#hello this blog is not dead I've just been taking a break longer than I thought I would

[omori-in-odd-places]

My omori plushie finally came!

[archiveikemen]

💌 From: Erie

Hello!

Previously, I announced a hiatus because I had some personal matters to attend to and with my awful self-control I couldn't really focus on them while balancing TL stuff at the same time. I was also feeling pretty burnt out and needed a break.

Now that I've settled what's important, I think I'm ready to continue running this blog. However, as mentioned in another post, I decided on certain changes I want to make to how I run my blog.

Some of these changes are going to upset some people, but I've been thinking about this for a long time and only made this decision after choosing to prioritise my wellbeing + this is my blog.

Continue under the cut.

First of all... this one isn't a change and you guys already know this because it's in my FAQ post + you can tell by how often I post new stories — unlike some other blogs, I'm not able to translate new stories every single day aka I'm not going to be posting daily story chapter updates. It takes a lot of time to TL and a lot of proofreading before a story is deemed ready for uploading.

Moving on!

I've probably said this at least 5 times by now and keep going back on forth on the decision but this time I'm dead serious.

There will be a change to the order in which I prioritise which game's content I TL. The new order will be: Ikemen Genjiden, Morganatic Idol, Ikemen Villains/Koihana Bakumeiroku/Ikemen Live.

You read that right. I'm going to start TL more MoruDoru content. The reason for this specific order of prioritisation is simply because Genjiden is getting discontinued in August and we don't know whether the app will even still be on the AppStore like IkeRev or it'll end up like IkeLive (IFC) or it just vanishes off the surface of the earth. Moreover, MoruDoru and KoiBaku don't have EN versions; IkeLive is because I want to finish Henri's main story.

Ever since Ikemen Villains EN server launched, I noticed that majority of the fandom is now focused on that and no longer reading translations of JP events even though they're not on EN yet. Which I think is understandable and great because now it's much more convenient for the english speaking fandom to enjoy the game without having to wait for someone to translate stuff. All the events and stories on JP will be on EN eventually. Therefore, I'm going to stop translating main stories and events for IkeVil — this excludes any paywalled stories I may be interested in i.e. ECB, 95K LP bonus, story sale, birthday stories. I'll still TL paywalled stories because I understand that not everyone can obtain them, even when they're out on EN. However, IkeVil remains at the bottom of my priorities.

I'm well aware that I built this blog up and gained majority of my audience from the Ikemen Villains fandom, so I'm truly sorry things turned out this way. But I want translating to be fun again and most of my enjoyment back when I first started my blog came from being able to just TL whatever I'm reading at the time, instead of rushing to TL stories before the next event starts and beating myself up over being slower than others.

That's all I have to say. I don't mind if you want to unfollow me after this, because being "popular" was never my goal to begin with. I thank you for all the support you've given me so far, from the bottom of my heart.

[answrs]

Readmores And You - A Really Great Tumblr Feature!

(this is technically directed at stuff I've seen in a specific tag because of the content of said tag makes it more likely to spoiler things, but it applies to anyone likely learning the ins and outs of a new site. speaking of which, hello! welcome to tumblr!) (this got. longer than anticipated. apologies, I get bogged down in trying to make things as clear as possible. ^^")

I've seen this a lot recently in the VC tags especially, where the post goes something to the effect of "tw bloody animal!" then like six periods and the images of whatever dead thing the post is about.

I recognize this is probably being carried over from some other website (...reddit probably? maybe insta?) but please. I appreciate y'all so much for trying to do what you're doing. but this method of hiding pictures isn't effective on tumblr, but there is an infinitely better option!

"but why? it works fine on other sites?" firstly, a few extra lines typically don't even take up enough space on mobile (let alone desktop) to hide your pics, so even at a glance anyone is likely still seeing at least the top half of whichever picture you posted before even noticing the trigger warning on top. second, because you have to scroll all the way past the images at the bottom of your post anyway to get to the next one on your dash/in the tag/etc. so if someone comes across your post and the trigger warning is applicable as something they want to avoid, unless they have access to a keyboard to use a keybind shortcut that ive been here 12 years and still cant remember, they can't see any other posts after it without either having to scroll through the pics or outright block you. which is... not the most ideal of options I would say.

"but what else am I supposed to do then!?" I hear you ask.

READMORES!

tumblr has a wonderful feature known as a "readmore" that's built into the site! it creates a break in your post, which hides any content - be it words, images, whatever - that you place underneath it, not showing it unless the person viewing it clicks on the words "keep reading" (formerly "read more" - hence the name :D).

Cool, how do I do that?

on mobile you can place one by tapping an empty line and clicking the grey squiggle icon from the selection that allow you to insert an image/vid/link

which will place a squiggly line into the post you're making:

(desktop uses the same icon, it's just in a more compact row of icons.)

you can drag it around after placing it too, just like photos. (note: mobile can get finicky with this and it's usually just easier to remove it -click the big red X- and add it in the new place you want it.)

EDIT: some of the versions of mobile editor are broken and don't show the icons. to add it in manually type ":readmore:" (with the colons, but not the quotation marks) on its own line. Thank you for the reminder, LovingTogetic!

this is also a nice way to keep your blog tidy and not swamped in long and/or spoilery posts (say if you're posting 5k word fics, or extensive meta, or gushing over the ending of the latest game or TV show most people probably haven't seen yet)! it's not required, obviously, but it's generally considered a common courtesy for others that will be seeing your post cross their dashboard.

finally, an example of the readmore in action:

(ta-da!)

have fun out there y'all, I hope this is helpful ^^

as an aside (I wasn't sure where to put this but under the break seemed appropriate), you may also see a lot of personal/vent posts be fully under readmores as well, even if the post is only a sentence or two long. this is mostly so followers don't necessarily see it unless they specifically click, but there's a more frustrating history to it becoming a thing: when a post is reblogged, any content above the break is permanently frozen as it existed at the time, but anything under it will reflect edits made to the post. while not common, a certain type of user sometimes browse the various "do not rb" tags and will purposefully reblog personal posts in order to upset and distress the users. putting those things under a readmore make it so even if that happens, the text can be deleted from all iterations of the post. recently the site rolled out an option to lock a post to reblogs, but you gotta mess with the settings and it's mostly a habit after a decade here dealing with the nonsense.

[sephyathredon-writing]

Today is my 10th Anniversary of being on Ao3!

Hello everyone! I have been publishing fics on Ao3 for a whole 10 years! In that time, I have published a whole 67 fics, a number which I'm very proud of (and two of those are longfics with three chapters each).

I plan on ranking almost every fic I've written (I may exclude the ones from the epic and MCSM fandoms even though they're the earliest ones there), because I've noticed that there are some that I felt I could have definitely improved on. That will be in a different post though, hopefully sometime today. I plan to do a breakdown in this one.

First up, statistics.

Almost 200,000 word count, 20k left to go before I hit that, so I think that'll be one of my goals for 2024 (which I should hit easily if I write even half the stuff I have planned)

Almost 45k hits too! I'm surprised that my fics are that popular. I'm grateful to everyone who's ever read my fics!

An interesting lineup for sure. It's no surprise that the Breath of the Wild stuff is popular, but I am surprised to see my quirky Zack time travel fic up there. Also, congrats to "Watch It All Fall" for being so new and still being number four on this chart. That's impressive.

"Break Like Time", "Birdsong", and "Watch It All Fall" are on this one too, but in different positions. Not surprising to see "Kiss of Life" on here too, considering it's another BoTW fic.

I am not at all surprised to see "Watch It All Fall" taking the lead in this category. It surprised me with just how many comments it got in the few days since I put it up. Neither am I surprised to see "The Reason We Rise, We Rise" Since it's a longfic that's fairly new and stars characters from Crisis Core.

Actually, the only one of these that doesn't have multiple chapters is "To Break Like Time". "Through the Storm" is an old fic from when I was in the Epic (BlueSky 2013) fandom. It has two chapters and I'm surprised a fic for such a niche fandom managed to get 7 comments.

I am kind of surprised to see "Rude of the Turks" (10,053 words) standing toe to toe with my three chapter Crisis Core fic (12,557 words). At the same time, though, I am not. Rude of the Turks details Rude's life from when he was young, to when he met Reno, to the moment he joined the Turks, and also shows how his life turn out post meteorfall. You need a lot of words to write something like that.

What I am really surprised by is "The Night that Nibelheim Burned" (9,347 words) being there, higher than "Watch It All Fall" (8,342 words) Which is also three chapters long.

Now time for the Psued breakdown!

With the addition of my new Nimona Psued, I have officially made 10 of them! They are:

Diplomatic Translator (4 fics)

For my Dragon Prince fics, named after my blog of the same name on Tumblr. I shipped Gren and Amaya before another ship with Amaya became canon. All these fics are Gren-centric, except for Silent Songs.

FFVI_Stories (2 fics)

For my Final Fantasy 6 fics. I am no longer interested in this fandom anymore, but there is a story about Shadow and another one about Sabin and Gau on there.

Leafman_Finn (4 fics)

This was originally my name when I started my Ao3 account, but when I realized I really wanted to publish more than just epic fics, I changed my main Ao3 to match my main blog here on Tumblr and this became a Psued.

Lukas_the_Loyal (3 fics)

A Psued for another dead fandom. I really loved MCSM back in the day and shipped Lukesse (Lukas and Jesse, specifically Male Jesse). Despite that, my fics are varied. "Vanish" is the Lukesse one. "Unraveling" is about Jack dealing with Nurm being left behind, and "Aftermath" is my favorite MCSM one about Lukas and Petra.

Luminary_Oleander (6 fics)

For my Dragon Quest XI fics. I played the game a long time ago and really loved shipping the Luminary with Erik. Most of these fics are Luminerik, but there's a good variety of interactions with other party members (I like Hendrik and Sylvando too!).

Misc-SephyAthredon (9 fics)

For fics in fandoms that I don't want to make another Psued for (Though I really should make one for BoTW and ToTK). Fandoms include BoTW/ToTK, Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, Persona 5, and a singular fanfic for Jak and Daxter that I wrote for Whumptober. The BoTW/ToTK fics are all Sidlink (Sidon x Link), the Jak and Daxter one is Jak x Torn, P5 is Akira x Yusuke, and one out of two of the GAA ones are Ryunosuke x Kazuma, both fics also heavily feature Barok Van Zieks.

SephyAthredon (16 fics)

As you can probably tell by the high fic count, this is my main Psued. All fics under this one are Final Fantasy VII fics. It's my main fandom. I have a variety of them too. I mentioned my quirky Zack Time Travel fic before, then there's my long fic which is about Zack and Sephiroth leaving Shinra with a very sick Cloud in tow. There's also a small fic about Hojo experimenting on Cloud and making his party members watch, and another small fic about Cloud defending Denzel from burglers. There are also a couple of fics I find a little embarrassing by now, staring a FFVII version of Terra from KH. I loved that AU for him so much that I wrote fics based on it. Still, they're part of my history on Ao3 and I still love "The Execution" even if it might seem silly to an outsider. I feel like I wrote it believably enough for it not to be a glorified self insert fic. Shoutout to "IvaliceForever" on Ao3 for enjoying this AU too and being the only people to comment on those fics. I started publishing fics in the FFVII fandom when I did my first Whumptober and the rest was history.

Tired-Teacher (6 fics)

Back when I was in the My Hero Academia fandom, I would write a lot of stuff about Aizawa. He was my favorite, still is my favorite from that fandom. I particularly liked the father-like relationship that the fandom gave him with Eri. I also shipped EraserMic and EraserMight. "A Hero on the Brink" is my stand out favorite fic here. While I wish I could re-write some parts, I love the atmosphere overall. "Under the Rubble" and "Held Hostage" are also good fics. Half of the fics here are EraserMic, and the other half focuses on Aizawa as a parent of some sort. "A Hero On the Brink" is about Aizawa's somewhat paternal relationship with the students of Class 1-A. "A Fatherly Touch" Is about his paternal relationship with Eri", and "Broken Engines" Is about a platonic relationship specifically with Iida (since he's my second favorite character).

Whumping Ambrosius (9 fics)

And now we come to my newest Psued for the Nimona fandom! When I watched Nimona, I fell in love and I wanted to write a million things for it. All of Whumptober last year was Nimona themed as a result. This Psued may be called Whumping Ambrosius, but lets be honest, I whump both halves of the Golenheart ship. It's apparently what I do to ships that I really enjoy XD All of these fics are Goldenheart (Ballister x Ambrosius). I fell in love with the ship as much as I fell in love with the movie. There will continue to be more fics in this Psued, I guarantee it.

Willful_Wayfarer (8 fics)

Named after my Blog here on Tumblr, this Psued contains all of my Kingdom Hearts fics. It was originally made for me to publish Terra-centric fics in, but in the last few years, I found myself becoming really interested in the Strifehart ship, thanks to a blog on Tumblr who I'm really good friends with that had a Squall/Leon blog. Naturally, that meant that I started writing Strifehart fics. Two of my favorite ones are "Calming the Beast" (Which I affectionately call my "Domestic werewolf AU") and "Shot in the Dark" (Which has not only Cloud and Leon but Sora in it too, and Sora is the one getting whumped.)

Whew, that was a lot. One more thing before I finish the post. I want to do a round up of all the events I participated in!

So, right of the bat. I've participated in 4 years of Whumptobers, which is very impressive, I think. No matter how much or how little I feel like writing, It's always a tradition for me to set aside a whole month to write every October. You can tell how much energy I have for writing by how many fics I put out.

The fic that kicked off the tradition was a Dragon's Dogma fic that I didn't put on Ao3. It's called "The First Fall of Aiden The Arisen" and it's not hard to find here if you want to read, but since it includes my own personal Arisen and Pawn, I didn't think it had a place on Ao3.

FFVII Secret Spring 2021

Entry: To Break Like Time

Gift: SOLDIER of Hubris

I am not joking when I told you I outlined "To Break Like Time" in a few days and banged out the whole fic in a weekend. It was exhilarating. It was quite a magical thing to be able to do something like that, even if I didn't entirely like the fic that came out at the end. I think I liked it more before I actually published it. "SOLDIER of Hubris" was an amazing fic to get as a gift. As much as I adore shipping Cloud and Zack, I also have a weak spot for polyshipping him with Aerith and Tifa. Not to mention Cloud gets whumped, and back then Cloud whump was my favorite type of whump.

FF7 Fanworks Exchange '21

Entry: Flowers for Zack

Gift: Fragile Peace

I'm not a big fan of the one that I wrote for this exchange, but I like the idea. It was hard to put together and the ending was pretty rushed, but I did like the parts with Cissnei. I think I remember this one being slow to actually plan out and put together. "Fragile Peace" was a cute little fic of Cloud being a dad and was everything that I could have asked for in a fic. Incredibly, tooth rottingly fluffy, which is a little odd, since I usually ask for whump, but this time I wanted something about Cloud being a dad.

2021 FFVII Secret Santa

Entry: The Night That Nibelheim Burned

Gift: Sulphur and Cinders

I really remember liking the challenge of tacking Kunsel in this Exchange. He's a character that everyone brings their own unique characteristics too since up until Crisis Core Reunion came out, he didn't even have his own voice, and we still don't know what he looks like. I also enjoyed messing around with a text message and e-mail format for this fic. "Sulphur and Cinders" is a good little fic fulfilling one of the prompts that I was curious about when I finished the Remake. "What if Hojo got to tell Cloud that he wasn't a real member of SOLDIER?" This fic tackles that idea really well and in such a whumpy way.

FF7 Fanworks Exchange '22

Entry: Rude of the Turks

Gift: A Hollow Chest and Warmth

Rude was an interesting character to tackle for one of the Exchanges. He's so different from any other character I write, being so stoic and all. Before then, the only Turk I had really ever tackled when it comes to writing was Cissnei. However, once I had the idea that Rude was from Corel and his full name was "Rudolph", I took the idea and ran with it. The actual crux of the fic, though, was the decision that the beads that hang off Rude's pants in his character model are prayer beads. Well, Rude didn't strike me as a particularly religious man, so they had to be important to him in some other way. So I decided they were the only thing he had to remind him of his mother. Then the fic took off from there. "A Hollow Chest and Warmth" is a fresh take on a Zack lives AU. It features a significantly weaker Zack that in Crisis Core and has some very very sweet Clack moments (I'm a big Clack shipper).

2022 FF7 Secret Santa

Entry: Shivamas Reflections

Gift: Unpack Your Heart

Shivamas Reflections is one I don't have a lot to say about. The prompt was something Christmas inspired, so I wrote a fic about Cloud remembering past Christmas' and celebrating Denzel's first one with him. (I don't know where I got the idea this was Denzel's "first" one. His family probably celebrated it before with him.) Unpack Your Heart is a nice little polyship fic between Cloud, Zack, and Vincent. Basically the prompt was "What would happen if Zack opened Vincent's coffin and asked him for help when they were breaking out of the labs." It's got a nice sense of humor to it.

FF7 Fanworks Exchange '23

Entry: You Make Me Human

Gift: The Tongue Stuck in My Jaw

When I write Sephiroth, he's always softer than he probably would be in canon. I like the side of Sephiroth that genuinely loved to hang out with his friends and who leaned on them when things went wrong. This is a very short fic but I enjoyed it. I rarely tackle writing Sephiroth and one of my favorite things about Crisis Core is how it shows his human side very well. "The Tongue Stuck in My Jaw" is another very sweet dad Cloud fic about Cloud struggling to figure out what to do after he brings Denzel home. One of my favorite scenes in ACC was the scene where Cloud find Denzel so I based my prompt off of that.

One more thing before I finish this post. I also participate in DoGoodWeirdly. I started in 2022 and have kept doing them every time they come up. My fics for DGW are:

Calming the Beast (January 2022) An Unpublished Yakuza Like a Dragon/Dragon Quest XI Crossover fic (July 2022) Ch 1 of The Reason We Rise, We Rise (January 2023) Ch 3 of The Reason We Rise, We Rise (July 2023)

In conclusion, thank you to anyone who has ever shown any interest in my fics, weather it's one of my old Epic or Dragon Prince fics or one of my new Nimona fics, it means the world to me! I appreciate you even if you didn't comment, even if you just left me a kudo or decided to bookmark the fic. I love that people love my fics.

Oh and for anyone debating on if they should draw art based off my fics, I adore getting art that someone drew of something from my fics! You don't need to ask permission.

Here's to another 10 years of writing fanfiction!

[words-from-j]

This blog is not dead

08.09.2021 | 16:24

Hello,

This hiatus was a little longer than intended.

There are so many moments from this past month that I've wanted to share but always end up occupied with something else. I don't plan on deleting this blog, so I want to create more photography posts of what I'm up to and places I've visited. Full-time work has really had me on my toes. Just got done with month-long training back in August. It's been a struggle to find set aside downtime for yourself when you're left feeling dead tired and drained from information overload x.x It also doesn't help that my mind is wired to jump from one task to another. I get easily distracted and hyperfocused ^^;

I'm starting to grasp the idea of what postbacc life is. Not just the responsibilities and stresses that come after college. But learning how to unravel myself + my goals in the workforce. In a field that I'm passionate about. I was so set about leaving grad school on hold for a while. My whole life, the main thing I've identified with is academics. After the pandemic, I was desperate to be 'out in the field' - working. An awakening that I'm sure others have also had over the course of these 18 months. I'm grateful to be working in a field that's related to what I studied. Many usually struggle with this, let alone landing a job right out of college. So I'm super grateful.

Some changes over this past summer: I've started drinking coffee a lot more. My love for tea is still there, but I've been more active about seeking out coffee shops. Personally a fan of independent, small-owned cafes. Can we consider her a new addition to the family?? Our neighborhood tends to have a lot of stray cats. This one somehow ended up sticking around and forming a bond with us. I think she might be less than 2 years old, but I never imagined I would've been learning about cats this summer. Now how do we convince the dogs to like her :") I've been more motivated to go out with friends. Yes, delta variant but we take our precautions. I can't say this summer has been a rose-tinted experience without any lows. Half of this season feels like it's been spent battling mental health. But it's definitely gotten better! My nails are the longest they've been in the 20+ years of life. Long nails = bettering mental health for me :) And through my job, realizing I might be an introvert with extroverted tendencies. Still socially awkward tho~ I look forward to exploring new places. Currently daydreaming about traveling to Japan for winter break 😅 But it might be spent being isolated the whole time due to quarantine travel measures

I'll stop here before it gets any longer. Maybe I will compile a post of summer outing photography. I love being near the ocean, so here's some beach wallpaper if you made it this far :) Captured on samsung

(Life update 1/2)

📍 Dockweiler Beach