#inspired by a tumblr post but no link because I cannot find it!

[shou-jpeg]

trick-or-treat! *spooky metal wobble*

Treat!

****

“God take this off” Chay pants, pawing at Kim’s jacket until it slides over the other man’s shoulders and drops to the floor with a heavy thud. Kim groans into Chay’s mouth as he kisses him hungrily. 

They’ve just come back from a date and it’s their first time doing anything like this. They’ve been trying to take things slowly - get to know each other properly and take their time with their relationship now that they’re trying again. Except Chay just cannot wait anymore - not when Kim shows up to their date looking like that. 

He groans, mouthing at Kim’s neck and finding his pulse point, sucking lightly. Kim gasps and it’s the most delicious sound Chay has ever heard. He grips at Kim’s belt with his fingers, trailing his other hand lower. 

He feels something hard under his hand and he leans back to smirk at Kim “Is that a gun in your pocket? Or are you just happy to see me?” Kim pauses. 

Fuck. What a stupid line. What was he thinking? Chay spends a moment to worry that he’s killed the mood before chancing a look up at Kim’s face… only to pause at the guilty expression his boyfriend is wearing. 

“...P’Kim?”

Kim sighs, and then pulls a handgun out from his pants. Chay hadn’t even known he was carrying one, though he supposes he shouldn’t be surprised. 

It’s actually kind of hot. 

God, Chay a year ago never would have guessed that he would find someone carrying a gun with him on their romantic date to be attractive. The mafia really has changed him. 

It doesn’t matter, he decides. What matters the most here is how gorgeous Kim looks in the low light of his bedroom, lips kiss swollen and bruises forming on his collarbone. 

Chay smiles at Kim and goes to kiss the look off his face, moving his hands across Kim’s belt to his buckle. Kim’s hands fist in his hair as Chay’s kisses turn hungry again. 

He’s nipping at Kim’s bottom lip and sliding Kim’s belt out when he feels something sharp against his finger. He pauses for a moment, then looks down and pulls out… a knife?

“P’Kim… why do you have a knife hidden away in your belt?” he asks. That’s two weapons Kim was carrying on their date. 

“I always have a knife hidden on me, just in case.” Kim explains, looking guilty again, but nonetheless like he’s preparing to defend himself if Chay questions him further. Chay supposes it makes sense, though. Kim does like knives, and he likes to be prepared for trouble even more. 

Chay shrugs and smiles at him fondly. Okay. He already knew Kim was like this. It doesn’t matter. He tells Kim as much and moves his hands back to his waist. 

Kim’s gaze turns dark as he looks towards Chay’s lips, and then they’re kissing again, hot and heavy. Chay backs Kim up towards the bed, pulling his shirt out from his jeans as they go. 

Kim’s hands are hot where they grip Chay’s waist, and firm when they turn him around roughly so that it’s Chay who is being pushed down onto the bed. 

Kim moves to take his shirt off, only to reveal… another knife?

“P’Kim, do you seriously have a knife strapped to your chest?” Chay asks incredulously. “How didn’t I notice that earlier when we hugged?”

Kim looks guilty again as he explains “I purposefully angled myself so you wouldn’t feel it…” Chay can’t believe that his boyfriend is carrying three weapons. Are there only three? Are there more?

He won’t lie, it’s sort of ruining the mood a little. 

“P’Kim how many more weapons do you have on you right now?” Kim’s guilty look increases as he pulls out another knife from the back of his jeans, and then a tiny gun from a holster strapped to his ankle. 

Kim moves to take off his jeans, revealing a thigh holster with three more knives and something else Chay doesn’t recognise.

“What is that one?” Chay asks, pointing.

Kim holds the tools up so that Chay can see them properly. “Lock picking tools.” He puts them on the bedside table with the rest of his small arsenal.  

Okay then.

Chay takes a moment to reevaluate the ridiculous man he’s chosen to spend his life with, takes a moment to be frightened that Kim feels the need to carry these things on him in the first place, then chooses not to care anymore beyond that. Not right now anyway, because Kim is standing in front of him in only his underwear and the cutest, sheepish, expression on his face and Chay is willing to look past this hiccup so he can get Kim into bed as fast as possible. 

“Come here” he holds a hand out for Kim to take. 

Kim moves to lie down, slotting himself between Chay’s thighs and running his hand down Chay’s side as they kiss deeply and desperately, Chay clutching at Kim’s shoulders. 

He tenses for a moment when Kim’s hand catches on something by his thigh. Fuck, he completely forgot…

“... Chay? Why are you carrying a gun?”

[eqt-95]

💙 for supercorp , pretty please!

oh brilliant! yes of course!! i was hoping for this one so i'd finally be motivated to write the scene that was inspired by this post. i have literally had it saved in my tumblr drafts since february. and yes i just scrolled through half of my 784 drafts to find it.

- - - - - -

“Actually no, we're not ‘dating’. We're bound together for infinity. Like the stars. So, fuck you, actually-”

Alex clicked the remote, freezing the screen to perfectly capture a very outspoken, very drunk Lena Luthor doing an uncanny impression of Taylor Armstrong in front of a throng of paparazzi.

“Can we watch it again?”

“No,” Alex answered tersely, setting the remote next to three overflowing folders, a coffee mug that needed to be filled with something a little stronger, and a cellphone she had to silence after the hundredth social media notification sent it rattling off the table.

Nia slouched in her chair with a ‘hmph’ and muttered something that sounded like garbled nothing to normal ears but very much like ‘never any fun,’ to Kryptonian ears.

“Right,” Alex continued, her attention directed across the table. She’d spent the majority of the recording with her face downturn and fingers pinching the bridge of her nose in what could only be described as ‘resignation’ mixed with the ‘I’m not mad, just disappointed’ strategy she had been trying with Esme.. “Care to explain what compelled you to proclaim you... infinite, cosmic link with Supergirl?”

“Not really, no,” a much more subdued, much less drunk Lena answered.

“Seems pretty self-explanatory,” Nia chimed in, spinning in the chair next to Alex. “Luthor can’t hold her liquor.” She bounced a clicky pen on the table-surface to accentuate the point. Alex gritted her teeth.

“I most certainly can-”

“Channel 7 says otherwise,” Nia grinned. The clicky pen was pointed accusingly.

“That,” J’onn began, and then pen clicked in offense, “is the least of our concerns-”

“Exactly,” Alex interrupted while blindly swiping the pen from Nia's hand and slamming it onto the table. “Do you have any idea how many conspiracy theories have started because of this? This has gone national-”

“International, actually,” Brainy added. “Canada and Australia have both picked it up.”

“Which means it’s only a matter of time before the rest of the world is needling around about- about…” Alex’s face plunged closer to a shade of raspberry.

“About what, Alex?” Lena asked. She leaned forward, arms crossed with her super sexy calm, cool, and ceo-collected face. It was almost working too, except for the mischievous glint and flicker of her eyebrow that revealed she was not taking this remotely serious enough for the eldest Danvers sister. “About my throuple with Kara Danvers and Supergirl?”

Alex’s face found her hands. Nia sputtered laughter from behind her own. J’onn stared longingly toward the closed door. Brainy scowled in confusion.

“It cannot be a throuple if two members are the same person,” Brainy said, glancing quickly toward Nia who nodded in confirmation.

“CNN doesn't know that. But fine, call it infidelity, stepping out on-” Lena offered lazily.

“Still not the point. You’ve jeopardized Kara’s secret identity,” Alex interrupted crossly. “And now you've put her in danger of-”

“I thought it was sort of sweet.”

Five pairs of eyes turned toward Kara who, until now, had remained silently observed. She sat at the head of the table wearing her suit and a recent bout of puppy love. Two pairs of eyes were gobsmacked, the third was failing to hide the glee over the entire exchange, and the fourth included a quick wink that made Kara’s cheeks flush even redder and bat her figurative tail even harder.

“Sweet. Right, well,” Alex began again, “‘Sweet’ doesn’t exactly handle the problem, does it?”

“It’ll blow over; these things always do,” Lena added. “We can have Andrea run a boring fluff piece about my night on the town being a slew of misguided comments. Say I said the earth was flat and that I challenged the Second Law of Motion or something. Make it dry. Everyone will chalk it up to part of that.”

“Fine.”

“And we can put this whole thing to-”

“Don't you dare-” Alex warned.

“-bed.”

Alex sighed, J’onn climbed to his feet like a tired high school teacher, Nia bounced giddily in her chair, and Lena was already glancing over at Kara and giving her a look that suggested they were not going to make it through the day without a trip to the broom closet. 

Kara's cheeks flushed even redder if that were remotely possible.

•••••••

And so a fluff piece was written, the tabloids took a few lazy swipes at another Luthor edging toward instability, and then the story deflated entirely into obsolescence. The news cycle moved on, Alex's blood pressure returned to normal, and Kara was permanently living on cloud nine.

Everything was fine.

Everything was great.

Everything was going swimmingly.

Until the second video was discovered.

From the same night.

Nia brought popcorn. J’onn brought a heavy sigh. Alex brought a decade of instantaneous aging. 

“Care to explain?” Nia asked with her best angry-Alex impression. 

Meanwhile Alex was struggling to unclench her jaw.

“Deep fake?” Lena offered lamely.

“Deep fake,” Alex parroted. “You think someone somewhere invested the time to deep fake Lena Luthor and Supergirl making out? For what? Fun? Kicks? Laughs?”

“They already spend hours writing steamy fanfiction,” Lena shrugged. 

“They what-?” Alex choked.

“Hot, steamy, inspired sex, really-”

“No-”

“Kara, darling, do you remember the one with my desk and the full-length windows?”

Kara flushed but nodded. Nia squealed with delight. Alex had had it.

“Enough-”

“Or the one where we lived in an alternate universe and you were a cowboy and was your-”

“Stop. Stop it.” 

Lena leaned back into her chair, a smile of victory spreading across her face.

“I’m just saying, stands to reason someone might show us in the throws of deep, passionate-”

“I don't want to know. I don't. Want. To know,” Alex interrupted, hands cupped around her ears.

“Cosplay?”

Again five pairs of eyes turned to Kara. 

“Could've been cosplay.”

“I can't believe… J’onn can you… handle… this,” Alex waved between the two.

“Should we watch it again?” Nia suggested. “Just to check Kara's theory.”

And without preamble, she clicked play again. It was far fuzzier, far more amateur, and far less deniable than the first.

“Charlie, Charlie, baby look here,” the phone holder shouted over a group of laughing, tipsy NCU students. “Do the impression again, please? I want it for-”

“Yo, yo, check it out.” 

“Is that-?”

The camera pivoted from the ginger-haired Charlie to a dark alley between 

“Oh damn, is that Supergirl?”

“And… Lena Luthor?”

“I knew it. I told you!”

The stage whispers were doing far more for Alex’s discomfort than the shaky camera zooming 2x onto what was very clearly Supergirl pressing Lena Luthor into a wall and doing a very good job of ripping Lena’s $1,200 blouse open. 

“Ooph, Mrs. Fischer is not going to be happy about that,” Nia commented.

A glitter of buttons bounced off the sidewalk, and Supergirl’s mouth was moving hungrily and decidedly across the exposed skin.

“We’ve seen enough,” Alex chimed in and reached, some might say ‘desperately’, for the remote in Nia’s hands. “Once already scarred me for life-”

“But we won’t know until we see drunk, cosplay-Lena’s face. It’s for science, Alex,” Nia answered, clutching the remote like the lifeline to a sinking ship and climbing onto and over the conference table just as ‘cosplay’-Lena pulled ‘cosplay’-Supergirl’s mouth back to her.

“Bullshit,” Alex hissed, making quick work of scattering across the same table. 

Meanwhile ‘cosplay’-Supergirl’s hands were no longer visible and the gang of NCU students were actively chanting them on. “Nia Nal, if you do not turn that off right now-”

The chase continued under the table, over three chairs, and around a trash bin Nia knocked over in a valiant attempt to slow her assailant. And while Nia and Alex made a mess of the conference room, ‘cosplay’-Supergirl was making an absolute mess of ‘cosplay’-Lena’s bun-

“Never!” Nia huffed and side-spun before making a poor calculation and tripping over an empty chair. Alex saw her window and lunged, tackling Nia, gripping the remote free and slamming pause just as ‘cosplay’-Lena found the zipper to ‘cosplay’-Supergirl’s suit.

“Do you have any idea the-” Alex’s vitriol stopped in its tracks. Why? Because they were totally and completely alone. No Brainy or J’onn and worse, no Lena or Kara. “What… where’d they go?”

“Probably the broom closet,” Nia mused.

- - - -

ask game

[tabe4]

Picrew~

I made a Picrew~ I ill probably add more options over time but for now it has all the basic items I wanted from the base game, plus a few additional options~

If you want a pawpad colour separate from the paw lines, select the final paw lines option and head over to the body markings 2 section to select from a few different pad types.

Please note that because of Picrew's limitations, body/ear/hair markings have to be manually selected for the corresponding base choice you have made. If you find your markings are outside of the lines and didn't mean for this to happen, please double check the body base type (paws, mouse, or bunny)

The second set of face markings has the tears on an additional layer so they appear on top of the eyes.

For now, certain colours are linked to each other to simulate the game's limitations (while some options remain unlinked due to picrew limitations or otherwise). I might unlink them later~

Please feel free to inform me of any errors! And you're always free to submit your creations to this blog! I have added a Picrew tag (#picrew posts) to the submissions page for you to use (and for others to block~). I will always be happy to see them! You can submit or post to your blog and tag @tabe4 if you wish~

Terms of Use:

You can use the Picrew to make OCs for Tabe4 or in general

You cannot make monetary profit off of images made using the maker. This includes virtual currency that can be exchanged for money.

You can use the maker to inspire you for adopts, but DO NOT sell characters made with the maker without redesigning them in some way as others can easily recreate your character, even by accident.

You may edit, crop, or manipulate the images made with this maker for personal use, roleplay, or references, as long as you don't claim the art as your own, or "unknown"/"CTO"/etc.

---

[halfmoth-halfman]

Leaving this blog.

With my mini-series finishing up soon, I've decided to leave this blog as well as my AO3 account once it’s finished. This is not a decision I've made lightly, but circumstances have left this a place where I no longer feel safe.

As of now, I won't be deactivating this blog and will be leaving my fics up for anyone who'd still like to read them. I can't say this decision won't change later, but right now I feel that I've put too much work into this blog to simple delete it.

Below the cut is an explanation of why I'm making this decision, and what has been happening on this blog since the end of last year. It's not required to read or anything to understand the gist of this post; it's simply for my own peace of mind knowing that I spoke up about it. There will be topics that are possibly triggering such as harassment, threats, and racism so please mind the warnings and tags.

The mini-series is queued to finish next week, but there will be no more fic polls or wip wednesdays. I'll still be on here to make sure the queue does its job, and maybe post some stuff from my old drafts as a last bit of fun.

I'll have dms tentatively open for the next two-ish weeks for those who'd like to follow my new account, however I will not be answering anything from empty blogs. After that, asks and dms will be turned off, and I won't be coming back to this blog very often, if at all.

I cannot say thank you enough to the wonderful readers I've had and the amazing people I've met. I don't think I would've ever continued writing without your support and friendship. There's nothing I can do to show my appreciation for all of you.

Maybe we'll see each other again. If not, I hope your inspiration is always flowing, and 2024 treats you kindly.

Mothie 💜

Again, TW: rape/death threats, violent racism, repeated harassment, and mental health.

Back in November, I started getting rude, mean-spirited anons. It wasn't anything I was too bothered with because it didn't happen often and, honestly, my inbox gets flooded for a week or so anytime I post about certain topics. I blocked, deleted, reported and moved on thinking whoever it was would get bored and leave.

However, what started as a few rude anons calling me a bitch or stupid turned into a lot of anons being vile and racist which only worsened over the next few months.

I spoke about it in this post (link) near the end of November. In that post, I mentioned that those were the nicer asks and that was not an exaggeration. I have gotten my fair share of shitty anons as seen here (link) when I had to take a break from my blog because of said anons, but I have never gotten the amount of vitriol that I saw in these asks.

When I turned anon off, I started getting even worse messages from empty blogs that would either be blocked or deactivate within a week. When I turned my askbox off, I started getting hateful DMs. When I turned DMs off, it jumped from Tumblr to my other social medias which I had to private, completely avoid, or outright delete.

I got messages attacking my writing, calling me slurs, threatening to find me and rape or kill me, sending me explicit porn and rape videos while insulting my sexuality, and going into gross detail about how much people I interacted with hated me or how I would never be as good as them. I tried to power through it, pretending everything was fine while I pulled away from this blog, from writing, from friends that I loved and talked to every day. Everything about this blog, the fandoms I enjoyed, the people I talked to, made me so anxious because of these constant messages.

I took several breaks while dealing with this in therapy, repeatedly trying to come back and get comfortable on this blog, but within a few days of coming back the messages would start up again, either here or on any of my social medias I tried to unprivate, and I couldn't deal with it.

Only in the last week or two has it started to slow down and stop on a few of my other socials, which is the only reason I even feel comfortable making this post. However, in regards to this blog and my feelings toward it, the damage is done.

I don't think I can ever truly convey how isolating this has been. So many of these messages were about how I've spoken about my struggles as a black woman in fandom, how much of a burden it puts on the people who interact with me, how inferior I am to them and that I am everything that's wrong with fandom.

I felt scared and anxious to talk to anyone about this, especially people mentioned in those messages, out of fear that this harassment would jump to them. There are friendships that I stepped away from that I will never get back because of that. There are friends that I've felt like I was betraying by never telling them about what was happening because I felt too ashamed about letting this get to me.

I constantly worried that making a post like this would feel like, "Oh, Mothie's whining and trauma-dumping into the void about fandom racism again", that those messages would be right and it would force people to feel like they had to support me. Or worse, that people would agree and it would only make things worse. I've wrestled with so much guilt trying to decide to make this post and figure out what to do to make me trust myself again.

Ultimately, I don't think I was wrong for talking about my issues in fandom, and I don't think anything I've said has warranted this kind of harassment. I don’t know the who’s or why’s behind of this, but I've come to terms with the fact that I'll never really know. Truthfully, I'm not sure it even matters at this point. In the end, I think moving on from this blog entirely would be the best thing for me right now.

But, man, does it fucking suck.

This was the blog where I felt comfortable enough to start writing again, to start posting my fics. It's the blog where I met so many friends, got the courage to join new communities, found new hobbies, new music, new things to enjoy in life. It feels silly to say about a blog, but this was a place where I felt like I was able to carve out a space for myself. I put so much work into making it my own, and now the only thing I feel about it is anxious.

Hate messages and threats and racism have always been a part of fandom, and the internet as a whole. I’ve known since I started participating in fandom spaces that it was going to and continue to happen. I've known that I had to have a tough skin, especially if I ever spoke up about problems I faced because no one was going to have my back if I didn't have my own. I thought I had learned how to deal with it, and how to make a safe space for myself. But this goes beyond that. I did not deserve this. No one deserves this.

In some ways, it feels like admitting defeat, like I'm weak or hypocritical for not being as strong as I pretended I was and leaving. In other ways, it feels freeing to start over, and I'm choosing to view look at this optimistically even if it bittersweet. I don't want to let this scare me away from writing or from speaking about things that are important to me. All I can do now is say I'm so incredibly sorry to those I've hurt by stepping away or keeping this secret, and make sure I'm able to at least leave this blog on as happy a note as I can have.

[bloodblanks]

creepypasta video game headcanons eyeless jack: horror games. his personal favourite would probably be scp: containment breach, although nowadays he just plays phasmophobia. he is very good at it. hoodie: animal crossing. yes, brian likes animal crossing. he likes decorating his pretty little island and has probably spent hundreds of hours on this game. masky: not the biggest fan of video games. (it’s because he’s bad at them and a really sore loser.) however, he will secretly indulge in world of warcraft. ticci toby: shooters. honestly, probably cs:go. he is not insane at the game but he is decent enough to enjoy it. he will happily hop on apex legends, overwatch, or valorant with his friends though. had a fortnite phase. yes, he knows the fortnite dances. yes, he terrorizes children that are in his lobby. jeff the killer: mortal kombat. he played it growing up, and is fairly skilled at it. he will play other fighting games like tekken or even smash bros, but he doesn’t like them nearly as much. partially because he just loves the mortal kombat designs, but also because he doesn’t like not being as good at the other games. will tryhard on smash bros at parties/group hangouts though. ben drowned: plays all games and is very good at most if not all of them. his favourite zelda game is probably breath of the wild. while ocarina of time and majora's mask are more nostalgic for him, he cares too much about having nice graphics. besides that, he probably plays league of legends. he is on the lower end of challenger. slenderman: does not like video games. he prefers traditional board games. video games are too flashy and... new for him. he might play chess on the airplane screen though if he has nothing else to do.

author’s note: i was inspired by this one post on tumblr that i saw today about creepypastas and games but i cannot for the life of me find it :( if someone links it i will tag the author.

[thecluehunt]

welcome to the clue hunt!

how does this thing work?

to join the search for the 39 clues you will need to concoct a serum that will make you(r branch) all-powerful and set for world domination. follow this blog and/or like this post to register:)

this is an online clue hunt based on tumblr inspired by the 39 clues series. you do not have to have read the series to participate, although it might be more fun if you have!

a list of 39 elements, each with an associated number to account for its quantity in the final serum, has been determined and will soon be circulated across the threads of the interwebs. the goal of this clue hunt will be to collect all of these clues for your branch!

there will be four branches the participants will be loosely divided into based on their interests (will elaborate on this in a bit). the lucians (red, the cunning branch, think codes and logic and conniving), the ekaterinas (yellow, the stem branch), the tomas (blue, the athletic branch, which in the context of this clue hunt translates to gamers/shit that requires good motor skills) and the janus (green, the artistic branch)

each participant will be given a few clues at the start of the game. you will randomly be alloted into branches UNLESS you send an ask to this blog with a preferred branch. to make sure each branch has more or less equal numbers, asking for a specific branch will mean you will be given less clues than other participants at the start of the game (i.e. there is an advantage to random branch assignment).

you will be told your final branch privately and will not be revealed the branches of any other participants.

you will be required to hide the few clues given to you across the interwebs (there won't be many clues don't worry) in internet trails, using codes, links, metaphors, required tasks you need to complete to attain the clue, etc etc. this will largely be up to you and you will be allowed to use your creative license - but you will have to send your trail to this blog to make sure it is workable and not too vague lol. i will edit/fine tune everything and if you can't think of anything i will make a trail for you

if you pick your own branch, you will be required to incorporate the core values of your branch into your trails. so for the janus this means hiding clues in art, for lucians this means codes and cryptography related things maybe, etc etc.

write your tumblr url somewhere near where you leave the clue so people know you left it there!

a map will be provided with the location of each clue around the world, colour coded. so for example, myrrh, a clue from the original series, is an ekaterina clue native to north africa. so, a yellow dot representing myrrh will be marked in this region. this can be used to find out what branches other members are in. for example, if you find out a fellow participant hid the clue myrrh, you can deduce they are from the ekaterina branch because there is a yellow dot in the region it's from. if you are also an ekat, this means you can trust them with your clues because you're on the same team:)

a certain number of clues will not be given to any participants and will be withheld as madrigal clues. these will be hidden by me:)

you can recruit members who haven't registered to help you with your hunt well into the game! however, you need to have registered at the beginning (i.e. be following this blog and like this post) to receive your own clues

any/all forms of cheating and backstabbing will be allowed (for everyone except me/the madrigals that is):D

to help with organizing if you don't want to participate, you can join the madrigals! we are a neutral team who cannot by definition win and are just having fun organizing all this lol

more details including duration, prizes, etc will be shared/updated later!

happy hunting!

tagging people who interacted with my post about this: @the39cluesian @iankabra @yakalll @angelkat-x @icamebackfromnarnia @39addict101 @manicpixiess @bilhert @mediodedios @toiletpotato @39starrygurl @gaslighting69 @nimonaaaa @dinatela @amianislovely @fandom-oracle @sarasanddollar @carpe-astrae @ghost-in-a-cup @cosmo-babe @kadalakari

[hollygl125]

I don’t really have words for how I’m feeling right now. I keep cycling between, “Okay, I know how I need to proceed” and “OMGF, how could this happen???!!!” There is the logical truth, and then there is the emotional/moral truth, and I am struggling.

Logically, I know the rational steps are (1) to find something good I can do for the world (or at least a few of the people in it), to fight the good fight, etc. and (2) to make sure I retain a place for my own happiness and joy.

Obviously it’s hard to do the latter right now, when really I just want to walk into the sea (but not actually). So I keep cycling through these two modes every five minutes or so, and I thought it might be helpful to put these thoughts in writing.

I’ve never really been the grassroots/community organizer type. I’ve always been interested in politics at the top levels. But I think right now trying to get involved in something at a community level is the only thing that makes sense, both in terms of what I can do and in terms of giving myself an increased sense of community and solidarity.

I know I need to find joy in the things that bring me joy, even if it’s hard, partly because to let them strip us of joy is to lay down in defeat and partly just because the human body and mind cannot tolerate constant misery (says the girl on a multi-year mental health break caused by ADHD burnout and anxiety).

(On the night of the election I started reading Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny, which I have owned for ages but—like many of the excessive number of books in my possession—never read, and its first lesson is “Do not obey in advance.” I should probably finish reading it.)

Over the preceding few years, The Characters (TM) and Tumblr and fanfic and GIF-making have been my escape from my own personal anxieties, and one of the things with which I was struggling yesterday (though obviously not the most significant overall) was how to reconcile the thing that brings me joy with the horrors that surround me. Sometimes I fear that when I am at peak anxiety the horrors will overrun the joy and ruin my happy place for me. The joy of finally (re)marrying off The Characters (TM), for example, seems incongruous with the horrors all around us.

But, I remind myself, people have always needed art, and people have always needed writing, and people have always needed escape, and people have always needed joy.

So I guess what I’m saying is that I will continue to use this as one of my escapes and one of my sources of joy—and to hope that maybe what I share can also provide a bit of that for someone else—but also to be mindful of the fact that I need to think about what I can be doing at this stage to create change in the real world.

I spoke with my therapist the day before the election (realizing that actually I might need her more the day after), and she told me about C-I-A, which means thinking about what we can actually control, influence, and affect. As someone who tends to start feeling responsible for large-scale events I couldn’t possibly control, this was a helpful framing for me! So I am going to do some more thinking on what I can actually control (my own actions, etc.) as well as what I can be doing to affect consequences or to exert influence (however small!) outside myself.

Under the cut I’m putting links to some other posts/sentiments I’ve found helpful, but first I’ll mention two more things:

1. Ballot curing is still taking place! This could affect control of the House! You can volunteer to help with ballot curing, and I have compiled some links here.

2. A favourite MLK Jr. quotation: “Injustice everywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” So keep fighting the good fight, wherever you are.

Sending hugs to all who need them. 💙

Some advice and inspiration:

The quotations engraved at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, for anyone who needs some inspiration while contemplating what they can do to make sure the moral arc of the universe bends back towards justice.

This post from @vegawriters on getting involved and coalition-building.

This article on what to do next, which I have still only skimmed, but the opening is wise:

The key to taking effective action in a Trump world is to avoid perpetuating the autocrat’s goals of fear, isolation, exhaustion, and disorientation.

This Bluesky post on not giving up on your creative projects, no matter how “silly” they may seem right now. They bring you joy. They may bring someone else joy, too; they may remind someone else they aren’t alone. But, regardless, if they help you survive another day, they have value.

This Bluesky post on doing the small things that can make a difference.

This statement by AOC: “One day at a time. One choice at a time. Regimes and autocracies are taken down by billions of drops of small actions that would otherwise be invisible.”

This line from Jonathan Larson: “The opposite of war isn’t peace. It’s creation.”

I would love to know what is keeping everyone else going right now!

[atherflame-theconcubus]

(this is a rework of my original pinned post)

Hello Tumblr, my name is ather and after having come to this app since I’ve kind of always wanted to come here, always hated Twitter, and I was on this app via the website before I made a Twitter account so at the time I made this account I had a vague understanding of Tumblr culture via my brief experiences as a young teenager and OzMedia.

This post will 100% be updated at a later point in time because right now I cannot list all the fandoms I’m in but I will list a few

Fnaf (the first one I joined)

Undertale (& the AUs)

Baldis basics

Glitter force/precure

The DCA fandom

Gacha life (debating on whether I should leave)

Smiling critters

Minecraft

Cult of the lamb

Garten of banban

Sanders sides

Island of the slaughtered

Dandy’s world

As of making this post, I am 19 years old, & I’m an Agender biromantic asexual. I have autism and ADHD.

I like drawing and coming up with alternate universes, so just a heads up there

AUs I have created so far (this will be edited as time goes on to include older ones and new ones when I come up with them):

*if there isn’t any color, you can’t really find them on Tumblr yet

** I should clarify that some of my sun and moon show AU were submitted anonymously to dca prompts.. these were created before I joined the fandom.

Important. Please read!

SAMS:

#Bloodless passion au

#Swap shuffle au

#Dad eclipse au

#actor au (name pending)

#mer reincarnation (mermay au)

#bloodlets au (inspired by potatotato-26’s droplets AU)

#the clipse brothers au

#editor l & e au

#eclipse mystery dungeon au

#Magical boy blood moon

#papa sun & kid bloodmoon au (name pending)

Dca:

#Aquarium au

#harpy au

#siren sun human moon au

#scarlet scales au (Mermay au)

FNAF:

#into the dream plex

#This one doesn’t have a name yet.

DANDY’S WORLD:

Unnamed au

——————————————————————

If any of you want, here’s a link to my old pinned post (practically the first one I made)

I also have an AO3 tumblr account that was made in may.

One of my side, blogs, specifically for sending my mutuals cat pictures

My first ask blog.

[theomnicode]

How I write metas? A meta about metas

If this deconstruction post is going to be useful for any aspiring meta writer on this OPM fandom that I currently follow, then be my guest. :D

Warning: Semi-long post.

Step 1: Inspiration

Nope, really can't get into my head all the time to write stuff as much as I would love to but when I do, it's because I get a good inspiration from something. It does not really matter at this point if it's short or long, just the subject matters. Then if I get inspired, I will usually stew on that idea for a while and think about the points in the manga that fit.

Unfortunately inspiration does not strike all the time so there's always that. I'm going with the route that "you can't force inspiration to come to you, you want the inspiration to become you" or something like that. Take that with grain of salt, I just made it up on the spot.

Step 2: Practice

I've personally been writing fanfics since I was...a teen I believe and meta is just a subsection of writing school essays, except it's actually fun. So writing something has been quite a lot of work put behind it, but nobody says one cannot start from scratch today and the meta doesn't need to be immediately impressive, we're just writing it for fun yanno? For other fandom peeps who maybe wanna hear our thoughts. Just gotta start from somewhere yanno? My earlier metas are prolly a fair bit different than my current metas.

Like they say, practice makes perfect.

Step 3: The creative process

Ok so to the nitty gritty of the meta making... PLOT NO JUTSU!

I oftentimes either discuss the meta on discord channels with likeminded peeps and then start gathering some images from the manga to use as my images to enhance my point and make my texts also visually interesting to look at and make some clarifying points. I tend to find some good relative image to use as my first image because it'll show up in archive search like so:

It'll be easier to search for my metas even without searching for my tags from my archives if they look similar.

Next, I keep a folder for all my meta images in a neat pile and I use paint ms to cut me nice images to post into my meta and I also have cubari , the one site which hosts all the chapters so far, open where I can just grab images whenever. Basically any kind of image tool you got from paint to gimp to photoshop can help you crop images you want to use if you want to use images in your meta.

My brain can sometimes be pretty hard to follow apparently, so I do try to parse a lot when I write my texts and keep it somewhat coherent. Parsing information via the canon timeline can help form a coherent timeline to follow in a meta.

In general, you want your writing progress to be seamless and disturbance free creative process, not unlike drawing. Sometimes ambient music on the background can help focus on the actual meta writing process (currently listening to Ardenweald from WoW), which can take me from 1 hour to all the way to 5 hours in a single sitting, which is quite long but remember, tumblr drafts saves your progress even if you save it nowhere else and it's entirely possible to finish the thinking process another day when you have more time.

Sometimes I include links to either my own metas or some outside source, which I then briefly quote on my text, like in the Saitama mental health meta where I citate depression effects on memory recollection. The quote sources can also be stated at the very end like in a real essay, but to me personally I'm fine without the citations at the end, long as I state my sources and then put quotes into indented text.

Step 4: The writing itself

Paraphrasing helps make your text look coherent and easier to read to just about anybody, so avoid pure walls of texts. I usually write longer texts, but that is up to the writer to decide how short, long or how abridged they can/wanna make their work, which frankly is not one of my best skillsets lmao. Just gotta make sure to put that warning in the front if it's long post.

Nowdays, I also include chapter names and numbers about the relevant information I'm writing meta about in between () marks and itallics to further separate it from plain text, which might be helpful to people if they search for that specific plot point from the manga itself. Then if it's a particularly long meta, a tl;dr at the bottom if I can form a proper tldr.

Sometimes I also get struck by random thought and I just have to write it out haha. Sometimes I ask for aid and opinions on discord channels.

Any long metas should definitely have that "readmore" cutoff in the beginning, else entirety of tumblr or wherever you'll post the meta will hate you.

Step 5: Revision & Tagging

You can hold on from posting the meta the very same day and just keep it revised for a bit longer if you want to correct spelling mistakes or if you think you can maybe adds some more to it. Revision is just as important in writing meta as in writing something like fanfiction and I personally do a fair bit of both.

When tagging, I just use "opm meta" for all my opm related metas and then tag in fandom and characters that apply to the current meta and then some other related subjects like "mental health, character study" etc. I prolly haven't tagged my earlier metas that properly but eh... if you write on another platform and then copypaste it to tumblr, make sure that the plain text shows properly and doesn't create any weirdness.

Closing thoughts...that's about it folks, that's how I write meta and how I wrote this piece as well. Which took me roughtly 1hr 45mins to write down at my current writing speed but I've been thinking about this since yesterday haha.

Tl;dr: Inspiration, practice, creative process by saving images and thoughts as they go, writing and paraphrasing, revision and tagging properly.

[tyrantisterror]

A Hundred Some New ATOM Kaiju Pt. 1

So, for about five years or so now I've had, oh, a hundred or so ATOM kaiju sketches that have just been sitting waiting for me to ink and color them. But I've come to accept that I just cannot produce art as quickly as I did in my twenties, and the prospect of me actually finding time/energy/a lack of throbbing pain in my hands to do so is, uh... slim. And I think that's kind of sad, because these guys deserve to have some time to shine.

So, over the next couple days (because I'm pretty sure Tumblr's image posting limit won't let me do it all at once) I'm going to share them with you, for my own enjoyment. And we'll start, as is proper, with some retrosaurs.

First, some from the tiny tyrant clade. We've got a Jurassic Park dilophosaur homage and one inspired by Saltopusuchus (my dad's favorite dinosaur from his childhood dinosaur book, purely because he pronounced its name "SaltopoSUCKus" - unfortunately for my dad, saltoposuchus is actually a crocodylomorph, though there is a dinosaur named Saltopus. Maybe his childhood book was confused?). There's a trio of ceolophysis-inspired ones who I envisioned as a sort of kaiju Team Rocket - they're got arm membranes to show that they're sort of a missing link between Tiny Tyrants and Flying Tyrants, and because it makes them look like they've got little dramatic villain capes. And a more 80's style dromaeosaur-inspired retrosaur than Colossaraptor, who obviously takes more from 90's retrosaur dromaeosaurs/JP raptors.

Next, a pair of Flying Tyrants. The first was a result of me looking at a Quetzalcoatlus skeleton and thinking just how fucking weird their proportions were, and the later is inspired by rhamphorhynchus, perhaps one of the most fucked up little guys in the fossil record.

The final four of this section: a primitive carnivorous retrosaur inspired by the Crystal Palace Megalosaurus statue, a Bronton-sized True Tyrant inspired by the exaggerated depictions of Giganotosaurus in pop culture, a shark-like true tyrant inspired by Carcharadontosaurus, and finally... Tirontus. Tirontus is specifically inspired by the the 1960 film adaptation of The Lost World:

Which uses perhaps the most reprehensible of all atom age special effects, slurpasaurs. And I feel like even in its time no one bought this shit - any child would take the scene where Claude Rains says, "Look, a tyrannosaurus rex!" at what is clearly an iguana with rubber horns glued to its head and say, "That's not at all what a T.rex looks like. I've read books, dude." It's ridiculous.

And wouldn't it be funny if there was an ATOM story where some scientist finds a retrosaur kaiju that looks like, well, just a big lizard, and tries to pass it off as another Tyrantis? "No, no, this isn't just a big iguana, it's a tyrannosaurus rex!" So that's Tirontus, the false Tyrantis.

[thesinglesock]

Heya! Sorry for the random message but I was looking through the bunad tags on tumblr and saw your post on fantastistakk? (I hope I’m spelling that right!!) i was wondering if you had any good resources on learning more about them or could share any more information on them! I’ve always loved norwegian bunads and I’d like to depict them + reference them more in art/writing but with further fantasy themes (hence the even greater fascination with fantastistakk) and have worried about coming across as ignorant when the last thing I want to do is do these wonderful dresses and their history a disservice! (I additionally ask just because when I look up fantastistakk specifically I get a lot of results in norwegian which is fine I just don’t want to end up with inaccurate info putting it through a rough translator online so i thought I’d ask!)

Thank you so much!

Hi and thanks for the ask! Please don't apologize I love talking bunad and fantasistakk :D

I really wish I could paste in a link to the Definitive Guide to Fantasistakk (English Edition), but unfortunately no such thing exists.

Mainly because this is what I would call a Folk Fashion Movement, in the sense that there is no big fashion house or designer* behind it, it consists of regular people digging up their mothers' sewing machines and having fun with learning traditional techniques in a new way. The closest thing you can get to valuable literary resources would be people's personal blog posts and the occasional news article, but they're all written in Norwegian, like you discovered. And while I get that machine translation can be awful, it wouldn't be the end of the world if you used it to research this topic, since most of the time the explaination of a fantasistakk essentially boils down to "I made it like this because I think it looks cool". (*there are a couple of notable fashion houses that do fantasi-stakk, like Eva Lie and Embla Bunader, and while they contribute to the trend, they don't control or own the movement.)

There are several ideals tied to the fantasi-stakk trend, so the reason someone might choose a fantasistakk instead of a bunad can vary. Some people make theirs from thrifted curtains because they're saving up for a "proper" bunad later, while others commision a carefully researched and deeply personal subversive tailor made piece of art based on their local dress tradition. In any case, the fantasistakk wouldn't exist without the traditional bunads, so you might want to look into those as well.

Luckily, you can find a lot of international resources on the traditional bunads, because they've been around for longer and one of the core ideas behind the bunad-movement was to document local dress traditions to prevent them from fading into obscurity. If you want to learn about the history of bunads I highly recommend this video by Kristine Vike, that takes a critical look at the idea of the Bunad. It really digs into the historical and political context that the bunad has and the history of how it evolved into what we know it as today.

I cannot overstate how well researched this video is, and also if you want to learn more about Norwegian dress history and textile arts in general, go check out her channel, it's a real gold mine.

But if you want resources for art inspiration, I'd encourage you to look up specific bunads to base your fantasistakk on. Each bunad has its roots in a geographical area and is made with the traditional techniques unique to that place. Some areas have more variety than others, but there's enough to write several books on each and every bunad.

Here's a handy list of pretty much every bunad (with a few Sami gakti as well), sorted by province:

Very few of the costumes in this list have English wikipedia articles attatched, but some of them have Norwegian articles, and I'm sure every single one of them has plenty of pictures to use for reference (pro tip: instagram hashtags. people love to tag their bunad pics with the name of their dress). And if you find one you're interested in, but you can't find any accessible information, I'd be happy to help you learn more about it :D

when it comes to being respectful and coming up with fantasistakk-designs, I'd say try not to worry too much about it, and just have fun! some people get mad when they see a teenager using a "non-traditional" shirt with their family heirloom vest, while others applaud them for showing both their heritage and their individuality. Doing your research is important if you want to depict historical dresses (and to give you more ideas of what a bunad can look like), but in contemporary norwegian culture a lot of us are mixing it up with modern garments and borrowing from other cultures and just making clothes we want to wear (just like our ancestors used to do before the standardized national costumes got popularized)

And on that note, I'll wrap this up with the banner picture from Embla Bunader's home page for inspiration:

(btw I'm officially rescinding the statement I made in the fantasistakk post, that Embla is "less extravagant", cause this past year they've Really been Cooking)

I wasn't really sure where to even begin answering this ask, since it's such a massive topic, but I hope I at least some of this information is useful :P

[earthtooz]

hello! i love your works so much everything you write is perfect! i stopped writing more than a year ago but reading your works inspired me to write again 😊 it’s crazy how we are the same age but our level of writing is completely different, yours blew my mind 🤯🤯🤯 (in a good way!!!!!) i was wondering if you could give me some tips to improve my writing as i feel like i’m lacking in many departments (if you’re comfortable in doing so, ofc!) thank you! ❤️❤️❤️

this ask was send march 5th, and i'm happy to report that four months later, for the first time in a while, i think i'm finally at a point in my writing where i'm confident giving out tips that are not generic and stock standard. i do not know if anon is going to ever see this, but i hope you do, and i hope that you're still as inspired to write as you were when you sent this :) a lot can happen in four months!!

i'm just going to get straight into it. you'll find that the further you go, the more... catered the advice might be to you (it's long, and maybe a bit rambly, but i hope it’s useful in some sort of way 🥲)

# ONE - THE MOST BASICS:

the most DEVASTATING thing you can do for your writing is not have a purpose for each scene or snippet you write. give your scenes a point, don't let them be just images that you sit on the document to take up space! are you trying to prove that character x oc's relationship is growing? are you trying to show that it's breaking apart? are you trying to set up the character as someone who's beginning to fall in love and hates it? give everything a purpose. every word must be linked to your intention.

you know what they say about chekhov's gun, if you are going to mention some little thing, give it a purpose later! you mention reader likes sweaters? let character give them a sweater! this works in many-a-ways.

this all comes down to the planning, which i would give tips on, but i'm writing this part too late. i'm also trying to keep this first part brief because this is a very long post.

for english speakers, the second most devastating thing is to not know your grammar LOL (i cannot criticise those who speak another language as their first! kudos to you, keep doing what you're doing.)

# TWO - FIND YOUR STYLE: easier said than done, but it's an essential part of any art. writing takes time, and only time will evolve your skill and therefore, your style. if you do not like what you write off the bat and believe you are 'lacking' in some departments (no such thing, there is room to improve instead of being 'incapable' of doing something), then i always turn to some of my favourite authors, whether they are published or another fanfiction writer, turn to them and study them. DO NOT PLAGIARISE, just try and emulate what you see from their works and put them into your works, with your own sense of individual style.

i have my list of esteemed tumblr writings that i look up to, as well as writers that i adore. ocean vuong will always be one of my favourite writers, i listen to him frequently when i am stumped by my own writibg. he has this sort of creative aura that drips of his own idiosyncrasy that inspires me every time i try to listen to him, him just speaking calms and invigorates me so much.

so yeah, find your writer, and learn from them :)

# THREE - THE 'DEPARTMENTS': the departments that i have included are:

characterisation

dialogue

description and artistic expression (this one is long, bear with me.)

like i said earlier, there are indeed departments are writing that we all have room to improve in. i will talk about the few that i might find specific to fanfic writing because i am nothing like an actual author :,)

characterisation: a fickle little thing T^T the worst thing ever. to characterise properly means you know the character like it's your own, but in fanfiction that's just truly not possible :,) so i can try and give you my own tips on how i deal with characterisation.

listen to the english dub (or your first language) - DON'T CRUCIFY ME. PLEASE. BUT LET ME SPEAK. for my fellow fluent english speakers, listening to a dub in a language we do not understand can only go so far in the way we understand a character. when listening to english, we hear the intricate ways of their tone and personalities work, and what kind of dialogue best flows with them (toji fushiguro is excluded from this. never listen to that man's english dub.). when i was writing for bakugou- he's not the hardest character to understand, but with the help of the english dub, the dialogue that i wrote for him flowed a lot easier than if i had just tried to internalise his jp dub. he's gruff, and rude, and cocky, and his english va captures that in quite an adorable way! ofc you can never just ignore the original, the original is there to provide you the blueprint, but sometimes a little help explaining the blueprint goes a long way !!

characterisation can also be perfected through the subtle changes in dialogue that you see. a big part of character is how they talk, and even just the subtlest of changes can go far. let me start with the example "this is a really bad idea." if i were writing itoshi rin, then i would change the sentence fit to his speech and embody how he'd actually react to a 'bad idea'. he's curt, doesn't say more than necessary, and unashamed to be cold so he'd probably just say "this is stupid." before walking away LMAOO if i were writing someone like gojo, then the sentence also changes too. he doesn't mind talking and adding more to his point, so i would write something like: "you sure? this doesn't seem like the brightest idea." and if i'm really trying to sell a romantic relationship, i'd add a 'sweetheart' there or something.

dialogue: this is a personalised experience, so as is everything in writing. i have been complimented on my flow and dialogue a lot of the time but in truth, i am merely having a conversation with myself in my head. i try to become the character i am writing about and then i just chat with myself :3 it can be that simple. dialogue does not need to be something you over-complicate, i am my own, ethical character.ai.

description and artistic expression: look, i can't say much on this one except that you're all on your own. i am still trying to perfect my own skills in this department because this is perhaps one of my most vexing parts of writing. i truly am just not... as poetic and imaginative as i want my words to be, but i am trying and i am improving.

my biggest tip regarding description and artistry is: if the reader can imagine it, you don't need to write it. you don't need to fill in the gaps with actual scenes, if your characters are walking through the park as a filler for getting from destination A to B, then that park scene does not need to be as descriptive as A or B. a mere 'you took a shortcut through the park' will suffice. or even better, just go straight from A to B.

say my 'A' scene is starting at a cafe, and my 'B' scene is going to the mall, you could just go 'calling for the waitress to get the bill, you then find yourself in the mall within 15 minutes'. spend time on the gaps that require a bridge to cross, not the gaps that you can merely step over.

these kind of things appear in your planning and admittedly, i don't even plan ROFLLL but i have primary scenes that i have sketched out which i sometimes add to. like spider webs, when going from one thread to another, sometimes the journey is not all that important if it does nothing for your plot.

again, i find inspiration in a lot of the writers i look up to. a recurring motif is something i love adding, whether that be dialogue or a recurring item that symbolises something (like the hairband in between love and lies - a nagi fic). techniques like motifs or an extended metaphor add a lot of depth in your writing that you can't find otherwise. you can also omit going too over the board with reader's emotions too, or just the character's. if it's obvious that they are angry, sad, happy, you don't need to go too far in detail about said emotions.

another so crucial thing is to take note of the things you see in real life and apply it in fiction. the most mundane of things you are doing can have beauty in words.

are you at the beach? why don't you take a look around. tell me about the people that sit on towels, minding their own business. tell me about the way the sun sits high in the sky, unforgiving and burning before going into the main plot.

are you sitting on a bench, killing time? tell me about the breeze you feel, or perhaps the heat that overwhelms you. tell me about what you hear- bikes, children laughing, whilst you're waiting for your date to show up- all of these minute things, so long as you don't go overboard, will matter a lot to the imagination of the reader!

# FOUR: TAKE CARE OF AND LOVE WHAT YOU WRITE writing will always be hard :,) not a single draft goes by where i do not find inconsistencies and flaws, but i love them all the same. i love the drafts that i read over once and posted and i also love the drafts that i poured blood, sweat, and tears into. neither of them are more special to me because they were all born from a simple idea.

to look back on what you wrote and going 'i can do this better now' is beautiful, no? i love the end product for what i learnt on the way.

i know me giving this advice is kinda hypocritical because you'll find me going 'i hate this' in the tags, and you can choose to believe me or not, but i adore all of my stories the same. some of them i just hate that i couldn't give them the attention and love that they deserved, which shows through in the end quality. not that you guys seem to care, it's all in my head sometimes lMFAO.

# FIVE - KEEP THE POV CONSISTENT: now we are getting to the tips that i've been learning myself recently. how funny is it that i learnt this whilst reading from a writer that i so admire?

whilst reading a long fic, i noticed that the flow is satisfying because there was no swap of perspectives. the character was in the focus the whole time and the reader was the reactor, the catalyst being the character's actions and internal dialogue. on the other hand, the reader's thoughts and feelings being in the spotlight can also be significant.

i had always known that keeping the pov consistent would influence your writing, but i never knew how much.

which pov you might want to choose is all intuitive. writing is intuitive- every other tip that i have revealed is all intuitive and i'll cover more of this later. more importantly right now, which perspective you want to execute is all on you, and no one else. if you know your character, your storyline, and your skills, you will simply know how the story shall go. it is just as powerful to write it from reader's pov as it is the character's because it comes from your knowledge and authority as the writer!

# SIX - LEAVE THE COMFORT ZONE: this kind of returns to tip four. sometimes the only way to evolve is to do something we are bad at and that advice applies to writing too. writing is a path set by previous writers but it is not one that we have to follow all the time, why take a shortcut when the long way is prettier, and more rewarding? your journey of improvement is dependent on what you realise and give yourself opportunities to improve in.

for example, recently i have been trying to improve the depth of my descriptions and- don't laugh, but the way i've been doing so is as followed:

i input myself into the scenario, i empathise with the characters within the scene and i describe it. maybe it's emotional and the character can't look you in the eye because they don't have the heart to, not when their chest is filled with a smoke that is so unbearable that all they can focus on is not turning to ashes. maybe it's a happy scene and all you can look at is the character. maybe it's confronting, and the only thing you can think about is defending yourself against their clenched fists that will never actually hurt you, but you know damn well can break your walls in one swing. leave the comfort zone, write new au's and new dialogue pieces, write new metaphors and similes and use rhyme, listing, repetition- just try something new every time and let it be meaningful to the story.

# SEVEN - GIVE YOURSELF TIME. like the growth of your muscles or the mobility of your limbs, or the way your hands flow along the canvas or keyboard, writing is a skill that can only be improved with time. fanfic writing is intuitive and completely reliant on your own tastes.

i can sit here, speak for ages about writing, but the only way you can learn is to do. i have people who see what i do and praise me for being one of their favourite writers, and as honoured as i am every time, i am merely born from the six years i have put into this craft, as well as the hours i put into writing and planning what they see. if you could see the behind the scenes, you would go 'what the fuck am i looking at' LMFAOO.

when i write and then i reread and i know what it is missing, but i cannot speak about this like it is easy, like i have not spent the past few years of my life consistently writing for various characters and growing along the way. to be fair, you don't need to take six years to get good at writing, it can be a very smooth process! i don't think i was the brightest cookie at 12 ngl but i took my characters and rewrote them into different scenarios and here i am today, at 18 and (marginally) better.

as long as the urge is there, worship it, take the step and write. then post, if that is a step you want to partake in. simple as that :)

that's all for now! sorry this is so long, now that you've reached the end, i just wanted to say that i have no authority over what you produce and how you do it. these are simply just things i've learned along the way and i hope they can provide you some sort of revelation.

[elizmanderson]

(For the ask game)

I've heard you mention 'Remarkable Retirement' a few times. And I NEED more information so I can propperly obsess.

Thanks:)

SO GLAD YOU ASKED

first of all, obligatory plug because The Remarkable Retirement of Edna Fisher is out now in hardcover, paperback, and ebook, with an audiobook pending! you can find tbr and buy links (plus fun stuff like a "which character are you" quiz) at my linktree.

(I also have a shiny new website if you prefer a traditional website format or if that's more accessible to you)

okay anyway

the inspiration is exactly what you'd think it was

for anyone who doesn't know yet, the book was inspired by this post that I saw on tumblr years ago when I had my original account

...except it's not a series, she's 83, and she had one cat in the first draft who got cut because I simply cannot keep track of characters' pets, rip Mittens

here's a plot summary

which I c/p'ed from Goodreads just now, but I wrote this summary myself except for the lovely blurb from SJ Whitby at the bottom

You're never too old for adventure.

When you’re a geriatric armed with nothing but gumption and knitting needles, stopping a sorcerer from wiping out an entire dragon-fighting organization is a tall order. No one understands why 83-year-old Edna Fisher is the Chosen One, destined to save the Knights from a dragon-riding sorcerer bent on their destruction. After all, Edna has never handled a magical weapon, faced down a dragon, or cast a spell. And everyone knows the Council of Wizards always chooses a teenager—like the vengeful girl ready to snatch Edna’s destiny from under her nose.

Still, Edna leaps at the chance to leave the nursing home. With her son long dead in the Knights’ service, she’s determined to save dragon-fighters like him and to ensure other mothers don’t suffer the same loss she did. But as Edna learns about the abuse in the ranks and the sorcerer’s history as a Knight, she questions if it’s really the sorcerer that needs stopping—or the Knights she’s trying to save.

“Beyond the utterly charming premise of this wonderful book, you will find dazzling wit, a cast of delightful characters, and a plot that will sweep you away. At heart, this is a love story, but one that shows the depth and complexity of love in all its permutations. But my very favourite thing about this book is how it makes me believe in a kinder, better world.” - SJ Whitby, author of the Cute Mutants series

no-context spoilers aka random shit in the book that I like to mention now and then for funsies

handkerchief magic

a largely useless wizard

"I'm fine" [but she was not fine]

"snickerdoodles"

"we're not flying right into a SHITLOAD OF DRAGONS" (I have a temporary tattoo and stickers with this quote on it lmao it's a fave)

a dragon who thinks he's a lap dog

a dragon who hoards flowers

an extremely self-indulgent kiss-on-the-beach scene

a Soft Old Man™

maybe she's born with it, maybe it's PTSD

idk I'm bad at giving info without a specific question

I could literally talk about this book (or,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,anything I'm writing) all day, but I never know where to start or where to stop when I lack a specific question lmao. so if you have more questions or new questions or questions about anything listed here, please let me know what they are so I can answer them better!

[ask-codeearasure]

Ouija and Sarco's Master-Post for Character Design.

Struggling with character designs is a bitch, so here is a master post full of resources for you to help you bring your character designs to the next level, I shall also have some text that will elaborate on why I linked the video (and sometimes the channel) for you to understand why.

These are inspirations for Sarco and I and I wanted an excuse to share them. Okay, I wanted a huge excuse to share them.

1.) TB Skyen (Tumblr account @ohnoitstbskyen ) and his video "What's the Deal with Kindred?"

Why TB Skyen and this video in particular?

TB Skyen is a wonderful YouTuber and Artist who can look into the art of League of Legends and pick it apart and critique it in the context of being from a multi-billion dollar company, but also in the context of the story that the character is from.

His critiques can go from color scheme, body type, pose, and even animations that show you just how detailed those animations can go (watching his animation breakdowns is wonderful and hilarious at how geeky he is! If you want an excuse to have a dumb as hell smile on your face, watch his animation breakdowns and how much fun he has going in depth on it. Trust me!).

This video is my personal favorite because he goes into detail about the character's voice lines and how Lamb and Wolf talk as though they are in a play. Going very heavily into the writing of the characters because character writing is extremely important in the very design of the characters.

Every video he has on character designs shows how far you CAN push your character designs.

HOWEVER, you SHOULD NOT hold yourself to the standards of billion-dollar companies. I need to remind you, that he is actively critiquing a multi-billion dollar company and is pushing people to have higher standards for these companies.

DO NOT destroy yourself for not being able to push yourself to such standards. You should push yourself, but don't push yourself too hard. Remember, as an artist we all start somewhere, and stepping out of your comfort zones is wonderful, but you cannot do it all the time to the point of burnout.

TB Skyen doesn't even hold himself to that standard fully with his Building a Better series.

Art should also be enjoyable for the artist.

2.) Subjectively and their video "Redesigning League of Legends' Boring Champs: Zyra"

Subjectively actively have been making videos about Pokemon and League of Legends along with their ever-famous Apoctober concepts and stories.

If it's not obvious, I'm a League of Legends fan girl, and it's true. Sue me.

Subjectively, like TB Skyen, have been redesigning League of Legends champions, and critique Riot Games' shitty design philosophy when it comes to Female Champions.

With this video, you will find how sometimes character designs can go in many different directions and how you don't need to restrict yourself when it comes to being "human-like".

Yes, sex sells, but I'm honestly tired of every single female character having the same face and same body type and every female character having to be put in the "conventionally attractive seductress" box.

We should also have monster women who look monstrous. We should also have women who are buff, muscular, and terrifying.

Speaking of sex selling...

3.) NickyBoi and his video "Riot Refuses to Rework Cassiopeia... So I did it for Them."

It is no surprise that when it comes to women in the videogame industry as a whole and even in comics and movies, women are not allowed to be anything but conventionally attractive without having a reason for it. We often hear the “But why can’t women be powerful aaaaand conventionally attractive?” argument that isn’t really an argument. Being attractive should not be the ONLY part of our power fantasy.

Men can be anything from hideous monsters who can bite the head off of a motherfucker, to someone who is built like a Greek god with biceps on top of biceps with biceps as a cherry on top with 12 pack abs that you could cut a steak on.

If men can have a diverse set of power fantasies to choose from, then women should get just as much diversity with that.

Which is why I bring you to this video.

Sexuality and seduction are just as much of a power fantasy but it needs to have a purpose. So when it comes to the redesigning of this character Nickyboi had to legitimately overhaul a small chunk of her story: the fact that she was supposed to be terrifying to her fellow Noxians.

She was supposed to be considered “scary” and unworthy of civilization. But Nickyboi was not satisfied with his monstrous design for her, so he wondered that if being a seductress is supposed to be a part of her past and is supposed to get her magic from the ascended, then perhaps, he could combine both sides of the story and make her a villain that won, thus leaning into full-on fanservice.

 When designing your characters, you must take their past into consideration, and this is why Cassiopea was such a terrible design at first. Simply overhauling her story and actually taking into account the region she was born into and the one she stays in allows her new design to actually fit her as a character and keeps everything intact.

But when coming from scratch it can be hard but simply looking around and starting with the story can allow you to keep a level head and ensure that you are able to work within your means. But that means we have one last thing to address…

Character Writing:

When it comes to writing characters there are some people who want to say that there is no wrong way to write a character, but there is a VAST majority of people who will grab you by the shoulders and tell you, that there is a correct way to write a character and will give you a long list to go through to get you started.

However, I will tell you the truth: It depends on what you’re writing.

When I start creating a character I sometimes have to take a step back and prevent myself from jumping into a pit.

I am sure that you’ve noticed within mine and Sarco’s writing, especially when it comes to the Ocs, they are devastatingly dark.

But I’m going to level with you here. The majority of those characters are mine. Edelweiss, Sketch, Klezmer, Katagma, Izanagi, Occultatum, Cyberberry – they’re all mine. But we’re going to focus on one here in this exampleI am going to give you, and that’s Sketch.

Before I made Sketch, I had another character that was basically made during my childhood, and was a silent wish of mine. I didn’t want to have emotions anymore.

And there are times when I still wish that, and that is one of the reasons why Sketch is like that. He is that power fantasy. Unlike Ink, he has the ability to be completely emotionless and function as such. But when it comes to exploring that fantasy, it has its downfalls. And it is fascinating because as an adult I realized that that wish is not a wish – it is a curse. That isn’t to say that people with ASPD, or even just low-empathy are sick, or broken, or anything of the sort.

They have struggles. Real actual struggles. So when it comes to exploring such a concept is finding those struggles and figuring out how to humanize them. I had to take a step back and ask myself, “How would this be interpreted logically, with little to no emotion in it?” and I had to sit there for a fucking hour trying to answer that.

It was only after that Sarco informed me that little to no empathy is not indicative of little to no emotional basis whatsoever, so I had to start back at square one. Sketch having absolutely no emotion would not mean he has ASPD. With a complete lack of emotion, that is something else entirely. Plus, assuming those with little to no empathy have no emotional experiences at all is ableist, so I’m learning better from that. The psychology field is fucked, let me tell you that much. Each and every single mental illness can overlap with each other or trigger one another like a fucked up domino effect. But when writing Sketch, I learn more about him oddly enough, and even then I learn how he could be healed as a person while still staying the same person, not being rebooted, not just flipping a switch and making him “good” again, or “resolved”.

One of the things that truly inspired me when it comes to writing characters with mental illnesses, with “points” that don’t exactly make them good people, but people who believed that they are doing good, is Arcane.

If you haven’t watched Arcane, I highly suggest you do it. Get a Netflix subscription or find a way to pirate it. It is something that will make you think. And that is what I like to do when it comes to writing.

I want to make my readers think, even if they don’t realize that they’re thinking about it.

I have one question that I have to ask when I write Sketch, every single day I write him, even when I’m not writing him but rather coming up with future arcs that will involve him:

“How will this affect him in the future?”

And it breaks me.

It makes me sit back and realize that I’m the cruelest creature alive, and I grin like a maniacal villain who has caught the idiotic hero in a trap that was years in the making that they have no chance of escaping.

This question is there because every story beat that is supposed to be truly hard-hitting and even traumatic towards the characters is supposed to be addressed, it is supposed to be something that affects them. There is a reason that the Negativity Venom that is running through Dream’s veins in the story that Sarco and I are writing is stated to have a permanent effect on him. There is a reason that it is described as something that swings a door open and it can never be shut because that is what trauma is.

Trauma, mental illnesses, character arcs, what have you – they are things that cannot (should not) be undone.

Unlike Pandora’s Box, there is no way to put all the problems back. There is no shutting it. There is only finding a way to adapt.

When writing, you are adding a piece of yourself. You are opening yourself up and really introspecting, even if you don’t realize it. You are ripping a small chunk out of you and putting it to words. It’s one of the reasons why writing is so emotionally draining sometimes. But that is what makes good stories. They can be so incredibly human.

Or if not human, settle for alive, meaningful nonetheless. Make the characters living forces, something with a motive and a struggle. The characters don't even have to literally be alive, it’s just gotta be something that moves the reader. A lot of elements in storytelling are so impactful because some part of them was inspired by reality.

Character writing has just as much importance as visual design, because writing is just design in a different form, and there is no shame in reshaping it time and time again until the concept fits what you’re going for.

But most of all, you have to put in effort, thought, and research. I went on a rant once about how much I hate it when people do not put in effort into their designs or writing because it becomes so incredibly evident so easily. But when you put in effort. When you try your best, it becomes so incredibly obvious to all of those who have an invested interest.

Just do your best and have fun while doing it. While there are some very important concerns with writing the heavy and complicated stuff, there is no right way to write your character. To start, you are supposed to experiment. Don’t let “perfection” be the enemy of good enough.

[marypsue]

I'm very, very close to finished drafting Blood Will Out (I've gotten to the big evil third act reveal I was so excited about!) and unfortunately, it looks like this scene isn't going to fit anywhere into the finished fic. But. I love it. So here you go.

(Some of the exchange in this scene was inspired by a tumblr post, which I unfortunately now cannot find. If you know which one, drop me a link and I'll add it to this post.)

...

There are hushed voices coming from the nave. Two, it sounds like, having a furious whispered argument.

And…splashing.

The argument doesn’t stop when Father Mackenzie steps out of the office and starts down the rows of pews, only grows louder. He doesn’t think either of the teenaged girls bent over the font by the door have noticed him yet.

“- nothing saying they can’t get in here! Especially not if you can.”

“Maybe not, but it’s gotta be more defensible than the motel room. At least there are more places to hide. I don’t even know if they need to be invited in, if the rooms are -”

“They don’t need to be invited anywhere, it just renders you powerless against them if you do. Edgar said -”

“Jamie, no offense, but I’m taking everything ‘Edgar says’ with a big, heaping bucketful of salt -”

“Can I help you ladies?”

The argument stops dead, mid-word. The two girls twist around to look at Father Mackenzie and freeze in place, blinking at him like deer in headlights.

The redheaded one recovers first, nudging the brunette in the side with her elbow. “Let me do the talking.”

“Jamie, you’re the one who can actually touch -”

“Good evening, Father!” the redhead all but shouts, with a big step forward in front of the font, drowning out whatever point her partner in crime was trying to make. “So sorry to disturb you, we didn’t realise anybody was here.”

“I can see that.” Father Mackenzie looks from the dripping water pistol the redhead hastily tucks behind her back, over her shoulder to her partner in crime, who seems to be trying to fill a plastic bottle of water without actually submerging it in the font, her fingers dancing at the surface like it’s hot. “You know, if what you need is to have some water blessed -”

“Hey, yeah, uh, actually, I have a question about that?” the redhead says, stepping sideways into his line of sight, poorly hiding her partner in crime’s strange actions. “Church doctrine says that any water you add holy water to doesn’t dilute the holy water, but becomes sanctified itself. Right?”

Before Father Mackenzie has a chance to agree, she’s already barrelling on with her little speech. “But, because of the water cycle, if that was true, then eventually all water on Earth would have become sanctified, and every time it rained – I mean, we wouldn’t be able to drink or cook or wash without committing some kind of sin, probably. So there’s got to be a point of dilution. What’re your thoughts on that?”

It's a lot of words, delivered rapid-fire in a bright, perky voice, like a presenter on a game show. Father Mackenzie blinks at the girl, trying to bring his brain up to speed with his ears. He’s spent the last three hours staring at spreadsheets, trying to make the expenditures for the Ladies’ Auxiliary make any sense. He has a nasty suspicion that somebody’s making off like a bandit somewhere. What they’re supposedly doing with all that lumber – “Isn’t this more a sort of question for a rabbi?”

“Yeah, but I’m pretty sure Judaism doesn’t do holy water.”

There’s a hiss of indrawn breath from over by the font. “Jamie can you ask him if he has any rubber gloves -”

Father Mackenzie takes a deep breath, and offers up a silent prayer for strength. He has the sudden sense he’s going to need it. “So, you’re correct. The official position of the Catholic Church is that holy water sanctifies any water it’s added to. But – and this is just my personal opinion, my observations, which, you know, do of course officially align with the Church, but as I can see, you both understand that sometimes, we must make…practical considerations -”

“Father. Time is a factor.”

“Of course. Of course. Well. Holy water can sanctify water. Theoretically, it could also sanctify the water in a suspension, but personal experience doesn’t bear that out. Too much in the suspension that isn’t water. So, if you add holy water to…Gatorade. You don’t get holy water, or holy water with added electrolytes. You get Gatorade with some holy water in it.”

“Okay. And since the ocean is a soup -”

Father Mackenzie sighs, and embraces whatever madness this is with both arms. “Gazpacho, I believe. It’s served cold.”

“Gazpacho. That’s why the water cycle isn’t affected. Thank you, Father.”

Father Mackenzie wishes he didn’t have to ask. But, well. The redhead’s still poorly trying to conceal a water pistol full of holy water behind her back. And this is Santa Carla. “…is this about vampire hunting?”

The redhead’s huge grin freezes into a rictus. The brunette’s head snaps up, her eyes wide. A second later, she yelps, snatching her fingers away from the font and leaving the water bottle she was filling to bob gently toward the centre as she sucks the tip of each finger in turn into her mouth. And then seems to immediately regret that.

The redhead raises her voice over the quiet litany of ‘ah, ah, ow, shit, shit, shit’ coming from just behind her. “Why – haha, uh, why, Father, why would you think a silly thing like -”

Father Mackenzie lets out one last, long sigh. He’s getting too old for this shit. “If you borrow any of the silver crucifixes, just make sure they’re back by morning.”

As he turns to head back into the office, hoping against hope that someone in the Ladies’ Auxiliary is just particularly bad at embezzling and they haven’t actually started a wooden stake production line, Father Mackenzie hears the girls start whispering again.

“What a weird fucking town.”

“Tell me about it.”

[considernature]

Consider Art I: 2022

Happy Holidays! I hope everyone is having a pleasant holiday season and has recovered from blacking out from Thanksgiving gravy poisoning. This holiday season, I’d like to introduce a new tradition at Consider Nature. As you may know, Consider Nature is dedicated to shining a spotlight on some of the animal kingdom’s most underrated members, animals who get overlooked despite being fucking awesome. To help highlight the beauty of these funky little guys, I would like to introduce the first Consider Art Competition!

For Consider Art, artists are asked to create pieces depicting or inspired by an animal covered in the Consider Nature blog. For those who are not familiar with the blog, I have written articles on the following animals:

Olm (Proteus anguinus)

Indian Purple Frog (Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis)

Pygmy Hippopotamus (Choeropsis liberiensis)

Scaly-foot Snail (Chrysomallon squamiferum)

Kaua’i Cave Wolf Spider (Adelocosa anops)

Shoebill (Balaeniceps rex)

Submissions will be judged based on their originality, quality, successful depiction of the animal, and whether or not the judges of the competition and I subjectively like it. All submissions are due JANUARY 6TH! Please check the submission guidelines below before entering your piece, as there is a specific process for entering a piece of art in this competition.

Prizes:

Here at Consider Nature, we are aware that exposure doesn't do a very good job of putting food on an artist's table. So, the top three art pieces submitted for the competition will receive prizes (they aren't going to be big prizes because I don't do this for money, but I'll do my best). The winning artists may choose to receive their prize as an Amazon or Etsy gift card (depending on how much they hate Jeff Bezos).

First place will receive a $50 Amazon or Etsy gift card.

Second place will receive a $25 Amazon or Etsy gift card.

Third place will receive a $10 Amazon or Etsy gift card.

All winning pieces will also be posted on the Consider Nature blog as well as on our social media (with full credit to the artists and links to their social media). Honorable mentions may also be awarded as part of this competition, depending on how many entries there are. These pieces will not receive a cash prize.

Submission Guidelines:

Any kind of art will be accepted for this competition. Keep in mind that if you make a physical drawing, painting, or sculpture, you will need to photograph or scan it to submit.

All submissions must be entered by January 6th, 2023. No entries will be considered after this time!

Please submit your piece as PDF, JPEG, or other common image file type. Pieces that cannot be opened by the judges on an average computer will not be considered.

To enter your piece into the competition, complete the following steps:

Email your submission to considernatureblog@gmail.com

Post your submission on Instagram or Tumblr, using the hashtag #considerart2022.

When you post your piece, please provide a link to the Consider Nature article that corresponds to the animal represented in your piece. This will help other people find and enjoy Consider Nature.

Please make sure that you follow these submission guidelines, as improperly-submitted pieces may not be considered.

Rules:

Work submitted for this competition must be the artist's own original work.

Art made using AI tools such as DALL-E or Nightcafe will not be considered for this competition.

Pieces submitted must represent one of the animals covered in Consider Nature blogs.

Consider Nature has the right to reproduce pieces submitted for this competition on social media or on the Consider Nature website for the purpose of promoting the artist’s work or the Consider Nature blog. To be clear, pieces submitted for this competition will never be merchandised in any way without the artist’s express permission (and artists will be compensated).