiagnosed adhd, I was just unable to function in general.

So, I took that summer off, then was genuinely feeling better and came back and tried to pick up again - But as the stress of getting back into things picked up again, it was clear that I was not in fact better. And the meds I was on at the time put me in a near-permanent brain fog, so I just was not able to function on an intellectual level like I had been. I could muddle my way through reading ecology papers that presented broad, easily-followed narratives, but highly technical microbiology and genetics papers, which were a slog at the best of times, became literally impossible to meaningfully read and acquire the sort of information I needed from them.

So, January 2019, I made the painful decision to withdraw from my PhD program. And I was utterly crushed by this point - Y'know, with whatever energy I had left to feel emotions. There is nothing quite so gutting as believing you're better and can handle things, and then finding out that you absolutely cannot, and feeling like you're letting everyone down because you can't keep up with even the bare minimum of responsibilities. I truly do not want this sort of thing to happen again, hence why I really do want to get my migraines under control before I consider going back to school or work - And it's been basically 5 years now. My education and experience have absolutely atrophied, possibly to the point that I'd essentially be starting pretty fresh and need to be brought back up to speed on so much that I'm not sure its something I want to ever tackle.

Anyway, that was where I was when I decided to make this sideblog. It was always, first and foremost, a place where I could post my nerdy photos, ramble about my characters, and just generally go whole-hog in on my nerdy TTRPG-related hobbies. And if other people found what I was posting enjoyable, well, it was all the better.

February 2019, before I moved back home, is the first folder that I can distinctly say I did a series of hoard photos. I wasn't using the term hoardscape yet. And they weren't styled exactly like that, but the genesis of the idea is there - I'm calling these pre-hoardscapes as I do my daily image re-upload. May 2019 was the first time I consciously set out to take photos of the hoard all mixed together. There's some weirdness as I included minis and other nerdy things in this first batch, but the overall style was now something I was fully enjoying - Photoing the dice from angles that made them look like rolling hills or other styles of heaps/piles emerging from one main pile - ie: Trying to make it look like I was taking a photo of a landscape made of my entire dice hoard. I have these labelled as "Hoard Shots" in this folder, but my numbering of them starts there. The next batch, June 2019 was where I started labelling them with the term "Hoardscape". I'm glad that people liked this term and it got used beyond just myself.

In total, I took over 1200 hoardscape photos between 2019 and 2021, not including the photo sessions where I did specific arrangements of specific die-types, since I had to sort them all before putting them away again anyway. So over three years of material for daily content, in addition to the shots I did of individual sets and other flights of fancy I'd have.

It'd be hyperbolic to claim that these "saved my life" or some other cliche like that. But they probably saved my sanity at least a little bit. They've given me something to do that was novel and creative. Something engaging, something to aspire to do, something to look forward to that wasn't the same "wake-up, watch tv, surf the net, play video games" routine I found myself otherwise in. Something to have some tangible ambition towards, however ultimately frivolous it is. Something with a schedule and structure that I felt compelled to adhere to.

This sort of stuff was great for me too, in that I could work on creative projects according to my own, quite nocturnal, inconsistent schedule (You'll notice that pretty much all of my photos of individual sets are also done at night, which was eventually also partially so that the lighting could be consistent). I could work for a few hours at a time, according to however much energy/focus I had. And if I had a bad day, I wasn't obligated to do any specific amount of work at it each day or anything. It was work, in the sense of something productive to do. And honestly, I thoroughly believe you need something that at least feels productive to work at (at your own pace), so that you don't go completely batty with boredom. And that the photos resonated with people out there was absolutely fantastic too. I was honestly a little surprised and always utterly delighted when people would mention my style of dice photos as inspirations for their own creative works - Their own photos or otherwise.

Heck, at one point I had great ambitions to maybe start turning hoardscape-type shots into jigsaw puzzles. Well, that kind of fizzled - We did do one small session using my brother's actual, serious camera instead of my camera phone, and got a jigsaw puzzle made from that high-res shot, but in terms of actually making puzzles from my photos consistently? Well, not so much. Unless, like, some company picked up and licensed my/our photos or something for printing themselves, there was no way we could feasibly afford getting enough made up to sell at any sort of reasonable price. And as fun as it was, to make this, puzzles, I really didn't think it'd be practical to order 1000 of any single design, let alone more than one design to have some variety, and then try to find some market to sell them in.

But hey, this is a fun little treasure of my own to have, even if it was, like $60

Admittedly, as much as I loved doing these shots, there were things that made them increasingly difficult to keep doing new ones of - The way it took over the family room area with my hoard meant that I really only wanted to do them when the rest of my family was gone for long stretches of time - Over a week or so, to give me enough time to get a decent amount of new material and then go through the process of re-sorting and repacking my dice after getting those photos, but also getting any sort of bonus shots - Like once I got the actual stage, taking photos with it, instead of just on the mug warmer (The mug warmer was a decent stage for someone operating with no real budget and still focused on getting more dice, okay? :P). But then the hoard continued to grow and swell (because I'm a sucker for buying more and more dice, after all), which meant that the cleanup process took longer and longer. I mean, it eventually got to the point that the table I used as an auxiliary for sorting was too small for everything to be on there period, let alone with any real clarity to which set was which. And it was more and more painful - Sitting there hunched over, searching and sorting for hours to get everything back to its proper home in my storage bins left my back, neck, and shoulders utterly stiff and sore for days afterwards, which isn't exactly fun. The final big one is that in 2021, for my mom's birthday, my family got a new kitten for the first time in years. As much as I loved Ollie , I knew he absolutely could not be trusted with a big pile of dice just left out in the open. And after his tragic passing [RIP poor Little Bud. Sometimes biology just plain sucks, and it sucks that you apparently got dealt a bad hand], we eventually got Lilah, who much the same, is a cat. And leaving small, shiny things they can bat around out in the open is just a bad idea if you don't want to lose those things.

That's not to say that I've closed the door completely on doing more hoardscapes ever again. It's just that I'll definitely have to think about my approach carefully. One thing with my family having moved into the home that was my grandma's farm, is that I have a much bigger room now I could theoretically set up a table or something in here and keep it closed off, mostly solving the cat and "taking over a communal space" problem.

But, I guess for now, I think I have a pretty large amount of back-content to get back through - I'd even been reposting my old hoardscapes for quite a while now, and I guess I'm starting from the very beginning. So, new hoardscapes are not necessarily going to be something I rush to do. But it's not a hard-"absolutely never again" situation, either.

Anyway, I'm doing much better overall now (better meds/treatment/management, other diagnoses, living at home where I don't have to worry about day-to-day stuff falling by the wayside, etc.) , but still haven't returned to school or work because the migraines still are such that they're really not conducive to participating in capitalism - Most places are unhappy if you take more than the equivalent of 1 day per month off. I have constant low/mid-level headaches, with spikes into the upper end of the scale as the weather shifts. I can't recall a month that I haven't had at least three of those "absolutely not"-level days since all this started. In addition to them not being a consistent, predictable schedule. It just doesn't really provide a good work schedule. And the lingering fatigue is often more generally-limiting than the headaches themselves - Especially when combined with the adhd, so efforts towards self-employment/productivity of any sort are similarly sabotaged - As you no doubt might have surmised from my wildly inconsistent surges of creative output. So basically, for now, I'm still not really going to be working in a traditional sense. At most, I might pick up some of those online gig-type-things at some point, but that'll depend heavily on how that interacts with the government support payments I receive.

If nothing else, there's a good chance I'll get little projects from my family - I already transcribed my grandma's old cookbook to send around to my family, and am just waiting on my mom to help do some final edits for the text stuff. If I get really ambitious, I might try making as many of the dishes (mainly the baked goodies, lol) in there as I can to add photos into it for extra style points (and yeah, if I set out to cook everything in there, it will absolutely be a thing I make another sideblog about, and probably something I even upload content to instagram or youtube about - But that's all probably a long ways off from now). There's other stuff of my grandma's that I'll probably work on transcribing and organizing - Her "red book", as we call it, all the family history and such - Essentially a wiki before wikis were a thing (Note to future self: Is there a wiki-type thing you could use for this? It might be a more intuitive way to link entries).

Nevertheless, now that my hyperfixation seems to have swung back this way, towards creating D&D-related stuff, I'm going to keep at it. I've decided to spin off my character/lore posting to a new side-sideblog (@gobs-o-cs), and since I don't think I'll be reviewing each set of dice as I upload them again, I'll try to keep the individual set posts to a more *aesthetic*-look.

Honestly, the individual set uploads are the most I've lost with these blog resets. those comments (along with those on dicemails and such) are lost, because I generally just wrote them here and didn't think too much about backing them up anywhere.

All of the lore stuff I generally have saved in various other spots. The biggest loss on that front was all the work I'd put into organizing sub-pages on my blog for a character list and pages for individual characters. I'll definitely have to look into less-fiddly ways of keeping things sorted (Honestly, if I get really ambitious, I might have to look into those wiki-style things for writers/creators).

Okay, this was a lot longer (and maybe only a bit rambly-er) than I was planning for it to be.

(Although, when you do stream-of-consciousness-type essays rather than setting out with with any sort of specific plan, that's what'll happen. Hopefully I haven't left too many orphaned paragraphs as I've jumped around to different thoughts, lol).

The long and short of it is that this blog was exactly the sort of project I needed to give myself at a time when I was pretty much bottomed out in life. This was never a huge internet presence or anything, but I know there were quite a few people following towards the end of things. I certainly would be intimidated if I were standing up in a room and giving a presentation to well over 1000 people, not to mention other people who would reblog or like things even if they weren't specifically followers. But it was never about having a huge audience or anything like that. It's something I enjoyed, and will continue to enjoy and keep at for now. And if it re-finds its audience and continues to find an audience, well then, that's all the better.

Once again, thank you all very much for popping in here. Thank you to all of those who have liked and reblogged the silly dice photos I post, the stories I tell, and the random thoughts I follow to whatever conclusion they end up at. Especially thank you to everyone who's ever left a kind word on any of my posts - In the comments, in the tags, wherever.

I'm so glad you've all enjoyed my strange little hobby so far, and I hope you'll continue enjoying it as I work to put it all back up here, piece by piece.

[kenobster]

I haven’t seen you post anything on ao3 since July, did I miss something??? (referring to your zero notes zero kudos post)

No, you didn't miss anything on my ao3. I've just been going through an Anakin whump phase on my tumblr lately (with answers to asks and miscellaneous posts and fanart -- some of which I already deleted when they got 0 notes, including a fanart I posted today. So even if you go looking, you wouldn't find all of them). So because of that, whether or not it's true, it personally feels like ppl aren't interested in certain things I'm excited about (tho the like.... three or four people who have shown interest, tyvm). And I'm really grateful to everyone who has read my fics on ao3. If I didn't have that huge bewildering amount of support to fall back on, I'm sure I'd be a lot worse off. So I greatly appreciate that. And at the very least, if all else fails, my mom will show support for all of my posts/fanart/fics lmao. Anyway, so I'm well aware lots of ppl dont have those things to rely on, so I'm hella not trying to take them for granted. ❤️ I'm very grateful and feel very lucky that so many people have said such kind and heartfelt things about my writing.

But there are certain things I still carry a lot of shame for liking. No one could ever make me feel ashamed about 5PE, but my biggest dream is to one day draw Anakin dubconnishly sucking Palpatine's dick. And my favorite fic universe to fantasize abt rn is the Vader Mpreg one. And those are things I do feel ashamed for liking at times. So when those are the things I post (currently on tumblr) that get 0 attention (esp when other things are getting attention), it sorta starts to reinforce the shame I'm already feeling.

Like, I spent 8 hours yesterday drawing that fanart I posted (which I deleted a few minutes ago). I skipped dinner and stayed late at work for 2 hours on Friday to finish writing this post on my work computer (bc my personal pc crashes if i try to make tumblr posts). Did I make either post to get notes? No. It was fun for me. Just the process of it was fun for me. I enjoyed myself so much!!! Totally worth it.

But do I regret posting them publicly instead of just keeping them for myself and my friends? ... Honestly, yeah, I kinda do.

Probably people did like the posts but are afraid to be seen liking things so dark and deranged. And like, that's okay, because I'm brave, I'm super brave, and I will be the first to post any deranged content out of any group of people. But I have limits, too. And if people are willing to read 5PE or shadow AU but not willing to read about Vader's uterus, then I start to feel less brave. :/ And I start to become demoralized over other things too.

Like, I was set to post chapter 10 of 5PE this weekend, but I haven't been able to work on it. Every Shadow, being less dark, is even harder to work on. Because if my perception is that ppl find me sick and grotesque and deranged for my most fucked up ideas (that's my perception, not necessarily reality), then it hurts to have my tamer content be supported instead.

Is that fair to yall? No, not at all. Am I trying to guilt trip anyone? Absolutely not. It's just a current unfortunate reality that's bumming me out, and there's not much anyone can do to change it. I just gotta let the feelings run their course.

Anyway thanks for reaching out anon. I feel better having been able to air all of this. Though I'll probably still step away to some extent (how long? who knows. The depressive episode will decide. But prob not for that long.

[neveralarch]

You said older fics were open 👀 👀 so 1, 5, 9 for Passé please because I’m obsessed with it

(transformers fencing au, megatron & starscream, wheeljack/starscream)

Thank you for asking about passe!! I've been holding onto this until I had enough time to give it a good answer haha

(under the cut for brief references to abuse in sport)

1: What inspired you to write the fic this way?

The basic story behind fencing au is that I was refereeing at a fencing tournament and the person who'd been put as my roommate spent one evening telling me about everyone in fencing who had Wronged them. I'd already heard a lot of these stories from the other side, versions where this person had been causing the drama instead of receiving it. None of it was very serious and I don't know what the 'correct' version was but it just got me thinking about like... The stories we tell ourselves and the ways we justify things we've done wrong or that've been done to us.

At the same time, fencing (and Olympic sports in general) were going through a lot of discussions about how to confront abuse, and what to do with people who had been punished and returned to the sport, and I kinda just wanted to muddle through this in a fictional space with robots. This is pretty much what I do with all heavy topics nowadays.

(ughh tumblr deleted this next paragraph, WHY)

It was always my intention to finish the main story arc with a Megatron pov fic where you'd finally get that other side of the story that had been hinted at. Where you'd see that Megatron was likeable and trying to genuinely come back to this sport he loved ... But also have to confront that he really did poison it in ways that were maybe worse than you thought. It was super cathartic to write but I was a little worried about how it would be received. It's been so great over the years to see how it's resonated with people.

5: What part was hardest to write?

Fun fact, Passe was written pretty much entirely by voice memo. I drive 45 minutes each way to fencing so I used to write fic on the way back at night and then edit it as I typed it up later. This is actually great for just getting a first draft out of yourself but you also have to remember a Lot. Which is why I accidentally wrote the final bout twice. And then had to edit the versions together haha.

In general, it was really tricky to figure out how to write fencing action in a way that was accurate without being tedious or confusing to the non fencer. I also spent a LOT of time on that final confrontation with starscream, bc I wanted it to be satisfying without descending into stiff therapy roleplay. Lots of tricky parts!

9: Were there any alternate versions of this fic?

Tbh since I had the whole thing planned out early, I never really considered alternate versions. EXCEPT that before I decided it would be distracting to shove in this much detail and a little jarring to the tone, the first team Megatron fenced was supposed to be Kup and his buddies Phork and Spuun.

[clippedwingsmuses]

ooc: new ooc icons are still a wip but!! i thought i'd go ahead and show what i've got cooked up so far! i think i'm going to use these as the basis for all of my icons on this blog, cause i'm kinda attached to the design to be honest, but i'm considering making the main square a little bit smaller so i might have to widen the icon itself (theyre supposed to be 50x50 but tumblr is making them bigger even tho ive got icons with the same dimensions...........)

i've done a lot of rambling for this post, so i'm going to be putting all of the extra info i have typed out under the cut! (extra info includes some fun facts about these icons, new muses i'm bringing to the blog, the status of my icon making, etc.)

first off, yes i'm using song lyrics for these icons; i'm gonna try to make the icons have song lyrics from their theme songs that i picked out (which includes my icons, the lyrics are from nothing by catie turner bc its a song that i resonate with a lot)

and yes im also using pride flags for these icons!! the amount of pride flags may fluctuate based on my character headcanons, so the amount will vary between just 2 and all 4 of them; the flags in my icon in particular, in order (top to bottom), are transmasc, boyflux, uranic, and the 2019 polyamorous flag

anyways, i'm going to work on the rest of my ooc icons tomorrow! i will also get to work on editing all of my character icons...... it's going to be a hellish process (primarily because surge and twilight have well over 150 icons i'll have to re-edit) but that's the joy of running a multimuse is icon making lol, and i kind of miss doing it

my main 4 characters (kieran, kitsunami, wanderer, & kokichi) will have their icons done first since they are priority characters. i will slowly work on everyone else's icons as i go. all of my muses will still be available! they will just be iconless for the time being

i'll be using a mix of my old icons and new icons until all of the new icons are done (old icons will be used if that character's new icons aren't done yet) and all of my new muses will get the new icon style right away!

with that being said, i want to announce the new muses here since i haven't made a proper post about it (or i deleted it lol); the brand new muses i am bringing to this blog include rose quartz (and pink diamond), lapis lazuli, boyfriend, and kinitoPET!

additionally, i have taken a look at my considerations list and i have decided that i will officially be bringing puss in boots, discord, and bonnie to the blog! the newest muse up for me to consider is amethyst, so she has been added to the list in replacement of the others that i'm officially taking on or removing

speaking of removals, i've decided to remove mordecai and mystery from my considerations entirely, as i cannot effectively play them until i fully invest myself in learning their lore in its entirety (i was planning to play them primarily based on just the lackadaisy pilot and the msa episodes, but that's not the best course of action i can take right now)

so yeah, i think i'm finally done rambling now! with all that being said, i am 100% going to be active tomorrow! as always, every meme in my memes tag is open to be sent to the askbox, and i'll work on responding to roleplays or sending out unprompted/meme things inbetween my icon making (based on whoever is active), so i'll see you guys tomorrow! (after i finish my daily artfight attack ofc lol)

[olivieraa]

its gotten to the point where this word is basically slang since everyone uses it, but it reminds me of ocd as well since everyone uses ocd to describe being quirky or neat or somewhat clean, but "hyperfocused" is a word that's so attached to my being, that it irks me beyond belief when I see people describe their hyperfixation or whatever on something fucking stupid in which they really could just use the word "focused"

hyperfixation is absolutely integral to my ocd. its one of the main things I cant control.

the best way I can put it is someone being lazy and so they decide to procrastinate, do literally anything other than what they're supposed to be doing. and they just cant bring themselves to do the thing. they continuously nope out of it even when they sit their asses down to do the thing and then they're like "ah I need to go to the store for toothpaste!"

I have a fear of hyperfocusing on something bc then that's it. I'm glued to that till I'm finished/its over/its done, whatever it may be. could take days, or weeks, or months.

it has screwed me up in school, in jobs, in college, even just being online.

I used to love watching AMV's when I first entered the internet. just casually watching them. until my brain realised I shouldn't just casually watch them. they should be organised and categorised. and then 3 categories became 8, and then 14, and then I had 20 playlists of AMV's based on things I cant even remember until I one day had to stop watching AMV's altogether bc I turned it into a chore. and I knew then at that point they couldn't be enjoy anymore. I couldnt just put one on for fun. I knew I'd categorise it, and want to go onto the next one, and do it to that too. so I stopped altogether and never went back. this simple fun quick thing I cut off completely.

on tumblr, I casually reblogged everything and anything on this site when If irst came on here until I realised what tumblr actually was and had to start tagging things so that they were organised on my blog. but oh no. I didn't just tag the character, the anime, and the whatever else. it got to the point where a reblogged picture of just Joey had about 18 tags. to make matters worse, I wanted my tags alphabetical, and it was during the time you couldn't rearrange the order of tags. so if I realised I was missing a tag that started with the letter c, I had to delete all the previous tags to put that c word in and then retag again. post after post after post. I got to page 100 on my blog before I panicked that I may have missed something and started again. ...and then I started again. and again. so I stopped tagging. bc I stopped going to school bc I was tagging my blog. that's all I did for days. I didn't do anything else. I was completely focused on the organisation of my blog. and so I had to stop myself from ever tagging again. my '#niece watches' tag doesnt count bc they're there mainly for blocking purposes lmao

another online example, it happened at christmas when I decided to watch attack on titan. I'd made the decision to start again from the beginning (despite having seen season one 4 times) bc my plan was to put on something I could casually watch and pause and do work and then take breaks and go back to watching and it'd be so easy.

nope. I binged 100 eps in 5 days. I went to bed at 5-6am. I couldn't stop. and I'm not even kidding, the best way I can describe it is, lets say you've the most important test of your life in 1 week. and you need to study. and you ASSUME that during your lil break times you can casually watch attack on titan, SPECIFICALLY for chosen break times, maybe once and hour, but studying is priority bc the exam is in ONE WEEK and you haven't started studying. so maybe you'll get through like, idk, maybe 7 eps a day?

episode fucking ONE hooked me in. an ep I've seen so many times. HOOKED me in. like I hadn't seen it before. I was absolutely glued to it. ep 1 ends and I'm like "oh wait I should study............ but like, its fine. I'll do one more ep and then do EXTRA study."

another ep, another ep, another ep. I got to ep 6 and was about to click 7 and was like

to my goddamn brain.

I momentarily won. I managed to do about 20 mins of study, then watched ep 7-14 in a row. still on day one. I opened a book for a total of 20 mins. so I promise myself, bc this test is so important and high priority, that I'll properly start tomorrow.

it never happened. I did nothing other than watch that show and do basic necessities. for 5 days. I had no control over this decision. its like there's another me who always wins. always wins. and she's evil. I had to finish the show before I could move on. it had to be complete.

I dont know how to get out of these moments. I remember when I went to my second ever job I told them about how it screwed me over a little in my first retail job (stocking shelves, oh but didn't those shelves need to be perfect. even if I was supposed to have been on aisle 4 or 5 by the time the managers came back to check in on me, no no I was still on aisle one perfecting aisle one. and nobody was going to ruin it for me, boss or not.)

and they told me it seemed like a good thing in the second job! but I was like "no I cant let it happen here, I cant. it gets bad."

and it happened. they put me in charge of a task and I found it hard to do anything other than perfect that task to the point that I was focusing on doing that same thing every day to keep it perfect, even when I was told to do something else.

so... yeah. they overuse of hyperfixation and hyperfocusing when people just mean "I was focused on this thing" drives me insane

crazy person rant over

[amaliabijou]

030224

so since I apparently have a serious problem with keeping my actual diary up to date I decided to ditch my on-paper one and use Tumblr instead. do ppl actually still use this platform?

funny story actually on why I chose Tumblr as my new diary platform: I just finished watching the Cecil hotel documentary on Netflix where they thoroughly talked about the mysterious Elisa lam case. and miss girl inspired me with her Tumblr-diary-blog-thingy she had going on to give it a shot. great timing actually, I just got my new MacBook like- 2 days ago?? and since I'm waiting for my uni semester to start I don't really have a reason to use it for anything else but for netflix and YouTube, so this seemed too perfect not to try it.

yeah since I really do wanna treat this as my actual diary, especially because I don't believe that a single soul will ever find this account and actually be interested in my boring little life, I might as well talk about life recently.

so for the first time in a loooong time I'm in the middle of a serious talking stage. trust and believe when I tell you that I would've never thought that I'd have something so serious going on with THAT particular guy. we already have history and now that we're older it kind of worked out pretty well. but as much as I like him and as much as I try to put my all in this thing we have, I can't help but to crave attention from other men. and I don't think its because he's not. giving me enough or because I don't like him enough, I just don't know why I have these thoughts. I can't help myself but to redownload tinder every other week, just to delete it again after a day of swiping. I hate it it's weird and annoying because he doesn't deserve that. he's being totally loyal, even though we are not even official yet and im the first girl he let in his life after a long long year of being totally happy by himself. I feel bad, but not as bad as I should be feeling if that makes any sense. I just hope that this is just a phase and I'll grow out of it soon. Maybe it's just out of habit tbh. I'm so used to being surrounded by multiple men because I've emotionally been alone for such a long time, only screwing around and having fun, that I actually forgot how it feels like to work on something real and mature with someone. I hope I'll be able to set my priorities and feelings straight. needs to happen ASAP.

to be continued tomorrow (hopefully)

- bizzzzz

[callsignfate]

ACK- long authors note.

(TL;DR: I post once a day minimum, I take too long to edit posts in my own overly complicated way of writing, and it's getting a tad bit out of hand. I love posting, but I want to make sure I have content for the long run. If I post more than once a day, it's kinda a bonus post.)

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Fate here,

I just wanted to let you know that I post once a day. Minimum. If I post more than once in a day, that was just something I finished early, or I decided to post something different the following day and decided why the fuck not?

If you see a vote, that just means I've finished writing all of the things on the vote list, and they just need to be edited. On my last vote, I did say I'd post the top three that day, but the Valeria x fem!reader story (Personal Exile) took WAY longer to edit than I had initially realized. I had added more, didn't like some of it, and rewrote it. It's a process.

For anyone wondering how I write its kinda convoluted. I write on my phone notes app because I'm chronically busy. I live on a farm so it's very 'go go go' with little breaks to go to my computer. So I write a VERY rough draft in my notes app. I then copy and paste it over to my computer to a Google document. It's then in the stage where I read it, rewrite it, and read it again.

After that, it gets looked over on grammarly because I suck with grammar. Finally, it gets read over one more time and briskly editing any last things before it gets copied and pasted into Tumblr! I title it, find a gif, add some final details like the another's note, and then finally posted.

Now wait, you can make that easier!

I know, I really do. I just like the way I write. It's convenient for how my life works. Now I'm not saying anyone else should write this way or not write this way. You do what works best for you! I also like how I have multiple drafts in different places because I've almost lost or deleted things a few times.

So, wait, you're not posting multiple times a day?

Nope, sorry to anyone who loved the near constant flow of material to read. I have spent every free moment writing, and at first, I thought I had plenty of little things in my phone notepad to post. I was kinda wrong. I do, but not if I still want to create and write more. I currently have a ton of things thar are finished or almost finished. That just needs to be edited.

Editing is actually, like I said, a little harder because I do it at my desktop, meaning I have to be at my desktop to do it. This means I have to stop doing farm chores to do it, which is usually the end of the day.

So you post once a day? When?

Usually, once a day, if more than that means I wasn't as busy and had time to post, edit, or write. I usually post at different times, mainly later in the evening (EST).

I will be doing more votes to see what you want to see next! I love to make sure anything I post is what you guys want to see more of! I will say I have plans to post a few bonus Laswell and Farah things that will all be x!fem reader because I have been posting a lot of Valeria. Who I love to write for don't get me wrong, but I wanna make sure I have plenty of posts for all three of them.

I currently like to make sure I have the next part or the next few parts written or planned out so that if I can't write or fall behind, you guys still have the next part no matter what!

Thank you for every like, repost, comment, everything! It means a lot to me, and it honestly motivates me to write. I promise I see you all liking and commenting, and I deeply appreciate it!

Now, let's get back to your regularly scheduled program!

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