#i don't usually post things on tumblr but this was fully formed and i'm too impatient to wait and take a second pass + post on ao3

[faillen]

a little conversation I imagined happened before the bachelor party/wedding

---

"Hey," Tommy said, twisting his index finger into the hem of Buck's t-shirt sleeve. "Been meaning to ask—"

Buck tipped his head back against Tommy's shoulder to make eye contact. "Mhm?"

"How do you feel about PDA?"'

"Oh, I'm fine w—" Buck found himself stuttering to a stop, and his own hesitation had him flushing, stomach turning. "I—Actu—"

"Hey, no, you don't need to answer right now," Tommy said. "I just wanted to make sure I asked."

"Yeah, no, th—" this angle was shit for eye contact. "Actually, can we—" he lifted Tommy's arm off his shoulders and over his head, twisting so that he was sitting with his good leg tucked underneath him, facing Tommy and meeting his kind, open eyes. The thing that had threatened to topple loose in Buck's chest resettled.

"Evan," Tommy said, adjusting so that he was sitting the same way. He reached out and pulled Buck's hand into his lap. "There's no wrong answer, I promise."

"Right," Buck replied. "I know, it's just."

He liked PDA, he liked the easy affection of slinging his arm around someone's waist, or dropping a quick kiss. PDA was really, really nice when it came from feeling secure with who he was with.

But at the same time, there was still—when he and Tommy were in public together, there was still a part of him that was almost expecting someone to jump out from behind the bushes and yell that he was a "faker, fake! This guy isn't bisexual, he's a FAKE! Look at this asshole, pretending that he's a que—"

"Evan?"

"Sorry." Buck said quickly, snapping back into focus. Tommy's brows had dipped together, but he didn't say anything, just squeezed Buck's hands. "Sorry, I—" Buck took a deep breath. "I don't want to, y’know. Stick you back in the closet. But."

"Not being comfortable with PDA is not sticking me back in the closet," Tommy replied. "It's just you not being comfortable with PDA."

"But I am comfortable with PDA," Buck protested. "I just—" he hunched in on himself, unable to finish the sentence in a way that didn't inadvertently sound like a personal indictment of Tommy. Or suggested that he wasn't ready. "I think I need more time. And that doesn't feel fair to you."

"Evan," Tommy said slowly. "There's no expectation here. We can take it slow, I don't mind letting you lead."

Tommy's patience, Buck was beginning to fear, was endless. Which made him feel all the worse for saying things with the expectation that Tommy would interpret the worst out of them.

"You've been letting me lead with everything though." Buck swallowed. "Don't you want things, too?"

Tommy looked momentarily taken aback. "Of course I do," he said. "But I don't want things that make you uncomfortable."

"Right. But I know I hurt you," Buck pointed out. "On our first date, when I was uncomfortable. I know you said it was—but—I mean, I know it must've hurt."

Mouth pursing, Tommy sighed. "Alright, it did," he admitted. "But that's different. It's not like this—I don't. Okay, I actually don’t really know why this feels different, but it is. I suppose it’s because I know that you want this. And not wanting PDA doesn’t mean that this doesn’t feel real.”

“Unlike me acting like we were going to go pick up girls.”

Tommy tipped his head to the side, shoulders shrugging up. “Yeah,” he said. “I mean, I did say that I didn’t want to push you. And I think it was both. I was hurt, and I didn’t want to ask for more than you were ready to give.”

“And get more hurt.” Buck exhaled heavily. “I want to give you things,” he said. Because he did, he really, really did. “I’m not going to make you wait forever.”

The corner of Tommy’s mouth ticked up. “I know,” he murmured, the words laden not with a sense of expectation, but with a sense of surety that Buck would catch up with him eventually. “I’m not worried about that, Evan. Promise.”

“But if you ever are,” Buck said with a pointed look.

“I’ll tell you,” Tommy replied. He smiled. “So, temporary hold on the PDA?”

“Temporary hold,” Buck agreed. Then paused. “Wa-wait, does that mean hugs, too?”

Tommy laughed. “I think that’s up to you. Do you want to hug me, Evan?”

Buck grinned. “Yeah,” he said. “I do.”

And then he tackled Tommy into the couch.

(And then they did a little more than just hugging.)

[weemietime]

There isn't a whole lot of content on Tumblr about schizoid personality disorder so I thought I would make a little informational post. SZPD is a cluster A personality disorder, of the odd/eccentric cluster alongside schizotypal and paranoid. It is on the schizophrenia spectrum, and comprises the negative rather than positive symptoms of schizophrenia.

This primarily means we have avolition, catatonia, flat/blunted affect (demeanor), limited interoception (emotional sensations), lack of bonds to others including primary family members, and indifference to the opinions of others.

Whilst this isn't a diagnostic criteria, many of us are also asexual and aromantic, meaning we don't want to have sex with other humans (but usually do masturbate) and have no interest in romantic companionship.

My most disabling symptom is avolition, because I have comorbid ADHD. This means when I don't have my medication (dextromethorphan 120mg) I just sit there and zone out and can't even hold a conversation or move my body, nor even do things like feed myself. It is genuinely crippling and I am unemployed because of this, even though my meds help, they don't cure me and I need a lot of time alone.

Schizoid is something of an "anti-human" disorder, because we fail to form basic social bonds with others including primary caregivers. As a child I got diagnosed with inhibited RAD because I could not tolerate human contact. This differs from autism because autistic people generally want to socialize, they just lack the skills. I don't want to socialize and it takes tremendous effort for me to do so.

To even make this post I had to wait for my meds to click in as I was just sitting there mindlessly beforehand. While we have low internal sensations of emotions like caring, love, happiness, trust, sadness, etc. we aren't typically antisocial/dissocial and don't have a pattern of exploiting others or dishonesty. This requires too much effort.

There is a schizoid version of narcissism but it is separate to narcissistic personality disorder. NPD is characterized by a very fragile ego. You can't contradict or disagree with NPD because they are unable to regulate the emotions caused by conflict. Conversely, SZPD does not care about the opinions of others at all and places little value on them.

Our sense of superiority is legitimate, meaning we just do genuinely believe we are smarter than other people. So your mileage may vary on how insufferable you find that. I recognize this trait in myself and work to actively challenge it since it is illogical for me to think I am more special than anyone else. But, my ego is very stable, so criticism doesn't bother me the way it would in NPD.

Interoception means the sensations you feel inside your body. We lack this, so even stuff like hunger and tiredness don't impact us until we are very hungry or extremely exhausted. I don't have the feeling you would to look at a family member and get a sense of love or trust. I have a logical sense of obligation that I developed through choosing what I value based on reason. I describe this as care, and I place importance on my friendships, but there is no emotional component to this, it is all cognitive.

Tangentially: I'm somewhat of an optimistic nihilist, believing that there is no grand purpose to existence. Yes, even as a religious person. I don't think G-d ultimately has a purpose either, as an agent of the universe. (I don't believe G-d created the universe.) We have a human nervous system, so we base our rubric for morality on suffering and decide what is meaningful both collectively and individually.

I don't believe in true freedom of will (but I do believe we have agency), because we know that Bereitschaftspotential or reaction potentials occur in the brain up to two seconds before we become conscious of a volitional desire. Our consciousness occurs because of quantum synchronicity in the brain, so our free will is in a bit of an in-between state rather than fully determined or fully free.

So, we are not born deciding "I'm going to be an abuser," that happens because of brain abnormalities. It's no different than the forces of creation and destruction at work like a virus infecting a host cell. I don't place much importance on concepts of self-hood, I view myself as the electrical and chemical processes that occur in my brain, which happen without my choosing, that I can influence and impact through my own agency.

Anyway, these are just some basic schizoid meanderings for you all and I hope that this was informative or interesting in some way. Peace.

[naturagardens]

hi, my name is anne aka hinawa !! i'm nineteen years old and currently looking for roleplay partners. nobody under the age of eighteen, though! this is just a simple little post i'm putting out to - hopefully - find more rp partners, and friends! so it won't be aesthetic by any means, but it should cover most bases.

i live in florida, usa, so i'm on the est timezone. i've been roleplaying for around eight to nine years, and in various different forms. my preferred style is descriptive, as i enjoy writing a lot about whatever character i'm portraying at the moment.

i typically do fandom and fandomless, though lately i've been doing the latter a lot more. i just love making ocs! i typically roleplay fem characters, as it is preferred, but i am flexible !! i do have an endless amount of plot ideas, however any ideas of yours are also welcome. i love plot heavy roleplays, as it does give me more to write about, but also because it gives me a chance to fully get into the character that i'm roleplaying. i consider myself pretty flexible when it comes to plotting and figuring out specific details for the roleplay, as i always enjoy hearing other peoples ideas and seeing how we can combine them.

i do require that your responses at least match my length of responses! my minimum is typically three to four paragraphs. i will either ask you to write more, or not respond, as i can't work off of little to no information.

communication is one thing that i stress. whether it be that one of us can't respond right away, or we have something to talk about in regards to the rp. either way, it's communication is always appreciated. i do work full time, so my replies usually come in before work and after work, though sometimes i can get one out during my lunch break! if i can't get a reply out, i typically try to let you know.

i will only block without warning if i believe that you are being pushy, making me uncomfortable, or trying to disrespect my boundaries. i do typically try to discuss these with whoever i am plotting with.

i don't get on tumblr too much, so i typically prefer doing my roleplays on discord. if any of this interests you, please send me a friend req. or a message! my disc is naturagardens. xoxo 💕

[frecklystars]

I used to use tumblr a lot, but haven't been on in years. I logged back into my account for the first time in ages and I'm not exaggerating when I say my eyes lit up when I saw that you're still posting.

I remember you. I remember loving your posts, and all the joy you brought me before. I also remember how you struggled before, and I know you're struggling now.

But I want you to know that, from the bottom of my heart, I am so glad you're still here. ❤️

Holy shit. I am so sorry the first post from me that you see coming back on tumblr for years is me recovering from an attempt on my life. I want to say "I'm not usually like this" but I am... like this, now. I have dealt with the most horrific, terrifying forms of abuse in the last two years to the point where I cannot self ship with Tr/nsformers anymore, or self ship just in general, I can't trust anyone without walking on eggshells, I can't function anymore. I don't know if you were here 3 years ago, or maybe you remember me from earlier than that, before I was into TF. but I have C-PTSD now with a lot of really shitty shitty triggers and one major one is TF and it has been really heartbreaking having to adjust to that bc it was a special interest, where I got the most comfort from any of my main F/Os for almost 3 years. Being abused and having self shipping ruined for me is the most horrible thing to happen to me in my life so far. I didn't just lose a special interest, I lost a lot of trust in people that I cared about who betrayed me, I lose so much sleep bc I have nightmares/flashbacks all the time. I live in fear every day. I was stalked both offline and online. I've been trying to focus on Barbie for the last year now since that was the only hyperfixation I was able to actually have again, but that's been slipping away too since [gestures to the Fucking Horrors] and I just, I just have this very firm wholehearted belief that no matter whom I self ship with, any character would want to abuse me just like my abuser did, that anyone could be manipulated and turned against me, bc I was conditioned to believe that. and for the life of me I cannot shake it off. and I got so tired of dealing with this for almost 2 years so I just... tried to end everything on my one year F/O anniversary with the F/Os that I'm supposed to feel safe with. right now I am just very numb and barely existing

I'm sorry you have to see me like this, but my queue is always posting happier and lighter stuff when I'm offline, so rest assured I just make vent posts every now and then, and then I delete them. I'm barely online anymore I just don't see a point. I really wish you could have seen me before I was abused 2 years ago, I was still struggling but I was at least... myself. I haven't been myself since I was abused I don't know if I can really go back to that bc I still haven't been able to leave my situation fully. I am so unhappy all the time. I feel bad for being so negative, normally I try to be more positive especially when I get such nice asks, but it's just been getting worse and I really don't think I can keep holding on that much longer

Thank you for taking the time to send a nice message. I wish I was in a better headspace to reply. I was going to just try to reply at another time bc I am in the worst headspace rn, but I didn't know if I could wait until I was in a better headspace bc I don't know if I'm going to improve at all. I feel so hopeless. but I also didn't want to just let this ask sit in my inbox and have it collect dust for months and months. I wanted you to know I read it and I appreciate what you said. Giving you a hug. I love you. Thank you for remembering me

[donnerpartyofone]

I'm on your Tumblr because we used to be mutuals, but I'm more of a lurker these days and I've remade several times under different handles and understand exasperation/hesitation at refollowing. I'm sincerely not trying to bait anything here, it's just that I've been depressed for the majority of 2024, and I think a really bad habit I've fallen into is not expressing gratitude to those who have a genuine impact on me. I'm sorry if this is uncanny and too parasocial. I have always admired how incredibly self-possessed and well-spoken/read/watched/cultured you are. I get an older sibling vibe from you that I never had growing up. You are one of the smarter people in the room for me. Sorry I'm sending this on anon, you don't have to publish it, in fact I hope you don't! I think you're one of the best blogs on this site and many things you have posted/blogged about have caused me to dig deeper within myself. In recent times, I appreciate that you force a situationally depressed individual (me) to challenge themselves for the better, if that makes sense. I'm sorry if this is disturbing!

[posted with permission] Man I have not been able to wake up all day for some reason and I owe some writing tomorrow, so this is actually a really helpful warmup exercise to try to get myself moving/thinking. I really appreciate this. I think your idea about expressing gratitude is really important and it's something I've been trying to do also, though maybe in a broader sense, like if I see a really inspiring movie (or whatever) I try to follow the impulse to write to the filmmaker and tell them. In my mind there's this invisible wall between creators and "fans" and that's usually fake; it's very likely that the people who made some of your favorite media are not rich, their futures are not secure, and they don't even necessarily know how their work has affected people. Worst case scenario they don't write you back, but only a snob would be actually bothered, and sometimes you even make a friend. I think the same principle can be applied to, you know, bloggers or whoever. Certainly I run this blog for myself first and foremost and I don't think I would or could stop even if absolutely no one was paying attention--it's a real compulsion and I think it's reasonably healthy to find ways to be in conversation with yourself--but it's valuable to know when you've been understood by anyone at all.

Not to make it weird but in Hebrews I think there's that verse, "If today you hear the voice of God, harden not your heart." That's really powerful outside the bounds of religion. To me it means, when you get that shred of energy or inspiration that says "I could do the dishes right now," do them immediately before you can talk yourself out of it! When you get that little spark that is so easily snuffed out by overthinking and taking that dangerous minute to round up excuses, that spark that you might be able to do the laundry, send the letter, watch the tough movie you're "never in the mood" for, pick up the book instead of watching TV, take a fucking walk, whatever it is: if you practice surrendering to these impulses immediately, almost without deciding, your life can really start to expand. Actually I believe it literally keeps your brain alive, to keep making it process new information, even if it seems trivial or you don't fully feel like it. But anyway a lot of us don't follow the impulse to say to someone "Hey, I think you're doing a good job" because it's so easy to imagine lots of different reasons they won't like it. But honestly that's unlikely (as long as you're not demanding something in return), and if someone responds poorly to that then chances are they're kind of an asshole.

(I mean sometimes I fail to respond to a message or an obvious social cue but it's usually because I just get overwhelmed by other parts of life and/or I'm not extremely skilled in forming and maintaining connections in any normal way. But it's rare that somebody has tried to reach out to me and I was like secretly hating them for it.)

Depression is really hard to talk about--I mean it's easy to VENT about, but it can be hard to converse about. There's that (American?) thing where you feel like no one should say anything that isn't *CEO voice* solution-oriented, and that's when people either avoid the topic entirely or react with all kinds of unwelcome and/or irrational advice. I have the illusion of being all full of wisdom on this because I've been severely depressed since I was really little and obviously there's something wrong with my whole operating system, but one of my best friends--who is not naturally depressive--is in such a bad way and it's not her fault and possibly there is no way out for real, and of course I have the urge to pump her up and keep her afloat, but if I'm too positive it will be totally dishonest. I have to split the difference between cheering her up and like, not lying to her. I'd be a total hypocrite if I denied her the understanding and acknowledgement of darkness that I myself always want and rarely get. It's hard, but on the individual basis it's useful to try to map the nature of your own depression and notice how it operates; just observe and take notes even if you can't see a way to control it right now. It sounds like you're doing some of that, there is a lot of dignity in that activity.

These are my thoughts off the cuff, with any luck they provoke something useful. Now I feel like I'm finally ready to shower and have ill-advised beverages and do my stupid homework assignment. Thank you for your thoughts, and the helpful prompt, and I hope you have a good day and/or night, for real.

[thatruerealmwalker]

Crawls out of a hole in your wall

GET MAGICAL GIRL'ED MOTHER FUCKER!

"Despite it all, This Empty Shell still Remains." -Pre Acceptance Quote

"Within this Hollow Heart, Love Still Remains!" -Post Acceptance Quote

This is Claire Taker, a new OC I've made! And let me tell you- the origins of the OC is fucking weird.

This tainwreck of a Lady came about because I was reading @zoeywinterrose's smiling critter fanfic on A03 (which you can check out HERE), started letting THE VOICES speak through me, eventually pulled out the original story I have and made the Caretaker seen there into a fully realized character in my story (get it? Claire Taker?), told them so, found each other on tumblr, because friends(?), and they maybe sort of said yes when I said I was gonna draw the character and make and AU of their AU (in some order there, the progression of events may be off a bit)... I DON'T KNOW HOW I GOT TO THIS POINT.

So yeah, I'm gonna be both explaining this character, my own story, and having all that be loosely connected to Poppy Playtime (Again how did I get here?) So the tags are gonna be silly because of that.

Claire Taker is, as said before, a Magical Girl by the name of Heart Hollow (well Technically Magical Woman, she is pretty old but I prefer saying magical girl)... well the term for in my Canon is a "Blessed" or "Actor"... but those are the official terms, she and the others still use Magical Girl and Magical Boy (because that IS what they are)

And yes! There are both Magical Boys and Girls in this World!

Claire Fights with her Fists and Legs, being a close range brawler, as well as fights with her threads. She uses them in a variety of ways, from creating points to jump, pulling things to her or pulling herself to them, wrapping up targets, or even sometimes using them a whips.

Her Threads are also capable of Stitching people back together and healing them! Apparently the world thinks this means she should be one of the few to get constantly injured, needing to reattach her limbs in the middle of fights sometimes! (or it could be seen as caused by her low self worth as well). I mean look at all of those scars! And those are just the ones she couldn't fully heal for different reasons, she gets hurt alot! ("Better then letting one the kids take the hit" she would say)

Her mental health isn't the best, but it gets really bad when she is alone- Luckily, she's gained the trust of the Parents of the three kid members of Her group to look after them while their at work- as well as fostering the teens when they need somewhere private to hand out. (Her home is like one of 2 unofficial team bases)

At this point, almost everyone who isn't an adult (and two who are like 18-19) calls her Auntie- which she is still getting used too.

After finally getting into a far more okay mindset, she takes to jogging and exercise in her free time. She even helps the younger of the team practice fighting forms and working out when they train at all.

She actually owns a good few properties thanks to her parents- and after her depression weakened she put them up for rent. After a while (and learning how to duplicate cash with Starlight from the group's resident self appointed "Chaotic Gremlin") she was able to start getting a good amount of cash saved up for when the group needs a break or wants to go somewhere fun- (The cost is usually split between her and the other full Adult in the group most of the time).

She still has episodes where her is very not okay (like panic attacks or just bad thoughts)- but it never gets to the point where she feels like hurting herself at all anymore. It helps that one of the kids, the team's unofficial mascot, lets himself be her comfort animal when she has these episodes (and while he hates to admit it, he does enjoy her hugs)

That's all for now! If your interest in more of this original story, let me know!.. Though it probably won't be tagged under Smiling critters next... unless I make William apart of this then it will!

A full view of her plot is down below if your interested in that as well- Anyways thanks for reading this and maybe what lies below, and I hoped this sparked your interest/was a fun read all the same! I think I got an AU to write now!

Claire Taker's Story:

(Content Warning! This gets a bit dark!)

Claire Taker used to be a Person of Joy, living life as Happy as any other- even had Children she cherished most dearly... however one day- in a series of events, Claire loses her kids, be it an Accident or something far worse. Believing herself to be solely at fault, she shut down, remaining within her home and rarely leaving. At first those closest to them attempt to help, as it does, even if She rarely talked or interacted. Just being with others helped to keep her afloat...

But she was abandoned- left alone... and that is what sealed her fate. For a long time- years, close to Ten even, she drowned. She lost her smile, her kindness, her emotions, her Love. She tried, and try she did to get better... but she still drowned all the same.

She made many half attempts on her life- and the one time she fully went through with it- she only lived because she forgot to turn off the Safety on the Gun. This attempt was on the day, when she was so close to pulling herself back together that she was reminded of her kids- undoing all the work she did to get better at a single moment (one the prolonged her deep depression for a few more years-)

Eventually, upon one better day Claire spent shopping with a local mall for much needed supplies for her bare home, a Star fell from the Sky and landed nearby. From it formed a Matrix, and Starlight Leaked into the world. The pure, unfiltered and uncontrolled Starlight, the Blood of Creation, tainted the area in its presence, and Claire. The Building Creaked and Groaned as Starlight lashed into the populace surrounding. Many ran as the structure began to collapse around them...

And Yet Claire stepped forward, Drawn in by the Star.

Even while her body warped, as fur sprouted from her skin and monstrous claws ripped out from between her fingers. As her bones cracked and shattered before being reformed. As the demented whispers that long accompanied her gained form, breaking out from Claire's back and ripping into her flesh-

She reached the center, Where the Fallen Star has landed and with her last bit of strength before she became tainted under Starlight, reached out and touched the Glowing Star within the Epicenter-

And Starlight gathered and condensed, leaving her body, the surrounding air, and returning herself from the Monstrous form it was trying to become- And within her hands laid her Matrix, a Softly glowing heart floating between her palms.

A Stranger came to her one day, and promised her he would grant her most wanted wish "To return your children to you" in exchange for gathering as much Starlight she could.

She, like many other Actors, believed his word, and walked forward with a long lost flame in her eyes, ready to do Anything to get her children back.

Even after learning there was others like her (most of them teenagers or young adults), even after learning that many of the monsters she is fighting against and killed to gather Starlight (the Tainted or Cursed) were once people, even after she learned that should she actually get her wish- she would have to kill the other Blessed and steal their Starlight- She continued on.

It was only when the Three Children amongst the Blessed stood against her to protect their older peers then she questioned if what she was doing was worth it- if ignoring the signs that something was wrong was worth it- if her once beloved children would accept being brought back through the blood of others- if she could really kill these three if it was required of her.

It was from there, after giving up and fleeing that she changed from an antagonist to a protector akin to Tuxedo Mask for the Blessed- more so the Three kids that fought in this battle than the other Blessed.

It was here that Claire was taught how to tell if a Cursed was made from a person, animal, or object/fully made from Starlight as well as how to defeat the Tainted without killing the Person or Creature within. She learned that gathering Starlight is unneeded, and should she continue to gather Starlight like she has- she would only overwhelm her Matrix and become a Cursed herself. She learned how to truly use Starlight, how to prevent herself from Tainting someone on accident, and how to dispose of unneeded Starlight safely.

She was slowly pulled into the Group, being one of the Few Actors to listen and stop the senseless fighting between them. Even when she fell and broke, these Bright Souls dragged Claire along, taking her on their group adventures away from the Magic within their lives. Exploring the town, eating at an Café, enjoying the park. Slowly but surely, she became apart of this group, of the team who fought against the darkness that surrounded them.

The rest of the Blessed, especially the younger of them, started to call Claire 'Auntie'.

However, there was one final truth all of them avoided telling Claire, the final Lie told to Claire about the situation, even if in the depths of her heart she knew the answer herself yet feared to speak it aloud in vain hope for it not to be true.

That there was no Wish- That it was the ploy of The Man who Thought Himself God to either gather followers and resources or spark war between those who could threaten his goals and attempt to turn them into monsters- a Truth that they all knew could break Claire, steal her reason for continuing to live, to stand up tall.

They were going to, right after they handled this newest Tainted... but The Man who Thought Himself God appeared near the battles end... and with a smile, knowing Claire's history of mental health, and the reasons for it, held her by the throat while floating in the air, while Claire thrashed and fought with all of her might, while her allies called out in fear and rushed to save her, whispered in her Ear- "I lied~ There is no Wish, no reversing your most heinous Sin. Your children will never come back- for you killed them. They are gone and you killed them."

Claire SHATTERED then and there. Once again all of the work she put into getting better, doing better shattered- and as The Man who Thought Himself God threw her from high above towards the ground- Starlight, once Shining, became fully black- And the Blessed became Cursed under the weight of Despair-

Mother Gospel: The Harbinger of Mourning was born- as so her fellow Blessed fought, and after a long an almost lethal fight, where the extent of Claire's grief and broken heart was bared to the world, the ones who claimed her as their own, with all they had, ripped Claire out of her Depression made Manifest, and saved her from her fate.

Amongst the broken building, Claire laid as her Heart, once healing, was now torn apart once more as she cried tears of sorrow... and then she was hugged by the most youngest of them... then the other children joined in, all crying and making sure their Auntie was okay. The older kids of the Group joined in as well, despite two having to be dragged within. And even the young adults sat nearby and showed their love for Claire-

And that was what it was- Claire was LOVED, and she could Love in return. She was not Alone anymore, and so the dam burst within her and she cried and screamed and hugged back as sadness and joy danced within her. Her Hollow Heart had become not so Hollow anymore.

It took time, but somewhat soon Claire stood, still in mourning of her lost children, still not fully okay, but she could finally move on, she could finally live with those who saved her from that Sea that engulfed her and gave her warmth and belonging.

And so she fought, and even now fights, against those that would bring about the horrors she went through upon to others with the family formed under the Light of the Stars.

[kxllerblond]

Hey besties, as you have likely noticed-—I haven't really been active. Truth be told, I had a pretty bad depressive low followed by some really bad burn out that left me unable to do anything more than a few scattered short things here and there and even those took a lot of like energy to push myself to do. I've been in a very frustrated and restless place with my blog in the aftermath of this.

My drafts are stressing me out. Knowing that I owe shit and can't remember with who or where we were in the thread is stressing me out and kind of hindering any attempts at coming back and trying to be active again. Coupled with the typical Tumblr RPC thing of more or less having to rebuild your blog engagement from the ground up again after taking more than a few days off is very energy-consuming.

With that being said, I want to come back and be active and consistent again. I refuse to give up on this hobby and I love my little bastard man still. However, I think I'm going to have to make some significant changes going forward to make that happen.

DRAFTS.

Unless we have a multi-note and plotted thread going, assume they have been dropped. It's just too much to try and track everything down and remember where I was going with a lighter thread months ago or whatever when I was replying to it initially. It's making me freeze up and so nothing is getting done. Following this post, I'm going to be working on fully culling my drafts and likes of any threads I owe.

ASK MEMES.

I am going to be leaning on these heavily. Not much is changing here as this is my usual. I just will likely not be posting any more starter calls or attempting plotting calls or liking them. I'm going to be 99.9% ask meme interaction orientated. Any plotted or long form shit is going to be naturally pursued when I'm interested or have ideas instead of trying to force myself for the sake of it or because I feel expected to as I have in the past.

NEW THREADS.

Here is where I'm going to lose some of you. I'm going to be a burst RPer more than I have been in the past. That means I am going to be relying on shorter note interactions that may get dropped pretty quickly. I'm going to rely on no pressure threads that we can just mention and build off of in new interactions. A quick but gradual development through shorter lifespan threads, if you will. Sort of like climbing a lot of stairs to a certain point of development instead of trying to climb one giant mountain of a single heavy plotted thread at a time.

Does this mean I'm not going to do ANY plotted point A to point B threads? Nah. I'm just going to be very, very selective with them and I'm going to need both of us to be at the same level of passion, ig. Plotted shit and long term shit takes A LOT for me to keep going and so I need both of us to be 100% interested in the story and each other's characters, etc. I think, at this time, I only have 2-3 of those threads/storylines active.

NEW FOLLOWERS, NEW INTERACTIONS.

I'm not going to close myself off completely to following new people or taking on new followers...but I am done more or less screaming at walls or low key begging people to stop being anxious or intimidated and interact with me. I'm mega anxious myself but I do the bare minimum of being the first to send a meme, to like interaction calls, etc. If I am doing this and being the one to make the first step and I still don't receive any sort of energy returned...I'm dipping. I don't have the time or patience anymore to play chicken with people or to coax them into threading with me and I've caused myself plenty of issues in the past by trying to stick it out in the hopes things change.

IN SUMMARY

I know this portrays me as that dreaded flake RPer who starts shit and never finishes anything. I am hoping dearly that building off these unfinished threads will compensate for that lack of long form threading. I am aware this is going to not track with some of you as it's not an RPing format that is compatible with everyone and I accept that and I totally get it if some of you stop reaching out or unfollow or whatever. However, I'm going to be doing what I need to do in order to actually BE here. I'd rather be a tad bit of a flake but still get something done and enjoy this hobby somewhat instead of just sitting here frozen and getting nothing done because I don't want to be seen as a flake or dissuade people from interacting with me further.

Thank.

[pynkhues]

Hi Sophie, so sorry if this is a double ask but I can’t tell if tumblr ate my first one…I was wondering if you would be comfortable sharing anything about your writing process (for both original projects and fics). Do you outline? Or is it more freeform with a general idea of where you’re going?

Hi! I'm so glad that you re-sent it, because it's not a double in my inbox. I'm more than happy to share about my writing process! I've been writing for a long time, and I think I might like talking about actually writing things more than I like actually talking about the finished story, haha.

My process is pretty much the same for both fic and for original works, and in that, I do a lot of wriitng in my head before I start actually even 'officially' writing it. To the point where I'll usually have a pretty strong sense of what the underlying idea of the story is, where I want the emotional anchor of the story to be, and often have roughly choreographed a few climactic sequences in my head in a way that gives it not necessarily structure or an outline, but a general shape.

So in writing Ungodly Hour for instance, I knew that I was interested in this sense of perception as the underlying idea of the story - Lestat's perception of himself and what happened to him, Louis' perception of what happened to Lestat, Daniel's potential perception of Lestat through the interview.

Then I knew I wanted the emotional anchor to be in Lestat telling Louis what happened with Magnus, and this collision of those perceptions, because I just found that like - - exciting creatively, and I had these scenes in my head - weirdly, the gallery one was quite formded for me, then the dressing room blowjob, then the fight (although I re-wrote the fight quite a few times).

So I had all that in my head when I actually started to write it, and at that point, my process really becomes a matter of asking 'Why?' I ask that constantly when I'm writing, because at the end of the day, writing is just cause and effect. One of the best bits of writing advice I ever got was that your story is always 'And so this happens' or 'But this happens', never, ever 'And then this happens'. Good scenes are built on the backs of the ones that came before them, so they need to have purpose for there to be any payoff.

As a result, anything that feels either instinctual or appealing to me, I end up asking it well, why, or how, or what needs to happen to make this feel right? I find that usually steers me in the best direction, and it helps me to especially get into a character's head, or even sometimes the context of the story overall.

In terms of the actual writing though, - this sounds so wanky, haha - but I generally say I'm a bit of a painter when it comes to writing. I like to lay a base coat and then build from there. I'll usually start with scenes that are fairly skeletal with what's effectively placeholder dialogue that evokes the vibe of the final dialogue that I'd like, just so I know what emotional beats I'm wanting (and these can and do change), and so that I have a full story on the page, and then I go back over and over again and build it up and up and up.

I'm kind of at that base coat skeleton stage with the reunion fic now, so to give you a sense (and please don't judge, like I said, this is basically a skeleton of a scene with some placeholder dialogue!) it'll usually look a bit like this:

So yeah, it'll start pretty thin, but it'll be what I know I want it to be, and sometimes I'll keep parts of it, but usually it's entirely re-written by the time I post or it gets published.

Things often fall into place late too. As I've gotten more experienced as a writer, I think I'm better at trusting my instincts? Like in Ungodly Hour, the gallery scene was the first thing I wrote in full, and I think I even posted here that I almost cut it several times. It was so fully formed for me, and I knew on a gut level that it belonged in the story, and more than that, needed to be the opening scene, but I didn't really get how it folded in until later in the writing process when it just clicked that it not just established the themes of the story, but placed Louis in a rawer emotional state to be entering this particular night with Lestat.

So yeah, I build up ideas basically, haha.

[izzydizzy13]

ok real talk for a second

how are we avoiding AI gang?

Like, I see a lot of people quitting Instagram bc of their policy to feed art to the Meta AI, and I agree that it is not Cash Money of them to do that... but I am also not entirely sure how it changes anything, because doesn't literally *every* website populate Google? If so, doesn't Google's AI take that anyway, as well as any image AI that uses Google as a database? so most of them, from what I can tell...

Am I fundamentally misunderstanding how this works? I ask because most of the art I have seen here recently hasn't been glazed as far as I can tell visually, and while Tumblr isn't feeding images straight to AI the same way Instagram is, I am still worried for y'all. I kind of hope I AM just confused, because it would be fantastic to have places where I could upload unglazed works in their pure, unswirly form. I just thought I could Glaze my future works and upload them wherever I would usually upload, including Instagram because, well, their AI isn't any better at reading it than Dal-E as far as I'm aware. It is gonna be quite annoying though, because it takes upwards of an hour to glaze something to the Default strength, and I like uploading silly little doodles that only took like 5 minutes in and of themselves lol, so I'll have to be more picky about what I post...

Anyways, I am gonna start using Glaze on my art at the minimum, I tested it with an older work and it's not very noticeable. I'll drop the glazed piece here for anyone who has been curious about how it would affect their art visually and been too scared to try using it

the grass looks bad because of me, that's my fault for not knowing how to draw grass. The Glaze is that swirly triangular pattern that is most noticeable in the exact middle of the image, on the shorts and leg. It is virtually invisible on the face, which is the part I care most about anyway. So, while yes it would be an annoying affect if it were something really aggressively well-rendered, I've got very few issues with it for my more cartoony art style. It's the default amount of glaze, so not the highest tier of protection possible but enough.

I didn't really care about AI theft when it was still in its infancy, I still don't think it's the end of the world or anything like that, people enjoy art for the personal connection it has with its artist, and I like to think AI will never fully replicate that... not to mention that all of these AIs are in for a legal nightmare once someone sues for copyright infringement ... but, with how high quality the images are becoming and how thoroughly integrated it is into many of our browsers and websites, I still don't wish to help it any further if at all possible.

For anyone who wants to utilize this anti-AI Glaze, here's the link to downloads for Glaze

There is a browser version as well, though it requires an invite (automatically granted to anyone who doesn't use AI via email) I haven't tried that one yet, my computer is thankfully able to run the desktop version so I've had no need to get an invite.

If this is the first you're hearing about Glaze, I should also mention that there is a thing called Nightshade on this very same website. It does a very similar thing to Glaze, except for that it also gives AI models incorrect information when fed to it that, through a bunch of technical stuff that I don't understand, actually makes the AI worse than it was before. I've decided to just use the regular Glaze since, personally, my goal isn't to screw over the devs who made the AI, even if it's something I disagree with. I just don't want my work utilized, so I will Glaze it and move on. I can't really blame anyone who uses Nightshade though, just explaining why I don't.

I was also wondering if any of y'all have a contingency plan in the case of AI developing to the point where Glaze doesn't work anymore... like are we just gonna have to delete everything from the last however long we've been glazing or what? yike

[tigerbears]

Hello there!

You can call me TigerBear.

I’m a 20s something trans-girl who's only been on tumblr for over a year

I mostly just do reblogs, and just random stuff but I'll also post links to my fanfics so keep an eye for that! (Only been one so far, but lots of folks seem to enjoy it xD)

Expect my fics to mostly be UT and DR fics... Same with posts.... Just a lot of UT/DR related reblogs and post, but you'll also see a few posts related to other games I like or things that catch my fancy. (E.G, I've reentered the doctor who fandom after like 4-5 years)

Aiming for the blog to be SFW/Minor friendly but y'know, I'm still an adult and stuff. Might reblog stuff with swearing. May also reblog SFW posts from NSFW blogs/"Minors DNI or do not follow" blogs, but I don't usually follow these blogs and will likely not touch their risky stuff. TL;DR this blog be safe, can't guarantee the same from those I reblogged.

Guess I can talk about some things about myself.

I’m a trans-girl lesbian who goes by she/her pronouns.

I'm also neurodivergent (autistic specifically) so if I act differently/misunderstand things that's why. I'm sorry my brain just be running differently.

I’m likely suffering from chronic Asriel and Noelle brain rot. I want goat boy to get a happy ending and love the Trans Noelle head-canon. Shipper of Suselle (Susie/Noelle) and Dessriel (Dess/Asriel). (Oh and of course Alphyne (Alphys/Undyne) but I'm not obsessed with the pair like Suselle and Dessriel. Alphyne's still cute though!) Also opened asks! (but don't really know what I'll do with them, and don't expect quick responses, especially bc I’m the shy type of trans-femme. Also, keep the discourse crap away from me.)

Haven't gotten a lot of asks so I just opened the anonymous ones. (Note: This is on thin ice. I may turn off anonymous asks if I change my mind and realize it's a mistake. I already turned off messaging from people I don't follow because I kept getting incomprehensible bot messages.)

If I ever reblog something that's "WIP "a mess of the original post's tags" it means I f--ked up and forgot to remove the wip tags when the post was in my drafts. Please let me know so I can fix it.

Standard DNI: (note realize it got too long with my explanations so I put the longer ones in a separate footnote post. You can find it at the bottom of the DNI list.)

DNI if you hold

transphobia/TERF beliefs. are homophobia or queerphobia in general. exclusionary towards enbys, transmascs, transfemmes, aro & or ace, intersex, & or other folks/identities. are a transmed/truscum, & or any other gatekeeping/invalidation type. racist. xenophobe. Islamophobe. ableist. or are discriminatory in any other way.

Religious fundamentalist, Militant Atheists, or anyone cant respect other people's religious/areligious beliefs. (Its ok to criticize religious people that are being bigoted/harming others, or parasitic cults abusing and leaching off of their members though. Just don't interact if you say stuff like "All religious people are mentally ill" or "all people of X religion are bigots/terrible".)

(can't believe I have to say this) DNI if you ship "those ships." Y'know, the ones which involve some form of i*nest or p*dophilia. (Fontcest, Chasriel, Frans, Lancer/Susie,) Just generally do not interact if you ship any of those "yikes" ships. I don't want my posts to be associated with these accounts if they reblog my posts or whatever. (Footnote 01)

Ralsei's resemblance to Asriel makes Kralsei concerning, but for now (for now and only for now) it just barely gets a pass because we don't fully know what Ralsei is, but future reveals may push Kralsei shippers into the DNI category. Still not touching the ship due to Ralsei's concerning resemblance to Asriel. If its revealed Ralsei's the personification of Kris's familial love for their brother or something, and you still ship Kralsei do not interact. You won't be punished for shipping Kralsei before the reveal though; I'd just see you in a similar light to those who shipped Luke and Leia before ROTJ. Even in the best case scenario though the ship is going to feel weird to me though just because of the resemblance to Asriel. (Footnote 02)

Please tag your anti-ship posts as anti-[shipname], or I will likely block you, especially if you just tag the ship name. When I follow the Suselle tag I'm looking for everything but Anti-Suselle posts. (Footnote 03)

If your posts look like that of a p*rn bot I'll likely block you.

DNI FOOTNOTES IN THIS POST! GO HERE FOR ELABORATION!

Here are the tags I use for my own stuff. " ([On Blog]=on my stylized blog.) ([On Tumblr]=Tumblr's default interface.)

#reblog [On Blog] [On Tumblr] For all the posts I reblog.

#queue [On Blog] [On Tumblr] For all the posts in my queue (which are just reblogs)

#posts from tigerbear's tumblr [On Blog] [On Tumblr] (Or) #my posts [On Blog] [On Tumblr] (Or) #tigerbears posts [On Blog] [On Tumblr] Stuff that's from me (or reblogs which have comments from me.) Pretty much "tigerbears posts" is going to be anything past the 25th or 26th of April 2024 (because I'm not going back to change all of my past tags.)

#tag that are like posts from tigerbear's tumblr [On Blog] [On Tumblr] Basically similar to posts from tiger bear except their reblogs and the new content is only in the tags. (I don't use this tag often/probably ever btw)

#Upsetting-Triggering [On Blog] [On Tumblr] For the very few posts/reblogs that are potentially upsetting, E.G talking about stuff like wars or LGBTQ+ rights being stripped away, general transphobic stuff, ect. (I usually come to tumblr for escapism, so if you feel the same way add it to filtered tags so you at least get the warning pop up before seeing it)

#discourse & stuff like that [On Blog] [On Tumblr]I hate discourse. But sometimes the discourse comes to me even though I don't want it. If you don't want to deal with that stupid crap on this horrible website than block this tag.

Here's my other socials! Bluesky:

Youtube:

AO3:

pronouns.page:

Anyway I hope you enjoy my blog!

=

[mysticsparklewings]

Mystic's Museletter - Long Time, No Type!

This blog entry was originally posted to Ko-fi and DeviantArt and may also be read in full in either of those places.

Hey there Sparklers; It's been a while, hasn't it? 😅

So I suppose I should start with an apology, because I am sincerely sorry that it's been almost a year now since I was doing my regular "Monthly Museletter/Round-Up" Posts [on dA & Ko-fi, doing them here on Tumblr is entirely new], and it's also been a few months now since I was posting art...really at all, let alone regularly.

And because of that, if it wasn't already obvious, this isn't even going to be quite like my former "regular" long-form posts. It's going to be long, which itself isn't unusual, but because of how much there is to cover, I'm going to try and divide this all up into mostly self-contained sections, and have a list of those sections (marked by headers of the same title) beneath this paragraph so you can jump/scroll around and read "the interesting bits" at your leisure:

Overview of Where I've Been

DeviantArt's Changes

Other Things I've Been Doing - Part 1: Ohuhu Again! - Part 2: Social Sites & Dolls - Part 3: Everything Else

Peeks At Actual Art Things I've Done

Wrap Up

Overview of Where I've Been

So what happened? Well, the Monthly blog posts were just a victim of my executive dysfunction—I got in my head about how long they usually take to put together and when I'd miss one or put it off too long, naturally that would mean the next one would take even longer to catch up and it just spiraled downward from there.

Clearly, if I want to continue with those going forward, I need to make some changes to how they work so I can actually do them. At the moment though I don't have any concrete plans, but I have some general ideas that relate more to the next section.

Okay, but what about Artwork? I was on a pretty good roll there, especially with Winx Art, and then...Crickets.

This one I can't even fully explain myself. At first, I know I was largely bogged down by the fact that I just kept missing self-imposed deadlines to have certain pieces finished by, and my motivation to post art was majorly crippled by some Changes DeviantArt Made, but I feel like those two reasons alone don't cover everything.

My personal life has also been a bit of a roller coaster these past few months, but that is somewhat "normal" for me, so I don't feel right blaming it on that, either.

My best guess is those things combined with my usual Post-Inktober Funk™ and made a kind of "Seasonal Burnout," sort of like Seasonal Depression (as is fairly common for a lot of people to experience around the holidays and winter months). I've had plenty of creative ideas and was even able to do some other creative things I'll touch on more in a bit, but the motivation to actually draw was just...not there.

The other reason I chalk this up as "Seasonal" is because as the weather has finally, slowly started to warm up, I have noticed some internal changes with myself...Nothing major has happened yet, but I feel more squarely pointed back in a "Drawing Direction," if that makes any sense.

I think the last piece of the puzzle to get me at least sort of back on track is related to those Changes I mentioned DeviantArt made. So let's talk a bit about that...

DeviantArt's Changes

Towards the end of October—Naturally, my busiest month!—All of a sudden, I could no longer edit Deviation descriptions directly in Sta.sh, which I'm sure some of you Sparklers are familiar with.

This matters because I found writing & editing descriptions in Sta.sh much more convenient than typing them directly on the Submission Page. Mostly for formatting reasons, but also as a hangover from many years ago when I lost a a few descriptions that were written only on the Submission Page, which didn't (doesn't?) auto-save consistently like Sta.sh did.

So. That wasn't good, but I figured out that I could still edit existing Text documents that I had in Sta.sh, so I took to writing the descriptions in an old one of those and would copy & paste it into the final Art description later. But eventually, that method stopped working too. (I think around mid-November, but I'm not 100% sure.)

As of right now, you cannot edit any text of any kind in Sta.sh anymore. You either handle it directly (on the Submission Page for Artwork, or using dA's on-site text editor for written work), or you don't bother.

Now, I'll wholeheartedly agree that on paper this doesn't sound like a big deal. And it really probably shouldn't be. But nevertheless, to cut an overly long explanation short: It is/was for me. It felt like one of the last few threads tying me here, to DeviantArt, snapped.

Again, to cut an overly long explanation short, emotionally, that really hurt. I have more or less been mourning the loss of the DeviantArt I first joined back in 2011 as a result. 😞

And to cut one more explanation short: I've been thinking for a while now that it might be in my best interest to start up a more proper dedicated blog for my long art descriptions, and this blow to the way I write said descriptions on dA really solidifies that. I still have to figure out exactly where said blog will be—possibly here on Tumblr* which is why I'm posting this here now—but I have pretty much made up my mind that it does need to exist, one way or another.

(*I'd stick it over on Ko-fi, but as it currently stands Ko-fi doesn't have great organization or archive functions for older blog posts; If it's not recent it's difficult to find, and that just won't work with the blog-ish flow I know I'd need, among other small issues with Ko-fi's formatting.)

With all that said...I don't really want to say there's still a bit of light at the end of the tunnel for dA because that doesn't really feel accurate, but that's the closest expression I have.

Very recently, DeviantArt announced a new overhaul coming to the Submission Page, and while I have extremely mixed feelings about it (because I strongly suspect this is exactly why Sta.sh has been crippled)...I don't hate it. There are things I like about it, I'm mainly just bitter and fearful about Sta.sh's future.

But I also haven't fully put this "Studio" thing to the test yet—That requires actually submitting art. So, perhaps there is yet more hope than I think...

Other Things I've Been Doing

To that end, you're probably wondering about those "other creative things" I've been able to do I mentioned earlier, and also if there is any "proper" artwork to show for these past couple of months.

I'll go ahead and spoil that yes, even though there isn't much of it, I do have some "proper" artwork things I can show you, but I think (as this section title implies) it'll be better to address those other creative things I've been doing first.

Part 1: Ohuhu Again!

Probably the most interesting to you Sparklers will be the revelation that I'm in very early stages of working on a kind of "Buying Guide" for the Ohuhu Honolulu Markers.

I'm sure some of you Sparklers are familiar with my Ohuhu Chart and the unofficial "ongoing saga" of keeping that thing up-to-date. Some newer Sparkles may also have originally heard of the chart and/or me from the Ohuhu SubReddit, because I've spent quite a bit of time over there helping people figure out the best way to get all 363 of the Honolulu colors...since unfortunately, Ohuhu has made that process kind of confusing. 😅

Very similar to my chart sorting out confusion over how many colors there are in the first place, I want to make some kind of fixed resource I can point people to that would hopefully help clear up a lot of that said confusion.

I don't want to get to specific on the details of the "final" guide at this point since it is so early; Rather I want to just tell you Sparklers the actual work I've been doing to make it happen, and that all boils down primarily to three things:

Collecting and Organizing some text-based information (mostly in the form of Spreadsheets), and I was already doing a fair bit of this before I decided to even attempt making a Buying Guide

Fixing up my marker storage. I keep my Honolulus in their original bags for space-related reasons, but I've been meaning to make dividers for the bags to make everything more stable, and Spare-Cartoonist6276's Honeycomb method was the final push to do that I needed to actually do it. The only real downside has been that it just takes a while to construct each honeycomb section (and I'm not even bothering with the pretty color-matching cardstock). Fortunately, at time of writing I only have 2 sections left to go out of the original 11!

Swatching & Attempting to sort every color in a "Proper" Color Order. This is also something I've been meaning to try anyway and how useful it would be became pretty undeniable as I started thinking about how this Buying Guide is going to work. I'm in Stage 1 for this process—As I finish a honeycomb section, I swatch the markers in that section, so when the honeycombs are done, the swatches for colors I actually own will also be done. This is also different from my usual swatching because I made very basic little cards with holes punched in them so hopefully comparing colors and physically arranging them is as easy as possible. This swatching has been a long time coming though and is also taking a little bit longer because...I don't actually own every Honolulu color! I'm missing about 35, all of which belong to the "Pesky 43" that only come in certain sets. And with other expenses and trying to save up for a new website (yep, that Ko‑fi Goal is still active, folks!), I just haven't been able to justify dropping $130+ on yet more markers to fix that problem.

However, after some poking around and discussion in the wider Ohuhu Community, a Reddit User by the name of JayZedHorse very kindly reached out and offered to send me physical swatches of the missing colors! They are en route to me as I type!

There are still many small ways in which this isn't a completely perfect solution, but it is still a very solid step in the right direction and I am eagerly counting down the days until I have those swatches in hand!

So at the moment I have the small goal of being finished with the Honeycombs and my own swatches before the swatches JayZed sent me arrive; That way I should be able to jump pretty straight into the comparisons and start on color arrangement. But, fortunately, even if I can't be finished with the honeycombs by then, it won't be the end of the world. Both things will get done either way, it'll just take a little longer.

But that is about all I have to say about this Buying Guide that I think you Sparklers would be interested in, for now, so on to the next subject...

Part 2: Social Sites & Dolls

I'll start by saying there are two Social Media sites I've been semi-active on and so people that either follow me in those places or frequent the same communities I do will probably already have a few ideas of the other ways I've been flexing my creative muscles lately. [...And Members of the Sparklers' Club Discord Server will also have seen a fair bit of the same posted directly in there!]

As I sort of mentioned with the Ohuhu section above, I've been spending quite a bit of time on Reddit. It's not my favorite place on the internet, but I do like that I've been able to have long-ish form discussions about things over there that I would be pretty hard-pressed to cleanly fit inside of art posts. That's where most of my writing muscles have been getting their exercise.

The other one, and probably a little more interesting to you Sparklers, is BlueSky, one of the half a dozen "Twitter Replacements" that's been floating around.

To be fair, there were points where I thought either Mastodon or Threads were going to be my "Twitter Replacement" of choice, but ultimately neither ended up sticking with me and I'm not really sure why. It's possible the same will eventually be true for BlueSky as well, but so far even without fresh art to post it's been jiving decently enough with me.

I've mostly been posting Doll Photos over there; Literally the month after I lost the will to keep up with the monthly blog posts entirely, my interest in Fashion Dolls was finally renewed after a probably 5-6 year hiatus with one Karla Choupette.

I'll spare you Sparklers the nitty-gritty details (especially since I think I may be able to delve into them more appropriately in the future 😉), but suffice to say after falling in love with Karla and Monster High finally producing dolls I actually like again that I've been having a bit of a "Doll Love Renaissance" and I have taken probably a gross and shocking amount of photos of small plastic ladies over the course of the last year.

I don't know what it is about BlueSky that's made me genuinely want to share over there—It certainly isn't a massive following or massive amounts of engagement—but there is something, and it's pretty nice when previously I had to really talk myself into sharing anything that wasn't directly art-related over on Twitter.

Aside from just letting you Sparklers know I'm active on BlueSky at all, this is also relevant because I've taken to fairly regularly making things for the dolls—Mostly tiny crochet clothes, but a few other accessories too, like a belt I recently made to cover up uneven stitching on one doll's dress. And sometimes I re-paint details on certain dolls as well, but nothing super dramatic like some Doll Customizers do!

I would eventually like to compile photos of all (or at least most) of the things I've made for the dolls and maybe actually post them at least over on Ko-fi, and maybe here on DeviantArt too, since I am pretty proud of a lot of them and I think they'd be mildly interesting to my audience. But there are no concrete plans for that at the moment, just wishful thinking.

One related thing I do have slightly more concrete plans for though is the release of a Crochet Pattern—I got a little tired of the lack of pants options for the Rainbow High dolls, especially non-skinny ones, so I did some research and muddled together a pattern for some fitted bell-bottoms. I think the pattern itself is pretty much ready-to-go for sharing, but I did want to make one last test pair of the pants first (this will be the third pair in total) just to make sure one of my yarn recommendations works as well as I think it will.

The pattern will 100% be posted in the Ko‑fi Shop when the time comes, I'm just not completely sure if I'll be attempting to post it (or example photos at least) to DeviantArt as well, but...probably. We'll see!

Part 3: Everything Else

There is one more "not proper art" thing I've been slowly chipping away at that I think you Sparklers will find interesting.

...To be fair, there are some other much smaller things that I've shared with the Sparklers' Club on Discord that would also fit in this category, but they're not as interesting and would normally be saved for the "From the Archives" section in a Monthly Round-Up, so I'd feel out of place discussing them here.

Anyway. I've started the maybe-minorly-insane project of maintaining a Wiki for my Winx Club OCs: "The Mystix Dimension."

I've been keeping a running Google Doc with information about said OCs over the past couple of years as I've been doing major redevelopment on them, but I was getting tired of the limited ways to organize everything in that format.

After a lot of research that ultimately ended up going nowhere, I opted for the format I know best. I spent quite a bit of time making pages for my most-used Winx OCs on the Winx Fanon Wiki back in the day, but in the present I wanted the freedom to mess with the Wiki's code to both make it look more like the "official" Winx Club Wiki and also tailor it more to my own specific needs.

The "Mystix Wiki" is still very Under Construction with a lot of stuff missing, but it is slowly but surely getting there and most of the "bones" are in place.

So if you Sparklers are curious about my Winx OCs specifically, you can pop over there and have a look around—Of the information there, there's already a nice sampling that's pretty different from what long-time Sparklers may remember of my OCs from the earlier DeviantArt days when I was posting about them super regularly. 😉

A side effect of the Wiki that I semi-expected though is that it has made me realize how little I've actually drawn of my OCs even though they've been pretty consistently on the back of my mind for months. So I think pretty soon there are going to be more new Winx drawings in the works as I continue to fill out the Wiki. 😆

And speaking of drawings in the works...

Peeks At Actual Art Things I've Done

Now, as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I definitely don't have a lot in the way of Work-In-Progress (WIP) Drawings, but I do have some that I started on before this unintentional hiatus. While I'd normally save some or even most of the WIPs for a Monthly Round-Up instead, given the circumstances I think it only makes sense to go ahead and share them with you Sparklers here and now.

We'll start with a few that should be recognizable as "updates" from the WIP Palooza that I posted back in August:

Firstly, and this will most likely be the next finished piece I actually post, I did finally polish off that sketch of Karla Choupette in the Winx Club art style. (And this is what I meant earlier when I mentioned I might be able to elaborate on my Doll Renaissance feelings later—The description for this piece would be a good place to do that!)

...I'm not showing the completely finished version here because I would like there to be some surprise when it goes public, and also even after all this time I'm still not 100% on the background I chose. So it could still change before the final post.

But Karla herself I'm happy with. I have no idea if I'll ever draw any more Rainbow/Shadow High characters in the Winx Style, but the door is open if I decide I want to.

Next we have...heh, My Winxsona in the Fan Transformation Formalix, better known as "Winxsona Winter Week 7". Incredibly, unbelievably late for "Winxsona Winter" at this point. But nevertheless, I started on the final two pieces for the series and I do want to finish them!

This one isn't fully finished like Karla, but it isn't too far off. It mainly needs shading and a background...And if I had no clue what to do for a background for Karla, then I have like -5 clues what to do for this one. 😅 I'll figure something out, though!

Likewise, I also have the "finished" sketch for "Winxsona WInter Week 8," or: My Winxsona in the Fan Transformation Dimentix.

Mystic Stars and Above on my Ko-fi already saw this WIP back in July, but this is much further along than you Sparklers saw in the WIP Palooza; At that time I had the concept sketch for the outfit and the wings done, and the pose, but I hadn't drawn the outfit on the pose yet.

The Dimentix wings are also ready for coloring (and the Mystic Stars & Above saw this one already too), but they won't be colored until after I get the flat colors down for the outfit/main image so I have a better idea of what colors should go where:

Again, no clue for the background on the finished Dimentix piece, but push-come-to-shove, I can skip a proper background and just recreate the..."wallpaper" effects that were used for the original Dimentix images made by FlorainBloom back in the day.

That leaves us with the two final WIPs I have to share, but for my Winx-loving Sparklers, I think they'll be the most exciting...

Yes, over a year later, I'm picking up the "series" that technically began with Light that Burns the Sky! 😁

Originally, I wasn't sure "Dark Enchantix" (or, my preferred name that I way overthought: "Incantix") would even be a series, but the response to Bloom and Stella was so positive [the Time Lapse has over 20,000 views on YouTube!!] and I did enjoy the concept so much...Yeah, it only feels right to give the rest of the Winx the same treatment. 😄

​As you can see, I've managed to come pretty far. Tecna and Flora have most of their shading done, so next for them is getting their wings in order, then the background (and I plan to use basically the same background that Bloom and Stella got for everyone, so that shouldn't take too much work). And Layla and Musa are pretty far along too...However, I have gone back and forth a bit on Layla's blues and Musa's golds/yellows.

Once again, I'll spare you the nitty-gritty for now, but was one of the challenges for my "Incantix Vision" from the beginning and is the smaller part of why these two drawings have been delayed so much. [...Y'know aside from the other things we talked about at the beginning of this journal.]

The other thing is that I lost my mojo for these two pieces specifically because I had hoped I'd get them finished by the end of the year to submit to a Winx Club fan project, and clearly that didn't happen. (I did go ahead and submit Bloom & Stella since they were finished, though!)

However, that fan project recently re-opened submissions through the end of May this year, so naturally I'm feeling a bit of an itch to see if I get can them both finished by then, even if it's just the still images and the Time Lapses (which only make sense to make since the first one did so well) have to wait a bit longer.

...Considering it's nearly the end of April now and I'd like to get at least 1-2 other things posted before I jump back into Incantix, and all the other circumstances, I obviously have my doubts about whether or not that will happen. But, who knows, maybe telling you Sparklers about it at this stage will be the extra encouragement I need.

At the very least, you Sparklers now know those finished pieces are coming eventually even if it isn't in May, and that was the main point in sharing the WIPs anyhow.

Wrap Up

​So. Now you Sparklers know where the heck I've been and some of what I've been up to in my time away.

I really didn't mean to more or less up and disappear and I am not happy that I have so little to show for my absence...But there's no time machine to go back and un-do it all, so for better or worse it is what it is.

I am, however, writing this blog post in the hopes that it'll be the "permission" I need to give myself to at least attempt to get back into an art posting rhythm.

As I touched on in the previous section, I do have a vague plan for my next finished piece to post, but it felt kind of wrong to just randomly go back to posting art like the past 4-5 months didn't happen with no explanation, especially over on Ko-fi. So here we are.

And...Beyond that, I really don't know how to end this. It feels a bit cheap to leave on my previous usual blog post send-off when this one is so different in nature...But I also don't consider myself as very good at ending these things in the first place. 😅

I should say though before I go—I really, sincerely do appreciate you Sparklers that have stuck by me in one way or another while I went radio silent. Every like, comment, whatever—I've still seen them all while I was away, and those are the little things that keep bringing me back when I do hit rough patches like this. Knowing that at the end of the day the art things I do matter to someone out there. It means more than I can put into words. So thank you, Sparklers, for just being there.

​Hopefully, it won't be too much longer before I can share some new things with you Sparklers to make it really worth your while. But, until then, as always...

Take Care and Sparkle On ✨

~Mystic~

[solradguy]

I have a headache and today's been stressful so I'm going to say something true and beautiful.

Kinnie meme. Template at the end since the source blog deleted. This is a long post.

1). What is your fictotype? Are you a specific character, a nonhuman species, or both?

You know.

2). Do you experience dysphoria? How so?

Not really. Sometimes I get embarrassed about being 'kin but I just suck it up and deal with it like I am right now.

3). Who are you open about it with?

Anyone that looks at my blog header and pinned post FAQ. I only really get open about it with a handful of very close friends though. And I guess anyone that reads this the whole way through.

4). Do you participate in the fandom of your source? How do you do so?

Damn, should've saved the "you know" for this one lol. I translate and scan books and have written a little fanfiction. Among other things...

5). Do you fictionflicker?

Had to search this so here's the definition for others: A Kintype that isn't permanent. It seems to "flicker" in and out of existence if you lose interest in that fandom.

Before Guilty Gear I probably did, but I had a hard time in general figuring myself out until relatively recently.

6). When did you realise you were fictionkin? How long have you been in the community.

It'll have been a year in late August. Some of my friends are fictionkin but I wouldn't say I really interact with the wider community at all.

7). What was your introduction to fictionkin?

Lmao... Probably seeing kids talk about it on DeviantArt back in '05 or '06. I've known about it for a long time. Though... I have to admit my views towards it back then used to be negative.... My second "introduction" was in the end of last year when I finally sat down and looked stuff up about it.

8). Are you similar to your fictotype in personality? How so?

That's how this all started. Friends kept making jokes about me being a Sol kinnie even though I was like this BEFORE Guilty Gear and eventually I just went and researched it and, well, here we are. People on sites I'm not open about this on have compared me to Sol before too and I just laugh about it. They don't know, but they know.

9). Are you similar to your fictotype in appearance? How so?

Not really. I guess we both have brown hair that wants to be vertical real bad and I've got a crazy shoulder/waist/hips ratio but that's about it. Oh, default expression like this -> T_T

10). Link to/tag your favourite fictionkin Tumblr.

No.

11). Have you ever met other fictionkin? In real life or online?

I've met therians and non-fiction otherkin in real life but have only seen other fictionkin online.

12). Have you ever met canonmates? In real life or online?

No.

13). Have you ever met doubles? In real life or online? How did it go?

Yeah, there are a few other Sols out there. It's gone fine, I don't really care about doubles and all that jazz and it didn't seem like they cared either. It'd be fun getting all the Sols together for a BBQ and shitty beer. We can play cornhole.

14). What are shifts like?

Bad. Makes me stay up late reblogging Jack-O' images :/

Jk lmao I ended up searching this term to make sure I was understanding it right because I was going to say "no" to this question but I guess I "dream shift" often and get "phantom shifts" (phantom limb sensations for non-human appendages) sometimes. For the phantom shifts it seems to be for wings the most frequently with claws and meat-tearing teeth less frequently.

The wing feeling is weird, I don't like it. It doesn't feel like the whole wing, just sort of where they would connect to my back but either the rest of the wing never existed or was never formed in a way that had nerve endings, or my brain forgot what the rest of the wing would be like. Usually I only get this feeling right after I wake up and it goes away quickly but sometimes it happens when I'm fully awake. The claws/teeth happen whenever.

I often wonder how related these feelings are to having synesthesia and being trans.

15). How do you deal with kin for fun?

I don't. It can be a little annoying sometimes when trying to find people or studies/essays that are serious about otherkinity, but more often than not the KFF people are just teens goofin off. I don't care. They are, as the name suggests, just doing it for fun and exploring their identities through characters they relate to. Introspection is always good.

16). What are your thoughts on symbols, flags, etc.?

Indifferent. The 7-pointed star's pretty neat though.

17). Does fictionkinity connect to spirituality for you?

No.

18). Does fictionkinity connect to neurodivergence for you?

It seems so. Like I said in one of the above questions, I used to have a hard time figuring myself out and when I was young I'd try to see things through the lens of a character that I related to. This likely wasn't otherkinity, but I think it maybe evolved into it. There weren't many masculine 6'5" women for me to relate to as a kid, I didn't know how I was supposed to be and gender didn't make any sense. There's definitely a relationship between being trans and otherkin for me.

19). Do other people notice your similarity to a character or species?

It seems so.

20). How do you express your fictotype? Clothes, merch, cosplay, maybe even name?

21). What's something about the fictionkind community you wish was different?

Don't see many essays and stuff from fictionkin as I do from other kinds of 'kin, which is a shame. It's probably because the rest of the otherkin community and the internet in general are unkind towards fictionkin.

22). What's something about the fictionkind community that you appreciate?

Someone's gonna laugh and say I'm just not seeing it, but if there's drama in the GG fictionkind community it never makes its way onto my feed. Hope it stays that way. Leave me out of it.

23). How do you approach consuming your source? Analytically, obsessively, casually, reluctantly, etc...

I bite a hole in the bottom of it and chug the whole thing like a beer can.

24). What's the worst anti-fickin take you've seen?

The most common one because it's annoying: "You're not actually a fictional character." No shit.

25). What's the best anti-fickin take you've seen? Respond to it.

That even if it really is only a passing phase, or that it turns out someone actually isn't 'kin of what they thought they were, that they still learned something about themselves.

26). What are some songs that remind you of your fictotype or source?

I've been working on a playlist that I wanna copy onto cassette but it's still 30 minutes short (needs to be 90 to fill the tape). Here are three songs from it:

I Will Find You - Whitechapel

Summit of Dragons - Sold Soul

Imaginary Fire - Carpenter Brut

27). What are some other characters/species that remind you of your fictotype?

The other day I compared Sol to an Italian mastiff. Dragons, obviously. Ifrit from FFXVI and Dante's Sin Devil Trigger from DMC5 share a vibe with his Dragon Install too.

28). Do you have a favourite piece of fanart?

Every Sol that Ume, Sutegoro, Hungry Clicker, and Nainsoo draw is golden.

29). Do you have activities that connect you to your source? (Food, hobbies, interests, etc.)

I spent 6 months working on a 3D printer to make a 1:1 scale Outrage MK.II, code, and have six Queen records. What else is there.

30). Talk about what it's like to be your fictotype.

I don't know. Some things make more sense, some things don't. It doesn't bother me as much as it did at first but finally having an explanation for what my brain is doing—and that it happens to other adults too—has been comforting. Though, I suppose it's on-theme for Sol to have complex identity feelings and a struggle to accept them.

---

1). What is your fictotype? Are you a specific character, a nonhuman species, or both?

2). Do you experience dysphoria? How so?

3). Who are you open about it with?

4). Do you participate in the fandom of your source? How do you do so?

5). Do you fictionflicker?

6). When did you realise you were fictionkin? How long have you been in the community.

7). What was your introduction to fictionkin?

8). Are you similar to your fictotype in personality? How so?

9). Are you similar to your fictotype in appearance? How so?

10). Link to/tag your favourite fictionkin Tumblr.

11). Have you ever met other fictionkin? In real life or online?

12). Have you ever met canonmates? In real life or online?

13). Have you ever met doubles? In real life or online? How did it go?

14). What are shifts like?

15). How do you deal with kin for fun?

16). What are your thoughts on symbols, flags, etc.?

17). Does fictionkinity connect to spirituality for you?

18). Does fictionkinity connect to neurodivergence for you?

19). Do other people notice your similarity to a character or species?

20). How do you express your fictotype? Clothes, merch, cosplay, maybe even name?

21). What's something about the fictionkind community you wish was different?

22). What's something about the fictionkind community that you appreciate?

23). How do you approach consuming your source? Analytically, obsessively, casually, reluctantly, etc...

24). What's the worst anti-fickin take you've seen?

25). What's the best anti-fickin take you've seen? Respond to it.

26). What are some songs that remind you of your fictotype or source?

27). What are some other characters/species that remind you of your fictotype?

28). Do you have a favourite piece of fanart?

29). Do you have activities that connect you to your source? (Food, hobbies, interests, etc.)

30). Talk about what it's like to be your fictotype.

[sweetfirebird]

er. the process.

*weak jazz hands*

Someone asked, which then forced me to again think upon the mess that might be called "my process."

It is organized. It is not at all organized.

I did a Q&A on Patreon for patrons last year and some of them asked sort of similar questions, which I did my best to answer. I looked at those again, and I am going to post one of the questions and my answer here. But I'm not sure it's even what "my process" fully is.

(But also like, part of me feels like this is all pretty standard writing stuff. I mean, as I say, I don't write plot-based stories. I do character-based stories. So if you are a heavy plotter, this might be weird looking to you)

Anyway, the answer from that Q&A session. Question asked by KGA. <3

I'm curious which comes to you first, the characters or the story idea, and how much do you know/plan before you write the book.

--Sometimes, it starts with a notion. The notion can be small. “Dragon woos someone with garbage.” Which was a tumblr discussion that eventually, eventually, led to Zarrin. (It’s not quite garbage, in the end, but Joe was still confused.) Sometimes, it starts from a discussion about fun tropes from which we get “hyper space nerd has to be rescued repeatedly by giant space marine and at some point, has to think he’s been left behind only then giant space marine returns to save him.” And… you can tell what that ended up. Delf was because I just… originally wanted to do something with knights and a threatening vibe (what the threat was, I hadn’t decided yet). Knights alone in a dark, dark wood, that sort of thing, was the original notion. But why make the woods scary when the rest of the world is really what you should keep your eye on?

Occasionally, the character or part of the character comes first. I saw the name Potts on something and wanted to think about a gentle soul named Potts. (Or Jericho. Whatever).

Then I stew over the idea for a while. It rarely stays in its original raw form but the joy I took in that idea has to stay. That is the important thing. And then I start to consider what would get me to the point necessary for space nerd to always be in danger, to consider why the lonely witch in his lonely house is so lonely in the first place, or what on earth two knights would be doing in the woods if they aren’t after a dragon or a grail.

The steps are roughly the same after that. (Roughly.) Muse on it until it sparks into scenes or more ideas that please my brain. Extend a premise out of that. Then think about plot and characters. But characters first. Plotting is not my strong suit.

I make what I call ‘notes.’ Which is sort of an outline, or a map. I do it in linear order, because the characters grow over the course of a story so I can’t jump ahead too far or I will pay for it later when the characters that they become no longer want or need to do a thing I thought they might.

This process takes a while, and it basically… hmm I described it somewhere once as sort of like building a house. Sort of. The first part of the notes process is just me trying to get out all the ideas that have been forming in my head, including any specific scenes or lines I thought of.

Then I go to the start of the document and make little character sheets for their names and maybe some stuff about them. (There are a lot of question marks here.) Then once I have a better idea of my people, I go back to the outline part and I start to fill it in. This takes several passes and generally some time. A week or two or much longer than that, depending on the book or story. Each pass has more detail. Sometimes I will basically write a whole scene, including dialogue, but in messy note form.

When it actually gets written, though, sometimes that whole scene changes or gets cut. So what I call notes goes from true notes, to an outline, to a first draft of sorts, before I actually “write” it.

The notes for the ending scenes are always the most vague, deliberately. I usually have some sort of ending in mind (Confront emperor. Declare feelings in public. Realize your two boyfriends are your two boyfriends. And so on.) but, like I said, the characters will have been changed by the events of the story (some of which I don’t even know about yet) so the exact details cannot be known.

Little Wolf in my original notes ran away from Wolf’s Paw to protect it from Silas and also because he was used to running when he was scared. He goes back to Los Cerros, finds Ray (and Cal) and eventually Nathaniel came to get him. This was a terrible idea and because it was just notes, easy enough to delete and change. It would not have suited the Tim we actually get at the end of the book, because that Tim didn’t want to run anymore. Our baby grew up. Aw.

The notes I am working on now for a new thing have gone through… several versions omg. Over the past two years, I have considered and reconsidered what I wanted to do with this story and, in fact, at the time of answering this, I had only just figured out the end. And by that, I mean, it’s roughly there. It’s also finally more of what I want. My brain wantsto tell this story, so this is the one. Hopefully, it’s romantic enough for everyone. I think it is, or will be, with some more tweaking. (And you know, all the writing I have to do.)

(The new thing in question was Forget-Me-Not btw.)

[uglypastels]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Tagged by: @eddiemunsons80sbaby 💖💖

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

My main posting site is tumblr, on which I have 387 titles in my masterlists, (443 individual writing posts if seperating multi-chaptered stories).

Then i've reposted 40 of these titles on AO3 and 10 on Wattpad.*

*Counted since 2018

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

40 fics - 518,511 words total

3. What fandoms do you write for?

I've written for MCU (actors) and co, the Irregulars, Stranger Things and One Piece (live action).

4. What are your top 5 fics?

I'm going by individual posts, not accumulated interactions through series.

Following the Herd

"Wearing His T-Shirt" blurb

"Overcoming the Nerves" blurb

Heaven and Hell

The Special

5. Do you respond to comments?

I always try my best to reply as soon as possible wether its an ask, reblog or comment. (Excluding wattpad, as i see that more like people annotating their reading and generally don't want to bother them. But i do always read them and appreciate them, and if something stands out or if someone comments a lot i will respond)

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

Ooh i once killed reader off dramatically lol ("Car Crash" blurb) but I think the general reader's concensus would be Caught Me Slippin' , which I didn't even intend to make that angsty, but people cried (allegedly). And honestly, while i apologise for the emotional damage, i do take it as the highest compliment to be able to evoke such feelings.

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

Most of my stories are quite happy and i'm not sure how to rate "happiness".

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I am actually surprised how scarce the hate is, and usually in the form of anons, because I always expect people to hate me. But thats on insecurities. Honestly, writing on here has always been amazing.

9. Do you write smut?

Yes. I hate it tho 😫 like, love smut in theory and concept but it's a bitch to write.

10. Do you write crossovers?

I love a lengthy and extended au, often inspired by other works (Not Wholly Evil is basically Stranger Things x Pirates of the Caribbean) but i think the only clear "crossover" i (remember to) have written would be Murder on the Dancefloor ??? which would be a tom holland x Strictly Come Dancing crossover lmao. I do often think about tv show crossovers in concept tho, but doubt i'll write any.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yup. Shit sucks.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes, but it was done without my permission and uncredited (which is still stealing!!) so that sucks.

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

I've dabbled in co-writing, haha, several times avtually, but for one reason or another, none of the projects were ever published. Would love to one day actually fully co-write something with someone on here.

14. What's your all time favorite ship?

Ngl, i'm not sure I have one. Probably why all of my stories are 'x reader'.

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

At this point I think this about every single one of my WIPs and that's writer's block for ya.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Hmm...i'd like to think the expression of emotion, showing how characters feel. And maybe world building- or thats at least my favorite thing in AUs. Maybe also details (either motives, references or foreshadowing)

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I'm horrible at pacing. Always feel like i go too slow with the plot and then suddenly too fast and its all a mess, especially when it comes to series. Also just general knowledge on things; i feel like i don't know enough things to write about when it comez to daily and regular life, or even how to normally interact with people so that makes things hard when trying to be realistic. I also feel like i don't know enough words??? So things get really repetitive.

Oh, and this is also an aspect of writing- i'm horrible at getting feedback in the form of proofreading. It makes me physically sick having someone go through my work like that, and I barely do it myself. Which may result in some horrible typos/mistakes. And i do apologise profusely for that. Believe me, if you caught a mistake in my fic, i still think about it to this day.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in different languages?

Its always better if the writer is familiar with the language. Things you're comfortable with writing translate over better to the reader. It's like in movies/tv, its always better when you have an actor speaking a language they actually know. And if you don't know it, 1) ask yourself why are you writing it then and then 2) better research the hell out of it.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

My first fic, that has since been deleted for a long time, was on wattpad and it was for a youtuber lmao. (peak 2013/15 era, thats all i'm gonna say)

20. Favorite fic(s) you've written?

From my most recent, in no particular order:

Following the Herd (eddie munson)

The Special (Sanji)

Not Wholly Evil (Eddie Munson)

Biggest Fan (Buggy)

Headlights (Eddie Munson)

This was so much fun to do at 4/5 am haha. Thank you for the tag again. Here are some peeps i'll be tagging (no pressure) 💜

@mydearzero @spiderrrling @eddies-house @elvendria @josephfakingquinn

[yerbamansa]

Got tagged by @epersonae! Thanks! So I will tag other writer mutuals if you wanna have a go and/or didn't already get tagged (i keep losing track of tumblr scroll tbh): @thetragicallynerdy @alfalfairy @whose-modern-au-is-this @dragonmuse @sassygwaine @keriocabinet

Do you write in order? Generally, yes. Every once in awhile I'll have a scene or a little piece of something that gets written as it comes to mind, but it's often outline->write. The outlining/brainstorming process (as much as it is a process) is where the order happens.

This is notably not the case with Ask Me Anything, though, which is a collab and timey-wimey to boot, so lots of stuff needed to get figured out of order. We still haven't finished writing the chapter we're in the middle of posting, but the next one is finished and the rest are kinda 50/50 or 60/40.

How fully formed does your writing come out the first try? Gonna say a good 85-95%?? Depends on the story and whether I'm getting other eyes on it before posting. Most of Revenge Ranch got written and posted with a cursory read-through for glaring errors. Kitchen Mistakes & How To Avoid Them, though, tends to have its word count/phrasing fluctuate like 10-15% every chapter thanks to a delightfully nitpicky beta reader.

How many drafts do you go through? I don't really draft, per se? I spit it out, I review it, I get feedback (sometimes), I make changes, annnnd I'm done. Well, I guess that's technically drafting phases, but it tends to be less thorough than what I'm picturing.

Tell me about your process. I get an idea. It takes hold of my entire goddamn brain. I am compelled to start writing it down in some loose structure, usually bulleted lists, just to get it out of my brain. Sometimes the idea keeps growing, almost self-propelled (All That I Need Is You And The Sea). Sometimes it incubates a bit before it comes together, and needs to keep being formed and re-formed as it goes (Kitchen Mistakes), but the idea is still kind of in charge, if that makes sense.

Other times, I really need to work at it, like, I know I want to do something with X character, but I need to do some background research, think about what my goals are for the thing, make notes on the POV character, etc. I put a lot of time into breaking down Revenge Ranch Roach for his POV story last fall, and that was kind of like pulling teeth, though I'm happy with the result. I think this version of the process might end up with more of "me" in it. Maybe because I have to work at connecting to it.

While I'm actually writing, I typically try to keep some VERY simple/high-level notes handy--like the key plot points/character notes to hit--but abandon the rest. Exception: if the background research includes some specific entity (object, video, song, etc.) I need to describe/reference in the story itself. Even if I don't feel like I'm in a 'flow' state or whatever, often I'll just sit there and try to start pecking out some dialog or description of wherever I'm at, and it starts to move along, or doesn't.

Sometimes I have to flit through a lot of background noise to find the right vibe for my brain at a given moment. The nicest, though, is finding one of those "8hr ambient aesthetic vibes" videos on YouTube that is kinda close to the setting I'm writing. There's a road trip Revenge Ranch story that I wrote while watching someone's dashcam video of a drive through New Mexico. I watched a TON of thunderstorm videos for a couple other entries. A chapter of Kitchen Mistakes that took place in Stede's study was helped along by one of those "evening fireplace and rain sounds" ambient videos. Fuckin' love those videos. It hits a sweet spot of noise (without lyrics or too much rhythm) and background imagery like watching TV, but without all the distraction.

In terms of technical settings: I like writing in LibreOffice when I can, but if I'm collaborating at all, it has to be GDocs. And I am a heavy user of headings/outlines in that case. I have a half-assed AO3 post template in LibreOffice with places for notes etc. to copy and paste in order. I've been known to make a spreadsheet when shit gets very complicated. My brain loves little boxes. I don't write on my phone except maybe some notes to self in Signal for ideas that come up when I'm not at my laptop. Love a physical keyboard and multiple windows, mmm, room to spread out and see lots of shit at once.

[kittykatinabag]

The good news: the mental health nurse practitioner got me an ssri prescription right away with only the usual background questions asked. This time it's fluoxetine (aka prozac) since I told her that escitalopram (aka lexapro) worked but only up until a point and then I plateaued. I tried to explain that the reason I didn't up the dosage on it was because I was afraid of the sleep troubles getting worse since I know they were tied to taking that, but she didn't seem to fully understand that logic. Fair enough I suppose, I'm not a trained medical professional. But yeah we'll take the first pill tomorrow morning as it was too late today when I picked it up to start it.

Bad news: the fucking health insurance is all fucked up right now. I technically do have a plan, but that plan has not sent me the insurance card (or literally any indication that I am in fact on the plan beyond what's on the states health portal). The plan I thought I was on expired at the end of last month because I qualified for more benefits (I think, idk I'm still confused about it). I could call them (and probably will have to), but I might also look into just going in person to the state health insurance people and figuring this out. The only thing is, Monday is a holiday so it would have to be on Tuesday. Mildly annoying. At least goodrx made the prescription only $20. Even though it should be free on my health plan 😒

More mildly annoying news: the nurse practitioner can't meet again until November. And this is telehealth too, not even in person. I did say to her I'm interested in getting back into therapy, but only being able to check in monthly is pretty useless with my memory. Even weekly can be a stretch sometimes.

Also mildly annoyed that I spent like four hours filling out the damn intake paperwork (including two very confusing consent forms for releases of information that I did not understand fully and I hope I filled them out correctly because no one answered my "hey wtf do I write here if I don't have a PCP anymore and have gone to multiple providers for mental health services" email), yet the nurse practitioner didn't even seem to glance at the answers. I know they're required to do the whole intake interview questions to hear it straight from me, but it definitely seemed like it was the first time she was becoming privy to any of that information, even though I went into dumb amounts of detail in the forms. Because I'm literally that tumblr post that says something like "if I just explain it in more detail and clearer and with different words maybe then they'll understand me" so I just keep putting down details. (Kind of like how I just keep writing these life update and opinion posts).

But anyways, ending off with more good news: this weekend is a cat show and I am going to see many many beautiful cats and hopefully remember to take pictures. Very excited about that.