#might fill the queue of my prompt blogs first though | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

eloquenceassassinated · 5 years

Text

I’m Leaving Tumblr: A Farewell to my Followers

I haven't been very active on this blog lately. If you're observant, you've probably noticed it. If I really wanted to, I could probably just leave it that way; everyone would eventually take me off their followed list as an inactive blog and absently wonder where I went. But I don't really want to do that.

In his poem “The Hollow Men,” T. S. Elliot wrote, “This is how the world ends: not with a bang, but with a whimper.” In my case, though I'm not a popular blog by any stretch, and though this arguably isn't a website that deserves the fanfare, I don't want to leave with a bang, but at least with a whisper: “Thanks for the memories. I'll be on my way now.”

To do that properly, I have to take you on a little ride.

In my time on this website, I:

Joined tumblr in June of 2017 for the purposes of posting art.

Proceeded to not post a lot of art.

Found the Captain America, Voltron, and Ninjago fandoms on here and got swept up in those instead.

Got my first 100 notes on a post about Dr. Julien. Dabbed in celebration.

Made a post about Shiro and Bucky maybe being friends.

Bought a mug from mintmintdoodles—and liked it!

Went on a missions trip. Came back.

Reblogged a LOT of fandom stuff.

Saw Wonder Woman, which was good.

Celebrated my first Steve's Birthday—I mean Fourth of July on the site.

Made lots of Clone!Shiro theory posts.

Made a dumb “who in Voltron likes anime?” post.

Fell in love with Matt Holt.

Started posting “Grass Whistle”, my first multi-chapter fanfic.

Got a job, which kinda put the kabosh on the fanfic for a bit.

Bought a print from mechinaries.

Found a bunch of my other fandoms on this site including Lord of the Rings, How to Train Your Dragon, and Hamilton.

Celebrated my first Christmas on the site.

Participated in the Ninjago Secret Santa, where I actually got my friend Candaru's prompt and it was hilarious.

Kinda ghosted through the first winter months of 2018 as my job occupied more and more of my time.

Resumed posting Grass Whistle in the spring of 2018 and finally finished it, to a wonderful reception.

Saw Black Panther and loved it!

Started posting “The Run and Go”, to a better reception on FF.net than this site.

Saw Thor: Ragnarok and wished we got to see that hug.

Witnessed the best season of Voltron (S6) before everything went downhill.

Went on vacation. Came back.

Wrote and posted “Brother”.

Posted art celebrating Candaru's story “Several Dead LEGOs Play Cards”.

Went on the missions trip again. Came back.

Saw Infinity War and was in DENIAL.

Reconnected with a friend with whom I'd been through a really rough patch over the past couple of years, and began to mend our friendship.

Posted a really long queue of LotR stuff for no particular reason.

Watched Voltron end; it was terrible.

Started a new year and continued to keep the blog busy with lots of queues.

Watched Alita: Battle Angel and it was AMAZING.

Posted a really long How to Train Your Dragon queue for no particular reason.

Continued to dread Endgame.

Watched Endgame. Stayed in denial.

Fell behind on Ninjago seasons.

Watched the Voltron and Ninjago blogs I follow fade into inactivity until I was left with nothing but gifs of Endgame and my own sadness.

Kept the charade going until the summer of 2019 hit and I realized that I'm doing out of obligation what should be for fun.

I don't really know how to state this in a kind way, but neither the circumstances that brought me here nor the conditions that kept me here exist any longer. This is a fandom blog, and it's a tough break when you've fallen either out of step or out of love with your fandoms. Keeping up the queue is the only way that my blog stays active on my work days, but it isn't fun. This blog stays inactive because upkeeping it is a chore—a chore that I keep putting off, and a chore that no one asked me to do.

2 Timothy 2:20-21 says, “In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for special purposes and some for common use. Those who cleanse themselves from the latter will be instruments for special purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work.”

I never really understood that. What does Paul have against common things? Does he have beef with clay? But I think I get it now—it's a simple matter of removing clutter. Cleaning out what's unnecessary so that the only things that remain are the best ones.

I'm not leaving tumblr because I have any anger against the site or any one person or fandom or whatever. I'm not leaving because something cataclysmic happened, or because I was abducted by aliens and their planet has bad wifi. I'm leaving because I've had some time to think, and I've decided that it's for my best mental health that I leave this chapter behind. Plain and simple.

Those who know me personally probably know that my prayer for 2019 has been centered around a single word: Restoration. The past few years have been hard ones for me, and it's time to rebuild and restore what's been broken. Sometimes repairing a house means tearing out the moldy walls first. Sometimes being your best self means eliminating distractions.

Because that's what these are—distractions, layered on distractions. Marvel distracted me from the real world, and Voltron distracted me between Marvel movies, and Ninjago distracted me when Voltron turned sour. When those fell through, I turned to old fandoms to distract myself. And when I finally extricated myself from that mess, made amends with some people, looked up, and faced my situation for what it is, I realized that it's not something I can maintain.

I'll still keep the blog up. I won't deactivate it, because deactivated blogs make me sad and wonder if there's some tragedy here that I don't know about. Especially since the platonic prompts post continues to make rounds, I want people to be able to come back to this blog if they wish and see what the original poster was like—someone who loves friendship in fandoms, celebrates it, and spent two years creating a safe haven of nothing but positive, pro-bromance content. If this blog was ever a safe haven for anybody, I want them to still have it available in its entirety. Even if it should never have been work, I did work hard on this. I don't want that to go to waste.

As for those I follow, there will still be some blogs that I check on from time to time—particularly the ones that my personal friends run—but I likely won't be interacting with the posts. If you know me in real life, you can still contact me through email or my fanfiction account. I'll be there.

But starting today, I'm taking the tumblr app off of my phone. I might come back sometime, but I don't see it happening. No offense or hard feelings to anybody—I'm just done for now.

If I ever made anyone smile, I think this would all be worth it. If I made someone laugh, or think, or cry, or if I inspired them to write something or draw something or create something that had never existed before, I think it would all be worth it. If I can truly say that I was a positive Christian influence in my short time here—that I touched somebody—I think it would be worth it.

After all, life isn't about followers. It's about friends. It isn't about notes. It's about whose lives you touched, whose day you made just a little bit better. And I know that all of you (except for the pornbots) are real people, and I want you to know that, to the best of my ability, I care about every single one of you. I want all of you to live happy lives, and I hope that God makes Himself very, very real to you and fills you with a love that words can't explain and a joy that our hearts can't contain and a hope that our minds can't imagine in our wildest dreams.

I wish all 119 of you well. I wish everyone who has ever crossed my path through this blog well. I hope I could make you smile. It's been fun, and I've met some great people and made some wonderful friends, and I'm glad to have been here.

Thank you to my friends. Thank you to anyone who ever liked or reblogged my art. Thank you to everyone who reblogs the platonic prompts post—it's just over 3,000 notes as I write this, which is about the size of my church, and while that isn't terribly a lot I guess it's still wild to think about.

I especially want to thank the Ninjago community for always being so enthusiastic, warm, and wholesome my whole time on this website, from giving me my first 100 notes on the Dr. Julien headcanon post just a few days into my time here to your staggering and sincere support of Grass Whistle a year later. Never stop being your wonderful selves—it was wonderful to interact with all of you.

Thanks for the memories. I mean that.

Here's a picture of one of my hermit crabs, Clover, on a tiny boat I got in Michigan. Peace out!

—Sincerely, EA

#ea speaks #mine #my writing #blog maintainence #real life #and so another chapter comes to a close #and i get way too emotional about it

73 notes · View notes

carolyncaves · 5 years

Text

Writer Ask Meme

@avianscribe tagged me (and friend, I’m so behind on your fics, they sound so good. My only consolation is I’m going to have 85 chapters of Cracked waiting for me when I finally get there haha)

Author’s Name:

Carolyn is my real first name. I went really unsubtle with my main blog, because I wanted to post about my original fic and my usual usernames for video games and stuff seemed not-great for that, and then when I started writing fanfic I wanted the name to be similar bc this is a side blog and I wanted to give people a snowball’s chance of figuring out who was following them back, and ... yeah. It’s not that uncommon, pls don’t try to stalk me.

Fandoms you write for:

FFXV is the first and so far only. This game gave me a complex, I had to write Love Languages to deal. Then I was hooked. So it probably won’t be the last.

Where you post:

AO3 and occasionally Tumblr

Most popular multi-chapter story:

Warmth - unsurprisingly, and by a margin so large it’s a little scary. I do love the story, though, MT!Prompto is such a fun characterization to really go all-in with - and I’m glad everyone else likes it too.

Favorite story you wrote:

Well, I was going to put High Walled Garden, so ... honorable mention goes to Something Just Like This (fake dating with ace!Gladio and pining-disaster!Ignis) - I love the autumn dates, they’re so fun, and I loved writing ace Gladio and Ignis loving him anyway. It’s very indulgent on like every level.

Story you were nervous to post:

My two sexually explicit fics. I was unreasonably nervous about posting both of them, considering the amount of explicit fic I’ve read myself without batting an eye. De(Flower) is the most actually explicit, but I wrote the Receiving Gifts bonus scene a lot earlier and I was still kind of a baby about posting anything, so that one was probably worse.

How do you choose your titles?

It really varies. Love Languages was easy mode, those were baked into the conceit of the series. Often I’ll just use a word or phrase that feels like it evokes the fic, even if it doesn’t really make sense - see A High Walled Garden For Your Heart, De(Flower). I’ve also been letting myself shamelessly use song titles when the mood strikes - I missed out on the opportunity to have a overly-earnest songfic phase as a teen, so it’s kind of a more muted version of that.

Do you outline?

Not really, but sometimes I skip forward and sketch in major scenes, so ... kind of? Sometimes? I’ve realized I’m faster when I just write straight through, though, because sketching in/outlining kind of turns into fiddling around instead of writing.

How many of your stories are…

*complete?

*in-progress?

1 (and I feel like I’ve proven I can’t be trusted with managing WIPs, so it will likely remain the only one)

Coming soon:

Another chapter of Warmth. (Then, theoretically, five more. *quiet weeping*) Beyond that, I don’t have any other fics planned or in progress. But the summer has been a little slow for me mentally/motivationally, and as I feel the fall seeping back into my bones, I’m trying to pick back up both my original fic and fanfic and get some work done again.

Do you accept prompts?

I’m theoretically still taking prompts for FFXV Jeopardy, and I only have one fill left in the queue. Those were always going to be filled ~eventually~, and at the moment I’d have to include the caveat ~or maybe never~. Which is kind of a lame pitch, I realize, but ... my ask box is there. :)

Upcoming story you are most excited to write:

I’m really excited for the rest of Warmth. There are so many parts of that story I want to share. I just have to actually write them out right, so other people can have them, too. It might take another year, but I want to get there.

Tag five authors to answer these questions as well: How about @missymoth, @audreyskdramablog, @errantknightess, @stopmopingstarthoping, and @cygnahime, if any of you feel like doing it - also anyone else, please feel free to tag me back so I can see your answers.

#ask game #thanks for tagging me #i really enjoyed filling it out #i never did my one year fic-iversary or anything #so this was a nice opportunity to look back (and forward)

7 notes · View notes

anotherimaginescollection · 7 years

Text

Request Information

So, I’ve managed to cut down on unwritten requests quite significantly and so now I’m reopening requests. I’m altering the request information a little so I’ll add that at the bottom of this post as well – a few new fandoms really.

Unfortunately the wait for requests to be posted is still a few months, despite how I’ve filled the queue. I’m sorry for the wait but it’s purely because I don’t know how much writing time I’ll get in coming months and I don’t want to ever leave the blog with nothing being posted. Also, with how in flux my feelings about my writing are hopefully this should help if I get too stressed to write or anything.

But, a huge thank you to your continued support and the patience with request posting times; your understanding means a lot.

Imagines list

Drabbles – Written in second person for the reader, unless specified otherwise; comes with a gif at the top of a text post.

One shots – Written in first person of the reader, or otherwise specified character; comes with a gif at the top of a text post.

Prompts – Send in a specific prompt for the imagine to come from (can use any of the prompt lists that I have, though please specify which one as will automatically use this one, or your own sentence starter); written in second person for the reader, unless specified otherwise; comes with a gif at the top of a text post.

Gifs – Written mainly in second person of the reader, though changeable; comes with a header and gifs (the writing is mainly an addition to this, and usually on the shorter side).

Headcanons – Consists of five bullet points linked to the topic – two of which are expanded into very short second person narratives.

Preferences – Consists of a few sentences related to the topic of the preference for up to eight characters from the same fandom (specific characters can be useful with these, but I often go for the first ones to come to mind if just a group, such as The Pack, are given).

Song fics – Imagines based on a song, written in second person for the reader unless otherwise specified.

AUs and Crossovers – I will write AUs and crossovers for any of the fandoms mentioned, but they will probably be as drabbles unless specifically asked for something else.

Character Questions – I’m going to do this on a trial basis for the moment. These are mainly questions people ask of my OCs, like headcanons in a sense, but I’ve been getting some requests for canon characters. So, I’ll accept questions for characters but I’ll only answer them on Fridays if I can, posting them over the weekend. There’ll be a week’s wait for them so that I’m not stressing myself out with getting them done.

I try to write everything using neutral pronouns, though if the request is specific about the gender preferred I will try and use that (this may take a while for me to remember to do as I’m used to neutral imagines, so please bear with me). Any of my own imagines, however, will be as neutral as possible to try and make the blog as inclusive as possible.

I do not write smut or for triggering content. I have done the latter in the past but I’m no long doing that at the moment. If there is anything that might be deemed triggering or I think needs a warning at the top of the imagine. I will tag the imagine itself and also make sure that there is a warning at the top of it. I do write swearing into imagines where it is used in canon, and violence if it’s used as I try to keep imagines in keeping with the feel of the fandom.

Fandoms

Baby Driver

Batman (comics and Gotham; can also write for Suicide Squad, Batman vs. Superman and Justice League movies)

Being Human UK

Constantine

Doctor Who (from 10 onwards, still trying to catch up on 9 to write for properly) and Class

The Flash

The Gifted

Grimm

Harry Potter (books and movies) and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

iZombie

Kingsman movies

Legends of Tomorrow

The Librarians

Lucifer

The Maze Runner series (books and movies)

Merlin

Misfits

The Musketeers (TV series and film, please specify)

Nowhere Boys

Now You See me

Rogue One and The Force Awakens/The Last Jedi

Riverdale

Runaways

Scorpion (nothing from series 4 please)

MTV Scream

Shadowhunters (books, TV series and movies, please specify)

Sherlock (TV series and movies, please specify)

Supergirl

Teen Wolf

Timeless

Until Dawn

The Walking Dead (nothing from series 6 onwards)

Wynonna Earp (nothing from series 2 please)

Zoo

he 100 (nothing from series 3 onwards)

OCs: Find more information about them here The Cure Series [Original work]/Sidekicks and Criminals [Supergirl fanfiction]/Rising Light [Constantine fanfiction with fiercefray]/The Making of a Hero [Nightwing fanfiction]

#Request Things #Request Information

7 notes · View notes

gorgeousdan · 7 years

Text

notdanhowell

summary: Dan has a guilty pleasure: phan blogs. It’s a mixture of conceited arrogance and morbid curiosity, really. And really, it’s a mixture of these two things that lead to him catfishing members of his phandom and becoming a headcanon blog. After all, what harm can one headcanon do? word count: 2318/20,000 warnings (this chapter): anxiety attacks, angsty!dan

LAST CHAPTER | NEXT CHAPTER

The first thing Dan notices when he wakes up is that it’s bright. The bed’s still warm, and there’s a lump where Phil had been. Dan notices Phil isn’t there anymore. He doesn’t have time to question the weirdness of this fact because his stomach growls and he comes to the realization that he hasn’t eaten anything since the last morning and that’s just unacceptable.

He stretches, and for a brief second there’s a moment of bliss where he doesn’t remember what he’s done. And then it all comes back to him as if in a flash of lightning. But he’s too sleepy and hungry to spiral. Still, he doesn’t touch his phone. He throws a glare at it as he walks out of the room for good measure.

He’s never going to fuck up like that again, that’s for sure.

Dan lets his stomach lead him to the kitchen, where his flatmate sits with a box of pizza, munching absently on a piece. Dan sits down next to him, takes one of the pieces and bites into it. Neither of them say anything, but that’s fine. Dan’s actually rather content with sitting there in silence.

Phil speaks anyway. “Do you wanna talk-”

“No,” Dan answers just a bit too loudly and quickly. Phil jumps. “Sorry, sorry,” Dan says. “It’s nothing.” Phil looks like he might protest, so Dan grabs his hand, runs his fingers over Phil’s knuckles. “I’m fine, really.”

Phil sighs. He squeezes Dan’s hand. “Okay,” he says and then he drops Dan’s hand and nods with his head towards the television. “Are you down for finishing that episode of Attack on Titan?”

Dan can tell Phil’s trying to make things normal so he offers his flatmate a thankful smile. “Sounds good.”

So they don’t talk about it. They spend the rest of the day watching anime and lounging about, Dan answers a few work emails, updates his queue, Phil chuckles at something on his dashboard and Dan looks over his shoulder to look. It’s normal. The calm before the storm, if you will.

Phil says he’s going to work on a video and he leaves Dan alone. Alone with Tumblr open and the notifications from notdanhowell staring at him threateningly.

Well. He almost has to now, doesn’t he?

His headcanon has gained more notes, but that’s not what he’s focused on. His ask box is filled with people praising his work and sending other ideas for headcanons and even full-length fics. He’s not going to fill them, of course he’s not, but one ask in particular catches his eye.

Anonymous said:

you’re such a great writer dani. are you going to write more headcanons? - abby

Dan huffs. There are plenty of amazing writers in the phandom, he’s encountered them himself late at night. Why would people care about his stupid cereal headcanon?

notdanhowell said:

no. i’m not a writer, it was a one-off thing, ta.

Dan goes back to reading through most of the headcanon requests. To be fair, most of them are domestic, platonic, nothing particularly horrifying. He starts on some of the more raunchy one, is on a particularly disturbing requests that has to do with ropes and Shrek masks when the anon sends another ask.

Anonymous said:

aw :(. It’s your decision but your hc made me smile. - abby

So that kind of hits Dan hard. He loves making people happy, that’s why he makes videos, that’s why he does everything he does with Phil. He knows people get enjoyment out of these stupid fics and headcanons, that’s why they write them in the first place. And he doesn’t have that many followers. It didn’t get that many notes. Perhaps it was just a freak thing.

What more harm could one more headcanon do?

He finally decides on a prompt from a girl called Amma which isn’t particularly scarring. Apparently she went to TATINOF as well. He almost thanks her before remembering that he’s notdanhowell for a reason.

shrekdanhowell said:

Could I have a headcanon about how D & P watch TV together? Thanks Dani, you’re the best! <3

Dan glances anxiously to either side to make sure Phil’s still filming his video. He can hear his flatmate talking to himself and sighs in relief as he starts typing.

notdanhowell said:

phil’s usually more invested in movies and new episodes of tv shows, so he tends to watch those without a laptop or phone in hand. however, if it’s the news, old episodes of buffy, the great british bakeoff or something he’s seen before, he tends to sit on twitter with his laptop. he laughs at things and occasionally shows dan.

dan, however, is quite guilty for being on his phone no matter what he’s watching. he blames the information age and millennials in general, but his attention can’t be captivated simply by a tv show or movie, even if it is new. this annoys the shit out of phil.

“Hey.”

Dan nearly jumps out of his skin.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” Dan yells. He turns and sees Phil standing behind him. “Give a guy some warning next time. Jesus.”

Phil giggles. “Sorry,” he says, but Dan can tell he’s not really sorry. He leans his elbows on Dan’s shoulders. “Watcha looking at?”

Dan presses post as fast as lightning and is somehow on the Google homepage by the time Phil looks. “Erm,” he says, because he realizes just a second too late that it might seem really fucking weird that he’s on the Google homepage. “Just googling,” he says, and gives a little unconvincing look.

Phil buys into it, though. “Cool!” He says, then asks, “watcha googling?”

Dan says the first thing that pops into his head, which is, for some reason, “how do mermaids reproduce?” When Phil raises an eyebrow in question, Dan rushes to explain. “Just like,” he starts unhelpfully. “Like, they’re top half human and bottom half fish, you know? So I’m thinking they can’t just,” he trails off.

Phil chuckles. “You’re a weird guy, Dan Howell,” he says. “Why am I even friends with you?”

Dan sighs with relief. “You’re also a weird guy, Phil.” Phil just smiles, but doesn’t say anything in reply so Dan figures he’s kind of in the clear. “Anyway, did you need me? Because I thought you were supposed to be filming a video, not scaring the shit out of your best friend when he’s trying to research the validity of mermaid birthings.”

“I did, actually,” Phil answers. “I wanted to know if I could use one of your jackets? I need to play a soulless character and-”

Dan laughs, “Say no more,” he answers. “Mi closet es tu closet.” He leans back against his hands. “You should wear black more often. It looks good on you.” Jesus Christ, he’s becoming as bad as the shippers.

Phil, thankfully, doesn’t catch onto it. “Unlike you, I have a soul, Daniel James Howell.” With that, he walks off to Dan’s room with a quick, “thanks!” thrown over his shoulder. Dan waits until he hears Phil leave his room and walk into his room with the door shut behind him and he turns back to his laptop.

He can’t afford to have close calls like that.

Phil’s video ends and Dan nods approvingly. “It’s very good,” he says. “I don’t think I have any constructive criticism in me for amazingphil videos, though, as a recovering fangirl myself,” he jokes. He knows why Phil does it, though. They’re always the first to watch each other’s videos. It’s become habit.

“I should send you to fangirl anonymous,” Phil jokes with his tongue in between his teeth. He presses post on his video and watches the horrendous upload time. He leans back in his chair and turns to Dan. “All done. Another successful amazingphil video.”

Dan chuckles, “yeah, don’t rub it in,” he replies. “I think the next time a danisnotonfire video is posted it’ll have to be called My Awkward Experience When Hell Froze Over.”

“Catchy,” Phil replies. Then, as if he’s just remembered, “oh, I should turn off Twitter notifications.” He reaches for his phone and logs into the Twitter app.

Dan huffs. He’s already on Twitter, scrolling through his replies. He knows there will be a shit-ton when Phil uploads, but that’s why he keeps his turned off. “I don’t see why you have them on in the first place,” he muses. “You know they’re gonna blow up your replies.”

“I like to see what they’re saying about me,” Phil says. “You should know, Mr. Daniel ‘googles himself for approval’ Howell.” Phil’s remark has no bite to it, though, and Dan knows he doesn’t mean it.

“Rude as fuck,” Dan replies under his breath as he continues to scroll through Twitter. ‘Dan and Phil’s secrets leaked! Click here to view now!’ says a sketchy account with a photo of Phil as the avi. Dan scoffs. Yeah right.c

“Anyway,” Phil muses. Dan looks up from Twitter to look at his best friend. “You’re not much better with your Tumblr notifications.”

Dan feels his blood run cold, but he tries not to let it show on his face. “What do you mean?” he asks instead.

Phil laughs. “Don’t play coy,” he answers. He leans back in his chair so that he can smile up at Dan. “I saw them just yesterday, running across your phone. There must’ve been, like, at least thirty.”

But the thing is, Dan had turned notifications off on Tumblr. For danisnotonfire he had, at least. They had gotten too annoying, it was the same reason he had turned them off on Twitter. But he had never remembered to turn them off for notdanhowell. Meaning Phil had seen those notifications.

Phil must sense that Dan’s spiraling against because he laughs and says, “relax. I didn’t read any of them.” He turns back to his Twitter notifications. “Don’t reckon I would want to know what kind of weird things you get up to on Tumblr, anyway.” Phil looks up from hs phone and gives Dan Concerned Flatmate Look 7™. “Or do I?”

Dan tries to laugh it off. “Just the odd meme or miscellaneous bruise, Phil. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

Phil nods. “Right,” he says, and Dan can tell he doesn’t buy it but Phil’s kind of a great flatmate like that and knows when to pick his battles. “Anyway, do you think I should move this clip here?”

Dan’s fingers drum against the keyboard of his laptop. It’s late but he can’t sleep, a strange mixture of guilt and curiosity thumping through his veins. He’s on another phanfiction writer’s blog, this time it’s someone named Seb, apparently, who has a photo of Dan smiling as their sidebar photo.

Dan’s fingers drum against the keyboard where he’s pulled up Seb’s ask box. He’s on anon, of course, and he’s written out a message. Fully awake, this would probably be a terrible idea. But he’s half asleep and has a strange mixture of guilt and curiosity so he presses send anyway.

Anonymous said:

what if dan fucked up really bad? what do you think phil would do?

Dan goes back to his dashboard, queues some things for danisnotonfire as he waits for Seb to respond. He refuses to spend the whole time obsessively pressing refresh, but he’s honestly kind of tempted.

Seb, however, responds quickly enough.

theaterkidlester said:

Hey!

Hm, interesting question! I think it would depend on what Dan did, tbh! (And I don’t speculate about rl Dan and Phil anyway, lmao.)

I guess we’ll never know rip

Dan scoffs. The one time a fan speculating about his personal, private life could have actually been helpful. He goes back to Seb’s ask, types out another response.

Anonymous said:

yeah but, like, what do you think would happen? isn’t that the point of fanfiction, anyway? Speculating?

Seb responds more quickly this time. Dan figures he’s probably on Tumblr now as well.

theaterkidlester said:

First off, the point of fanfiction is to have fun and share your writing with other people with similar interests and experiences, not to force your views onto two men who probably don’t even know you exist, lmao.

Anyway, I don’t think there’s much Dan could do that Phil would consider too fucked up.

Dan reads the response and finds himself kind of pissed off. Who is this person? The reason fanfiction was so fucked up in the first place was that it made assumptions about his and Phil’s lives, about their sexuality. Who were they to consider themselves, what had they written in the tags, a respectful shipper? Wasn’t that a bit of a misnomer?

well, he begins typing, what if dan did something really, really fucked up that he knew that dan knew phil would hate him for? and phil didn’t know about it but if he did he would think dan was a freak? and what if it was really fucking dan up because phil’s the person he trusts with everything and-

Dan realizes he’s stopped typing because he’s shaking and his eyes are blurring over with tears. God, he thinks, he’s so pathetic, crying over a stupid headcanon to a stupid fanfiction blog with a stupid sixteen year old that he was just trying to help out when he made notdanhowell.

Dan slams his macbook shut and brings the heels of his hands to his eyes. He tries to wipe some of the tears away, tries to convince himself that it’s stupid to cry, but that just makes him cry harder until he’s leaning his head against his knees and he’s hysterical. He’s hysterically crying over a headcanon. Gosh, it really must be late.

Dead tired, Dan gets under hs duvet, rubs his nose with the back of his hand, curls up into a pillow and cries himself to sleep.

God. How incredibly stupid.

AUTHOR’S NOTE:

Sup kiddos guess who’s wildly behind on his nano project if you’ve guessed me you would be correcto.

This chapter features a follower named Abby, the awesome @shrekdanhowell and myself, because I didn’t want Dan to fight with any of you.

if you would like to be written into a chapter pls apply here thanks.

boop boop love you have an awesome day drink water

-seb

#notdanhowell #phanfic #phan fic #fanfic #fic #personal #dansmemeteam #phanfriends #dsliceandangelbeannetwork

174 notes · View notes

maverick-werewolf · 3 years

Text

Tag game!

I was tagged by @carsonsweebabyturtles! Thank you for the tag! :D

1. Why did you choose your url?

‘Cause this is my online handle everywhere now! It took me several handles (Tabby, Hercules, Werewolf, Lady Drake...) to reach this one. I first started using it on Xbox Live, I think, back when XBL first came into being during Halo 2.

I get it from loving werewolves all my life, of course, and from my general attitude. I was given the nickname “Maverick” by a friend between the way I act and my love for Tom Cruise and his movies, so I stuck Maverick and Werewolf together and now that’s my branding.

2. Any side blogs?

Not right now, really! I have a character blog that maybe someday I’ll use again; I’d like to. I’ve also been thinking about making another side blog, but we’ll see.

I do, though, also run promotional blogs for my fantasy universe and my sci-fi universe! But they’re kind of inactive because I often forget they exist and just promote on this one instead. >.>

3. How long have you been on Tumblr?

Since July 2012, apparently! I didn’t even know that. Wow, it’s been a hot minute, I guess. 10th anniversary next year.

4. Do you have a queue tag?

I use one occasionally but I generally just forget.

5. Why did you start your blog in the first place?

Initially, because I thought this might be a fun place to try to promote my fiction and maybe reach some more people. Later, I got the idea to start a werewolf blog, which has been super popular! I couldn’t be happier about that. I’m looking forward to getting back to work soon after I publish my first non-fiction book on werewolf folklore.

Now I also post some fandom stuff here - mostly SGA, like reblogs and gifs. The SGA community is amazing, as it turns out, and I’m so glad I seem to have stepped into it pretty well.

6. Why did you choose your icon/pfp?

This is one of the protagonists of my books! And I love him so much. He’s Caiden Voros, professional monster hunter, protagonist of The Hunt Never Ends and other upcoming books (and series). [I’m also posting The Hunt Never Ends on Wattpad and Royal Road now for free]

7. Why did you choose your header?

It’s the cover art for my first novel, Knightfall. It’s currently available on Amazon, but I’m also working on a revision of it that I hope to finish sometime relatively soon.

8. What’s your post with the most notes?

I have 1064 notes on my post about werewolves vs vampires and where that came from, because apparently the post pissed off a fandom because I said things they didn’t like while just conveying information, lol. (it actually wasn’t the Underworld fandom, either)

9. How many mutuals do you have?

Um, I dunno. A few, I guess? Several. I’m really not sure. I have followers I interact with more than others, but I’ve never really counted.

10. How many followers do you have?

802 now, apparently! That’s a lot! I’m really surprised I’ve gotten this many now. It’s pretty awesome.

11. How many people do you follow?

121. I don’t really look at Tumblr a whole lot. I just come here to scroll for pictures and gifs of Sheppard and occasionally other SGA things and cute animal videos, mostly.

12. Have you ever made a shitpost?

No. Not planning on it, either.

13. How often do you use Tumblr each day?

<.< A lot. It’s a comfort zone because I’ve made it one. Again, Joe Flanigan and cute animals...

14. Did you have a fight/argument with another blog once?

I don’t engage with blogs that want to argue with me. I’ve gotten a gracious plenty of hate from anons and no small amount from other blogs at various points in time, but I’m not going to go out of my way to argue with anyone, especially since I’ve generally already said my piece in whatever post they’re mad about. It’s pointless and stressful.

15. How do you feel about “you need to reblog this” posts?

I don’t like them. It’s not that I don’t care about the things in question and don’t appreciate the effort or the messages, but my blog isn’t for things like that. My blog and my Tumblr dash in general are, as I mentioned, comfort zones for me. I try to keep them as stress-free as possible.

16. Do you like tag games?

I love tag games.

17. Do you like ask games?

I love ask games! And writing prompts, I love those too! Sometimes it takes me ages to get around to asks and prompt fills, but I love them, regardless. I’ll get to them eventually.

18. Which of your mutuals do you think is Tumblr famous?

I have absolutely no idea, really. I don’t think about fame much, especially in regard to specific social media things like Tumblr.

19. Do you have a crush on a mutual?

I might. Who’s asking!? (The mutual I crush on is fully aware of it. Hi, crush. You know who you are.)

Tagging people is always hard for me, so uh, feel free to ignore me if you don’t enjoy this kind of thing! But here we go @tafferling @turbo-toast @bailey-girl-99

#tag game #personal stuff #I got a little wordy #I enjoy these a lot

7 notes · View notes

topicprinter · 7 years

Link

You can spend a lot of time and money acquiring new users, but real success lies in how many of them stick around. In order to get a firsthand understanding of the topic, I turned to some of my favorite apps to figure out what led me back to them day after day.Customer journeyEach customer goes through three stages: new, occasional, and power user. Your ultimate goal is to convert every new user into a power user, and your retention strategy should cover each of these stages.Here’s how you can improve your customer retention rate like a pro.Show users the value of your product firstMost startups are too concerned about getting their hands on users’ details first. But language learning app Duolingo does it differently.When you head over to the app, you’re asked which language you’d like to learn—no signup page or lengthy forms. Next, you set a daily goal and take a test to gauge your familiarity with the language. Meanwhile, the signup button lingers somewhere in the background. Before you know it, you’re engrossed in the test and have signed up to save your progress.Duolingo VP of growth Gina Gotthilf says this approach was a result of extensive testing. Initially, a lot of people who downloaded the app were not signing up. This meant the team couldn’t send them notifications or emails. How did they fix this? They let users play around with Duolingo first.They also changed the design of the page, replacing the discouraging “Discard my progress” button with a more subtle “Later” option.The app now has three optional signup pages or “soft walls” as Gotthilf calls them. These are followed by a hard wall that needs users to sign up if they wish to move forward. All these changes combined have led to an 8.2 percent increase in the app’s DAUs.Takeaway: While most startups scramble to get users to sign up first, show users the product’s value instead. This means getting them to experience the key features of your product as soon as possible. Identify the point in your user’s journey when they’ve derived some value out of your product. Introduce a few optional signup pages before this point and measure the results.Make signing up a piece of cakeSooner or later, you’ll introduce a signup page. When you do, make sure it’s worth your customers’ time.Pinterest’s signup process is a good example, as it involves just three steps. Former Pinterest growth lead Casey Winters shares:“The first principle we learned at Pinterest is that we should get people to the core product as fast as possible, but not faster. What that means is that you should only ask the user for the minimum amount of information you need to get them to the valuable experience.”When you sign up on Pinterest, you’re asked for your full name, email, age, gender, and five topics you’d like to follow. Immediately, you’re shown a screen full of “pins” you might be interested in.Takeaway: When designing your signup form, think of how each field is relevant for you to offer a valuable customer experience. You might think “Last name” is just one additional field, but your customer might already be distracted at that point.Show and tell when teaching users how to use your productWhen onboarding customers, it’s important to both show and guide users along the way, so they get a thorough understanding of your product.The “Welcome Board” on Trello, for example, does a great job of telling customers how to use the product while also showing them the product’s features. It covers everything from the basics, such as attaching files to a card, to more advanced features, such as adding teams.Michael Pryor, the head of Trello, shared with me that only showing and not telling can be “intimidating” for some users. The result of this approach is that even though Trello is packed with features, new users can learn how to use them at a glance.Takeaway: Don’t be afraid to tell your users what they should do with your product. The key is to know how much is too much. Don’t bombard users with extensive tutorials or videos as soon as they fire up the product, but make it easy for them to access information at any point.Use contextual cues to educate new usersMany startups make the mistake of throwing too much information at their users and overwhelming them. A better way to educate customers about your product is through contextual cues. This means telling users what to do next when they reach a specific point of action, rather than when they launch the app for the first time.Slack‘s Slackbot is an excellent example of educating customers while they use the product. As soon as you launch the app, Slackbot sends you a welcome message, prompting you to type your first message.Next, it gives you a quick tour of Slack’s channels, direct messages, and invites. After this, you’re free to ask Slackbot any questions regarding the app’s features as and when you get to them.Takeaway: Don’t be in rush to explain every single feature to new users with long-winded tours. Only give them the bare minimum information they need to start using your app.Show them how much progress they’ve madeShowing users how much they’ve accomplished with your product encourages them to come back. This is also the type of notification they’re more likely to respond to.For Duolingo, it’s key that users return and practice every day. But as anyone who has ever signed up for an MOOC knows, this is easier said than done. To make users come back to the app, the team introduced the concept of streaks, which involves keeping track of how many days in a row the user has used the product.Social media scheduling app Buffer also has their own approach. According to the company’s growth product manager, Maxime Berthelot, the app uses two major ways to bring back users: emailing users when their queue becomes empty and emailing them with their latest post analytics. The first nudges them to come back to fill their queue while the second encourages them to schedule more posts.Takeaway: While progress emails are an obvious choice for Buffer, Duolingo has especially introduced the concept of goals to keep users engaged. No matter what your product is, track and share users’ progress with them to keep them coming back.If you’re a B2B app, you likely have a ton of information and data to share with users about their performance. Instead of waiting for them to get to their dashboard, you can email it to them.Send win-back notifications and emails at the right timeHow do you time your notifications? What do your notifications say? If your notifications turn up on users’ screens when they’re about to sleep and entice them with random offers, you’re doing it wrong. Win-back notifications work when they’re sent at the optimal time with an optimal message. Otherwise, they’re spam.Let’s take Duolingo as an example again. The team tested both notification content and time to see which suited their users best. The team assumed that whenever someone used their app on a particular day, it was a good time for that user to use the app the next day too. Thus, they now send notifications to users 23.5 hours after they use the app.With content, they tried making their copy funny and even put a quiz in the notification itself. Ultimately, the winner was a notification that said, “Hi, it’s Duo.” (Duo being their owl mascot.)Intercom, a customer messaging platform for businesses, also does this well. In order to ensure that their notifications were not falling on deaf ears, they prioritized the most appropriate customers to hear about what they had to say.Intercom manager of product education Ruairi Galavan told me more about this approach: “If we know certain customers have visited the campaign page three times but have not created a campaign yet, we might push some content to them to encourage them to get started with campaigns. We follow the pattern of “has done x, has not done y” all the time. These are the people who’ve shown some level of commitment but have yet to activate.”This approach lets them send relevant and targeted notifications to customers who may find them helpful, and stay out of the way of people who don’t need them.Takeaway: Figure out how often you need customers to use your product. Once you have that in place, test different times and messages for notifications. If you’re trying to build a habit, track the time of day users are using your product most. Another approach is to send notifications based on the actions that users take on your product.While reaching out to users, try to have a specific reason for doing so. Also, be sure to test copy by varying the tone to see which one clicks.Harness the power of contentContent is generally used to acquire new users, but it can also keep users engaged as well. According to Hooked author Nir Eyal, people might not buy financial products, houses, cars, or seasonal products every day, but they could make a habit of visiting your website if you publish valuable content.Zapier, a platform that integrates and connects different apps, has a great blog, for example. It provides helpful app tips and tricks, productivity hacks, and ways to get more out of your work life.You can also use content to show existing customers features they didn’t know about and show prospects how powerful the tool is. Email platform Vero does this well. Jimmy Daly, the former content marketer at Vero, says:“When I worked at Vero, we created content that mirrored our help documents, but we presented it in a way that was interesting to anyone thinking about behavioral email. Content also works really well in retention emails. We could send idle users ideas for campaigns, better subject lines, etc.”Takeaway: When thinking of your content strategy, don’t limit yourself to capturing new users. Think of content that benefits existing customers as well. The idea is to keep users engaged even if they aren’t using your product every day. Your content should also solve a problem for the customer and not just tell them about your product’s features.Hope you find these helpful. Do share your own retention strategies in the comments below! If you want to learn even more strategies to improve retention, you can check them out here.

#/r/entrepreneur #reddit

0 notes