#before anyone sees this (specifically THOSE people that always come in my inbox) i get the debbie and matty situation. stop reminding me.

[m4ndysk4nkovich]

it lowkey makes me uncomfortable how cool you all are with sandy’s treatment of prince

[four-loose-screws]

Hi! I’ve seen people people say that Dimitri speaks in an informal rude manner in Japanese so him being super polite in English is weird changes his character a lot, but I’ve also seen people say the localization is just fine. Could you clear up please? Thank you!

This ask has been in my inbox forever, and I know other ENG/JP bilingual FE fans have weighed in on this topic before. But exploring the nuances of Japanese formal vs. casual speech is always super fun, so I want to share my own thoughts too. There's always a chance there will be more to learn with each new person's input on the same topic. Plus, I discovered some things even I didn't expect! So, I'll still offer everything I have to say!

First, I'll explain the full background this ask is referring to. Japanese has 2 major distinct speaking styles - casual and formal. I was taught to call the formal style "distal" - because it is more about respecting distance in social standing than being formal specifically. But formal is the more common term, so I tend to stick with saying formal most of the time.

The distinction between casual and formal is made with pronoun choice, word choice, and other factors as well, but the fastest way to differentiate the two is to look/ listen for the use of desu and masu at the end of someone's sentences. Formal uses them. Casual drops them. This concept is entirely foreign to English speakers!

Dimitri drops desu and masu most of the time. His "I pronoun" is also ore, and his "you pronoun" is omae - both casual, blunt, and masculine choices. But does speaking casually to most of the cast make him rude?

Short answer is... no, not at all! There's 2 major reasons for this.

Reason #1 - the rules for casual vs. formal speech are a bit different in reality vs. fiction:

Partially, Dimitri speaks casually because he is showing his personality. He's got all those traits most standard FE protagonists share - he's strong, straightforward, and wants to connect directly on a personal level with everyone he meets. He tries to convince several characters that they can speak casually with him, because he sees people as people, and doesn't want social status putting distance between them.

Fictional characters generally speak more in-line with their personality more often, rather than following the socially acceptable speaking rules of the real world. (Though don't get me wrong - casual real Japanese people will speak casually in more circumstances than the average Japanese person.) This is simply the style that Japanese writers largely choose. And I think it is one of the great benefits of Japanese - anyone can start to pick up on a character's personality archetype almost instantly, thanks to their speaking style!

Reason #2 - Dimitri is a prince, making him of high social rank:

Here's the second nuance to this - it is absolutely standard for a superior to talk to their subordinates in casual style.

In modern times, this is shown in the workplace. Bosses and those in other leadership positions will frequently speak casually with the staff in a lower-ranking position than them. The president of the office I now work at is Japanese, and he speaks very casually with me - I have to be formal in response though, because he's at the top!!

But in the past, this would have been a distinction made between lord/ royalty, and those beneath them. Which is the case that is relevant in Fire Emblem's setting.

Dimitri can also speak casually without coming off as rude, because he is one of the highest ranking people across all of Fodlan.

-

Okay, so that's the answer in broad strokes - but let's get a bit more nuanced, go down Dimitri's support partner list, and confirm whether or not he always speaks casually!

Group #1 - Dimitri and the other citizens of Faerghus (8 other Blue Lions + Gilbert)

Dimitri has a multi-layered relationship with all of the other 8 Blue Lions. They are citizens of the country he is a prince of, therefore he is ranked very highly in social standing above them. But they are also his friends, classmates, and later, war allies; placing them on the same social level in that regard. So the way they speak to him comes down to a little bit of column A - personality, and a little bit of column B - which aspect of their relationship with Dimitri they feel is the "main" one.

Gilbert is also here in this category, as another person from Faerghus.

Dedue: Dimitri speaks casually, Dedue speaks formally, as they have a lord/ servant relationship. Dimitri wants Dedue to be a very close friend to him though, and wants Dedue to speak casually with him - this is a major source of tension in their supports. In the end, being able to mutually speak casually with each other and be friends, is a place they may reach one day. With other characters, Dedue speaks casually.

Felix: As royalty above Felix's noble house, Dimitri speaks casually. Felix is Felix, so he speaks casually too. I imagine he sees Dimitri quite literally as more of a wild boar than a human being, much less royalty.

Ashe: Dimitri speaks casually, Ashe speaks formally. However, pretty much the whole point of their supports is Dimitri attempting to get Ashe to speak casually with him.. Ashe tries in earnest to switch, but in the end sticks with speaking formally, otherwise he feels too uncomfortable. His view of Dimitri as his prince is too strong for him to let go and speak casually.

Sylvain: Dimitri speaks casually, and Sylvain speaks casually more often, but actually switches to desu and masu more than once. When a relationship is "in-between" higher/lower social standing and friendship, it's not uncommon for at least one person to switch back and forth between casual and polite speech, depending on which side of the relationship they are appealing to more at the moment. This happens in real life too as people shift from strangers, coworkers, etc. to friends.

Mercedes: They both speak casually. In Mercedes' case, I think she's speaks more in-line with her personality rather than paying attention to social status.

Annette: Both speak casually, but Annette is well aware that there's something a little wrong with that - her father would never let her get away with it if he knew!

Ingrid: Dimitri speaks casually, Ingrid speaks formally. But I think Ingrid speaks formally with everyone.

Gilbert: As you can probably guess based on my comments in Dimitri and Annette's analysis, her father most certainly speaks formally with Dimitri! He is very formal and takes social heirarchy very seriously. Dimitri, as the prince above him in social status, speaks casually.

Group #2 - The other characters at the monastary:

Since the remaining characters are not from Faerghus, Dimitri is not their prince. They'll be more likely to view him through the lens of a different relationship than royalty/ subject.

Catherine is originally from Faerghus yes, but she has cut her ties from her homeland completely to serve Rhea, so she fits into this group now.

Raphael: Both speak casually. I think Raphael treats everyone like a life-long friend!! He at least attaches san or sensei (teacher) to the names of his instructors, but that's about it for formal language for him.

Marianne: Dimitri speaks casually. Marianne speaks formally, as she does with everyone. I think she even attaches san to everyone's name, conveying how much she keeps her distance from people, trying not to form close relationships.

Flayn: Dimitri speaks casually. Flayn speaks formally, as I think she does with everyone.

Hapi: Both speak casually. I think Hapi speaks casually with everyone.

Alois: Now *here's* where things get interesting! At this point, I really thought I would discover that Dimitri speaks casually with everyone. But alas, he does NOT! Dimitri speaks formally with Alois, while Alois speaks casually to him. Why? Well, while Dimitri is a prince, he's also a student at Garreg Mach (in Part 1 of course). In this way, he is below all Garreg Mach staff and professors in social standing. So it makes perfect sense that he'd speak formally and Alois would be casual in this case.

Catherine: Same situation as Dimitri and Alois - as someone who serves as an instructor at Garreg Mach, all students like Dimitri are below her in status at the monastary. So Dimitri speaks formally, and she speaks casually.

Byleth: I left Byleth for last, because while Byleth is a professor at the monastary... Dimitri speaks casually with them. I imagine this has more to do with Byleth being the self insert than anything. Everyone bonds to Byleth on a deep level faster than magnets stick together.

And that's all I can think of to say for now! This is a super fun example of how nuanced Japanese's casual vs. formal language can get, and showcases one of the many reasons why Japanese has such a high barrier of entry for anyone learning it - including young native speakers! You don't get all this desu and masu stuff, until finally you just do.

Let me know if I missed anything, or if anyone has any follow up comments to make!

I apologize it took me so long to respond to this one! Thank you anon, and all readers, for waiting! I hope it helped explain even more of the trickier nuances of Japanese.

[moghedien]

So someone is in your inbox asking for money

I'm not going to say that every single instance of this happening is a scam, but in my experience, random people following you and then sending you an ask to ask you to reblog a post or donate, they are almost always a scam.

You may feel bad about ignoring them or deleting the ask, but doing so is probably going to be the best course of action. Not only so that YOU don't lose money but so that you don't give the scammer access to you followers.

But how could you know that the person is a scam and not the one instance where someone really needs help? Let's go over some ways to check for signs of a scammer.

this is the post I got in my inbox today. I've personally never dealt with this particular version, so I didn't immediately delete. I probably wouldn't have reblogged anyway, but I wanted to look into this specifically.

The first thing to do is go on their blog. In this instance, the post they want me to reblog is pinned, and it also has a donation link. I'm NOT going to click on the link because there is no indication at all to what this might lead to and I'm going to instead hover over link and see what url pops up

in this instance, the url shows me that I'm going to be redirected to paypal. IMMEDIATELY a sign that this is a scam. people can still scam with gofundme and other sites like that, sure, but at least with those sites, there is some accountability in that you can see if the donation goal is being met or not. with paypal, you're just blindly donating, assuming that this donation amounts are what the person says they're at.

And also this is not to say that honest people can't use paypal for donations, sometimes that's the only option. But if you're going to donate to someone via paypal, you should at the very least be personally aware of who you're donating to and that they are an actual person.

But let's look deeper just in case. The next thing to do is look for other sketchy signs on the blog. So I scrolled through to see what they were blogging about otherwise, and there were red flags here.

Just glancing through the blog, I could see that they almost exclusively posted about Taylor Swift and the Mandalorian. They posted A LOT within the past day (this is why you should have times enabled btw) and exclusively from the same four or fives blogs.

But maybe they just post a lot. You can actually very easily see their posting habits by looking at their archive.

We're going to go to the three dots and click "view archive"

You can also just type in "[username].tumblr.com/archive" for any blog and access anyone's archive as long as they have a public account. But what's the point of doing that. Well, in the archive, we can get a very quick overview of someone's posting habits.

And here I've circled in red the first and last thing this blog has posted in the month of February 2024 (the month I'm writing this). You can see that both of those posts were posted on the same day. Meaning all of their posts in the entire month of February happened on the same day.

But what about posts outside of February 2024?

Well there are none

You can sort posts by month and year and doing so for this blog shows that they ONLY posted in February 2024 and ONLY one day in February and it happened to be the day before I got an ask in my inbox asking for donations.

These are the most obvious tells, but there are other signs you can look out for.

For instance, all of their posts are without any sort of tags. They never comment on anything and their only original post was their one asking for donations. If you click on the search function in their blog, nothing comes up

There's also the fact that the blog is clearly targeting at making the people who WOULD care about someone needing insulin sympathetic. The fact that they use BLM, identify as a black man, have pronouns in their bio all are on purpose to make people who might care feel like this is a person who deserves help. the scammer is using your empathy against you. DON'T LET THEM. Be smart and always always think before you act, even if that action is just posting. You can help people in need without feeding the vultures that want to take advantage and want to use YOU to steal from your community

But let's just be REALLY REALLY sure this is a scam.

On whim, I copied the text straight from the ask in my inbox and put into google and then added "tumblr' at the end. You'll be shocked to know there were immediate results and not from this blog

First one was a reblog from over a year ago. the exact same wording minus the cost of the insulin and the call to action at the end

I clicked on the original poster for this and the blog was cleared out!

Minus them using the exact same photograph in their header as the blog that sent me an ask today, of course.

The second instance I found was slightly different wording, but using similar enough wording that it can be assumed came from the same scammer. This came from another ask in an inbox, but the receiver rightly called them out as a scam. The post is from two months ago and the blog that asked it as been deleted outright

All of this to say, there are always scammers on tumblr, but there have been a lot recently. This one happened to not be posing as Palestinians in need, but a lot are (in that instance, Palestinian bloggers have been vetting who is and isn't real so you can always check to see if they're getting support or getting called out from actual Palestinians). They won't always use these methods and won't always been this obvious, so even if you don't donate to someone yourself ALWAYS be thorough in your checking before you reblog a donation post. Make sure the charity its collecting for is REAL and if its a person asking for money, make sure that person is real as well.

You can help people without getting scammed or giving scammers access to your followers, and not reblogging every donation post doesn't make you a bad person or mean you don't care. Its important to be careful, and not being careful can do more harm than good. it makes actual people in need look sketchy and takes away resources that could have been given to them. So if you aren't sure if something is real DO NOT REBLOG IT

[replicabetweenblogs]

FIRST POST-HIATUS WRITING UPDATE WOOHOOO. ALSO I NEED Y'ALLS HELP.

30.12.2024 // this is not a chapter update yet! As promised before, an update to reveal what I have been up to regarding RBU.

;-; catching up on age old asks that got thrown into my inbox while I was away on hiatus and. Yes- always made me smile reading those, but also made me quite sad for leaving the story at such a cliffhanger.

All the people hoping for a happy ending with the ROs do make me giggle- all those people pointing out all the angst make me feel quite evil for the stuff I have written down in chapter 9 already. ANYWAY!! the update!

A few lill snippets because why not.

over the past years of total and utter silence with this project gone through a never-ending hiatus, I have gotten alotta more confident(yay) yet no-where to put these skills of mine into, as my struggle in real life right now is the fact that I can’t find a proper game design job where I can flourish - I decided to try and keep said skills sharp and fresh by writing stories. so here we are again. I have been quite busy rewriting and re-defining the overarching story, and I cannot wait to have everyone see the eventual endings.

Kept it all hush hush not wanting to come back with nothing- hence the ask compilation above c:<

the chapter is going to be a BIG one. I am at 91k words, fully written out and basically done aside from one (1) path remaining. WOOHOOOO NEARLY THERE :D running towards the finish line, hence the teaser. Anyway --

FEEDBACK FORM, TEASER, REQUEST FOR EDITOR UNDER CUT!

***Feedback form! Help me reach the finish line!!***

I need your help c: for anyone who still has their saves or new players who have reached the end of chapter 8, I like to know what your stats are! I require this for proper balancing in chapter 9 as this is the chapter where the story gets split into many paths depending on some of those questions. Thank you in advance!!

what can you expect from the next update, coming up SOON?

91k wordcount so far (total, all branches, excluding code)

19k words for one single run

Romance lock-ins with Ash and Ha

consequences of your past major decisions/Character personality traits starting to finally catch up by taking the players onto whole different branches and locations altogether.

trigger warnings: implied mental and physical torture, determined character deaths

Some additional flashback sequences across chapters 6, 7 and 8 to some see things from companions' povs

The story of RBU is dark. this game has a dozen "bad" endings planned, only having one "good" ending for each individual Character/MC and main story in general. It's not for just the sake of drama and shock value, as I want this game to reach a very specific "lesson" which effect will be taken away if everything ended in a too-good-to-be-true way. Just a gentle warning!

main story lock-in!! Coded out some branches already for the next chapters. Chapter 10 will be the end of part 2, and part 3 will be more of a 2-chapter endgame with a chapter dedicated to an epilogue afterward. So we are really getting close to the end if I keep this up, and will stop updating the public link once reaching part 3. Will be making an announcement for private betas by then probably, but that'd be like... when I am on my deathbed at the age of 92, most likely.

I really hope you guys will be enjoying the absurdly long chapter. Did a few bold moves regarding the direction the story is going towards which I had been planning and iterating for since the very start of RBU regarding final revelations, hoping some puzzle pieces will be satisfyingly falling into place.

RBU is really about regret and acceptance regarding our decisions and mistakes, and how different types of people deal with it (badly).. so there are no "good" or "bad" endings or choices, really. BUT there is always a "worse" and "worst" so uh. Beware :')

Looking for a paid/voluntary editor!!

To help with the reconstruction of weird sentences, taking out grammar mistakes, eliminating the bad spelling, and bonking teenage-firefly on the head for her bad storytelling. plus points if you could help with the phasing even, perhaps like some kind of a beta reader- yet not too focused on it right now, as I'm just wanting to make the old chapters flow nicer.

shoot me a message if you are wanting to help out! Either on the forums, over here, or shoot me a DM! as I am @fireflyy on the official COG discord server.

For the sake of consistency, I am hoping to get help from one available editor for now. so please do let me know of your experiences if you are wanting to help out!!

You shall be credited within RBU's main screen

See you all soon <3 and a happy new year!!

[agentstarkid]

This little story turns one year old this July 31st!

We hopped with Girlie on a rollercoaster of finding (true) love, being quarantined in a foreign country, lots of internet meanies, making new friends, angst, heartbreak, depresh sesh, finding love again and so much more to come -- What a wild journey it's been, and I'm so proud I took the leap!

Looking back a year ago, I can't believe how far this story and I have come. I remember being so full of uncertainty and nerves to post that first chapter, and now, a whole year later, I'm writing little blurbs and one-shots in a whole different language to my main one.

And to celebrate this milestone with you guys, the DAN-Y/N stans out there, and as a thank you for all these 365 days of support and love to Danielito & Girlie's love story—a.k.a. my baby—, I put together a list of dialogue prompts from where you can pick one—or as many as you'd like—and send it to me so I can write a little blurb to go with it!

You can request a specific moment on the fic you'd like to see more (c'mooooon, they were together for 2 whole years! Let's see if you've been paying attention hehe), or just make a general request with a quote of your choice (or you can suggest one! Can't promise much on this, but I'd try my best to bring it to life, unless it is smut. I can't write smut for shitzels yet soz).

I'll be accepting resquests for the next 2 weeks!

✧. ┊ Series Masterlist

P.S. Fingers crossed next month I can—finally—post a new chapter! Adult life has been kicking my ass these past months so please be patient with me! — But my inbox is always open to talk! :)

— All the dialogue sources are linked!

“These are way too many, omg, I’m being squeezed by these pillows, love!” “Well I just, you know, thought that since you like to hold on to me while you sleep but we can’t do that right now, I decided to bring you all these.” “Aww, I appreciate it, baby, but would you mind moving some? And even though I do have these, I will miss your warmth beside me.” 

“You weren’t uncomfortable back there, right? I just wanted to make sure you were all right.” “No, no, I wasn’t. Thank you for doing that.”

"You had no business looking that good back there."

"Those could be our kids one day." "What...?" 

“They don’t know you, love. They don’t know how much we love each other. Let them think what they want to. It doesn’t matter, you know why? Because you are enough. We are enough.”

“I don’t want you to be perfect, sweetheart. I want you to be who you are.”

“I…I wasn’t sure if you’d like this, so I just bought all the colors they had there.”

“Stoooop. Stop making me all…” “All… what?”

“Sorry. I just... like seeing that I have an effect on you, I guess.”

“Life would suck complete testicles if it weren’t for you.” 

“I like seeing you this way. so… at ease. makes me wonder how anyone could ever purposely put you under stress and live with themselves afterwards.”

"I know you're struggling right now, and it's okay, okay? We'll get through this."

“With you, I see a forever I’ve never envisioned before. Not that I didn’t want to, it’s more because I wasn’t able to… At least until I met you.”

“God, I really don’t want to leave”.

“I’m so deftly terrified of falling in love. Because what if I end up with a broken heart? That thought itself is just so scary to me. I want to, but I can’t get over that fear.” “Then how about you let me be that first step you take into falling in love? I can help you get over that fear, if you’d let me.” 

“People say they fall in love like they fall asleep — slowly, then all at once. But the way I fell for you can only be described as that feeling when you’re drifting off to sleep, only to feel like you’re falling, oh-so-suddenly. So suddenly that it ends up startling you awake; heart racing in your chest because it feels like you fell off the precipice of a cliff. It’s quick and sudden, and there’s no slowness to it. It’s a crash and burn type of love that I feel.”

“They say the second time’s the charm.” “Was the first time not charming enough for you?” “No, but the second time’s going to be even better, I promise.” 

“If people can hate for no reason,  then I can love for no reason too.”

“I dunno who taught you that love comes with conditions and limitations, but mine doesn’t. Not when it’s you.”

“I don’t know how to ask for help i just— I’ve never had anyone to ask for help from before.  so…this is me trying i guess.  I need it and i’m afraid to ask for it.  That's the best I can do.”

“You really think a relationship should be that hard?” “No one writes songs about the ones that come easy.”

“If you don’t kiss me, right now…” “Then what?” “Then I will have to do it myself.”

"I think destiny wants us to be together, and you should never argue with destiny.”

“What do you think is our song?”

“I can’t concentrate, when you look at me like that.” “Well, you should be concentrating on me instead, so…”

“Sing for me.” “What would you like to hear?”

“I feel like I can breathe better with you around.”

“You’re much better off without me.” “You’re not the judge of that.”

“I love you, okay?! And I can’t stay in your life when I’m just ruining it.” “You can’t just say that and don’t wait for me to answer.”

“Your mom is coming over today.” “Tell her to bring fried rice or she’s not invited.” “You tell her, she’s your mom.” “But she likes you more!”

“Wait, you can’t swim?” “I was always more into sports on land where, you know, I can’t drown.” “I will teach you!”

“Every night before bed I write three good things that happened to me. And every night I find myself writing down your name.”

“God, don’t do that. You’re going to make me go on Santa’s naughty list tonight.”

“This heart belongs to you, and only you. And I’d hope you want to keep it for a very, very long time.”

“What matters isn’t the place, but the person you’re with at that place. So this is to say, being with you is enough for me. So long as you are there, then all is well.”

“If you don’t wanna spend the night in a empty house, you could always come over to mine.” 

"Hey, i think i can fit over here in this corner." "What are you, a plant?" "Maybe. you shine on me every day, after all."

“I don’t know what the future holds. all i know is that i hope you’re in it. “

“Annoying you is what I’m best at.”

“You get to curl up in my lap, and I get to watch a cinematic masterpiece in peace and quiet. i think this is a pretty sweet deal.”

“This is your home, just as it is mine.”

“That was your master plan? Really?” “No, my master plan was having no plan actually.”

“When life gives you lemons, squirt the juice into your enemies’ eyes and watch them whimper.”

“Maybe i'm too late to be your first, but right now, i'm preparing myself to be your last.”

“Over everything, I choose you.”

“You’ve given me so many memories, I'd hate it if you become one”

“I hope you heal from the things you dont wanna talk about”

“I was gonna marry her…”

“Because you always been my ticket home…”

“Have you ever gone stargazing?” “yeah, i’ve seen your eyes a few times.”

"Oh God- why are you half-naked?" "nothing you haven't seen before, love" "it's freezing, go put on a shirt-" "Nah, you can warm me up." 

“You never have to fear that you’re losing me.”

“Aw, you brought out the smile.” “Which smile?” “The one reserved for the people you love.” “How could you even tell?” “Because that’s how you smile at me.”

“No, you’re not allowed to smile at me like that.”

“This is not some predestined soulmate shit or fate or whatever. I love you all on my own. Because you’re awesome and because I want to.”

“You know, I prefer you naked, but that dress also looks breathtaking on you.”

“Believe in the me that believes in you”

“Work can wait. You need rest.”

“I got the recipe from your mom, i hope i did it justice.”

“I think i deserve a cuddle for letting you stick your icy little feet on me all night.”

“Ok…so, umm I made this playlist for our first month anniversary. I hope it’s not too bad!” “Omg, this is- I can’t believe it! I always wanted someone to make me a playlist!” 

“You already are a handful. Together, you guys are insufferable.”

“I’m right here.”

“Careful, or I will fall for you.” “You’ll be fine. I’ll buy you some knee pads.” “Knee pads but no helmet?” “If you’re falling for me, you’ve already taken a hit to the head.”

“Uh-oh.” “What’s wrong?” “That’s their ‘oh, you messed with the wrong bitch, bitch’ face.”

“You look like an idiot.” “You know, other people would say it’s nice to see me so happy. Or that I have a beautiful smile.”

“I’ve never seen you this happy before.”

“(Congrats.) You’re one of us now.”

“Please, never apologise for wanting to be loved.”

“Come on. I’ll show you how to dance”

"Are you still mad at me? I mean, it's okay if you are. I'm mad at myself, too."

"Put your head on my lap and sleep a little."

 “I don’t want to go to bed angry…can we please talk about this?” 

“Your cheeks are really soft.” “Stop squishing them!”

“You didn’t have to do anything…” “But i wanted to.”

[suzukiblu]

hi! i have a question for you, if that’s ok? i always try to leave comments on fics i read, especially on ao3 where it’s really easy to do that. in other fandoms i’ve been in, before getting into dc, fic authors often responded to my comments on their works and it was pretty easy to make friends through that and other social media and have lots of fun interactions talking about the fandom and our favorite characters etc.

however, i’ve found with this fandom it seems to be very different? almost nobody seems to respond to comments on their fics and i’ve found it very difficult to make any fandom friends, even in a casual-tumblr-mutuals kind of way. (this isn’t about you btw, you seem like the friendliest person i’ve come across on here so far which is why i’m asking you haha)

i completely understand many people are busy or some authors may find responding to comments overwhelming, but i was just wondering if this is something you or anyone else has noticed? is it a quirk of the dc fandom in particular? or am i just getting older and fandoms in general are changing haha, idk.

anyway sorry for the long ramble, feel free to ignore if i’m making no sense. i really enjoy all your stories (and your art! your art style is so cute!) and i hope you’re having a great day :]

Thank you, I'm glad you like my stuff! Especially the art, that I always feel like I'm worse at, hah. ❤️ I hope you're having a great day too. And asking me questions is always okay, no worries! I can't always get to everything in my inbox, to be honest, but I do my best to respond to as much stuff as I can. Either way, though, I never mind getting questions.

Personally I don't currently respond to most of my comments (I try to answer questions that aren't spoilers, but that's usually it these days) because it's just really easy for me to run out of spoons doing it and end up down a rabbit hole of comments instead of actually WRITING, which stresses me out because then I don't feel suitably "productive" for my imposter syndrome brain, and I also know a few people who don't respond because of anxiety or things like that, but I don't know if it's specifically a DC fandom thing or an overall trend in fandom in general? Every fandom is different, obviously, and also certain SECTIONS of those fandoms are different. Like, when I was into MCU fandom, I never really expected super-involved responses when I wrote Stucky because there was SO MUCH Stucky that it seemed like a lot of people just kinda churned through it and it all blurred together for them, but when I wrote about Darcy Lewis oh BOY did people come out of the woodwork to tell me how much they loved it in GREAT detail. Having a niche in general helps, I think, because if you're doing something that isn't super-common or interested in something that isn't super-common, people will be more excited to see it from you or hear you appreciating it from them.

I WILL say there's only a couple DC authors I can currently think of who I generally assume I'll get replies from when I comment on their fic, but I don't know if that's the specific fandom or just that I'm not reading a ton of fic right now and therefore have a smaller pool of authors I'm commenting on. Like, it's hard to tell, honestly. Also DC is a very widespread fandom and pretty old and established, but there's definitely characters and series and canons that just get ignored by huge chunks of it, so if you're into them you either have a real easy time finding people who are excited to talk to you or a real HARD time, depending on where you're looking.

Either way, I think it's really great that you try to leave comments on everything you read and a really good habit for the fandom ecosystem, I know a TON of authors who appreciate getting even, like, a single friggin' emoji or kudos, whether they respond or not. Literally any not-a-hate-comment comment is good for the ecosystem, imo, even when it's not obvious that it is. I very literally once wrote, like, eighty thousand words pretty much just because someone left a very kind comment on an old fic I'd abandoned. I did not actually RESPOND to that comment, as far as I remember; I just changed my mind about abandoning the fic and went through the long-ass process of getting my brain back into it and then the even longer-ass process of writing another 80k over the next few months/year until I got to the end. So like, I VERY much am a person who believes in the value of feeding the ecosystem, hah.

I am largely a call-and-response type of writer myself, so like, getting comments or people talking to me in my replies/asks/messages is basically like somebody is putting tokens in the fic machine and pulling a lever, and we'll all just see if I write three sentences or 80k or secretly tailor a fic towards things a frequent commenter's mentioned appreciating/being into. It's a surprise every time, with me!! And like, that's just how I work, of course, everybody's different, but I have NEVER met anybody who told me they didn't like getting comments.

When I leave comments myself, I tend to feel like more like I'm just telling the author that I think they're on the right track with the thing they're writing, one way or another, and letting them know it got a reaction or feelings or the like out of me, but I'm generally not really expecting a response from them. For actually making friends, I've found MUCH more luck in talking to people on Tumblr and Discord than on AO3. I've made friends on AO3 on and off over the years, but it's just much, MUCH easier for me to do on Tumblr and Discord. Though I kind of have a cheat code there in the sense that I'm a pretty prolific writer and so I've kinda encouraged people to get into the habit of checking my blog pretty frequently or even put alerts on for it, so generally people have a lot of opportunities to talk to me or be reminded I'm around.

I tend to notice people who show up repeatedly in my Tumblr mentions, personally, especially when they talk in the tags or comment in the replies or send me asks, and some of them I've either become friends with or just, like, secretly adopted as secret faves and sometimes sneak little extra treats of Things I Think That One Tumblr Person Would Like into my writing or pick specific WIPs to work on because I think "hey last time I wrote this [ TUMBLR FAVE ] really liked it, I should write more!" (and then I cackle in triumph/delight when they reblog it later, for that is a Victory, mwahaha), but like, it's a process? I definitely feel like making friends in fandom is generally slower than it was once upon a time, but also I'm a Fandom Old so there's been a few migrations and such over my time online too. And also Discord confuses me, hahaha. Discord is VERY confusing to me.

Ummm . . . okay I got INTO that reply, I guess, lol, but I hope that answered your question? Or at least helped answer it, if nothing else!

[ttrpg-smash-pass-vs]

As the year wraps up, I gotta get something off my chest, don't worry I'm not making a habit of this. Even though I know that the people who it's pointed at won't read or care, and the people who do see the resemblance to themselves likely won't be the ones I'm talking to. but I just had to delete multiple asks again, and it's stuff I get all the time, so I'm going to indulge in a little angry rant that you're free to ignore. Because seriously, I LOVE getting asks, I'd turn them off if I didn't. but some of ya'll REALLY don't understand there's a person on the other end of this. ...also, this is explicitly not pointed to the happy anon with the super long slaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad post last night, you're cool. I was just a really tired last night and hit delete on accident.

- Every time a post gets reblogged, it finds more monsterfuckers, but also more non-monsterfuckers. A less monstrous person doing well or winning does not mean you're the only monsterfucker here. don't fill my inbox with multi-paragraph "everyone here's supposed to be a monsterfucker" hate essays every time a monstrous option isn't in a massive lead, take it up with your followers if it matters to you that much. -Some of you are fine always voting against bone devil no matter what, but can't comprehend something auto-losing for a different reason. Like "I hate heat." Or strong smells, or frogs. Sometimes people don't like the option they chose, they just hate it less. I see the merit in near any option I post, even if it's not for me...but seeing why you like it doesn't me I do too, stop asking me to take sides. - Or the opposite, one of the most common tags is "I love both, but I have a core memory or fetish with one so that's my default." Choosing one doesn't mean they hate the other option and you specifically. I'd happily fuck them both, but one indulges a fetish more core to me than some of my organs. - Someone who would fuck a werewolf or manticore or such is a monsterfucker, even if they don't go further. You don't get to say they aren't a REAL monsterfucker because you decided their preferred monsters aren't monstrous enough. Do you to see someone thirsting over a butch and say they're not a REAL lesbian because you decided that's not girly enough? There's no need to be elitist or gatekeep. Especially in an ask, but also in general tbh.

- I'm a basic bitch too sometimes! Just because we like the weird stuff doesn't mean we have to start hating the basic stuff and those who indulge in it. kinkshaming goes both ways, neither of which should be sent to me. You are not the standard by which all is judged, you being relatively more kinky does not make them objectively less kinky. - Seriously, if tumblr is anything, it's the "Labels" site. where people come to learn thier labels, give themselves labels, show off thier labels, surround themselves in similar labels until they forget it's not the only label. Often while saying they hate labels. It's not even the monsterfucker website, Tumblr's just more neutral toward it instead of openly hostile. I get the disappointment, but don't direct it to me. TLDR: That shoggoth or whatever isn't going to become real and fuck you because you flooded my inbox with rants on how "anyone who didn't choose X is fake, and all ya'll aren't TRUE BELIEVERS of the ONE TRUE MONSTERFUCKER GOD." Sarenrae on a bike, It's my blog, and I say everyone's welcome as long as they stay civil. so be civil before I take the anon button away. At least some people have the guts to show their face when insulting anyone who likes ___ over ___

[dailyadventureprompts]

How do you feel about romance in a tabletop setting (strictly in character)? My friends and I joke with each other IC and have even OOC discussed our boundaries for PC/PC or PC/NPC romance, but then I see posts about how romance always makes people uncomfortable in their games (or those "D&D isn't your dating sim" memes). Sincere question from an autistic player that wants to trust my friends are being honest that it's okay, but doesn't want to make anyone uncomfortable either.

Heavy Topics: Romance in RPGs

Every group is going to have a different preference when it comes to exactly how they like to engage with topics of romance, flirtation, and sex, and if it hasn't been covered already the best idea is to talk about it with the rest of the table. D&D is a shared storytelling game after all, and that sharing comes from a place of shared vulnerability on behalf of the players and DM: Once you know what everyone's comfortable with, you can colour inside the lines as vividly as you'd like.

Likewise there's a sliding scale to how much these elements are focused on in roleplay and in storytelling: A player might have a character who's conceptually a dashing ladykiller but doesn't want to specifically make that part of their roleplay focus or engage in drawnout scenes of seduction. Alternatively, a character might not be conceptually built around flirtation, only to have important story-defining romance emerge as their tale unfolds.

Regardless, it's always about setting boundaries, and from what the asker says they're in exactly the right sort of group.

Now, addressing those "D&D is not your dating sim" people, I have to bring the hammer down a bit harder, especially because I've had people in my inbox before asking me how they can punish players for perusing romantic relationships in the first place. Simply put, if the DM isn't comfortable running romantic or flirtatious scenes, they're responsible for telling the group that upfront. There's no shame in saying no, plenty of people have certain topics that they're not comfortable indulging in, but its just as much their responsibility to let the group know that as it is the rest of the group's job to respect those limits. Flipping that on its head however, you can't get angry at other people, especially people that aren't in your playgroup for enjoying types of stories that you don't. D&D is absolutely a dating sim if everyone at the table is cool with that.

Personally? I make characters that are flirty, that have high or low libido as one of their character traits. I've even given PCs I've played kinks that I don't have because I felt like it would fit them, or specifically made characters with the understanding that a romantic heart would be their primary heroic motivation.

Art

[vashti-lives]

So like, I have a lot of complicated feelings about the whole discourse around comments and how people comment so much less than they used to but one thing I think people my age have forgotten and younger people have no idea about is that in the era of LJ and the height of ff.net there were A LOT more negative comments than there are today, at least as far as I can see.

For one thing, in the mid 2000s really fucking mean negative comments were so common there was a term for them "flames" and people would regularly mention them in the authors notes of their fics. "No flames or I will delete this story" "flames will be used to roast marshmallows and which Inuyasha and I will eat while laughing at you" "this story contains SLASH! that means boykissing!!! DON'T LIKE DON'T READ! NO FLAMES!!!!!!" etc. You get the picture. It was a different time don't judge. This happened more on ff.net than it did on LJ but it definitely also still happened on LJ.

If you've ever looked into the whole Ms. Scribe thing and puzzled over why anyone believed her, this is why. She was making shit up for fame and attention but lots of authors experienced similar harassment that was actually real. I know people like to be like ~in my day people knew how to use the back button~ but let's be real. Some people weren't using the back button they were going into the comment section to be homophobic and explain all about how you'd burn in hell one day.

I'm not saying nobody gets mean comments anymore but the fact that we don't have a special word for it now and people aren't constantly talking about it in their author notes strongly suggests it's less of an issue.

Even aside from that in 2024 we have commenting etiquette that just, didn't exist in 2004. Its commonly understood now that offering unasked for critique is bad but like, that didn't come out of nowhere. "Are people allowed to send critique to the author of any fic they read?" was an absolutely HUGE fandom fight that got hashed out again and again for years before finally settling on, "mmm let's not." In 2004 this was not a settled debate and imo leaving unasked for critique was much more common, and in fact people who were coming from closed forums and things like yahoo groups felt it was *good* etiquette to always leave critique because that's how it was done in their much smaller communities, which were often more focused on improving specific skills.

If it is true that people leave fewer comments now* we might be experiencing the reality that you can't have your cake and eat it too. The more rules we have about what kind of comments you can and can't make the more people at the fringes are going to decide its safer to just not comment because what if they do the wrong thing and make someone mad? Several years ago my dash was just awash with artists begging people to reblog their art and also awash with artists complaining about the tags people left on the art they were reblogging, it was extremely clear to me that this was a choose one situation. EITHER your art gets reblogged a lot and sometimes people say dumb shit or you shield yourself from bad tags and get a lot fewer reblogs.

There are a number of posts going around right now about how don't you know authors can SEE the comments you leave on bookmarks!! And I've often thought that the end result of this campaign is going to be even less engagement than people are already getting. It's not going to result in nicer comments in the bookmarks its only going to result in less bookmarks.

TBH I actually think getting less negativity in your inbox might be worth fewer comments? Like, I'm not sure fandom made the wrong choice here but I do think continuing to police the kinds of comments people leave is going to continue this cycle so if you really really want your readers to engage with your fic you are going to have to accept that some of those comments will be shit like "UPDATE PLZ" or whatever. I don't think there's a way to get less of the bad comments without getting fewer comments period.

*In addition to everything I've written above there is a part of me that thinks the biggest problem is just that AO3 has a hit counter and LJ didn't and so when people were primarily using LJ they just didn't know how many people read their work without ever interacting. Combine that with the fact that everyone is functionally writing for much smaller fandoms because there aren't mega fandoms like there used to be and you get authors who feel like they're getting less engagement without actually meaningfully getting less engagement, because their OFMD fic isn't getting the number of comments that their 2010s era SGA fic got. Even when they understand OFMD is tiny compared to SGA they don't have the hit counter for their SGA fic to see just how many lurkers there were. the ratio might actually not have been as far off as you think!

[kings-highway]

I read Time Enough yesterday from start to finish (yes I had other things to do, no that did not stop me) and I am still thinking about it. I left a little comment but I wanted to say more. (Sorry if this is a bit incomprehensible, I'm Very tired)

Your angst is always written in such an immersive and impressive way, but this story in particular hit so strongly. I thought it was so well done. Everything Daichi did and felt was so believable. And the feelings of having to move through a life like that was absolutely heart breaking. The relationships were so believable and idk how to phrase it other than genuine? Realistic?

It was just such an intense and beautiful piece, and Daichi's journey/cycle of monotony to acting out to trying to find stability again was so well done and so relatable. I was right along with him at one point like "obviously he has to learn a lesson here, but come on he did! He's trying to live life more!" Only to realize at the end that he still really wasn't, not really, not in the way that really allowed him to appreciate it. It wasn't that he needed to appreciate life by acting more or less predictable, it's that he needed to learn to appreciate life by appreciating his own, by learning to take care of himself, by asking for help and letting others take care of him. I've read several of your stories now where this is a major theme for him and I was STILL too immersed in his mindset to see it right away! That's very good writing imo <3

If you want to answer (ik some people don't like explaining story choices and that's fine too! I have my theories) what moment in that last day was it that broke the loop? Or was there no one moment, but just the process of the day itself and those leading up to it that did it?

First, thank you so much for leaving such a lovely and sincere ask in my inbox. You've got my giggling and kicking my feet like a child on christmas. It means so much that someone like you is reading and appreciating my work 🤍🤍

Second, I dont mind answering at all! I know a few others had speculated regarding the circumstances of the time loop so I can definitely share my decision making process

[Spoilers for literally nearly every chapter of Time Enough below, if you havent read it yet.]

And the answer is... Nothing.

Though that doesnt mean it wasnt intentional on my part, that nothingness means something to me.

The logic of the time loop is simply "sometimes time gets stuck in a loop, and unfortunately this time Daichi is aware of it." There is no real reason why it breaks on that specific day that it does, it could have just as easily broken the day before or the day after or in twelve years.

While I played around with the idea of Daichi having to "break" it in some way, there was no version of that that didnt position someone in his life as more important than another, or incite further questions about the universe. (although it does make me giggle imagining if the second half took a sharp left turn into Daichi and Oikawa hunting and fighting aliens.)

You could read this story as a metaphor for depression or burnout, optionally.

The truth is, every choice Daichi made always mattered. Each day did not come with definitive evidence that it would loop again into the next, it just coincidentally did for approximately two years. As suddenly and jarringly as it breaks in the 11th chapter, that could have been any chapter. Thats why so many end with the 00:00 moment, because it wasn't a given and it was important to mention. What would have happened if it had broken after he's slept with and romanced Oikawa? [Would he have pursued this new connection? left it as a one night stand? how would his life have moved forward after that kind of insane connection as Oikawa would believe he had his time loop experience?] What would have happened if it had broken after Tendou had been hit by the truck? [Tendou would be dead - what will he tell anyone?] What if it had broken after punching Iwaizumi? While he's standing, frostbitten in Iceland? After any random day he thought didnt matter? After he kills himself?

Daichi was never any more safe from his consequences in the loop as he was in linear time, he just got lucky.

And thats the point. How many times have you [the reader] skipped a class because its "boring and repetive?" phone in an essay because its "just" 10%? declined to hang out with a friend you havent seen in a while because "eh, maybe next weekend."

Choices always matter. Even if you think you have calculated the worst possible end, every single day has the ability to dramatically shift the direction of your life if you use it right. There is no such thing as a day that doesnt matter.

As a metaphor for depression and burnout, you're absolutely right. Daichi's loop is broken the moment he tells Suga that he'll let him take care of him. The moment he admits there's a problem and makes a promise he intends to keep. The act of loving and being loved in return is scary and difficult but sometimes it is the only way to succeed. [Its important here to mention that this is not romantic love I refer to.] And that means trying. Agreeing to do something you think is pointless [Daichi doesnt believe a psychiatrist can help; its a time loop] but he trusts Suga anyway and agrees sincerely.

As a story, it was nothing anyone did.

Daichi just got lucky that when the loop broke he was safe and surrounded by people who would care for him.

Free will and individual agency are massive themes in my stories and perhaps thats just a product of my own current age and experience. I think in a lot of ways I havent quite gotten the hang of it myself even if I understand it in my mind. Understanding it intuitively is a lot harder.

But it gets a little bit easier for me when I can write it out and share it with people like you who care as much for these characters and stories and appreciate them in the same way.

Thank you so much for asking <3 Inbox is always open and yall can message me any time if you wanna chat about anything to just scream. [The chickens in my brain will do their best to scream back.]

[dcviated]

mun meme

𝐆𝐄𝐓 𝐓𝐎 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐔𝐍!

★  NAME:  Bear/Will

★  PRONOUNS:  hee/hoo him

★  BEST EXPERIENCE: I think you can get a variety of experiences at a variety of places and each of them will be 'good' or 'cool' in some way. Most of my writing at this point is related to stuff I've done in tumblr, but I don't resent or detest the platforms I used of yore. Avatar games were cool. Discord/IM isn't the worst thing. But I think the best part of writing here is the shared experience for those invested? Easier to see things go down? 

★  PREFERENCE OF COMMUNICATION: Discord, easily. I mean I'm definitely reachable on tumblr IM but once we start getting into plotting I'd really rather move to something... functional. Searchable! And palatable. Tumblr IM is none of these things... it just kinda(kinda) works. So y'know.

Now that said, with the communication... I don't need a ton? You don't have to message me every day? I know I sure as hell don't message everyone everyday... I'm more of a reactive sort. Once you hit me up I'll chat away. But I can be silent for days or weeks on end otherwise. Trying to fix that...

★  MOST ACTIVE MUSE: Wylan is always able to come out and shitpost a little bit here and there. But writing his long posts can actually be a little more taxing. I'd say... Raguna and Eira are definitely the ones buzzing around more? I did a whole variety of drafts today, if you noticed. That said my roster isn't exactly the largest. And most of my public muses aren't the hardest to start a fire under outside of say... Armstrong. He's usually my weakest muse.

★  EXPERIENCE / HOW MANY YEARS: I first got into RP as a result of an ex, but I spring boarded from there into way more things than I started with. I'd say my first writing came about... 2005 or 2006? Hard to pinpoint exactly. So yeah it's been a good 18 years at this point. That said, I was on a huge writing sabbatical between 2009 and 2015, so I can't technically count it all. 2009 is when I dropped WoW (and writing in there) and 2015 is when I gave tumblr rp a shot out of a need to do more creative writing. 😩

★  RP PET PEEVES:  

So here's a few ... I'm grumpy. And specific with my hobby time.

Not meeting halfway with plotting. I get it, sometimes ideas are hard to come by. But if you're coming to someone wanting interactions you can't treat your RP partner like a vending machine rolling out thing after thing for you to clap over. It's important to share the burden (as plotting can sometimes be) and provide some insight. The best plots are a back and forth of "yes, and-" or "no, but-".

Sub-point to this one, but I think most of the onus does fall on you if you're dropping threads to kick off ideas for new ones. Even after a hiatus! It's what I've been doing!

Excessive commentary blogging. Before it was just a lot of dash commentary that had me going 'eh'. But in recent years it's gone past that. I've become disenchanted with blogs that become largely commentary for whatever it is they're doing on discord. All power to those discord groups doing what they do! But it reaches a point for me that I don't really see them as indie, and it can feel insurmountable trying to interact with them if you're not entangled with their zig-zagging plotlines.

And of course~!!!

Blog hoppers. Because for a slow burner and long hauler like myself, they're the most impossible people to write with! Which is a shame, because a lot of the hoppers I come across do seem to have some writing talent to them!!!

★   PLOTS OR MEMES: I.... really don't mind either at this point! It swells my soul when people approach me for plotting or interactions to begin with. I sometimes lament how flexible I can be because it makes getting some things off the ground difficult, but that's beyond inspiring to get something going that someone else made the effort. Just... as long as they keep it going past the greetings. :') See pet peeve point 1.

But anyone wanting to randomly jump into my inbox? More than welcome too!

★  ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSE(S)?: I put a little bit of myself in all of my muses, and find some traits to relate to in all the canons I've added to my roster. But at this point most of the character writing I do comes from some degree of misdirection of my emotion or mindset. Wylan has a lot of my humor, is about all I can really pin down now for my OCs... I may have planted the seeds with facets of my personality but at this point they've all grown far past all that.

tagged by: @more-than-a-princess the old guard need to stick together!!! thanks for the tag <: tagging: @seawrought @darksails @pastballads @mielmoto @psychcdelica and whoever else or nobody whatever!

[winterrose527]

Do you have any more general work advice/tips and tricks like your inbox system?

Sounds so nice for my brain!

Ooh yes, I have tons from years of trial and error. Some of these will be very obviously, but they are the ones that help me:

Prep for every meeting. That doesn't mean spend hours (unless you're presenting), but make sure before each meeting you go into you ask yourself what do I hope to leave this meeting knowing? Particularly meetings with lots of domineering personalities can get very swept away in bluster and politics. Having a set of questions that you feel need to be resolved is helpful. They won't all be able to be answered in the meeting, but can help guide follow ups.

Follow up!! Follow up on everything. If there is a weekly meeting, follow up halfway in between to make sure that action points from the last one are in progress. If you have a meeting with senior leaders and outside parties, send a note afterwards to your manager or higher up and say: these were my takeaways for items I should run to ground, is there anything else from that meeting that you'd like on my radar specifically?

Trust no one! Not in the GoT kind of way but in the logistical every person is fallible and likely doing ten other things they deem more important at any given time. Do not assume that someone took something as an action point for them! If you send an email with three requests, don't assume that the document you're presented with addresses them all.

Read. Read as much as you can. So often we hear things about leaving things to the lawyers, and that's great. Lawyers are there to protect us (the ones we hire anyway). But the best chance they have of protecting us is having all the info that you just can't assume that they have. I read all of our agreements, tedious as they are so that I can say: Hey I don't think this project would have xyz, can we remove that as a closing precedent? Not all suggestions are taken and that's fine, but people get very set in their own roles and are often focused on the bigger parts of thing. Having guidance on some of the nitty-gritty is a huge asset because it allows people in charge to make more informed decisions.

Never complain to a senior person without presenting at the very least a suggestion. Never let the solution be fully on someone else's plate.

Set recurring invites for monthly/quarterly deliverables. Depending on the task, set them 7-10 days in advance of the due date. Invite responsible parties. This is very useful in avoiding comments about last minute requests.

Always - and I mean ALWAYS - operate as though a senior person will forward your email without reading it. This will save you and your company a lot of grief.

Utilize subject lines. If I want the president of the company to sign something, I will use this format: "Signature Required: [Project] [Associated Transaction/Counterparty] [Document]". People get SO many emails. Having a clear subject can make a huge difference in whether it gets opened or not.

Another tip for calls: understand your role. Are you there to listen? Are you there to lead it? Are you there to provide factual/administrative support?

If you are leading a call, always be able to introduce each person and their title (at least those on your team), summarize at the top what the purpose of it is, and ensure that everyone leaves it understanding their go-dos. If you are having a meeting where there are no tangible go-dos for anyone, then it was a waste of a meeting. Examine why that is! Was it premature? Did people come unprepared?

I'm going to stop myself but as you can see I have a lot of thoughts, none revolutionary but all developed under duress lol.

[sapphosewrites]

It's time again for my one true love... an ask game. Thank you for the tag @o0anapher0o! This is one I have done before and I am sure as hell not going to let that stop me from talking about myself.

How many works do you have on AO3?

143! The next big milestone will be 150 if I ever post again lol

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

436,802 holy cow that is a lot of words.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

It's DS9 all day over here right now! I have also written for Good Omens, Queen's Thief, Tales of Symphonia, and Next Gen and Lower Decks.

4. Top 5 Fics By Kudos

I'm always interested in if the answer to this has changed, because sometimes it does in unexpected ways. Confess Nothing always tops the list, but this time it's only ahead by 2 with All's Fair in Love, War, and Show Business close behind. I'm really surprised to see Personnel Review in third place, because Garak doesn't even personally show up in that one and I always got the sense TNG was much less popular. Fourth place is Lost in Translation, which is not at all surprising. But fifth place does surprise me: It Isn't Perfect (But It's Ours)! Those Good Omens fics really snuck up there while I wasn't looking. (I think Season 2 release, even if I haven't posted anything new, did drive a spike in that fandom.)

5. Do you respond to comments?

I try to and I want to but there are 200 unread comments in my inbox right now and I simply have too much ADHD to deal with that, and then I don't respond to new ones because it's overwhelming and the problem is self-perpetuating. I've read them all in my email notifications, and they've made me smile and laugh and experience great joy! But I am overwhelmed about the idea of trying to reply.

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

Last time I answered this I hadn't ever written something with an angsty ending, but now with certainty I can say it's Like a pain, the truth is mine in the Terok Nor AU, which is all about Garak's developing addiction to the wire and exploration of self-harm to trigger it. Second place goes to I'd Like to Give Up Now and When All Kindness Has Gone. The interesting thing about all of these, though, is that they exist within the larger framework of what the reader already knows will happen next in canon, which is Garak will survive and make connections with others on the station and it isn't the end of the world that it feels like for him. So does that still count?

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

Not coincidentally, I'd probably say it's my two most kudos'd DS9 fics, Confess Nothing and Lost in Translation.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

The closest I've ever come to hate is someone commenting that I had a major tonal shift in the middle of a piece of writing, and they were correct. I have found the fandom to be incredibly kind, supportive, and generous.

9. Do you write smut?

SO once upon a time the answer to this was no but now we are inching our way towards a yes. I made a sock puppet account where I could experiment with writing more explicitly (it's lovely to have so many user subscriptions but also feels like a lot of pressure) and what I've found is there's simply not much more explicit that I'll go, but I'm trying.

10. Craziest crossover

The entirety of Thief Space 9, and of those specifically probably Spaceships and Gods.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of. Again, lovely fandom, beautiful people! I also have a standing policy that my works are a sandbox anyone can play in, so I have had remixes and things inspired by my work, but that's done with full permission and people bringing their own creative twists.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, that's the last thing outstanding on my 'bucket list', so to speak! My dreams were to have my fic inspire art, other fic, podfic, and translation, and we've achieved all but the last.

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

Yes and I'm a very bad co-author because there's a fic that's sat unfinished for actual literal years now and I'm not doing my part to finish it.

14. All time favorite ship?

I think I have an all-time favorite ship dynamic, which is any ship where one character could with both deep love and complete sincerity say to the other "I hate you, you're the worst person I know" as a form of foreplay.

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

I fear we're living in a world where I never finish anything ever again, but in particular there's one fic I posted to aforementioned sock puppet account specifically because I thought it might get permanently abandoned and I didn't want people knowing it was me if that happened because I am a coward

16. What are your writing strengths?

You know, the answer to this has changed! It used to just be dialogue, but now I'd like to think it's also my willingness to experiment with form/format and use even little moments to poke at big questions.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Look, I'm never going to be a writer of lush descriptions. We've come a long way, but settings are actually the worst.

18. Thoughts on dialogue in another language?

Hasn't changed- translate it if your POV character would understand it, leave it untranslated if they wouldn't. The point of how you write is to communicate information and convey emotion and whatever else to your audience, not to show off your conlang abilities.

19. First fandom you wrote in?

I think I've shared this before, but I wrote a self-insert ship fic with Shadow the Hedgehog for my older sibling for Sonic Adventure 2 Battle when I was far too young.

20. Favorite fic you've written?

I can't answer this. This is a cruel question. Um, at this exact moment in time, possibly Comparative Literature?

Well, there's more information than anyone wanted or needed, but now you have it! You all should do it too so I look slightly less narcissistic. @hellostuffedtiger @ectogeo-rebubbles @ernmark but also you know, anyone who wants to! Whenever I have to tag I immediately forget every single person who exists on this website.

[mymistakewriting]

About (new post)

It's been a while and almost a hundred new followers since I've done an "about me" post. I figured it was probably time to fix that.

Hi, I'm Kieran. I'm 28, I go by they/them pronouns

I write fanfiction and post headcanons and meta / observations / rants to the void about my fandoms and hyperfixations in my spare time (I work full-time as a server, but don't feel comfortable sharing what company I work at). I do accept requests for writing and headcanons, my inbox is always open for those and to just chat!

I have a discord account that I'm far more active on because I sometimes forget that tumblr exists (ameenjouee is my handle there if anyone wants to add me).

I have a large range of fandoms that I write for, but tend to cycle through and only focus on a handful at a time. I usually post when these fandoms change, but haven't done so yet recently (I'll do so in a new post after this)

This post will also act as a "Before You Follow" post, and an invitation to unfollow me to any newbies around here that don't feel comfortable sticking around with the following information out there:

As a writing blog, I have a few rules:

I do not condone ship bashing. I'm also a multi-shipper within most of my fandoms rather than have one ship that I focus in on. I like some variety in my writing. Any harassment that stems from me writing a ship that isn't majority in a fandom or that "gets in the way" of a popular ship will be answered by a block. I'm not the person to try that shit with.

I don't condone white-washing - be it via fancasts or culturally in portrayal. As someone with Romani heritage who grew up removed from a culture that I have to learn now that I have access to the side of my family that it comes from, I will always go to bat for people and cultures that aren't being represented or heard.

I'm very conscious of tagging triggering topics when I post my writing. If you like seeing my content but need something specific tagged as a trigger, please reach out (anon or not, I want anyone who takes up with my content to be safe reading it), and I'll make sure the topic is tagged both pre-content in post and in the tags from now on.

I will not write reader-insert.

As a person, I also have the following heads up to give:

I'm neurodivergent, that's about all you need on that one.

I'm non-binary, panromantic, demisexual (to be read as: homophobic and transphobic comments ain't gonna fly with me)

I don't have posting schedules, it's very much a "when I have time" or "when I finish it" kind of mess of a blog.

I'm very vocal when it comes to politics, ecological welfare, and human rights - these posts will be mostly contained to my personal blog, not my writing. The only real reason I include it is because the first time someone steps to my blog with some "blue lives matter" bullshit due to my writing for the 911 & Lone Star fandoms, I'll be reporting and blocking you, thanks.

But if all that seems fine by you, welcome to my blog. Feel free to stay a while and chat.

[literaticat]

Regarding the question about the returning materials by a certain date, are they likely to take into consideration if the person replied early (viewing them as more efficient?) or if they sent it back on the last possible date (would they view that more negatively?) or do they really not care either way? I have to remind myself this isn't school but just wondering if someone sending back material early or right before the deadline matters either way. And in general to publishers, contest or not.

The particular question you are referencing is specifically about a competition of some sort, so I'll tackle that first. In my experience, if an organization is requesting something like applications / contest entries, those are going into a dedicated inbox. Think of it like a bucket. When the deadline happens, the lid goes on the bucket, and no more entries are accepted. But anything IN the bucket gets considered in the exact same way -- there is zero difference if you sent your thing in the first day or the last day, on a weekend or in the dead of night, nobody is looking at that and they probably can't even see that because they are looking at the materials themselves.

For example, I am one of the people that looks at applications for my agency's Summer Mentorship program. We get the applications in the inbox and every few days, pull the resumes and cover letters and put them in Dropbox and add to a spreadsheet which is sorted by applicant's name. When the deadline comes, we don't take any more applications, and we start going through the applications we have -- but they are just done in alphabetical order, there is no way for anyone looking at that spreadsheet to know what day or time the thing was sent in, nor would it matter.

So let's move on: When it comes to sending things back to agents or publishers, there are two scenarios -- deadline or no deadline.

Let's say an agent has asked for a revision. If it REALLY IS just a couple of extremely minor tweaks they asked for, fine, do it fast. But if there are a fair amount of notes and they haven't given a deadline, or given a very vague deadline, like "take a few weeks!" or "send it back in a month or so!" -- I would suggest you actually NOT RUSH. If they gave a ballpark time, they probably expect it is about that amount of work, so just take your time and get it in around that ballpark time. Truly: Take the time you need.

But if they haven't given a time frame and say something like "I know this is a fair amount of work and it might take a while, no huge rush" -- LISTEN TO THAT. If you turn the revision around in an hour, or a day, or even a couple of days, that's a red flag, actually. I don't think "wow they are efficient!" -- I think -- wow, they must have rushed, did they even really have time to THINK about it, let alone let it rest and re-read it, etc? If you DO finish ultra fast -- I'd strongly suggest you sleep on it and re-read it a couple days later, because if you turn it around in five minutes, it will seem like you rushed it and didn't do a thorough job.

There is no ticking clock here. We'd prefer the work take a little longer but be polished and great than it be fast but shoddy.

Let's say you DO have a contract and a true deadline with a publisher. In that case, keeping to your deadline is important, and it's fine if you are a bit early -- but actually, you don't need to TRY to be early, and you don't get a prize for being EXTRA early. Because they are working on a lot of projects at once, and they have (ideally) actually blocked out time to work on this -- and that time won't start early. So if it is due in April and you send it in February -- they will probably get to it in April at the earliest. So again - a little early, fine, whatever, but by the deadline is ideal. If you know it's going to be pushing it and you might be down to the wire and need a couple of extra days or something, just let them know, it will pretty much always be fine.

If you know you will need a LOT more time -- let them know AS EARLY AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN, because shifts by weeks or months will potentially mean that publication dates need to shift as well, and that's many people's schedules and timelines that will need to shift. They will probably be able to accommodate you to some extent but the sooner they know, the easier that will be.

[angelart67]

HEYA ALL YOU WONDERFIL TUMBLR PPL, I'M POSTING MY REPLY TO MY RECENT EMAIL, TO GIVE YOU ALL A HEARTY LAUGH, SO GET OUT YOUR SENSE OF HUMOR, HERE WE GO...

(YES I really did send this to them, & NOT by email either, I sent it direct thru thier website chat feature, so I knew someone would have to go over it, in order to contact me back)

OK, so I have an opinion about your recent (strange at best) email invite I discovered in my inbox today. 

Let's go over it...

First, the basic idea is to find out what Amazon customers think about Amazon Delivery, & my first thought, I must admit, was... IT'S ABOUT DAMN TIME

Then I kept reading, & laughing & even crying at one point...

YOU SAY... Survey is hosted by external entity, called Alida, ummmm WHY? Is Amazon afraid to ask me themselves? I've been begging Amazon to pay attention to DELIVERY ISSUES for at least a decade now, only to be hung up on, ignored or patronized.

YOU THEN SAY...

Don't include ANY personal or confidential info in my answers...

THAT IS QUITE CLEAR AMAZON !!!

EXCEPT YOU FOLLOW UP BY...

Telling me if I have ANY CONCERN about the authenticity of the email, that I should... TAP A LINK??? AS IF, REALLY?

Anyone who has used a computer or phone at any level has probably been told NEVER CLICK A LINK, ESPECIALLY IF UNSURE OF ITS ORIGEN.

But you want me to tap on in if I'm feeling weird... HINT HINT: WHY not say if you are not sure, come ask us directly thru our website, while signed into my account? That sounds safer to me...

AMAZON, this is EXACTLY what is wrong with Amazon Delivery, Amazon Customer Service, Amazon as a whole...

YOU DO NOT LISTEN WHEN GOOD CUSTOMERS TRY TO TELL YOU WHAT'S WRONG, BUT YOU THEN TELL CUSTOMERS TO GO AGAINST ALL BASIC COMPUTER SAFETY PROCEDURES...

Here are my survey answers, I'm just doing it my way READ IT AMAZON...

Amazon Delivery IS ONE GIANT ISSUE, because you allow the drivers to go by whatever rules they want to. INSTEAD OF PROTECTING THE INTEREST OF YOUR CUSTOMERS, WHO ARE GIVING YOU MONEY, You'd rather kowtow to the drivers you already overpay, to do a job, that only about 10% (& that's a kind guesstimate) actually know how to do, & then proceed to do properly... 

Amazon profile asked specifically for me to include specific notes regarding my deliveries in several fields, I WAS QUITE CLEAR WHEN FILLING THAT IN, but drivers DO NOT even read that section... they go ONLY by, "Where should we leave your package?" 

That's just one more blatant example of how BACKASSWARDS Amazon is, so it WASN'T just the email, BUT, the email did include icing on the cake, in the point that besides telling me to tap into an unknown link, within an email I may question, if a person taps your yellow SIGN UP BUTTON... IMMEDIATELY after being told to NEVER include personal info (SEE RED UNDERLINED SECTION)

Tap button and... the FIRST THING I SEE IS A FORM ASKING FOR THE EXACT INFO YOU JUST TOLD ME NOT TO INCLUDE... Oh, by the way, it don't say a single thing about Alida Survey, it says Amazon Delivery Service, shouldn't your IT PPL know that?

Try to pull your heads out, before you lose all your good customers, we are NOT hostages, there are OTHER WAYS to shop, my Amazon has dropped to a bare minimum of the business I used to give you, because I finally got SICK TO DEATH of paying good money for items I purchase, so your arrangatan drivers can drop kick, throw, or hurl it at my door, against the wall, or on several occasions, completely abandon it outside, cause they are too damn lazy to come to my apt door, inside building as politely requested IN MY PROFILE... and those who do come inside, toss it, take a pic, & flee the scene, like they murdered someone, without a single thought to stick out their arm & knock...

I'm ALWAYS HOME for deliveries, yet YOU & YOUR PEOPLE DO NOT CARE if I receive what I pay you to bring out, or if it's in one piece in the box, once they finish battering it... SO NOW, YOU STILL WANNA KNOW WHAT I THINK ABOUT AMAZON DELIVERY... MY RESPONSES HERE ARE BETTER THAN A MYSTERIOUS SURVEY...