#maybe I'll make a couple and post them intermittently

[mx-princey]

I keep imagining Undertale dialogue and I've been thinking well I can't think up a larger fanfiction setting to write it in nor do I have the motivation to draw a comic for every one (although that comic I did before was nice)

Now I'm thinking, maybe I can just post them as text boxes. But then, I wonder if that would be annoying to see in the tags

[bcbdrums]

🍄🍬🌿🧩 Truth or Dare!

"🍄 ⇢ share a head canon for one of your favourite ships or pairings"

uhmm... hmmm... hmmm... i don't think i can pick one pair, lol. i'm gonna pick. a few.

i'll preface this by saying i'm a canon purist 99% of the time, so when i have a headcanon, it's because i think i can defend it very well with evidence from the source material.

Star Trek - Jim and Spock share a mental link that was created by accident and allowed intermittent empathy/mild telepathy of both a conscious and subconscious nature. this is evidenced in several episodes, but a particular moment on the bridge in The Immunity Syndrome is my solid basis for this. (I promise I'll keep writing "Always Will"... Star Trek is the fandom of my heart. I'll come back to it. I promise.)

Kim Possible - (angst alert! tw: infant death. tw: child death. tw: miscarriage. i hope i did that right...) Drakken and Shego had twins that didn't survive. The event brought them closer together and made them re-think their priorities... This is post-canon when they were dealing with the good vs. evil issues already, and the only thing they knew for sure was they wanted to be together. This event also led them to realize...they want to be parents. (Yes, my fic "Rekindling" is in fact, headcanon...)

Soul Eater - I haven't posted a fic about this one yet so I'm leery to share it... But a story is already in the works. And I'll be very, very vague... Stein's "experiments" on Spirit were extremely mild and rapidly turned into something else... Something Stein was doing to cover for Spirit, to protect him from something else going on in his life... And that's where I'm leaving that because I want it to be a surprise when I post the story! But a couple people I've told might guess this, heheh. (No title for this story yet... Titles are my worst enemy.)

"🍬 ⇢ post an unpopular opinion about a popular fandom character"

Spirit Albarn did not cheat on his wife. 😎 I'll die on this hill. In a diff post than the one I link, I compared him to Greg Universe (of Steven Universe). The authors present both as characters you want to hate, who you question, who look like lousy fathers. But slowly the story starts to unfold and you realize...there's more here than what was presented on the surface. And maybe the surface was a lie all along. I use that comparison because most people seem to get it with Greg. But only a few people get it with Spirit. That's fine. It's my headcanon; it doesn't have to be yours. And I enjoy other ppl's headcanons very much. But you did ask.

"🌿 ⇢ give some advice on writer's block and low creativity"

this is where the whole... 'write for yourself' thing, comes into play. i've actually seen a lot of tumblr discourse about this recently... write for yourself! people say. but, we share creations out because...we want people to see them. we are writing for ourselves, and then sharing them...

here's what i'm learning. my motivation to create has to be for myself, in the grand scheme. it's fine to create things here and there for others. and i personally love gifting fanfic. but if your goal when you go into creating is... 'i'm going to tailor this story so this person will like it,' or, 'i'm gonna post this and i can't wait till this person comments!' that's when you're in danger... you're not creating for yourself anymore. now your satisfaction is going to come from...what that person thinks, whether or not they comment, how deep is their comment...

your satisfaction has to come from responding to your own creative drive.... i suppose that's where the advice starts. make sure your motives are in the right place. and... hey, if the creativity is sated? allow yourself to rest! as i'm writing this (it's being queued so, not coming out near the same day it was asked), my writing well is a bit dry. you might want to create, and feel bad you're not doing so... but it's okay to rest! if your mind just wants to daydream but the hands don't want to write the story or draw the piece right then... just let yourself be. allow yourself that space. i think you'll find creativity is better for it in the long run.

'but i'm worried my followers will be disappointed?' now, there you're not creating for you again... if they're friends, they'll still be there. if they're just...a random number in your stats, then again... your motives aren't in the right place. i'm a firm believer in...don't base your self-worth on internet stats. it's just not something i can get onboard with. your value is not determined by number of views, comments, reblogs, etc...

"🧩 ⇢ what will make you click away from a fanfiction immediately?"

ahhhh hmmm.... i haven't done any immediate clicks in awhile. i'd say if something squicks me pretty suddenly. but blessedly, with AO3 tagging, i can often avoid accidentally running into those things.

wanna be clear though, writing is in art itself and sometimes... well, i'll give an example. i read a fic not too long ago with a twist ending. it is the sort of thing i would not have read had i known. but, had they tagged for the twist it would have ruined the story. so i was not bothered by the lack. i personally would have done the same. am i haunted by what i read? yes. but storytelling is its own art and well...yeah. it's not like in picking up a physical book we're gonna get the tag warnings.

that was slightly off topic, uhhh... i think mostly just if one of my squicks shows up i'll click away. something that's not my thing. and depending on how good the fic is, i'll try to push past it. but if it keeps happening... like there was one long, long multi-chap where main char was kidnapped and tortured and my poor li'l happy-ending heart didn't realize until i was fairly deep in that the whole point of the fic was torture that just got worse and worse... closed that one, never finished.

oh okay but one thing... if a story is VERY out of character, then i'm not interested. like.... the whole point in fanfic is to see more of the character so if it doesn't read like them, then... yeah. that's actually probably the most immediate thing for me. i can handle poor grammar and formatting and english-second-language writers and new writers who are learning the craft... all of that is fine. long as the character is in character, i'm pretty game to read most things.

thanks for the ask!!!!

[zarvasace]

PROGRESS POST

(12/18/23)

If you're interested in what I've done recently, the state of my projects, and what I plan on doing in the new year, read on! :)

By Fandom

Linked Universe Projects

Shatterproof: I have more backstories cooking, and a half-finished fic or two, but that's about it. I plan on updating a story at least once before January

Council (1931 AU): backburner, haven't really had inspiration. Still on my radar though, and it spins through my head on occasion!

Marvelous Misadventures: been plucking away at this! I recently had an epiphany regarding the next part of the plot, so hopefully that gets me more excited to work on it

Considering expanding the coloring pages I made into a whole series, that could be cool

Misc stuff includes a couple half-abandoned oneshots, a few drawing ideas, and a major art project that probably won't happen because I'm trying not to burn myself out 😅

Four Swords Projects

Fairytale AU: recently gained fire for this again. Reread and organized all my existing material, edited the outline, and I desperately want to finish it soon. Hesitantly scheduling for before the new year. Draft currently maybe about 30% of the way, at 8k.

Isekai AU: I don't think I've mentioned this to anyone outside discord, but ta da I'm deep in this. I'm probably 90% done, about 30k. This will be a Christmas fic, I hope!!

Vampire lords AU: rambly vampire plot is going. Somewhat slowly. I've been trying to not overload myself with too much, so this has been demoted slightly. :) Bite fics happen spontaneously, though, and there might be another coming.

Rinthia AU: my original world, the one seen in Nothing New Under the Sun. This is kind of a passing thought, definitely in planning stages, but I would kind of like to expand this—see where the other characters are, give y'all some answers, because the answers are there

Non-fandom

I want to do more traditional art, graphite and watercolors mostly, and that usually means using photos or life instead of fandom stuff. Makes it a bit less exciting, but maybe I can find a way of doing that. I miss my lil oil paint studio area but I can work with what I have

I'm crafting a few Christmas presents instead of buying them because I do not have much money. That is something I need to spend like, this next week doing

Sanderson merch: I have a goal of getting a booth at Dragonsteel next December, and selling some small souvenir stuff. My plans involve making more pins (I ordered a couple already, and they're very nice), drawing some coloring pages, and maybe advertising here a little once I actually have some stuff I'm proud of up. This will ideally take a year to get together, though, so no rush.

By Month

November

I spent most of November working on The Worst Thing About Earth, kind of an impulse fic that spiraled out of control. I think I burned myself out a little on this, so I've been taking it slowly. Trying to, anyway.

December

So far, I've mostly worked on holiday gift exchanges and some backburner stuff. Like I said, I've been taking it kind of gently. I plan on finishing the FS isekai AU this month, and getting most of the way through the fairytale AU. Getting those off my plate will free me up to think about other things, I think. I also plan on maybe one more bite fic and one more LU disability AU thing before the new year.

January On

I'm not sure what the next month will bring! Ideally, I'll be wrapping up the fairytale AU and intermittently posting a few little things. I'm hoping to return to a couple of my older projects soon, mostly Marvelous Misadventures, because I've left that thing unfinished for LONG ENOUGH.

This next year, I want to try to devote more time to doing things for myself that aren't fandom things. I'd like to reread Stormlight Archive before #5 comes out in December, play more video games, and do more painting. I would like to establish a better habit of making and eating food. I want to play board games a little more often.

Still, the muse can be fickle, and as you probably know by now, I am very good at chasing my inspiration!!

[hickeygender]

Sorry, maybe this is obvious and I'm just clueless but what separates a good portrayal of Cat Witchers vs not? I'm kinda confused

Even though ableism against mentally ill people is baked into the lore, I don't think it's too obvious bc of how pervasive ableism is in our culture, so don't worry, you aren't alone in your confusion! As a mentally ill man, I didn't even realize what struck me as wrong about the whole Cat School madness thing until I read some fics that featured it heavily, so you're far from the only person not to notice it. That said, just because the lore is ableist doesn't excuse people doubling down in ableist ways in their fanworks. We shouldn't give ourselves or other people a free pass simply because the source material has bad implications, instead we should take accountability and tread carefully whenever engaging with Cat Witcher lore. Now, this is going to be Long and written for the dual and often overlapping audiences of fanwork creators and consumers, so apologies that the rest will be under a cut!

I've already written up a couple posts about ableism in regards to the Cat School, primarily focusing on fandom, but I wouldn't recommend those bc I not only focused a bit narrowly on mostly psychosis, but I also mistakenly identified dissociation as a form of psychosis in one of the posts bc that's what I'd been told by an actual mental health professional. F's in chat for me I guess, thanks Susan! Anyways I'll summarize and expand upon the contents of those posts here. Also, I don't know if I ever say in that post that the lore itself is straight up ableist, and I'll explain why in a moment. Now, it isn't inherently ableist to depict someone with severe mental illness, just like it isn't inherently ableist to depict anyone with any severe disability, but the way in which it's excecuted is what makes it bad or not. Basically, the whole "Cats are CRAAAAAZY!!1!" is ableist in excecution because it puts a value judgement on said madness, implying that they are both more violent and morally bankrupt because of their madness, whether or not it's linked with the mutagens (I think there's some wiggle room here canonically as to whether or not the mental illness is from mutagens or whether it's due to or greatly exacerbated by picking candidates who are prone to mental illness, but while that's fascinating, this post is gonna be long enough so I'll perhaps cover that in another one). Portraying Cats as more violent or morally bankrupt simply because they are mentally ill is bad, end of story. If you want specific examples of this, literally just go to the wiki, this post doesn't need a plethora of citations to pad it out even more.

Now that I've established the lore itself as being ableist, let's discuss theoretical specifics of their illnesses, and what that means for how we portray them faithfully! The Cats aren't easily identifiable as having any one mental illness. They're said to be "psychopathic", an outdated, pejorative term for people with antisocial personality disorder. Gaetan reports symptoms that could be identified with intermittent explosive disorder. The wiki says Cat Witchers have volatile emotions, which could be bipolar coding. The fandom also enjoys writing Cats as having psychotic episodes and dissociative episodes, both of which I suffer from and which are incredibly annoying to see done wrong. These disorders and symptoms can all have overlap, but they can all be boiled down into the terms of "mental illness" or "madness" which I will use interchangeably throughout this post, though it's worth noting that the latter is a divisive term and one I'm using to both engage with the canon and fanon on its level and to reclaim.

So, how do you portray Cat Witchers as mad without being ableist and also remain true to canon? I've come up with three guidelines for judging whether or not something is ableist or not. If you follow these as well as maybe do a bit of research into ableism against mentally ill people, and also excercise some common sense and empathy, I think you'll be fine.

1.) Considering the world of the Witcher, I'm not expecting anyone to use our modern terminology for their characters mental illnesses, but I recommend at a minimum researching mental illnesses and picking one to at least loosely base your Cat Witcher's symptoms on. I'd do this because that way you can have a reference for believable behavior and symptoms for your character. If you're depicting a Cat Witcher as having antisocial personality disorder, they would NOT have explosive outbursts like they would if they had intermittent explosive disorder (unless it was co-morbid, of course). If your character is bipolar, they would NOT be hearing voices (again, unless you write them as being co-morbid with a schizospec disorder, though I'd advise against this because it could easily come off as conflating two different disorders). If you aren't writing characters and are instead just engaging in fan content, some good questions to ask yourself while reading would be "Do I recognize this mental illness?","How was this handled?", and "Is this falling into any harmful stereotypes?".

2.) A topic I think is important to consider when portraying or engaging with portrayals of Cat Witchers is this: how is the ableism they face treated by the narrative? I'm not so naive as to think that you will be able to believably write a mentally ill Cat in the world of the Witcher who doesn't face some kind of ableism, but I'm concerned with the impression it leaves the audience with, not its mere existence as a narrative element. Does it come off as gratuitous? Is it legitimized by the narrator, plot, or narrative? By legitimized, I mean excused. I have read Cat Witcher fics where actual eugenics against the mentally ill were justified by the narrative, and the way it was handled was abhorrent. I don't want to get into specifics bc I don't want anyone to get harassed, but it left me with a horrible taste in my mouth. Please, at the minimum, don't treat eugenics or "purges" or whatever you want to call them lightly, and if you do cover such a dark topic I beg that you ask yourself if you're making it clear narratively that eugenics is bad actually, or if you're instead feeding into actively harmful rhetoric that is dangerous for an already marginalized group to face.

3.) The last thing I can think of that I would advise against that I've seen in other fandoms but thankfully not this one (yet) is that True Love™ doesn't cure madness. It just... doesn't. Mental illness doesn't just go away because you're seeing someone. It doesn't go away at all unless it's acute, and that has zero bearing on whether or not the character is in love. Instead, I'd recommend writing the couple as having coping strategies for when the party in question is experiencing symptoms of their mental illness. Doing so is a great way to strengthen their relationship in your writing! If you're reading rather than writing fic, I recommend asking yourself about how mad characters are treated in the fics you read, whether or not they're magically "cured" bc of the love of another or any other means.

That's all I can think of at the moment, and I encourage you to do your own research about ableism against mentally ill folk as well if you want to improve your understanding! Also do keep in mind us mad folk aren't a monololith and I can't speak for all of us, but I hope my personal opinions on this have helped you out!!

[kelpiemomma]

TLDR: I'm not going to be on Tumblr a lot anymore. To those interested in keeping in more frequent contact, my discord account is KelpieMomma#6353. Send me a dm with your discord name if you send a friend request so I don't assume it's spam.

So, I'm not sure how many people noticed but I've been off of tumblr for a bit. The last couple weeks I've been browsing I've only felt worse and worse. It's not even posts about real life events that do it but, of all things, art. Not my friends art, which I'm always delighted to see and share, but the bigger, more popular artists. The ones who gets hundreds and thousands of notes on every piece they put up, whether it's a sketch or not. I've been feeling defeated. I'm not even stressed, I'm just tired and bitter. Tumblr has been my main website for many years, but between it and deviantart and the popularity contests on both of them...

Honestly I had a serious thought about simply not drawing anymore. Packing up my sketchbooks, selling off or giving away my colored pencils and paints. I know that art is for the creator but it's also incredibly lonely when you upload something to share and get... almost no response. Maybe I'm being selfish and greedy, and I'm not upset that my friends enjoy my work, but no matter how much I ever put up, no matter the effort I put in, I saw the same 3-5 people interacting and almost no one else. It's disheartening.

Lately I've been having feelings of being back in middle school. I had a friend back then, one I'm no longer friends with, who made art miserable. She wanted praise for her work while never doing the same for others. She would tell us about how she was getting commissions and how people wanted to interact with her art, regardless of how it made us feel. As long as she got attention she was fine. And while years have passed, and as an adult I can comprehend the trauma she was going through to make her like that, it still fucked me up and continues to do so. For me, Tumblr has become That Friend. It's become the one who wants praise for their work while ignoring others. It's become the friend who promotes the Best while those that aren't as skilled get left behind.

Once again, I'm inadequate. I'm not enough. It's a ridiculous feeling to have, I know, but I continue having it. What I put up gets interacted with by the same people consistently and nobody else. I am dragging the corpse of my ideas around, hoping that someone will show interest in helping me carry it.

So I'm kind of... done. With tumblr. With deviantart. With trying. I'm going to continue working on my fics, I'm going to keep sketching, but I'm going to be trying to give Tumblr space. I don't want to be in it constantly when it just makes me feel like shit. I might make a new account, start fresh, but I'm not sure yet.

I'm just too tired for this. I can't keep doing it. I'm not interesting enough, talented enough, or interested in enough to achieve anything. One of those things that sinks in as you get older I guess.

I'll likely still upload intermittently but I'm going to be doing my best to just... not. There's not much point to it for me.