#just 400 more posts to get to 20k

[themaarika]

Sunny and Rainy is over

This is it for God of Tea and Sunny and Rainy! I started this webcomic years ago and it's finally time for me to move on. Thank you so much for reading, leaving comments and otherwise supporting this comic!

If you're a patron, I've archived the whole comic in three PDFs that all $5+ tier patrons can download. Check out the pinned downloads post for that. ✨

For everyone else, you can also buy the PDF version of Sunny and Rainy on itch.io if you want to own it. It's nearly 400 pages total! The web version of Sunny and Rainy will continue to exist as it is and will always be free to read at sunnyrainycomic.com! It's also on Webtoons, but it's important to me to have my own website as well and not depend on other platforms. If you're a patron, then your Patreon support helps me pay for the webhosting and I appreciate it very much since my webhost has been raising prices every year. 😩

Why end it??

If you're wondering why I'm not continuing SR, then there are several reasons for that. The biggest reason is that working on this comic takes several days of my week and along with my job and everything else I do, it's a big time commitment to me that I can no longer afford to make.

Unfortunately, making a free webcomic is not sustainable even though I made regular and reasonable effort to promote it over the years and on Webtoons it has about 20k subscribers. When I started this comic I was hoping it would gain an audience big enough to make it sustainable through Patreon but I've never reached that goal. It's been almost 7 years and it just never happened. I even applied for grants to get it funded but with no luck. I think I gave it a fair shot.

Most webcomics are (and used to be) monetized by ads but even then the ad money is peanuts unless you get millions of views. I hate ads and I will never monetize my work that way. Currently big platforms like Webtoons are monopolizing the webcomic space. The whole internet landscape has changed drastically and now big companies like Marvel and DC also post their comics on Webtoons and most indie creators can't compete with them.

Not to even mention how poorly the creators that are lucky enough to be funded and promoted by the platforms are treated. You can't make comics if you're not in love with this medium and it will most likely not love you back. 😔

What next then?

Will I make more webcomics? I'm not going to say no, BUT absolutely not immediately and nothing long form. If I work on another comic project I'll probably make it exclusive to patrons. I love the comic medium so much, but a free webcomic is basically the worst way to make a living (if it's viable at all in the year 2024), and unfortunately I need to buy food and pay my bills.

If you want to keep up with my upcoming projects and new comics or other announcements I encourage you to join my email Mewsletter.

Thank you for reading! ⭐

[csmeanerr]

Mod Shit, I get it if you don’t post this one for reasons that are about to be obvious, but re the $900 Fooling. (I agree it’s superior to the 20K Grem and most Chams, but with a single colored winged dog with a halo, that’s not saying much. At least Lu is going to do extra art due to the high price, more than what a lot of CS owners would do…)

When it comes to high-cost CS, I often hear shit like, “support artists!” and “they gotta eat, too”, “get that coin!”. Or whatever excuse. Mother fuckers spend shittons on CS designs. You aren’t supporting shit. You’re buying into clout and manipulative FOMO tactics. OK, yeah, someone’s making rent or whatever, but admit it: if that $900 Fooling (or whatever) wasn’t a CS, you’d be cackling at the person who bought it.

CRICKETS when artists who don’t use manipulative FOMO tactics put out comms or adopts. Sometimes even relatively popular artists struggle. So much for supporting artists, right?

I want to use this opportunity to show you what $900 can get you in art if you’re so inclined to kick clout-chasing to the curb, but still want to shake dollars at artists. The artists I’ve selected are random faves of mine and I’m not affiliated with them. They’re chosen to give you an idea of what you could get for $900 instead of a fucking dog.

sariyaart on Carrd: $900 is almost certainly going to get you a painted full body. PAINTED. As in, fully-rendered, in a mostly-realistic style.

Aspeneyes on Weebly: $900 will get you a full illustration since these start around $400

Nebquerna on Carrd: $900 could get you two or three concept sheets or custom designs

BlindCoyote: $900 is about enough for a full illustration, and definitely enough for a shaded colored sketch

Godbirdart: $900 will get you a full illustration

I know we often compare prices of stuff other than art to demonstrate what a rip off CS is. I think it’s even more demonstrative to compare prices (and quality!) to what other artists do. The artists I’ve listed above are professional freelancers, by the way, either part time or full time.

I remember someone once joking that the 20K thing was all Caravan’s fault because no artist could be expected to produce work good enough to justify that amount of money. Aside from the fact that the artist shouldn’t fucking take that money, then, and show some integrity, I guarantee you any one of those artists above would produce something spectacular. Hell, at that price, they’d probably agree to some sort of commercial rights.

But yeah, $900 for a dog with wings and a halo is totally at the same level of these other artists.

post related

a note to add to this is that cs often artificially inflate value with traits and artificial scarcity while also actively undervaluing other artist’s. they’re even aware that the artificial scarcity is the highest reason people buy since it’s developed this toxic mindset that no one else can have the same idea.  if people can make the same thing then they won’t buy theirs, not because people might buy from the merit of their work but because they slapped on so many labels such as ���official’ and ‘rare traits’

have the gall to cry about having to make so many adopts on a base while people who buy them draw entire fullbody drawings with backgrounds for 5 pieces of artificial currency

most cs are so deathly afraid of making things easy to get because it’s hyped up by the artificial scarcity. would cypherus grems be as tempting if people could just make one? would a cow girl oc perk your interest as much if it wasn’t followed by ‘biia-made mal’accilin’? these artists are genuinely skilled and talented and DO deserve a high degree of respect skill-wise to get where they are, but they grow themselves higher by pushing others down and that’s just not right

[redgoldsparks]

First off, wow, thank you Trung for making such a long and detailed post about your income and work flow and career path! At the end you mentioned being unsure how applicable this was to other people’s careers. I thought I would add in some information about how my comics career became full time, so readers have at least one other point of comparison.

One main way that our paths differed is that I got not one, but two art degrees. Happily, I managed to scrape through the first one without taking out any student loans by living at home, working part time, picking a relatively inexpensive school and getting a ton of scholarships. For my second degree (an MFA in Comics from California College of the Arts) I graduated in 2015 with about $25K in debt (I am aware this is a very light burden compared to what other people have!!).

Like Trung, I lived with my parents after graduating. In fact, at age 33, I still live with my parents- this is the number one biggest factor that makes my career as a full-time author/artist possible, especially living in the Bay Area. The only periods in which I lived outside the home and paid rent were my first year of undergrad (the only year I lived on campus) and the three summers during my grad program (2013-2015) when I lived in San Francisco in the dorms. 

Jobs I did during school and after include: 2007-2017, I worked part time in a library, working my way up from a work study student to a manager. When I started I was making $9 an hour but by the time I left I was making $25 per hour/20 hours a week/36 weeks per year (the library was closed during school holidays) so $18K per year. I also worked as an elementary school art teacher (2014) which paid maybeeee $3K. Between 2013-2016 I taught a fair amount of one-off comics drawing workshops at libraries and museums, generally for $150-200 for an hour-long class.

At the same time I was drawing comics, self-publishing zines, tabling at A TON of comic cons and zine fests (at least 50 between my first one in fall 2012 and covid hitting in 2020). I also sold zines and buttons on etsy, sold prints through Redbubble, and took commissions when I could get them. I got to the place where I could count on making around $400-600 per zinefest, which meant I could afford to do any that I could drive to, as long as the table wasn’t more than about $100. I rarely did a show I had to fly to because it just didn’t feel cost effective. I also started a patreon account in 2016, which built up slowly but at this point is giving me around $500 a month. Between 2016-2019 I successfully pitched several short comics to various anthologies, most funded through kickstarter, and earned anywhere between $10 to $100 per page depending on the budget of the project. 

I believe 2015 was the first year I started keeping track of my art income separate from my “part time job” income. These are estimates, but I went back and looked at some old tax returns and these are roughly what I made just on art starting the year I finished my grad program. 2015: $4K, 2016: $7K, 2017: $13K (this is the year I quit my part time library job and started doing art full time), 2018: $16K, 2019: $20K, 2020: $30K, 2021: $35K. Wow, you might think, that’s not very much money! How did you live? Again: I have never paid rent. And also: this year I am finally starting to see some real returns on my efforts, and I expect to end 2022 somewhere between $75K-$95K.

What happened to make that huge jump? Like Trung, I sold my first book in 2018. That book was GENDER QUEER: A MEMOIR. I sold it to Lion Forge/Oni Press for an advance of $5K, with 7.5% royalties on print copies, 25% royalties on ebooks. Readers, this is not a very good contract, but at the time it was the best I thought I could expect being a completely unknown author. That $5K was divided into one half on signing, and one half on delivery of the finished art. I worked on GENDER QUEER for the entire year of 2018; I signed the contract in January and delivered the final art in January of 2019. I have never worked so hard, or been so burned out, as after I finished that book.

My sibling did the colors for GENDER QUEER, and earned $6K for 240 pages plus the cover. (They did the colors under a work for hire contract.) GENDER QUEER came out in mid-2019. The first print run was 5,000 copies; by the end of the year we had ordered two more print runs, so it was selling well for a book from a small indie press. I’m so grateful that the book came out in 2019- it meant I got to do an in-person book tour and that when the pandemic hit, even though I couldn’t do zine fests or comic cons, I started getting asked to do public speaking visits via zoom. So through most of 2020 and 2021 I was doing a couple speaking events per month, and getting between $100-$500 for each. Also, in 2020 I started to get royalty checks from the book. At first they were about $3K a piece, then they started to go up to $5K, then $8K (these checks come quarterly, so 4 checks per year).

Then something happened which unfortunately, or hopefully, will not be relevant to too many other authors’ lives. GENDER QUEER got caught up in the current whirlwind of book bans and book challenges. It ended up being the most challenged book of 2021. Sales increased, and I started to get a ton more speaking invites. I started to get offered $1000 for a virtual talk, or $1500 for an in person talk (plus travel expenses covered). My royalty checks went up to $10K, $15K, $20K. I am now in the middle of negotiating the sale of my second book, and outlining my third book, and I am lucky that the publicity has opened doors to be able to pitch to much larger publishers. I have an agent now (we actually made our first sale together in 2020- about 20 small black and white illustrations for the prose novel We Are The Ashes, We Are The Fire, by Joy McCullough, for $4K). With my agent, I will have a much better contract and advance for all of my books going forward!

If there are any beginning authors or artists reading this, or even people who have been at it for a few years, my main point is: art careers build slowly. You will probably have to work a part time job, or a full time job, for a good handful of years while you build your etsy store or commission client list or zine fest routine or patreon base or draft your first book or more likely all of the above at the same time. It takes patience. If you have the incredible benefit that Trung and I had of being able to live at home for a while (or forever) take advantage of that!

I think when I was younger I thought that telling someone to pursue a career in art was kind of precarious advice, because for the first few years there is a lot of uncertainty about the trajectory of the career. But this year I have watched so many of my friends with “safer” jobs in animation and computer engineering get laid off from their salaried positions with benefits and healthcare that it hardly feels like any job is safe. At least with making art I feel that no one can stop me. I’m not tied to a specific company or platform. I am confident at this point that the people who like my work will be willing to support it no matter what media or format I decide to work in. I hope other artists out there can use the experiences shared by Trung, me, and others to make practical and realistic choices, but to also take heart in the knowledge that many, many people, myself included, have made art into a sustainable full time career. 

Hello, long time follower just on other platforms and I love your work. I am currently getting my Masters in Comics and Graphic Novels, and do tell me if this an inappropriate question but how much do you make? Like a month doing comics and art? Also what do you do on a day to day basis? I'm worried about my future after I graduate.

Thank you so much! This is a great question, and I wish more people would be candid about answering it because I'd like creators to demand more money. This will be a very long post! Keep reading if you're interested. MASSIVE info dump below.

Keep reading

[manicpanicpixienightmare]

I posted 19,699 times in 2021

45 posts created (0%)

19654 posts reblogged (100%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 436.8 posts.

I added 237 tags in 2021

#elena - 70 posts

#the real journal entry is in the tags - 41 posts

#i’m the girl who can make him worse - 20 posts

#the pumpkin speaks - 19 posts

#shopping list - 17 posts

#milky boy - 16 posts

#lol - 15 posts

#penis face - 14 posts

#for mitch - 13 posts

#prev tags - 12 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#but i really would have preferred to get the lions mane and if he was gonna fuck up the other mushroom that’s an artistic vision i can reap

My Top Posts in 2021

#5

The UN just said that the window is closing to prevent “catastrophic” effects of climate change and like no shit??? Honestly the window is either already closed (in terms of slow moving policy decisions) or MUCH smaller than they’re even willing to admit.

Also, fucking DO something about it. The political elite is so concerned about their own myopic self-interest that they’re never going to be decisive enough to pivot to damage control policies in time.

3 notes • Posted 2021-08-09 12:20:37 GMT

#4

Adderall makes my heart beat like I am a small and terrified animal.

3 notes • Posted 2021-08-03 14:14:03 GMT

#3

You know, proposing a new site feature and then having all the users point out vulnerabilities/flaws in the design for you would be a galaxy brain move if tumblr staff were capable of implementing functional features in the first place.

4 notes • Posted 2021-07-22 12:05:11 GMT

#2

BABE happy valentine's day!!!!<333 i hope u are staying warm bc it's fucking FREEZING out there like...oh midwest gang<3 we've followed each other for years and legitcherally my tumblr experience would not be the same without you on my dash. anyways...im like :pleading: portillos.......i cannot believe that covid took this away from us oaisjfdosa anyways i am shooting u w feel good vibes<33

😭

Happy belated Valentine’s to you too!!! You’re one of my favorite blogs to see every day. Your tags are hilarious and I enjoy seeing what fandoms you’re getting into lately with absolutely zero context 💕

I am returning fire with my good vibes cannon. There is no escape 😈

4 notes • Posted 2021-02-15 22:32:24 GMT

#1

My job on the leftist commune is noticing a pet is going to puke and taking them outside.

5 notes • Posted 2021-07-22 01:30:46 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

[myboyfriendcalledmefat]

I used to run a tumblr that had 20k followers before it got taken down.

That was years ago. I "recovered" and was finally combating my binge eating disorder and was losing weight at a healthy rate. I was getting compliments from people. I went down 2 sizes. Almost 80 lbs. This is after being pregnant and giving birth. Forcing myself to stay active as a stay at home mom.

Then, my fiance and I got into a fight. We've been together 9 years. Since high school.

He said the reason he treats me how he does, and does the things he does, is because I'm fat. Then he said, "but you're working on it."

It felt like the 80 pounds I lost was nothing. I'm 5 feet tall, so I'm aware that the way I carry the weight isn't ideal but I still felt like I was punched in the face. I hated myself still, but I always thought he didn't care what I looked like. I was very, very wrong.

And I relapsed. For 2 weeks, I was eating 400 calories a day. Eventually I did spiral into a binge that lasted 3 days. Lost around 10 pounds, gained back 7.

Now I'm trying to get back into the healthy mindset. Restricting just doesn't work for me. It always triggers binges. I've been at 800 calories a day since December 28th without binging. I haven't weighed myself because I'm on my period, and I always weigh more on my period.

I can't put into words the way I felt when he said that to me. The way my stomach fell to my feet. The closing feeling I felt in my throat.

Of course the next day he was telling me to pull my shirt up when we were out in public because I was showing too much cleavage. I was like, if I'm so unattractive then who fucking cares if my tits are out? No one is looking.

I'm posting this here because no one knows about this and I have no one to talk to. No one understands the self hatred. When I finally get to my goal, I don't think I'll feel much better. I'm trying not to talk to my boyfriend about it. It's been said and done. I just hate that I let myself get this bad.

[iasmelaion]

Write Every Day - September 2021

Managed to write every day, even while on vacation! Mostly because I did this, lol:

Which meant I could write an alibi sentence a day for like ten days and still maintain my precious 400 word a day average. “Why not just take a break from writing?” you ask! To which I respond: ABSOLUTELY NOT. AND BREAK MY 2+ YEAR STREAK OF WRITING EVERY. SINGLE. DAY? NO!!! Far better to write 4,800 words in two days and then write 1-3 sentences every evening while watching the ocean. “You could also just have eased up on your whole 400 words a day monthly average thing?” ALSO NO. Because that is another streak I have not broken and I refuse to break it!

Anyway, a productive enough month, but I am still not finished with this fic, and have been struggling to write this sex scene for like a week. If only I had written this damn thing in order, I could at least start posting it for some motivation because the other chapters that still need to be written are all at the end, but lol I did not, and this sex scene comes in part two. I don’t even know why it’s giving me such trouble, I just keep trying to Spark Horniness (which I have learned is the key to writing a sex scene that doesn’t bore me), and it’s not happening. Actually, I know what WILL spark horniness, but getting from point A to point Horny is proving difficult. UGH. Whatever, I will TRY to finish it this weekend.

And then three more scenes to write and 20k worth of editing await me ;___;

[purpleyin]

Fic Writer Asks

Seen this going round and it looked fun + @takeunknownroadnow tagged me - thanks, been a while since I did something like this. :) I put most of the post behind a read more because I can never seem to do short answers.

1) How many works do you have on AO3?

384 on AO3, but 117 of those are fanmixes/graphics/vids.

I also have 392 fics on FF.net, only some of which I’ve moved across (mainly Primeval and The 4400 got moved so far) so I guess that’ll inflate my AO3 number by a fair bit once I completely migrate of my fics.

2) What’s your total AO3 word count?

601,798 words

3) How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

I’ve written for about 32 fandoms so I’m not gonna list them all. My main ones have been Stargate Atlantis, Primeval, Fringe, The Flash, The 4400, and BBC Sherlock.

4) What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1. Turn Around (BBC Sherlock, Sherlock/Molly) - a 20k multichaptered based on a challenge set by Nocturnias. It took me 5 years to finish it and it’s an interesting one because I can see in it how my writing improved during those years, getting better with later chapters.

2. Why Should I Trust You (The Flash, Savitar/Caitlin) - this is a WIP oneshot collection about 25k so far. I still have another 10 one shots at least to post to it. It’s a very niche ship but the people who like it really like it.

3. Guide You Through The Night (The Flash, Barry/Frost sort of, Barry/Caitlin) - I wrote it for a simplysnowbarry event, whumpy angst with a happy ending, and it’s the most popular of any SB one-shots I’ve done

4. Burden of Proof (The Flash, Barry/Leonard) - this is only about 400 words but quite high kudos by my usually a rarepair writer standards. Partly I expect that’s just because Coldflash is such a big ship, but I got a good number of comments showing people liked the concept. I might expand on it to a longer fic sometime but who knows when I’ll have the time/energy.     

5. When Does It End (Where Does It Begin) (BBC Sherlock, Sherlock/Molly) - my most popular smutty fic, but mainly it’s a zombie apocalypse fic and I’ve had someone who doesn’t usually like zombie AU’s say they really enjoyed. I had a couple more chapters in mind for the AU it I might write as a separate fic sometime.

5) What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

This is gonna take some working out. 1/3 of my fics are tagged angst, I gravitate towards it. 😂 At least 30% of my Savitar fics stick with canon doomed timelines etc so those are fairly angsty for all involved. I think I’ll do a top 5 angstiest, not including those though, because of how many I have.

1. For SGA my Kavanagh-is-a-serial-killer one “Attention To Detail” since so many people die. I was known for writing his character more sympathetically/better developed than just the cardboard cut out villain lots of people in fandom preferred to see him as (which was kinda of how McKay was used pre-SGA too) but a friend who grew to like how I wrote him always joked I should write him as a villain sometime to balance out making her like him in my fics, so eventually I wrote that OTT villainous version.

2. “Not Precisely A World Away” was pretty dark as far as non-Savitar Arrowverse fics go. It was an other Earth AU where Hartley was originally the Vibe of their world, named and helped by Cisco. He’s killed by Zoom and Cisco takes over the mantle, going dark with his powers to avenge Hartley.

3. A tragic/dark HP fic “The Fates” about Snape fruitlessly searching over many years for a better universe where Lily was alive and well and his mistakes hadn’t killed her.

4. Chapter 6 of Why Should I Trust You, ‘Deserve Your Silence,’ has Caitlin finally getting control of her body in the future timeline where Savitar won and him and Frost terrorize the city. Caitlin agrees to help get Frost back because she can’t cope with what Frost has done to her life/friends and it basically has a death-of-personality angle to it.

5. A Dollhouse Adelle/Topher fic “Finding Another” where the canon ending for Topher still happens and Adele has to make peace with that, as well as living with her guilt over what she played a part in.

6) What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

Probably most of my moodboard notfic kind of blurbs. I used to find fluff hard but I’ve gotten better there when doing ideas to go with moodboards, so that’s improved my happy stories % a lot.

Out of longer actual fic, I find it hard to judge but probably “wherever you roam we'll be your home” (LoT, Jax & Gideon) for post-Legends happiness/friendship, or for shippy fics I think “it's the little things” (The Flash, Barry/Iris/Eddie) is the fluffiest/happiest ending.   

7) Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

Rarely. Only 7 crossovers out of my 300+ fics. My Buffy/Primeval might’ve been an unexpected one because magic and dinosaurs is a weird mix. I also did SGA/HP, The 4400/Firefly, Angel/TSSC, Primeval/The Flash, The 4400/SGA (but that was more a fusion, written before fusion became a term used). The oddest one I wrote is also my most popular, Dexter/Firefly.

8) Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Occasionally. My smut tends to be very characterful and emotions driven. I thought originally I could only really write smut if it was characters in love, because I find it hard to relate to otherwise (I’m demisexual), but I surprised myself by writing some hatesex themed smut for an exchange once so that was probably a limiting preconception of mine. I’m not big on PWP as a reader anyhow, though I’ve wanted to try and get better at writing that as a challenge to myself.

9) Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

These days, I usually do unless I can’t think of what to say or if they’re negative and I just don’t want to engage with that.

I sometimes don’t reply to comments that are very short ones basically just saying ‘update soon!/post more’ because I find people saying that in a curt way, usually two-three words only, seems demanding and rather rude without giving any feedback to go with it. Short comments are fine, I just don’t like people acting entitled to more asap when I obviously have a life outside fanfic.

I went through a period of a few years of not checking my account much and so missed some of the comments on AO3 - I do sometime spot those ones and reply years later apologetically.

10) Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Hardly ever. I’ve had a few complaints about my writing style but eh, that’ll happen since it won’t always be everyone’s cup of tea. I once wrongly tagged a fic not understanding the difference between LJ tagging style and AO3 tagging styles for relationships - the person telling me so was fairly civil, it just unpleasantly meant a ship war spat broke out in the comments of that fic and that was my first impression of the fandom in question!

For a while I had someone commenting with anti-wlw, anti-polyam and anti-kink sentiments on fanworks specifically marked as containing those - I couldn’t tell if they were trolling or sincere but misguided, but either way those comments weren’t appropriate and they wouldn’t stop sharing their differing opinion despite me being clear it wasn’t wanted. Thankfully eventually AO3 abuse got round to my ticket opened about it and I believe they got a warning for being like that + they’ve not commented anymore. They still seem to follow and kudos my new works though, which isn’t welcome given how much grief they caused. I asked them not to interact with me but they ignored that request, so it may be a deliberate power thing, but if AO3 ever implements a ban feature they will be going on that list of mine.

11) Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I’m aware of. Closest I’ve come to that was someone I know found out someone was reposting theirs on Wattpad, along with a bunch of other similar themed fics, and I had to ask the person to stop since they didn’t have an account there to ask the person themself. They did take them down in the end. I think the reposter thought it was flattering to the authors in question to be reposted and had no idea why people didn’t like it til it got explained to them in detail.

12) Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes. :) I know at least one of my Savitar/Barry fics got translated into Chinese. I had a couple of other requests about translating HP fics but I never got given any links to the translations like I asked for so don’t know that they did get done.

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

When I was younger I did try to co-write (HP and SGA fandoms) but neither fic got out of the planning stage. I have a vague memory of partaking in a round-robin (where someone writes a section then passes it onto the next person) on yahoo groups, because those were once popular, but I don’t know if that got posted or finished either. I’d be open to it but honestly I don’t really know how people end up doing so, nor how you go about organising writing together other than collaborative documents like for betareading.

14) What’s your all time favorite ship?

There’s no chance I can answer that. I’m just too big of a multishipper to ever decide.

15) What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Lol, so many. I suspect I may never finish my The 4400 fic “Pressure” because although I know it had likely only 1 more chapter to go I cannot for the life of me find my notes and I don’t remember what I had planned at all.

16) What are your writing strengths?

My characterisation and vocabulary are what gets complimented the most. I think I’m quite good on attention to detail on plots/callbacks to past canon things as well and working with themes/symbolism too.

17) What are your writing weaknesses?

I always worry about if my dialogue is in character enough and I’m very prose/POV thoughts heavy anyhow so I worry about waxing philosophical too much. I really struggle on keeping the same tense, which is why I try to write in present tense these days because I find that a bit easier to stick to.

I think my main problem is sticking to one project because my motivation isn’t consistent and I have too many ideas. I gotta learn to let go of some ideas, though moodboard making for some instead helps there.

18) What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

If it makes sense for the character/fic/situation then it sounds good, though I do worry it might break people out of the fic for anyone who doesn’t know the language since unlike on TV etc you can’t have subtitles. I know it’s possible to do linked footnotes on AO3 but that’s not usually how people do translations, usually gotta go look at an end chapter note or google it.

19) What was the first fandom you wrote for?

I think it was Buffy fic as a teen, since taken down as it really wasn’t good.

20) What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

I’ve written so many it’s hard to pick but possibly “The Boundaries Which Divide” (Altered Carbon, Lizzie & Poe) where Lizzie fixes a backup of Poe. It’s a really small fandom and I wrote it for yuletide, but it was very satisfying to bring Poe back and to get into that friendship, plus I loved the imagery and parallels I got to include there.

Tagging (without obligation of course) @joanthangroff @sophiainspace​ @ttinycourageous​ @batty-writes​ @unwittingcatalyst​ @mrdcoolblue​ and anyone else who wants to!

[aknosde]

Riordainverse characters with instagram head cannons

Percy

he’s got a respectable following, ~80k, a fair amount of his followers are people who remember him as that kid who got kidnapped and defeated his captor on the beach, or people who say that he’s attractive, which he doesn’t understand

doesn’t really do anything special but people love his posts cus they’re “cryptic”, also he seems to be friends with a lot of people who are also mysterious

sketches of his friends and weapons n’ stuff

a photo of him and Nico sword fighting in the arena

him and Annabeth on top of the rock climbing wall

at pride with Nico, Will, Leo, Jason, and Reyna

a selfie of him with a few sharks underwater

a group photo of a dozen teenagers in armor with a giant dog behind them

a video of him skateboarding across the brooklyn bridge ranting about the gods but most of it’s lost in the wind

The comments section is gold. “is that kids hand on fire?!?” “Is that kid with goat legs a furry?” “Percy I swear to the gods, you’ve got to stop taking underwater selfies with dangerous animals, it’s dinner time.” “How are all of these people so hot?” “is that lava?” “Wait isn’t this the kid that had a shotgun battle with his kidnapper on a beach???” “Did he insult Zeus?”

Annabeth

public account, maybe 30k

architecture sketches

a picture she took of Percy in a museum

a picture of her and a few others during a strategy meeting

photo of her school notes

pictures of buildings she designed on Olympus, mortals are confused because the places are so pretty but they can't be found anywhere

also stuff in the comments: “where is that???” “how are your notes so pretty?” “planning for friday, wise girl?”

Nico

has a public account for some reason so he has ~40k followers

actually is a pretty good artist so sometimes he posts drawings

him & Will somewhere random (where they shouldn’t be) having a picnic

photo from Hades’ palace

him and Reyna

sparring

photo of the river styx “remember when you swam in here @/prettysureimbijackson” “@/GhostKing if i recall, that was your idea, and it ended with me taking down your dads army” “what the hell guys”

comments: “where did you get the idea to draw that?” [its a monster he saw in tartarus] “How did you even get there???” “your boyfriend is looking for you di Angelo”

Frank

his accounts also public ~10k

photos of animals, each time he posts one the type of animal is more rare, usually with a caption like “I learned more about X today”

a picture Hazel took of him on the archery range

Him at some event with Reyna, Jason, and Percy, they’re all wearing Praetor clothes

him and Hazel

maybe some photos of food

comments are more tame but: “why are you dressed like that?” “Where did you find the rare X???”

has kinda drawn the attention of some animal welfare people who are confused

Piper

has a lot of followers, some are just superfans of her dad tho :( ~200k

a photo of her and Jason somewhere really high up

a picture Jason took of her in front of some shops in New Rome

pretty food from some cafe

surfing with the others (Percy and her are really good, you can see Leo flailing around in the background)

a really pretty picture of her dagger

comments: “how are you so pretty” “is there someone drowning in the back?” “how’d you get up there?” “a beautiful weapon for a beautiful girl ;)”

Leo

smaller following, but his account is private, but anyone who requests is accepted, ~3k

festus <3

little machines he’s made

a clip of he and Percy high giving but there’s steam coming out from between their hands

the forges

him and the 7 + Nico, Reyna, and Will in formal attire making silly faces

him and the others, everyone is drenched except him and Percy

him, percy, jason, and hazel, the caption “Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked ;)”

comments: “what’re you planning Valdez?” “@/prettysureimbijackson don’t you mean ‘water you planning?’” “what does this contraption do?” “cuteee!” 

Hazel

doesn’t post a lot

private account, only accepts people she kinda knows, ~400 followers

random animals who are all named Frank

her and human Frank

her and Nico

food

Arion, a lot of Arion

comments: “Is you’re horse eating gold” “[in reply] he’s picky like that” “you really like the name Frank huh?”

Jason

doesn’t post often, public account ~20k

photos of him and Piper

pics of completed alters for the other gods

sword fighting with Percy

him and Thalia

video games with the 7+ Reyna, Nico, and Will

comments: “oh look it’s captain america” “more like a blonde superman” “is that a sword” “wait it’s this that movie stars son who mysteriously disappeared? How does he know Percy Jackson?”

Reyna

public account, ~60k, doesn’t understand how she got so many followers

sparring 

her and Thalia ;)

her dogs

the view from that garden for Bacchus

hot chocolate

her in armor & praetor gear with her sword during war games

comments: “sword lesbian” 

im gonna make more of these cus its fun

[tryingtothinkofuser]

More Modern AU Headcanons- Social Media (Instagram)

Arthur has an account for posting stuff he draws/makes, as well as photographs of the others. It's got about 3k followers

John has accounts just to stay up to date with what's going on, occasionally he'll post a photo of Abigail or Jack. About 200 followers

Hosea got bullied into making an Instagram by his students. Several of them have also made fan accounts of him. He's got about 1k followers

Dutch has an account that's filled with just photos of himself. He's jealous that Hosea has fan pages and he doesn't. 275 followers.

Molly has about 75k followers, posts photos of herself. Dutch owns both a fanpage and a hate page for her

Sadie has about 50 followers and never posts. She once posted a photo of Jake but it's since been deleted

Tilly posts photos of the others in the group, mainly Karen and Mary Beth. 170 followers

Kieran posts photos of the horses! About 12k followers because Mary Beth constantly promotes his account

Mary Beth posts snippets of her latest books. Also posts photos of Kieran with the horses. 45k followers

Abigail posts photos of John and Jack. The photos of Jack are nice but the ones of John are usually him falling down the stairs. 390 followers

Miss grimshaw owns an account to complain about kids these days in comment sections

Javier posts selfies and videos of him playing the guitar/singing! 20k followers and a ton of fan pages

Karen posts photos of her, Tilly and Mary Beth. Also photos of Sean being an idiot. 750 followers, most from Sean's account

Sean posts photos of himself and Karen. He also posts his Tiktoks, about 8k followers

Every time Micah makes an account, everyone mass reports it and it gets deleted instantly

Bill posts photos of alcohol- he also posts photos of every dog he sees. He thinks it's funny to start arguments in comment sections. 90 followers

Lenny posts photos of books he's reading and reviews them in the caption. 3k followers

Charles posts photos of wild animals and flowers. 1.5k followers

Uncle posts those terrible blurry selfies and likes to respond to comments with copypastas. 2.5k followers, most of them he bought

Strauss refuses to make a page, Swanson has tried to convince him to. Swanson has never posted and has about 25 followers

Pearson has blocked almost all of the group. Posts photos of his food. About 400 followers

Trelawny is rumoured to have an account but no one can find it

[marveltrumpshate]

“Higher, faster, further, baby.”

As we said in our closing message at the end of this year’s auction, that was our mantra coming into MTH 2019, and we certainly carried it off with your help.

Last year, we had 236 creators and 354 auctions… This year, we zipped past that with a tremendous turnout that went beyond our expectations: 324 "Marvel"-ous creators came forward to offer 522 auctions.

Last year, we raised $19,262.52, a mindblowing number we’re still trying to wrap our heads around… This year, we’re excited to announce that together, we raised:

That’s about $8,000 more than the MTH 2018 total 😮💖🎉

We’re going to channel Luke Cage here and exclaim, “SWEET CHRISTMAS!”

Considering just how successful MTH was in its inaugural year, we were unsure whether we could get close to those numbers again, let alone top them. Suffice to say, we were blown away at every single step, from creator registration all the way to donation processing.

We told ourselves we would be happy with any amount, especially if we miraculously matched our total last year, so we were shocked speechless when we hit it days before the auction ended. Then the total kept growing, with no sign of stopping or slowing down, as the donations kept pouring in. Surely it would stop at 20k? 22k?! A few of us, emboldened by the “higher, faster, further” theme this year, dared to wish for the impossible: 25k. We all knocked on wood and referred to this figure in vague terms (“the number we won’t mention,” “the number that must not be named,” etc.).

It was a remarkable experience, and we often found ourselves at a loss for words (we had to resort to heart emojis, keyboard bashing, and exclamation points many a time in our mod chat). We’ve been impatient to share the results with you, not just because of how incredible the final count is but because of how we got there. Each and every one of you was instrumental to our success, and we appreciate your contributions so very much.

Creators, we couldn't have started this auction without you all. We loved seeing so many of last year’s creators sign up again and were pleasantly surprised by how many new faces showed up to the party.

Bidders, as crazy as it sounds, most of the donations were small ones. It just goes to show how much of an impact you can have when you’re part of something bigger than yourself. Each donation has a ripple effect, and with enough ripples, that can cause a wave. You matter, and you can make a difference.

We also owe our success to our wonderful signal boosters. There can’t be an auction without any participants, and thanks to everyone spreading our posts around and encouraging their fandom friends to sign up and/or bid, we reached hundreds of incredible creators and bidders.

Thank you all. We’re so touched by the massive number of people who donated above and beyond their pledged amount, creators who took on multiple auctions and offered up multiple winner slots, and bidders who accepted their second-place wins with such eagerness! We also had people make donations in the spirit of MTH even though they didn’t win an auction, which was beyond generous.

We’ve already seen how our donations are changing the world for the better. To name a few examples:

Your donations to Rainbow Railroad had the double their impact as donations to the organization will be matched from November 1 until December 31.

Flippable helped turn the deep red Virginia into blue this election for the first time in 26 years, an extremely important victory for the Democrats that will have tremendous influence on how things may go in the U.S.A.

The National Women's Law Center won its lawsuit against the Trump administration regarding personal beliefs dictating patient care.

Not to mention that our good deeds haven’t gone unnoticed thanks to bidders who gave us a shoutout this year. The president of RAINN knows about MTH and gave one of our winners a personal thank you for participating and helping raise money for their organization, and BBRF somehow found out about us and emailed us personally as well.

We’re sure that in the months and years to come, we’ll see even more wonderful results.

In addition to the astounding amount of money we were able to raise for charity, MTH was successful in other ways. We strove to be as inclusive as possible, determined to make this event a fandom-wide effort. Considering that the auctions covered over 400 platonic and romantic relationships (if we include "all ships/gen"-inclusive relationships, this number is even higher) across 29 universes within the Marvel multiverse, up from 242 and 19, respectively), we can safely say that we accomplished our goal.

This spirit of inclusion also applies to our charities. Every one of our 30 supported charities received donations. We’re in awe of your commitment to supporting all our creators and charities and thrilled that you spread all the love around, bidders!

Here’s our breakdown of the donations (click to enlarge the image):

We’ve also listed the amount raised per charity on our List of Organizations page.

From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you for helping us turn our second Marvel Trumps Hate auction into such an incredible experience. We cherish every single message of love and support that we received and continue to receive on our Discord server and through DMs, Tumblr messages, emails, tweets, etc. THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!

If you'd like to keep up-to-date with all of the 2019 Marvel Trumps Hate fills, follow us and/or check out the "mth 2019" tag on our Tumblr. You’ll also be able to find works posted on AO3 in our Marvel Trumps Hate 2019 collection and links to fills in our Discord server, which you can join to brainstorm prompts, chat about fills, and find out about other fandom events.

Thank you once again to everyone who volunteered their services, time, money, and platforms to spread the word.

We can’t wait to see all of your fanworks over the coming year!

Lots of love and gratitude, Your 2019 MTH mods

[chaoticspacefam]

2020 In Review: Wordcount Tag

I was tagged for this by @actualanxiousswampwitch​ , thank you! I’m not sure who’s already done or been tagged for this cause I am, once again, late to the party LOL but I shall (no pressure and sorry if you’ve already done it!) tag: @rainofaugustsith​ , @darth-bagel​ , @thatmmolesbian​ , @thelastenvoyyy​ and anybody else who wants to do this. Yes, I promise I mean you!

Words: 45,314

Published: 0 (I’m not counting the couple of Six Sentence tags I’ve gotten, they’re snippets of an unfinished piece & are included below instead :), or roleplay replies, cause that feels like cheating lol.) I actually wrote a lot more than I thought I had, this is a rough guesstimate as well, as my oneshot WIPs tend to be all over the place across something like 6 different documents, some of which have existed since 2018, so I had to guess at how far up to count from the end for some of them, but I think it’s a fair guesstimate XD I also have included lore/worldbuilding docs in this because that was a 3-month long Lockdown 1.0 Boredom/”Canon is a trash fire so I’m ignoring that and making up my own lore” passion project and I’m goddamn proud of how much I wrote for that. It’s the most I’ve written in one stretch (think I finished it over a span of 3 nights or so, once I’d done all the research and made all the notes ofc ^^)

Not Published: 45,314

The Breakdown:

swtor - 45,314

for creeping shadows (my main longfic/part one of the subterfugeverse series) - 1,553  - Aria, stop being difficult! *shakes fists* XD

oneshots - 16,223

lore/worldbuilding (for subterfugeverse naturally) - 23,001 (is this ALL tomato alien lore? pretty much, yes, yes it is :’D ~400 words is “the WIP reworked timeline to correlate my worldbuilding with the canon timeline that was released”, but 98% is just...me thinking way too much about Purebloods and how they deserved way better goddamn lore. I blame @fluffynexu ‘s amazing tomato worldbuilding posts,  reading them when I went looking for “canon” lore one day for the rp is what got me started down that rabbithole (it’s awesome and if you haven’t already you should totally go check hers out too :DD), I had a “fuck you then canon I’ll do it myself too >:L” moment and once I started I couldn’t stop until I’d crapped out literally over 20k words on the subject *whispering* thank you LOL)

zephyrverse au bonus oneshots - 4,537 (stuff I wrote to fill in time gaps or “just cause I had a plot bunny”, relating to mine and k-christine’s zephyrverse au rp. None of these will likely be posted publicly, but they still deserve to be counted as words I wrote this year :’D

As you can see, most of my “muse” this year came from sporadic oneshots :’D The Ahaszaai twins also properly plot-bunnied their way into my brain in late 2019 and haven’t stopped making a nuisance of themselves the whole fucking year. Every time I tried to carry on with a chapter, one of the two of them would pop up like “Nooo write about ME! pay attention to ME!” - Yes, Ni’kasi, I will get to you this year, I promise XD

New Things I Tried:

Just Writing. Not worrying about whether “it wasn’t part of the next chapter” or “it comes from a part in the story that I’m nowhere near close to posting yet”. If I felt like writing something, or for a specific pairing/feeling/scene, whatever. I wrote until I ran outta muse juice. Yeah, it meant I didn’t technically “finish” anything this year BUT - the important thing is I wrote stuff. and that’s all that really matters, eh? :’D

Polyam ships! May not seem like a big deal but I spent a long time talking myself out of them because of internalised toxic monogamy and finally saying “you know what, fuck it! I can ship three or more people together and it can still be a perfectly wholesome, healthy and loving relationship and that’s okay” was a BIG thing for me this year.

Dialogue Scripts: which I didn’t count as wordcount because really it’s just word vomit of general tone/inflection and dialogue that I came up with right before falling asleep which I didn’t want to lose. Basically, if an exchange or a particularly punchy or moving line of dialogue popped into my brain but I wasn’t ready to write the whole scene that it fit into out, but didn’t want to forget the line(s). I wrote it out in movie script/script-style roleplay fashion e.g. Character’s Name: (emotion, hand gestures etc.) [Dialogue here] and so on. I know this is probably a well known trick of the trade, but I never took it seriously until this year. Seriously, do it. It’s great.

Favorite Thing I Wrote:

Hmmm, a snippet for Andronikos/Ni’kasi that I started this week which isn’t posted yet (saving it for this week’s Six Sentence Sunday so look out for it! :D) was pretty fun to work on, I love their dynamic and Kas is suprisingly fun to write for.

Also the Aria/Vano proposal scene that I posted a snippet for the week before last. I’m having great fun with that scene, and I really enjoy putting a non-serious spin on the classic “proposal scene” tropes. Can’t wait to finish it, though it may be a while before the full one goes up on AO3, as it depends whether it ends up fitting in as part of the mainfic or as an additional oneshot

And I have a D’leah/Kissai oneshot that I need to give another once-over before I finally yeet it onto AO3 and Tumblr for you guys to see :’D

Favorite Fic I Read:

@sleepswithvillains Eleanora/Quinn fic, Helplessly Hoping. I’m horribly behind on chapters and I gotta catch up and read the finale this week, but it’s been a helluva great ride and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the story! <3

Also The Invitation collab with @tishinada featuring Zas and Fiona had me squealing, I can’t wait to catch up on HH and see more of these two, they’re adorable ;-; @a-muirehen​ ‘s Relu/Merkara series of course! I’m a complete sucker for (friends to lovers to in Ariano’s case but yea pfpfpf) enemies to lovers ships and these two are just so good, I am on the edge of my seat every time we get a new snippet for them, ngl (grimace emoji) @darth-bagel ‘s Sylvas/Graz’zt and Sylvas/Liz/Rilfaen snippets which they’ve been spoiling me with on Discord @mercurypilgrim ‘s Ven’fir/Quinn AU oneshots, Cloudbank (Western was a particular favourite, but all are very good!) and of course @rainofaugustsith ‘s Lana/Viri updates are always fantastic, some personal favourites from this year were Almost There & Memory of Healing :3 (I totally still go back to read Commander & Advisor too sometimes, getting to see Viri be a little diabolical and messing with “MiNiSTeR LoRMaN!” was and still is my favourite thing XD)

If I’ve left you out I’m sorry!! These were the ones that stuck out in my memory, but I’ve loved everyone’s writing this year, it’s been great :3

Writing Goals:

to actually finish and post chapter 8 & 9 of Creeping Shadows. Then we’ll get to the meat and potatoes of the story and maybe Aria will stop being a brat and fighting me every time I try to stick to a semi-regular update schedule Get off my butt, finalise the name and get started on Ni’kasi’s part of the Subterfugeverse story. Maybe run the updates in-tandem with Creeping Shadows but idk if I want to wait till after CS is done before I start posting Kas’s side, or do them side-by-side yet, we’ll see ;) Keep writing! I know better than to pressure myself by setting a specific word count goal, that’s never worked well in the past

At least 2 chapters of each of the works mentioned above would be great though, more would be better! We’ll see how I go

Words of Thanks:

honestly, to everybody in the fandom I’ve met this year. Anybody that I follow, thank you for being there and engaging with me and/or posting amazing content for me to look at! I came over from deviantART where the SWTOR fandom is incredibly small and generally quite inactive and the contrast since moving over here has been incredibly uplifting. I very nearly cancelled Creeping Shadows and stopped posting fic for my SWTORverse altogether because I got next to no engagement on dA and it was very disheartening to the point where I felt I could enjoy the game and the rp partners I had, but the solo projects I’d put so much thought, time and love into already weren’t worth continuing. You guys took that spark and kept it going and I really don’t have enough words to say how grateful I am for that. Even if I haven’t published much this year, making posts on this tumblr, interacting with everyone and working on lore, plot points and so on for Subterfugeverse has kept me going through the Hellish Year of Nightmares that was 2020 <3

to the amazing new friends I’ve made in this past year, who have listened to me ramble about headcanons, character backstories, writing snippets (and rambled/sent some back), keep being awesome: @walk-ng-d-saster , @darth-bagel , @kyber-heart , @deepseacritter , @thedinalixlegacy to further friends and meme tag buddies, I get so excited every time I see a mention for a new meme or ask game in my inbox, so thank you!! : @mimabeann , @palepinkycat , @a-master-procrastinator , @raven-of-domain-kwaad , @actualanxiousswampwitch , @thatmmolesbian , @a-muirehen to my regular commentors/rebloggers/likers/askbox lurkers, I see every one of you and every time your users pop up I grin like a kid in a toy shop: @starlightjedi , @sparkles-and-rust , @wilvarin-chan , @sunsetofdoom , @ask-an-andalite , @thelastenvoyyy . @lyrishadow and more because Tumblr only goes so far back and I have the memory of Swiss Cheese. If you regularly comment, like, reblog, or anything, from me, know that I see you, and I love and appreciate you for it! <3

I couldn’t possibly remember to tag everyone and I promise if I missed you out it’s not because I hate you! Anxiety just sometimes be a bitch and I don’t wanna look like a clown calling someone a “friend” if I’m not explicitly sure we are, in fact, friends. I think you’re all awesome and I’m so glad to have moved over here and met you all <3

[bettsfic]

I didn't even realize it was possible to get 2000 subscribers to a story on AO3 until I just read your post about comments. I've been thinking lately about how insignificant my writing is (my current WIP has like 160 subscribers). At what point do I acknowledge I'm just not very good at this? Like my most recent short fic (in a new fandom) was two days ago, has about 400 hits and 69 kudos. Others posted at the same time have way more. Am I just bad?

personally i think 69:400 is an excellent ratio. i’d be over the moon with that. moreover, it’s friday, which means you posted wednesday. very likely, people saw the fic, marked it for later, and will come back to it on the weekend. give it time.

when i say 2000 subscribers i mean aggregate user subscribers and fic subscribers. i don’t remember the exact number of people subscribed to the fic specifically. 300 maybe? anyway, traffic is dumb and you should never look at it to determine the quality of your own work. 

i understand the inclination to lend meaning to traffic, but doing that will never help you. popularity and quality are different things. just because a lot of people like something doesn’t mean it’s good. in fact, the best things tend not to be well-read at all. my favorite fic of all time has been up for 10 years and has less than 400 kudos. some of my favorite fic authors whose work i read no matter what fandom they’re writing in are not well-known at all.

quality-wise, the two best fics i’ve ever written have the following stats:

this one has been up for 3 years. last month i reread it, forgetting all the details of it, and i couldn’t put it down. i stayed up until like 3am reading my own fic, utterly riveted as if i hadn’t written it. the DREAM. and look at all those comments! the bookmarks:kudos ratio! not many people read it, but those who did really, really liked it. god i love that fic.

this one has been up for a year and a half. i come back and reread this one a lot because i find it comforting. on a quality level it’s one of the strongest pieces i’ve ever written, ofic included. this is another one where not many people read it but those who did really loved it. it was written for a very very small fandom though.

and here are the stats of the *worst* things i’ve ever written, and which make me cringe a little when i think of them:

when it was a wip, it had like 1200 subscribers. i haven’t looked at it once since i finished it. a lot of people love it, but i just wish i’d never written it at all. 

and this is the first long multi-chap i ever wrote, which i had no idea would really ever be read. i had absolutely 0 following at the time and honestly i don’t know how anyone found it. i wish i could look at it without wanting to die but i can’t even open it anymore; that’s how bad it is. 

this is my highest traffic fic, written for a massive ship. it’s not a bad fic; i still like it even if i haven’t read it in a long time. but i also wouldn’t say it’s good. i pounded it out in about a day and a half. i didn’t put a lot of thought into it. the only thing special about it was that it happened to find and feed its audience to satisfy that exact fandom’s tastes in that exact time. that’s all.

traffic (and the success of all writing) is nothing more than a function of audience. if you get undesired traffic, it’s because you either haven’t found your audience or you’ve misunderstood it (it is not your obligation, however, to understand your audience or write to it; your obligation is only to honor the story you want to tell). when you’re in a fandom and you see fics with higher traffic than you have, it’s likely because those writers have been in that fandom longer and everyone in it is subscribed to them already, or they were big in another fandom and people are moving over to read them. the same goes with publishing ofic. it’s very unlikely that your writing is bad; more likely, you have not found the editor willing to fight for it. the riskier you write, the harder it is for your work to find a home. and risk is, to me, all that matters. all good art takes risks. so you may find success by playing it safe all the time, but why would you want to?

if you want traffic, write a 100k, 20 chapter stucky or reylo fic updated twice a week, with a lot of drama, comedy, and tooth-rotting fluff. you’ll get 20k kudos in like a day, and 8000 comments. or get in on the geraskier buzz right now and get a page 1 fic in before the fandom is firmly established. i’m serious; try intentionally to pander. write something with absolutely no integrity, that you don’t care about at all, and see what happens. you’ll find that all the traffic in the world still isn’t fulfilling, and it’s way better to be disliked or disregarded than widely liked at the cost of your own creative inclinations. 

it is very, very rare that your creative interests will ever align with your ideal audience. that is all high traffic means: an alignment of work to audience. it’s meaningless. when it comes to your writing, your opinion is the only one that matters. 

[bigfrozenfan]

I read you last post and I totally understand what you mean about it, to post and share many things that are yours and others from amazing artists and in the end being ignored due to anybody cares and It it really frustrating. But the love and passion you have about something is totally yours, if others do not want to participate, it its their issues lad. Right now world is in chaos but do not think you are not seen by others whom share the same interest as you. I will always follow your blog.

Thanks Anon...and also thanks to those who answered my last post! I know that my blogs are seen, no question, but I have a growing fundamental problem with the whole Frozen Fandom on Tumblr. Let's face it, hardly any Frozen related posts are being posted anymore. When I scroll through my dash, there's all sorts of other stuff, and that's because the 852 bloggers I follow (there used to be more) now have completely different preferences. The only exceptions might be #elsanna and the like, but I don't follow the ship and I filtered the hashtag, also because of some toxic bloggers there! Another exception: Fanfics, but I only read a few of them and it's always a matter of time for me to do so and also the topic of the fanfic itself. That's why I only concentrate on a few writers.

But what really pisses me off is the increased laziness of using hashtags and I'll probably delete many more blogs from my following list soon. No tags, no possibility to filter out these posts for me or to search for specific ones too.

It's only been about half a year since the movie has been released in the cinemas and the hype on Tumblr is simply no longer there. Most of the fans just consume what a few fans post as new content but without really communicating with them or reblogging interesting posts. For me, using the Like button exclusively for a post means nothing more than "ok, I like this post, but I don't care if others should see it, too. Reblogging can be done by other fans as well, I prefer to scroll on".

It's also just the same posts from those who have the most followers, mostly with gifs as content. To be honest, I'm slowly bored and my own posts are simply ignored after a few hours at the latest. Is this the kind of fandom I like or expect? No! Definitely not.  For me, fandom is also when fans openly discuss, comment and appreciate new content. All this has almost disappeared on Tumblr. I also have the impression that many fans have left this platform completely and are now travelling elsewhere. Tumblr itself, with its controversial new features and constant technical problems, has probably contributed a lot to this.

Tumblr is just not fun for me anymore, like it was last year. Everything has changed so much.I will keep my blogs and do some reblogging from time to time (especially my 400+ drafts!), but I have already shifted my focus to another platform. There I can participate more actively in discussions and I also get answers from the fans. Also my own edits are much more appreciated there than here on Tumblr, I don't get lost there that easily. And it is a really pure fandom for the Frozen movies and I don't have to search long to find interesting contributions. +20K pure Frozen Fans is also a real announcement.

Time will tell...

[fratboykate]

Have you followed the absolute bullshit treatment of POC at Bon Apetit? And the silence of the white staff is so damn disappointing.

I can’t believe y’all really making me talk about this but it’s too absurd not to at this point. I haven’t watched BA in months and I really don’t have any reason to defend any of these people, especially Rapo because y’all know I always despised him so I don’t need to state that I’m glad he’s fucking gone because I couldn’t stand his face but...........the silence of white staff??? Literally HUH? That whole thing took what...like 6 hours from start to finish yesterday? It couldn’t have been more than 6-8 hours between the time the picture surfaced and Rapo resigned. In that time EVERYONE from the BATK spoke up and pretty firmly for that matter. Not one “white” person was silent about it or about their support for the staffers that spoke up.

Also, I’m not going to get into it with titles and job responsibilities because I don’t care to get into that but the amount of posts that I’ve seen floating around since yesterday that claim Claire makes 20k/video is absolutely stupid. The notion that $400/video to shoot a 6-8 minute cooking video that probably took 3-4 hours to produce from start to finish is bad pay is also just idiotic. Here’s the thing, it’s a well known fact that there is no money in digital media. None. For a while in the last decade people thought there would be but every company that expanded their digital video presence has since shrunk it because digital is not the money pile some apparently think it is. Look at places like Vice or Vox for example. All downsized in the last year and other publications scrapped their video content completely. It’s also no secret that magazines/journalism subscriptions have slumped immensely in the last few years. Sure, you could get rich off making youtube videos but it’s SO VERY DIFFERENT when you’re a single person sitting in front of a camera at your house with little to no costs being sunk into making your videos while having sponsors than being a whole ass corporation in the publishing business.

Let’s look at some numbers:

I think a pretty realistic number is to say that an episode of Gourmet Makes brings in about 20,000 in ad revenue. That’s a fair estimate. Could be more, could be less depending on the views but let’s stick with 20k because that’s a number I’ve heard thrown around more than once. You know what’s behind those 20k? Huge operational and production costs. How many people work behind the camera on those GM videos? Every time the camera reveals crew there’s at least 7-10 people. That crew is all getting paid. Claire is getting paid. Ingredients need to be bought. Equipment has an intrinsic cost. Do you think office space at the World Trade Center is cheap? The actual cost of making those videos from pre-production to post is probably close to the 20k they bring in. Especially when you’re considering the fact that GM episodes last longer than the few hours it takes to shoot every other BATK video. That’s a day rate for the crew every extra day. That’s thousands of dollars in costs every single time Claire fails and has to come back.

Let’s look at some more numbers. SAG (Screen Actors Guild) is the actor’s union. The actor’s union sets minimum day rates and scales for what talent should be paid. YouTube videos fall under “New Media” in the SAG contracts. Do you know what the day rate is for a union actor to work 12 hour days on a new media project that has a budget under 250k?

$125 dollars. For what is usually 12 hours of work. That’s what UNION actors are getting paid per day for New Media projects. $400 per video to shoot for a handful of hours is a pretty fucking fair rate. That’s the ballpark for the 12 hour day rate for many other department head positions on set and again...those people are expected to work 12 hours, often doing a fair amount of manual labor.

You also have to take into consideration that Brad and Claire literally carry that entire channel on their backs. Do they get paid more? Sure. But they also get the most views. Bar none. If the BATK was a fictional tv show they would be the lead actors. Leads and supporting/guest stars don’t get paid the same. Not even close. ESPECIALLY not when a Claire video is going to get 4 million views in a week and one of the other person’s videos is going to get 900k views in three weeks. That’s a massive difference in revenue being created. Their compensation is matching the money they make the company. Y’all seem to forget that at the end of the day all of this is a BUSINESS. You also forget it every time a “diverse” show gets cancelled too. Something can have all the diversity in the world but if people aren’t watching it or if it’s not making the company money they’re not paying for it. Period.

Look, I’m not saying BA doesn’t have a diversity problem because it clearly does, but what I am saying that it’s disingenuous to think that someone getting paid $400 per video for something that takes less than a half a day of work to produce is somehow exploitative. It’s not the crime y’all seem to think it is lol. Matter of fact, she said it was per video but let’s pretend it wasn’t. Let’s say she was getting $400/day and had to shoot more than one video that day. That’s still the equivalent of making $33/hr if you’re working 12 hour days. More if the days are shorter. In what planet is $33/hr not fair pay to make a recipe video??? Like...math guys. It’s your friend. Want more stats? A junior Editor at Vice in Los Angeles makes 30k a year. Quick googling tells me that Conde Nast in general pays their employees in similar positions about that much as well. Google tells me that the average Assistant/Associate Editor in the US makes 45k. She said she was making 50k a year. That’s seems to be above the standard. Y’all are grabbing pitchforks without using your brains first. Logic and Google are your friends. Use both of those before y’all open your mouths and start throwing around words that end in “-ism” and “-bic”.

[rushingheadlong]

As of December 2020, only Reader-insert fics are being cross-posted to tumblr. Please see my AO3 for additional non-Reader fics or check the #my fic tag for my monthly AO3 round-up posts.

♪ Requests: CLOSED ♫ General tag: #my fic ♪ Short imagines: #my hc ♫ My AO3: RushingHeadlong ♪ Updated: December 22, 2020

Almost Make Believe

♪ 18+, smut, Brian May/F!Reader, semi-public sex ~2.6k words ♪ When you saw Brian’s performance at the Big Mama Club you thought nothing could ever top being front-and-center to him rocking out in a tight black tank top… and then you run into him a bar after the show, and your night goes from great to amazing.

Together With You

♪ 18+, smut, Brian May/F!Reader, cockwarming, ~1.9k words ♪ You spend an intimate morning keeping Brian company as he works.

Make My Life Worthwhile

♪ Fluff, Female Reader, ~3.1k ♪ You always know to expect a few surprises at any Queen party. You just weren’t expecting a surprise like this. **Halloqueen Event gift**

Prompt: Sex under the stars 

♪ Light Smut, Female Reader, ~500 ♪ No kinks, just soft and gentle sex

Take Me Home Tonight 

♪ Smut, Female Reader, ~4.6k ♪ You’re not expecting Brian May, of all people, to walk into your record shop late one evening, but when he asks you to go home with him you’re certainly not going to pass on the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have all your fantasies fulfilled.  ♪  Dirty talk, oral (m&f receiving), fingering, a bit of size kink

I Love Your Mind (But Give Me Your Body) 

♪ Smut, Female Reader, ~3.4k ♪ The moment you lay eyes on your substitute math tutor you know that you’re in for a world of fun. He just might need a little encouragement to realize it too.  ♪ Height kink, semi-public sex, shy!70s!Brian

Teasin’ Around With Me 

♪ Smut, Female Reader, ~3.7k ♪ Brian’s hands are paying the price after the first rehearsal following some time off. You know a trick or two to help him out, but it turns out that Brian has other plans on his mind.  ♪ Hand kink, fingering, teasing & orgasm denial

Prompt: Angry sex with Bri

♪ Smut, Female Reader, ~1k ♪ Angry sex (consent is explicitly given)

Just Excitation 

♪ Smut, Female Reader, ~3.6k ♪ You’ve always had a thing for Brian’s hands (and his arms, and his fingers, and-). But wanting his hands wrapped around your neck is certainly a new one, even for you.  ♪ Choking, breathplay, semi-public sex, minor D/s and minor facefucking

Wrap Those Arms Around Me 

♪ Smut, Female Reader, ~2.3k ♪ Brian knows that whenever he wears tank tops you want to jump his bones. This time, though, he’s going to make you wait for it. ♪ Arm/hand kink, dirty talk, slight D/s, orgasm denial

Our Love Will Keep You Warm

♪ Fluff, Unspecified Reader, ~3k ♪ On the day of a Queen music video shoot, you find a few ways to take care of Brian and show him just how much you love him.

Dear Friend, We’ll Carry On

♪ Light angst and H/C, eventual smut, Trans Male Reader, ~9.5k words ♪  You’ve known Brian since the early days of Queen, but when he comes to New Haven on his solo tour you haven’t seen him in years. You’re both different people now but, as the saying goes, the more things change the more they stay the same…

One Hundred and Thirty-Six

♪ H/C, Unspecified Reader, alcoholism, ~900 words ♪  You are 136 days sober - and there are two bottles of wine on the counter in front of you

Concept: Soft, Cozy Moments With Brian

♪ Fluff, Unspecified Reader, ~400 words

Take My Breath Away

♪ Kink & smut, Unspecified Reader, ~20k ♪ Brian has a thing for drawing sex out for as long as possible, but it’s harder to do that when breathplay is involved… at least until you come up with a bit of an unorthodox solution: corsets. ♪ Sub!Bri, corsets, breathplay, kink exploration & negotiation

Prompt: Brian in a tight corset 

♪ Kink but no smut, Unspecified Reader, ~750 ♪ Breathplay, corsets, sub!Bri

Prompt: Jewelry shopping for Brian 

♪ Fluff, Unspecified Reader, ~800

Prompt: Being friends with Brian 

♪ Fluff, Non-Romantic, Male Reader, ~800

Prompt: Brian taking care of Reader 

♪ Fluff, Unspecified Reader, ~600

Oh, You’re Good For Me 

♪ Kink but no smut, Male or Unspecified Reader, ~1.5k ♪ Brian comes to you to be tied up and to submit.  ♪ D/s (sub!Bri), rope bondage

Make It Up (As You Go Along)

♪ H/C, Male Reader, ~2.2k ♪  Freddie’s birthday is quickly approaching… and so is yours. The only problem is that Freddie doesn’t know that, and you don’t particularly want to tell him.

Very, Very Frightening

♪ Fluff, Trans Male Reader, ~2.9k ♪ You’re not a fan of power outages, but Freddie is there to remind you that you don’t have to face it alone.

It’s (Not) So Easy 

♪ H/C, Male Reader, ~2.6k ♪ 5 times you and Freddie hid your relationship and 1 time you didn’t

So Much Ado 

♪ H/C and Fluff, Trans Male Reader, ~3.1k ♪ Freddie wants to buy a cat, but some things are more important than that.

One Year of Love 

♪ Fluff, Trans Male Reader, ~5.5k ♪ Your first anniversary with Freddie is quickly approaching, and you know that you don’t have the money to spoil him with the lavish sorts of gifts that he deserves. But with a little help from a friend, you realize that you don’t need to buy his love and you instead set about creating an evening that the two of you will never forget. **ANatF Event gift**

Concept: Dating Roger in 1974

♪ Fluff, Female Reader, ~700 words **STL Event gift**

Got Me In A Mood

♪ Light smut and h/c, Female Reader, ~5.3k ♪ You and Roger are friends, who just happen to occasionally sleep together. It’s just a bit of fun, nothing serious… until you realize that you’ve gone and fallen in love with him. **TGIC Event gift**

Prompt: Roger confesses his love to his long-term friend 

♪ Fluff, Female Reader, ~1k

You Could Know Me 

♪ H/C, Gen, Non-Binary Reader, ~2.8k ♪ You knew that coming out as non-binary wouldn’t always be smooth sailing, but you weren’t expecting to face rejection at every turn. Luckily your dad, Roger Taylor, is there to support you no matter what.

Prompt:  Picking out a Christmas tree with John

♪ Fluff, Unspecified Reader, ~600

Still Come Back to You 

♪ Fluff, Male Reader, ~1k ♪ John returns home late after wrapping up the latest Queen tour, and he’s missed you just as much as you’ve missed him.

Baked With Love

♪ Gen, fluff, vague modern Queen AU, ~1.2k ♪ No matter how famous they get, Queen has one birthday tradition that they refuse to give up.

Lockdown Blues

♪ Gen, H/C, vague modern & early Queen AU, ~2k words ♪ Freddie has made it his mission to keep everyone’s spirits up while they’re stuck at home. He doesn’t think the others have noticed - but they have, and they’re ready to remind him that they have his back too.

Prompt: Brian May & Tony Iommi

♪ Gen, fluff, current era, ~400 words

And I Get Afraid

♪ H/C, Gen, early Queen, ~4.5k ♪ Queen has come to a standstill as they try to get their debut album released, and John seems to be the only one left who isn’t optimistic about their chances for success. Now with his graduation quickly approaching, he finds himself struggling to decide between sticking by the band- and his friends- or leaving this sinking ship while he can still make something of his future.

Losing My Way

♪ H/C, angst, gen, early Queen, ~4.5k ♪ Brian is burning himself out trying to stay on top of all of his responsibilities. He knows it’s only a matter of time until something gives, and he knows that something will probably be his thesis - but that doesn’t make his failure any easier to stomach. **Companion to And I Get Afraid**

The Hazier Days

♪ Fluff, Gen, early Queen, ~1.6k ♪ It’s too hot for embarrassment as Brian finally caves to the summer heat.

Prompt: Freddie loses the week’s earnings from the stall

♪ H/C and Fluff, Gen, slighty Christmas themed, ~1k

Car Song 

♪ H/C and Fluff, Gen, BoRhap references, ~500 ♪ Roger and John tease Brian about his song “Driven By You” while working on Made in Heaven

Haul Away, You Rolling Queens

♪ AU (Nautical & Mermaid), H/C, Angst with a happy ending, Gen, ~40k ♪ It was Freddie who told them stories of the Kingdom of Rhye, an ancient mer kingdom that once ruled the seven seas before disappearing a thousand years ago. According to Brian it was just a myth, but Freddie was always certain that it was real and waiting to be discovered - but he never found proof of it before he fell sick, and vanished suddenly without a trace.

Now, 25 years later, Roger stumbles across a new clue that could lead them to Rhye - one with unexplained ties to their lost friend. But convincing Brian and John to take a leap of faith and join him in one final adventure is only the first hurdle. If they want to weather the rough seas ahead, they’ll have to not only sail into the unknown but finally face the unanswered questions and lingering grief left from Freddie’s disappearance.

Take a Picture (It’ll Last Longer)

♪ Jimercury, Modern/Everyone Lives AU, fluff, ~800 words ♪ If Jim was still alive and still with Freddie he would absolutely have an instagram account where he mostly posts photos of their cats and the garden.

Wanna Be Beside You Now

♪ Jimercury, fluff and smut, phone sex, ~800 words ♪ Jim receives a call one night when Freddie is away.

Love in the Shape of Things

♪ Maycury, Modern AU & early Queen, H/C and fluff, ~63k ♪  They’re both searching for their place in the world, but it takes a new flat and a housewarming gift gone awry for Freddie and Brian’s friendship to slowly turn into something deeper. And through long evenings of commiseration and camaraderie, their feelings for each other continue to grow - until one misunderstanding threatens to tear everything apart.

Buttons

♪ Maycury, early Queen, pining, ~700 words ♪ A moment of tenderness before a show leaves Brian yearning.

Take This Message

♪ Two Maycury fics, one AU & H/C, one fluff, ~500 words each ♪ Two short Maycury fics inspired by the Calling All Girls music video. In the first, Freddie with the help of Brian has to propose the video idea to Roger. The second is a short AU based on the video itself.

Love Him From Where You Are

♪ Maylor, H/C, pining, early Queen, some vague allusions to sex, ~7.2k ♪  Five times Roger was sure that Brian didn’t love him, and one time he knew that he did.

The Fire You Ignite

♪ Maylor, 18+, sub!Brian, bondage, gags, temperature play, orgasm denial, ~3k ♪  Roger takes his time playing with Brian.

Trust Issues

♪ H/C, Maylor, ~500 words ♪ Roger borrows the Red Special when Brian isn’t there, and Brian freaks out.

Thrill Me, Chill Me, Fulfill Me

♪ Poly!Queen, 18+, vague modern AU, crossdressing/corset kink, ~1.7k ♪  The boys plan an evening of dressing up and watching Rocky Horror Picture Show, but the effort that Brian puts into his outfit takes the others by surprise.

I’ll Put A Spell On You

♪ Dealor, 18+, crossdressing, slight D/s (sub!John), ~5.9k ♪ John is tired of always getting teased for wearing “boring” costumes, so he decides to spice things up this year - and when Roger makes sure to show his appreciation for John’s costume choice, they both end up having a good time.

Alone Time

♪ 18+, smut, Brian May solo, masturbation & toys, ~1.1k ♪ Brian always tells himself that he’s going to take his time with this... but he never does.

[wildlyminiaturesandwich]

Do you have pcos? or any kind of health problem that makes it hard for you to lose weight? I'm just curious, don't answer it if you don't feel comfortable

Ok so I got a couple messages asking this same thing, as well as people suggesting that “just lose weight and then try again”, so I’m gonna put a bunch of information (and I mean A BUNCH of information) under a cut here that explains everything and why “just losing weight” isn’t a solution nor is it the problem. Like, at all.

If you don’t want to read all of this, you really don’t have to. There’s a TL;DR at the bottom and I wouldn’t blame you for just scrolling straight there and skipping my rant lol

I don’t have PCOS, no, my weight is mostly a “side effect” of my mental health and years of trying different medications to help with that. Just in case some people aren’t aware, two of the most common side effects of anti-depressants are increased appetite and weight gain. That coupled with one of the two most common symptoms of chronic depression — lack of energy and motivation — means that over the years I’ve slowly put on weight.

Even though every doctor insists on telling me I’m overweight and need to lose weight as though I’m completely oblivious to my own body and such an idea as losing weight has never occurred to me before, I have in fact tried to lose weight many many times over the years with very little success no matter how healthily I ate and how much I exercised. The only time I have ever had success was back in my 20s when I switched to a gluten and dairy free diet to try to fix another issues I was having with my gut. This is why, in the past few weeks, Mr Sandwich and I have been slowly switching our diets to be gluten and dairy free.

BUT even though I am doing that, and exercising as much as I can with my limited energy, it’s not enough. I can lose weight, sure, but I can’t lose enough weight quickly (and safely) enough to be able to do IVF, which I’ll get to in a minute. So it’s not always as simple as “just lose weight”, everyone is different and despite what most people think, a lot of overweight people don’t chose to be that way. Why anyone would think that is beyond me, but a lot of people do and because of this you get people treating fat people as less than human, as though we’re not worthy of any kindness or sympathy because obviously we had to have done this to ourselves, right?

This is also why I get so annoyed when people equate being overweight to being unhealthy. The whole “overweight people are twice as likely to die early” bullshit is nonsense! Sure sometimes it’s the case, but not always. I am not medically unhealthy at all. Apart from being unable to conceive and my mental health issues, neither of which are a symptom or side effect of my weight, I am actually perfectly healthy. Over the past few years I’ve had every test anyone could come up with to try to find out why I wasn’t falling pregnant and that includes things like liver, kidney and thyroid function, cholesterol, diabetes and blood sugar tests, blood pressure, the list goes on. Everything everyone always associates with fat people, all of it was tested, and everything came back perfectly normal. I had a doctor literally say to me “If I hadn’t seen you in person, I would never have known you were overweight based on these results”, which just goes to show you how biased even doctors can be.

Warning: If you don’t wanna learn some interesting stuff about fertility and reproduction, don’t read any further.

So why am I trying IVF if I’m healthy?

Fun fact: When a woman talks about her “biological clock” ticking, it’s not even a joke; a woman’s biological clock is like a clock counting down from the moment she’s born… or maybe it’s more like an hourglass? Either way, unlike men, who can produce viable sperm from the time they hit puberty until the day they die, women have all the eggs they will every have in their entire life already tucked away in their tiny little ovaries from the moment they form as a fetus. That ovarian reserve starts at around 6-7 million follicles during the fetal stage, by the time that new baby girl is born that number has already dropped to 1 million, and by the time she hits puberty she’s only got about 300,000 left. Of those 300,000, only about 300-400 will be ovulated during her entire lifespan. That number obviously continues to decrease when a woman ovulates each month right up until they run out and that is when the woman will go through menopause, and there is no way to raise that amount either. Once the eggs run out, that’s it, there’s no more. Pretty grim huh?

By my age (35), a women with perfect reproductive health will have an AMH (Anti-Müllerian hormone, essentially an indicator of how many eggs you have) level of around 5.1 pmol/L (2.3 ng/mL) but for some reason, my ovaries seem to think I’m actually50. My AMH level is 0.3 pmol/L (0.1 ng/mL), which is considered EXTREMELY low and essentially what that means is I will never be able to conceive naturally. My only chance to conceive and carry my own biological child will be through IVF.

Now, it’s super important to note that low AMH has absolutely nothing to do with weight. There are a lot of different reasons that AMH levels can be low and they could be anything from hormone imbalance to a side effect of cancer treatments, from smoking to mumps. My hormones are normal, I’ve never had cancer or mumps, and I don’t smoke; in my case, it’s most likely due to constant and severe amounts of stress (like years and years of it). But seeing as there’s no medical way to test that, the cause of my low AMH has been deemed by my doctor as idiopathic (unknown). So while weight does have some affect on conceiving naturally, in my case it wouldn’t matter how much I weighed because my AMH level would still be low even if I wasn’t overweight.

In Australia, there are these wonderful things called Low Cost or Bulk Bill IVF clinics. At a private IVF clinic you’d be looking at about $10-15k (Aussie dollars) a cycle for IVF, but at a bulk bill clinic they can charge as little as $800! Unfortunately at these low cost clinics you’re not able to chose your doctor either, you just get whoever is available so that’s a problem too. But the way they’re able to keep costs low is a combination of Medicare rebates (Australia’s free health care system) and the fact that they don’t use full sedation during egg collection which costs a buttload of money because anesthetic. They use a combination of local anesthetic and twilight sedation, which means lower cost for the patient, it’s win win… unless you’re overweight. For reasons I have yet to figure out — because not a single clinic can come up with any reason every time I ask — most clinics demand you be under a certain weight before they’ll treat you. I’m not going to tell you my exact weight but it’s not anywhere near this stupid limit.

Another fun fact: This weight limit is non-existent in private clinics but I don’t have, nor could I get, $10-15k. The fertility specialist I spoke to yesterday also suggest bariatric (lap band) surgery as though that were an actual viable option. Like, listen lady, if I had the money for that (anywhere between $5-20k), don’t you think I would be using that to go to a fat-friendly private clinic instead of talking to your rude arse at a low cost clinic?! 

This all brings me back to the TL;DR of it:

Here’s the problem I’m facing. A year ago when my AMH (egg supply) was tested it was 1.4 pmol/L (0.6 ng/mL), which was already very low then, but it’s dropped down to 0.3 pmol/L in a little over a year, so at that rate I’m going to run out of eggs and be hitting early menopause most likely before the end of the year. At 35 years old.

Merry Christmas to me.

This has nothing AT ALL to do with my weight but for some reason these IVF clinics have a weight limit and there is absolutely no way I can lose enough weight (safely and healthily) before I run out of eggs, hence why I’m so mad. Even if I had barbaric surgery it still wouldn’t be enough time! None of these stupid clinics give a shit about that, all they keep saying is “lose weight and then come back to us”, as though I have all the time in the world!

My only options now are to a) rob a bank and take my fat arse to a private clinic. b) rob a bank, get myself some bariatric surgery and take a buttload of speed to lose weight SUPER fast, and then take myself to a low cost clinic. c) rob a bank and use the money to buy a baby. Or d) continue to do as I’ve been doing and will continue to do regardless of what happens and that’s lose weight the safe and healthy way and run out of eggs while I’m at it.

Last fun fact of the post: All of this could have been avoided had my stupid GP tested my AMH levels 5 YEARS AGO when I asked him to! It would have been low then as well but not as low so I would have had more time AND back then I would have just scrapped in under the ridiculous weight limit!

/rant