#like im very good at my job and im even expanding my responsibilities a lot but who gives a fuck since I made a couple mistakes

[girlcum-cumdump]

had the worst day at work oh my god i need to explode my manager with my mind

[lilgynt]

there’s no way to express that people keep randomly reaching out to me to talk daily and at length and keep pushing for my space in my life and i really don’t need or more importantly WANT that politely there’s no good way to say that politely

[coco-bee]

COCO'S REVIEW: BLUE'S STORY

Welcome to Coco’s Review! Where I review and breakdown episodes, movies and etc and overthink every tiny detail and/or give my thoughts and opinions :D !! THE STORY I’M ABOUT TO DISCUSS HAS TOPICS ABOUT S/A AND OTHER DISTURBING TOPICS PLEASE PROCEED WITH CAUTION !! Ok so this may not be something you’d expect me to cover but I wanted to discuss this series on my blog for a while now! Today I’m discussing Blue’s Story by Victaton!

Blue’s Story is a series by Victaton over on youtube that mixes gacha life 2 character designs along with animation. I like to think of the gl2 designs as character models and Victation expands on it through animation. The series doesn’t have proper episodes, its installments mainly continue music videos that go in a specific order. The story is about Blue, a man in his early 20s entering the company his older sister works in with a positive attitude only for it to fade away as a lot of women in his new job want to get in his pants and cause irreversible trauma on the poor guy. This series is meant to show how abuse in the workplace can happen and how s/a can be done anywhere and by anyone. It seems to be a response to the misconceptions of how men who are preyed on by women are not valid victims of s/a and how they should’ve enjoyed it or that only women can be victims (which is never true). Though keep in mind I’m not qualified to determine if the way the story conveys s/a and just abuse in general is shown accurately because I have not had these experiences myself but my heart goes out to the victims in the world who could resonate with Blue’s Story and I wish for nothing but happiness and peace for you guys. You all are very strong and deserved much better<3

I can tell Victation really touched people’s hearts and according to some people in the comments who are victims the story is pretty accurate to some experiences and some research has been put in this series which I heavily appreciate. So I’m happy people can feel seen with this!

So with this series I want to start off light and mention the animation- AND MY GOODNESS DOES THIS SERIES HAVE AMAZING ANIMATION!

I really love this art style that Vic has going on here

Like I said the gl2 designs seem to make the base and Vic uses their art skills to expand on it It really gives a dynamic feeling and you can hardly tell it’s gacha

Vic has a lot of dynamic poses and a great understanding of body language with these!

AND THE EXPRESSIONS<33 I LOVE THE WAY VIC DRAWS FACIAL EXPRESSIONS! IM SUCH A SUCKER FOR VERY EXAGGERATED AND STYLIZED FACES

And I’m not even showing the best parts! But I want to keep it as a surprise for those who are interested in watching the series. I just couldn’t stop praising the visuals enough! Vic is the most experimental gachatuber I’ve seen when it comes to the visuals!! I hope to talk with them sometime to get some tips or to post how their creative process works because THE ART IS SO GOOODDDDD! AND THE CHARACTER DESIGNS RADIATE SM PERSONALITY AND ADD TO THE SYMBOLISM AND UNDERTONES OF THE STORY! It’s so fun to see :D and the color associations are a very interesting character design choice! It helps add a very colorful look to what is otherwise a very heavy story and makes it very easy to distinguish the characters and give them certain color motifs. Anyway I want to talk about the characters in Blue’s Story! Mostly by order of their debut! And I’ll only talking abt the characters that have a big impact on Blue (So I won’t be talking abt Magenta or her brother) and the ones that don’t have a definite character (So the red eye people won’t be mentioned) Anyway now that that’s established the character I want to talk about first is well- Blue himself! After All this is his perspective we’re following

Also quick appreciation for the silly little Blues that Vic draws<3 Anyway Blue is the most interesting character I’ve seen in a gacha series. I like how Vic doesn’t use Blue as a representation or a role model for victims to take after but a person who goes through his own stories and has room to be human. You can see his descent in his own trauma and self loathing in his story. Which leads him to make mistakes and have a difficult time navigating his relationships and how to make meaningful connections. Seeing him go from confident and upbeat to quiet and reserved is so heartbreaking. What I find so great about Blue is that not everyone can relate to his situation but his thought process is near universal. I can relate to having to be in survival mode when it comes to relationships after being done dirty by different people. Not to mention people would do the same things Blue did, they just went through different experiences. It’s a really great touch to the writing. What’s also interesting I find about Blue are these different personas of different ways he handles the trauma caused by all these women.

This is sorta a mix of my interpretation of what these versions of Blue are plus what Vic actually calls them From left to right 1.Hypersexual Blue (confirmed) 2.Heart Eyes Blue (confirmed) 3. Reality Blue (not confirmed) 4. Cyan Blue (confirmed) 5. Numb Blue (not confirmed) I’ll expand more on these personas when I do a character study on Blue (which is something I REALLY wanna do sometime)

Next up is Pink Who is the first character we meet when Vic started this series

Pink is a married woman around Blue’s age who he engages in an affair with. And one of the women Blue has a significant relationship with throughout the series since Pink was the first one in the workplace to have her way with Blue. A truly manipulative bitch 💀 I don’t have much to say about her because Vic themself made a video discussing the women in Blue’s life and their thought process on writing them(?). So I’ll just give my thoughts! Pink is a very interesting case of the “Abused to Abuser” situation and not to mention how she’s not one dimensional. She’s an abuser to Blue but also a victim to a different man. (her husband) There are scenes where she is being a nice person (highlighted with her scenes with Lilac) but what’s preventing her from being good is her philosophy of how men cannot be victims. How could they be? To her the most heartless person she knows is a man, while it’s close minded, it’s understandable but not excusable why she perceives men this way. Which I find very interesting! There’s also a cool animation choice with her lipstick color! Her lips are white when she’s doing nice things or is not perceived as a bad person, then grey when it’s more neutral (I think) and finally black when she harms Blue. Hence why her kiss marks start from white to black.

What’s also interesting is that Blue pursues her first! Since he started out so confident and upbeat he wanted to try and shoot his shot with an attractive woman. But backs off when he learns that she’s married, but things didn’t go as planned. But I find it very interesting how that’s how things started. Next we have Purple who is the CEO or just the boss of the company Blue works in

Purple imo is definitely the most uncomfortable character to watch (what am I saying ALL the abusers make things uncomfortable to watch) but Purple just gives me a chill up my spine. Especially with her design, it has been confirmed by Vic that Purple is in her 40s and would prey on much younger people. First she attempted to prey on Red (who is confirmed to be 19), but was unsuccessful then went after Blue, and was successful.

Not to mention she’s very inconsiderate of her workers, example in the second part of “Baby Hotline”.

Up next we have Red! Who is my personal favorite in terms of how she is written and her design! (I do not condone her actions)

I love how Vic went for a more cutesy innocent look for Red!

But not without giving her sharp black nails to show how harmful she is

It really nails the message home on how anyone can be an abuser no matter how they look like. I also want to appreciate her little heart eye effect that Vic does with her that’s constantly looping like HOW DOES VIC DO IT- IT LOOKS SO DIFFICULT TO PULL OFF- I’m guessing it’s green screen With Red she is an obsessive stalker who has feelings for Blue and is constantly pursuing him even if he doesn’t return the feelings. It starts off as an innocent crush but turns into something more harmful. I don’t have much to say that’s not been said by Vic on their video. I just really want to appreciate how well designed she is and I rly like the heart motif she has. You can tell she’s a naive girl who can’t understand how harmful she is. I’ve met someone who was my equivalent to Red and while thankfully I had people who managed to protect me, doesn’t mean the harm did not get to me. While they were not as intense and Red, I was still being harassed verbally and I just didn’t feel safe. ALSO HOW DOES VIC DO HER HEART EYE EFFECT I NEED ANSWERS Now we have Lavender who is Blue’s SISTER

YEAH THATS RIGHT- SHE IS BLUE’S SISTER And I swear everytime I see her I just want to punch her in the goddamn face and wipe that stupid smile off her face- Lavender is an example of non-physical s/a and incest with how she had sexual thoughts about Blue and would show it through more subtle actions. Not to mention she’s also a bystander to Blue being abused by other women and doesn’t do ANYTHING about it. As an older sister myself with my own little brother- Lavender ENRAGES ME! I could never imagine doing what she did to my own brother. He drives me crazy but I’d protect him no matter what. What is fascinating about her design is definitely how her eyes are constantly closed, as if she’s turning a blind eye to the harm Blue is a victim of and/or how she’s hiding so many things. Especially with how she only opens her eyes when she’s preying on Blue.

SHE'S JUST AS TERRIFYING AS PURPLE Lastly we have Lilac! Who debuts in the same video as Lavender

WHO IS THE ONE PERSON THAT DOESN’T TREAT BLUE LIKE SHIT She’s a very fun character! She’s a single mom who works in the same company as Blue. She has a lot more significance in later installments so I won’t spoil but I just love her<3 She’s so sweet I just can’t- it’s such a breath of fresh air compared to the toxic waste Blue’s been getting from the other women. Her relationship with Blue is so interesting to watch and I am just rooting for them to at least stay friends.

(Also she looks so pretty here) AND THAT’S ALL THE CHARACTERS!!

Overall I really enjoy this series but I do have some gripes with it. The pace is definitely a bit much- so much can be happening in a span of a few mins. And there are stories that could rly benefit a longer time limit. This problem comes up most with “Baby Hotline” where I hardly understood what was happening. Like I got the gist but I didn’t get the specifics. It can be difficult to keep up with. So yeah the series could work with a longer timeframe- “Sweet Little Bumblebee'' is a great example! Not everything is too fast and everything makes more sense while “Baby Hotline” tried cramming a lot in one minute. Well the first part of ot, the second part of “Baby Hotline” was at a much better pace in my opinion but still a bit hard to keep up with at first.

Anyway in conclusion! Blue’s Story is a really interesting story that deserves the recognition it gets and is worth your time if you are into really deep stories with heavy subjects!

(Credit to Vitaton for all the art presented) This is Coco typing.. Thank you for reading!

[underthenightskydreamsneverdie]

HEAAAADCANNNONNNNNNNNNNSSSSS I need more 🫣 im a repeat offender

Can you please do HC for Ominis and Sebastian’s kinks 😳

LOVE YEEEEWWWWW

A repeat offender?!?!?! For me??? AWWWWW 😘 (I love repeat offenders, keep coming back)

Sebastian is the type of guy who is up for trying anything once. The few that he ends up liking the most would be:

Bondage - Yep, I said it. Our sweet Sebby loves letting go of the responsibilities of dominance every once in a while. He not so secretly loves when MC ties him up and he can do nothing but take what she gives him. He also loves to tie her up, but IMO it doesn't happen very often, him being too impatient to do it properly.

Along that same note, Sebastian is most definitely a Dom/sub dynamic kind of man. In my opinion he's 100% a switch, happily controlling a scene, or being submissive to MC. He loves the feeling of trusting power he gets when he's in Dom mode with MC. Telling her exactly what he wants her to do, knowing that she'll do it, only for him, is a huge confidence boost. In a (true/honest/good) Dom/sub relationship, the sub really holds all the power in sexual moments, giving the Dom all of their trust to take care of them. Sebastian loves being on both sides of that, earning her trust, and giving his own to her when the world is on his shoulders, needing a break from his responsibilities.

Impact play- Sebastian mostly likes spanking, the sight of his red handprint blooming on MCs ass is incredibly satisfying, a fleeting way of marking her as his own, her needy groans an added bonus. *I think Sebastian would make an EXCELENT Daddy Dom, but that may just be the Little in me talking. If you want me to expand on Daddy Dom Sebby let me know😉 **Also I want to make sure to add that Sebastian knows the importance of and is phenomenal at giving aftercare. Whatever is MCs favorite way to come down after a rough scene, making sure she feels his love after. Whether it's cuddles, a bubble bath where he gently messages the marks he left on her, or just whispering the reasons he loves her while he softly kisses her. Aftercare for him is usually just MC holding him until he's ready to face the outside world again. Omi is a bit tricker for me on this one, I honestly have a hard time seeing him being into many kinks that Sebastian is not, but let's give this a shot

Wax Play - I have no idea why but I think he would love the sensation of hot wax dripping onto his skin. Maybe it shows him that a small amount of pain isn't always a bad thing. 🤷‍♀️ Okay that was a short one for Ominis 🤦‍♀️ So let's talk about kinks they have in common

Public sex - maybe not an actual kink, but exhibitionism seems too strong. Neither boy minds getting frisky in a public place to some extent, if it means getting what they desperately want, the risk of being caught only making it better. Their favorite ways include, fingering MC in the back of class or in the library when she has been teasing them too much, quickies (or not) in the showers, and maybe a few hand jobs down by the lake. **I just finished a chapter of Sharing is Caring that is entirely about the trio having public sex.** Okay now that I've typed all this I think I've changed my mind about exhibitionism being too strong a word 😆 but hey, they're just young, dumb, full of cum teenagers, so desperate for each other and as someone who herself engaged in a little public sex today, I cannot say I blame them.

Erotic Asphyxiation - We all know that Omi and Seb have no reservations about wrapping a hand around MCs pretty little neck, but that's where it ends in my mind.

Just a touch of Verbal Humiliation - They love calling MC their little slut and sometimes even a whore. But ya know what, a strong girl like MC actually really likes it. They aren't wrong, and they know it's only for them, which makes it even better.

Nonny, I would just like to say I looked up a lot of kinks to do this ask justice there are a few I wish I hadn't discovered I hope you enjoy my choices

Also I feel like I gave a lot of myself away in this 🤷‍♀️🤦‍♀️😆

[whitexdove]

ough. i have thoughts on my rufus. i don't typically go into my thoughts on him/explore his character, typically just writing silly things or more lighthearted plotlines, but like... i really have thoughts.

it's pretty long. so yeet. a lot of speculation/kind of rambly, this is a post of me getting ideas in one spot. i'll probably expand on things later! but yeah.

potentially triggering content -- talk of abuse, neglect

like... yeah. his father wasn't around like he should have been, even had rufus in a separate house + had others raising rufus FOR HIM after rufus' mom left, but the fact that he (and im sure others) groomed rufus into taking over as president from an early age. while even if there was that chance that it could've gone to lazard instead, that's all rufus was ever going to be. even if he got to work other jobs before that, he never had a choice in what he got to do. with some of his experiences in shinra, he's very aware of how bad the place is. there's a resigned acceptance as he takes over, it's his responsibility. if he doesn't. someone worse will. he has to scramble to fix his father's mistakes.

the abuse and neglect. his father was not a stellar father, and maybe it's because reginald wasn't exactly shown how to be a good dad, but it doesn't matter. he was a bad father to rufus, he hurt his kid. it's physical and mental abuse -- leaving rufus with injuries he often had to hide. he got very good at relocating dislocated body parts. as well, ignoring and dismissing rufus' feelings. telling rufus to toughen up, not even trying to validate rufus' feelings and generally pushing rufus into the idea that maybe it was just rufus' fault. more things here, obvious signs of neglect and abuse, but it deeply affected rufus. he has severe trust issues, can't form or maintain new relationships, and so on. there's a long list. it's bad.

hypervigilance -- a result of trauma. constantly on edge, assessing threats around him. major trust issues, and mild people pleasing habits (these died very fast, but are pretty bad with the people he's close to). struggling with his own needs and suppressing parts of himself to avoid conflict.

his avoidant behavior may also be a result of his hypervigilance but im putting it separately because i DO want to look into this and explore options because i have mixed feelings. it might not be avoidant behavior. but the note is here for me.

the lack of autonomy -- procedures he didn't consent to. experiments in the lab. choices being made for rufus even though he is perfectly capable of making choices for himself. he's very protective of himself as an adult.

[handdrawnfantasma]

i got tagged by @monstrousmoonshine (ty!!) to self-rec 5 of my fave fics wot i have wrote so... here we go :')

1. "what if final fantasy x but with the magnus archives characters" aka the result of miri asking 'i had a mental image of jon doing the Sending and where's my jonmartin ffx au' aka clutching a map of dreams, the fic that has taken up the better part of the past 2 yrs and 8 months of my life. if you like tma and you also like fantasy epics like lord of the rings this is the fic for you. (i mean this very literally because the final word count pretty much equals that of LOTR lmao)!! Martin is swept away by a mysterious kaiju death monster into a stagnant future where things have gone Horribly Wrong and crosses paths with Jon who is a summoner tasked to go on a pilgrimage to somehow calm the aforementioned kaiju death monster. JRPG adventures, the world's saddest hiking trip, slowburn romance, found family and MANY revelations about why the world is the way it is ensue, also featuring the author wrestling with the concepts of sacrifice and responsibility and blame and where those all intersect with The Greater Good(tm) and how people's intent to do good or to atone for real or imagined wrongs can be manipulated by others and twisted to other purposes. there are only 6 updates to go until the fic is over so now is a good time to jump in and binge it. if u wanna [ eyes emoji ] honestly this is the first time i've even attempted to write something this long let alone FINISHED it and if i do say so myself i did a good job making sure that the plot made sense and that all the foreshadowing and callbacks/call forwards paid off. i also managed to fit SO MANY tma character cameos in there and some nice parallels to tma canon events as well as expanding on the FFX lore itself so like. im Very Proud of this one haha

2. the variant of soft hanahaki as envisioned by isa and myself and a few of our other friends back on plurk has lived in my brain rent-free for years and so of course i was going to inflict it on jon and martin. milk vetch is a short fic that takes place in the middle of TMA season 3, in a world where unspoken love (whether that be romantic, platonic, or otherwise) causes you to cough up (mostly harmless) flowers until you get over yourself and tell whoever it is that you love them. i had a LOT of fun with jon's POV in this one, his exhaustion and self-deprecation, and i also had a LOT of fun with the concept of the Beholding dropping a dictionary of flower symbolism into his head whenever he so much as looks at a hanahaki flower. it was also interesting to explore like... the psychology/reasoning behind NOT telling someone you love them even when the evidence is Right There, just going full magic realism with it all.

3. not to have never been is a fic taking place in the 13th doctor era sunless skies au that i've been building with kite for about a year and a half! 13 is a sky-captain, the fam are her officers, and this fic is about them getting caught in a weft of unravelling time and struggling to get Out without dying or losing themselves. i'm rly proud of this one because i managed to mix the episodic nature of a bottle episode of dr who (think 42 or Tsuranga) with the Sunless Skies ambience, and switching between 5 different 3rd-person limited POVs really let me play with allowing the voice of the character to permeate the narration which is a LOT of fun. i'm also proud of a couple of the cool things i managed to do with the structure here (having an Ice section followed by a Fire section and then a Dark section followed by a Light section) and some of the hints i laid down for the backstory of a few of the characters...

i actually only have 1 more of my fics to rec for this LMAO and it is still unfinished BUT in the spirit of the meme i'm gonna rec it anyway bc WIPs are still worth reading:

4. spydoc the locked tomb au, aka the result of me watching the power of the doctor last year and immediately losing my mind over the fact that dhawan!master basically reinvented lyctorhood. spydoc are a necro-cav pair from the Fifth House and this tragedy is going exactly where you think it is going (also featuring me straining the torvic affair thru a 13-shaped sieve and then re-straining it thru a tlt-shaped sieve, state-sanctioned codependency, and canon-typical memes, ruth!doctor and yaz are also going to feature when i get back to writing this thing). if you, too, are haunted by all the ways dhawan!master ends up emulating + recreating all of the worst excesses of gallifrey's founders despite the fact that he despises them so much and love trainwrecks as much as i do then u should read this and yell at me to finish it

tagging @birdybirdnerd bc i kno u write a lot BUT if anyone else wants to pick this meme up then pls do, we should all be more insufferable about our own work LMAO

[danothan]

YOU DIDNT ASK so im sorry in advance (especially because i wont be explaining this well) But. ill be so honest i dont think the t-shirt kon is bad in a vacuum like it could be cute 😭 i do think its genuinely kinda fun when the characters wear their own little merch. the t-shirt outfit is even kind of funny because hes literally just wearing a t-shirt and jeans 😭 i love kon no matter what!!

but in the context of the transition from young justice (the comic) and the gang "graduating" into the teen titans (vol.3) i feel like it was a regression for him. idk i read into kon and transness+being lgbt too much so ive seen interpretations of it being his internalized homo/transphobia because its also a time where he has a secret identity for the first time in small-town america... and i do enjoy that, but it was Not intended by the writes (especially considering who was writing him in the mid-late 2000s)

kon's character to start off is really about identity and the reclamation of it when he was intended to be a Thing, and how he struggled under the weight of acting like he thinks he should/expectations placed on him (especially because he did not have an alternate identity or a name at first, he was just superboy. THEN kon el and conner kent) and how he expresses himself by replacing a tag cadmus put on him with a gold earring and generally dressing in a flashy and flamboyant and alternative way

so then when we transition to the teen titans kon, they sort of......strip him of that expression of personality. hes put in a t-shirt and jeans. they take away his earring. hes put in a relationship w/ cassie sandsmark (who btw. is very wlw coded to match him in the YJ comic, and both of their designs suffered what we call the cishetifcation) that is ultimately so bad for their characters (meanwhile kon is written into the most gay coded friendship w/ tim drake for like. a decade.)

and the young justice cartoon is an adaptation that was attempting to take the teen titans run from the 80s i believe? and young justice 98-2003, AND the 00's teen titans run. (decades of story to work with and way too many characters and groups, leads the cartoon to, in my opinion, suffer from a too many cooks situation)

and it does not handle kons character very well at all either </3 AND they used the t-shirt design while sticking him in a very unhealthy relationship w/ a character hes never really interacted w/ much in the comics. so umm. TL;DR very mixed feelings on t-shirt conner

i do recommend reading young justice though <3 (AND IM GLAD YOU LIKE MY DESIGN !! tysm <333 the curly hair is a must <3) sorry for the essay i just wanted to expand on why i put the t-shirt boy in the "sigh" categories 😭

ah, when i said i liked t-shirt conner, i didn’t mean the outfit, i was specifically referring to the young justice cartoon’s characterization ^^; i do acknowledge that it was a mixed bag that was forced to cherrypick years of history as an adaptation, and i get why conner fans don’t see him as Their Conner, but i’m gonna be so real with you. i liked him a lot in the cartoon 😭 as a standalone show, the first season does a rly good job of letting you understand his struggles and thought process, there were a lot of moments that endeared me to his angst while also letting him still feel like a kid. but i think i’m also biased towards characters that default to anger as a trauma response (completely unrelated to recent events believe it or not! wacky coincidence tho! foreshadowing even…?)

conner and m’gann’s relationship was def not the most interesting to me, but it’s also not the worst one. i have other biases against. other couples. but i’m curious to see how it develops bc unhealthy or not, i wanna see how it affects the characters, ykwim? like i’m not in it for the shipping, even if we All know there’s a better conner ship U__U

idk i just feel worn out by comics cynicism bc while i get it (i’m a hal fan, by god do i get it), i also don’t want to treat anything in dc too sacred. it’s more fun for me personally to view new iterations/adaptations as puzzles to work out rather than view them as character assassinations if even that. there are some truly unsalvageable things out there, but i generally think there’s smth good to gain in everything. and the young justice cartoon gave me a t-shirt conner to gain in my heart, so i can’t fault his character change too much as drastic as it is

all of this to say tho: the alt look is obviously superior. NOTHING beats a cropped jacket <3

[jungxk]

I think we’re polar opposites because on shitty days I look back at school and miss PE lessons and English lessons and French and Science and Art and even though I celebrated being done with them forever when I finished my GCSEs I miss them even though the popular girls in PE were sometimes mean and my science teacher never really cared much for our grades and my English teacher picked on us I just miss it I miss not worrying about jobs and responsibilities. I just had to go home and do my homework and even if I didn’t what’s the worst that could happen? I miss learning and moving in between different lessons. One second it would be the Cold War and the next we’re crushing up smelly food in a biology lesson to find out what nutrients it has and then suddenly we’re in PE doing jumping jacks and I miss having friends that I saw everyday. My brain was so stimulated back then. And now I’m just numb from living the same day over and over again. Sorry this turned into an essay. Basically my life is so shitty that I miss school :D [internal screaming continues]

i don’t think we’re polar opposites bc i rlly relate!! i felt so listless today and it made me think a lot about school and all the potential you feel and all the different ways to express and expand yourself and i agree, that’s not very accessible in adulthood. i just started my first ever 9-5 and i feel like im in blues with so much of my time spent at work or recovering from/prepping for work and it leaves so little time for self actualisation and learning just for the fun of it. like i had to get a calendar app recently just to book in days to see my friends because we’re all so busy now what the fuck!!! insane. but i want to believe there is still joy and whimsy out there. adulthood isn’t perfect but neither was childhood. and the good news is cultivating a life that doesn’t suck gets easier with practice

[teeto-peteto]

Apologies for the strange question and for any inconvenience, what are your thoughts on Seraphine. Do you like her? I personally feel like that hatred for her is a bit... a lot... much.

I'll try to condense my response cause i dont want to do another longpost. I must say and warn that my relationship with Riot Games almost always dances on the love-hate. Either i love something and i adore it and cherish it, or i just hate it and despise him. But time also does the thing, where i just turn my hate to being oblivious about it or just trying to enjoy it my own way.

Going to be completely honest, i dont really care about Seraphine. Wich doesnt mean i want to tear her apart in pieces or that i hate writing about her, not the case at all, i like enjoying fanwriting and fanart about her cause its what i believe really matters about her since Riot (IMO) did a bad job on her.

I do enjoy playing Seraphine, i think her champ is neat, and honestly? She has pretty skins, wichever but her OG design (in League Of Legends) is very nice, i do own one of her skins cause i really liked it and i enjoy playing her. She's fun to play wich somewhat made me not hate her with time. Keeping up with the positive traits, i think her LOR illustrations and expanded context really helped filling some blanks and making her persona more realistic and more adapted to the context, her OG league design and the way the placed her in the context of the lore (IMO) was like placing one of those cute 'Follow your dreams!' mugs in a warzone with blood and dead bodies on the ground. I appreciate that Riot wanted to add variety to the champ pool, there's a lot of war lords and edgy people hanging around or just girls whose only personality is giving her big bazoongas that well, the idea was good in starters. The lore started well... i mean, i like the thing that explained that she had a disease that was affecting her hearing, i think it triggers her passion for music, and that her family was loving and supportive of her, it helps to understand her bubbly and positive personality, her lore wasnt entirely bad.

On the other hand, though... i wont be the person that screams 'BUT SHE USES SKARNERS DEAD KIND' cause being quite frank, if i dont care about Seraphine, imagine how much i care about Skarner, but i will admit that her initial lore was very gorey when you stopped to think about. And i just know that Riot moves by cashgrabs (hell, open league of legends or a league related blog and scroll down just 1 month and you will see disaster and rage) and its clear they made Seraphine as a huge cashgrab using K/DA as a bait to get you to buy a definitive skin of a champion that just came out, when there's champions that dont even have a legendary skin, and im not even talking about champs like, Yorick, for example, but champions with huge rates like Lulu... It felt highly insultating, at least for me. I admit its a pretty skin and i like the concept of seeing her grow in popularity and her different phases through her journey on music, i ADORE her second look in the definitive skin with the white/blue outfit and the flowers... but, in the end, hideous cashgrab. You can see the amount of work in KDA Seraphine but... OG Seraphine feels weak, wich in the end LOR tried to fix and did good imo.

If her hate was too much... well, if anything i would throw her out of the boat just for the obvious cashgrab, aside from that... perhaps and looking back at it maybe it was somewhat unjustificated, i still feel her original design is a mush of concepts that didnt slap well and i dont feel her quite fitting in Piltoverian/Zaunitan context but theres not really any other place in Runeterra you can place her... I appreciate Sera for what the fandom did to her, how they improved her and made her more likeable, not for what Riot decided that was worth enough money.

I like her with Rell pop star and heavy metal girlies slap :)

[lovebecomeshim]

hello! your zutara posting today has finally motivated me to ask this question because I came to atla very late(last year, to be specific) and I Love It Very Much but am 1000% out of the loop as far as why what remains of fandom (at least that I've seen among my friends) is so very strongly zutara. I'm not opposed to it per se I just don't really know what has driven it to apparently be such a popular ship? can you help me understand and maybe convert me a little bit?

Hey!! Your ICON! :D I can try but I’m not sure how coherent I’ll be; however I AM sure someone a lot more competent will be willing to add to this. Either way, I’m glad you asked because my plan was to drag down as many people as possible with me.

*smacks the hood of zutara* this baby can fit so much mutual love and support!

This got so long, I’m so sorry. I don’t know how to put it under a cut on mobile and it already got deleted once so I’m scared to mess with it lol. Moving on.

I’m gonna start this with a disclaimer that im on mobile so formatting is tricky and I’m also really new to atla in that I only completed my first watch through in like 2019??? So some of my info is all just based on what I’ve picked up from Discourse 👀 so anyway the sparknotes version: zutara was wildly popular from the beginning. To the point where the atla crew internally disagreed on which ship should be endgame. (Ex. Bryke [showrunners] asked the writers to rewrite The Southern Raiders to make Zuko seem less ideal for Katara than Aang [which failed, depending on who you ask]; the animation team purposefully created a visual parrallel between Oma and Shu in the Cave of Two Lovers and Zuko and Katara in the catacombs under Ba Sing Se in the Crossroads of Destiny; etc.)

The ship was popular enough that Bryke actually chose to display zk fanart at a con for the sole purpose of mocking the fans, but that’s neither here nor there. The entire episode Ember Island Players, while a love letter to/parody of the whole show, was an opportunity to address zutara’s viability as a canon pairing (while, again, mocking zutaras for romanticizing that catacombs scene). Point is! It’s always been popular but with it not being endgame, there’s got to be something that’s given it staying power.

And that’s honestly got to do with three things: their dynamic, thematic cohesion, and potential.

(You know what... you know what, it’s four things. The fourth is they’re so aesthetically pleasing together and individually. Like, they’re just good looking people [specifically when they’re grown but they’re also cute kids] and that absolutely doesn’t hurt) (but it’s not the Point, it’s just nice to point out sometimes)

The dynamic is hard to get into without also looking at the canon pairings, but I think I can do that without unnecessary bashing. It’s just that part of the magic of zutara is really highlighted by what they give to each other that their other relationships don’t.

First off, it’s classic enemies to (would be) lovers. The absolute truest form of it. It’s not too different from how CS started out: a rogue antagonist with a job to do—but no personal vendetta against the future love interest—who is deeply and emotionally invested in his personal storyline (revenge/redemption) with little regard for how it effects other people after his entire life and genuine good nature are marred by suffering, and a fierce warrior girl with a strong moral compass and her own personal investment in stopping him (protect her family and save the world doing it). Obviously frustration and animosity grew between them by the nature of them being on opposing sides, but that just lends itself to the sweetness of their later reconciliation.

The thing is that while they’re wildly different on the surface (he’s a hot-headed prince of a fascist regime who is trying to capture the Avatar to please his father; she’s a nurturing daughter of the chief who is trying to protect and train the Avatar in order to topple his father’s throne) they find out that they have so much more in common both in their experiences and their personalities.

(What follows is an excessive use of the word “both” and I’m sorry about that)(I can edit it. I can do that. That IS an option............)

They both have an innate sense of justice that they are determined to see done (zuko, at the war meeting, sticking up for the Earth Kingdom kid when the guards torment his family, choosing not to steal from the pregnant couple despite his circumstances, abiding by his word to leave the SWT should Aang come willingly, etc.; katara, literally.... at any point). They both have pretty one-track minds at accomplishing certain goals once they’ve put their mind to it, regardless of a lack of support in that endeavor (it goes without saying I guess, but zuko’s entire hunt; katara’s determination to get the earth benders to fight back, her determination to absolutely destroy Pakku until he agrees to teach her, etc.). They both lost their mothers at young ages. Their worlds are war-torn and traumatizing to them both, if in different ways, but that ultimately forces them to grow up too quickly to be wholly independent individuals. They both have issues with their fathers (for WILDLY different reasons, but). They both hold extreme prejudices that they need to learn to overcome (which ties into thematic cohesion)(bit like Lizzie and Darcy in that way but magnified by a million). They’re both extremely emotional and empathetic—which can and often does result in loud outbursts. Katara’s a bit better adjusted and can temper her anger for longer than S1 Zuko can, but they both feel that anger deeply and have no compunctions expressing it (Katara is, usually, more justified, particularly in S1. Again, S1 Zuko is severely maladjusted but at the point when they could’ve feasibly become a couple, he’s so much better off with the way he carries himself). They both struggle with feelings of inferiority in their bending abilities when confronted with prodigal benders like Aang and Azula, but have the work ethic required to double down and become two of the most powerful benders in the three remaining nations. This is a little more minor but it is a parrallel that appeals to some shippers that they both have these alter egos in the Painted Lady (notably fire nation coded) and the Blue Spirit (water tribe coded) that are pretty different from who they are day-to-day and are useful in accomplishing a purpose that they as themselves cannot.

(I’m.... I just realized that this could potentially get very long. Should I have made a slide show with bullet points??????)

Anyway, similar. I know there’s more but there’s literally so much to love about zutara that I’ll drive myself a little crazy trying to compile all the ways they’re similar. (Just gonna say that at this exact moment I went back to add more similarities.... so okay then)

Once they’ve reconciled, we see how all of these things only lend themselves to a deeper intimacy together than they share with literally anyone else. There’s a steady partnership that positions them as the mom/dad of the gaang, while also providing the support necessary to allow the other to not have to carry so much responsibility. A lot of zutaras will point out how zuko is actually depicted doing the more domestic chores that are normally relegated to Katara once he joins the gaang, since the others in the group are two 12-year-olds and sokka. The one that sticks out the most is how he makes tea for the group and then serves them, while Katara is able to just relax with her friends around the fire. Fanon expands upon this a lot to Zuko helping with the laundry or the cooking or whatever else needs doing since he, as a once-refugee, is used to doing his own domestic tasks. Before Zuko joined, Katara was the one mothering everyone, sewing for them, cooking for them, etc. She’s always tending to the needs of the group, and that includes emotionally. She does the emotional labor for the gaang 99% of the time, but when she’s the one falling apart, she’s usually doing it alone and without the comfort that she normally provides for others. Until Zuko. And that’s before they’re even friends.

Which is WHY people romanticize the catacombs of Ba Sing Se so much. Katara is verbally attacking Zuko out of her own righteous anger but also her own prejudice when Zuko, surprisingly, chooses to be vulnerable with her. He’s been on a journey that’s opened his eyes a bit, but he’s never actively chosen to expose the rawest parts of his past to anyone. But for some reason he chooses to do that with Katara of all people. While she’s yelling at him. He sees her humanity, and for once can look past his prejudice and empathize with her. And this time, when she breaks down, she gets to be comforted. Katara normally talks about her mother when she’s trying to explain to someone else that she sees and understands they’re pain, as a form of comfort to them. Here, Zuko uses the exact same tactic. He sees her and he understands. And for zuko? He’s not being shut down. He’s allowed to articulate his pain regarding his mother without being ignored and made to internalize it, and he’s allowed to process how he feels about his scar out loud without being told that he deserved it. And then he lets her touch his scar, something we’ve seen him actively avoid before. He’s completely open to her and she’s completely open to him and all it took was one five minute conversation. She was about to use the little bit of Spirit water that she had, that she was saving for something Important, to heal the scar that still daily causes him pain just because they had, somehow, connected.

Plus there’s the whole parallel to the star-crossed lovers forbidden from one another, a war divides their people—

And then zuko messes up, he regresses, he gets what he wants and he HATES it. And the sense of justice he had as a child has been restored to him against his will and he can’t think of anything he wants to do more than the Right Thing, so he joins team avatar. Before he does that though, we get to see his relationship with Mai, which is where comparison really comes in. And what we see is Zuko, fresh off of his encounter with Katara in the catacombs, trying to be emotionally honest with Mai... and getting shut down and dismissed. Which is just how Mai is and it’s fine, but not for Zuko. Still, he keeps trying, and he keeps getting ignored or scoffed at or yelled at. Which is really a larger symbol for how he doesn’t fit in his old life anymore, but again that’s about thematic cohesion. He tries to articulate his anxieties about returning home, he tries to make romantic gestures, he tries to explain how morally conflicted he’s feeling—and Mai diverts to some kind of physical affection to shut him up and a parting comment that is pretty much always, in essence, “I don’t wanna talk about this.” So they don’t. On the other hand, once zuko and Katara are friends, we see him again emotionally distraught and caught up in his anxieties about facing Iroh, and it’s Katara who comes to him and listens to him and comforts and encourages him.

Similarly, we have Aang clamming up and getting uncomfortable whenever Katara shows any negative emotion, usually resulting in him making excuses or running away. Or, in the case of the Southern Raiders, lecturing her on how she needs to just let go of her anger about her mother’s murder. People have talked this episode to death and usually better than I ever could, so imma... keep it brief. There’s a serious disconnect between Aang and Katara in his ability to empathize with Katara and her needs that has her tamping down her vulnerability and amping up her anger. He tells her that he was able to forgive his people’s genocide and appa’s kidnapping (petnapping? Theft??), which is blatantly not true but also not an entirely equal parrallel to Katara’s situation, and continues making these little remarks throughout the episode. But it’s Zuko that Katara opens up to. It’s with him that she’s able to talk about the most traumatic day of her life, and it’s with him that she’s able to get the closure she needs, cementing their bond as friends and partners. This disagreement between Aang and Katara is then... never resolved. They just never bring it up and hear what the other is saying.

There’s a fic called The Portraits of Ember Island that has a line that so completely sums up the heart of the matter for why people love their dynamic. For context, zuko has woken up early to help Katara with the cooking and they spend the whole time just letting one another talk, and zuko stops to ask why she always just lets him talk. And so she stops to ask why he’s always helping, and it goes as follows:

There’s just... so much mutual support! Trust! Intimacy!! And it just continues like that from the Southern Raiders on, listening to each other, advising each other, watching each other’s backs! And then! Literally saving each other’s lives!! I will never be over the last Agni kai. Not ever. Zuko may have been willing to jump in front of lightning for anyone, but he actually did it for Katara. And in a show, that’s the thing that really matters. It’s a fulfilled trope usually exclusively applied to romantic pairings, and it ended up applying to Zuko and Katara. And then she ran out into the middle of a fight with tunnel vision just to get to him.

Also!! Also Zuko pushing Katara out of the way of the falling rocks at the Western Air Temple!! And Katara catching him as he fell from the war balloon that he fought Azula on!! Before they’re even getting along, they’re the ones reaching for each other. They come to this place of equal ground, as partners, who watch each other’s backs, call each other out but still listen attentively and understand, and provide the support that the other has been sorely lacking up until they knew each other (whether that be from lack of effort or lack of understanding from others, or an unwillingness to accept it for themselves).

Then, trailing along under the surface of this, we see the themes of the show totally embodied by Zuko and Katara as individuals and in their relationship to one another. There’s a YouTuber, sneezyreviews, who has a, like, 2-hour explanation on why she not only loves zutara but also believes that their endgame would’ve actually elevated the writing of atla to new levels particularly because of thematic cohesion and resolved character arcs. It’s the zutara dissertation I never knew I needed, and it’s funny and eloquent and effective, so I’m just going to sum up her section on thematic cohesion to the best of my abilities and then link it for whenever you have the time. And I HIGHLY recommend it, especially if you want a full understanding of what makes zutara so great and gives it such longevity.

Guru pathik has a line that goes something like this: separation is an illusion; things that seem different are just two parts of the same whole. Iroh also tells Zuko something similar: balance and strength are achieved when the different nations come together and influence one another and celebrate what makes them each unique. And this lesson is a massive central arc that both Zuko and Katara go through, moving past a black-and-white, good guys-vs-bad guys, us-vs-them mentality and into a greyer, more nuanced view of the world. Zuko sees the fire nation from an entirely new perspective and while he still loves and hopes for his nations future, he surrenders his blind loyalty to them in exchange for an unflinching loyalty to peace and love. Katara too had to come to terms with the fact that cruel people exist in the earth kingdom and water tribes, while some fire nation citizens are just regular, kind people who also need and deserve to have someone speak on their behalf. And this is honed in directly on how they view each other. They grow in their individual journeys to be open to the humanity in the other and then, once they’ve found that, they’re able to grow more in compassion for others in a beautiful feedback loop. And this is all matched in the symbolism repeatedly and intentionally associated with them in canon: sun and moon, fire and water, yin and yang, Oma and Shu who found love despite their warring nations. Their individual arcs are completed in each other and complement the themes of atla beautifully.

The canon pairs... just don’t. Which, again, is fine. But the very things that give atla longevity and popularity are anchored in zutara. Kat@ang doesn’t accomplish this. They’re... nice. Sweet. Especially when you erase a good portion of their interactions in S3. It could’ve been just a sweet love story. (Personally, the dynamic between toph and aang accomplish the same thing that zutara does, with complementary personalities that fulfill the theme of opposites blending in harmony) M@iko, on the other hand, is less sweet but I think wasn’t even supposed to last. Zuko’s relationship with Mai seems to represent his relationship with his old life as a whole. He can’t be emotionally vulnerable, he’s goaded into abusing his privileges, his agency and opinions aren’t respected. They just don’t have common ground with which to discuss anything that matters, so they don’t. As far as themes, the relationship doesn’t fit with atla. It’s zuko returning to and sticking with what is (on the surface) like him, what’s expected. Fire nation with fire nation. Fluid water bender with the flexible air bender. Like with like, separated from what is different and challenging and complementary.

And all of these things combined of course lead to the potential for the ship. I don’t know how familiar you are with the post-atla canon but... well, miss “I will never turn my back on people who need me”, miss “I don’t want to heal! I want to fight!” ends up living quietly in the SWT as a designated healer who turns a blind eye to the water tribe civil war happening right outside her front door. Which can be fine! People change! Some people just wanna stay inside. I just wanna stay inside! But the potential future for zutara is so much more satisfying, with Katara becoming the most unconventional Fire Lady the uppity old cads who are stuck on the old ways have ever seen. Fanon has her serving as a voice for the other nations within a kingdom at the point of its biggest political upheaval, as a confidante to Zuko who can actually help him while he’s trying to figure out how to move forward and make reparations. They have the opportunity, together, to accomplish what they both have set on their hearts to fight for: positive change that lends itself to harmony and balance. And the steambabies! A popular headcanon is that their firstborn daughter, the crown princess, is actually a waterbender, which causes such an uproar among the people who are adamantly clinging to the old ways. It’s just a future full of potential to be forces for good together, full of trust, intimacy, joy. The exact era of peace and love and balance that zuko announces that he intends to ring in with the start of his reign as Fire Lord is, again, magnified by the very personal zutara relationship. And we love to see it.

tl;dr zutara isn’t for everyone. Some people just don’t vibe with it. Some are nostalgic. Some love the canon they grew up with. Some have been disappointed for years. Some just see themselves in other characters and want their happiness instead. Whatever the reason, that’s fine. But for me, I love the way these two, from the moment they give each other a fair chance, are able to lower their walls and prejudices to see the other for the kindred spirits they are. They see each other’s humanity, and their response is to pour out love and support and compassion. I love that they’re a power couple in battle. I love the symbolism and, honestly, soulmatism that colors their every interaction. I love that they embody the whole storyline of atla in their relationship and how it develops, which is notably why their seasonal arcs always culminate in each finale with how they relate to one another. I love that zuko adopting a waterbending move is what actually saves his life and then katara’s. I love the chemistry! And I love the future they could’ve had, instead of the ones they were given.

So, in conclusion: I just think they’re neat and I hope you do too, at least a little bit. Even if it’s just respectfully from a disinterested distance cause you do you. And now here is the video I mentioned. I’m sorry this post got so long and then I gave you an even longer homework assignment, but I can’t recommend it enough. She says it all better than I can.

[fairycosmos]

chloe, congrats on getting a job!! i really hope you'll like there 💞 when is your first work day?

i'm having a job interview next week. do you have any tips on how to survive a job interview without being like a complety nervous wreck? and do you an idea how to explain the gaps in a resume lol

thank u lovely ur a peach 💞 it's on monday so im currently in a haze of trying to download all the right stuff and fill in all the forms since it's part working from home part in the office ughhhhhhhh

anyway 2 answer your question omg job interviews are the worst but i honestly see them as like, a bit or a chance to play a character or something lmfaoooo. idk if that's helpful to you but yeah i have found that pretending i'm someone else kinda helps with the momentary nerves. playing up all of your achievements/positive qualities, smiling, trying to make eye contact, trying to come across as someone who loves working - it's like embodying a role. you don't have to be anxious because it's just a corporate persona and not you-you, though of course you have to try to come across as genuine as possible despite the fact.

another big thing or perhaps the biggest thing is just being prepared. you've probably already done it, but if not i really recommend looking up general interview questions and then planning out your answers to them in advance. even in bullet points so they're easy to remember. word your responses professionally and use positive vocab. this saved my life on a few different occasions, seems like knowing what to say and how to say it is half the battle tbh. take deep breaths beforehand and repeat kind affirmations to yourself if you get overwhelmed to put yourself in a better headspace. you are genuinely capable and you genuinely have a lot to offer and if that comes through in the interview, that's what matters.

about resume gaps - you can really use the pandemic to help explain them honestly, a lot of ppl have been without work and employers know that. and they might not even focus on it as much as you think they're going to. but i guess my main tip for that is to be diplomatic ab it. like, explain why you think this position is a great way to get back into working so it turns into a positive rather than a negative. if you've done any volunteering or anything at all that has expanded your skillset while unemployed, really try to impress that upon them. if you emphasize that you've still been very motivated and work-driven while looking for a job (even if you haven't lol) then i think you'll be alright. put a nice spin on it to make it look like it was your choice while you were preparing for the career you really want i.e the position you're interviewing for.

i also think it's important to treat it like a conversation more than an interview, too. you're seeing if they're decent employers just as much as they're seeing if you're a decent candidate. so i try to tell myself, alright. it's a 10-20 minute talk and then i'm out of here and if i don't get the job i never have to see these ppl again anyway and life goes on so i'm not going to torture myself over it either way. you know? i feel like this is total word salad because i can't organize my thoughts rn lol but good luck!!!💞💞 if they don't end up hiring you i wanna stress this: try not to take it personally. even though ik it's really hard and i still take it personally every time it happens lol but the reality is they're prob seeing tons of applicants and it's mostly about timing and luck rather than anything to do with you. im rooting for you!! 💞 promise it's not going to be as bad as you think, the build-up is always worse than the actual thing. sending u love and manifesting the job offer!! 💞

[choerrypuffs]

i have been doing okies thank u so much for asking <333 how are u, hows life going for u? :3

but expanding on what u said, jaes characterization in electric bugaloo is definitely one of the best ive seen (esp for a free fic on tumblr) !! there is so much depth to his character, from the way he thinks and the innate care he still has for his sister, but at the same time hes unwilling to let go of his evil (what he deems “good”) deeds but at the end u can truly see that hes not heartless and is truly just a human but yet !! it makes u wonder how hes used that + the charmspeak to manipulate others and use their sympathy. so yes like u said, a villian is much more dangerous when u start to sympathize with them 😭 tldr; jaehyun evil but also not really but like very evil actually

also yes renjun is such a tsundere even to his members 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫 but i loved how u charaterized him to consistently think “im in love w yn im in love w yn omg hug kiss mwah yn” and then be completely stoic on the outside. i was a bit frustrated at first bc i was like “just kiss her !!” but ykw thats just him and ill have to deal with it 🤞😔 #touchygfproblems

i hope u have a wonderful weekend lovely <333 also im sorry if im basically blabbering in ur inbox about ur fic and i totally dont mind talking about something else i just really really like the way u write lmao (/ω＼) and i rarely get to talk about tumblr fics so in depth (with the author too !!) so this is (⁎⁍̴̛ᴗ⁍̴̛⁎) very nice

- morknon

ahhhh i’m so sorry for this late response, my love!! i’ve been doing great 🤩🤩🤩 my birthday was on the 26th so my friends and i went to an anime convention and just had a fun girls trip for the weekend 🥰 i’ve also downloaded the sims 4 bc it was on sale for $5 and now all i’m doing is downloading mods and playing dress up DJSJJS 🤧 how have you been, lovely?

omg pls thank you so much i’m so honored that you think so highly of my characterization of jaehyun you are too nice 🥺 i really did try to cram in as many layers as possible in the fic like a smushed onion or something 😭 bc i didn’t really give him any development in jeno’s fic which i regret </3 but you’re so right!! my goal was to humanize him bc i think it’s much scarier for the characters and the audience when the villain seemingly still has sound of mind y’know? and i wanted to people to think about what they would do if they were put in y/n’s position (obviously bc y/n is a self-insert but you know what i mean HDJSJS 😭) ! it’s also been super fun to see everyone’s reactions bc a lot of people feel sorry for jaehyun and even forgive him despite what he did, in fact, the scenes with jaehyun are actually the most talked about (from what i’ve seen in reblogs and asks) even more so than the romance 😳 it makes me really proud that so many people empathize with him bc that means i did my job properly :’))))

YESSS renjun’s characterization is my fav to write!! i just love a tsundere whose love language is acts of service 🥹🫶 if anyone has seen the anime “my sweet tyrant” renjun is literally akkun like pls 😩 OMFG I KNOW THE FEELING I’M SUPER TOUCHY AND CLINGY TOO 💔💔💔

please don’t apologize, my love!! i should be thanking you for taking the time to talk to me about my fic 💞💞💞 it’s every writer’s dream to engage with their readers about what they liked or didn’t like about their fics so i’m really happy you enjoyed the fic enough to write such kind feedback <3333333 thank you so so so much again 💖💓💘💝💟💕

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 8/10/21

got a bunch of followers (many of you are Cool Teens, so also a reminder im 26 and an adult and you’re responsible for curating your own internet experience) anyway there’s a bunch of new folks since the last time this was a regular series, so i am going to pre-answer some things that popped up in my inbox last week.

a quick reminder that this is empathetically NOT a recommendations or review blog series. this is a quick snapshot of what i’m thinking about with regards to mass media this week, and sometimes i’m funny about it and sometimes i also do interesting diy shit

a work can be culturally or historically relevant and important in the history of a genre AND be extremely difficult to recommend unless i know you very well due to. hm. let us say many pitfalls due to the inherent nature of the genre or the time it was made in it any number of other factors that make it unpalatable to modern audiences but still worth knowing about. doesthedogdie dot com will be your friend here for anything i talk about ever

being critical of a work doesn’t just mean pointing out its flaws- was it successful in telling the story it wanted to tell? were the techniques it used effective? were the emotions it elicited in me probably the ones the creators set out to elicit? these are key components of a good review and often help me break down what i want to say about a particular piece of media in any given week, but this isn’t a review series of blog posts either.

i am literally just some guy and you should question everything i say

listening i’m gonna wash that man right out of my hair (from the musical South Pacific) brought to you by a random mix of classic movie musicals bc apparently im that kinda gay this week.

like a lot of other fifties media that aged like milk, i have fond memories of watching this with my grandmother. this isn’t even my favorite song from the musical (that would be bali hai’i) but i think it is one of the more technically interesting non-solo ones. specifically, the faint siren-y dissonance on “ahoy, ahoy!” has really been stuck in my head. the melancholy “ah fuck we’ve broken our hearts again” vibe on “rub him out of the roll call/and drum him out of your dreams” with all the girls singing is probably a result of a soprano-heavy cast, but it’s almost chimey in a way? the rhyme scheme of those lines has an excellent mouthfeel. ms gaynor singing “cancel hiiiiiim” has a very different vibe in 2021

two (really three? maybe four? the world is large and mysterious) things can be true at the same time: i don’t think i could watch this musical again as an adult because i don’t think there’s a good way to salvage or update it. the very qualities of this musical that make me go “fuckin yikes” as adult were the very qualities that made my grandmother love it so much. i can hold a bittersweet memory of a rare late movie night with a complicated lady and at the same time wish she were a better person. the dead never leave you with answers.

reading yet another fallow week. this field is turning back into forest

watching i often say “AAA video game (derogatory)” when talking offline about the bad batc/h, but this was a real bioshock ass lookin episode. i don’t think this show is succesful at making or having a point. mostly because it cannot contradict any existing lore in one of the most traversed time periods of this franchise, even with the expanded universe reboot. it falls into the uncomfortable realm of most starred wars media: this is a franchise for children but it also has to cater to legions of grownup fanatics with lots of money. but by god does it “feel” like starred wars. something not all the sequel trilogy movies or much of the clone wars series were successful at.

as a sidebar to that last sentence. the most memorable (imo) scene of the fucking sequel trilogy is the back-to-back battle couple thing in ep seven, which i have just rewatched, and it simply does not hold up. there are too many cuts to other sideplots, which kills any tension dead, and it’s mostly fighting on opposite sides of the room in frantic desperation instead of what i wanted, which was more than five seconds of synergy. it’s a bad rhyme of the final throne room fight in rotj and my memory of the thing is so much better, which is always disappointing.

back to the main point, i think a big part of something “feeling” like starred wars is big setpieces and fights that make you go “HAHA YES FUCKIN SICK WHY NOT!!!!” like, nobody ever Just gets shot in the head and temporarily incapacitated, they get half-vadered by the engines of a derelict ship trying to go to hyperspace while it’s grounded. this franchise has never met a location it couldn’t destroy in a beautiful and awful shower of light while the string sections of three combined orchestras play their hearts out.

this franchise is so fucking stupid and i am so invested in it

playing got my hands on the death trash early access, very hype to play it, have been too busy turning this apartment into a functional and comfortable space to live in for three separate people with their own separate toiletries and groceries and work from home/school schedules

making related to the above, the fucking kitchen table and chairs are done.

things wot i did friday night/saturday morning:

new rubber feeties on everybody

wrapped the legs that structurally couldn’t get new rubber feeties in jute to be kinder to my rental linoleum

bolted the legs back on the table and rebalanced it bc the jute wasn’t quite even

did a very halfassed job of fixing the drawer rails on the table

bolted the chair tubing back together

took all the old decorative tacks out of the backs of the chairs

scrubbed the seats and backs and the pieces the tacks were holding down with mild detergent (partially effective, it still has some patina but is sanitized)

re-covered the bottoms of the chairs in remnant black polyester to replace mildewed black canvas

put in new decorative tacks on the seat backs

bolted the vinyl parts to the chrome tubing parts (a long and frustrating process since there were two sizes of decidedly non-standard nuts and bolts)

wiped everything down again for idk good luck

sitting at my kitchen table in the sun eating a breakfast sandwich and some terrible iced tea on sunday morning was very nice. i lived in the south just long enough to get Opinions on iced tea and how the north can’t get it right. shouldn’t be gritty. shouldn’t be bitter. how is this even happening

some very very halfassed “during” pics

[whencallstheheart]

We’ll find out tonight if our predictions are correct! 

Responses to the written questions are under the cut.

Where is Ned and what is he doing?

No idea

Business trip

Dealing with some financial issues.

Doing business in UC or Hamilton. Nothing major

He stayed behind next episode and will be back in the finale.

I think planning something for Florence, maybe expansion for the mercantile?

I don't know

I have no idea, wth!?!?

Yo i have no idea. I'm gonna take a wild guess and say he's trying to contact Florence's daughter who wasnt there for the wedding

Maybe he's visiting his daughter? Or expanding the Mercantile somehow

With Mike. Oil pipeline

Hiding

It sure

I have no clue honestly, maybe planning a surprise for Florence?

Perhaps...expanding his store? Or ordering something new to begin to be shipped to his.

something related to factory

Sussing out suppliers

Maybe something to do with the Wyman guy?

visiting his daughter

Buying a new house or a surprise for Florence

Visiting Abigail

Planning something special for Florence

He is doing something with his daughter

No clue

With his daughter

Planning to expand the mercantile to include deliveries (Hope Valley Amazon) lol

Not sure

I really dont know!

Made out a Will since he now is married to Florence

Business in Union City

Business, but he’ll be back

I don’t Know

I dont know. This one threw me!

Literally have no idea

maybe he will come back with his daughter who will come to live at HP

some sweet surprise/gift for Florence

He is involved im some growth in HV.

Taking care of business.

He's making a business deal somewhere

I have no idea. I think it was a weird to put in o.O

Making purchases for the store.

Business stuff somewhere

I don't know

i don't know

ned things

He just took the long way home...

Adopting Flo's son

Hiding

He is picking up a surprise order gift for Florence, and it’s taking longer than expected.

Fighting attempt to take over mercantile

Talking to a divorce lawyer. Or putting a pillow over Abigail's mom's face so she can bury her already and come back to Hope Valley for his buddy Henry's sake.

Honestly I’m not sure but interested to find out!

Idk honestly. Probably actually doing something sweet for Florence but she doesn't know it.

What's up with the Pinkertons?

Not sure

A storyline to bring a change of pace to the show.

I really Don’t know

Not sure, but I don’t think it will be resolved this season, maybe it’s the cliffhanger?

I don't know

They’re hired thugs like they were in S1, just there to show Walden is a bad guy despite appearances

Factory related

Up to no good! Don’t trust them.

Yo i dont even know. They look totally sketch but they are probably the good guys actually. I'm predicting they are after someone who's been wanted for a long time. I think it may be too easy to link them with the guy who took Jesse and Clara's money

Not sure yet

Working for Waldon

Railroad

Sneakily buying land

I couldn't care less about them

Perhaps something is in the cabin/someone they don't want found.

No idea

Something to do with the mine disaster (even though it's been ages).

we will see in season 9

Setting up a good storyline for season 9

Not sure maybe something to do with the new factory that might be built

Maybe it has to do with Henry

I have no idea, but I do not like them!

No good

Buying all the land

They have Jesse. Someone wants to reopen the mine and seek revenge on Elizabeth for his son going to jail (Spurlock).

Looking for some kind of hidden good

Shady dealings going on

Guarding the future factory site. But something extra at the cabin connected with Spurlock.

Trouble

?

An even bigger I dont know on this one. Like, what in the world???

Holding Jesse captive

I think they kidnapped Jesse because he found out what they were up to but I have no idea what that is

stumped on this one

That is difficult. He is apparently connected to S1 Spurlock. Is he there for revenge? Or, just a heavy hand like his relative?

Revenge? They want to take over Hope Valley.

Something sketchy, probably bigger than just whatever is going on with the cabin though.

Land grab

No clue but they'll be one of the big bads next season

They are probably the goons of the Industry dude

They are working for somebody bigger.

They want to take over the town

I don't know

i'm worried about Nathan

idk they are the bad daddys of the season

they can only be there to cover up a crime, or some valuable find

No clue

They’re wanting to uproot Hope Valley for better business by destroying the town.

Keeping identity of mastermind safe from townspeople.

Maybe looking for Ned, who alternatively is a serial killer and now on the run. Possibly for the murder of Abigail's mother?

I’m so confused lol

Creating a monopoly & doing some villain nonsense (as it would seem the show is hinting).

Any other thoughts going into the finale?

No

There will be at least one surprise- not sure what

There are too many loose ends to tie up in one episode and I just want Elizabeth and Nathan together (and perhaps quickly married in this episode!)

I’m honestly really nervous, I’m rooting for Nathan but I have a feeling she’ll go for Lucas, I really don’t mind Lucas as a character but like what storylines can they do with them as a couple? The manuscript is finished, they’ve gone on every sort of date at this stage and she’s been in his office. What else can they do? With Nathan they can do the being scared because of his job again but making it different, there’s children involved now, it’s not just Elizabeth. Jack won’t understand but Allie will 100% feel worried for him. Also Allie having a mother figure, especially at this stage in her life, how could you not want it! The blended family as the main family would be so nice for this show, I know it’s been done before but they will be fairly front and centre in the show. Sorry for the rant, I love your blog so much! I don’t have tumblr so I can’t leave comments or like your gifs but I thoroughly enjoy all your theories and opinions!!

Just ready for this stupid love triangle to be over!

I’d love to actually see Henry meet up with Abigail, but doubt it. I hope they have Clara do something heroic for Jesse, but also doubt it. Henry will definitely be putting Hickam in charge at least temporarily. I think Ned will return but we won’t get a full explanation yet. And the dramatic ending won’t be the triangle choice, it’ll be Elizabeth losing the school.

Allie’s adoption finalized and reaction to Elizabeth choosing Nathan is something we should see.

Glad the triangle will be DONE!!

I hope that Elizabeth follows her heart and not pick someone who is a safe option.

I wish Faith were leaving instead of Carson. Also, I think there will be lots of set up for problems with the school board and Elizabeth. Also, I want more little Jack scenes but i don't think we'll get much since child acting laws and covid combined make that difficult

Excited for Elizabeth to move on from her past and enter a new adventure with either of the two men and really just everything else (Rosie and Lee, Fiona, Henry.)

I hope Faith doesn’t end up with whoever doesn’t get chosen by Elizabeth.

hopefully the finale will clear up the drawn out love triangle

The triangle was waaaaay drawn out. Be done and choose.

Nathan and Faith......would be great......

No matter who Elizabeth chooses I'm SOOOO READY to get this over with!

Kindness matters - no matter who she chooses. Isn't that why most of us watch the show

I am so over the love triangle and just want to know who Elizabeth picks.

Worried about the fandom more than anything

Elizabeth please pick Nathan

It's just a TV show and no matter what , it's there for our entertainment. I do think they're setting things up for the return of Abigail in some way.

The must be a Season 9!!!

I hope Fiona does not get involved with Mike.

Hopefully things get back to normal for Elizabeth and Rosemary

Interested to see the other storylines. I want Elizabeth to choose Nathan but I think JT will throw us off. From the promo pic, it looks like they will try to put Faith with Nathan.

- I just want Elizabeth to chose so that this storyline can come to an end and we can finally get to see her marriage and functioning has a wife. - Wonder what will become of Lucas once her choice is made. - I would like Lucas to have a proper storyline that doesn't involve Elizabeth or the love triangle. - I would love to see Rosemary and Lee finally become parents however that may happen. I feel like the writer just left them in limbo about it and keep teasing but never delivering on anything.

Hopefully will end with Nathan but the very last minute. I would prefer more romance before the finale

Elizabeth will have to decide on what’s important with school.

Jack might make an appearance in a dream scene?

So excited! I hope I don't wake up my kids while watching.

I hope they don’t pick Lucas

CLARA DISCOVERS SHE IS PREGNANT

?

Just excited for this to be over. I know we needed it and I think overall it was handled decent enough, but I'm glad to finally move on.

Why is everyone so scared?

The whole season has been about getting over your fear. Elizabeth doesn’t have to deal with her emotions or real life with Lucas because school is out for the summer and she is working on her book. She needs to make up with Rosemary and get over the loss of Jack and fear to be with Nathan.

this season has been totally not what I expected...I thought the hug at end of season 7 was definitive and we'd get at least some Nathan courtship, not a complete U-turn to Lucas (with hopefully a turn to Nathan at the very end). I now think Season 9 will be what I expected season 8 to be, and I am very much looking forward to that.

Something sudden will allow Elizabeth to bring her feelings to light for everyone...Nathan. I think she will have decided by the time she takes of the rings, but will not have the opportunity to share with the man until later. Until she faces the prospect of him being in danger again? Full circle from the end of S7.

I need Elizabeth to really apologize to Rosemary. Rosemary has always been there for Elizabeth.

I’m so afraid :(

Hated the triangle

I am so ready to finally move on from this triangle!

They put waaaay too many storyline in the last 2 episodes, they will never manage to conclude them all and we'll have another weird random cliffhanger which will not tie in with the Christmas episode (If we're getting one ?)

I hope the guy who loses, has a good life in later seasons

The annoying love triangle will finally end. Elizabeth/Nathan are endgame, unless Jack suddenly comes back from the dead. But, I doubt it. I hope Lee/Rosemary are pregnant, or decide to adopt children. I just want Lee/Rosemary to have children. Can't wait to see how this season ends. Hopefully, it won't be a cliffhanger.

Nervous as hell

Elizabeth and Nathan get married

i kinda hope someone dies tbh it would make everything more interesting

Elizabeth was so tiresome this season, they could have told her story of overcoming grief in a much more relatable way. Why did they not just have her talking to Rosemary about how sad or exhausted or numb or angry she feels all the time? You know, something a widow would actually go through. At the very least she could have been stoic, instead she was just kinda bitchy.

Faith and Nathan will have some sparks; Elizabeth will choose Lucas and they will kiss twice one being at bridge one being at her home inside with baby jack present.Carson will leave; Jessie will be found; Ned will come back safely.

Lucas endgame, Nathan and faith have sparks, Rosemary paper, Jessie and Clara make up.

I think Henry will take his own advice and leave to find Abigail to see if there is still any hope for them. Though I like his character, I want him to finally be happy, and if that means staying with Abigail, then that’s what it means. I don’t think TPTB will bring back Lori soooo.... that means Henry would be the one possibly leaving. I also think some scare will happen with Nathan between him and the Pinkertons. Then it may come full circle at the end where Elizabeth runs to him like she did last season, but instead of hugging him, she’ll kiss him instead.

Hallmark execs dictated ending and will cut salaries to bring back Abigail, hence Paul leaving.

My condolences to whichever guy gets to look forward to being bored by Elizabeth for the rest of his life. Are we sure Jack's death wasn't a suicide?

Ready to see how it ends and already looking forward to next season!

I will be really disappointed if she chooses Lucas but I’m afraid that’s where it’s headed. Either way I don’t understand how they’ll end in “the healthy place” they’ve said it will be with so much left for one episode.

[seijch]

ANNOUNCEMENT: NOT A HELLO, BUT NOT A GOODBYE EITHER

omg hi ... im like . ashamed to come back after saying brief hiatus in october and then disappearing off the face of the earth til FEBRUARY but under the cut i will be explaining myself and the following, if youre interested (and a tl;dr at the very bottom if you don’t wanna scroll thru this obnoxiously long post):

the reason(s) i was gone for so long

what i was doing during that time (its just a personal account yall can scroll past this idrc)

the status of those um . halloween requests

the future of this account

i. so . Hiatus .

i know. i know . i probably mentioned it when i made the announcement post, but my mental health likes to go on one of those rides. yknow the ones where you go like up rlly fast then down maybe and then up then DOWN .... its like that. i needed a break and every time i wanted to come back or thought about it, something would happen and i would get stuck in my own head.

a big reason for getting stuck in my head was (and i hate to admit this ... i hate to admit that i have Insecurities On The Internet) my feelings of inadequacy regarding my writing. i love to plot fics, i love concepts and characters and making little headcanons but i dont ... know if i love writing rn. and i thought for the longest time that like . whatever ill just push thru it its fine ill be fine but it kinda wasnt lmao you can kinda see it in my halloween reqs and what become of them when i get to that but i began to feel like nothing i had put out or would put out would hold up prose wise (and normally i dont feel like this im much more “idc its my life im living it” but thats not a rant for tumblr LMAO). i still feel like that -- like im better as a reader than a writer. but . You Know :-)

tl;dr: mental state go brrrrr

ii. anywhere here’s wonderwall

when i left, i was in a steadily decreasing mental and emotional state, made worse by a situation at work that really was a case of petty jealousy on my end and rlly isnt very consequential now despite how much pain and resentment it gave me when it Was a problem so i wont get into it. the tl;dr of november and december was me using work as an crutch and distraction -- i know my job, i do it well, it helped me not think about my responsibilities and obligations and inadequacies. of course, as the holiday season grew busier n busier i was scheduled so often that i moved 88 or so miles (according to my apple watch, which i ONLY wear at work since im never anywhere else outside my house) and fell into a cycle of showering n sleeping at my house before going back the next day. (theres definitely something to be said abt capitalism and “grind culture” here but once again its not the time or place snsjkdfds)

at the turn of the new year, i happened to remember a birthday card i hadnt filed away for safekeeping from a friend of mine that id been horribly out of touch with til that point. i started crying because i realized how out of touch id been in general up until that point. the month of january was great for me: i was focused, happy, and in a much better place than i had been before. the end of it brought me down focus wise and im hoping that enough time away from my distractions will refocus me bc i ... need it LMAO and though ive burned out from that level of productivity and gotten distracted again im ... trying to stay positive which i think is the most i can do 😁👍🏼

media wise, i got real into stardew valley (but burned out bc i played it extensively as a way to wind down after work), the pokemon platinum romhack renegade platinum (still havent finished it bc of school n i played it w the intent to see if i could nuzlocke it ... bitch its so hard but its so fun bc of it), briefly assassins creed: odyssey (im one of those ppl who completes an entire region before i move to the next so you can tell i burned out of that one + wouldnt have the time to properly devote to it even if i didnt), got back into genshin impact after pulling for xiao (after not touching it for like . months), and danganronpa. yes . danganronpa 😐 i Know. i stopped playing it after the second trial of the first game bc i was so hurt by the outcome and picked it up in late january only to get sucked in (thank god i had the foresight to buy the second and third games during the steam winter sale). rn im at the start of chapter 4 if anyone wants to come in my asks and um . talk to me abt danganronpa

tl;dr: I’m Into Danganronpa Now

iii. you realize halloween was three months ago right

i mentioned this in the first section, but i love to plot things. every request is plotted or at least has a solid foundation. i had fun detailing what concept i wanted to go with considering what i was given, and there were some bangers i might touch up in the future. but heres whats going to happen to the requests themselves:

there are two finished requests. one will be posted tomorrow and the other will be touched up (just bc i finished it doesnt mean its good 🧍‍♂️) and scheduled for next saturday. as for the ones i never got around to ...

i will not be finishing those requests. i hate to be That Person, but i feel like we all expected this 🧍‍♂️ what i will do is post all of my notes for each request in batches -- requests that have an @ to go with them will be mentioned in the post proper, but anon asks will be pictured. (there are some asks that came from blogs who are now deactivated but i wrote down all the prompts and remember most of those askers so ill cross that bridge when i get there) there will most likely be an excerpt or two simply bc i think i mightve written a few plot points or interactions in the form of bullet points. i rlly am sorry about doing this but i remember looking at my notion doc with all the prompts and feeling ... like i wasnt measuring up n it wasnt just to myself or to some intangible concept of “other” id constructed but it was instead to those who requested n actually WANTED to see and hear and read my writing and i ...... im gonna admit thats another big reason i avoided this site.

regardless, youll definitely get what i have (and likely more than just my bullet points and illegible handwriting).

tl;dr: im sorry. what i have in terms of plot, concept, and interaction for every request will be posted, but i cant say ill ever complete them and mean it.

iv. so what now?

well i mean . im not entirely sure how sold i am on haikyuu in the content creation department (as a creator n to a lesser extent, as a consumer). as mentioned previously, its no longer my primary focus. it doesnt mean im not into haikyuu anymore; i have a lot of love for those boys but i cant rlly say im even caught up w recent fandom activity and also havent even finished s4 pt2 LMAO thats on my to do list

and despite all that, i still want to share my plots n concepts and snippets and maybe even fics. it wont happen anytime soon. it might not even happen. but i mean . its better than me saying i wont write ever again shjdkfs but either way ill probably use this blog as a personal blog w the occasional ask game for dialogue prompts (those are always so fun i love making up aus to fit like . the most mundane prompts)

as for my works (past and any potential future), ive opened an ao3 acc here n ill be editing n possibly expanding on my old works to post there. tumblr, to me, is The x reader hub, but i figure more x reader fics on ao3 is never a bad thing.

ill be deleting/posting drafted posts to the queue since they were all meant to be queued anyway as well as (sorry again 🧍‍♂️) deleting or answering asks in the inbox. (moots if you get a notif from me saying i rbed your post from months ago ... mind your business) im very hard to get ahold of and its ... a problem. expect an overhaul of the nav n shit to reflect my new direction n also because i feel like i cant tell if my passion for carrd is shared by the majority HSDKLFS maybe its better to read my info in a normal post ykwim .......

and of course . if youve read all this n decided im no longer worth the follow, i sure as hell cant stop you. thank you for wanting to, at some point, hear what i have to say -- it means more than you think.

tl;dr: writing will be edited and reposted to ao3, this blog will be a personal blog with a hint of writing (sometimes)

the tl;dr to end all tl;drs:

im back! i wont be as active as i used to due to a lessened interest in haikyuu in general, but i have an ao3 acc now where all my past work will be edited, possibly expanded, and reposted. any future work will also find itself there. my halloween requests will be posted in batches as incomplete concepts, plots, and snippets of scenes; i wont be promising to finish any of them.

there are still fic concepts im attached to and want to finish, but i cant promise any more writing on my end. this blog will be a personal blog with maybe writing, not a writing blog with my personal thoughts all over it.

regardless if you stick around or not, its been crazy sexy cool (equal emphasis) being on haikyuu tumblr even tho i wasnt around for long ... even tho its not my main focus anymore, im still excited to see what the future might hold 🤝

love, ari 💌

[tema-makes-art-sometimes]

Just saw your vent post and I think diving into your self indulgent stuff might help. For me personally, when working on original stuff, that's when I'll think about things like appealing to others/marketability/etc, but when it comes to fandom stuff, the only audience I care to pander to is Me, Myself, and I. Other people sometimes end up liking it, mostly it just goes ignored, maybe a like by a mutual if they see it. I prefer it this way, since worrying about appealing to more people when writing fanfic makes it feel too much like Writing I Do For Work, and I even never use betas for that same reason, it makes it feel too much like Work Writing, when fandom is Fun Writing.

I'm not sure what you do outside of fandom, but you have so much creativity, I've kinda assumed you've either been doing creative work or are studying to go into it--I can see you in a character design shop tbh, I can see Pin being a villain people would just eat up and love or love to hate.

If you're in a creative field, I feel like it's just good practice to go into Work Creative Space and Fandom Creative Space with different intents, if anything for the sake of mental health, as I've been in a very similar place, where silence on my fandom work would make me rethink what I'm doing, make me want to retcon WIPs, thinking "Maybe if I change this to that or this ship to that ship or change this character to be closer to fanon, more people will want to read/will comment/whatever".

You sound like you already very well know this isn't a healthy mindset, so I'm not going to go into that. I'll just say dive into that self indulgence, whether or not you're doing original creative work in the background as a job/part of study. You have great stuff, but audiences can get burned out just like creatives do. Sometimes it's because they're also creatives. Sometimes it's just burn out from seeing so much art/writing/media ALL THE TIME.

Something a professor told me was that if you got to go to an art museum, and you tried to really appreciate each piece, you'd end up exhausted before finishing even one section of the museum. This can lead to the 'mindless scrolling' a lot of the time. Fandom is becoming a large part of a lot of people's lives, but for most people, it's secondary or even tertiary media, and they're already putting a lot of energy into enjoying and appreciating the media they're in fandoms for. (Yes, there are some people who 'set fire to canon' and are in the center area of a fandom, but most people are closer to the sides, occasionally popping in from time to time but not setting up tents, if that makes sense.) So many of those people just don't have the energy to really get involved with a lot of media produced my fan creators, especially if they follow a lot of them and can only comment or otherwise get involved with a few posts/creators at a time. This can be what often leads to some 'visiting' the same 3-4 creators more often than they may go to another creator.

Setting up a place and waiting for more people to filter in can feel exhausting all by itself, especially when you're trying to create more to fill more of that space and hopefully entice more people to pop in and see what's going on.

When you focus on self indulgence for a while, you're not always looking at the door, since you usually don't expect people to walk in (at least, I never expect it), so when people actually do come in and tap you on the shoulder to see what you're working on and if they can see, it can really help offer that extra boost you need.

I really don't think you're doing anything wrong. A lot of artists who don't do what those "How to get more followers" tips still find an audience, sometimes due to the niche, sometimes starting out niche but expanding as more ideas get tossed in. Some artists who by the book, seem to do everything right, don't get nearly as much. There's really not a right or wrong way to create or share your creations. There are just a /lot/ of creators, so a lot of times, it boils down to how people find your door.

These are all really good points so I am going to share. Honestly a lot of my GerCanMano stuff is pure self indulgence but you're honestly right I think I'm probably gonna focus on some self indulgent shinanigans for a bit, and stop worrying as much about getting things out on time and making it perfect

but I do wanna point out this cause it hit me;

I'm not sure what you do outside of fandom, but you have so much creativity, I've kinda assumed you've either been doing creative work or are studying to go into it--I can see you in a character design shop tbh, I can see Pin being a villain people would just eat up and love or love to hate.

I was in school, but I never declared my major so I had to stop temporarily because I honestly don't know what major to be. There's so many things I like to do, but I don't know if I want to make a career out of them if that makes sense.

Like art, I love art and video games, I'd love to do things like animation or graphic design or be my own indie developer, but I worry if thinking about a game like a business slash whats making me money will ruin the creative process. It wont be making things for the joy of making things, it would be for my job because I had to, and idk- that just isn't as fun. Im worried about that mentality sinking in. I like them but idk if I wanna have to take them full on seriously as a career.

I'm trying to get a minimum wage job right now but its hard to find a job right now in the US job climate, especially with the fact that I have to find job willing to cater to a disability I have currently offrecord because my doctor wouldnt listen to me. Which is even harder because Ive had to walk away from jobs before because they wouldnt give me accomedations without doctors recommendation.

I am planning to set up a Etsy shop right now actually. I need to get a printer, but otherwise hopefully soon I will have a store up with stickers and preorders for keychains. One day I plan to get a button press and make my own buttons. I have hetalia merch planned, as well as my ocs. I'd love and have designs for all sorts of stuff, custom tshirt designs- like subtle hetalia fan stuff like pockets on the chest witht he character "sticking out" with familiar hetalia patterns. I have miraculous ladybug stuff planned. My friend gave me the idea of aster's heart as a friendship necklace and I love it, I could imagine all sorts of needle and thread themed pin merch I have a lot of ideas its just designing and making them and seeing if people would buy them.

I dont quite know what you mean by character design shop if thats something different or not, but yes.

Ill save a ramble about pin for a seperate post this ask is long and so is my response so Ill stop