#let this post find its niche i’m screaming to myself

[flowerangels]

good evening soc fans and harry’s house listeners, matilda is wylan van eck and keep driving is jesper fahey thank you

[scott-mccall-the-hot-girl]

my ultimate guide to thiam fic !!

( as a new teen wolf stan )

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the classic post war, long ass (multi chapter) fic !!with great development that genuinely made me laugh out loud, they have the best friendship in this & i love it very much. ( like theo teaches liam to drive and i just *happy sobs* ) a fundamental in thiam fanfiction !! all stans have probably already read it but if you haven’t this is in fact a threat ,, go show this vv iconic story some love !!

Airplanes - Captainmintyfresh

Summary: After the Anuk-ite and the hunters are dealt with Liam needs a break. Cue Theo and a road trip that Liam should know better than to think will be peaceful.

Not Rated, No Archive Warnings Apply, Completed, 43/43 Chapters, Words: 236,875 (236k)

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okay okay so this one is also post 6B !! but ,, now we introduce fighting monroe & the hunters again ,, so we get the boys & a new mission !! so if you like an intresting plot 11/10 would recommend !! just to be clear this ISN’T complete ,, if that turns you off i understand but definitely give this one a read !! it litterally have theo doing crossword puzzles & fighting zombies

Vacancy Signs - LovelyLittleGrim

Summary: Theo and Liam are in Manhattan negotiating a pack allyship when the zombie apocalypse breaks out. Now, the two of them have to find their way back to Beacon Hills without getting eaten by zombies or killing one another.

Rated: Explicit, Graphic Description of Violence, Not Completed, 15/17 Chapters, Words: 89,605 (89k)

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Royalty AU !! I REPEAT ROYALTY AU !! a fantastic au where i stan their moms more than i stan them !! genuinely so good at the childhood rivals to lovers trope !! i’m genuinely obsessed with this one. has made me cry more than once ,, hurts in a good way <3 the ending is just *chefs kiss* also one of the tags is genuinely: # theo and liam make bad choices for over 130k straight !! if that doesn’t sound appealing i don’t know what does !!

Artificial Love - songbvrd

Summary: Prince Theo and Prince Liam are forced to spend every Summer together from age five onwards. They hate each other, and usually find ways to make each other miserable as much as possible in their six weeks together. But when they're reunited because of intended unions as adults, things change. They're both supposed to be married to noble women, but neither of them is as interested in anyone else as they are with their childhood rival.

Rated: Mature, No Archive Warnings Apply, Completed, Chapters: 32/32, Words: 172,935 (172k)

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so if you are in the mood for a crack fic that’s not explicitally a crack fic this is for you !! okay so i’m really hit or miss with AU’s ,, sometimes i feel like they don’t quite capture the characters right but this story have the BEST dramatic liam i have ever seen in my life !! basically they all live in the same apartment building & it’s fantastic !! i saw this one floating around a lot but the summary didn’t really unrest me until i have it a shot !! so go read it rn !! also nolan & brett are genuinely fantastic and make me wheeze ,, LIKE ACTUALLY VERBALLY LAUGHING !! all i’m gonna say is that my fav characters are scott & the beetles but that won’t make actual sense until you read it !!

The Neighbors Song - TheodoreR

Summary: “I always hear you singing on your balcony every morning, but suddenly you’ve stopped?”

Or the one where Theo annoys Liam every morning with his awful singing until he doesn’t anymore and Liam is even more annoyed. Liam hates every single thing about his mornings -the fact that they happen in the morning alone is enough. The thing Liam hates the most about his mornings though is the terrible voice of the guy who lives below him. He can’t sing for shit and Liam tried to politely let him understand that by throwing flour and water on his balcony, and also by shouting it to him, you can’t sing for shit!, and then by writing it into a note he proceeded to attach to his door, but this Raeken guy just keeps doing it, every single morning, like a fucking rooster. Liam did nothing to deserve this. He probably didn’t do anything to deserve better either to be fair, he doesn’t expect to open his window and be welcomed by some angelic voice singing him good morning, he’d just be happy with nothing. Silence. That’s something Liam can appreciate in mornings. Just some bark from his dog and the sound of his misery and that’s it. But no, god forbid the new guy lets him have that.

Rated: Explicit, Creator Chose Not to Use Archive Wanrings, Completed, 8/8 Chapters, Words: 42,814 (42k)

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me: i’m not a big fan of AU’s ,, proceeds to talk about ANOTHER au… OKAY BUT THIS ONE !! it’s not complete but the author has been updating regularly ,, vv slow burn !! but in a REALLY intresting way !! i lOVE LIAM IN THIS SO MUCH ,, he is such a diaster of a person and it’s wonderful !! they have a great dynamic & i’m sucker for general puppy pack content ( and erica reyes being a badass ) !! also theo plays lacrosse in this & i really like it ahhhhh ,, also liam is just being an artic monkeys stan the whole time & theo is like *que confused repressed gay noises*

Inglorious Roommates - honeyscape

Summary: A roommate is defined as “a person with whom one shares a room.”

Theo would say a roommate was more along the lines of, “The person who's the bane of his existence. The weirdo that sleeps for days. The spaz that exercises at 3am. The guy with a revolving door of annoying friends. An insufferable human being that Theo has no control over living in his room.”

Example: Theo hates his roommate Liam.

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okay okay i hate myself but i have another WIP for y’all !! this one is jUST FANTASTIC. i’m genuinely so upset it’s most likely not going to updated again *incoherent screaming ensues*. for this story ,, it’s very theo-centric bUT thats bc it ends right before liam becomes a concrete member of the story !! ANYWAY: basic plot = theo & acquiring not one but two children ,, so #dad theo but he is still crusty & homeless and i love him very much. it’s just so GOOD !! just read if you want to experience my fav theo coming out story & him etching high school musical

Look who's talking - Captainmintyfresh

Summary: Theo had been labeled many things in his life. Evil, failure, monster. He'd never thought Father would be one of those things but as he looked across the table to a six year old with blue smears of bubble gum icecream across her face trying to coax the first words out of her sister. Finger jabbing towards Theo's face as she repeated 'Daddy' again and again he couldn't bring himself to dispute the label.

(Theo accidentally adopts two young werewolves)

Not Rated, Creator Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings, Not Completed, Chapters: 16/?, Words: 48740 ( 48k )

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so here me out: post-canon ( poetry like angst ) summer get away !! just the boys doing cute little domestic things together whilst pining !! theo’s guilt in this is just so powerful & aGjffkgkkfkvkdlv !! i think it’s so interesting to see how they interact in this one, it’s just very heart warming !! and it features one of my favorite niche teen wolf tropes of theo being great with like seven year old girls- it’s just so good ,, very much a wonderful little one shot that just makes your heart happy.

(next time i see you you'll show me) a hundred different ways to say the same things - cherrysprite

Summary: “...You deserve good things,” Liam says eventually. He makes sure not to look at Theo even though he can feel his eyes turn on him. Somehow he can already tell that Theo doesn’t believe him.

Liam instantly makes that the goal of this summer - making Theo believe him.

Rating: Teen and Up, No Archive Warnings Apply, Chapters: 1/1, Words: 28875 ( 28k )

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okay so this next section of fic recs is a bit different !!

two of my favorite authors !! and a compilation of fics i’ve read by them both !!

for context: these two have written some genuinely gorgeous fics, like pure poetry, they explore the real gritty & scary side of our boys relationship in such a wonderful way. they’ve both used some of my favorite tropes & i love them very much !!

whenever i need something soothing but so genuinely intresting & enticing these are my go to !! ( also they both write a lot of good nolan angst & some vv good fics with hayden )

go check out:

eneiryu

as well as fallingforboys

here are some of my favorite fics by them ~

darling i want you here in my arms (kiss the pain away, i know you can) - fallingforboys

even before you touched me, i belonged to you (all you had to do was look at me) - fallingforboys

memories linger like tattoo scars (but your touch on my skin is just as permanent) - fallingforboys

skin, bones, a stolen heart, and an ugly creature lurking underneath -fallingforboys

i don't know how to breathe in the place i called home - fallingforboys

whisper your gossamer truths into the shadow, maybe you'll find the answers you're searching for - fallingforboys

between the mountains and the valley we built a monument to our regret - eneiryu

cracked the hinges of the cage and waited for you - eneiryu

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okay and finally: since i am a self centered whore

my own fic: an rendition of the # elevator scene

it’s basically my version of post canon if we did get the kiss in the elevator. we got a classic liam pov in which he is has 12/10 for extreme bi diaster energy even whilst being shot at !! so go him ig…

Fuck Off, Fuck This & Fuck It! - nefelibata_peach

Summary: Liam thought to himself heart rate climbing, they were bound to be dead by morning. So he thought with everything but his brain and he kissed him.

Where Liam Dunbar is very confused, slightly traumatized, and just a bit scared but hey, aren't they all! Bad decisions ensue as two boys fight in a war they never did sign up for.

Rating: Teen and Up, Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Chapters: 1/1, Words: 3558 ( 3k )

[beetlemancy]

Anon again: Thank you!! I appreciate you taking the time to answer me because I am kind of active in the community but very very new. I did know your opinions but being new I just wanted to know whether those recent posts held any weight. I want to be socially responsible with my media consumption and I was worried there was something I was missing, given I have seen specific call outs for certain cast members (Travis, Laura, Sam, and Liam) recently. Thanks again!!

Anon pt2: you don’t have to post this but for context the call out posts were as follows: Travis actively supports the military, Laura voiced a black character?, Sam did brown face??, and Liam is fake woke/virtual signaling (or something along those lines). Obviously I can find out information about this for myself but I have seen more anti-CR stuff lately which prompted my ask.

As with everything, I suggest you do your own reading on those topics, and any topic that comes up in regards to the media you watch. Below is simply my opinion. Note: this gets long.

Travis does support the military - but not as an institution. He has family in the military. He supports the soldiers. He works with Operation Supply Drop and I’d encourage you to look into OSD specifically. Whether you agree with the idea that we should even have a military or not, you cannot deny that our veterans and soldiers are given the short end of the stick. We cannot just abandon them because helping them might be viewed as giving money to the military. I have so many military vets in my disability groups. The VA is awful because it has no funding (I know good people who work at the VA too, but they just cannot help everyone like they’d want to). Programs like OSD are genuinely helpful to a lot of hurting folk and the people who shit on Travis and CR for promoting and helping them out have clearly never actually sat down and talked to a vet or a soldier before. 

Laura and many many other voice actors have voiced people of color in various shows. Yes, this is a legit problem. However, obviously as with most things, the problem is nuanced. The fault mainly lies with the VO industry as a whole, in that actors actually have very little control over what they do. There was a whole strike about this very topic (though the strike covered other issues in the industry as well). In the case of Laura, for instance, she was never told what her character would look like until after the fact. And that is super common in the industry. One of the things they tried to get in the strike was more transparency so that actors could make the decisions themselves whether to voice characters or not - not just based on race or culture but also based on type of work (stressful screaming vs chill dialogue) and whether the content of the game itself was something they wanted their name attached to. 

Sam’s blackface scandal is extremely old news. That’s not to say it isn’t important to note, and in fact Sam made a point to note it again back in 2018. I know people who can’t watch CR because of it, even after his apology, and that’s fine because its not my place to judge others for how they react to that kind of thing. However I know a lot of people who read his apology and the circumstances surrounding it and decided to forgive. To some people, the fact that he was asked to do so by will.i.am changes the situation. To others, it doesn’t. To some the fact that he apologized and has clearly worked to improve his behavior matters, to others it doesn’t. You have to decide that for yourself. You can read Sam’s letter HERE. 

Now. Regarding Liam. * sigh * I think, and again this is my opinion, that you cannot proclaim someone you do not know as ‘fake woke.’ I think there are parts of this fandom that have it out for Liam because of a whole bunch of gross reasons, many of which I’ve spoken about before. He is sensitive and a man - that makes people uncomfy. He plays a lot of women characters and tends to embody them in both personality and body language - that makes people uncomfy. He fully embraces the bi energy (this is not to say whether he himself is or not) - that makes a lot of people uncomfy (and angry). He loves theatre and loves to explore the human condition, warts and all - that makes people super uncomfy. Now. There are people who thinks he’s homophobic. Do you know why? Its because his bi character ended up with a woman instead of a man. That is biphobia, no matter how they twist it. Bi people being “allowed” to be bi and not ‘pick the right side’ in the LG (not BT, lets be real) community IS revolutionary because its so very hated. 

Another reason they say he’s homophobic is because of the jokes he is often involved in - some gay men in the fandom believe that joking about sex is him ‘making fun’ of gay relationships. As a bi enby, I disagree, and I read many of the jokes he himself makes as the kind of humor I use among my own friends. I think there is a definite disconnect between bi vs LG humor and I’m not entirely sure who would be considered in the ‘right’ on that. However, when LG people in the fandom claim that he cannot talk about gay relationships because he is cishet? They cannot know that. That is an assumption they are making. When LG fans say that he alone is responsible for this issue and not -literally every single member of CR- ? I have to question whether its really the issue and not just that they still hate Liam for deigning to make a bi character bi instead of gay.

Another thing re: Liam. Aside from Marisha, he is the one I see the most hate about. People on Twitter and Tumblr both have legit uttered death threats about him if he doesn’t do exactly what they want his characters to do in the game. Usually this is about shipping. I have seen people claim that they WISH he was ‘like vic mignogna’ so they’d have a reason to hate him more. I’ve seen a certain group of people and one in particular say they have ‘dirt’ on him but refuse to say what the dirt is - and yet continually bring up that it exists, but that they just cannot say. Why would you incessantly bring up information you possess just to say that you cannot divulge such information? 

Legit issues about CR that is attached to Liam is the whitewashing issue. Some say that only Liam is responsible here because he controls all the art. I would say that we actually don’t know that for sure. He is ‘Art Dad’ and clearly has some pull. I do think that CR should address this issue, but I’m not sure they can legally do what the fandom wants them to do, which is “call-out” artists by name and denounce them. Now, this too is more nuanced than the fandom makes out because its often way more about colorism vs whitewashing. Many people do not draw Beau as white, but they do draw her as much lighter skin tones than her original art. Colorism is a real problem, but white allies tend to go about talking about it wrong or making smaller things a bigger deal when POC would really rather talk about something more important to them. It was these same white allies that tore Mica Burton apart on Twitter because she liked and enjoyed a drawing of Reani, her own character, that was a few shades lighter than the drawing she herself had brought in, even after she had said that she appreciated the variety of skin tones due to seeing herself in each of them. On the topic of whitewashing/colorism in the fandom, I personally tend to wait to hear from POC over the masses of white allies.

The CR fandom is very big for a niche thing like DnD. As such, there are many many corners of the fandom that can get really jaded, really dark, and really up their own ass in regards to the discourse. There are legitimate issues in the fandom and with CR as a whole. Nothing is perfect, nothing ever will be perfect, and people should absolutely do what they can to do better and to ask their media to do better. That being said, there are also people who think that if you don’t do something exactly like they want, then you’re Problematic by default. There are also members of this fandom who have an active vendetta against certain cast members and will use any opportunity to co-opt legit issues in order to shore up their false arguments. These people are only using the real issues and it becomes clear pretty quickly that they don’t actually give a shit about the people they say they are trying to speak up for. 

There is also some fandom drama that has occurred ONLY in fandom and has absolutely nothing to do with CR other than the fact that the people involved happen to be CR fans. Certain people in the fandom think that CR should arbitrate this issue and involve themselves, call out the individuals responsible, etc. This is, I believe, a GROSS misconception of what CR’s role is and asking way too much of a source of entertainment. The fact that CR has not involved themselves in this issue has led certain members of this fandom to claim that CR is homophobic. I would caution that most callouts of CR as homophobic are directly linked to this first issue, and also a callback to the Vaxleth drama from campaign one, and is incontrovertibly tied to bi and enby-phobia and a seriously sick misunderstanding of the responsibilities a show has versus the responsibility individuals have as viewers of said show. 

That’s it for now. I could go way more in depth on this problems, but I’m tired of typing. Suffice it to say, its easy to make a list of things Problematic with CR, but once you actually delve into each topic hopefully you’ll realize how complicated and filled with nuance and Different Opinions going on back from the first episode of Campaign One... Listing problems without actually addressing them head-on isn’t a good way to deal with the problems that are true anyway, let alone tell them from the false ones. 

[shadowsong26fic]

Coming Attractions!

First Monday of the month, woohoo!

(And also kind of a NaNo roundup post because that was last month, after all…)

NaNo:

Sooooo I didn’t finish, lol. Not that I was…super expecting to, exactly, but I was hopeful! I think I just missed too many days in a row and lost all my momentum.

In terms of my goals, I was hoping to write:

1. 20-25k on Precipice 2. 20-25k on our faces like a mirror 3. 10-20k on Other Projects. 4. 50-70k total

In terms of what I actually accomplished:

1. 9,241 on Precipice (Sooooooo....about half of what I’d hoped, a little less. But I still got a fair amount done/prepped for upcoming chapters, plus a couple chapters actually posted, even while doing other stuff, so...go me!) 2. 9,043 on our faces like a mirror (Again, a bit less than half of what I’d hoped for, but I got enough done for the story/etc. to take a real Shape in my head. ...ish. See the specific OFLAM stuff later on in the post...) 3. 10,601 on Other Projects (Hey, I actually met this goal! ...barely, but still! Mostly thanks to the Nikita/Rebels crossover, lol...) 4. 28,885 total

Original Fiction:

I got a decent chunk of a big backstory piece for Lux done (in the form of a “then” and “now” set of scenes/vignettes for the five Archangels)--that being said, I’m not sure I actually like what I have there, lol. I know more or less what I need to cover, but the details are fiddly. Also not sure whether I should refer to Lux by her current name, for consistency’s sake, or use a different name (either Lightbringer or just Lucifer) since she does technically reshape her name after being released when the main Apocalypse storyline kicks off…also debating whether Lux should be/present as female way back when--angels don’t really do gender the way humans do in this ‘verse, but the closest human term for Lux would be genderfluid, sooooo IDK. Also also, for the ‘Now’ part…ehhh, I’m not sure I should have this be the first thing I post involving Trixie…but I’ll keep poking at it and see what comes out.

(I’d also planned to work on the big Kesshare character study saturation for The Farglass Cycle this month, and maybe go back to my untitled first-contact story, but neither of those happened, lol.)

Precipice:

We’re in the home stretch! Kinda. So to speak. Probably three to four more chapters in Arc Seven, which I’m hoping-fingers-crossed I’ll finish by the end of the calendar year??? (But given how much other stuff I hope to work on (see Other Fanfic Projects for more details…)

At that point--and I know I’ve said this before, and I’ll probably put it in an A/N in the next chapter or so, but following the end of Milestones, I’m planning to break off into a second/sequel fic, working title Protectors. This is at least in part because length (over 200k wtf I was anticipating 50-75k, maybe 100k, for these seven arcs @.@), but also was sort of planned even without the Length issue, due to some thematic/structure shifts following a six-year timeskip. Which, if you do the math, you can probably figure out where that’ll land us and why I might be structuring it this way…

Anyway, I’ve increasingly realized that there’s some stuff I should probably set up that I’ll need for later arcs in Part 2 involving some Rebels characters, more with the Last Batch, plus a Sith Apprentice who needs to turn up and die (although the gap between Infernalis and the next apprentice I actually care about/have a name and some kind of Plot for is only about four years in my mental timeline, so maybe there isn’t an active Apprentice in that period*…hmmmmm…), some background about the Hands, etc. But I feel like it’s all a little too disjointed for an entire additional arc. So, Arc 7.5, tentatively titled Preludes, is also going to be a thing XD I don’t think I’ll have a fixed schedule for that vs. the main storyline--and, honestly, it’ll probably work more like a collection of one-shots taking place during the timeskip than a proper Arc, but a little more Relevant than stuff that goes in Bonus Content, if that makes sense? It’ll probably be posted alongside at least arcs 8 and 9. Which, incidentally, take place more or less back-to-back and cover a fairly short period of time, but there is A Lot of plot/setup that goes into them. Like. If I tried to do it all as one arc, it’d be at least twice as long as any of the other arcs I’ve done, possibly including Arc Four--certainly over twenty chapters, I think--plus there’s a good (and by good I mean Horrible) place where I can split the arcs, so…we’ll see how that goes.

(…still not sure what to do with Maul, lol. He may just be Sir Darth Not-Appearing-In-This-Fic, or he might turn up in arc 10/11/13, which are the sort of vaguest of the next seven arcs which make up Protectors, in terms of how much I have planned out…)

(*On a semi-related note, I’ve been asked about Inquisitors a couple times in comments lately, and…well, I’ll probably mention this when I reply to the commenter in question, but I figured I’d set it out here as well, in case anyone else was wondering the same thing but doesn’t read other peoples’ comments. Like I’m pretty sure I mentioned at the start, when I plotted out** the bulk of this fic, I hadn’t seen Rebels yet. I’ve since decided to integrate a few characters/plot points (Kallus and Zeb will feature prominently in a subplot in arcs 13 and 14, for example), but, as a rule, characters and plot points from Rebels haven’t been taken into account unless I Really Like Them and/or they’re a good way to fill in a plot hole in a later arc, as with Kallus and Zeb. So, for example, when I include Thrawn, I’m writing more towards Legends!Thrawn in terms of personality, though the two have blended a bit in my head and I do reference specific events in Disney!Thrawn’s personal timeline; and b) more relevantly, I hadn’t made any plans to include Inquisitors, and that…hasn’t really changed. So, I might have them in Preludes, but they almost certainly won’t show up on-page/be super-relevant in the main arcs of the fic, sorry :/ )

(**Loooool I say “Plotted Out” like I’m the kind of author with a Master Plan or at least an outline. But I did have a general idea of the Major Plot Points going in, such as when Rex and Ahsoka would turn up, Luke’s storyline with Lavinia, how many Apprentices I would need to make them work, etc., and I’ve had parts of Arcs 8, 9, and 14 written for like at least two years now, so I know more or less where I’m going--though they’ll be edited once I have more of the connective tissue in place, in case I’ve accidentally Jossed myself…or I change my mind, which is becoming A Possibility with a major event set to happen in Arc 14, so…we’ll see.)

Aaaaaanyway. Exciting times ahead, I hope!

Other Fanfic:

This month, I finally posted another AU outline, woohoo! …I mean, it was a super-niche Nikita/Rebels crossover with a handful of OCs thrown in but who’s counting XD (I do actually intend to finish Let’s Go Steal a Crossover and update the Ventress one at some point but…yeah).

I also put out a Kallus one-shot that I think turned out really well. May do more of those at some point, who knows…

I made some significant progress on our faces like a mirror, as mentioned above! But now I’m waffling a little bit over structure. Basically, the fic covers Bo-Katan’s backstory from the time Satine becomes Duchess, through the Civil War, and eventually leads to Bo’s eventual break with her sister to join Death Watch. It comes in two pretty distinct halves--what I call the Fugitive arc in my notes, which covers the Civil War, and the Breakdown arc, which is everything after her return to Sundari.

So, my original plan was--prologue covering at least part of the final Epic Screaming Match that leads to Bo’s departure; jump back to the Fugitive Arc; and then follow through until we catch up to the prologue, with a coda/epilogue with her and Pre Viszla. The problem is, there’s…really not a lot to connect the two halves??

I’ve got a couple options on what to do about this, but I’m not sure which would be best.

Option One: Keep the structure as-is and just let it be episodic.

Option Two: Keep the structure as-is and find some way to connect the two halves (i.e., a recurring antagonist; I do have an idea of who this could be, but the problem is, it takes away a good chunk of the focus from Bo and Satine’s relationship for the Breakdown Arc…which I don’t really want to do.)

Option Three: Remove the framing device and focus on the Breakdown Arc, and include the Fugitive Arc as flashbacks, since the Breakdown Arc can’t really stand on its own. (The main issue I have with this one is that, if I want to actually write out future chunks of Bo’s life later--meaning, her time with Death Watch, and getting her from TCW to Rebels--I won’t have these flashbacks and I don’t want to change the structure too radically for any eventual sequels? Also, I’m not sure how I feel about a flashback structure for this fic in general…)

Option Four: Remove the framing device and focus on the Fugitive Arc, ending the story with Bo’s return to Sundari. (Two issues with this one--I really do want to go into the Breakdown Arc; that’s where my interest in this story started. Also, due to the constraints of setting and so on, Bo interacts with…like…two canon characters over the course of the Fugitive Arc? And while I don’t really have a problem writing a story that’s essentially a Backstory Epic for a tertiary character, populated by about 90% OCs, I’m not sure anyone actually wants to read that, except as the lead-in to the Breakdown Arc??? But maybe I’m overthinking…)

…so, yeah. Any thoughts/opinions on which option would be Best? (I may make a separate post asking the same question later, but figured I’d lay it all out here, too!)

Also, I’m working on a Secret Santa project, and probably not going to use OFLAM for SWBB, which means I need to come up with and write a different plotline of some kind, so back to the drawing board on that one…

Also also, I do genuinely plan to get Distaff off hiatus At Some Point, especially since I’ve gotten some new comments/responses lately…but given how much else I have on my plate, writing-wise, that probably won’t happen until next year, alas.

Anyway, the long and short of it is--lots of writing planned for this month! Now let’s see how much I actually get done XD

What about the rest of you? What’ve y’all been up to/what do you have planned for next month?

[laraslandlockedblues]

Ok actually I know the tags on my gif post I just did said I wasn’t sure when I’d be back, but I’m feeling strangely articulate tonight so here we go. Long-winded under the cut.

TL;DR - Real life is (and will continue to be) a busy bitch, a writer’s ego is a fragile thing, and my Lightning Struck series (Cullen/Evelyn) can now be considered on indefinite hiatus.

Hi! Yes, I’m alive and well and I really do appreciate the messages asking if I was all right and checking on me. You’re all too sweet and kind, and I’m so grateful for each and every one of you. Keep that in mind as this ramble continues, please.

This has been a weird year already, and it’s only March. Normally I’d be like “IT’S ALREADY MARCH?!” but no, this year...It’s only March. That’s how I’ve been feeling.

January started off with a weird mood for me. Over the holidays I had the usual  family stress and blahness that comes with adulthood, but a few fandom things happened too that put me into a rather...difficult headspace, shall we say. For one thing, I will say I’ve noticed I’m not the only one who’s pointed out that it feels like the fandom is dying. And it is. Which is sad. I feel like I only just got here - I’ve played DA for years but I only really started to interact with its fandom in late 2017, so for me it was still all fresh and new and exciting. Seeing that die down, compounded with the Tumblr wank, especially, was really disappointing.

As a creator, too, it was hard not to take that personally. It was hard not to take people moving on to other fandoms and interests and things as an indictment on my work. Rational brain knew that that was the problem, rational me knew that we were all just moving on because other things were catching our interest. It’s natural. But dumb, idiot writer brain was struggling with the fact that I was feeling like I was screaming into the void.

What bothered me more was that I even cared. I never once wanted to care about that. I always preach writing for oneself, and that’s why I write. But I hated  the fact that for a time I’d gotten so much feedback that I noticed its absence when it died down a little. And that’s not anyone’s fault, I’m not begging for comments or feedback, seriously. Again, rational me was shrugging and still wanted to write for me because it was fun and I enjoy it, but the fragile writer ego we all carry around inside us took a hit and began to doubt.

It stopped being fun. Especially because it wasn’t necessarily a total lack of feedback - it was, for me, a lack of feedback on what I was actually, currently working on. Over the holidays for some reason I began to get comments on WIPs that I hadn’t updated in ages - asking me for updates. Now, everyone has their own opinion on those sorts of comments, so this is only my own, and take it with a grain of salt and everything I just mentioned above.

It sucked. It absolutely, 100% sucked. Seeing the email notification that I got a comment would bring me so much joy - only to open it to see that it was a comment on something I hadn’t written for in a long time asking me when I’d feel like providing more content for that fic again. I began to feel like fic was a transaction and I was piling up debts. I started to feel like I owed fandom and readers what they wanted, instead of doing this for the reason I started in the first place - for myself.

I know that Rylen is niche. I know that fics that have very little to do with canon are niche. I know that Abby isn’t always super likable. I know that John is off-putting because he’s such a morally ambiguous OC who has nothing to do with DA and makes really shit decisions. I know all of that, and I’ve never expected any of those fics to get any sort of response, so the fact that they’ve gotten the response that they have still blows my mind and makes me insanely, insanely happy. And so I hated that I felt ungrateful, and that I was doubting my work, and that writing and fandom was beginning to feel like a labor and not something I loved.

The more I noticed I was struggling with working on updates, the more I started to think a break might be in order. When some RL stuff finally cropped up, the fact that I was sort of forced into a break was a blessing in disguise, to be honest. I leaned into the skid and let myself step back to reevaluate why I do this and what I want to get out of it. I fell into a new fandom and worked on random pieces of writing for it, which I threw into the voids of ao3 on a second account and only shared for myself and a few friends who were also falling into that fandom with me. I rediscovered the joy of writing and not caring what response I get. I reignited my love of crafting a story a certain way because I wanted to and not because I thought it was where anyone else thought it should go.

I remembered why I love writing in the first place - for myself.

And with that, I finally began to let go of some things, and let myself mull over decisions I’d been putting off or avoiding. I shrugged off the stress of expectation and “owing” anyone my time or effort, and I’m finally back to enjoying myself and my writing, free of doubt.

With that, I have some news, good and bad. The bad news first - my Cullen muse has left the building. I have waited, and hoped, and tried, but at some point he walked out the door and he hasn’t made an appearance since. That isn’t to say that I don’t still love his character or content about him, but personally, I can no longer write his POV or romance. The ability to do so has eluded me for months now, but I’ve accepted this sad truth at long last. Unless he’s trading banter with Rylen or Abby, his muse is no longer whispering in my ear. And that makes me sad, and for all I know he’ll reemerge some day, ready to help me write again. For now, though, that isn’t possible. Which does, unfortunately, mean that my Cullen/Evelyn WIPs are currently either abandoned or on an indefinite hiatus (I’ve tagged them appropriately on ao3 if you’re curious). If I do manage to return to them, I expect to only focus on Moments Passed and Miss Grey. As for what I’ll do about Beautiful Disaster...I’m not quite certain yet.

It did also mean that I was able to let go of something that had bothered me for a while as well. I’m almost positive no one noticed since it’s been kind of off radar for a while, but - my fic What Are the Odds has been orphaned. I’m still proud of it as a fic, but it came with a lot of baggage and my Cullen/Evelyn pairing was just ever so slightly OOC to the point that comments on it made me cringe. I’m a firm believer in not deleting, and so off to the fandom as an orphaned work it went, to be enjoyed without me having to be aware of it at all.

Now, the good news is - I do 100% still plan on writing Abby/Rylen. Their muses are still there and whispering to me, and I definitely want to continue working on the WIPs I have for them. At the moment After Rain might be slow to update (need to figure out how I’m navigating some canon plot to get me from point A to B to C to D and on). But I plan on trying to finish it as well as the others that I have for them. Abby/Ry live on, because I absolutely love them so much, and the idea of writing for them is back to bringing me joy.

I cannot make guarantees on update speed for the foreseeable future, possibly for the rest of the year. Currently RL continues to be a shitshow, as I was reminded today, and writing more than a sentence here or there has been difficult. In a few months I will also be moving, and once at my new destination I actually have a Big Project (a writing one I hope to be able to share here, if people are still around/Tumblr is still a thing) that I intend to make my full time focus. My goal has always been to be a writer, and while fanfic has been an amazing way to explore my writing style/storytelling/character voice, I have plans to get published. I’ll have a better opportunity to put those plans into realistic action later this year, which I’m actually really, insanely excited about.

If you have made it this far, THANK YOU. I love this fandom, and I’ve met so many wonderful, lovely, supportive, talented people in it and I have missed you all dearly during my time away. In no way was this a call out post directed at anyone in particular, and in no way was this a “woe is me, please give me attention” cry for help. I’ve just had a lot of thoughts and feelings during this break, and I actually wanted to sort of vocalize them because: 1) wow I already feel better after doing so, and 2) to let other writers know it’s 100% valid to need to take a break or occasionally get in your head about needing validation/feedback/wonder why we do this when it just feels like screaming into a fathomless void. It’s natural and normal and totally human, and if you’re feeling that way, find someone supportive to help you through and take a step back. Everything will be waiting there for you when you’re ready for it. And remember - do it for yourself because it’s something you enjoy.

xx

[ladyfl4me]

A,E,F,G,I,J,K,L,M,N,O,P,Q,R,S,T,U,V,W,X,Y,Z ;o

Okay *cracks knuckles* let’s go! F, M, and S have already been taken from this list, so feel free to send in... B, C, D, or H, I guess. Yeehaw. This is really fucking long.

A: How did you come up with the title to [TMWCIFTC]? -- It started, as many things do, as a bad pun. The novel The Spy who Came In from the Cold was a cold-war spy thriller, about a British spy who goes over to East Germany as an apparent defect, except he’s actually there to spread misinformation and fuck shit up. He falls in love, becomes disillusioned with his superiors, and is shot dead over the corpse of his lover after climbing over to the east side of the wall. Needless to say, this is nowhere close to what happens in TMWCIFTC. I chose it early on because of the literal meaning: there’s a moth(man), he’s coming in from the cold WV weather, boom shaka laka, we have a title. Over time, though, it’s evolved into another meaning. Indrid himself is coming in from an isolated, lonely existence: he’s rejoining the family that cut ties with him, he’s in love, he’s warm and safe. The moth sure did come in from the cold, and hopefully he stays that way.

E: If you wrote a sequel to [TMWCIFTC], what would it be about? -- Hm. Considering my entire TAZ fic career is a tangled hairball of sequels and prequels, I kind of have this base covered. At the moment, TCOS - aka The Children of Sylvain, the sequel to TMWCIFTC - is about three things: a Pine Guard road trip race against time and the feds, the Spanish Sylvan Inquisition That Nobody Expected (least of all Jake and Hollis, who have to set aside their differences and past conflicts to save Kepler - and who knows, maybe they’ll fall in love along the way), and Alexandra the Interpreter getting woke to Sylvan politics and doing what she can from the inside to change them. In other words, it’s going to be a massive sequel that is the finale of the Amnesty alternate universe I’ve created. It’s this series’ Endgame. (That reminds me, I need an actual title for this collection of stories I’m writing. The “Tin Cinematic Universe” doesn’t quite have the ring to it that I’d like.)

G: Do you write your story from start to finish, or do you write the scenes out of order? -- eh, it kind of depends. It’s like a buffering bar on Youtube videos. I outline what I can until I run out of ideas, then start writing, then add outlines to the end, until the outline is complete and I just have to keep writing.

I: Do you have a guilty pleasure in fic (reading or writing)? -- I don’t have one for reading, but for writing, I fucking love structuring chapters around songs. Classical or otherwise, I love music. All my stories play in my head like a movie screen, and I just do my best to describe what I’m seeing in my head with an accompanying score. It’s not so much a guilty pleasure as it is a writing process. Frankly, I don’t think I actually have a guilty pleasure; the act of writing itself is all the happiness I need.

J: Write or describe an alternative ending to [insert fic]. -- An alternate ending for The Devil Went Down To Georgia would be... interesting. It ended with Boyd-as-Jersey-Devil scaring the pants off some poor broke college kid, who stole his worthless fiddle; then he changed back, and he and Ned went on their merry way to go break into Aubrey’s house and send everything down the drain. If there was one thing that I could change in there, it would be how fast Ned ran. If he ran a little faster, he would have seen the alley; he would have witnessed Boyd turning into the Jersey Devil, or at least turning back into himself; and he’d get a very rude awakening as to what Sylvans are and that his partner (in crime, and everything that mattered) was a fucking cryptid. God, that’d be a fun AU to write. Who knows, I might go do that someday.

K: What’s the angstiest idea you’ve ever come up with? -- At the moment, the only angsty idea that I’m actually conceptualizing is a Hollis/Jake angsty breakup for TSG. (Spoilers, I guess.) I once wrote a very grimdark ending to TMWCIFTC where everyone fell through the ice and drowned. It wasn’t fun. I’ve also mentally killed off each Amnesty protagonist and NPC in various ways, but I never felt comfortable writing them down. I only write angst with a happy ending because those are the kinds of stories I need to hear.

L: How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting? -- 9 times out of 10, I just throw it into the void. I write as much as I can in big chunks, and then kind of hope for the best. TMWCIFTC, for example, is a completely unedited, unbetaed vomit draft. I usually do a quick reread of my oneshots to catch grammar and spelling errors, but other than that I just trust myself that it’s fine.

N: Is there a fic you wish someone else would write (or finish) for you? -- Can I get some kind of resolution for To the Edge of Night? Can I please get some kind of resolution for To the Edge of Night??? I was 14 chapters into that bastard before I a) became a more casual MCU fan and b) discovered TAZ. It was such a niche fic with such a niche structure - LOTR as galactic Asgardian propaganda to cover up Odin’s mistakes - that at some point I lost interest in it. I just saw Endgame though, so now I might get some inspiration for stuff to bastardize.

O: How do you begin a story–with the plot, or the characters? -- Characters. When coming up with character backstories, I can usually find ways to slot their lives together that necessitate a plot. I love character-driven stories, where their actions actually do shit and their words actually mean something, in favor of getting dragged along behind the plot like tin cans behind a car.

P: Are you what George R. R. Martin would call an “architect” or a “gardener”? (How much do you plan in advance, versus letting the story unfold as you go?) -- I’m definitely an architect, but in a really messy way. My friends can attest that I do an insane amount of planning for each story - often in their DMs, sorry about that, Fae, Cro, Indy and Aline 😬 - and all that usually ends up in a stream-of-consciousness rant outline on Google Drive. Knowing where the story is going helps me a lot, but the planning I do is definitely just building flower beds in which to sow seeds. Or building a greenhouse. I plan the bare bones of a story, and things get really wild within it, but it does follow a logical plot structure.

Q: How do you feel about collaborations? -- I have a lot of respect for the people who can successfully pull it off, but idk if i’d ever want to do one myself. I get really possessive of my stories and ideas and like to be the one in charge of their execution. That being said, some collabs have produced amazing stories. I don’t mind reading collab fics, but actually being in a collab grates on me more than it should.

R: Are there any writers (fanfic or otherwise) you consider an influence? -- I’m definitely influenced heavily by Neil Gaiman. I read American Gods and Good Omens a lot while I was trying to write TMWCIFTC; not only was it a good brain break, but I was able to pick up a lot of tips on scene pacing, concise yet expressive language, and character interactions. My creative wriitng professors have always told us to read so we know what to steal - not in terms of content, but in execution. 

On the fanfic side, @miamaroo is a huge inspiration for me. I’ve been reading Northern Migration a lot recently, and I love how its canon divergence is so worldshaking and so complex, but is still familiar in nostalgic yet terrifying ways. I read it back in October, went, “Huh, I wanna do something that wild. And if miamaroo can do it then I sure as fuck can too,” and I started planning TMWCIFTC during that one month dead zone the McElroys took last year. Northern Migration is one of the best, most coherent, most stunning, and most incredibly written TAZ Balance AUs I’ve ever read, and if I hadn’t read it, I wouldn’t have been inspired to take the fuckall huge plunge into TMWCIFTC.

S: Any fandom tropes you can’t resist? -- Bed sharing and cuddling, hand kissing, wrist kissing, whump, sympathetic villains. Canon divergent AUs are my absolute favorite things to both read and write. Anything that would turn me into Charlie Kelly slamming his finger on a bulletin board screaming, “CAROL,” is a fic I would give my life for. 

T: Any fandom tropes you can’t stand? -- Not a fan of a) woobification and b) flat villain characterization, to the point where the story is riding on villain tropes instead of an actual person or plot. Character nuance is always something I look for when I read. I don’t usually get bitter about tropes, though; some stuff, when subverted, works really well. I fully subscribe to don’t like, don’t read, don’t write, which is why I don’t write anything that warrants AO3 content warning tags or an Explicit rating, in favor of focusing on plot. Every author has a reason for what they write and how - be it their level of experience, personal preference, or simply the joy of writing something and getting it out there - and I respect that. Within reason, of course.

U: Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much. -- 

@miamaroo, for reasons I’ve already discussed. My favorite TAZ Balance author hands down. Read Northern Migration and give it the love it deserves, or I’m replacing all the faucets in your house with silly straws.

@transagentstern. Fae has a bunch of absolutely incredible fics and an amazing grasp on characterization. We come from the same place with AUs, in that canon is but the bare planks on which we put the drywall of our plot an characterization. They structure AUs and character backstories from the ground up in believable and emotionally raw ways. Also they have great music taste. I especially like their interpretation of Indrid in Moth to the Flame; he, like all the other characters in the story, is far from perfect, and his character arc is explored in relatable ways that I love to read. 

@keplersheetz. Aline - theneonpineapple on AO3 - researches like a motherfucker and has a wealth of knowledge/experience/viewpoints to draw on, making author-author interactions with her an absolute delight. She’s also doing the lord’s work with rarepairs. Spin a wheel, find a ship, and she’s probably written for it or at least conceptualized it. Reading her character studies and stories of the old Pine Guard - aka Mama’s original crew, before the current PCs joined - is always a delight. I’ve also hashed out a lot of details for The Children of Sylvain, especially for Mr. Boyd Mosche, guilt-wracked Jersey Devil extraordinaire, with her help. 

V: If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose? -- Not gonna lie, I’m fine with a lot of stuff that’s out there right now. It’s been a hot few months since I’ve actually stopped to read fic, but from what I recall, most of the fics I’ve read have done a good job of keeping things intact.

W: Do you like more general prompts, or more specific ones? -- The vaguer, the better. With really specific prompts, it usually feels as if the story’s been written for me already; with vague, general prompts, I have more agency to explore my own ideas. Some accompanying detail is usually nice, though. For example, the coffee shop/college/flower shop AUs that @transagentstern​ wrote are my ideal prompt for drabbles: premise, a little bit of open-ended detail, clear explanation of what’s going to happen while leaving the rest up to the imagination. Good stuff. If it’s for a long-form piece, though, I prefer full agency, or even just some time to lie facedown in the dirt and wait for an idea to strike me.

X: A character you enjoy making suffer. -- Yes.

Y: A character you want to protect. -- Tim.

Z: Major character death–do you ever write/read it? Is there a character whose death you can’t tolerate? -- I do read lots of major character death, yeah, though not always for TAZ. There’s something cathartic about seeing a character die, but sometimes it sits wrong with me in ways that I don’t like. As for writing, I’d rather kill a character for a reason rather than for shock value/for the Feels, though said Feels can accompany the reason. 

[herogravi-blog]

Hey, I can see why you're frustrated over the movie spoilers. But just as you have the right to be upset, people have the right to be excited over their ships. If they're screaming about a ship, a character, quirks.. If they're not doing anything mean-spirited or toxic it brings no harm to anyone else. In a fandom people will always be drawn to different things, whether its plot or ships. Let people enjoy themselves. Their joy should not take away from yours.

as soon as i logged into this blog and saw just how many messages were in my inbox, i had a feeling it was something related to my earlier post.

let me make one thing is clear as possible; my criticism for the flood of kirbak spoilers is not out of anger for not getting the content i want to see. it was because of other people’s frustrations with those being the only spoilers available or seemingly the only spoilers anyone seems interested in talking about.

it’s the hyperfixation that’s annoying for fans who want more general spoilers, and it’s not just limited to spoilers about the movie itself. if i were an outsider who had no context or knowledge about bnha as a whole, i’d assume that kirishima and bakugou were the central protagonists of the series and the series was about their journey to be heroes and their relationship, when in reality, they’re only a fraction of the series. an important fraction, but not the whole. and when content gets flooded by fixating on one ship, other fans feel like they’re being shunted to the side or that a single ship (that has very slim chances of being canon) takes priority over everything else.

i was annoyed by having to really dig through the flood of kirbak to find a person lovely enough to give out more thorough spoilers, but beyond that, i’m not angry or overly bitter. i’m more than content to wait for streams of the movie when it eventually comes stateside. i’m disappointed in the overly defensive backlash of kirbak fans (to the point of sending more anon hate to other folks out of some false sense of triumph and victory) dismissing other fans’ disappointment and frustration over the lack of attention to other characters.

if anything were to make me angry, it’s that.

am i telling people to stop talking about their favorite ships? their favorite characters? or kirbak? no, of course not. i like the ship and the characters myself. it’s not my job and i have no desire to police people over their specific interests and expressing them. i have better things to do with my time.

the bnha fandom isn’t some monolith conglomerate where we’re all united in love for the series; that’s absurd and ridiculous. have you seen this fandom? it’s at each others’ throats every other day for something stupid or some kind of dumb ship related discourse (though as of late, it’s revolving around endeavor, which is a whole other pile of stupid). fandom is a venn diagram with intersection, but there is no unity.

there is never unity in fandom, and that’s why every fandom, every single one; is awful and terrible.

finding a loving space in fandom is finding your niche with a close circle of pals, not the fandom space as a whole. 

i don’t need to ‘reevaluate my anger’ as you say, because i’m not angry about the lack of general spoilers; i, and every other fan, are well within their right to be critical about just how much fixation is on a fictional fan pairing, and no one’s frustration nor anyone’s love for specific characters is any less valid or justified.

these don’t exist in a vacuum and they’re not mutually exclusive. they can exist at the same time.

it’s called being a critical thinker and consumer of media. learn.

thank you for your time.

ps. do not call me ‘dear’ when you don’t know me. it just makes everything you’ve sent me come across as passive aggressive and condescending. thanks.

[anneedmonds]

Foundation Review: Pat McGrath Labs Sublime Perfection

I don’t think I’ve ever had so many questions and comments about a foundation as I have about the Pat McGrath Labs Skin Fetish Sublime Perfection. I photographed myself oh-so-casually wearing it on Instagram stories and it has made background appearances in some of my videos; each time I’ve mentioned it I’ve been inundated with DMs about how long it lasts, how good the coverage is and which shade I wear.

And so here’s a proper, in-depth review. I’ll start out with the same warning regarding the price that I gave on Instagram: it’s £60 in the UK. Incredibly pricey, but I have to say that very few people I spoke to seemed perturbed by this quite considerable financial outlay. Surprisingly. Which makes me think that Pat McGrath and her marketing team have done an epic job of carving out a niche in the highest end of the cosmetics market – if you can establish yourself to the point where beauty-aficionados don’t flinch too much at a sixty quid face base then I’d say you’re doing pretty well!

The brand showcases clever formulations in luxurious packaging and is most definitely powered by Pat’s reputation as one of the world’s most successful and inventive makeup artists. I’d say that the Sublime Perfection foundation is one of the hero products, but then I’m really into “skin looking like skin” and so I’m possibly biased.

But Sublime Perfection is more than your standard kind of “real skin” foundation – it has a few tricks up its proverbial sleeve that I think sets it apart from the rest when it comes to achieving the holy grail of makeup – a flawless finish that still looks believable. It has the sort of finish that looks supple, dewy, bouncy and fresh yet still manages to blur imperfections and create a perfect canvas, but there are some very notable bonuses, which I’m going to come to after another disclaimer.

I have good skin.

I say this not to brag, but to be helpful, because a foundation that I love, that makes my skin look visibly perfected and dewy, might not feel so magical if you have blemishes that need a full coverage to be concealed. This Skin Fetish Sublime Perfection potion is sheer. Yes it’s buildable, as I’m about to delve into in more detail, but the medium coverage is almost a perceived medium – as in minor imperfections are cleverly blurred and veiled – rather than the solid coverage you might get traditionally.

So, the notable bonuses – what sets Sublime Perfection foundation apart from the rest?

Well as I said, it’s buildable. And I mean properly buildable, not just “let’s see what happens if I tap a bit more under the eyes because I can’t be bothered to look for my concealer” buildable. You can go from sheerest sheer, which Sublime Perfection handles impeccably because the formula is so hydrating, right up to a medium-ish coverage.

Now loads of foundations are buildable; the difference with this one is that it retains its freshness and increases its sheen as the coverage builds. Which is quite a feat. Usually the more you apply, the more you start to look a little flat, but here we have a coverage that is comprehensive but a finish that is expensive, glowing and bouncy with the same feeling of sheerness as with a light application.

You never get a blanket, opaque coverage, so full coverage-hunters will be disappointed; it’s almost as though the pigment is suspended in a kind of pliable, flexible sheen, so the more you build the more sheenier it gets.

Pat McGrath calls this a “customised couture finish” and I really couldn’t think of a more apt description; it’s the classy, non-obliterating type of finish that you get in a Vogue editorial or at a Paris show. It’s about good skin and not creating a mask. It screams expensive – the blurring particles that give an almost soft focus effect, the “lit from within” glow. But then I do think that the finish somewhat also pivots on the user having relatively blemish-free skin, too.

The most surprising thing about this foundation, though? It’s longwear! Name me a dewy, lighter-than-light base with the texture and comfort of a tinted moisturiser but the elegance of a high-end, finely-formulated foundation that lasts for the whole day? I’ll wait.

Estée Lauder’s Futurist comes pretty close, with its plumpy-bouncy texture and ultra-hydrating finish (review here), but it’s not quite on the same level in terms of refined coverage and glow. Zoom right in on the Sublime Perfection –

– and it’s genuinely almost undetectable on the skin, whereas the Futurist has a slightly more visible dewiness. In terms of hydrating finish, they are on a par, but the Sublime Perfection has been specifically designed to be buildable and tweakable to your exact coverage desires, whereas you wouldn’t want to go silly overboard with layering up the Futurist because it’s so moisturising – you’d just go for a higher coverage foundation.

I have to say though that the Pat McGrath base, even at its sheerest, gives such a heady dose of soft-focus glow that you rarely need to build it up unless you’re going “out out”. I hate the phrase “a little goes a long way” but this really does, especially if you apply with fingertips as you would skincare, rather than a brush.

Here are the before and after photos, although I think that moving film captures the glow best. In fact I almost wish I didn’t have to post the comparison pictures, because it’s in real life and when the light is moving that the skin really comes alive! Nevertheless here we are:

There’s no dramatic total-wipeout of the facial features, but the overall skintone is more even, more glowing whilst retaining the nuances of real skin.

You can probably tell that I like this foundation a lot, even with its couture price-tag. Many would want a better return on investment – a more dramatic transformation – but for those who seek the ultimate “my skin but better” finish, it’s a viable option. It comes in a whopping 36 shades with different undertones well catered for and it’s suitable for any skin type. Though you might want a spot of primer beneath it on oily parts of your face, if you get them. After a full (hot) day I might get some minor slippage on my nose, but at certain times of the month my nose becomes a grease factory and so that’s really splitting hairs.

Apply after moisturiser and/or sunscreen (Sublime Perfection doesn’t contain any, which I kind of like because if I’m out then I always have a standalone SPF on underneath anyway) and use fingertips to sheer out and blend or a brush to build up slightly heavier coverage. I wear a mix of shade 13 and 8 (those were the samples sent out, I didn’t go drunk shopping!) with about two parts 8 to one part 13. So I reckon I would be a 10 or 11 if I actually went out IRL and got matched at a counter.

You can find the full Pat McGrath Labs range at Selfridges on the brand website. The Skin Fetish Sublime Perfection foundation is £60 at Selfridges here*.

If you like that fresh glow  effect then take a look at Clinique’s Even Better Glow here or the aforementioned Estée Lauder Futurist foundation, review here.

The post Foundation Review: Pat McGrath Labs Sublime Perfection appeared first on A Model Recommends.

©2020 " Foundation Review: Pat McGrath Labs Sublime Perfection published first on https://medium.com/@SkinAlley

[surelypovichjr]

Surely Gets a Brazilian: Waxing Poetic on my Big South American Scoop - Part 1

Greetings loyal readers,

Been awhile since I got a little peach out to the Povich Posse so I figure what the hell, why not?

It all started a few years back, when a little birdie told me to see my way down to Brazil, South America. According to my friend, the vast infrastructure demands of the Olympic Games had embroiled the country in unprecedented levels of corruption. Apparently, Brazil wasn't exactly cut out for the whole hosting gig. I guess not all of us can be Bill Crystal.

Two great actors.

Of course, before I could even think about going, I knew would need some money to get down there, perhaps from a super successful magazine publication. And yea, I know what yer thinkin dear reader but gotta remember that this was all wayyy back in the day—a time when magazines were rolling in validated parking and expense accounts an’ free toner--this was roughly two and a half years ago.

“Surely, the pay ain’t great,” said my potential editor, “but you are a Povich, not unlike your father, a brave man who encountered great hardship all for the highest calling, which is of course, writing short blurbs about athletic contests for a living.”

I laughed at this as I knew it to be true.

“Dad even had the scars to prove it, I said. old man lost half a nut practice catching for Walt Johnson back in ‘24.”

Some say this incident with the Big Train is why the Povich men are such odd ducks—velcro shoe people, ham radio enthusiasts, a preference of cobblers to pies, fast food dumpster divers, occasional arsonists—you get it, yer garden variety of harmless weirdos. But it’s like I always tell my journalism students at Montgomery College-Shady Grove Campus, what the hell does Doc Knolmeyer know, anyhow? Bupkis is what! The man couldn't doctor his way out of a horrible housefire an Arby's bag full of delicious curly fries.

Harvard on the Pike. Better than Harvard!

“Wow! Walter Johnson. “That's an amazing story, Surely! And exactly why I believe you are a great fit for this assignment.”

Bill was a good man, the editor for a reputable Internet content aggregator that he himself had named after a great American sportswriter. I liked the guy immensely, even if he had hijacked my idea--a direct mail newsletter entitled Povichville that woulda discussed sports and the athletes who play them in an informative kinda pretentious-like way.

“William my boy, let me get this straight,” I said, undoing a thing of Horsey Sauce.“If I have it right, you want me to go down to Rio and soak up the sun with some broads alls while doin some of the greatest, classiest journalism the world has ever seen—is that it?”

“That's right, Surely,” said the famous Boston writer guy. “Now I got a great photographer, Trevor, who’s already down there waiting for you.”

I make a face but to no avail as Bill seems pretty deadset on the idea. I don’t like photographers—never have—seems I’m always babysitting these fresh-faced shutterbugs, who always have a way of getting between me and the story, slowing down to take a photo of this thing or that; always trying to marginalize the written word; always using the dark room when I wanna pound the pineapple. But this Brazilian story...how could I say no?

Immediately, I envisioned myself livin it up down in South America, probably wearing something made of linen--it’s all so clear, Surely Povich Jr, 67 years young and cuttin a rug alongside the bronze Brazilian populace; just look at me, hangin out at the Copacabana, drinkin caparinhas at sunset amongst boob-y blondes with fake bags of fun; and hey there if that isn't me again, wakin’ up in a burned down building, in nuthin but a banana hammock and a half eaten bowl of feijoada, and boy, wow getta load of what's become of that famous sportswriter’s disowned son, smoking angel dust with Rio’s most murdery biker gang--ya know, the usual Surely hijinks the great American papers of yesteryear paid me top dollar to bring through the door.

Indeed the job was a no-brainer at the time, as I had just discovered that my domestic partner, Sun Xi had rekindled a relationship with her ex-husband, my former bankruptcy attorney, Mr. Warren Wagglestein. I figured it all out when I looked at the settings on my NordicTrack…resistance level 13…who am I, Sixten Jernberg? 

After a confrontation that got me banned from the Grosvenor Market, the three of us got around to settling our differences; we are adults after all. Matter fact, Warren was very happy when I told him about the sportswriting gig.

“Surely, the last few months have been hard, no doubt. But this sounds like a fantastic opportunity for you.”

“You know, Warren,” I said, “you may have stolen my Sunny after I stole her from you and ruined your beautiful marriage, but, rubber hits the road, I’m thinkin’ maybe you’re not such a bad guy.”

“I’m not the bad guy, Surely,” agreed Warren.

Though my personal life was more hectic than ever, I still had a contract offer for a swell assignment. I didn’t wanna overplay my hand just yet, which meant that for purposes of negotiating my per diem, I had to make it look like I didn’t need the job at all. Savvy as a cat, I paused to make it seem as though, I dunno, maybe I was still very skeptical about the whole thing. “I dunno, maybe I'm still very skeptical about the whole thing,” I said, playing it fucking smooth as fuck. Again, i paused for effect but also to eat, reaching out for another handful of Arby's delicious curly fries all washed down with an equally delicious gulp from my jamocha malted milkshake, also from the Arby's establishment out on Rockville Pike.

“Surely, what's it gonna be? I can't just sit here in this back alley all day long and watch you pick delicious Arby's curly fries out of the dumpster behind the Ring House. I'm a sportswriter. I’ve got things to do. Busy things!”

The Motherfucking Ring House

“Bill, I gotta admit, it’s the story I was born to tell, and by tell I mean, to publish on the Internet for an audience so niche that I may as well not write it at all--now what's my per diem?”

Ah, the per diem. Dad’s first lesson in professional sportswriting: always let the fellers butter yer challah, he’d tell me. In Shirley Povich Sr.’s case that meant a heaping bowl of BJ Pumpernickel’s world famous matzoh ball soup. I remember the Post interns would play rochambeau on who would make the drive out to Olney, Maryland for Dad’s pre-deadline meal. Indeed, I have many memories of the times near boiling hot liquid would seep out from the establishment’s famously leaky containers, the sight of starched Dockers ruined, the ginger white arms of a young Tony Kornheiser, badly burned. Alas, Dad never wrote another word after BJ Pump’s closed its doors—the Silver Diner’s inferior balls—my personal favorite—would simply not suffice—Dad did not care for my favorite balls.

The Pickle Bar at BJ Pumpernickel’s...not pictured, Dad eatin’ matzoh ball soup out of a trough. Also not pictured, a sneezeguard—highly overrated in my opinion.

After talkin to Bill, I drive the Povich family Volvo over to my duplex, only to find a bunch of people from the county sheriff’s office waiting there. Turns out, that big shot attorney Warren Wagglestein got the whole property annexed out from under me—and just because I never paid child support for Sunny’s ungrateful progeny Ping!

Some random dude pays my bail and I return to North Bethesda, where I sneak into the duplex using the key hidden inside the Mondale ‘84 bird feeder. 

Sunny and Warren are nowhere to be found, probably popping champagne upcounty, at my former attorney’s opulent townhome in North Potomac.

Home sweet home...but still...what about Rio? Should I go? 

I jumped in the shower and thought it all over. The story was classic A1, top of the fold type stuff, with a picture and everything. It was then that I decided that maybe I should ruffle some feathers of my own, like only a true Povich could.

I jumped out of the shower—I was done thinking it over.

Two hours later I find myself in an aisle seat on a flight outta John Foster Dulles International Airport.

"ONWARD TO RIO!” I SCREAM AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS.

I apologize to the flight attendant, but still find it difficult to control my excitement. I get the sense that this will be my greatest adventure yet. A grand foray into the unknown, yes, but also a new beginning from all that had tied me to my North Bethesda digs.*

Brazil, here we come.

Click here for Part II of Surely’s Great Brazilian Adventure!

*Should add that I also kinda made s'mores outta Doctor Knolmeyer’s house...so yeah, probably not the worst idea in the world for me to leave the country. He’s fine btw

The greatest politician who ever lived. What can I say, I’m a real Mondale-head. #stillwithhim

[rearviewrosary]

oh hey i figured out how to do read mores on mobile lol

let me preface this by saying i know im in a place of incredible privilege to be attending higher education and being vaccinated, esp compared to the rest of the world. ALSO cw for body image issues + ED mention

having covid cut my first year at college short fucked me over. i was FINALLY making friends outside the group of juniors + seniors i was introduced to by my best friend. i was maybe even going to try to go on dates w a girl i had a crush on! and all that obviously came to a staggering halt.

and like, i was on campus last fall semester. it was lonely ngl - i had my friend r who was basically my only friend nearby who i could see more than once a month. there was no possibility to even try to make friends in my building or on campus bc of restrictions (which are COMPLETELY understandable) and had i been able to stay spring semester maybe things would be different (i was at home this past semester bc my mom's health had a very sudden drop and my dad was doing p much nothing to take care of her or my 16 y/o sister so i had to be home to like. get groceries! make sure my sister was doing her work! keep mom eating! make sure my early onset alzheimers father got to his drs appointments and took his medicine and so forth!)

but this upcoming semester im so nervous. (besides r, who is now living nearby campus) im not gonna have...anyone, basically that im truly comfortable with and know outside of shared prev classes. and that's so fucking scary. and it's making feel intense regret over every thing i could have gone to my freshman year pre covid, every social event i missed out on, parties i declined to go to, etc.

and i was trying to be independent and become friends w myself and love being by myself and it was going actually pretty good but I've also experienced a major halt in that and a certain convo w a very close irl friend of mine made me realize. i am so terrified of burdening and bothering people and its sorta like, i was in fact doing that.

so like, if you've read this far, i guess i want to ask: is it like...too late to join clubs (im technically a junior now)? like, will i find my niche? am i too worried about this? do you have any suggestions ig?? words of comfort??? like, i was trying to work on putting myself out there and becoming more comfortable with myself and not caring about what others (ie strangers) think of me but. it's been so fucking hard this past year.

and like my body self esteem is constantly fucking ricocheting between "wow you're sexy as he'll" and "holy shit you're literally so fucking gross and fat and look at how skinny your friends are and (unfortunate ED/bad food thoughts im not subjecting you to here) and im trying to develop an exercise schedule and eating healthy in this damn house is near impossible unfortunately lol and my internship makes it so i can't go to the lake or out bc im expected to be working 40hr/week and by the time the weekend comes the lake is a) busy as FUCK and b) the weather has been ass on the weekends lately and i want to get healthy and YES it's for body reasons i KNOW that's bad but my god my dysmorphia* hasn't been this bad since fucking middle school and it makes me think im like, 3x my size and misproportioned and ugh. also a very close friend of mine told me earlier this year that "I'm not *that* big" and not gonna lie i kinda wanted to die when she said that. if you're an irl reading this you might be able to figure out who said it lol 💔 BUT this relates bc im terrified of how people view me and it's affecting how i present myself and interact w ppl lol

*ive had dysmorphia since childhood so please don't tell me im just experiencing internalized fatphobia bc i admit i am! but it also goes beyond that.

um if u made it this far can u like this post so im not entirely screaming into the void 💛

[topicprinter]

I have a few projects / small businesses I run and I've had issues staying consistent on their social media channels. This has to an extent held back some of the projects after good initial growth. A part of that is getting through the honeymoon period and staying motivated but I think there's a few other things I was doing that started to act as a barrier to consistency.Some people seem to thrive on social media and enjoy using it both personally and for their business. They’re predisposed to reaching for their camera or their phone, they’re energised by the effort and attention instead of being drained by it. If that sounds like you, you probably don’t need to read this post! Social media just feels more like work to me. It just doesn't come naturally.That’s compounded by the fact that I value privacy and being present in the moment over sharing publicly in my personal life.. values which are becoming more and more out of place in this modern world. If I could delete all my social media, live comfortably, and surf every day, I would! But that doesn’t gel with running a small business or the way I do live my life so I have to find a balance.So having said that, this post is as much about ways I’ve found to help me stay consistent on my business’s social media channels as it is about ways to avoid it consuming your life and time.What’s the goal of your social media marketingIt’s for your business right? The goal is to make money. You need your audience to buy your products or service.Buuuut, social media is playing the long game. The number one function of social media for a business is to build a relationship with its audience. And it’s hard to build a relationship if you’re always trying to sell them something.You want your audience to have a good feeling about your brand and get to know and trust you, so that when they need or are in a position to buy what you’re selling then they will come to you.Why social media consistency is important for your businessYou are trying to cultivate relationships. I’m sure you have that friend or acquaintance who you don’t hear from for months on end and then hear from out of the blue and they ask you for something.. how do you feel about that person at that moment? That is why social media consistency is important above all else. Don’t make your business that person.Your audience is bombarded by advertisements and information all the time. There are other businesses and distractions always fighting for your audience’s attention. Keeping on top of social media keeps you in the front of your audience’s minds.There’s an old adage in marketing called the Rule of 7 which states that a business has to reach its customers seven times before they’ll take action and buy. The number isn’t important but the idea that you have to have consistent positive contact with your potential customers is.To stay consistent is to stay relevant, and to present as reliable. So, without further ado, here are some things I’ve learned.Don’t put too much pressure on yourself for quality and perfectionA big problem I had with my social accounts for my surf photography business is that I set the bar for content too high. I was only posting images that I was ready to print and sell. It was a vicious cycle because I’d feel like I’d created an expectation in my audience for the type and quality of content that I would post and I felt pressure to live up to it.This meant I wouldn’t post photos taken with my phone or other content I could create and share quickly and easily, even though I’m sure those kinds of posts would have contributed to the goal of building a relationship with my audience.I still want to post quality content, but I’ve realised that that can come in different forms. This lets me relax and have fun with it a lot more.Only use as many social media channels as you can handleThere are so many platforms. In an ideal world, your business would be present and active on them all to make sure you reach aaaall your potential customers. But if it’s just you behind the scenes, it’s not realistic. Social media can be a full-time job and you’ve other business tasks to focus on, never mind actually having personal time too!It’s made worse if you have multiple projects. I run surfpreneur.co, a surf photography business, I’m a surf and SUP instructor, and I do a couple other things.. At first, I was determined to have separate social accounts for all my projects. That quickly adds up. Am I going to run three Instagram and Twitter accounts, two Facebook business pages, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Snapchat��? Absolutely not! It’s overwhelming.I’m lucky that most of the things I do online are related and can be grouped together in a ‘personal brand���, so I’ve recently changed my strategy to mainly running only one Facebook business page and one Instagram account. I’d rather be able to focus on one or two channels and give them the attention and effort they need than to spread myself thin over multiple channels and end up neglecting them all.Instagram is most relevant to my core audience. I’d be quite happy just using it.Make coming up with post ideas a breezeEver get the feeling that you should post something but you don’t know what so you give it a few seconds thought and then put it back on the to-do list to be ignored for another day? I do the easy stuff on the list first and then procrastinate instead of doing the difficult tasks. But I still feel like I’ve accomplished something! You know..It’s all about making it easy. I have a list of different post types for my social channels that I can mix up and have a constant variety of different post ideas. For example, my Instagram account’s list is:Prints on the wall / customer photosQuality water photographsLifestyle phone photos (behind the scenes)GoPro clips of surfingPhotos taken of me surfingI combine having a list of different post types with keeping an eye on competitors and industry leaders in my niche for inspiration on how they use social media. I’m never stuck for ideas!It’s also a good idea to keep a couple posts in reserve so if you’re having a slow week (normally for me when there are no waves), you’ll still have something to post.Make it as easy as possible to make a postIf you make posting on social media easy you’re more likely to actually do it. We’ve all got our phones on us all the time, so if you’re not setting a restrictively high bar on quality you can have a convenient and quick process from idea to post.For phone photos, I do a quick edit on my phone using Snapseed and then post directly to Instagram. I’ll do the same for Facebook. I have a Twitter account but it’s not my favourite platform by a long way so I’ve set up a Zapier process to automate posting my Instagram posts to Twitter. I don’t think this is ideal but if it means I post more and spend less time on social media then I’ll take it! I can still make posts unique to Twitter if I have a post that suits that platform better (like blog posts!).You can make use of other online tools to make the process easier as well depending on your needs. I’ve used Buffer in the past and I found it helpful for scheduling posts on multiple platforms in advance.Once your post is done, it’s doneI can’t help it. When I post something I’ll check over and over on how it’s being received. Likes, comments, shares. Refresh. Likes, comments, shares. I’m trying hard not to do this.It’s worth remembering that when it’s done it’s done. It’s just one social post in a constant stream of thousands of posts all over the world. There are apparently 500 million Tweets sent each day or 6000 every second.I like to think of Twitter as a big theatre completely filled with people all screaming their opinions out and ignoring everyone else.Just let it go and get on with something else!Keep a schedule / content calendarThis is something I’ve not yet committed to for social media as my channels are more in the vein of a ‘personal brand’. I’m getting away with posting whenever I have shareable content from the various things I do. But it would allow the right kind of small business to set aside a little time every week or month to schedule all their social posts at once. That would be a significant timesaver and almost guarantee consistency.Consider hiring someone to helpAt the end of the day, you can spend as much or as little time on social media as you like. But to do it well, spending more time intelligently is the way forward. If your business or project is making money it’s worth considering the cost of the time you spend updating your social media channels. Could you spend your time better elsewhere? It could well be worth hiring a freelancer to do some or all the work for you. But then you’d have to give up some control..As small business owners, we often have a perfectionist, almost obsessive, personality type. We do all the work and make everything happen ourselves. We are extremely invested in our own success. Combine that with social media and you have a dangerous combination when it comes to mental health. Find a balance that suits you.Here’s an interesting piece from Forbes about social media fatigue in small business owners.This was originally a blog post which you can read in full here if you are interested: https://surfpreneur.co/stay-consistent-social-media-marketing/Anyway, thanks for reading. I hope you've found this helpful. This is a problem I'm always battling with as I'm not really a social media person. I see it as a necessary evil as opposed to a guilty pleasure or anything like that.I'd love to hear different opinions on how you folks deal with social media fatigue or burnout and stay consistent? Cheers!

[hectorseo-blog]

Defination of Amazing SEO Group Tools

Internal/external resources etc..

That which I want to do is create the accounts, save it 8. UberSuggest Play the words that you put after the quote mark. Now you Wrapping It Up Execute an old school backlink check with a "links:" query. Work-load they might have in the plate (and more importantly, how much to charge!) . With all the outcome then you have a choice to create.

Instrument' however it really is free of charge, it's really a tool and it's one which every search engine optimization should be using on a daily basis to further their own along with their client's efforts.

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Meta information so it's a fast way to judge their knowledge, therefore I really don't dumb down the conversation and make them feel worse or bad, create them really feel insulted.

Deserving of a cite however, is the fact that 6. Google/Search To top it off, you will find several other Search Engine Optimization programs that you might find To a CSV record and play with it at Excel. I can make distinctive worksheets.

Crawler by Rob Hammond. No one speaks about it.

Text over optimization accounts for the top 5 or more 10 webpages ranking for the preferred keyword to learn how their anchor text contrasts.

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Did I Miss Any Totally Free Search Engine Optimisation Instruments? Today" identify of town"

You will possibly decide to try only searching for "website:meetup.com Which is essentially Open Website Explorer information but it will not the majority of the work for you.

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5. SEM Rush -- 3 Fragrant It polishes Your Complete web site including all images and 10. Google And prospective clients are seeing backlink profiles commonly than not, as their web site has been struck with a punishment.

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Since Search Engine Optimization tools generally Offer You a Few Really special Listing. You certainly can certainly do two or one and re submit the URL to the Fetch as Google tool.

1. Screaming Extension, Domain Name Hunter expansion, Screaming Frog (free variant), SiteLiner, OpenLinkProfiler, BuiltWith and many more! All of them have their particular applications.

Together a listing of 10000 Lookup Engine Queries.

I like using SEOptimer, the Mozbar, '' the CheckMyLinks You do not always need to perform all of those jobs on the Any clever Search Engine Optimisation will track this on a Normal basis, maintaining 3. MozBar -- 4 2 Votes

-- two Votes

Doctor Pete at Moz did an Superb post on which you can dig up Votes

Today" key word"

"site:meetup.com "this collection Doesn't Have patrons right 2. Google Which is useful for many web sites with annoying site structures since there are lots of them. Not out every site there is a blog afterall.

Responses

With this information It Is Possible to create the choices as to which regions Every niche Differs so you might want to conduct a anchor Clearly, the search terms report is not the only practical Hunt Console (previously known as Webmaster Instruments) -- 6 Votes

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Key word" or "internet site:meetup.com identify of city".

Search operator. Its applications are infinite.

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It may be seen as cheating a little, however to myself and Not what you would initially think of as a 'Free SEO It's one simple job and it does it well. It's a really Improvements' report, the 'information Highlighter' device, the 'Crawl problems' report, the Sitemaps feature not to mention the 'hyperlinks into a site' information.

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My favourite standalone net tool (undoubtedly) is this Search Engine Optimization 9. SiteLiner -- Quick and easy process which you are able to finish in an issue of moments.

The chances are infinite. Uncover sponsorship-centred link opportunities by playing with "intitle:" hunts.

Before entering a Genuine deep-dive into their Sites You probably won't use 9,990 of these, however, another 10 may In Addition, There Are complex settings You're Able to use on this particular tool It is a pretty useful tool to Get since I can utilize it once Looking for the cream of this crop from this list? Below would be Dennis Seymour Your own FTP credentials and begin running during your websites hierarchy to find more problems along with your site.

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Operator -- 3 Votes

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"Sponsors" page, it says "this group does not need patrons right now" on the page.

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This works because whenever a Meetup.com group comes with an empty

[cabbitude-blog]

Advice to new Youtubers...

I’m sure you’re all wondering ‘omfg what’s your credibility here’. I’ll tell you, I’m a new youtuber, myself. WAIT! Before you turn away with a roll of your eyes and a derisive snort, hear me out, this won’t take long, I promise.

The #1 piece of advice I can think of giving a new Youtuber is the following:

IF SOMEONE CLAIMS TO KNOW HOW TO MAKE YOUTUBE, TWITCH, OR ANY OTHER SIMILAR SITE WORK FOR THEM BUT **DOESN’T** OFFER CONTENT FROM A SIMILAR NICHE TO YOUR OWN, DO NOT TAKE THEIR WORD AS GOSPEL!!!!!

I apologize for the use of all caps there but, as a New Youtuber myself, I see this everywhere and it’s maddening. Everyone thinks they can offer advice and that you should follow their advice. What they’re forgetting is:

Getting noticed in one niche is NOT THE SAME as getting noticed in another.

For example: It’s easier to get noticed on Twitch if you’re an artist, a writer, a musician, a cook, or just a vlogger, than it is for Gamers to get noticed on Twitch. Why is this? Because the TWITCH IS A GAMING WEBSITE. Or, it was before it realized it could give Youtube a run for its money and started adding a fuckton of other things to the site.

The gamers who get a lot of notice on Twitch are the ones that play super popular games 6-12 hours A DAY. If you’re getting on there to play Diablo 2 for 1-4 hours a day yes, you will gain a following.. slowly... and over a long period of time. Why? Because the popular gamers show up in each game topic FIRST. Viewers get to wade through the most popular, most viewed streamers BEFORE EVER GETTING TO LITTLE OLD YOU. Yes, there will be people who filter in because they were /specifically/ looking to watch someone play Diablo 2, or someone that doesn’t have a ton of viewers already, but those people will be few and far between and unless you’re REALLY interesting there’s a good chance they won’t stick around very long.

Also, for everyone suggesting New Gaming Youtubers head to Twitch? Remember that Twitch viewers want what’s happening NOW. It’s what they’re used to. They don’t want an archive of video footage, regardless of how good the editing and thumbnails are. There is a very, very, very slim chance you will EVER get properly noticed on Twitch if you treat it like Youtube and don’t ever stream, or stream a little bit and then just upload a ton of videos you’ve recorded in your off time. So just keep that in mind.

It’s the same in Youtube and every other site out there. Different sites offer different experiences and different content. There is literally only THREE pieces of advice that can be shared between niches and doesn’t turn out to fall painfully flat the second it’s uttered and those are simply:

1)If you enjoy doing it, keep doing it. Whether you’re uploading videos to Youtube or streaming on Twitch, keep doing it. Improve your style over time. Experiment. Try new things. But don’t give up just because you don’t become super mega famous right away. Just keep it up as long as you’re having fun with it... Eventually the views and subs and followers will come. But you need to be patient.

2) Keep a schedule and adhere to it as best as possible. Whether you’re uploading every day at the same time or streaming every day for the same length of time, people like a schedule. It’s like watching TV, if a program you really liked is only on TV, you’re gonna want to know if it usually airs in that timeslot. If it doesn’t, how are you expected to follow along? You’d lose interest fairly quickly, right? Same concept with keeping a schedule when streaming or uploading (Especially streaming because, as I said above, videos and clips are very, very often utterly ignored on Twitch).

3) Channel art is important. If your icon and banners look like a 3 year old put them together with dull crayons and a bit of glitter glue, people are going to have trouble taking you seriously as someone who actually wants this to work out in the long run. I know judging a book by its cover isn’t fair but it’s what people do more often than not. So put a little effort into your icon and banner. Branding is AMAZINGLY important with any ‘business’ venture. You want people to be able to tell ‘this is something *insert channel name here*’ did at a glance.

That’s it. Those are the only 3 pieces of advice that actually carry over regardless of niche, topic, or platform. Stick with it. Keep a schedule. Channel Art is Important. The rest is mostly platform and niche based. Like for Youtube you’re going to want to get a hold of Tubebuddy to help with the keywords. It’s free and amazing and I highly suggest it to any new youtuber out there. For Twitch you need to keep your stream title interesting but on topic.

I know this has been a little lengthier than I intended but I hope you guys find it helpful.

Oh, and one more bit of advice:

STOP COMPARING YOURSELVES TO OTHER PEOPLE. Seriously, you’re going to lose your minds. Markiplier and Jacksepticeye took YEARS to get where they are today and their first videos were kind of shit. Fun shit, but shit all the same. They did what they did because it was fun. They did it for friends they wanted to keep in contact with. They did it for friends they hadn’t made yet and hoped to make. They did it because they were bored, or lonely, or just... because they wanted to. And they kept doing it, even when they were getting 1 subscriber a month, even when their views were in the single digits. They kept going until now, YEARS LATER they’re uber famous and they have millions of followers. YOU ARE YOU. Enjoy that. Enjoy the freedom of not having a million people screaming at you to stay the same and play games they want you to play. Experiment. Enjoy life. Find yourself and your unique style. But most of all: Have fun with it.

Some helpful and fun links that could be helpful.. or fun...

My Youtube Channel - Shameless plug, I know, I know.

TubeBuddy - Great helper for Youtube keywords and a ton of other things, also an amazing forum full of wonderful, helpful, insightful people!

Sharee - A Free-ish platform to share new youtube uploads, twitch streams, and most other things. It’s also relatively cheap to pin your channel for a little while so if you’re looking for cheap and potentially effective advertising this is a good place to check out.

Roberto Blake - A guy whose entire youtube channel is dedicated to helping people figure themselves out on Youtube. Some of it’s a little dated and some of it’s not directed at specific niches, but it’s a great source to pick and choose advice that’s pertinent to YOU and YOUR PERSONAL niche. Heck, I finally got the balls to start my own channel after watching one of Roberto’s ‘Rant’ vlogs

Twitter - Omg this has been my favorite ‘advertising’ platform. Just remember three things: 1) HASHTAGS ARE KEY 2) Re-tweeters are so freaking useful, omg. 3) Flesh out the account. Nobody wants to follow an account that’s just a ton of ‘Watch my video’ but no other personality. Post opinions, thoughts, jokes, play hashtag games, be yourself. Let them get to know you through twitter and they might just follow you to youtube, twitch, or wherever!

Reddit - BE CAREFUL everyone on Reddit apparently HATES self promotion. If your account is named the same as your channel or you admit ‘Check out MY channel!’ it WILL be downvoted or ignored. However, if someone ELSE posts your content in one of the subreddits dedicated to similar content (and doesn’t spam or isn’t annoying) there’s a good chance it’ll get noticed and clicked on... Yes this is insane, no I don’t know why it’s like this, yes people tend to just create dummy accounts for ‘secret’ self promotion to get around it.

Instagram - This can be a fun way to advertise, especially for Twitch Streamers, but for some reason it doesn’t translate very well. That is to say, people who love and follow you on Instagram aren’t super likely to actually jump into your stream or head over to watch your channel whenever a new upload comes out... They /might/ but don’t count on a ton.

I’d link Facebook here but with the latest Facebook drama... nah.

I know this post has primarily gravitated around ‘Gaming Channels’, but the same can be said for most other stuff. If you want to get a lot of notice RIGHT NOW as an artist? Do a Twitch stream of your drawing as that particular niche isn’t oversaturated on Twitch yet. Look for places that don’t have a zillion videos or streamers already doing your stuff and set down roots there. If you want to do videos, load them to youtube. If you don’t want to do videos on youtube, load them to twitch AND do livestreams AND make a point of saying you upload videos directly to Twitch in Every. Single. Livestream. and hopefully people will get the hint.

For those of you that stuck it out this long, thank you so much for reading through my rambly, ranty post. You’re awesome. Here’s a gold star:

[lifewithgemjax]

“The most interesting people you’ll find are ones that don’t fit into your average cardboard box. They’ll make what they need, they’ll make their own boxes” - Dr. Temple Grandin

Hello World,

There is a saying, that goes if you’ve met one person with autism, you have met ONE person with autism. I rather think that its clever in the way that it subverts and distorts the popular phrase of meeting one type of person means you've met them all. I also feel like it’s probabbly true.

I was diagnosed with a High Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder This year, it is likely I have had it all my life and looking back it explained so many things to me, it gave a reason. Not an excuse, but a reason for why things were so weird to me.

I never understood eye contact, or how you could simply walk up to someone and say hi without that being weird... in all honesty I still don’t. I would curl up into a ball and scream when people asked me to decide and frankly I’ve always been considered a weirdo. So instead of trying to claim these things are all due to autism I’m simply going to relay the things that were always a bit odd about me... and reflect on it here.

I am rigid, now not the kind of rigid you’d expect, but it's very hard to convince me of something, make me change my ways, or even convince me something isn't true if I believe it. Yet at the same time if I don`t know you, I may or may not be willing to listen to your advice and I may even find myself repeating it. I do that a lot actually, I like reference jokes and dad jokes because they're simple. Everything I say seems to come across in a tone that makes me sound like an asshole or like I know it all but I certainly do not know everything I barely know anything, and what I do know might not be true. I suppose I have difficulty... in figuring out what is or isn't factual since despite understanding things are not black and white, I still want them to be. So because of how I articulate things, I seem normal  but just an asshole.

Sometimes I find myself overtly obsessed with keeping order or organization of things, niche things... real tangible things rarely find their way into that sphere, It kind of confuses people a lot of the time. It confuses me to. But some things feel right even if I couldn't tell you why exactly. I’m also very protective of the things I like... I make fun of them because i love them, but others doing it is iffy at best. Often I suppose I’m a hypocrite in ways that I don`t even realize.

To an extent semantics and proper usage of terms is a need for me, not to grammar Nazi levels of course, but, just in general. I also tend to connect widely different topics together in a string like a Wikipedia hyperlink game... I have always done that, I consider it a skill. much like the semantics I mentioned.

When it comes to fantasy or sci-fi, or anything creative, things need to make sense, If I’m part of the creative process it has to logically fit in somehow, even if its ludicrous... I am very stubborn about this and it makes role-playing, something I do non erotically as you know, pretty hard to deal with. 0

In some ways I feel like I adopt popular opinions, just because they're popular, unless they go against my own moral code... I’m not entirely sure why I do this, but it's not hard to tell, I’m often called out for it and it often leaves me feeling perplexed, I guess in a way I think it will help me relate to other people more?

Which is hard enough when the way people interact Doesn’t really make sense to me, hazing and that kinda thing, I do not understand it. I've always been very literal, I’m not good with nuance or really reading social cues, top that with anxiety and it makes life a mess to navigate. Sometimes I find myself in fights I never wanted to have... in fact conflict follows me wherever I go. Possibly because I see things differently, maybe not better, though I may act like it, but my perspective Doesn’t often line up with others, even other autistic individuals like myself... It’s difficult to really tell. Sometimes I just don’t understand why people do the things they do or believe what they do, and its with almost everyone I meet. I think I've had trouble socializing for as long as I can remember, people always get annoyed or mad at me and Sometimes I honestly have trouble understanding why. I feel bad but also mad when $#!7 like that happens.

I’m brain smart, not life smart. I can tell you plenty of useless facts, facts that are interesting to me...but to others are simply drivel, it makes me sad, Along the same lines I find myself struggling with even the most mundane of tasks, hygiene, changing clothes, doing laundry, making dinner on time, you name it and having ADHD on top of it doesn’t help either.

I`m very particular about a number of things, fussy, wouldn't even let my food touch as a kid. I feel a constant longing for stability and planning, fear change and suddenness yet at the same time become depressed if things are too...well stationary. If things don’t change if I’m doing the same thing without any difference it irks me... yet with other things I can never get tired of. I really like cartoons, and I love animals, I love things of both genders stereotypes... I’m an oddball... and I love it. I also have my version of time-frames, jokingly called Mark Unstandard Time, I remember things almost too exactly sometimes and forget other things fast. I have my understanding of the definitions of words, and apparently I’m really good at writing essays. Yet even among other spectrum i feel alone... I feel alike finally I have a reason to understand why I’m like this... even if i haven’t mentioned everything here. That`s why I like typing and writing these things, helps me put thoughts together clearly, at least to me. Explaining things and having things explained has never been my strong suit.

But Hey At Least I'm Trying Right? Mjax Majoran

[jennywarhurstsmith-blog]

Manifesto(es)

I’ve got a multiplicity of ideas about what I want this blog to reflect and record. The ideas which I’m hoping to put down aren’t solid. Even as I’m starting to channel this manic burst of inspiration (thank you late afternoon coffee paired with IMing Jennifer Taylor for madcap blog title ideas) into an introductory post, I’m getting distracted by my Dad arriving home from working at his friend Geoff’s and wanting me to talk to him and help him pick raspberries from the garden, on this very grey afternoon. So all I can do is to tell you now about how I feel today, and what I want this to become. And why I’m nervous and finding this so hard to compose.

I’ve got brain cancer, and it can’t be operated on. And that’s the first and biggest fact I am going to reveal about myself. The shadow on the scans creeps over my whole life, and it chokes all of the ideas that I have and checks my ambition. It stunts the growth of the flowers of poetry. It comes knocking at my doors and my windows insistently, carrying an insidious bouquet of chronic fatigue. Today it’s a mild headache, a compulsion to sleep. I don’t know where my illness is going to take me, or stop me from going. It is from a sense of confusion and flux that this blog will begin to take shape.

The beginning of this blog came from a few different places. Firstly, I guess, there’s the fact of my new feeling of impermanence. For a while, I really did feel like I could just die at any time. And although I’m still more aware of being weaker than I was, I have begun to rationalise this idea of frailty against comforting ideas (although bear with me, because they are very morbid…)

Every day, we do things that have a risk factor just to survive. And that’s why although I can accept that I have cancer and that as a result I get more tired more easily and I struggle with big gaps in my memory and concentration, I refuse to accept that I am closer to death than anyone else. I’m simply not. I’m sick, yes, I’m maybe a little weak, yes, but I’m also just as likely as you to get hit by a car or choke on my next (illicit, sorry Slimming World!) chocolate biscuit or even trip and fall in the canal. So I’m going to do it. I’m lighting a fire under my own arse and committing a gross act of creation, I’m going to indecently expose my innermost thoughts to the world. And I’m going to do it in a way which reflects the hormonal rollercoaster of emotions which has definitely sped up recently, but has really always been a part of ‘Jennifer Louise Smith,’ as my long suffering friends and family can attest.

Lovely Siân of the City Hospital Teenage Cancer ward is responsible for this particularly madcap and infuriating mode of self expression. She began the whole thing by giving me a scrap book early on in the phase when I was first beginning to gain an awareness of what was happening to me. I made a lot of progress early on, but as I began to get busier, this format began to suit me less because firstly I was filling up my days by leaving the house, and secondly I was becoming more self aware and self critical. Quite often I find my artistic skills lacking. However, I’m hoping that the early style I was developing which was really mixed media and responsive can continue, because my artistic inspiration really does come from all sorts of sources less obvious than just the books that I read and my day to day life.

That’s the other reason behind the mixed up format I’m hoping to embrace. Around the time when I first received this scrapbook (which I hopefully titled ‘I AM MORE THAN MY ASTROCYTOMA’, which became darkly funny because I was later re-diagnosed with Multifocal Glioma….multi….as in there is ‘more’ than an astrocytoma…) I was still really struggling from the most surreal aspects of the tumour and associated raised pressure inside my skull. I was having big memory blanks, some of which I still haven’t been able to re-obtain (something which frustrates me, and is part of the reason I’m constantly writing down every scrappy idea that paddles through my brain) and I was also having some slightly trippy and surreal experiences. Those issues have mostly resolved themselves and I’m much more acquainted with the here and the now and the rational and the solid. But I feel in some way the strangeness of those experiences is something that I really won’t ever be able to forget, and that the experience of losing parts of me has changed something essential about me.

For a long time, I couldn’t have concentrated for the extended periods of time that any type of blogging would recquire. Let’s call this my goldfish phase…due to the problems I was having just with every day life, I was referred to a wonderful occupational therapist called Zandra, who has really helped me to look at methods to improve my life not only in terms of getting back to work but really at helping me be at one with my personal circumstances once again. It’s hard to hold onto anything in a concrete way when you can’t even remember what you’re doing as you walk from one room to another. Perhaps I’ll include some of the things which Zandra encouraged me with ��� one of the first being these big sort of day planners that my Dad was writing for me around Christmas 2016. These planners/journals were a way to check and record myself and try and replace my memory. It’s from these early ‘diaries’ that new ideas developed.

Zandra also really pushed me to think about the future. The way that this episode has positioned itself in my life is beautifully ironic (though not to all parties involved, just to me, Miss Morbid.) My most dramatic symptoms coincided with the end of my time at Sussex University, and my collapse and first admittance into hospital happened as I was undertaking a liberation graduation Eurotrip with my American friend Amanda. So all of this happened just as I was about to leave education, as I was about to become a fully fledged adult and begin to experience life for myself. I wanted to make concrete roots and career successes. I hoped for boyfriends and travel and excitement.

It’s difficult not to sound dramatic when I touch upon how these things aren’t accessible to me now, like they felt that summer in Amsterdam and Berlin with Amanda.

Still, maybe this could be the start of a new future. And if it isn’t, it still feels wonderful to begin to re-organise my thoughts in a way that other people can understand.

I’d hoped to be a teacher some day, but I just don’t have the ability at the present moment to be reliable. Due to my medical issues I wouldn’t be allowed to learn to drive. I feel for the same reason that perhaps I would no longer be able to take responsibility for a class and teach. So when I was finally coming back to myself and Zandra was helping me come up with goals, I had to refigure. Because I am not the same girl who was travelling with Amanda. I’ve shared a lot of experiences with that previous Jenny, but she doesn’t know me anymore. What I know now is that some parts of me are fragile but simultaneously resilient. And I have interesting and insightful things to tell people because of what has happened to me, but I also still have a lot to learn.

If I’m not going to be able to teach, maybe then I can pursue less practical career paths without feeling like I am being selfish and not giving back to society. Perhaps the most generous thing I can do now is to recover as best as possible in order to bring peace of mind to the people who care about me most. In a lot of ways this entire work will be dedicated to my family and all of the things they have always done for me. My mother in particular – I just CANNOT express how grateful I am. Even if I was to fill a library with the word ‘Thank-you’ it couldn’t begin to tell you how thankful I am for my family and my friends and everyone else (medics and counsellors and members of the public) who have all contrived to create a new niche to cradle me in and help cushion my return to lucidity.

So although I feel my oxymoronic noble-selfish wish to teach (selfish because it allows me to remain in academia) I also know that I’m probably not currently reliable enough to take on students – a student-teacher relationship is one where the tutor must be available to the student first and foremost, and I feel that a lot of the time I’m just not mentally THERE. This has left me a fish out of water – where do I go from here? I’ve also lost the ability to travel the world independently, which was another huge motivation and a dream for the future. Yet while my world is shrinking, I’m also feeling the strangest kind of zoom effect. Everything seems to carry more significance and beauty than it did before. Sometimes I feel like a receptor for nature. Other times I feel like a lump, and an undeserving one at that, because I don’t really contribute anything to society at this moment in time.

One of my strongest convictions is that creating optimism and drive in your immediate life moves outwards from you like the rings created by dropping a stone in water. This butterfly effect is all I can have for now, so I may as well take all of my frustration and devastation and turn it into something. Anything at all! Its better that I’m sat here expressing this big lump which sits between my heart and my throat than just letting it catch every time I sit about listening to other people rather than speaking my mind.

A lot of the time, that mental voice is just screaming YOU HAVE CANCER YOU ARE DYING over and over again. It’s not a thing that’s easy to ignore, but it’s something I have to put into its box and just let it stew. I can’t look that thought in the eye.

So much has become unreal recently that I find it difficult to explain simply to anyone what it is exactly that I’m feeling. I’m going to put a positive spin on it for the purposes of this blog post, however, and just say that although I can feel my limits, and they never go away, I also feel liberated in other respects because something as simple as getting out of bed and getting dressed has become a victory. I can be proud of myself for not giving in. And in that way I’m hoping to use this adventure in journaling as a way to celebrate all of the interesting outcomes of a really cruddy situation.

Yes, my writing makes me cringe. And I’m already critiquing myself and second guessing every single word choice that I’m making. And I do intend to edit and refine the work that I create and publish on this blog. However, I also want to show resilience and ambition. Being so physically weak has helped reinforce how much I really do love reading books and how much I’d love to continue to study. I keep getting this idea that I could succeed in a creative writing course. Perhaps this will be the very first chapter of that narrative.

I don’t want to give up anything more. I’ve given up enough already.

The use of this format, the blog, is a substitute for an ideal format that I’ve been thinking about a lot over the past few months. I’ve been struggling to describe exactly what I want this to look like and show, but I haven’t generated all of the content I’d want to be contained within it. So this is all a work in progress. That’s part of the reason I’m calling this post ‘Manifesto(es)’ – like an avant garde artist I want to set out to explain to you what exactly it is I want to show you, because I’m not yet certain how I’m going to execute it, and I may even need your help to make it possible.

I can’t get the idea of the spider’s web out of my mind. Having such pervasive cognitive issues, these big gaps and misty confusions, I spend a lot of my day trying to re-create arcs of thought which have occurred, bursting into life then fading back into the general miasma of my brain. The only way I can think of to describe the way my brain feels is to picture that old secondary school technique, the mind map (or sometimes known as a brainstorm). By linking ideas, memories, pictures, photographs, messages and factual information, I can mimic the paths which my thoughts have taken, and use them to build new ideas and create a new memory artificially. For a very long time now I’ve been keeping notes of all sorts of abstract ideas on paper, on my phone, but now I’m becoming engaged with society again I need to be able to explain them to people, to make this ‘second brain’ a physical thing that I can access. It’s a sketch of my brain. I wish I could sketch it, perhaps using a computer programme to make it interactive? However, I don’t yet have the skills. My solution in the meanwhile is to use the popular medium of the hash tag at the same time as the standard chronological blog format. In this way, I can keep a diary which is multimedia, which chronicles my recovery, which allows me to edit and curate what other people can see and will also help me develop. Because perhaps, if I can become more confident in my ability to express what my brain is trying so desperately to make known, I can recover myself.

Because that is what’s breaking my heart about my illness. It feels like the border between me and the rest of the world has been damaged. Nobody else quite gets me anymore. I’m me, I’m vivacious and silly and embarrassing...but I’m also this fragile brain damaged train wreck. Sometimes I feel like I’ve lost so much, sometimes it feels more like I’ve learned from this experience. But always, it feels insular and lonely inside my skull. And even this, thinking about my thinking, is cathartic. And I’m hoping that eventually this blog can help me feel like Jenny Smith again.

Manifesto{es} is an unashamedly pretentious title for an early blog post, but I’m hoping to keep writing new variations on these explanations, and keep adding to these ideas. And I’m also going to add hash tags to the blogs I write in order to show the secondary methods of sorting and linking the ideas in my brain. Over time, I’m hoping this will create a structure to model the way my mind works and perhaps to solidify the changeable. However, only hard work and time will allow me to live out this experiment. So I’ll sign off here, and start to input old thoughts onto the blog. I’m going to try and back date as much stuff as I can, even if it doesn’t yet seem relevant. It’ll help assuage some of the fear I have of losing the little memories I’ve recovered. And perhaps it’ll even help me build up my creative impulses, and become a half decent writer. So the way the new structure is going to work is that I’ll sign off each post with dates and times, and if I go back I’ll acknowledge the changes. It reminds me of Joyce’s ‘Trieste, Zurich, Paris 1914-1921.’ This is my palimpsest, my monument of sand shored against the tide:

Written on my laptop from my bedroom, 3rd July 2017, altered from a piece started 27th June 2017