#but I’ve got stuff already written for all of these but idk which to work on & finish fjfkfk

[aurorasgate]

✨ help me pick my next wip to work on!✨💕

[cameronspecial]

hey lovely!! i’ve been thinking about rafe spoiling angel and taking her to those cute little stores with all of the cute plushies and stuff. idk, but i absolutely love your work, and i literally giggle and kick my feet when i see that you’ve written more 😛

ilysm pookieeee 😋😋

Let Me Spoil You, Angel

Pairing: Frat!Rafe Cameron x Reader

Warnings: Mentions of Sex

Pronouns: She/Her

Word Count: 1.0K

A/N: Thank you so much. It makes me giddy that you enjoy my work!

Masterlist

Y/N had just found out that she got into her top-choice Master’s Program and Rafe couldn’t be more proud of her. She’s been working so hard, so he wants to reward her for her accomplishments. “Rafe, why are we at the mall? You know I mostly shop at outlet stores,” she complains. Rafe brings her to his side, “I know, but why don’t you let me spoil you, Angel?” She exhales and bobs her head. “Fine, but not more than a hundred dollars,” she limits. She really does love it when he pampers her, but she needs to set some boundaries or else he’ll buy the whole mall. He shakes his head, “One thousand.”

“Two-fifty.” 

“Five hundred.”

“Fine, except I get to buy dinner.”

Rafe is satisfied with the offer and holds his hand out for her. He doesn’t want her to feel guilty about him always spending money on her. The first stop on their tour is the bookstore. He purposefully picked this mall because of the big indie bookstore inside. This is probably where she’ll spend most of her money. She has been browsing the science section of the store for about ten minutes now and has already picked out a few books. Rafe wants her to choose whatever she wants; however, he has a small request. He resets his chin on her shoulder, “Could you throw in some spicy romance books? I like proving to you that I am the ultimate book boyfriend.” Y/N giggles, remembering what happened when he caught her reading Icebreaker. She takes his hand and heads over to the romance section. She browses the books for a few minutes and picks one out. She examines the back, proceeding to add the whole series into the basket. “What’s the book about?” he asks because he is intrigued by the fact that she wants to buy all four books. She smiles at her, “The first one is a grump x sunshine book. She is a photographer and he is rich and her brother’s best friend. I’ve seen it on Bookstagram.” 

He follows her further down, “That sounds interesting. I can’t wait to see where it has us having sex next.” Shy about his words, Y/N turns her head away and continues to look at the books. They spend about forty minutes in the bookstore before moving on to  Miniso. Y/N stares at the wall of stuffed animals in front of her. She knows she wants one, but can’t decide which to choose. “Okay, so there are four possible ones that I want. The penguin, the cat, the bear, or the banana. Which one do you think, Rafe?” she consults. Rafe doesn’t use words to reply; instead, he goes to each one she points out and puts it inside the bag. He adds an elephant in just because he thinks she’ll find it cute. “Rafe, that’s too many. Where am I going to put them?” she reasons, trying to reach into the bag to return some of the plushies. 

He holds his hand out to stop her, “It’s still within your budget. We can put them in the frat storage if there isn’t space in my room and when we find a house in the summer, we just have to make sure there is enough room for them.” “Okay, I guess we can do that. Come on. I want to buy you some things too,” she tells him. They pay for the toys and she drags him to J. Crew. “You don’t have to use the money on me. It’s supposed to be for you.” She turns to him with a grin, “I know. This is for me too. You are going to do a fashion show for me.” Rafe isn’t one to like going shopping, but he will find joy in it if Y/N enjoys it. 

Y/N sits on the little stool Rafe got a sales associate to bring over, waiting for him to come out of the changing room. The door opens and he comes out wearing the teal and white-stripped button-up shirt with the tanned chinos that she picked for him. He does his best to catwalk towards her and spins around for her to take in the full look. “What do we think?” he questions. She gives him a thumbs up, “Rafe, you look so good. We are definitely getting those.” He nods his head before going back to the changing room to try on the next outfit. He comes out in black shorts and a light blue polo, which compliments his eyes. He mocks taking a golf swing, “This is the perfect outfit for golfing. We are going to have to get you a matching one.”

“I don’t golf, Rafe. You know that.” 

“I do, but don’t you think it would be fun to have a matching outfit? I can teach you how to play.” 

“Fine, it would be cool. We can go next week. Now, go finish trying on the rest of the clothes.”

He gives her a mock solute. After trying on the other outfits, they get her a matching outfit to Rafe’s and then go pay. They head to his car, having spent five hundred dollars in almost three hours. It’s a new record for them honestly. Rafe opens the passenger side door for her and she slides into the seat with a thank you. He puts the shopping bags in the trunk, making his way to the diver’s side. “Did you have a good day?” he postulates. His eyes land on her beaming mouth and she holds his chin in between her fingers. Her head moves up and down, “I had the best day. Thank you for spoiling me, Rafe.” She gives him a sweet kiss. “I will always shower my angel with gifts. Now, where are you treating me to dinner?” “Let’s get sushi!” she announces, pointing her finger in forward. He chuckles at how adorable she is and starts the car, driving in the direction of her favourite sushi restaurant.

Taglist: @winterrrnight @loves0phelia @thelomlisrafecameron @wickedlovely121 @queen-shadow22 @nonbullshit-toleratingkindagirl

[poppitron360]

Big “I’m Back, Bitch” post after my Hiatus.

Hello All!

This is kinda just intended for close moots or anyone who was worried about me or is interested in Poppi’s Personal Life Lore, just to keep you guys up to speed on how I’m doing after some time away and what to expect from me in 2025.

SO MUCH has happened in the two months I was away from Tumblr so for starters, here is a brief list of updates I have about My life/Fandoms/General shenanigans in no particular order

- The Ithaca Saga came out and it was AMAZING. I completely ignored my stockings that Xmas morning and instead just listened to it. By the time Christmas day was over I’d already listened to it about six times.

- Yes I was at the watch party along with 206,000 other people. It was truly historical.

- The Helluva Boss sinsmas special came out and almost made me cry. It’s been a while since I was posting about that show, but dw I still watch it

- I’m now on book 3 of Magnus Chase and YES YOU WERE ALL ABSOLUTELY CORRECT I LOVE ALEX SO MUCHHHHH. Expect some Alex Fierro/Fierrochase/Jack x Riptide content from me soon

- The Star Wars Disney+ shows are better than they’ve been since Mandolorian Season One.

- HAPPY 2025!!! This can’t be a real year. 2017 was still last year. No way we’re halfway through the 20s already.

- I had a BIG LIFE UPDATE that for personal reasons I can’t share online but it was BIG and also GOOD and I’m really proud of it. It was also unexpected and not the reason I took time off for. Idk why I’m including this bc I can’t really say anything about it but I need y’all to know that something good happened. It seems like when I vent about personal stuff here I only talk about the bad but good stuff does happen sometimes too.

- I got a weighted blanket for xmas. It’s so cozy and I love it.

- I have started getting into making OCs. Some for fandoms, some not.

- Penelope is now my favourite character in Epic.

- I’ve been writing this fanfic about the children of Percabeth, Solangelo, and Valgrace going on a TLT-style quest together so stay tuned to either read that or watch me give up on it and then just infodump about the plot I would’ve written if I’d had the energy

- I’m finally caught up on The Amazing Digital Circus

- I’m finally caught up on Agatha All Along (I still have the last episode to watch)- I think Joe Locke is stuck playing Sad Gay Baby-bois for the rest of his carrer now.

- Joel Smallishbeans won Wild Life and Grian is making 7hr Hermitcraft videos now.

- I performed in a play

- I have a 133-day streak on Duolingo!!

- Technically my one year Hyperfixation anniversary of Percy Jackson! I count it as the first Wednesday after Christmas as that’s when I watched the TLT musical for the first time. Because of this, whenever I doodle an SPQR tattoo on my arm when I’m bored, I will now draw two lines under it instead of one.

- Less than one month into 2025 and I can already predict that “The Challenge” is gonna be my top song of the year on Spotify

- Overall, I’ve just been trying my best to relax and take it easy, and I think I succeeded, which is good because that’s what I needed.

Now for the slightly less lighthearted stuff. I need to set a few things straight, for myself more than anything.

Firstly, I want to clarify that mentally I'm fine. I realise my leave was sudden and might’ve worried some people, and I apologise, but I am safe. You don't have to worry about my health or wellbeing.

This too will pass, and you'll get more dedicated, hyperobsessed Poppi back again once this has all blown over. Although, the aforementioned “BIG GOOD LIFE UPDATE” might complicate things.

Holidays are a stressful time for me, as I’m sure they are for you. With that on top of work and life stuff I needed to shed some mental load and unfortunately Tumblr was the first thing to go. And it will be the first thing to go again when something else stressful shows up. Adulting is hard you guys.

I've made it no secret that I've had some stressful stuff going on in my life these past few months. Yes, I am back from hiatus. Yes, I'm taking the time to rest and take care of myself. But I do not have the physical capacity to fully administrate a Tumblr blog on top of everything else right now.

So from now on, things are gonna be a little bit different around here. I won't be making posts every day and I won't be writing large fanfics or working on any complex fanarts.

I will need to take more hiatuses as things pile up.

I don’t know when exactly, but consider it a fact (unless I say otherwise) that this will happen again.

I know a lot of you will be understanding but I want to set these rules for myself so I don't feel any pressure from my brain to provide for you all. As I'm sure most of you will relate, I have a kinda all-or-nothing attitude to my interests, and as of this point in my life I can't afford to give my all to my blog. So expect a lot less from me these next few months.

Also, still nothing on the Autism Assessment Application stuff, in case anyone was wondering about that. This is the reality of living under the NHS. But by talking to people I’ve still been able to get the help and support that I need regardless of a diagnosis. And I also have a bunch of fidget toys now!!

Anyhoo, sorry for the ramble. I neither assume nor expect everyone will bother reading this so thank you for taking the time if you did. I wanted to put all of this in one post so I don’t need to keep talking about this and boring y’all with personal details in case you’re not interested. On with the fun fandom fiascos!!

I thank you all for your patience and being so kind and considerate while I needed some rest. I could not hope for a more awesome corner of the internet to exist on. Love you all. Stay safe. I’ll see you soon!

— Poppi <3

@lavenderfairiez @ginnyluna @groverapologist @echo-stimmingrose @demigod-shenanigans @keefessketchbook @sleepyycapybara @123letsgobestie @fairytalesociology @four-leafed-queer-gal @child-of-helios @puzzled-pegasus @ollieisanerd @twomanyfandomshelp @lokiwiiiiiii @yoshuko-ew @frayna-of-the-hollow @via-rant @hadeslegacyhephgirl @pjowasmy1stfandom @thetourturedwritersclub @m-for-now @inky-void @deciduowl

[n1ghteeea]

Have there been any headcannons of the fellas and Janine that you personally disagree with or don't make sense to you?

Ooooh, that’s fun.

The fandom is dead and I’ve only been here since August, so I can’t say I saw a lot of stuff to either agree or disagree with tbh (which is why I ask ppl to send me their hcs and ideas bc I wanna see at least SOME content) buuuut there are a few character interpretations that piss me off.

1. “Janine would be jealous if Egon got in a relationship with other guys” she literally would not. If it was someone else? Maybe. The guys? No. Dude, they are a family. He constantly spends time w/ them instead of her, they sleep in the same room, they are BASICALLY an old married relationship already, and she dgaf, she loves all of them and she wouldn’t mind. SHE set them up to meet in EGB on Egon’s birthday, I swear. If she was jealous she’d constantly drag him away from them to spend time with her instead, but she doesn’t bc she doesn’t mind. They are grown adults and they can share perfectly fine. Stop putting them against each other. Pictures related.

2. “Peter doesn’t care about his job or his friends and really only wants to gain fame and a girlfriend” I WILL KILL YOU!!! But like that is FACTUALLY not true. In the show we see him having MULTIPLE opportunities to leave ghostbusting behind and go on to do something more fun, but he ALWAYS turns them down like it’s obvious (ex: “Banshee Bake a Cherry Pie?”). Plus, he cares more about his friends and his job than about any girl, AND he cares more about them than his infamous movie counterpart!! Movie Peter turned down work when he had a date. RGB Peter? Yea, he whined for like 2 seconds but then went anyway and forgot about it like immediately. I mean hell, in EGB HE was the one who after TWO MINUTES back in the Firehouse went “wow guys, we stopped early with this, maybe we should reconsider and become Ghostbusters again?” HE LOVES THIS JOB AND THESE PEOPLE!!

3. Not a fan of when ppl separate the guys into 2&2 ships, just let them be poly. All of their dynamics are written with the same depth, they all care about each other and have sweet moments, like come on. It esp irks me when ppl only care about Egon/Peter, idk, smth smth picking only the two conventionally attractive white men to ship and talk about from such a close-knitted group is an odd decision to me 🤷

4. Hate when ppl ignore / exclude Janine from the group. She’s just as much a member of this family as the guys are, and they love her, leave my goat alone. But also don’t like when they ship her with other guys besides Egon. Maybe it’s cuz I see her as a lesbian, maybe not, idk. Not my thing.

5. Idk don’t like when ppl can’t separate the movies from the show? Saying RGB guys left Egon alone like the movie ones did is plain wrong. They didn’t. It was a mutual decision to split up and they were all miserable and clearly missed each other. In Afterlife (as much as I like it) it barely seems like the guys gaf about Egon dying at all, but in RGB? Boy oh boy, they are the happiest people ever when they meet. Separate them!!

6. PPL NEED TO LOCK IN FOR EGB!!! If you like RGB but never saw EGB you don’t see the most heartbreaking tragic part of their relationship and how it affected all of them, ESPECIALLY Egon. As I said before, EGB literally has everything ppl wanted from the sequel movies PLUS it’s actually good.

But overall my fandom experience was positive (cuz the fandom is dead) yay!!!

[dojunie]

fic progress update :3

misdial: working on the jaemin x reader prequel before getting into chapter 6 of misdial in earnest! so, techinically i’m still 'working on misdial', but not exactly a story continuation just yet... apologies for all my jeno luvrs, your time will come soon!

the lake house (njm misdial prequel, possible retitle coming): wordcount is at 27k currently (I KNOW! I KNOW! I’M SORRY!) and i’ve got about 5-7k left (...optimistically... it will probably could be more...) i must’ve written like 5k for this in the last three days alone because i’m very excited about it, so here’s to hoping the energy sticks up. i’m planning for this to be the next thing i upload!

messenger: is on baby hiatus! the outline is finished! just have to motivate myself to make the texts, LOL

courtside (itwd retitle, njm or ljn basketball au): wordcount is at 55k. this is my child, idk, i carry her around in my locket necklace like an old victorian lover, i write very sporadically for this (like 5k in one night or nothing for a month) which means she will not be coming out into the world for a while. but when i tell you this is on my mind every day. atp i’m genuinely thinking this fic might be like 80k plus

into you: indefinitely on hiatus……………… i think about her so often but im not happy with the way it flows at the moment, and i just do not have the energy rn to rework what i’ve already written (its at 9k) but i still really like the existing parts + the concept itself! its on hiatus, idk when i’ll sit down and work on it again, but i 100% plan to finish it

swimming for dummies: next on my wip roster after either i finish lake house (plus, or) misdial ch 6! currently at 32k? just need to wrap up the final scene and edit for flow and clarity before part 1 is done and potentially ready to post!

other info: looking at all these big number seems kind of ridic for how little i post, like im writing like crazy and just hoard it all instead of posting (if u do the math of the stuff above i have one hundred and twenty three thousand words of stuff in the works) but i promise you these things will be posted!!!! i luv writing. i luv dream. i am also just a perfectionist who cant upload something until it makes perfect sense + i am a serial editor, which means i have to reread + spot edit the whole fic every time i open the doc or i think i'll die. really slows the process down, unfort

anyway, i'm making this post so you don't think i've given up on some of these things!!! progress is being made, i pinky promise, but thank you all for sticking with me either way :D

[titsthedamnseason]

omg yes! i read the final empire a couple years ago now i loved it so much i cried a lot and then told everyone about it and my brother actually bought me a hardcover anniversary edition of the trilogy i barely own any physical copies of any media so that was such a nice birthday present but then last year and this year just the whole process of getting a job and studying beside it has taken a toll and i've barely been reading but hopefully by spring i'm done with that stress and then i can actually take the time to start reading again!

when *that* happened at the end of the final empire like i had a feeling for it the whole time and i was dreading it all the way but really dreading vin's reaction to it and i read it in bed at like 5 am so you know i cried A LOT but i kind of know kelsier is back but idk how physically or if it's just a haunting the narrative kind of thing but i know sanderson suprise dropped a novella from his pov after the mistborn trilogy called the secret history so cosmere wise i'm definitely reading the mistborn trilogy but i don't think i wanna go straight into stormlight i think i wanna read some of his standalones like warbreaker and definitely yumi and the nightmare painter! and you really like elantris so i think i'm gonna go for that because apparently it was his debut standalone but he is planning to make it a series?

then i need to research timeline wise how to read the second mistborn trilogy and if the kelsier novella comes before or after (tbh i think publication order will help with that) but i do feel i will leave stormlight to last from his work because i know they're massive books but also he's having a break from it now because it's supposed to be like a 10 book series but he's half way through and wants to write the third mistborn trilogy before he delves into the second part of stormlight i think. i remember reading about mistborn and finding out he wants it to be a trilogy of trilogies in that world set in different time periods which is pretty cool

i can't wait to talk about it with you and now i've written this in your inbox i guess you can hold me accountable for my plan next year lol

i’m so so sorry i totally missed this! the mistborn series is so special and INSTANTLY pulls you into the cosmere and brandon’s writing. that is such a thoughtful gift from your brother too wow 🥺

we can hold each other accountable because this year my goal is to read warbreaker and then finally start making some progress with stormlight. the kelsier novella i believe should be read before era 2 because after doing extensive research i have already read it lolllll. but actually i think we are talking about different novellas bc i totally read one about kelsier but i don’t think it was the secret history because that is way far down on my list to read (i have it placed after the first two era 2 books but before the third)

i am by no means an expert on the timeline stuff (considering i’ve only read 4 of the books and 2 novellas lol) and i only JUST learned how extensively brandon intends to continue the cosmere but yeah. there is lots to come and it’s insaneeeee. i’m not planning on waiting to read stormlight but i DID do a lot of research into different orders that people suggest reading the cosmere and i have a list im using to keep track of it if you’re interested

i’m super intense about reading things in the “right” order for maximum impact of everything so i watched and read so much stuff about it and there are a LOT of people like you that prefer to push stormlight to the end or break it up between other books so i would look into some tiktoks / youtube videos / web articles of recommended orders and there will be plenty to help you figure out the best way to read it in the order you want without confusion or spoilers. i basically got out my pen and paper (and notes app) and wrote down all the orders i thought i would enjoy the most based on why people liked them and then compiled them into one mega list for myself since most are pretty similar it wasn’t too difficult to frankenstein them together into one master list (although i DO think taking notes is essential or else you WILL forget)

i’ve been thinking SO MUCH about how elantris is super underrated and it genuinely hurt my heart after i finished it and saw people shitting on it so much. the story touched my heart and i haven’t stopped thinking about it maybe even more than i thought about the mistborn trilogy after i finished it. you HAVE to read it! it’s an awesome book that is incredibly well crafted and im so excited that it’s going to (eventually) continue. especially knowing that it was brandon’s debut novel and the story that started it all i don’t understand why people are so harsh on it i truly adore it so much

[thepunkmuppet]

UNHOLYVERSE CLOSING THOUGHTS YIPPEEEE YIPPEE YIPPEE

it’s 1am and I’ve finished it :)

the plot was fucking amazing as was the writing, it was like a really really good tv show, or maybe an amazing movie (pt1) and its slightly more deranged sequel (pt2 and 3). I think I definitely preferred all things unholy as a whole, but yeah the next parts really did feel very sequel-like, in that the first one was The Story and the second and third were building on that first core story, expanding the characters and world. which ummmm btw the lore is insane??? so much going on lmfao but I think it all worked really well. the fallout boy stuff was fucking wild though icl because WHAT 💀 I’m also obsessed with the idea of god talking to frank in the form of the cardinal dream, that worked soooo well and still leaving it open at the end is great. I’m so glad frank and gerard got a happy ending, I ship those stupid twats SO hard I’m literally clawing at the walls they make me INSANE RRAAHHHH!!! icl I really didn’t care about mikey and ray’s romance like at all but it worked as a source of conflict and was pretty cute

I kind of forgot it was meant to be mcr fanfic for a while lmfao, which brings me on to I guess the most important part which is my main takeaway on the whole rpf thing

as I’ve said in a post before, I really struggle to picture voices and faces accurately in my head when reading. well except when it comes to buffyverse characters, but that’s just because those shows are so deeply ingrained into my psyche forever that istg I could literally channel buffy summers at this point and just become her. lmfao but yeah I really struggle with that! so when I’m reading, I just kind of create a vibe, a vague mind’s-eye image of a character, it’s very hard to explain. so for me these frank, gerard, mikey, etc characters were subconsciously already way far removed from the real people, like I had to consciously make an effort to make them sound and look exactly like them in my head. but like I said, it felt like a real piece of media like a tv show or something, so to me the unholyverse characters are just that - characters. it really felt like mcr playing movie roles lmfao which I was perfectly happy with. the romance and other relationships were written soooooo well, the real problem was ofc the smut!

I don’t like smut in general, not in a judgy or censor-y way, I just get no joy or kick out of reading it and all it does is make me feel awkward. but with rpf smut, even though I see unholyverse frank and gerard as fictional characters, I can’t ignore the fact that THIS IS FULLY EXPLICIT WHAT IS ESSENTIALLY PORN BEING WRITTEN ABOUT REAL PEOPLE 💀 read it write it all you want, personally I find it uncomfortable and it just doesn’t do anything for me. made me think too much about the fact that it WAS rpf, yk?? got me thinking about the real frank and gerard and how fucking weird it would be to read smth like that about yourself idk, also the fact they have wives and kids…. 😟 gosh idk it was very very well-written smut, it just made me so icked out the more I thought about it

but anyway, OVERALL: I loved it. it was so good, will definitely reread, bookmark, and think about it for a very very very long time. possibly scream and cry and tear my hair out too, idk. part 1 was my favourite by a long shot, it’s so iconic, and feels pretty removed from parts 2 and 3 in a nice way that makes it feel like a movie and its strange sequel. I’ve discovered I like rpf when it’s good and when it’s a complete au and the people feel like original fictional characters in their own right. I don’t enjoy rpf smut, though, AT ALL, which isn’t a surprise bc I don’t enjoy smut in general, the rpf aspect just made it way more uncomfy for me personally. kind of feel the need now to bleach my brain out and consume normal mcr content just to remind myself of the disconnect between unholyverse frerard and the real people lmfao

OH ALSO THAT

I do NOT ship frerard irl, that shit’s fucking weird don’t do it. yes there is a difference between fic like this and saying two married friends and colleagues in real life are actually in love with and attracted to each other. I do for sure ship unholyverse frerard, as I’ve said they’re fictional characters to me

[burins]

2024 WRITING REVIEW

tagged by @vechter !! thank you so much for the tag i will try not to be tremendously maudlin in response! idk if @timetoboldlygo @rolameny or @try-set-me-on-fire did a fic year in review already. Also if you see this and would like to do it genuinely consider yourself tagged I would love to see your thoughts!

number of stories posted to ao3: 7! although two of those and almost all of another were written in 2023. let's say 4.75.

word counted posted for last year: 27k (minus 8k for estate and 3k for unsent letters, so 16k. Which is frankly, a miracle)

fandoms i wrote for: fatt, dc comics, hxh

pairings: superbat, leopika, dinahbabs, alyarr. I also wrote a relatively high proportion of gen fic this year! 

stories with the most kudos, bookmarks and comment threads: everybody loved how cleanly, how quietly (the tim has friends actually manifesto) which is good because i also love how cleanly, how quietly. 

work i’m most proud of (and why): literally anything i got out this year was the product of blood sweat and tears for reasons i will get into later! I’m probably most proud of the silliest fic i published, my love sits patiently, the leopika chair fetish fic. this sprang out of a joke with some friends and rapidly became ungovernable. I’m always nervous writing for a new fandom about whether i have a good handle on the characters, but the entire process of writing this was just me sitting at the keyboard going teeheehee what if! and then putting that into the fic. I think the comedy hits and the prose is good and i managed not to make it too sad (always a danger) while still keeping the leopika sauce in there!

work i’m least proud of (and why): genuinely i don’t publish things I’m not proud of! the really id shit languishes either in my brain, my dms, or in my notes app. so I’m going to cheat by saying a fic i wrote in 2023 but only put up on ao3 in april. it’s estate, not because i don’t think it’s good-- i think it’s really good!! I gave myself a hell of a challenge in writing it (“oh i want to write a shirley jackson pastiche, from the POV of a character I’ve never written before, and also he is a child” <- words spoken by a fool, and a dingus. No one made me do this!) and I think I mostly succeeded. But because it was for a zine I had a strict word count limit, which meant i had to trim down the prose a fair amount and I think it did lose some of its effectiveness in that process. Someday maybe i’ll go through my gdocs and try to resurrect some of the bits I tightened farther than they should have gone. 

share or describe a favorite review you received: i got a lot of really, really thoughtful and lovely comments this year! I feel immensely lucky every time i write something and people like it enough to tell me so. Especially because writing was such a thorny thing for me it was deeply helpful to have people in my inbox going hey, i loved this. sometimes they did literary analysis! incredible shit!!! there are too many to have a particular favorite but someone just told me that they read to the morning come, the post-utrh superbat, a week into their DC comics journey. Which is crazy because that fic obliquely references the time the Joker was the Iranian ambassador, perhaps one of the stupidest storylines in comics. (In hindsight I could probably have come up with a different reason why Clark doesn't let Bruce kill the Joker.) I hope this person has a great time, and also I’m very sorry. 

a time when writing was really, really hard: ha. well. I don’t think this is what the question was intended to get at but for 90% of the year it was physically painful for me to write! my nerve pain came roaring back in december of 2023 and I spent months and months only able to pick at stuff a couple dozen words at a time on my phone, or trying to do bits in voice to text via a truly wild phone to computer situation, or just full of ideas rattling about that I couldn’t do very much with. I try to let it be what it is but it has been a fucking rough year and many many times it made me want to bite. I have ups and downs and I’ll probably keep having ups and downs! i hope this isn’t forever because i really miss getting to lose myself in prose. but at the end of the day we are all just working within the limits of the form and sometimes that has to be more literal than i’d like.  

a scene or character you wrote that surprised you: i was originally writing my love sits patiently leaning more heavily on the jokes. But i realized that it is much funnier and also much sweeter if leorio genuinely gives himself a chair thing because he is so horny and emotional about kurapika, so then i had to write them having sex where the chair was integral while not, myself, being into furniture in that way. (i respect our kink warriors it just isn’t For Me!) 

a favourite excerpt of your writing: i’m so pleased with all of the prose in unsent letters from the end of the world, yet another alyarr epistolary fic, but i’m particularly fond of the conclusion. I rattled around a little trying to figure out how alyosha’s voice should sound in these letters after everything he’s gone through. I was thinking a little bit of Leonard Cohen’s final letter to Marianne Ihlen-- there’s a particular certainty that comes with age, and I wanted to allow alyosha some bitterness while still acknowledging that of the various tragedies he’s witnessed, everything with arrell is probably not the top of the list. And also i wanted to stay true to the ending tone of spring in hieron, which is a story about the end of the world and the lives we make for ourselves anyway. 

What I mean to say, in a rather roundabout way for which you are no longer around to chide me, is that I write you to tell myself a story, to determine my own thoughts by writing them down. To make a story, step by meandering step. I did not begin at the beginning, and I have not ended at the end, but I have, I think, come to the conclusion anyway. I loved a false god, and I will never know what, if anything, He loved. And I loved you, Tutor, and you loved me, and it was not enough. But I also loved the world. I loved it enough to change it. I thought there should be something instead of nothing, and I made it so. I hope I was not wrong to do so. From my window I can see children playing, swinging from branch to branch. I do not think I was.

how did you grow as a writer last year: i would like to say that i learned to accept my own limitations and celebrated my victories (getting a fic out for multiple events, getting to a place where I could write almost all of my love sits patiently by sitting down at a keyboard!!!) but that is a Work In Progress. 

how do you hope to grow this year: i really do not want to jinx anything so i will just say i would like to be able to write sustainably, whatever that means for me this year. I suspect it will mean a variety of different things because what counts as sustainable changes from day to day! 

who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer, beta, cheerleader, etc.): really truly cannot say enough kind things about @suedeuxnim beloved friend beta cheerleader etc. thank you for cheering me on in my dms and keeping me supplied with cat pictures. also, separately, my wonderful spouse. this is a tumblr post, not the oscar acceptance speech, and i suspect they would find it embarrassing if i went on a lot but it makes every aspect of life easier to have a partner in crime. 

anything from your real life show up in your writing last year: funnily enough the chronic pain duo fics were actually written BEFORE the big chronic pain resurgence, and also they’re from 2023. (this has actually happened to me twice, and while i’m not going to stop writing about chronic pain it does feel like maybe i am a little bit cursed.) I wrote two fics about bruce’s parenting choices and their effects on his kids and I think you can do the math! No one gets deeply into batman comics because they’re normal about fathers. Oh, in more fun things, Tim’s calendar from how cleanly, how quietly is based on the very real Daikonic Moments calendar from Omega Mart, which was our 2024 calendar. If anyone has suggestions for a 2025 calendar lmk because we got one for Christmas but it’s all bad mullets and we are not hanging it up.  

any new wisdom you can share with other writers: i spent a non-zero amount of this year feeling bummed that i couldn’t write as much as I wanted, both because writing is one of my main hobbies and also because despite my cool and untouchable image (citation needed) it is hard not to compare myself to others who are able to write much, much, much more than me! But that is silly because I am me and they are them. There have been times in my life when i was the demon of productivity and times in my life when i wrote nothing publishable all year. So my wisdom (still working on the implementation part!!!) is to celebrate what you are able to do and not what you don’t manage. And also, write for yourself and your circle of freaks and you can’t go wrong. 

any projects you’re looking to starting (or finishing) this year: anything i can finish is a win! I have a lot of projects in the hopper from almost two years ago; who knows what will happen. I did sign up for secret samol so there will be a fatt fic forthcoming, and I also signed up for another secret project (no longer secret! I'm gonna be in the Bruce Wayne pinup zine) so there’ll be something else probably in early summer. I would love to finish my jaydick injury fic. i have a second chapter of dinahbabs handler sex, but that one involves a lot of disability feelings and i’ve been putting it off because i want to do it justice. maybe superbat amnesia will happen at some point but that’s so long (and has a Real Plot) so the likelihood is slim. I have a LOT of ideas about how leopika can have sex mistakes I’d love to turn into fics but also they’re just fun to rotate. we’ll see!

[ectogeo-rebubbles]

I have kind of a niche Garashir fic idea I want to write but I’ve never posted anything publicly before, so I am nervous. But I can’t seem to get over the idea? You’re one of my favorite fic writers, any advice? 💕🥺

Ooooh, you gotta try to write it!!! I always love to indulge my new ideas that are driving me insane as soon as I can hehe (because part of writing often has to be done after the initial idea no longer excites you quite the same way).

I like that you said it’s a niche idea, too! I do enjoy most of the common fanon tropes and worldbuilding, but it’s always so refreshing when people add something brand new to the Garashir body of literature. And the nicher and stranger the better, in my opinion!! One thing about writing something niche is that maybe it won’t get the same amount of attention as quickly as something that has broader appeal, HOWEVER... I can tell you from experience that when your niche stuff does find its audience (which may take patience and persistence) that audience will likely go absolutely WILD for it. And I always find that very rewarding <3

Is the reason you haven't started yet because you don't quite know how to start? If that's the case, I would recommend writing an outline first. I even sometimes will outline really short oneshots lol, not because I think I really need to, but because that way i at least have a good record of my idea and ALSO because sometimes I can trick myself into just starting to write by taking notes on in outline format until I get to the part I'm REALLY excited about, at which point I realize I'm just writing full sentences instead of notes and I just let it flow from there and go back to fix the beginning later. XD You could also just try to summarize the plot for a friend, that often reveals to me where any structural issues are tripping me up, and identifies what I need to think about more before I set words down on the page.

Idk if you haven't written before or if you just haven't posted any of it, but I want you to know that a few years ago, when I was easing myself back into writing, I worked on writing like 3 or 4 different garashir fic ideas privately before I actually figured out which idea I wanted to write all the way to the end and actually post. Most of those first wips never got posted (and my wip graveyard is still massive and always growing lol) and that's for the best bc I either got bored of the idea or could not yet achieve the story in the way I wanted to. Which is NOT to tell you that this is inevitable or that you should let your inner editor shut you down, but I just want you to know that it's perfectly okay and normal to, like, have to noodle around a bit before you've written something you're happy with.

Speaking of your inner editor, you gotta tune them out while writing a first draft. Don't even worry if the sentence makes sense, just get the words out, and then get the next words out, and then the next... If there is something stopping you from writing the next sentence (a name you need to make up, or something you need to research, or uncertainty about what a character would be doing, or even if you are just blanking on a word) and you are trying to maintain a flow of writing, then write a note for yourself (e.g, "[insert title of a Cardassian novel here]" or "[Julian makes some kind of expression. Surprise? Anger? idk]" or "[synonym for sinister, bc I've used sinister three times this fic already]") and then MOVE ON. You can go back in and fill in those blanks later.

Also, I really really really really like the writing advice of thinking of your first draft as your worst draft or stupidest draft. It's so true and it helps take the pressure off. One related amazing thing about writing star trek fanfic is that if ever you begin to doubt yourself, you can just fondly think about a beloved episode of Star Trek where something very silly or buckwild happens in a very contrived way, and then remind yourself that people LOVE that episode anyway. This is a genuine way that I have reminded myself not to be so harsh on my own writing lmao.

I really working with beta readers, but I know that's not something everyone enjoys and it's def not required. Still, a beta reader can give feedback on your writing to make it clearer, and they'll likely become invested in your fic and will cheer you on, and if it’s longer than a oneshot you can have someone to talk it through with during the writing process. But it might be hard to find someone you work well with and everyone’s beta reading style is a lil different, so I recommend always being very clear about what kind of feedback you want from them (grammar/typos, plot structure, clarity, brainstorming ideas for how to fix this plothole, does this one specific line of dialogue work, etc! whatever aspects you are uncertain about and want help with for that specific fic). And you should know that it’s okay to not take someone's recommendations too, it’s ultimately your fic, so anyone giving you feedback should just be trying to help you achieve your own vision. Still, even in those cases where you don't go along exactly with their idea for what to change, knowing what parts confused them can help you figure out how to get your vision across more clearly.

If you think concrit might actually be demotivational and intimidating (totally get that, back in high school I actually solicited concrit on my fics publicly, as was the custom back then, and received some critiques from some truly well-meaning friends, and the experience STILL rattled me so bad that it turned me off writing for awhile), or if the process of finding someone to beta read sounds overwhelming, I’d recommend that you instead just find a trusted friend who is willing to read over the completed draft, with the understanding that they must simply give you a sanity check and then tell you yep that’s good! Cannot stress enough the power of encouragement and support and having someone hype you up. ^_^

If you are too nervous to post it under your own name, you can post it to the Anonymous collection on ao3. This is a reversible process, so if you want to reattach your username to your fic later then you can!

Anyway, feel free to send follow up questions about any of this or let me know if there's an aspect of writing I didn't mention that is what you're actually stuck on. I hope this helps and good luck and HAVE FUN! Have fun is actually the most important writing advice haha.

(P.S., anon, if you want me to beta read a draft of a oneshot or at least look over a chapter or two if it's multichapter, I am down to do so, just DM me. If not that's fine too, I'm just so so flattered that you reached out to me and I want to encourage you in any way I can! <3)

[corellianhounds]

Idk if me being excited about writing annoys you guys or not, but it hasn’t been until the past few years that I’ve been able to see a story from start to finish. My usual writing style was just to start with an idea and descriptions and worldbuilding and interesting characters and just write, but more often than not I got stuck halfway through with no end in sight. Knowing where a story ended was rare.

Now though, anything you all see on this blog that’s longer than a one-shot is something I know the ending of. Posting it piece by piece might be sporadic and slow-going in the middle, especially since I have so many dishes cooking in the kitchen, but I know how the story ends. I know where the characters are going to end up

I’ve seen the architect vs gardener description for how different writers write but neither have felt quite accurate to describe how I work on projects. The gardening style was how I used to write, and I had good ideas and visuals and imagery and elements I wanted to use, but the structure would suffer for it and I couldn’t figure out the endings or what I was trying to say/do with the piece. Architecture-style feels too rigid and I suck at outlines, though I think that was mostly due to the fact any outline styles teachers or professors taught or gave us felt too formulaic and I didn’t know how to write a story by coming up with something for rising action, character intro, up the stakes, etc. That was always too disconnected and confining, and trying to write backwards from “Here’s the ending, figure out how it gets there,” has always felt bizarre and disjointed to me. The stories and characters end up not feeling organic and natural, always ending up forced and unsatisfying and ultimately just not well-written

What I do now is somewhere in the middle, which I KNOW is what most people are like, but the best way to describe it is like panning for gold: I write everything and anything down from all of the things I input regardless of what idea it pertains to, and as I sift through and think on the pieces I already have out I get closer and closer to something that’s solid and real. Sure, 80% of what I put on the page in a day are fragments and bits and pieces of stuff, but it’s OUT and it’s no longer distracting me and I can go back through and look for the potential in each of them or draw inspiration from one thing to use elsewhere. Then when those nebulous floating pieces come together I know the rhythm and flow of how it’s supposed to be written and how the characters are going to get there. Trying to force characters into certain actions that have to happen for The Plot to progress almost never works for anybody, and readers can tell that it feels contrived and ineffective.

Anyway. I genuinely like coming up with new ideas and different projects. All of them tend to improve because I’m taking inspiration from all of them and applying it somewhere else, and sometimes just working on another project helps give my mind the break it needs to come back with fresh eyes and an objective view. Anything I write is influenced by everything that has come before it, and I often find the solution I need for one project while I’m prospecting somewhere in another.

[evansbby]

1, 27, and 28 🥰🤍🖤

1. the last sentence you wrote

I’ll do you one better and give you the whole latest paragraph I wrote! I was working on this yesterday, can you guess which fic it’s from? 🤔

He’s got Natasha on his arm and all Steve can think about is how pathetic Bruce is for allowing his girlfriend to attend a public event dressed in such an indecently cut gown. Steve himself would never allow you to wear anything indecent whilst you were in the presence of other men who would be able to lay their eyes on you. Of course, in the privacy of his bedroom, he’d have you wearing all types of scandalous things, namely scantily clad, vintage lingerie. But in public? You were Captain America’s soon to be wife; the picture of modest femininity and demure innocence. Which was why he’d personally chosen your dress tonight — a beautiful powder blue gown with a respectable neckline.

27. your favourite part of the writing process.

When I get to delve into a particularly emotionally harrowing scene that I know people are expecting and that I’ve been building up towards. For example, confrontation scenes like the bathtub scene in poyt or the whole Wanda exposing reader at the ball in wg. Bc I’ve gone through those scenes a billion times in my head so I know exactly how to write them down when the time comes and all the words and dialogue really flow and I get to have fun with the dialogue and these are the scenes where the characters truly come to life and take on a life of their own. It’s like I don’t even have to think about what they’re gonna say next, I just write write write bc it’s like my fingers already know what to type! Idk if that makes sense but yeah! I look forward to writing those important, emotionally heavy or confrontational scenes with a lot of back and forth dialogue and secrets being revealed etc!

28. your least favourite part of the writing process.

Lately it’s been the smut 🥲 only bc sometimes I feel like I’m being so repetitive and I don’t feel inspired by a lot of my sex scenes anymore bc I’ve written similar stuff a billion times before. Of course there are some smut scenes I write where I literally turn myself on and I’m super proud of them but that hasn’t happened in a while. But I’m happy bc I’ve cut down on writing smut just for the sake of smut, as my readers seem happy to read chapters of my fics that don’t have/need smut at all. So now when I do write smut, it’s more meaningful and it’s smut that I actually enjoy writing and it’s not repetitive!

[benbamboozled]

So I’ve been wanting to read more red hood comics but ngl I’m so confused by all the different connected arcs? Like when I started I just got the red hood compilation book so I didn’t have to track anything down but right now there’s Gotham war which is both Batman and cat woman? And it has more than one author? And also the man who stops laughing?? Which has art that looks the same as some of the Gotham war panels I’ve scene people post I think?? Idk. If ur up for it I would really appreciate some help understanding how to know what’s what cause I’m so lost. Also everyone has been talking about specific authors and stuff and I have no idea about any of that either. So yeah would greatly appreciate any info ur willing to share I know I’m asking about a lot of stuff.

Okay so. DC likes to do EVENTS sometimes, where a bunch of titles set in the same “family” (Arrows, Supes, Bats) will all crossover with one “through” story.

So, Gotham War was essentially a “Batfamily” event (so, an event centered on Gotham) that was a “Batman Vs Catwoman” storyline that crossed over with the Batman and Catwoman titles, and also had two Jason-specific issues for the event, and I thiiiiink one standalone issue.

Generally speaking, the way DC handles EVENTS is by having authors already writing the titles involved (titles = specific lines like BATMAN or CATWOMAN) also continue to write the issues with the crossover storylines.

So, for example, Chip Zdarsky is currently the main writer for the Batman title. He wrote Batman issues of Gotham War. Tini Howard is the current Catwoman writer, she wrote the Catwoman issues of Gotham War. Matthew Rosenberg is currently the… “holder” of Jason (meaning he has been the most consistent writer for him lately, having written Task Force Z and TMWSL), and so he wrote the Jason comics involved in Gotham War.

That’s how you end up with the issues involved in an EVENT being like…

Batman #Bleventeen

Catwoman #Fivety-one

Gotham War: Red Hood #1

Gotham War: Battle Lines #1

Batman #Bleventeen-one

Catwoman #Fivety-two

Gotham War: Red Hood #2

Batman #Bleventeen-two

Is it unnecessarily confusing and often leads to conflicting continuities within THE SAME EVENT? It wouldn’t be DC if it weren’t!!!

Rosenberg is also currently writing TMWSL, and that both crossed over with Jason’s Gotham War storyline in Jason’s book and is picking up where Gotham War left Jason.

As for artists, idk how DC works specifically, but they can sometimes work on multiple books at the same time. (I think at one point Dan Mora was doing Batman and World’s Finest and another one??)

So. Basically, don’t feel bad for being confused, DC makes things pretty much as confusing as it possibly can. (And also people have the habit of not sourcing their images on tumblr which can cause confusion when you’re trying to find out about a book.)

Hopefully that…cleared some things up? A little? Maybe???

Lemme know if you have more questions!

[compacflt]

Fully support your desire to cut down on the extras as they're already so long, but as someone who was also looking forward to the sickfic section and is sad to hear it's been taken out, I will simply have to ask you about it instead! First off the discussion of home in the snippet you shared was delicious - when do you think Mav started thinking of the house as 'their' home? And Ice taking Mav to the hospital has a lot of crunch there around how they're seen and how they act in public, especially if Ice was worried and Mav was kind of out of it. Do you think Ice would have taken Mav in to the hospital if he'd really been spiking a fever and decided he needed it? How would he explain themselves? And I suppose a separate, related question: who are their official next of kin/emergency contacts?

the reason i got rid of the sickfic is cause all those questions were answered better elsewhere in the extras ❤️

i was kind of annoyed that the house inconsistently appears to be the property of whomever the plot calls for at the moment -> another reason to cut the sickfic

Yes Ice would take mav to the hospital. it happens elsewhere LOL, maverick is extremely incident-prone

obviously a fun surfing injury with friends != the sickfic’s ice taking “a friend” to the hospital in the middle of the night for dangerous levels of illness-related dehydration… implies familiarity, intimacy above everyone else… the hospital staff would probably assume they’re together, yes, & i don’t think ice would challenge that at all, especially if he had to make sure all the paperwork was filled out right. just not worth the effort. “is there anyone else we should call for mr mitchell?” / “Um no. Just me.” Yeah i took him to the hospital at 4am bc i love him and im worried about him what r u gonna do about it 🤨 violate his hipaa rights? It’s 2009 gay people exist grow up🙄 hospital staff isn’t gonna tell anyone, so who cares

(Luckily for ice in the sickfic he didn’t have to take mav to the hospital)

the point of the sickfic was to establish a precedent for one of them voluntarily taking care of the other who is unable to take care of himself, to set up the parallel of maverick taking care of Ice when he Really gets capital-s Sick. but then i still can’t bring myself to write ice actually being capital-s Sick because i have some weird neurosis where i simply dislike thinking about ice (powerful guy) being helpless or incapacitated or, um, dead. so the mav-sickfic isn’t really relevant anymore because i haven’t written (and never plan on writing, besides that one half-assed one-shot) the corollary ice-sickfic. so the sickfic became the Nixed-fic ❌

And according to this wip wednesday snippet, they are each other’s emergency contacts. don’t ask me how that works or how they figured that out, idk. some stuff you do have to talk about for logistics purposes i guess. which is kind of the point of all the house-related/money-related discussions I’ve written throughout my fics—they Have to talk about the logistics because that’s real life. But they don’t INTERPRET those logistics or assign them a normative value.

for instance debriefing presents (maverick’s) death & taxes as the only two things that ever get them to actually talk to each other lol. logistics become a vessel through which they can talk about their situation without actually talking about it. The state of being each others emergency contacts might be a death-and-taxes discussion—acknowledging permanence without acknowledging permanence

[other-eye]

I GOT TO SEE LORD HURON AND HOZIER!!!! (AND CHRIS STAPLETON AND ELLE KING)

God I love my family sometimes (a lot of times). My brother got me tickets for RailBird. This is a big music festival in Lexington Kentucky and the headliners for the day I was going was Hozier and Chris Stapleton. My favorite band of all time is Lord Huron and my favorite song is The Yawning Grave and I’ve been dreaming of seeing them for years. I’ve listened to Hozier for longer and have had full religious breakdowns to his songs before. I was so excited.

We drove 5.5 hours from the great city of Atlanta to Pineville where my grandparents live and we stayed the night with them. Next morning we made the 2 hour drive to Lexington.

We stayed about a mile from the festival grounds, so we just walked. It rained the entire walk but I was prepared. I wore knee- high rubber boots and a rain jacket. We got in early, so we got some merch, drinks (I don’t drink so I got a Coke and my brother got some whiskey +ginger beer drink) and watched Elle King’s set. I hoped she would play Drunk (And I Don’t Wanna Go Home) but she didn’t, oh well, She did amazing and I loved it.

About ten min before her set ended, we migrated to the stage Lord Huron would be on. I was vibrating with excitement. I forgot which song they opened with but they had this pay phone prop on center stage and it started ringing, the band came out and I’m physically assaulting my brother shaking him like Tyler the Creator to Narduwar in that one video. Ben comes on stage and answers the phone and starts singing Wait by the River. There’s a voice modulator microphone in it so it’s giving his voice that far away echo sound they have in a lot of the songs. My brother and I both were like “that’s so smart oh my god” they played a lot of songs I didn’t expect them to play like Ancient Names Pt 1, La Belle Savauge Le Fleur, and they announced a that they’re working on new stuff and sang one of the songs they’re working on! They played Meet Me in the Woods and I almost cried. Someone came up to me and said “I noticed you singing every song! Is this the band that sings Ends of the Earth?!” And I completely geeked out about it and they asked “do you think they’ll play it!” And I was like “idk I think they might but it’s hard to tell bc they have that newer album long Lost so I think they might play more of that” and we went back to hanging out, then like 2 songs later they start up Ends of the Earth and me and the dude looked at each other like “!!!!!!!!!!”

We noticed the crowd migrating to Hozier about 10 min before the end but we stayed until the last song “Not Dead Yet”. It felt like great end credit music.

We then tried to get fairly close to the stage for Hozier but we got caught in the sardine crowd (when everyone’s so close, you’re touching strangers). My bro and I get really claustrophobic, so I started getting frantic to get out of the crowd and I could tell my younger bro was getting overwhelmed and frustrated, so I told him to hold onto my drawstring and we cut through the ppl like a sewing needle. We went over by the bar and got a great vantage point. Hozier was already on stage and I’m white person dancing to everything. BACK UP EVERYONE I NEED TWIRLING ROOM. When he sang Francesca, I just stood there in complete awe. The ending parts when he sings “I would not change it each time, Heaven is not built for a love like you and I”, I swear tears were going down my face. My brother has written a whole book and the names of the brother main characters are Jackson and Wilford are ofc based on Jackie and Wilson (which he played!!!). I was funkin, bumping, and jiving to De Selby pt 2. I couldn’t hear the name of the woman who sang with him but she was a very pretty black woman with waist long braids and he voice was so deep and smooth that when I heard her start the second verse of Work Song, my jaw dropped and I was absolutely in love (I’m sorry to my boyfriend but I’m sure he’d understand 😅). Her voice reminded me of coffee and velvet and like with Francesca, I just stood there in awe for a while. I’m one of those people at concerts that get fully possessed by the music. He ended with Take Me to Church and I thought about how I was 13 when I first heard him and the 12 years I’ve been wanting to see him, it felt like a great ending of a movie.

My brother and I were also poking fun at the concert goers too. I’d been checking the weather all week and knew it was going to rain and that the fair grounds would be a mud yard, so I told my brother to bring work boots and ofc I wore knee-high rubber boots. It didn’t rain while we were there but it did when we were walking and yep, it was a mud yard. The amount of people wearing flip flops, sandals, crocs, white shoes, and worst of all, HEELS. Who wears heals to a music festival! I was full on dancing in the middle of the mud pit bc I realized it had a clear view to the stage and no one was gonna get in it with me. It was a great time!

This was my brother’s first concert and I’m kind of a concert junkie. I’ve got a list of bands I’ve seen live and bands I want to see. I’ve wanted to take him to see concerts for a while but he never really liked a band enough to see them. Then he snagged those tickets and gave them to me, so obv I had to take him.

Chris Stapleton was beyond anything I expected. I won’t lie, I was there for Hozier and Lord Huron but I wanted to listen to some of Chris. I didn’t expect him to sound almost exactly like his recordings. That man really has musical talent (which I mean I knew, but I didn’t know to what extent). By 10:30, my brother and I were exhausted. We been there since 5:30 and it was bedtime. As we left, someone handed Chris Stapleton their fuckin diploma to sign 😂. And he did.

Probably one of the best festivals I’ve been to!!

[bisluthq]

Which do you think was the most "authentic" Taylor era? I feel like a lot of early fans tend to go with one of the first 3 since that's when she became a fan, but I personally don't agree with that. With the context of the re-records and shit she's said in interviews, it actually seems like those eras were a lot more contrived in parts than a lot of her later ones - I think you can also make the argument for 1989 being a bit "fake," because it follows the same issue of her early eras where she was trying to portray an image that wasn't entirely accurate, that image just changed from the time she was 19 to the time she was 25.

From rep-now there was imo more of a distance, but shit the vault tracks and midnights shed some light on a lot of the stuff she tried to "hide" back in the day (like the fact that she had sex, and did/surrounded herself with people who did drugs).

It's very striking to me how different the like Fearless era is from now, and how the album that was written during that time (Speak Now) and the one just released (TTPD) are both V personal but in V different ways. Like Speak Now was very specific in terms of like... the people she wrote the songs about, because she said her #1 goal with that album was to make sure the people who inspired the songs knew they were about them. TTPD is personal in a different way, but not one I'm able to articulate.

so I love this question and I’m gonna out my age and how much of my life I’ve spent online - not that I hide it - but I wanna say like… debut and Fearless and SN Taylor to a point were very authentic Taylor if you were in fandom. I think that’s where Swifties got “the media” v “us” from. Because like Swifties did legit “know” Taylor a lot better than the media sanitized image of her, and the vast majority of her vlogging/blogging/content creation wasn’t covered by media and she was funny and raw and whatnot. She didn’t say openly that she drank or had sex but most fans in her age group - so like me on the peripheries because I wasn’t a huge fan but my bestie was - knew that. She made dirty jokes and she fucked around and we knew that whole Disney crowd is naughty and media soundbites to the contrary don’t mean much.

my friend stopped being a fan in 1989 because she said “that’s not Taylor”. She’d been less of a fan during RED already because it wasn’t quite the same but 1989 was just… not Taylor.

I think what she then got better at is understanding she can BE Taylor but cannot now be how she was to start and she started separating work (including fans, which I think she realized over time were like… becoming too many to be a manageable group of people she could playfully engage with) from her life (friends, family, Joe, Matty, Travis). So I think 1989-Lover were least authentic and she’s very much herself now but she’s not a girl you can like have banter with like you still can with idk Maisie Peters (who got the idea from Tay). She’s… female musical Jesus and she can ABSOLUTELY be herself but she can’t like… know everyone who knows her at all and the media ARE Swifties and Swifties drive the media (which tbf started to happen around RED and Harry).

I think the people who feel she was inauthentic in the first few eras or “changed” dramatically just… became fans later or weren’t that active in fandom then and got most of it from media coverage or were kids and just didn’t engage as much back then. She was very much herself and she still is but in 2008 you didn’t publicly go out and say “besties I’m underage but hungover as shit” lol. So that really wasn’t a big lie at all. And she NEVER spoke about sex so as not to lie imo and her lyrics since pre debut consider it and Fifteen explicitly mentions that Abi did it at fifteen. So like… idk man Taylor’s always been Taylor and she was less Taylor while trying to figure the Taylor Swift Phenomenon out but she’s still Taylor now and has been imo publicly since folkmore.

[tiptapricot]

Happy 1000 followers! That's definitely a number worth celebrating :D. Here are some asks for your Ask Game; don't worry about answering them all, these are just some questions I thought of, free free to answer whichever ones you want to. :3

What got you into writing?

Is there any books or piece of media that inspired your style of writing, or did it develop in some other way?

What character(s) do you enjoy writing the most and why?

Are there any character(s) or fandom(s) you love that you'd love to write for but never have?

Are there any hobbies or interests you have that you find leak into and/or influence your stories?

When did you embrace the ways of the apricot? (That is to say, when and why did you commit to the bit and start creating your marvellous collection of apricot icons?).

Hope you're doing well :). Enjoy your fame, my friend! 🧡🧡🧡

I will answer 🔥 ☠️ ALL OF THEM 🎸🔥 *sick riff*

What got you into writing?

I don’t really remember a specific point of Getting Into It, because (and this def plays a part) my dad is a writer! He’s written for some video games and has some short stories published, so I grew up with him reading me books and writing his own manuscripts/engaging us in that way. He never like Guided me into writing but it was always a natural presence and I was exposed to a lot of stories early on.

We did nanowrimo in elementary school, and I also made comics when I was younger that were my own narratives and things, and I did a few small stories for other classes along the way, but when I started Really doing it more intentionally was when I got into fic writing. Which… what got me into that was I think like… danganronpa self insert things? That’s my ultimate lost fic. I wrote it in the notes app in middle school and it was super long and then I hated it and deleted it all and I’m SO MAD ABOUT IT because IT WOULD BE SO FUNNY TO LOOK BACK ON NOW! It was kind of just a natural progression though I guess? When I started reading fic more and being online more and getting into more media, I wanted to create for it since I’d already been doing that sort of thing (most comics I did were inspired by superhero shows I watched or DND games I played) so I stated posting. And then I did more original stories for school and started making ocs and it just sorta settled into being part of what I do.

Is there any books or piece of media that inspired your style of writing, or did it develop in some other way?

None consciously? And I can’t really trace my style to anything in specific, but there’s def got to be some input from the books I grew up on. Stuff like series of unfortunate events, larklight, the leviathan trilogy, the keys to the kingdom series, the Roman mysteries series, the Lockwood and co series, Harry Potter to an extent, etc. all were things that I was exposed to growing up. I don’t think I’ve really picked up the quippy narration a lot of those have, but I know they shaped some ideas of description and imagery I do now, at least in inspo. But I guess on a whole it just sort of developed naturally? I really don’t have a very conscious writing process half the time 😭

What character(s) do you enjoy writing the most and why?

At the moment and also in general I like characters that have strong voices. They make the prose pop for me, make it easy to find fun descriptions and forms of speech. Bill and Ted and Steven Grant definitely come to mind immediately as like. When I get to write them stuff just goes fast because I know how they’d talk and narrate and react and it feels like something very solid to shape and work with. So accents? I guess? But on a larger sense of just characters I Like Writing… MK system are all very fun and I really enjoy getting to explore their dynamics and reactions. If I ever get my hands on Din Djarin for a fic (finally) I think I’ll have a good time with him, but idk. I think it’s very dependent on the interests I’m into at the time, as those will be the characters I’m the most excited to engage with and create for, so it varies!

Are there any character(s) or fandom(s) you love that you'd love to write for but never have?

THE ZETA PROJECTTTT!!! AND ALSO MORE OF LEGION 2006 ANDDD THE DCAU ANDDDD MORE LUKE N DIN N ORIGINAL TRILOGY CAST AND THE DAREDEVIL NETFLIX CAST AND MISS FISHERS MURDER MYSTERIES AND TIGER AND BUNNY AND— Ahem. Yes there are and they torment me every day wanting to get to create for them but having finite brain space and time space makes writing everything all the time… a bit hard. I kind of want to do a like niche interest power hour week or somth where I take fandoms I haven’t written for and make a small piece for them—WOLF 359 ALSO GOOD GOD!!!!!!!! But I don’t know when that will be.

Are there any hobbies or interests you have that you find leak into and/or influence your stories?

Not generally, but whenever I’m writing a character as having an interest in something or really liking something in depth it often has to be something I’m also into for me to be able to do research on it. This can mean I sometimes have to find middle grounds between what a character might find fascinating and what I find fascinating, so sometimes my interests are directly or indirectly in stories. Lost media I know has made it in a few times, and so has sci fi and superheroes and action figures. I don’t really have a whole ton of hobbies that are easy to slot in or draw from on a large scale otherwise, as niche toy collecting, a love for stickers and earrings and clown paraphernalia, and performing arts are only applicable under certain circumstances.

INTERESTS is a whole diff thing. My monster/inhuman character love, my love for certain genres or aesthetics, etc. influences ALLLLL of my OCs and a lot of my fics. Stuff that focuses on loving the strange, or the inanimate, or the weird crossover between the two is in a lot of my work (and will be in more haha) but definitely colors the types of stories I want to do, and the original content I end up making outside of fic.

When did you embrace the ways of the apricot? (That is to say, when and why did you commit to the bit and start creating your marvellous collection of apricot icons?).

THIS ACTUALLY HAS DOCUMENTABLE HISTORY!! Ok so.

The username Tiptapricot was what I came up with when I made my Minecraft account in elementary school. I liked apricots and peaches and plums and stuff (still do) so that was part of it, but I was also into semi-tap dancing (AKA being a young kid with some cheap tap shoes from somewhere and doing performances) so tip-tap and apricot combined and… there we were. It became my standard name on sites when I had to make accounts (bar like animal jam I think because it was maybe made earlier), since it was never taken and it was unique enough to slot in.

I guess as I was maybe making an Instagram account or going into highschool or just… for some reason, my sister @dimidarling wanted to make me a cute icon and, based off my username, drew me a little apricot with a face for one! This created what I now call… Prototip on July 14th, 2019

This icon was very cute and I loved it a lot, but it wasn’t quite the vibe I was wanting for myself, so I ended up getting a PNG of an apricot, slapping it on a blue background from looking up “light blue” on Google, and drawing a little face on it. That became the Default Base Tip as is seen in my icon most places, in December of 2019

FUN FACT you will never unsee after I say it: I think at some point I resized or re-edited the image or something, and I wanted to carry over the original face I had drawn on it, so I ended up cutting it out and pasting it over a face I didn’t like as much, and on the left side of Tip’s face (our right) u can see this tinyyy little black mark showing the edge of the main face cut out because I didn’t get it perfectly covered or aligned. I’m sorry in advance.

ANYWAY! So base Tip was made. I don’t remember the following order of events, but still being in my kpop phase in late 2019 I got Twitter briefly and made a Tiptapricot account there. And having an apricot with a face I thought: wouldn’t it be so funny if I was a gimmick account that pretended to be a real life apricot tweeting? So I did that for like a little bit. And then I went: wouldn’t it make the bit even better if this apricot was appropriately apricot aged? And long story short I changed my age to be a year old, then realized that would probably be bad legally, but when changing it back to my actual birthday, Twitter freaked out and banned me for messing around with my age and not being old enough when I made an account (even though I was at the time) so I got booted off Twitter. (And I’m glad about that can you imagine if I had settled in there instead oh lord) But the seed for apricot jokes was planted!

From there it happened somewhat naturally as a way to either make reaction images for friends online without sending my face, or to change my icon to play along with a funny joke. I made edits for friends in the DC fandom and for jokes we had running about each other going to jail or like “I’m gonna beat you up” or whatever, and joined along with a growing bit of giving me Tip related names, it became something I Did.

Now my Tip folder is 200 images strong and my mascot/sona/little guy is somth I actually care a lot about and have a lot of fondness for as a way to express goofy stuff and emotions in a way that’s simple to draw and feels rly truly me.

And there you have it :-D The Ti(nfodum)p

Ty for the questions Charlie, they were super fun to answer!!

(IDs in ALT)

1000 follower celebration