#my blogs gotten a little bit of traction with my first few posts so i figured this would be a good idea lol

[inchidentally]

Ngl little bit sad that you're becoming kinda negative on here. I miss when you used to post those super cool thoughtful discussions and analyses, without the need to trash talk or bash on other ships.

(just to say, I'd normally post something like this behind a cut and I promise I always will in future. it just feels like today in particular is a good moment to state a few of these points. I'm not normally this serious lol I just want to kind of mitigate any more drama.)

I've always posted about wanting rpf to be kept out of the drivers' and teams' public spaces and I've always said it's stupid/unnecessary drama when fans of certain fictional ships get genuinely loudly "competitive" over other fictional ships and I've really always been against people hating on the girlfriends who get caught in the crossfire of the fans who truly believe their two drivers are in a secret gay relationship. it's how I've always personally felt and apart from it being my opinion (which is fair for my blog) I also feel like having even a smidgen of traction on my posts means I can potentially prevent landoscar going down the road of certain ships that have fans who've fully crossed over into aggressive/publicly disturbing territory. and who've been doing so for years and only gotten worse.

hell, I've even always openly hated when Lando's individual content gets taken over by people bringing up Carlos or Daniel or even sometimes Oscar or Max F. the man has a life beyond all of those friendships and he very much deserves for his content to sometimes stay just about him. only people like his family or Jon/Lando's team of 10+ years deserve any significant share of credit for Lando's successes but no one's bothering to bring them up in the comments etc.

also, it's still very early days for landoscar as a ship and we have at least two more years of Lando and Oscar as teammates (fairly likely more) so if we can keep out the element of fans who take rpf into widely public spaces/directly to the people involved, then I'm going to continue to occasionally post about it. those types of fans absolutely hate reality intruding and they hate real life partners even more so I'm absolutely going to post about reality and girlfriends regularly. even apart from the fact that I'd feel weird excluding girlfriends, there's a solid reason to do so.

especially when even apart from rpf, the girlfriends always get shit from people who want the guy for themselves or who have decided they get a say in who he dates. I'm not going to pretend like all of that doesn't happen just to avoid all negativity.

as far as the tricky/controversial asks I get, I always put them fully under a cut and tag appropriately so they're incredibly easy to skip. I also batch them up so one of those posts happens maybe once every couple weeks - if that. my content has always been massively on the side of fun content vs anything drama/wank related.

the one thing I will say is that I'm getting a lot of repeat anons about ship drama that I would otherwise not hear about (I rarely look at twitter and my tumblr dash is lovely and tidy with just a few things blacklisted) so I'm going to write one sort of roundup post to cover any more of those and not answer any more. I'm just repeating myself atp.

I also went on my first ever blocking spree in this fandom today when a post I'd rb had a bunch of ragey hardcore rpf people jump onto it and I also blacklisted a few more things. so that's the last I'm personally ever going to see of that drama myself. I still casually ship carland0 and dand0 as well and a whole lot of us are nothing to do with the people publicly pushing shippy shit or doing the whole - god I cannot believe this still happens - 'my rpf ship is real and yours isn't'. they're also the people who call all girlfriends "escorts" and "beards" so they're easy to identify.

one last thing anon is that I hear you but I've got to mention I delete a LOT of borderline hate asks and I leave a fair amount of trolls frothing by refusing to respond to their asks. so I'm very much always trying to keep the content on my blog free of useless drama or negativity.

[beach-illustrations]

Hi, I'm here to ask about ArtFol again, since it's been a few months and, well, you know how tumblr is doing right now

Have you been using the site since? What's your opinion of it now? Would you recommend it as a place to jump ship to from having an art blog on here?

I have been! Artfol is nice all things considered, they have a strict anti-AI policy which is a breath of fresh air right now. That being said I'm not entirely sure what precautions they have set up to deter AI scraping in the first place.

Ultimately, yes I would consider Artfol a good art blog alternative as long as you don't mind having a smaller audience than what you'd normally get on Tumblr. This especially goes both for posting original content, or fan art (which usually gets a lot more eyes on your stuff on Tumblr fast but for Artfol, it doesn't really do much to draw attention.)

There's still some discrepancies between the web version and phone app version- specifically features like the featured gallery tab and commissions sheet for your profile are still app exclusive. A little bit ago they finally integrated the groups feature to the app and opened up group creation to all users, not just premium subscribers. Best user experience you can get if you want access to all the free features is to have the app downloaded on a phone if you can and switch between using that and the web version on a laptop. It's deeply annoying to have features split like that but Artfol hasn't been around for too long, so I'm willing to give it a free pass for now.

I will admit, Artfol hasn't really been keeping my attention recently. Part of that is due to my new job, the other part of that is that I don't have any of my old mutuals on it. A huge reason why I've stayed on Tumblr for so long is because of the other people and especially the other artists I follow and everyone is more or less scattering to the four winds, rather than all jumping to the same exact platform.

With that being said, Artfol still has a relatively active and thriving art focused community! I haven't interacted with other users too much but the few times I have, everyone has been friendly and polite. If you're worried about missing the community aspect Tumblr provides (which I personally very much was!), Artfol is pretty great in picking up that slack. Community groups have been a personal favorite! Just pick a group you feel like you fit into, join it and now you're able to shoot the shit with others in that group, as well as make posts exclusive to that group! I'm in a furry group and a clip studio paint group right now.

And, of course, Artfol's main feature of serving as a gallery for folks to post and show off their art is pretty damn good. I really like the gallery set up, the featured artwork section is fun (you can put up to three pieces you've posted in a separate section above your main gallery! so everyone sees those pieces first, regardless of when you posted them!) and the collections feature in general is a HUGE favorite of mine. Beyond using tags, you can organize your art in separate folders for both yourself and for people visiting your page to peruse!

Artfol is still relatively small, especially in comparison to Tumblr and hasn't really gotten the same level of immediate traction such as BlueSky. It seems to be doing well right now, so if you're looking for a stable platform as well to host your art, Artfol could be a good choice.

[freakassfemme]

LAST UPDATED August 12, 2024.

newest work: chronically offline abby headcannons

‼️ daily click for Palestine ‼️

⟶ about the author

🍒 addie, 20 yrs old, any pronouns u want

🍒 ellabs truther but you're not mad about it bc ooooo im so cute ur in love with me oooooo u venmo me $50 instead of getting mad ooo

masterlist!

🍒 18+

Ellie Williams

special girls (ellie x abby x reader) 🍒

beloved butch ellie and her soft femme 🍒

dealer!crush!ellie making you nervous at a party (drabble)

Abby Anderson

special girls (abby x ellie x reader) 🍒

beloved butch abby and her soft femme 🍒

aftercare with abby 🍒

manhandle/after work with abby 🍒

good luck, babe! (fwb abby, cheating on owen) 🍒

see how it shines (down bad abby) 🍒

streamer!gf!abby headcannons

chronically offline abby headcannons

Yara Greyjoy

captain's quarters (yara greyjoy one shot) + cis female! lesbian! reader 🍒

is it casual now? - (yara greyjoy smut/angst/drabble) + cis female! lesbian! reader 🍒

too sweet - (slightly nsfw drabble) - yara greyjoy x f! lesbian! reader 🍒

yara greyjoy nsfw alphabet 🍒

[i'll crawl home to her] - yara greyjoy x brienne of tarth pt1 / pt2

Jasper Hale (retired from writing)

false pretences (jasper hale drabble) + masc reader 🍒

marked and tagged (jasper hale) + transmasc reader 🍒

all yours (jasper hale) + transmasc reader 🍒

cute things about dating jasper as a human (sfw) + gender neutral

[entities-of-posts]

When did this blog become a rp blog?? What’s happening?? /nm I just wanna know so I can keep up with whatever plot is happening rn

Well about two weeks ago now I (more or less) accidentally kicked off a Vast ritual - or, rather, helped it gain traction. The point was to reblog a very very long post as many times in a row possible to torture your followers, and I kept a scoreboard updated about the developments. Long story short, after that, people started interacting a lot more with me and before I knew it this was a Proper Roleplay Blog™. Since then a couple of things have happened, briefly listed:

- people started sending me statements for appraisal and questions about the Entities/avatarhood

- I started taking in students - rookie avatars who I helped choose their path and educate. Some of them are terrible troublemakers.

- I tried very very hard not to talk about Homestuck but people kept goading me into it and I eventually cracked and went Insane for One Night Only

- in retribution for Homestuck Crimes, a Slaughter avatar challenged me to a duel. I won with the power of intellect and incredible violence :) now her right eye sits in a bottle on my desk as a paperweight

- one of my students got kidnapped and thrown into the Lonely by my spider friends who used to help me around the Archives. Note the now-past tense.

- I got a cat :D his name is The Detective and he’s of the Flesh and he’s adorable

- tape recorders started showing up. Uh oh.

- another of my students was kidnapped by the spiders. Same day, the first one stopped sending updates from the Lonely. Now I was getting worked up.

- a friend got possessed & taken by the Web and started sending coded messages. At this point my relationship with the Web was officially updated to “complicated”. I spent a few frantic days trying to exchange what messages I could with the missing people and breaking cipher after cipher with the help of a few people, mainly my remaining student, until they got taken as well, and things were looking Kinda Bleak!

- finally fed up and desperate enough to take Pretty Rash actions, I gathered together some useful things from artifact storage, including a few gifts from Spiral avatars: a map of the Hallways given to me by my second pupil, plus glasses to read it and a key to unlock any door I needed to given to me by Michael. With these and the help of a Buried avatar + rocky grunts, I made my way to where I’d figured out the four missing people were: a web spun by a very very big Spider just at the edge between the domains of the Lonely and the Vast, right above the fog. There was an epic battle and I used a Desolation lighter to blow myself and the Spider up. We both survived but got hurt enough that my crew - rescue team and rescued - could escape back through the Hallways (a few of us kind of had to be dragged along at this point and I might have been in the number…)

- everyone having made it back safe, we had a big sleepover party and everyone was invited and it was very nice :) even if a lot of us were Just A Little Bit hurt.

- the next day I took it slow and answered statements and focused on healing the severe burns on 1/3 of my body :) it was a calm day overall! Though during the evening an incredibly untrustworthy looking Web avatar showed up and offered me to gamble “small favors” over a game of blackjack. They looked so suspicious and I had just barely gotten out of a scrap with the Web the day before and it was clearly a trap, so of course I said yes

- there followed a tense game; five rounds, which ended with a score of two for me and three for the Spider, meaning I now owe the Web one (1) “small favor” which isn’t worrying at all :) but I think it was worth it for the info I got out of it and because it was fun and they were kinda hot

- then I went looking through the Archives for a Stranger avatar that had gotten in there somehow (it’s off limits) and learned an unfortunate story

And that’s where we are now :) no I don’t know how this happened either. I’m having fun though

[daily-venomous]

1-Year Retrospective

Oh my Cob I did not think I was still gonna be here

So uh, first off, wow, I’ve really spent a year doing this single handedly, huh

Ironically I started this blog on my brother’s birthday last year (and speaking of which: Tokyo I know you literally never use Tumblr for anything ever but happy birthday by the way), and at the time, it had a completely different purpose!

For those unaware, daily-venomous first started out as we-rate-venomous, which is more or less exactly what it sounds like. I basically rated Venomous (Venomouses? Venomi? Still don’t know the plural for Venomous) based on how horny the artists seemed to be, a concept that completely fell apart the moment I discovered it was literally all Ryann Shannon. Still, I kept the blog running for funsies.

Now we’re here, a full year later, and in that time frame this blog has amassed over 500 followers--something I didn’t even notice until just now, to be honest--which is waaaaay more than I ever thought this silly little blog would get! Heck, my main still hasn’t gotten that many, and it’s been around five times as long now! It’s almost embarrassing to think about how many people see my silly little posts, heehee...

Thing is, therein lies a bit of an issue, and one that I knew would come for this blog sooner or later. See, I’ve been hyperfixated on OK K.O. for a literal year now, but, as all hyperfixations eventually do, it has admittedly started to fade. And when you’re a content creator constantly pumping out material for other fans of your hyperfixation, noticing that hyperfixation fading is a pretty scary thing! Because you know how many people follow you for that specific content, and now it feels like you’re turning your back on them, even if you don’t mean or even want to!

It’s something I’ve dealt with quite a few times now, but it’s never had quite this weight for me before. My OK K.O. content has gained more traction than anything I’ve made prior, and truthfully this little side project of mine has been my first real foray into a gimmick-y sort of sideblog. When you’re in the heat of something like that, it feels like you’ll always get as much joy from your interest as you do then, even though you know you won’t. You rarely if ever truly stop enjoying it, but it’s unlikely you’ll ever be that into it again, you know?

What’s worse, online you know there’s going to be people who are going to lose interest in you the second you admit that you’re just not that into this thing or that thing anymore. And when you’ve got a ton of people looking to you for this thing or that thing, the thought of losing the people who’ve been supporting you before is a scary one. I mean it’s a lot of things--sad, bitter, maybe even anger inducing--but it’s scary above all else.

All this to say, I can’t control the way my brain works, and unfortunately, my brain has more or less jumped ship from OK K.O. at this point. It’ll forever retain mementos from the journey, but as of right now, it has no intention of going back, and you know what? That’s okay.

Now don’t think that I’m just gonna pack up and leave daily-venomous to deteriorate. I put too much work into this baby to let that happen so easily! So I figured, why keep manning the ship all on my lonesome? That, friends, is why...

I’m opening up mod applications! :D

Because let’s face it! This thing was never meant to be run by one person to begin with! I don’t know why I did this to myself and then continued to do it for an entire year!

Well, okay, the blog’s not that hard to actually run. But even so it would be easier with some extra hands on board! It’d definitely be a weight off my shoulders, at least...

And don’t think that if/when I get some mods on here that I’ll disappear completely! I just... won’t be here as often, probably. Even if I’m not active, though, I’ll still support this thing with all I’ve got! It’s practically my baby at this point!

Though, on the off chance that I do become completely inactive, I’ll still be hanging around my main @theshmeepking if you ever just wanna drop by and say hi or anything. Besides, that inbox never gets anything, anyway. It’s sad. Pitiful, even. But yeah! I’m there! I do stuff! Post art sometimes! It’s fun!

...

Heh. A year later and I’m only now actively and shamelessly plugging my main. It’s kinda funny, really. I don’t even remember why I decided to try (and fail) to keep it secret all this time...

...

...ahem. If, uh, you don’t mind me getting kinda personal one last time...

I’ll put it under read more since it gets really, really personal and covers some heavy topics regarding mental health, so if you stop here:

tl;dr: my OK K.O. hyperfixation just had to die out as soon as daily-venomous is set to turn a year old, so I’m looking for mods to try and keep this blog alive.

So...

...

I...uh...

...

...I... was in a really bad spot for most if not all of this blog’s lifespan. Maybe I still am. I’m not really sure to be honest. I don’t know what washed over me, but ever since the tail end of the spring semester of my first year of college (which was around April, May-ish last year, by the way), I’ve been more depressed than I’ve ever been. I kept asking myself, what happened? I used to be the smart and perfect kid. I’m... genuinely scared that I peaked in high school. I guess only time can tell me if that’s true or not, though.

Still, those were the worst months of my life.

Don’t worry, it’s not like I ever thought about hurting myself or anything like that, I just... kind of lost all of my drive. My motivation. My passion. And to be completely honest with you?

I think I’m going through an identity crisis.

Which is... not fun. At all. It just makes me depressed and anxious and questioning if I even know who I am. You know, fun college stuff. I should probably buckle down and finally talk to my doctor about getting a therapist, now that I think about it. God knows I need it. It just... doesn’t feel like I carry the weight I really do. It feels so much lighter than it is, but sooner or later it’s bound to break my back, you know?

Truthfully I don’t know if running this blog has made any of that better or worse. I amazingly got my first ever tumblr anon hate only a week or two after creating this blog, which is kind of surprising considering I had been on this site for like, four years before that. Heck, I still get some hate occasionally, though it’s mainly just people who are upset at me for having an opinion (which they often specifically ask for by the way. like why would you even do that.), lmao.

But then, at the same time, trying to make people laugh, and having those people make me laugh in return, well... it was a nice little oasis of joy, at least for a while. You guys have given me so much support and just when I needed it, too. So... thanks. A lot. Words can’t describe how truly grateful I am for the people that laugh at my jokes, and those that try to make me laugh at theirs! You guys sure can be free serotonin when you want to be, haha!

Like I said earlier, whether I keep contributing to this blog or not, the memories I’ve made running it this past year will always stick with me. Sure there are a couple of bad ones in there, but I think the positive ones outweigh those at least tenfold, and I would have those if it weren’t for you guys.

Take care of yourselves.

-Shmeepy

[joezworld]

📁

Specifically, any headcanons of the Sodor Engines interacting with the internet, or the internet in general?

For some reason, I’d imagine that podcasts and the like are popular among vehicles in general.

That is a question that I've been working on for some time - because I'm workshopping my own Tornado headcanon (and boy oh boy does she use the internet a lot) - but I have some ideas for the Sodor engines as well: 

Henry is probably the most "plugged in" engine on the island, weirdly enough. One of his drivers gave him an iPod back in the early 2000s, and kindly preloaded it with a bunch of torrented music.

 BTW, that works because all the engines are now equipped with automatic train warning systems, and the little on-board computer has a USB port - as a nice side effect it allows music players to work with the engines in the same way as bone-conducting headphones do. The computer also acts as some kind of computer interface, which I am not going to explain how that works because Jesus Christ I don’t know how it does either.  

 Henry has managed to upgrade his iPod a few times since thanks to hand-me-down units from NWR staff, so he eventually got his buffers on a wifi-enabled iPod Touch and now downloads new music from the station wifi. He does listen to podcasts, but as every other engine will tell you, you could show Henry ten thousand new and exciting songs from the best artists in the world, and his top ten played songs are still going to be Genesis, Phil Collins, and Yes. Bear considers it a win that he managed to convince Henry to regularly listen to Rush after a mere twenty years of convincing. 

 Mavis and Daisy listen to a very interesting program called The News, because as stated elsewhere, they invest a shitload of money and need to be on top of things. Thomas and Percy wish that Daisy would use headphones or something similar to that, instead of listening to Bloomberg TV at loud volumes in the middle of the night. Toby frankly doesn’t mind, as it’s very nice to be kept up-to-date on the outside world.  

In a move that surprises no-one, Bill and Ben have a podcast where they talk about whatever they think about at that moment - usually horse-racing, investing, and clay mining. As such, they have a wide audience, almost none of whom know that they’re that Bill and Ben, as their podcast is audio-only.  

 In an also unsurprising move, Edward and BoCo have been made very much aware that Bill and Ben have a podcast, but are still unsure as to what the hell a podcast is, despite being frequent guests on it.  

Of the main line diesels, only Bear has shown any real interest in the internet, and was immediately put in charge of the Amazon Alexa when a unit was installed in the diesel shed. He also has an iPod that he got for Christmas a few years back. (The NWR has a very good personal  electronics recycling program called give it to Henry, he’ll make use it.)  

Bear does listen to podcasts as well as music, but his choices are so insufferably boring that even Henry refuses to listen to them. (I don’t really listen to podcasts - despite making one - so insert the most boring podcast you can think of here.) 

 As for other internet uses... 

Gordon is very up-to-date on the newest social media trends - somehow - but only really cares when he is involved. He won’t admit it, but he’s been trying to figure out how to work a camera/selfie stick for some time so he can start up his own Instagram account. So far he has been unsuccessful, but one day he will manage it. 

 James has had an ongoing feud with his own Wikipedia page for about a decade now. The article sourced most of its information about his construction off of some out-of-print book about the L&Y. The book in question is accurate about James’ class, but not James himself - as he was a prototype engine. There’s no other primary sources available, so the very dedicated Wikipedia mod who created the page won’t change it - no matter how much James complains that he was there! He knows what happened! 

Every now and again a TTTE fan blog/tumblr will make a post about hypothetical “ships” of the Sodor engines. Most of the time it’s shipping the core characters like Gordon and Henry, much to Gordon’s bafflement and Henry’s amusement! 

Only one blog (a ttte fan tumblr by the curious name of @mean-scarlet-deceiver  ) has gotten it right. Henry actually reached out to congratulate this blogger, but was unfortunately mistaken for a very dedicated roleplay account.  

James is very annoyed by these blogs, as they have never once correctly guessed who he is “shipped” with! He has tried several times to be seen in public with Delta, but these events have never gone as planned - the “best” instance is when Edward rolled by at exactly the wrong moment, leading to months of speculation that JamesxEdward was the ship to look out for! 

Thomas, being a generally oblivious sort of engine, was totally unaware of the online fan community around the TV show until he started getting actively harassed by vloggers and Instagrammers in the early 2010s. He’s fine with it now, but it was a deeply unusual experience for most of 2012.  

Toby has developed an unexpectedly popular following on social media following his collab with Stormzy. His official twitter is huge now, with over a million followers, even if he has no idea what to do with it. He posts rarely, but usually manages to make an incredible post when he does.

No-one is sure who told Oliver what a “fan-production” is, but if you manage to get ahold of him for any period of time and ask him nicely, he will lend his voice to your TTTE fan-project, so long as it isn’t about [INSERT TERRIBLE SOCIAL/POLITICAL VIEW(S) HERE]. This means that he has 100% voiced dramatic readings of NSFW Fanfics before, which is always an absolute riot to spring on people unannounced.

There is a series of slice-of-life TTTE fanfics on Ao3 that have been written with such accuracy and innate railway knowledge that people are sure it was written by a Sodor engine, but nobody knows which one.

The Culdee Fell Railway has very active Instagram, Twitter and YouTube accounts, with all of the engines and coaches showing up regularly. It’s about the closest any of the railways on Sodor have come to what those outside the UK would call “normal locomotive social media”.

The Skarloey Railway has social media accounts too, but they don’t really feature the engines in any meaningful way, instead being used as a normal service announcements page.  

 The SR is a real working railway that doesn’t rely on tourism money as much as the others do, so they get a bit of a pass here.  

 The Arlesdale Railway has Twitter and YouTube, which didn’t usually get a lot of hits until 2020, when Ivan and Amanda Farrier started badgering the staff to make some videos just to alleviate some boredom. So far the most popular videos on the channel are a front-mounted camera video of the entire line slow-tv style, Bert explaining how steam engines work, and a video of Mike complaining about Justin Bieber for a solid half-hour.  

 That’s about it as far as Sodor goes, but before we’re done, I want to take a moment to talk about Tornado, because I have some fun ideas for her... 

First of all, we need to establish that Tornado is very young. Her construction only started in late 90′s, and she was steamed to life in 2000, putting her firmly into the “Zoomer” category. Add in the fact that she was built by a bunch of old men who didn’t really know how to treat a new engine, and she was raised much more like a human than a locomotive - I’ll get to this much more in the proper Tornado Headcanon post, but what this means here is that when social media started being a thing in the mid-to-late 2000′s, the people at the A1 Trust decided that they needed a young person to run things like Twitter, Facebook, and Myspace... and, well, Tornado was the youngest person in the trust by a large margin.

I should state here that in the rest of the world, locomotives are on the internet at roughly the same level as humans are, so there’s plenty of equipment to connect a phone/computer/camera to an engine - being English, the A1 Trust didn’t know how common it was, but they managed to get it up and running just the same.

 So Tornado has very quickly become attuned to the internet, just like any other teenager would. (yes, let’s let that settle into our minds for a moment - Tornado is barely old enough to drink in the US!) Quite naturally that means that she knows social media inside and out, and is actually quite a proficient social media manager for the trust, managing all of their social pages. More than one person who has complained about the trust on twitter has unknowingly been complaining to Tornado herself! 

 “On the internet, nobody knows that you’re a dog Engine”. 

 Tornado has her own personal social media accounts too, but most/all of the time she gets mistaken for a very dedicated role-player, as the general perception of British Locomotives is that they don’t tweet. This has resulted in some amazing reactions from podcast hosts (because, as you might expect, Tornado is very knowledgeable about steam traction in the 21st century, and tweets about it often, so train podcasts want to talk to her) when she gets invited onto video calls, turns on her webcam, and is met with screams from people who suddenly realize that her profile picture is accurate.  

 By far the best instance of this is when she was invited onto a video call with a railfan podcast. She was at the NRM at the time and managed to convince them to let her use their Skype setup. A wide-angle lens was needed because she was on the turntable in the Great Hall, so that podcast quickly got sidetracked when her webcam was turned on and revealed Tornado, with Mallard, Evening Star, City of Truro, and Green Arrow visible behind her. Whatever the original topic was quickly got thrown out in favor of a 2-hour Q&A with some of the most famous engines in the UK. 

[lumiolivier]

Life Update of 2020 (Don’t Worry.  Just the Good-Good)

It’s been a while since we last spoke, huh, Tumblr?  I don’t pay you nearly as much attention as what I should, but I’m scattered all over cyberspace.  I show up in the most unexpected places.  But what the alternate title of this is:

Lumi’s Post of Shameless Self Promotion (Because What Else is a Blog Good For?)

So, what have I been up to, you may be asking yourself?  Or maybe you’re not asking that question and you’re telling me to fuck off.  Well, if that’s the case, then fuck you, too.  So, hail Satan and have a lovely afternoon madam.

But if you are curious, here we are.  Let’s do this in sections.  That way, if you could give two shits less about something else I do, then, you can skip to the good bits, yeah? Or whatever it is you follow me for, K? Let’s get into it then.

1.)  Fan Fiction:

So, in my last master post update, I hadn’t started posting Castlevania yet.  It just recently came to an end last week, so...Brief synopsis and link in three...two...one!

Last of the Belmonts

Eden had lost her mother. The only family she thought she'd ever have. Her father couldn't be farther at the bottom of the barrel in her eyes. Her mother would be the only one who would accept her dhampir nature. That is until she finally starts to explore the other half of her blood, her vampiric half, courtesy of a certain girl gang of full-blooded vampires. However, despite that, she's still half human. Which half will rule her head and her heart?

Just a heads up.  If you do read Last of the Belmonts (which I highly recommend.  I loved this story so much and I’m so sad to see it go.), there are slight mentions of rape, but they’re far and few in between.  Eden, the MC, is a dhampir.  And for those who don’t know, dhampirs are a human/vampire hybrid.  She wasn’t one of the lucky ones who came into this world by consensual means.  Most of them aren’t.  But before you ask, NO.  SHE IS NOT DRACULA’S DAUGHTER.  We find out just who she is throughout the story.  But it’s got a little bit of everything in it.  It’s got Trevor and Alucard sassing each other.  It’s got Sypha trying to mediate between them.  It’s got a MC that’s got a chip on her shoulder.  I like to call it an alternative season three.  Like, the story opens up in Braila after Carmilla’s raid, so...I’m not going to give too much for spoilers here.  Just...Read the damn thing if you’re that curious.  And I’ve been getting asked about a sequel, but I’m not quite sold on it yet.  

But Castlevania isn’t the only fandom I’ve dipped my toe in as far as fic goes.  Because...It’s been three years since I last wrote for Death Note and I got a friendly reminder of how big of Death Note trash I was when I fell down a fanart rabbit hole one night and thought, I need to jump back into writing Death Note fic.  It’s that kind of a year.  What the hell?  Why not?  And because I was feeling particularly thirsty, I decided I’d write my first Lawlight fic.  Which...Again, same as I did for Last of the Belmonts, synopsis and link!  BAM!

The Sweet Taste of Silver

Email after email...It only made Light sicker to look at them. Final notice. Past due. Expulsion threats. He knew going to one of the best schools in the country would be pricey, but that's what his scholarships were for, right? At least until they start running out. At least he'll have his internship...And his new employer.

Yeah.  It’s what you think.  It’s a sugar baby AU.  We all know Light’s a sugar baby waiting to happen and it’s an underappreciated AU on Ao3, so I figured I’d add to the rich tapestry it is.  But this is still ongoing.  It gets updates every Tuesday.  This story has been my new lightning in a bottle.  It’s gotten a lot of traction on Ao3 and you are definitely more than welcome to it.  I never thought I’d get so into writing angsty gays like I did with L and Light, but holy hell.  It’s so much fun...Why did no one tell me this would be fun?  I don’t know why I needed a sugar baby Death Note fic, but dammit, here we are.

Amongst all that mess, I’ve posted a SHIT TON of Mystic Messenger oneshots (even got my first commission because of those oneshots!).  They’re all on Ao3.  There’s probably 11 or 12 of them, so I’m not going to post the whole list here.  Just go to my Ao3 account.  You’ll see them there.  But since we’re on the subject of MysMes fics I’ve written over the years, I started doing a rewrite of Man’s Best Intern, too!  I mean, the story premise is still the same, but it’s had some tweaks here and there.  And that’s damn near catching up to the Sweet Taste of Silver.  My babies are all growing up so fast.  I’m so proud of them...But the Man’s Best Intern rewrite is going up on Ao3 every Wednesday and Friday.

And the last fic I’m going to throw out here is For the Family.  Now, for those of you who remember, last year, I posted a story called Switch about a little girl that grew up in New York mafia falling in love with a sweet, yet salty yakuza boy and getting tangled up with the Ouran Host Club.  Well, it got a sequel.  Again.  Link and synopsis, ho!

For the Family

One year. That's all it took for Rei's heart to find home in another city. But it wasn't necessarily the city that captured her heart. it was the cute yakuza boy that bumped into her in the hallway. And thought she was a dude. Anyone else would've been afraid of someone with that kind of power...but not everyone had that same power. Now that another summer has passed, Rei and Ritsu were ready to go back to Ouran to take on their mutual frenemies: The Ouran Host Club

I couldn’t stay away from them for long.  They were too cute.  I loved Rei and Ritsu’s dynamic and they’ve only gotten worse.  At the time I’m posting this, For the Family is ongoing, too.  It goes up on Thursdays and I love this one so much.  It’s been a roller coaster already and it hasn’t even gotten to the middle bit yet.  This coming week’s chapter may or may not be a shit show.

I know I said that I’d be done with my fan fiction bullshit after my pitch of For the Family, but I also kind of have something cooking up.  I’ve been working on a project that’s been completely handwritten for Hetalia that includes both the 1p! and 2p! characters, centered around an OC.  I’ve been debating on whether or not to post that one online.  Because it’s been mostly me writing it for me to unwind at night.  It’s what I’ve spent my last half hour of my day working on and it’s put me in such a good place.  Which is weird because the MC spends a lot of time with 2p!France and he’s kind of an asshole. I don’t know.  I’ll think about it.

2.)  New Schedule Changes?  Instagram?  Whaaaat?

I know.  That sounds like it still pertains to my fan fiction here.  It does not!  On my Instagram for the last few weeks, I’ve been doing livestreams on Friday nights.  It’s mostly just me sitting down and bullshitting with a camera, but it’s been some great fun!  For the first one, I made curry.  For the second one, I was working on a bullet journal spread.  They’re all just very chill livestreams with a little hint of chaotic.  My last post before this one?  That was from last week’s stream when we were talking about different CMV projects I’d love to make, but I don’t have the bodies to make them.  As mellow as they are, they’re also a lot of fun.  So, if you’re looking for something to do with your Friday night and feel like hanging out with me, come hang out with me.  My IG handle is LumiOlivier.  You’re more than welcome to come sit and hang out.  If my streams keep going they way they’ve been, maybe I’ll start doing more with them.  Maybe I’ll bring them to YouTube.  Maybe I’ll do something silly like do them more than once a week.  

But that’s pretty much it.  I’ve been, like most of you, shut up in my house for the last six months as much as possible.  This year might be shit, but there’s been some pretty neat shit happening.  And hopefully, it’ll be more of an upswing for the rest of it.  So, I’m going to go because I have a chapter I need to do for Wednesday tonight and an outline to do.  K, love you, bye! 

[mittensmorgul]

I’m rewatching 13.15, A Most Holy Man, right now, and... and I remember when it first aired. The reaction was largely “meh,” or “the noir format doesn’t really do it for me and the episode was kinda boring overall.” It’s possibly the s13 episode I have the least amount of posts for on my blog. It was largely skimmed over as mostly irrelevant, with the only takeaway being:

A. They got the macguffin they needed to progress the A plot by the end of the episode

and

2. They really should’ve cut that scene of Dean going on about how he’d kill everyone who tried to steal his car...

But... this was a Dabb episode. I wrote this post back in May, but I think it merits an additional look now:

https://mittensmorgul.tumblr.com/post/184946657745/so-im-still-out-ahead-of-the-tnt-loop-but-i

Because this single episode functions as a microcosm of their entire lives, at least thematically, if not in a 1:1 fashion. I mean, it is just a 42 minute episode. There were only so many twists and layers they could reasonably shove in, and the Rule Of Three is a convenient metric for demonstrating the pattern in narrative shorthand that invites us to consider the unspoken “etc. etc. ad nauseum” ourselves.

I’d go into the entire structure of the episode, but I’m hoping that just explaining the outcome-- after reading the post I linked above-- everyone will be able to see the parallel itself without me having to write 5k words on the subject today. :P

Let’s start with the exchange at the end of the episode that prompted this realization. Because it’s a bit of chicanery:

FATHER LUCCA: I think I got shot. [DEAN lifts up FATHER LUCCA’s shirt to see only a little blood.] DEAN: Looks like he just grazed you. A few more inches to the left and, uh... FATHER LUCCA: It’s a miracle. [SAM and DEAN, with FATHER LUCCA behind them, search the warehouse and find GREENSTREET still hiding.] GREENSTREET: I didn’t know this would happen. I… I’ll give you anything you want, huh? DEAN: The blood, where is it? GREENSTREET: It, uh… doesn’t exist. SAM: You… what? Wait a second. You told us– GREENSTREET: Exactly what you wanted to hear. It was just a bit of… DEAN: Chicanery? GREENSTREET: Exactly. DEAN: Well… chicane this. [DEAN punches GREENSTREET to the ground.] ACT FIVE EXTERIOR – WAREHOUSE – NIGHT [There are police cars outside the warehouse. A policeman leads GREENSTREET to a car and sits him inside.] GREENSTREET: No, no, no, no. Wait. Don’t – you – you – you’ve made a mistake.

For a refresher, Greenstreet was the author of this entire bit of chicanery. For a while, it appeared as if it was actually each of the other people involved:

Margaret Astor, the first person we meet, and also the one APPARENTLY holding all the cards when they walk into the final deal, who ends up backstabbed (well shot in the back anyway, close enough) by her own assistant

she sent them to Greenstreet, who introduced the term “chicanery” to the narrative, which I’m gonna focus on next, because despite all his plotting, his narrative didn’t end the way he wanted (he’s getting hauled off to jail, but heck, at least he didn’t end up dead like most of the rest of these conspirators...)

Greenstreet sent them to Scarpatti, with the partially true information that he’d been the one to have the artifact stolen in the first place, only to learn that it had been stolen from his man in turn...

(and remember, the skull isn’t actually what Sam and Dean need... it’s the currency they believed they needed in order to trade for what they DO actually need... it’s a bit of a chicane... which I’ll get to... sorry for this meandering on the way to the conclusion, but this little side journey is 100% relevant... you’ll see what I mean in a minute)

While investigating Scarpatti’s side-detour, they end up having to investigate a murder, and inadvertently stumble over Father Lucca Camilleri... but Sam and Dean have no idea that they’re now traveling through this episode with the thing THEY actually need. But rather than just... take what they need because that fact hasn’t been revealed to them yet, or even continue to pursue the currency they believe they need to trade for the elusive thing they need, they selflessly choose to do the morally right thing despite believing that in doing so they are forfeiting their chance to get the macguffin they need.

Ain’t it just Winchesters vs The Cosmos on a microscopic level?

Because one thing I’ve learned about Dabb as showrunner is that his absolute favorite thing is gleefully pointing back at canon and explicitly clarifying things. It’s not always obvious, he tends to be incredibly subtle, but if you’re looking for it, it’s impossible not to see in pretty much all of his writing. He LOVES messing with prior perception, and making us work for the satisfying moment where all the pieces fall into place.

Chicanery and the chicane. THAT ITSELF IS A CLARIFICATION. From vague to specific. Because “a chicane” is a very different thing than “chicanery.” And it’s all a bit of a winding deception.

For reference, the definitions of these two very different words:

chi·can·er·y /SHəˈkān(ə)rē/ noun, the use of trickery to achieve a political, financial, or legal purpose. "an underhanded person who schemes corruption and political chicanery behind closed doors" synonyms: trickery, deception, deceit, deceitfulness, duplicity, dishonesty, unscrupulousness, underhandedness, subterfuge, fraud, fraudulence, legerdemain, sophistry, sharp practice, skulduggery, swindling, cheating, duping, hoodwinking

and

chicane (/ʃɪˈkeɪn/) noun, a serpentine curve in a road, added by design rather than dictated by geography. Chicanes add extra turns and are used both in motor racing and on roads and streets to slow traffic for safety.

What the definition of “chicane” doesn’t provide is that in auto racing, a chicane isn’t seen as a “safety” measure, but an obstacle. If you’ve ever watched road racing, the chicane is where a lot of drivers wipe out. It’s a choke point where everyone HAS to slow down, but when you’re RACING each other, the objective is to remain out in front, you know? Jockeying for position, trying to get through the obstacle as quickly as possible to get back to direct racing toward the finish line. So while a chicane literally slows the racing by design, forcing drivers to adapt to the physical reality of safely navigate through the pinch point while not wrecking themselves, they need to maintain absolute focus to retain their position, as well. It’s not about slowing down for safety but about finding the balance point between “safely navigating through without wrecking myself or being wrecked by the other cars trying to achieve the same objective I am” and “but we’re still racing and I can’t let anyone pass me so I’m still gonna push it as fast as I can while still conforming to the laws of known physics.” It’s... difficult.

THREE TIMES in this episode, they use the word “chicanery” before Dean clarifies it to “chicane.” For reference, out of the other 306 episodes of this show that exist at the time of writing this post, they’ve used “chicanery” a grand total of ZERO other times. Seems significant, yes?

In the same way the show has frequently used Wizard Of Oz imagery to convey these same points, with the reminder in the end of the “you had the power inside you all along” sort of themes, this episode takes it one step further. Which... logical considering the nature of the spiral narrative, that when it comes around again, the circumstances aren’t exactly the same. Think of it in terms of that racetrack with the chicane.

In the case of the plot of this episode, a similar comparison can be drawn to The DaVinci Code, since through most of the wild goose chase running through all the games and puzzles, the guy is literally traveling with the object he seeks. It just doesn’t become obvious, like with Dorothy and her Ruby Slippers, until they’ve worked their way through all the puzzles and subterfuge along the way. As Dean says in Scoobynatural when Sam points out that if he knows how the episode ends, why don’t they just get to the point already, and Dean replies “Because sometimes it’s about the journey.” Rather intuitive meta observation about the point of the narrative structure, yes?

Back to our road race analogy now, after passing through the chicane chicane. Every lap, the drivers are driving through the same essential course. The shape of the road doesn’t change in the most fundamental way. The same parts are still paved, the walls around the edges don’t move, etc. But each time they drive around, other conditions vary. Their tires wear down so their traction changes. Heck, the drivers themselves are wearing out physically and mentally. Maybe a dude’s just thirsty or has an itch on his nose or just has to pee real bad. Maybe the wind speed or direction has changed. Maybe the sun has moved so different turns become more tricky with a glare in their eyes. Their engines are slowly shifting as wear and tear of operating at a high performance level alters performance. Their brakes might be wearing down. They may be in need of more fuel and are driving more conservatively, or may have just gotten new fuel or new tires or made some other alteration to their car that shifts not only their ability to go faster, but changes how they handle corners, etc. But there’s also the factor of all the OTHER cars driving around them. Maybe they’ve hit the chicane all by themselves because they’re out ahead of the pack (or trailing far behind it). Maybe they’re clustered tightly together with other drivers. Maybe there was a wreck that altered the road surface... cleaning up fuel/oil spills, sand or dirt having “spilled” out onto the road surface, maybe a slight drizzle started making it more slippery, or even random trash has blown from the stands into the road, or debris from a wreck-in-progress hampers their progress. There are SO MANY FACTORS at play that make each lap around the course an entirely different experience, you know?

Same with the spiral narrative. The major landmarks might be similar, but everything else is new.

And the moment Dean says “chicane this” and punches the author of this series of events in the face, that’s basically 14.20, yes?

They’re tired, and they’re on the last lap, and they’ve been through this chicane so many times now. And they’ve just been told that after every lap, Chuck refused to wave the checkered flag. They kept reaching the finish line over and over, only to discover it was also the starting line and the race was still going. And each time through Chuck’s big chicane, he’d deliberately change those variables, so the more experience they gained on the track, there’d always be a bit of new debris to navigate, a new difficulty level added.

And now in 14.20, it’s like they finally caught him in the act of throwing thumbtacks down on the road, you know? They caught him at his tricks.

And like, to use a favorite metaphor of Dabb’s, it’s like the roadrunner and the coyote. Only the roadrunner had always known all along that the coyote was laying traps for him and always found the most hilarious ways to foil the coyote’s plans and turn it back around on him. It took them 14 seasons for TFW to finally pull a roadrunner.

This has always been Dabb’s ending, because it’s actually the story he has been telling all along. The spiral’s broken, and instead of continuing lap after lap with no end in sight, they’ve finally realized they can just... stop driving in carefully paved loops and drive in a direct line to the finish.

(and maybe the only way to make it to the finish is to pave their own road around all of Chuck’s chicanery... it’s gonna be some heavy lifting and some rough off-roading, but it’s the only way to get off the track to victory lane)

(apologies, this is the sort of place my brain goes when Mr. Mittens is watching nascar at Road America in the background... but it’s super apt, and full disclosure, I started writing this about an hour before he turned the tv on. I was already on this road course >.>)

[real6lacktony]

How To Grow Your Blog Traffic Using Tumblr

by

Eli Seekins

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That’s the social media dream, right? To set it and forget it, and gain thousands of followers without even trying or thinking about it?

To be honest, getting 8k followers on Tumblr in 5 months without ever logging in was never my intention.

Tumblr was distracting me from my “real work” so I thought I needed to take a break. I actually forgot about my account. Then months later thought I’d check up on it. Imagine my surprise when I saw how much it had grown.

The last time I was on I only had 500 followers. I spent that entire day studying analytics, reblogging cool pictures, and optimizing my Tumblr page to drive traffic back to my website.

Though it seems like my Tumblr blew up on its own, there was actually a very important seed that I planted, and several strategies that I implemented, that made it’s growth possible.

Let me show you how I did it. I’ve broken it down into 7 easy steps.

Oh and here are some pictures so you know I’m not just blowing steam.

This is my account back in early 2016 with only 300 followers.

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And here’s my account in Oct 2016 with just over 8,000 followers.

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And just since rediscovering my Tumblr and writing this article I’ve gained another 500.

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Steps to grow your Tumblr account

Choose your niche

The very first step to growing your Tumblr blog is to narrow your niche. Blogs that have specific topics tend to do better and attract more attention.

Colorful Gradients and Ghost Photographs are both examples of a super narrow niche.

But you also want to make sure to choose a niche that you’re passionate about — I mean that’s kinda the whole point in the first place.

Your niche determines what sort of content you will be posting.

Also, you don’t necessarily have to use the same exact niche as your main blog or website (if you have one). For example, my main blog Launch Your Dream is about following your dreams and it’s mostly focused on how to start a successful blog.

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My Tumblr blog, Eli Seekins, is also about following your dreams but is more focused on travel, adventure and lifestyle.

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The trick is to find something narrow that you enjoy.

For more tips on picking your niche, check out my post: How To Discover Your Perfect Niche (the Blogging Wizard — Adam — drops a mega helpful tip over there as well).

Know your brand

Your Tumblr is an extension of your brand, whether you are just starting one or already have one.

You want your brand to have a clear message. You need an edge — something that other brands don’t have. You need to know your values, what you stand for, and your mission.

That way you will always know what sort of content to post. Your brand will be clear and thorough, and people will get it.

When people get it, they have a better chance of connecting. And when they connect, they have a better chance of engaging and even sharing.

Knowing your brand also means knowing your audience. Who are you trying to reach? What sort of content do they like most?

(My brand is about following your dreams, travel, adventure, and lifestyle. I’m reaching out to young people who want to do something big with their lives. I value things like working hard, taking risks, and making a difference in the world.)

Here are 3 brands that are crushing it on Tumblr:

Adidas

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Sesame Street

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LIFE

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All three of these brands know who they are and who their audience is, and they do a great job of translating that over to their Tumblr.

For more help with branding, check out: 9 Tips for Creating an Awesome Brand

Follow popular accounts in your niche

A great way to find good content to repost, and to find out what people in your niche are responding to, is to check out the popular blogs in your niche.

It’s pretty easy to find them. Just look for the blogs who are posting a lot every day, who get lots of notes, and have a large following.

To get started just search for different keywords.

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And check out the different accounts.

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I’d follow anywhere from 50 – 100 blogs right away.

Reblog quality content 1 – 3 times a day (by using your queue)

One of the greatest tools in Tumblr is your queue.

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You can fill it with up to 300 posts, and set a certain amount of those posts to automatically publish throughout different times of the day.

In my opinion, your queue is perfect for filling up with loads of content to reblog (reblog means to repost someone else’s content on your Tumblr blog). And I just schedule my original stuff. That way I’m always sharing content, and I can schedule my content to post whenever I want and at peak times.

I often experiment with reblogging anywhere from 1 – 50 posts a day.

For those 5 months that I didn’t log into my account, when I gained 8,000 followers, I had about 200 reblogs in my queue set to share 1 photo a day at 9pm. And I wasn’t even sharing any original content.

Typically the bigger your audience grows the more content you can post. I don’t recommend sharing more than 3-5 posts a day until you get your first 1,000 followers.

You can find good content to reblog on the popular blogs that you’ve followed, by searching keywords in the search bar, or just by checking out your dashboard feed.

Then all you have to do is hit the queue button.

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You can change your queue settings over in the menu on the right.

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Include relevant hashtags

Hashtags in Tumblr are the keywords that make your posts searchable. They’re very important for getting your content seen.

You can find popular hashtags by doing a search and seeing what people are looking for.

And by typing in different tags in a post to see what people are using.

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Make sure that you use tags that are popular and relevant to your niche AND relevant to the content you are tagging. Just so you know only the first 20 tags that you use are actually searchable (source).

Use a call to action

I was surprised by how few people were using call to actions when I first started implementing these strategies. Since then, it seems like some popular accounts in my niche have caught on though.

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That’s because call to actions are powerful. It’s how this post has gotten almost 15,000,000 notes, by simply saying “pass it on”.

It’s great if your posts get a lot of attention, but if your viewers aren’t doing anything after they see your content what’s the point? Don’t you want them to take action?

All of your posts should include some sort of call to action, whether it’s to bring viewers to your Tumblr blog, to your main site, or somewhere different — or even to just get likes and reblogs.

At first, I felt kinda weird putting call to actions on other people’s content that I was reposting, but it’s ok to do if you do it right. And it can make a big difference. Just make sure to be genuine. For example, don’t repost someone’s original photo and use it to promote your ebook or video course. That’s kinda sleezy. But leaving a call to action on reblogs to like, reblog, or check out more of your posts is totally ok and can increase your engagement and get you more followers.

Warning

Always ensure that the creator of images you share retain credit. It can sometimes be difficult to to figure out who originally shared something on Tumblr – reblog’s usually link to the person who you reblogged it from. But we recommend trying to credit the original author if you can. And whatever you do, never remove a credit link. And try to share original content when you can – you’ll get more traction if you do.

For more tips on how to write good call to actions check out these posts:

Hook, Line, and Sinker: 7 Tips for a Killer Call-to-Action

5 Ways to Write Magnetic Call-to-Actions in Just 5 Minutes

21 Call to Action Examples and 3 Rules for Effective CTAs

31 Call-to-Action Examples You Can’t Help But Click

Use keyboard shortcuts to supercharge the speed of your workflow

I’m gonna be honest, filling up your queue with hundreds of posts is a lot of work — it eats up your time. I even considered quitting Tumblr for good because of how much time it takes.

One of the things that bothers me the most is that you can’t copy paste hashtags. You have to type each one in individually. And if you’re using 5 – 20 tags per post and have 300 posts in your queue…. that’s a lot of typing hashtags.

It took me a little bit of time to figure out, but I have my Tumblr workflow down to a system. I can’t even imagine how much time it saves me.

It’s all based on Mac Mastro (I use a mac, but if you’re a pc guy check out AutoHotkey or Quick Macros). This app allows me to save multiple different presets of titles, tags, and call to actions into keyboard shortcuts. So all I have to do is press a button combination on my keyboard and everything is automatically typed out for me. That way I don’t have to keep typing the same things over and over again hundreds — even thousands of times.

I’ll show you what I mean…

Here’s an example of my workflow, hotkeys, and scripts that I use.

1. Find a post to reblog

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2. Add a call to action with a hotkey

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Mac Mastro allows you to save multiple different actions to one hotkey, that way when you press the hotkey you can just click whichever one you want to use, then it types it for you.

3. Format your CTA and add a link if appropriate (again using a hotkey)

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4. Add tags (using a hotkey)

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5. Add to queue and you’re done

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The whole process takes a matter of seconds and dramatically decreases the amount of time it would normally take.

To create a new hotkey with Mac Mastro:

1. Go to File and then New Macro.

2. Add a new hotkey trigger. And then press whatever keys you want your hotkey to be.

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3. Add a new action

4. Search for and click “ Execute an AppleScript”

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5. Insert your script

Here are examples of the different scripts I use in Mac Mastro.

This is what I use for all my CTAs and links.

on run tell application "System Events" delay 0.25 keystroke "What You Want Typed Here" end tell end run

And this is what I use for all my tags.

on run tell application "System Events" delay 0.25 keystroke "tag 1" keystroke return delay 0.1 keystroke "tag 2" keystroke return delay 0.1 keystroke "tag 3" keystroke return delay 0.1 keystroke "tag 4" keystroke return delay 0.1 keystroke "tag 5" keystroke return end tell end run

Just put whatever you want your hotkey to type between the quotes after “keystroke”.

Tags are a little more tricky because you need the script to press enter after each one. That’s why there are delays and extra keystrokes.

And that’s it. Whenever you hit your hotkey it will type out whatever the script is set to type.

Extra Tumblr tips

Don’t try to sell

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At Least not at first when you are trying to grow. You can’t focus both on selling and getting followers at the same time. And honestly it’s pointless to sell when you don’t have an audience yet.

Plus people get on Tumblr to be entertained. People choose Tumblr over places like Facebook and Linkedin because it’s hip — it’s cool and artistic — it’s where the trend setters and young people go.

And they’re very good at detecting and filtering the content that they want to see. If they see your post, and get any sort of sleazy vibe, they’ll scroll past it without thinking twice.

Use Tumblr as a creative place to experiment and try new things — and especially as a place to post original content.

If your goal is still to sell, think of Tumblr as the top of your funnel, where you create awareness and grow relationships, not where you make your pitch.

Get a custom theme and domain name

Tumblr has a big creative vibe. Creativity and good design is important to a lot of its users. On top of that, Derek Halpern, Hubspot rated the design as the:

#1 thing that influences a viewer in those few seconds when they decide to stay on a website or not…

A study done by Elizabeth Sillence that found 94% of the participants who distrusted a website distrusted it because of its design.

That’s why getting a good looking and practical theme is important.

Just do a quick Google search, or click here to check out some different themes.

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Using a custom domain name isn’t necessary. It’s more of a personal and brand choice. And it’s definitely not going to make a big difference when you first get started. But if you want to stand out a little more, go for it. I didn’t start using my personal domain name until my blog caught on and started gaining momentum.

Check out this easy guide by NameCheap for using a custom domain name.

Create original content

Tumblr is a great place for content curators. But anyone can reblog other people’s posts. If you really want to stand out, post original content specifically for your audience on Tumblr that aligns with your brand. It’s also a good place to share your content from other platforms.

For example, I take photos of all my hiking and travel adventures. I pick out individual photos, write small 100 – 500 word micro blogs to go with them, and post one daily on Tumblr.

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And I don’t post them anywhere else. I also post daily original quotes that align with my brand.

And I also share all my YouTube videos on my Tumblr blog, as well as all the articles that I write.

Oh and make sure to add a source url of your blog or website whenever you post original stuff, that way you’ll get credit for it. And it will help drive a little bit of traffic for you. Plus getting your links shared on social media will help build your SEO.

So Tumblr is great for 3 things: reblogging quality content, posting original content, and sharing your content from other platforms.

Like I said though, creating original content specifically for Tumblr, is what makes certain bloggers stand out from the rest.

And posting content that’s visual — like photos, videos and GIFs — is a must.

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If you’re afraid to post original content because you don’t think it’s good enough, don’t be. Everybody has to start somewhere. You’ll get better the more you create and the more you post. If you look at the original content I first posted on Tumblr, it looks horrible compared to what I’m posting now. Every great blogger and content creator started out bad — seriously. They just practiced and increased their skill as they went along.

So get to work.

Drive traffic

I’m still learning the ropes when it comes to using Tumblr to bring traffic to your main blog or website. But since revamping my Tumblr, linking back to my site, and writing this article, Tumblr has brought 56 visitors to Launch Your Dream, which is more than Twitter, Facebook or Pinterest brought for me during that same time.

One thing to note is that I’m focused on growing my Tumblr following right now, rather than driving traffic to my website. So only something like 1 out of every 50 of my Tumblr posts link to Launch Your Dream. Almost all the rest link back to my Tumblr blog. How much traffic do you think I’d get if I linked to my main site more?

Maybe we’ll find out later.

Only time will tell how effective my new Tumblr will be at driving traffic to my website. But I’m excited to grow this new following, and to see how it impacts my main blog in the future.

Over to you

[misstellerhostess]

Any advice?

Hello everyone! I was wondering if I could get a little advice. This will probably get lost within the ‘tumblr algorithm’, and you’re welcome to stroll past all this. I just think I would feel much better if I can get this off my chest. I know that this blog is mostly for fanart and oc’s but I wanted to open up a little bit about myself. Okay here it goes...

To put this in the shortest way as I can, I have been working on a comic book for a really long time. I have finished the first book and I am currently working on the second. The thing is I’m not sure if people are even interested in it, or if it’s even publishable. I have tried to show a few of my college teachers my comic in the past for real constructive criticism, but the most answers I have received at the time is “If you redraw all of the pages digitally, and only using Photoshop, then perhaps your story will gain actual attention and interest.” Or “ That looks like a lot pages to read. People may not be willing to read all that.” They only glanced at the pages, not actually read it which didn’t help at all. It’s completely hand drawn and hand written, so I will certainly not redraw over 100 pages. 

I wanted to keep the old artwork to show the process of how it started out. My drawings have gotten better, the shading is a lot more cleaner, and the words has gotten more readable. The thing is I have started to work on two more stories. I made the decision to make the second story digital to save money on markers and color pencils. My third story is hand drawn but it’s a simple one page strip. It was until I put my stories onto the comic website, Webtoons, that I quickly noticed which comic gained more traction, over the other. 

My secondary story, which is digitally drawn, has gained attention faster than I have ever expected. Third story is doing average but still gaining attention. However my very first story barely gets any traction at all. I have posted all my stories onto my Deviant Art, and well, for me D.A has slowed down over the years. 

I’m not typing this out to advertise or anything like that,and I certainly will not force anyone to look at them, I’m just thinking about what I should do. Not wanting to drag this out any longer than I have already, here are the questions I constantly ask myself. Should I keep going with my first and longest story that I have been working on for many years now? Should I plow through to see if I can make it to the end of the road of the story? Or should I give more attention to the stories that is getting more attention? 

The truth is I want to continue on with all of my stories. I’m just not sure what to do. I am considering pulling the comic from Webtoons in general. It’s probably not the best place for it. 

[scummy-writes]

Hi! I didn't know who to talk to about this, but since you're one of the people in the fandom I look up to, I figured I should gather my courage and send this ask. As a writer, how do you deal with people's underwhelming response? Very few likes, just one or two reblogs, no respect or acknowledgement unless you open requests... It's breaking my heart at this point and I don't know what to do.

a…aaaa.. I can’t believe someone looks up to me. 

I’m sorry if this post is kind of all over the place. I kinda jump around with topics a lot.

Well, first off, I’m not going to lie- usually, I feel a bit hurt. It always hurts writing fics/drabbles/hcs and never seeing any response, or just very very little response. I often don’t write fluff or more serious topics because I know that those themes are always going to be overlooked for my smut instead. And if you’re a minor, writing smut is a no-go, which makes trying to gain traction or readers even more difficult.

There have been several times where I’ve barely gotten any notes on stuff I’ve poured a lot of time into. I’ve even written an off-anon request before only to have the person who requested it not even like/reblog it, or make any sort of comment. I’ve been there, we’ve all been there, and it’s tough to climb back up. 

I’m not sure how long you’ve been following me, but there was a point where my normal note count for hcs dropped from 700 notes down to 20-60 notes if I was lucky, just depending on what I was writing about. In fact, I even left the blog due to some bullying I was enduring and the combination of barely getting a note count that I had considered ‘good’. Since I’ve came back, I’ve focused on what made me happy, and even though I still have the knee-jerk reaction, I’ve learned not to try and compare notes. Ultimately, it’s made me happy, though I might have a bit of ‘survivor bias’ going on since I’ve been collecting readers since the start of 2017. 

I have a few things that help me out, and one of them is learning to appreciate the notes I do have.

For example, even though its just been a day, I only have about 29 notes on my recent yooran drabble. Thats not including my own reblogs, and then if I were to not include friend reblogs, it’d be about 27 or 26. That’s incredibly low for me, personally, because if I post up a fic (depending on the character and theme) I can get around 80-100 notes depending on how lucky I am.

(Now thats not me trying to tell you 30ish notes isn’t a lot, because it is!! It is a lot and if you ever get that many notes on a post you should feel proud of it! But, if you’re me and you’ve been here for a while, that’s low compared to other posts of mine. Please keep reading so I can explain more: )

If this was back to last year, when I was contemplating leaving my blog, that would have hurt me a lot more than it does today, because I was constantly in a loop of comparing notes with my other posts or even my friends posts. I had convinced myself that notes = quality, when that’s not the case at all. Believe it or not, just because a post has 5 notes, or 1 note, or even 0 notes, doesn’t mean whatever content on it is terribly written, or shoddy, or dumb. There have been wonderful hc posts, wonderful pictures of art that I have seen that have barely gotten 10 notes. 

So I think one thing that is hard to get yourself to learn is that a lack of notes doesn’t mean what you are producing is bad. Learning this is hard, and it’s especially hard when you’re constantly discouraged by lack of notes, but you need to write for yourself first and foremost. I haven’t been writing publicly for long, in fact I think the first fanfics I published were in 2016, but I had been writing since middle school. I used to carry a worn down composition notebook and write the most absolutely cringiest fanfiction ever. It had self inserts, it had ocs that were children of me and my favorites, it had terrible, terrible, references to games/music I loved as a kid- but no one read it but me. I never posted it online, and I wrote it to make me happy- and cringy middle school me was super fucking happy with that story. I’m pretty sure I was working through a second compositon notebook before I moved on from the show I was writing about. 

From that point on, I knew I liked writing. I joined writing classes, wrote cringy fiction for my english teachers to read (good fucking god bless my teachers for putting up with my terrible shit but still encouraging me).  

Eventually, since I liked writing so much and my drawing skills declined, I ended up promising to write stories for my friends birthdays. Where one person would be reading it, besides me, and that’s how it was until I posted my first MM fic on AO3. Even with those first few fics, I feel like it’s unfair to count them now, because they were posted just a few months after the game released, I believe, and I honestly just really consider myself lucky that those first two mm fics of mine got the traction they did.

But I think because I was so used to writing to make myself happy, it really fucked me up when I started trying on focusing my writing on only making others happy instead of myself. 

So, a lot of newer folks might not know this, since I’m assuming a lot of people think this is just a pretty photo queue blog with occasional posts, but I started off writing Hcs on here. At first, I don’t think they got a huge traction, but as I slowly got more followers, I got more notes and requests. But eventually it got extremely taxing to keep those up, because what I had wanted was to make others happy with them, but it’s hard to believe you’re doing a good job when you drop from 700 to 20-60 notes. And so I stressed a lot to the point of ‘leaving��� (but as you can see that ended up just being a few month hiatus), but one thing was that I was forced to acknowledge how bad my viewpoint was on the whole situation. I had lost the motivation of writing for myself to make me happy, and instead tried to treat myself as a writing machine only meant to make others happy. That’s not a healthy viewpoint when it comes to writing, especially if you’re doing this as a hobby.

Because of all that, I stopped writing hc posts and focused on fics, because writing fanfics made me happy. It still makes me happy, and because I kept on truckin and still posting, I’m accomplishing things I never thought I would accomplish. 

Writing for success is a long, hard, road that will often leave you unsatisfied, but writing for yourself is a shorter road that will make you happy- even if it’s just venting away emotions you couldn’t let out in any other way.

If it helps you out any, because I’m unsure if I’m making any sense, some pieces that I’m super happy about are pieces that no one but me and maybe one other person has seen. They’re locked away as drafts or in folders and I’m even unsure if I’ll share some of them.

Besides all of the stuff I’ve mentioned, if I’m feeling bad and what I just told you isn’t helping me, sometimes I just talk to a friend or two. Just hearing someone in real time, even if it’s possibly extremely bias or something, tell me that they like my stories or they think my writing is good- that still means a lot to me, and sometimes it perks me up. If that’s not an option with you, you can always talk to your family as well, or old teachers you may have shown some of your work to. I’m very fortunate to have a few teachers willing to help me out with a few questions, even though I’ve…long since graduated orz.

I’m sorry if none of this helps. But if anything, please please don’t give up writing. If you choose to do something like that, please have it be 100% your own decision that isn’t influenced by a note or hit count. I’m positive that whatever you are writing is good, and I know that not seeing that note count get higher hurts, but that note count has absolutely no bearing on how well written your story is.

If theres anything else I can talk to you about, please feel free to send me some more questions, and again I am really sorry if this didn’t help you.

[emeraldsorcerer]

Screw it, I went on a long rant under a read more but I’m just gonna put the TL;DR up here for those who don’t even wanna.

TL;DR summary:

I was somehow seemingly the single last holdout of the 2012 Tumblr Umineko fandom era, and I’ve lived long enough to see it boomerang back around again, something I never thought I’d see. It’s so exciting. I want to be a part of it, quite badly, just like I was before.

<insert long winded rant about the state of Tumblr RP, pre-plotting and how it isn’t necessarily bad, but how it doesn’t really jive with me in particular because I find it boring, plus I don’t communicate effectively in 2017 Tumblr RP land and Discord/Skype/other chat client RPs are just too isolated and lonely for my tastes>

I guess...I have no idea if anyone will accept this blog anymore, though, half a decade later, the way it was back in 2012. It’s a little scary, I’m not sure I can make Sakana relevant or interesting, or even develop him anymore. By god, I’ll try, because I don’t have it in me to quit this blog, but I’m left here wondering how futile it is.

...

You know, I started this blog back in October of 2012. Back then, the Umineko fandom had pretty much recently crested from what I gather, and was on the decline, and the Ib fandom was also on about the same boat. I’d made my askbernkastel account in the summer of that year even earlier, and between the two blogs, there’s been a lot of firsts. First Tumblr blog, and through askbernkastel, first exposure to the RP community. First askblog, first RP blog, which honestly, this all started out as a shameless OC self-insert thinly veiled under an Umineko disguise because I had no idea what I was doing and how cringy that was even for 5 years ago.

And yeah, now I’ve retrofitted this blog so that Sakana is his own character now, with his own personality and ways he goes about things, developed through half a decade of playing him from when he was painfully obviously just me in disguise, to now, where he’s his own thing, to the point where at one time I was being told by a couple of people who regularly RPed with me that they forgot Sakana wasn’t actually a part of the Umineko canon on occasion.

Honestly that was probably the best compliment I’ve ever received ever on Tumblr.

And now I’m witnessing the slight uptick of a fandom with whole new people all of a sudden. I’m not really sure why people decided to resurrect their blogs or make new ones at around the same time. Maybe it’s that in the past year or so Umineko came out on Steam, and Ougon Musoukyoku (the Umineko fighting game) had also been announced for a Steam release and localization, and because of its ease of access, now it’s gaining a bit more traction then when it was almost entirely dead and gone earlier last year.

It’s just kind of making me wonder if this blog’s concept is done and tired.

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get away from this blog, but I have to wonder if it’s holding me back a little, if I’m still trying to push a concept that only barely worked in 2012 onto 2017 when it really doesn’t want it. I’m still constantly paranoid that people think all Sakana boils down to is a mun in an Umineko skin, and while I’ve taken pains to make him his own character and have him go on his own journeys and have him be long-term affected by them, I’ve also been at a loss for what to do next.

People nowadays largely want either predetermined plots or chat RP. Not everyone, but it’s a trend I’ve been noticing.

 I really love the fact that I can just pop into the Tumblr chat system nowadays and be assured my ask won’t just get eaten as it so often seemed to do, but it’s also made a much higher demand for communication and pre-plotting and agreeing upon the outcome before it’s even written, and that’s just straight up boring to me. At the risk of sounding like someone who needs his cane handed to him to yell at the kids to get off his lawn, I seem to recall being able to spin massive permanently-character-altering plots with other people that were extremely gratifying and didn’t require a roadmap of what exactly will happen beforehand, and that just doesn’t seem to exist anymore. Maybe it’s that people have gotten burned by too many godmodding jackoffs and aren’t willing to take that chance anymore, and that’s fine.

I do need to clarify, I don’t think this is really anyone’s fault, or anyone should feel guilty, I’m not blaming anyone for anything in specific. In fact, a lot of this is honestly my problem. Besides being boring for me because I know exactly how the story will end, I have massive direct communication issues honestly. How in the hell do I even plot with someone? What are the correct words or keyphrases to say? How do I communicate what I want to have happen? How much of it should be ‘what I want to have happen’ and ‘what they want to have happen’? Whose character arc should it be? What story do we want to tell? Should I tell them my story idea right off the bat or should I ease them into the concept? That direct tumblr chat has honestly been the bane of my creative existence for a long time now because I just don’t get how people do it.

“Oh, it’s not that bad Fish-mun.” I hear you say, “You just go into their chat and be friendly and introduce yourself and pop them an idea! And if they aren’t into it, that’s fine, just try someone else or come back when you have a different idea that might fit better!”

Yeah, no. Any time I see those rebloggable posts with something like “Reblog this if you’re totally down to just have plots sent to you” or “Reblog if you’re okay with your muse being Xed or Yed or Zed” or “Reblog if you’re okay with having your muse pestered about the relationships that you've seen them have with other muses.” or basically any of those general “Hey I’m a cool and totally open RPer you should come and do the RP thing with me guys because I’m so open!”

And it’s just like.......no. Stop being so disingenuous by overgeneralizing. There’s always going to be multiple exceptions, and too often I’ve been that exception for whatever reason, fooled into thinking otherwise, going in on that beck and call, and being ignored. I don’t mind if you’re not that open, by all means be private and selective and mutuals only, but don’t lie to me about being open when you’re not. I have a really serious problem with that, honestly.

And it’s never as easy as just going in, being friendly, introducing myself, and the RP possibilities will just open themselves up. I’ve had that sentiment told to me so many times, but I’ve also heard people talking about other people behind their backs so many times, I know there’s nuance to language use, and someone’s interpretation of being completely friendly and innocent can very, very easily come off as even downright creepy in the wrong combination of sender and receiver.

I mean, to some people, even just introducing yourself is too much for them and they don’t know how to react. Tone matters. Dialect matters. User friendliness matters. When I’m communicating with someone in specific, I feel like a totally different person depending on what person or group I’m communicating with, because I have to adapt myself to what’s acceptable with that person or in that group. One minute some person in a chat’ll just throw something like ‘i want to eat your ass out’ as a joke and that tells me where that person stands, they can give and take absolute gross absurdist out-of-left-field bullshit and that’s great. 

The next I’ll be talking to another person in a chat and discussing sociopolitical implications and norms, and how they affect those that surround us currently and how they might in the long term as well, speculating on how it all relates to the world we live in and how it’s affected as a result, and what, if any, solutions there could be theoretically to current issues, whether they’re a matter of human nature and can’t really be changed without theoretically changing the fundamental human psyche, or if a crisis large enough threatens everyone things could really be changed for the better, or if there’s no hope at all and we should all grab some popcorn as we drown in our own existentialism hell while the world surrounding us slowly wilts.

And remember, I was getting my ass eaten out one chat over at the same time.

Speaking of chats, the thing I personally have an issue with in RPing through a chat system is that it’s so immediately demanding. The thing I love about roleplaying on Tumblr is that I get to sit down, think about it for a few minutes, not have to worry about replying right away, and eventually knock one out. I don’t feel nearly as much time constraint pressure in a Tumblr RP environment. Not only that, Tumblr RP is the only way I get to make new friends and followers via RP, mostly because they see my RPs being reblogged on someone else’s account and think ‘hey maybe I should follow this guy’ - a tactic I’ve done to follow new people a number of times. Discord is nice and all, but it’s just too isolated. I kinda want some other people to see my RPs too, y’know.

I guess what it comes down to is that I still have a 2012 Tumblr RPer attitude in the 2017 Tumblr world. I’m still stubbornly used to not having text chats readily available, I’m used to being able to improvise major plots with other people where the only time for plotting is if I ask if it’s okay to do something to another person’s muse on the spot. Honestly, I’m used to a more chaotic, less reserved Tumblr. And I’ve been on my other blogs too, mainly my Tomoko blog, and have managed to find myself getting used to a more modern take on Tumblr, but whenever I come back here, it all starts to not make sense to me anymore. I have to wonder if there’s anything more of relevance here on this blog. Even the Umineko fandom has moved on to a 2017 approach.

I should wrap this up. 

TL;DR summary:

I was somehow the single last holdout of the 2012 Tumblr Umineko fandom era, and I’ve lived long enough to see it boomerang back around again, something I never thought I’d see. It’s so exciting. I want to be a part of it, quite badly, just like I was before.

<insert long winded rant about the state of Tumblr RP, pre-plotting and how it isn’t necessarily bad, but how it doesn’t really jive with me in particular>

I guess...have no idea if anyone will accept this blog anymore, though, half a decade later. I’m not sure I can make Sakana relevant or interesting anymore. By god, I’ll try, because I don’t have it in me to quit this blog, but I’m left here wondering how futile it is.

[miasswier]

own voices and mlm fandom

I’ve been thinking a lot about mlm fandom and what an interesting phenomenon it is, and how that translates into original LGBTQ fiction. This is long and rambly and maybe not that coherent, but I’ve been thinking about this for a while and I just need to get it out.

For a very large amount of my fandom life, I exclusively shipped slash ships. I mean, my first big fandom was Glee, and Darren Criss joining was the reason that I started the show in the first place, so I sort of fell into the Klaine ship and the adjoining fandom pretty easily. They were my first official ship, and honestly, I’m still really fond of them. They’ll hold a special place in my heart forever.

The thing is, I never really realized it at the time, but for my first few years in fandom I always found myself gravitating toward mlm ships. Klaine, Wennet, Sterek, Fervid. I used to watch hours of clips on youtube detailing the storylines of mlm couples on TV shows. There were several shows I watched exclusively because I knew there were mlm couples on there (The Carrie Diaries is one example, where I only sought it out after seeing gifsets of Wennet on my dash). It wasn’t even a conscious thing, it just happened.

What’s interesting for me, thinking in retrospect about this all, is that I identified very strongly as straight at this point in my life. Oh, sure, I was questioning, but I was in a bit of a boy crazy period, and to me that implied that I had to be straight (there was also the fact that I didn’t think I could ever see myself dating a girl; I later realized that I couldn’t see myself dating a guy either, because I just couldn’t see myself dating anybody).

I used to say some really iffy things, which again, retrospect. I was a budding little feminist, and I was just becoming a sexual being (I was… fourteen or fifteen when I joined fandom?), so I was all about normalizing girls as agents of their own sexuality. A big thing for me was this totally false stereotype that women didn’t watch porn. I remember so many conversations I’d have with male friends that would always end up the same way – “but porn isn’t aimed at women, so why would they watch it?”. I, being completely self-taught and very young and naïve, always had the same response (which I thought was oh-so-clever): “gay porn. Porn aimed at women is gay porn.”

YIKES. But as I’ve been thinking a lot about the issues I’ve only seen within mlm fandom since somewhat distancing myself from it, this is actually a really common thought for a lot of straight women. Because the thing is, a really strange thing has happened with mlm fandom, and it’s not something that I think anybody could have ever predicted.

Somehow, mlm fandom has become about women. To the point where it’s almost exclusively about women. I mean, think about it. I don’t know any major mlm fandom that isn’t at least 90% female. Even when I think about the Klaine fandom, I think I can think of… four? Maybe five? Klaine fans that aren’t female. And it’s one of those things where because so much of mlm fandom is female it begins to just be thought of as this female thing. I mean, geez, how many conversations have I had with people in fandom where I discuss whether Kurt or Blaine is the top in their relationship. All of those conversations happen amongst females. And honestly, most of the women in mlm fandom are straight.

It’s gotten to the point where mlm fans are almost excluded from mlm fandom spaces. I recently saw a post (which is what sort of formed the connection between several thoughts that I’d had floating around for a while) where a mlm fan was requesting that mlm authors specifically tag the fic they write with “mlm author” so that they could find stories written about mlm by mlm. I went on this person’s blog and they’d made a post that it was gaining traction, and thus far there were about 21 fics on AO3 tagged “mlm author”.

Let’s think about that. Twenty-one fics. That’s it. I know it’s a new tag and all, but jeez. Twenty-one fics. Out of how many fucking mlm stories out there? Like, holy shit. That is an infinitesimal number. It’s actually really embarrassing.

And it’s not mlm authors fault. How could it be? I mean, I remember reading one Klaine fic forever ago, and it really challenged the way I saw Kurt and Blaine. They weren’t written the way I, or most other authors wrote them. They were a lot more nuanced, a lot more complex, and the author explored issues within their gender and sexuality that I had never seen explored in fanfic before. And like, I remember reading that story and genuinely feeling like it wasn’t for me. I wasn’t the target audience for this story, because the target audience for it were mlm’s. It made me feel uncomfortable, and so I stopped reading it.

(A small side-note here, I did try and pick this particular fic back up a few months ago, but stopped once again because the author included several references to Kurt’s situation as a white gay male being worse off than Mercedes situation as a black female. The way it was written didn’t feel like “Kurt feels this way but he is uninformed”; it was more “Kurt is gay and Mercedes is straight and therefore she doesn’t understand oppression at all”, and it really felt like that was how the author felt. It was especially iffy since the story was set in like, the 1960’s.)

The point is, mlm fandom content has become this thing that is created by women for women. A lot of it comes from straight women, too.

The biggest issue with this is that it becomes inaccessible to actual mlm individuals. It’s been made so clear throughout years and years and years that mlm fandom isn’t for mlm. How fucked up is that? And like, I’m sure that anybody who may see this who is deep in mlm fandom would instantly protest. No it’s not!!!!!!!!! I am so accepting!!!!!!!! I am an Ally!!!!!!!!!! But really, think about it. In all your time in fandom, how many mlm people have you actually interacted with? And of those people, how many have you had positive interactions with? Because holy shit, I remember one mlm fan who got into so many fucking fights with straight fans, where the straight fans would shut him the fuck down. He criticized how they portrayed a mlm couple and they wouldn’t have it. They told him he knew nothing and blocked him. Let me repeat that: straight women told a mlm fan that they knew more about mlm relationships than he did. Like, what the literal fuck!!!

And like, here’s the thing. I actually know of quite a few wlw who are very deep in mlm fandom. In fact, a lot of the Klaine blogs I still follow are run by wlw because a lot of the ones run by straight women just make me too damn uncomfortable (I know I still follow a few, though). Most of these wlw do present more nuanced views of mlm relationships, in the way that only fellow queer people really can, but, I mean, at the end of the day we’re still wlw. We’re not mlm.

(Another side-note is how interesting I’ve found it to see all these wlw Klaine fans go from mlm fandom to mlm fandom. They’re just as deeply stuck in mlm fandom as women are, which absolutely blows my mind. I think there’s maybe two wlw run Klaine blogs that I follow that seem to have any interest at all in femslash. It’s honestly the weirdest phenomena.)

What’s interesting to me about all of this is how it plays into the writing of original fiction, which I know feels like I’m swerving a bit, but bare with me.

So, if you’ve been following me long enough, you’ll know that I’ve had some very serious issues with a publishing company called Interlude Press. I haven’t spoken about them a lot lately because the last time I made a post it garnered the attention of someone who informed me that the IP family had recently suffered a death, and this person believed that I was trying to “hit them while they’re down”. That wasn’t the case at all, as I am very removed from IP and don’t follow any of their authors, or people who buy their books (I think there may be a few that I still follow, but like with the straight female mlm fans, they’re rare). Still, I wanted to be respectful, so I backed off.

Why am I bringing up Interlude Press? Because they’ve come back into my radar recently in a totally different way than before.

See, over the past year or so I’ve started following several LGBTQ book blogs. I think I follow four or five. Recently, some of IP’s books have started to make appearances on these blogs.

Here’s the interesting thing about it: it’s only the books written by their wlw authors about wlw characters that make it onto these blogs.

My biggest issue with IP was that they called themselves an LGBTQ publisher, but only published books about cis gay mlm. I think it was a good year into their publishing career before they even published a book that featured a cis bi mlm protagonist. Like, it was really, really obvious that they were not an LGBTQ publisher; they were a cis mlm publisher.

The thing about that is that almost every single author they brought on board? Female.

I’m serious. That publishing company is filled to the brim with female authors. Yeah, some are wlw, but a lot of them aren’t. So, here you have an LGBTQ publishing company that only publishes novels about mlm couples, but all their writers are female. Do you see why I had issues with them?

In a way, though, they came by it honestly. IP started because the people who run it wanted to publish some of their favourite Klaine fanfictions as original novels. We’ve already established that mlm fandom is this woman-run operation that gets to the point where it almost excludes mlm fans. Is it really that surprising that all of their authors were female, and all of them wanted to write about mlm’s?

But now, here they are. They’ve finally started publishing wlw stories written by their wlw authors. And guess what? Those are the stories that are making it only LGBTQ book blogs. Those are the stories people are hearing about. I recently saw a post on one LGBTQ book blog about a talk some authors are doing, and several of IP authors were on there. The one the blog singled out? C.B. Lee, a wlw whose wlw story is the one that has put her back on my radar (she is also the one who wrote the first bisexual mlm character for IP).

What I’m getting at throughout all of this is – Own Voices. Although there are quite a few mlm original stories that are written by women, the one’s that I’ve found I enjoy the most, the ones that actually make me feel connected to the characters, are the ones I’ve read written by mlm authors. It’s the same with wlw original stories. Because here’s the thing -- mlm authors are always going to understand what being a mlm individual is like WAY more than female authors (even wlw ones) will.

Fandom is a strange place, a place where mlm content is produced and consumed almost entirely by women. But original content? That’s a different ball game. And sure, there are a lot of women who exclusively read and write mlm stories, but often those stories aren’t the ones that make splashes within the LGBTQ community. At least not as far as I’ve seen.

This is honestly such an incoherent mess, and I don’t know if I’m even trying to make a point with all this, but I just had to get it all written down.

One final note before I go to take a nap. For the past several years I’ve found myself drifting further and further into femslash fandom, to the point where I barely ship any mlm couples anymore (I think Klaine may be the only one atm). It’s been tough, since there’s a lot less content than there is for mlm couples; even the popular wlw couples get way less content (I know I bitch and whine about holtzbert a lot, but even they have an abysmally low amount of fic considering they’re the biggest ship in the GB fandom – especially when you compare them to popular mlm ships like Sterek or Johnlock or Destiel). But honestly? I feel so at home here. Almost every person I’ve met through femslash fandom is also a wlw. Do you know how wonderful it is to exist in a fandom where you’re writing about characters like you, and reading stories written by people who are also like those characters? You would not believe the difference it makes reading wlw fics written by wlw, as opposed to mlm fics written by wlw or straight women.

Own Voices, man. They’re important as fuck.

[jonathan-cranes-mistress-of-fear]

Is there any one single Scarecrow backstory considered to be more canon then the others? We have the Year One backstory. We have the incredibly vague Long Halloween (sorta) backstory. And lately we have the new 52 backstory. Those are the only one's I'm familiar with anyway. People may not like it, but I think DC is leaning more heavily on 52's backstory since I saw only that backstory referenced in the DC character encyclopedia. What do you think?

This is one of those subjects that I’ve had on my mind for a long time now. I apologize for making you wait, I needed to do a little research before posting this. Thank you for bringing it up though, I doubt I would’ve addressed it myself unless someone asked. (warning: this is a long post)

There’s actually more backstories than that, although I don’t know if I count Long Halloween’s backstory. (I would probably lump it in somewhere else, because it’s just a few sentences long.)  There’s his first appearance in World’s Finest #3 Riddle of the Human Scarecrow, this simple backstory was retold several times in his subsequent appearances as a refresher to new readers. Then later, in Batman Annual 19 (1995) Masters of Fear his origin is expanded upon and new characters are added to the story such as Sherry Squires and Bo Griggs. It wasn’t until 2005 that Scarecrow: Year One yet again, retold the story. Finally, New52′s origin story Cycle of Violence was released in 2015

(I feel I need to also mention that he got a southern origin story in the Batman 66′ comics, which also came out in 2015. However, that is contained in it’s own universe and shouldn’t be compared to his previous origins.)

I’ve noticed that the fandom generally hates New52, and Crane’s backstory isn’t immune to this. I have not read anywhere near all of New52′s comics and while I realize there are some badly written stories, I cannot judge the entirety of the lot based on that. I think I’ve met only a few people who genuinely enjoy that comic and it’s kind of sad in my opinion. There’s a consensus out there that Year One is the best™and that DC should return to that storyline. I want to place a quick disclaimer here: I adore Year One. If you’ve been with my blog long enough, you know that. When I get commissions, that’s the design I ask for, and even I have custom year one plushies. I love the comic and I’ve read it dozens of times, I’ve also animated it partially. (someday I’ll finish that project) Despite that, it still has flaws and it’s not perfect. I think we often overlook that in favor of the story returning.

I don’t believe Year One was ever cannon, and that kind of saddens me to admit. I didn’t used to think this until the proper evidence was presented to me, and hope in sharing that with you today, you might also go away with a different perspective. Ever since the fandom learned about Year One, all other  backstories became a moot point. Nobody wants a retelling of Masters of Fear, or even a rewritten New52. They want Year One.

The Jonathan Crane tag was a wasteland until 2012 when it started gaining a lot of traction thanks to the Nolan films (the third and final one came out that year)  Using a timestamp generator I was able to skip back in time to 2012 and check out what was being posting in the Jonathan Crane tag during that year. I noticed that Nolan’s Crane and Year One crane were very popular around the same time. Why is this? Well as it turns out, Year One was actually released to coincide with Batman Begins. (both in 2005) With him being the main villain of that movie, it makes sense to release a comic for the sake of hype. According to this [tumblr post], which is were I’ve gotten a chuck of my information so far, there was an article that proves this was true. There was also an interview that stated Year One’s writer never intended for the comic to be cannon. I could not find the article/interview. If someone has this information, that would be great, as it solidifies everything I’ve seen so far. (I am inclined to believe the OP of the tumblr post though, she’s very knowledgeable when it comes to Scarecrow)

Like she has said, Year One is only referenced one other time outside of it’s two-comic story. That’s in a Holiday Issue with Karen Keeny, and because they didn’t call back Sean Murphy to do the art, the characters and Karen herself are unrecognizable. (so if you were hoping to see Scarecrow in his old costume, you’re out of luck) I’m not going to spoil the story though. There is one panel in Joker’s Asylum: The Riddler where Scarecrow sports a similar outfit to his Year One costume, but this may just be an artist paying homage. Nowhere else have I seen the Keenys or his southern (Georgia) origin referenced. The Scarecrow trades (Arkham Scarecrow and Scarecrow Tales) have stat pages, but nothing about Year One. HOWEVER you can read about all his origins and various other adventures in the magazines included with Eaglemoss’ Chess piece and lead figures. That is the only time I’ve seen Scarecrow: Year One referenced in a DC publication.

This is probably why you only see New52′s origin story and New52 artwork in current publications, or why you sometimes see the order origins instead. I’m sorry I had to rant a little bit to get there. It’s not just because New52 is current, but because Scarecrow: Year One was never meant to be considered cannon. There’s probably a reason why DC isn’t referencing it, and it’s not because they “hated” that origin, or to spite the fans. It’s simply because that comic was meant to boost sales. It just so happens that it has a decent sized following, and thanks to the bandwagon effect, once one person assumed it was canon…so did everyone else.

I suspect we’ll be getting a new origin for Scarecrow this year, seeing as he’s already shown up quite a bit in Rebirth. Perhaps in October…? Will it be a retelling of New52′s story or something completely new, well that’s a question I’ll save for another day. For now, I’m okay with the current cannon

[popculturecraziness]

This Week on Hallmark Channel: Love on Ice & A Royal Winter

When it comes to writing, my biggest claim to fame is my made-for-TV Christmas movie review blog. It’s gotten enough (minimal) traction, that people actually come to me with thoughts and questions about Hallmark’s programming. There have been quite a few rants on the blogs about the actors I love, and the ones I don’t, and letting out all my inner-Hallmark musings to the public is one of my greatest joys in running that blog.

Since I watch Hallmark movies all year round, and not just during the holiday season, I thought it would be cool to try and write out my thoughts on the movies Hallmark produces the other ten months of the year as a 2017 resolution. So after a bit of a break, so that I could look at the genre with somewhat fresh eyes, I am ready to tackle the tropes Hallmark throws out when their isn’t a Christmas tree in sight. And if you are at all interested in that sort of thing, my reviews for the first two Hallmark premieres of the year are right under the cut.

(Note: If you’re wondering why A Rose for Christmas isn’t included here, it’s because-- as it’s title would indicate--it’s a Christmas movie. That review will be posted in November on the appropriate blog.)

Love on Ice

In the days leading up to the premiere of Love on Ice, there was a bit of an internet uproar as some commentators noted that the plotline for the movie--a once great ice skater gains attention of a famous skating coach who helps her mount a comeback while they fall in love--was wildly similar to the popular figure skating anime Yuri on Ice!!. Hallmark claimed that all the similarities between the two were coincidental and I am inclined to believe them because I can’t imagine a world where anyone on Hallmark recognizes a property that features characters in leading roles that are both not white and not straight. More than that, I can’t imagine a world in which Hallmark recognizes that there are people who are not white and not straight. So the idea of a Hallmark executive avidly watching a Crunchyroll stream and taking notes on the property to steal from for their own ice skating movie seems insane to me.

However, the similarities between the two properties are undeniable. I know this for a fact because for the first half hour or so of the movie I watched with my little sister, a Yuri on Ice!! fan who kept pointing out plot similarities to me. Sadly I could not lure into watching the full movie with me, so you’ll not get the full venn diagram of similarities and differences here. All I can say is that they definitely exist, so maybe those fans have a case after all.

If one thing is for sure though, it’s that the Yuri on Ice!! plagarism concerns were the most interesting thing about Love on Ice, a movie I have basically forgotten in the days since I watched it. Honestly, if Hallmark wasn’t accused of stealing plotpoints from Yuri on Ice!!, I would have barely remembered anything that happened in it. People ice skate! People fall in love! Gail O’Grady plays a mean stagemother! At one point they play a weird instrumental disco track and skate to it! Things happen?? Love on Ice basically went in one ear and out the other. Or in one eyeball and out the other. Or.. well, it came and then it went from my brain without nary an imprint on my long term memory.

There’s problem many reasons my brain’s inability to remember basically anything from this movie, such as poor scriptwriting and basic and boring direction, but I’m going to blame Andrew W. Walker for this whole snafu. He’s been in a solid amount of Hallmark movies now, and is clearly one of their favorite male leads. And yet, he’s so bland that I can’t remember a single thing about him. In fact, when I was making my list last October of the Hallmark hierarchy of stars, his was the only name I got completely wrong. I called him Andrew West instead. That’s right: he’s so boring that I confused him for the guy who played a recurring and forgotten love interest on Greek, a show I have not watched a minute of in the last five years. If you want the apex of the bland and pretty male lead, look no further than Andrew W. Walker, because he is very pretty and also completely forgettable! 

So it makes sense that Love on Ice was much the same way. If Hallmark steals, you can always count on them to make the ideas less exciting!

A Royal Winter

When it comes to fiction, everyone has their favorite tropes: the common plot points and character arcs that directly appeal to them and help them get involved with a story. That storytelling bias, not shockingly, also extends to Hallmark movies. Through my countless years and watching and writing about Hallmark movies, I know one thing to be true: the commoner falls in love with royalty trope is just not for me. 

When it comes to Hallmark’s take on the commoner falls in love with royalty trope, it always feels like its the same movie being played out. There’s a girl who is very nice but needs to add some sparkle in her life. She meets a royal, but to prove that her heart is true and she’s not a gold digger, she has no idea who he is at first. The royal is due to become crowned king soon, but he wants to put his own stamp on the job and stop being held back by traditions. He has a mother who just doesn’t get it. After some struggles, all problems are solved, the monarchy is cool again and love can live another day. Cut to: me starting to play Disney Magic Kingdoms on my phone because I could barely keep my eyes open during the whole predictable affair.

If it were not for the sake of my goal to write about all the Hallmark movies this year, I would have skipped A Royal Winter. It probably would have been a smart idea, because I started to strain my eyes from rolling them so hard every five minutes. But how can you not? The story kept underlining how this prince was supposed to be a cool, progressive prince. He wants to make his coronation open to the public! He started an afterschool program, where kids play a ton of basketball, with his trust! He wears leather jackets! Sure, we don’t know his platforms or ideology but clearly this prince is change we can believe in! Ughhh. It’s so obnoxious.

On some level, I understand that royalty movies are supposed to play into some grand fantasy. The idea that you can go on vacation a stressed out graduate, and come back a future queen with plans to give up on your career goals, is a magical dream that brands literally make billions of dollars of each year. It’s just not my dream. Frankly from seeing it play out on Hallmark it seems like a living nightmare.

But I’m not a cool prince, I’m just a regular old blogger.

[ncmagroup]

by Ayodeji Awosika

How many times have you tried to set a goal and failed? You can’t even count…the number is that high.

You’ve failed to reach your goals so many times that, deep down, you feel eternally cursed to live the same life on repeat.

You look at the future and everything is…the same. It scares you, but you also feel like you can’t do anything about it. You have these little waves of motivation and have a little bit of hope, but then you fail again, which makes you less likely to want to try again. Then, after trying enough times, you just quit.

This is the story for 95 percent of people, but it doesn’t have to be your story.

At a certain point in your life, if you follow through with a handful of goals, you’ll become permanently motivated.

I failed at nearly every goal I set until I found writing. Since then, I’ve achieved most of the goals I set for myself. It’s as if the past doesn’t exist or count, You can get here, too. If you break that mental barrier and find a way to finally start following through, one day you won’t be able to recognize your former self.

I have hope for you. Not because I’m pandering. But because I spent a good chunk of my life is an extremely lazy royal screw up who couldn’t concentrate or focus on a goal to save his life.

So, while no listicle can fix your life, I hope at least one of these ideas sticks out and sparks the motivation you need to go on the magical bull-run you’ve been desperately waiting for.

Write your goals down — This seems basic and trivial, but there’s something about the mind-body connection that occurs when you physically commit to a goal by writing it down. Literally writing, too. Don’t type it. The physical act sends a subconscious signal to your brain that you���re somewhat serious.

Get as many ‘quick wins’ as possible — Lower your criteria for success and stack little victories on top of each other quickly to get momentum. If you want to be a writer and truly can’t bring yourself to sit down and write for long periods, commit to 10 minutes of writing per day if that’s what you have to do to build a streak.

Follow the rule of 2 — I learned this idea from James Clear. If you screw up on the path to your goal, e.g., missing a workout, just don’t do it twice. Allow yourself that mulligan to avoid the ‘downward spiral.’

Find compelling reasons to achieve your goals — The more compelling the reason, the why, behind your goals, the more likely you are to follow through. I was compelled to stick with writing because I was legitimately terrified of having to work for someone else my entire life.

Use negative emotions — I find negativity to be the most compelling form of motivation. Is it the healthiest? Debatable, but it’s been the most effective for me. I usually start seriously working on a major goal or initiative when I’m sufficiently fed up with my current circumstances. I move things from the ‘tolerable’ column to the ‘I can’t fucking stand to live like this’ column and then I change.

Don’t brag about shit you haven’t done — I see this happen too often. A friend of mine has a new ‘business.’ They have all these shiny business cards, a logo, and they’re posting all over social media about how successful they’ll become. 100 percent failure rate. Keep your big hairy audacious goals to yourself until you pull them off.

Brainwash yourself — Individual pieces of motivational content, including mine, are ineffectual. That’s why you have to consume so many of them. Combined with action, though, and done over a long enough period of time, this content can re-wire your brain. Mind you, you’re susceptible to becoming a self-help junkie who gets nothing done, but this route gives you your only fighting chance.

Stop looking for examples in ‘the real world’ — You can’t use people in your daily life as models for success. They’re not bad people, but odds are, the people you know personally haven’t done the things you want to do, nor do they have the level of motivation you seek to have. Most people get caught in that lower paradigm because they conform to their surroundings.

One thing at a time — Read the book The One Thing by Gary Keller for a full explanation of this. You always want to have a primary goal to focus on each day, week, month, year, etc. I do many things in my business, but my ‘one thing’ has always been getting a blog post done. Find that keystone goal that makes all other goals easier to achieve.

Use the chain strategy — Buy a calendar, mark off an ‘x’ each day you do the task that leads to your ultimate goal. You will form a chain of x’s. The longer the chain, the less likely you are to break the chain.

Be mindful of your environment — If you want to lose weight, you can’t keep junk food in the house. Having the T.V. on and 8 social media tabs open probably isn’t conducive to staying focused on your writing. This seems simple, but people dramatically underestimate the power of their environment.

Understand this truth — You think hesitation is less painful than following through with the action, but it’s the opposite. Hesitating and the anxiety it causes is actually more mentally taxing on you than just doing the thing. Re-read that and think about it.

Focus all your effort on the ‘tipping point’ — Keep your head down and work on your goal until you reach a point where your efforts start to compound, meaning you get more payoff for the same amount of work. Example: most writers quit too early because they don’t understand that once they get a little bit of an audience, their audience will grow at a faster rate in the future.

Master your strengths, then hedge your weaknesses — Set goals based on your natural talents and strengths. You’ll stick with them because you’re already decent. After mastering those you can set goals based on fixing up your weak spots, or you can find partners, employees, assistants, contractors, friends, etc who can complement your skillset.

Align your goals with positivity — Naval Ravikant has a saying “eat the healthy food that tastes good to you” For me, I realized I’d never reach my fitness goals by eating dry chicken breast and vegetables daily. So I didn’t even try. Don’t torture yourself to reach your goals. It just tends not to work.

Get help — Coaches, mentors, trainers, etc, serve one purpose — accountability. Often, investing money to get help in an area creates emotional leverage to stay accountable because you don’t want to waste that money.

Don’t choose dumb and arbitrary goals — If you set a goal like “make a million dollars” or “get rich” you won’t reach it because you have no context for the goal. Set goals based on the things you want to do and the outcomes you want to achieve. You’ll get things like money as a byproduct.

Don’t become a self-help robot — I’ve never once written down a S.M.A.R.T Goal on purpose. Many of my goals fit the criteria, but I’ve never gotten too in the weeds with goal setting or productivity routines because they tend to become a form of procrastination in and of themselves. I use a notebook and mostly journal about the things I want to achieve in a loose way. It’s been sufficient for me.

Use these rules of thumb — Use them loosely and keep them in the back of your mind while you’re working. It takes five years to overhaul your life, reinvent yourself, and build something substantial. Focus on the first 90 days of ruthless action to build traction. Continue these quarterly bursts and track your overall progress every 18 months or so.

Use time blocks — You want to do your task at the same time every day and preferably even the same place. This will help you reach a point where you expect to get your task done because you’ve conditioned your brain to be ready to do that task at that time.

Keep reminders of what it takes — Use two types of examples. One, find examples of people you look up to and research how long it took them to get good. This will keep you grounded and patient. Second, find examples of people who clearly have less talent than you or came from a more difficult situation than you. This will keep you from deluding yourself into thinking your situation is special.

Understand the 80/20 of reaching long term goals — The first 20 percent of your journey accounts for 80 percent of your success. The first 20 percent is the part where you’re overwhelmed with all the little nuances and minutiae of your path. It’s the equivalent of when you first go to the gym and you’re super sore. This is the part where you’re flailing around just trying to gain a basic understanding. Once you do have that understanding, though, you’re pretty much all the way there and the rest is just a matter of time and picking up a few more nuances along the way.

Think about dying — I use my own mortality as a motivator constantly. I want to get to a point in life where I’d be okay if I died. I’m pretty close. How would you feel about the progress of your life if you knew today was your last day? What would you rush to get done for the rest of the day? Think about that. Use it.

Use inversion — Set goals for outcomes you don’t want to have. Use people as models for what you don’t want to be like. Figuring out exactly what it takes to be successful is harder than figuring out what definitely won’t work.

Stop being soft — Society doesn’t like to use the word soft anymore. Why? Because society is full of soft people. Look, you need mental toughness to pull off major goals. Feeling like a helpless victim of circumstance isn’t conducive to reaching goals. You have to leave that self-care shit alone for a while. You have work to do.

  Go to our website:   www.ncmalliance.com

25 ways to dramatically increase your chances of reaching your goals by Ayodeji Awosika How many times have you tried to set a goal and failed? You can’t even count…the number is