#nobody will read this so i'm mostly posting it for myself lol but

[goldenflowers]

finished the nightmare before christmas event! first of all how did i get spoiled on basically everything about the ending that had to do with skully but nobody told me his unique magic is TURNING PEOPLE INTO PUMPKINS aksjfghfg?? they may say he isn't very powerful but that's gotta be existentially horrifying tbh, being concious and able to speak but unable to do anything else because your body has been warped into a literal pumpkin. like, at least if you got turned into an animal you'd still be able to walk... and eat and drink... actually how long would someone who'd been transformed under skully's UM even be able to survive?!

also i heard weeks ago that the twistune was a cover of "this is hallowen" but i resisted listening to it until i could get to that point in the event and AAAAA IT SOUNDS SO GOOD OMG??? this whole time i was expecting it to be the japanese version of the song. and with only the SSR trio like the last two event songs, so i was SHOCKED when they started singing in english and then shocked again when the SRs got to sing quite a bit too?!?! i don't know how i didn't hear about that before.

when we first heard that this was going to be a lost in the book event i did figure they wouldn't make it too dark or plot heavy--almost all of it is just planning for a halloween party, kind of like if the very first halloween event had TNBC characters in it. but like i said in my last post i still had fun with all of that!! and i love how skully acts as a villain--it's insane to me that he actually kidnapped THE jack skellington like how jack kidnaps oogie boogie omg. i also mentioned in my last post that i don't like sebek much but could appreciate him being nice to skully and giving him advice. and now that i've finished the event i understand why he was chosen to be the star of the event and one who'd have to get through to skully in the end. they're certainly better foils for each other than fellow and kalim are lmao. in fact i like this whole event WAY better than playful land simply because i like skully so much better than fellow and the issues i had with playful land's ending got me too heated askjkdgfdkg. the entire twist with skully where he was an NRC student hundreds of years ago who made halloween known throughout the world is SO fucking cool to me!! i bet i'd be going insane if i hadn't already heard about it before aaaaa

[fuzzyfoe]

on your sideblog you sometimes reblog stuff about the harms of the purity culture in fandoms, how shame/punishment is ineffective, sometimes things are uncomfortable and thats fine, etc. stuff like that and it helps me alot because i get paranoid about expressing myself online bc people can be so hostile

Not gonna lie, reading the first half of this ask put me on edge a bit because I know how people are lol.

I'm glad I was somehow able to help someone feel a little more at ease online! I feel like Tumblr has been starting to get a lot better of an attitude about this than it used to have years ago due to the userbase having matured, but it could just seem like that due to me having moved accounts and re-following only the people who were more normal about this sort of thing though.

When I was diagnosed with OCD as a child I mostly had the more stereotypical kinds of symptoms relating to symmetry and cleanliness back then, but as I grew older and overcame those kinds of symptoms through meds and therapy it began to manifest more in the form of how other people see me online and whether I'm secretly a pedophile or some shit instead. This caused me to parrot some pro-censorship shit I saw online as a teenager out of fear of seeming "suspicious" to the artists I had a parasocial relationship with at the time, and to the people I talked to online who were queer and neurodivergent in the ways that I was that nobody who I knew at school was.

Believe it or not it was actually my parents who helped me get out of this mindset. I think my brother was showing my dad some meme, I chimed in about how I heard some person who was involved in the meme drew nsfw art of a fictional character who was a minor, and my dad responded with something along the lines of "how does that matter? the child is only fictional" and I was basically taken aback by how my own father had basically just defended loli. In response I told him every argument I had heard from "antis" online about lolisho and he explained to me why each one of them was bullshit one by one.

For the longest time after I was still afraid to speak my mind on anything because I felt like I had basically built my entire social circle around these types of people. A lot of things I was interested in at the time had fandoms that were full of people who would loudly complain about how horrible proshippers were. What if I lost all my friends? What if it became impossible to make any new friends due to everyone blocking me? What if it became impossible to see any of the kind of art and fandom stuff I liked anymore due to everyone blocking me? What if nobody would interact with or care about any of the art I posted anymore? What if I had no other way to fulfill my social needs anymore? I even became afraid of the friends I actually knew irl, because we were still all in the same online circles and they would've been exposed to the same rhetoric as I was.

As you can see now I have gotten better from this to the point where I now openly reblog posts relating to this sort of thing on my sideblog which can be accessed from my pinned post on this blog. The funny thing is, nobody seems to actually read pinned posts or do any background checks to the extent I was always paranoid that people did on here, because I keep getting an influx of new followers with people who have "proship dni" in their bio lmao. I guess publishing this ask will be rent-lowering gunshots.

[storkmuffin]

Hello! I literally just came back to Tumblr after a several year hiatus because of the tiktok drama, and stumbled across your posts. It's been really fun to see your thoughts, especially getting a bit of cultural context here and there has been wonderful! You've written a lot about what you like about each member, but I'm curious about how you feel about their relationships with each other, especially as a baby atiny. I find their interconnected friendships really interesting, even outside of a shipper context (and I am curious about how you feel about that as well!) I have always had a huge weakness for found families lol

Hi! Welcome back :D Thank you for reading and commenting!

TLDR for what follows: I take a much harder, colder stance on the 'found family' narrative they keep pushing with Boy Idols than perhaps befits an Atiny about Ateez, but I do have my reasons.

I take the view that first and foremost, Idol groups are business working groups. I'm a little bit (okay, a lot) skeptical of what's presented as 'family' and 'friendships' among these people, generally speaking, because Kpop Idols are just following Korean norms of social interaction for coworkers.

Hopefully this isn't boring but I need to just use myself as an example: I am the 'leader' of my working group of 5 people in my department that has about 70 people in my Korean company. I report to 3 levels of bosses but mostly they let me 'run' the group. My one group-mate is the same age as me, the other three are younger. The woman who's the youngest (our maknae, though not by a lot) - she's a baseball freak. The rest of us dgaf about baseball, but whenever we have our monthly 'bonding' lunch (obligatory, by the way - I'm given a monthly budget that I have to spend eating with this group, all together), all of us take turns indulgently asking her about baseball news, and ooh and ahh and pamper her in her baseball speeches. Do you see what I mean? This is just how we behave. It probably looks like family, to a Westerner, but truth be told, we are none of us actually friends.

The fact that Hwa and Wooyoung have both called their CEO Father freaks me out, by the way. Absolute heebie jeebies, though this too is a feminist, gendered thing. Sexual harassers pre-MeToo always said they'd 'forgotten themselves' because they felt like they were 'family' with the woman they raped or molested. It sounded just as insane in Korean as it does in English, but that was an accepted excuse until it totally wasn't.

In addition, one of the requirements of Boy Idols is that they provide emotional succor to their almost entirely female audience (I am organizing my thoughts and what I've learned through research about why this is for another post). Korea is an exceptionally family-focused society, but that is often exploitative and terrible for women. (Which is why so many women keep saying they don't want to marry and form families - the potential personal burden is ruinous.) So Boy Idols showing what a 'family' can look like when nobody is a woman - when even the 'mommy' or the 'bossy big sister' or the 'baby sister' is all men - and are shown to always, in the end, get along, is the non-sexual equivalent of BL fiction, which I think functions to let straight women 'escape' from misogynist heterosexuality and enjoy the concept of male sexuality in an ultimately quite straight way. Boy Idol groups being 'found famliy' gets you to enjoy the nice things about a voluntary family completely denuded of even the possibility of misogyny, because women just don't exist in the story at all.

Further, because so many megastar Idols have committed suicide in recent years, and because the people who were in training for years and ultimately didn't make it also tell nightmare stories about their lives, it's become necessary for Idol groups to advertise that they are not toxic workplaces. So I see the 'miraculous getting together of pairs of friends to make a successful kpop group!' mythos as part of that counter-narrative, as well. My bet is that the 연습생 world, like any sort of prep situation in Korea, is fucking hostile. It has to be. In the normie world of just college prep, people don't share notes or pretend to be civil or anything other than competitors. Your failure increases my chances of success, type of deal.

Part of the Ateez self-narrative about how they came together to me also just seem pretty typical of people who are in the performing arts in general, as well. The School of American Ballet takes in little kids to train them, and if they manage to make it through many cuts over a number of years, they then debut with the New York City Ballet or American Ballet Theater, where they will compete against and/or partner with each other until the end of their usually short (like 10 years or less) careers, trying to get to the 'top.' The kpop Idol industry follows this system of 'growing' its own artists, often in boarding schools or specialized institutions, just like ballet dancers. It looks different because the cultural context is different, but the essence is the same.

I've seen all the K-Atiny flutterings about, THIS IS FATE and stuff, but given that K-Pop Idol has really specific physical requirements, it makes sense to me that as they got older, the kids who were really determined to do this as a job and also were not kicked/ flunked out would eventually all meet and some to become friends.

The fact that Mingi followed Yunho, and Wooyoung followed Yeosang to this small venture that had never launched an Idol group before can be seen in two ways, I think. One is that they are best friends, in a pure, childhood way. It's so sweet and moving that it doesn't feel quite real, and doesn't fit with how you expect people who in essence wanted to be child stars and then rock stars to be like. It makes them very lovable.

But, just to be the ultimate cynical bitch about it, the paths Ateez took may have more to do with the fact that Mingi-Yunho and Yeosang-Wooyoung are the tall and short versions of being 2% Off the Idol Standard, to my Korean eyes. These two sets of friendships may have come from sharing the same problem - of being almost, but not quite, 'right' or 'ripe' for debut.

Mingi and Yunho, despite the fashion for tall Boy Idols, seem to have not made the cut to become 연습생 (prep students? how do kpop international fans call this?) at any of the big houses nor get recruited off the street. And that makes sense - Mingi is in the 짐승돌 (Beast-Idol) mode, which has fallen out of fashion for some time, and Yunho suffers from being too standard and initially appears indistinct as a result.

Yeosang and Wooyoung seem to have fallen into a different kind of 연습생 hell - good enough to get a spot, do well enough not to get kicked out, but not have enough of what it takes for a 'big house' to include you in an actual group that will debut. Yeosang often being a mild person who doesn't react in a lightening fast way would have disadvantaged him for sure. Wooyoung is so handsome but like, if you compare him to say, Felix of Stray Kids, he also looks just so manly, which would have made him difficult to place. To drop out of Hybe 연습생 to try out this thing with KQ, which had never done it before speaks of a certain desperation.

Other than HongJoong, who did a really weird and unusual thing of making a company build a program around him, the 99z were all up against a fast approaching deadline of aging out of being able to debut, since they have a hard stop at age 28 each, and one of the key ways to cultivate a hardcore Korean female fandom is to have them participate in 'raising' you. Can't do that if you debut at 25, you know?

Almost 7 years later? First, they've achieved wild success, together, when none of them were necessarily the most likely to succeed, and they definitely are NOT with the company most likely to successfully launch an Idol group. That's gotta be great for bonding. Second, only the eight of them can actually really understand wtf that life is like - the hardships or pains that come with what otherwise just looks glorious. Third, all the psych studies agree that singing together and dancing together with other humans makes you love them more, and feel more bonded and more belonging, and doing singing and dancing together is these people's full time job. Fourth (sorry the cynicism is back), if they can't make it work within this group, they will have a hard time pursuing show business careers in the future. You have to have 'good character' as an Idol to not be decimated by the anti-fans, and an essential element of 'good character' in the Korean style is knowing how to be a good member of a collective. And fifth, what KQ and Ateez are doing vis-a-vis each other (Company v Contractors) as well as inside Ateez is a sort of positive-reinforcement of Mutually Assured Destruction with all this family talk. They're family and brothers and the CEO is their DAD and their producer Eden is their big brother so ... when the 7 year contract deadline rolls around, KQ shouldn't stomp on Ateez, Ateez shouldn't stomp on KQ, and the members should not go for broke as individuals. I think that's part of it.

[bomberqueen17]

solarpunk tallships bisexuals sequel

ok so. I did manage to finish the draft of that novel at the beginning of March, and I've mostly been able to let it sit while I started work on the sequel. I have already identified some structural edits I will need to make in order to make the sequel line up and have enough room for itself. (This is better than my fanfic writing process, where often i posted things before writing the follow up and then had to figure out how to get out of the corner i'd painted myself into lol, though more often than you'd think I did have a plan and had left myself wiggle room. well, it might be less often than you'd think, though.)

So anyone who had signed up to cheer-read or beta-read that, that's all up and available for comment now! Huge thanks to those who have responded, that was enormous and got me through the dark dark winter lol. I knew I couldn't get through that alone. But I'm not out of the woods yet and I would love some more company.

updates on sequel and a snippet behind cut:

I have about 50k of the sequel banged into chronological order by now, though it's still got a lot of... well the plot antagonists are just called [BADGUY] at the moment, among other things.

It is straight-up the first 20k of the solarpunk mammoths novel I published on Dreamwidth in 2018 or so, interspersed with new plot pulled from the setup in the first book, and a whole new direction for the mammoths novel which did peter out originally for want of coherent plot so this has fixed that.

I have to get it banged into shape but I am due to go back to work at the farm next week so I'm trying to decide-- I think I will put up the beta doc for comments in the same way, but I'm not sure who to include on it. I guess I'll put on everyone who signed up, whether they got around to vol 1 yet or not, with the understanding that life gets in the way sometimes, but also like-- no pressure, if you aren't interested anymore or super just don't have time, i'm not trying to be pushy.

I dunno, I don't have a process for this. Just know: vol 1 is complete but not finished, I will be rewriting it at some point, it's open to further discussion and possibly could use some structural critique as well as I'm never sure about my pacing etc, but I'm letting it sit for a bit right now to get the sequel approximately shaped and then I will be looking harder at feedback and such. (I know it needs a lot more physical descriptions and more vividness in the environment and I need to flesh out the worldbuilding and hammer out the bits where I have to depart from the Age of Sail Aesthetic to actually make my own shit, etc., and a lot of the Politics Etcetera will make a lot more sense once I get it properly framed in to support vol. 2.)

And so vol 2 is underway and I will soon be soliciting comments on that as well!

so, as promised, a snippet, and yes, we're getting different people's POVs in this volume so our POV here is Cpt Haines:

The University loomed, a tall stone wall with a gate and gatehouse, tall concrete and stone buildings behind. The guard in the gatehouse recognized Lt. Atkins, and waved at him, and Mel and the entourage trooped in behind him. “Now,” Atkins said, “the real test is, which part of the engineering department has custody of her today?” “Tom,” Mel said, catching his arm. There was a large animal in the courtyard they were approaching, a big shaggy brown thing that moved. “What is that.” Atkins stopped short, staring at it, completely stunned.  “It’s a fucking mammoth,” Kinsie said, astonished into swearing.  “Is that supposed to be here,” Mel said, instinct making her step in front of Kinsie, her arm across Atkins’s chest. Like she was going to be any real protection, but it was reflex. They were all armed, all carrying swords or knives, but nobody had a gun. And the creature was huge, and it had noticed them, and had its head up and its ears waving in interest.  “That’s a--” Atkins said, struggling to speak. “That’s--” He grabbed Mel’s wrist. “It’s all right. They’re-- citizens, here.” “They’re-- what?” Mel glanced over at him.  “They’re not animals,” Atkins said. He was staring at the mammoth with a rapt kind of intensity. He took a few steps forward, and Mel thought to stop him, to pull him back, but let him go. “They’re people. They can talk.” “Like the dolphins,” Mel said.  The mammoth waved its ears, and made a squeaky sound, surprisingly high-pitched, then turned away, moving slowly farther back into the courtyard, walking sideways. They cautiously followed, now all of them behind Atkins, who was walking more purposefully.  He walked right toward the creature, made a strangely formal gesture, and said, “Greetings, honored relative.”

[29daffodils]

mini review : the heart killers

so, THK is finally over.

I was hoping to not see more fighting in the tags, but it's the usual. this time I can't even blame anyone lol. but all that aside, it was a pretty enjoyable show. I was kinda expecting the end to be botched (at this point I have watched 3 of JoJo's works and all of them have followed a similar pattern). I remember reading somewhere (either here or on bsky) that jojo is not the best storyteller. and tbh, I agree. i love his direction, how the scenes are shot, how the characters are written, all that,, but as i've already said in previous posts, he has a flair for dramatics and loves them. I love him, so I guess I just gotta roll with it now lmao. in not so many words, I was talking to a friend, and said, THK feels like a fanfic with all the fun tropes in there except nobody edited the final draft. I believe that there should be criticism where it's due : this is a full on officially produced body of work that most of us are paying for in some way or the other. so I think some criticism (politely worded, thank you) is justified. so, don't fight now.

I loved the acting and the cinematography, all the shots were very well done. I am still sad there was the fucking greenscreen but I guess you can't have the budget to go to Iceland for a shoot right? haha. but I guess that's okay. i've watched FKT in a couple of their shows now and their acting has definitely improved. moreover, I am very happy with first's singing progress. I was always waiting for him to sing a ballad or something like that, slow and moody. but he really went out and did it. I'm not familiar with JD so this was my first time watching them (I have only just started watching BLs lmao, don't come at me, give me recs if you have any though). I am absolutely in love with joong's acting. he was gorgeous as fadel and did such a great job. dunk was fantastic as style, though I feel he was a little.... stiff?? sometimes. but that's alright. I dunno the guy but like everything else, there's always room for improvement.

I loveeeeed the OSTs but I surprisingly liked khaotung's song the least for once. I don't even know why. I always have his songs on repeat and I was kinda expecting something similarly catchy as let's try and while destroy love is catchy indeed, it just didn't float my boat. my favourite, unsurprisingly, was joong's hurt me please. brother can sing and my god do I love that song. from the lyrics to the music and his voice. everything is perfect. first's song is the one i've been humming the most because... well, that's my guy, ofc I'm a little biased. it's good, it's fun, it's nice on the ears. fast love is great too but I mostly keep just humming the chorus and nothing else because it doesn't resonate with me as much, compared to “my fuel” or “hurt me please”.

overall, this was a pretty fun little show. rom-com aspects were there, it was outrageously funny and gorgeously charming, to the point I found myself grinning like a loon at times. I am not judging it too harshly because of how it was marketed. I think romcoms are wildly theatrical and dramatic and sometimes you have to put your brain on the side for a breather. could the story have been executed better? hell yeah. but that doesn't mean it was entirely horrible. like everything else, I will come back to re-watch parts of it while skipping through (eg : moonlight chicken — and I think that's the most perfect show gmmtv has). i'll miss gossiping with friends and writing meta (hell maybe i'll get to meta writing when I re-watch, who knows, that's how I usually work). but all that aside, good times. this was the first show i followed while it was airing (and i've learned my lesson : i will go back to binge watching again because my short attention span spoiled half the fun for this one anyway).

now then, with all that said, see you next time with cat for cash!

[66sharkteeth]

I just wanted to say that even though I'm a mostly silent reader, never really commenting on episodes and rarely interacting on the discord, CoB is by far my absolute favorite comic I've probably ever read. I dont doubt for a second that there are many more out there like me, silently gushing over every new episode and excitedly theorizing with their friends.

Even when CoB reaches its end, I will 100% be sticking around for anything else you make.

thank you. im ngl, there's a big irrationality in me that feels like im only writing this comic for like 15 people sometimes. ik that's completely untrue, but it can really feel like that, especially when i step outside the bubble of webtoon and try to share or talk about the comic anywhere else. i've full on just...stopped posting on instagram, because it's just so defeating and exhausting every time i post. I know there's more than 15 people reading my work, but boy its harder to tell myself that every time I post outside of webtoon. i only continue to post here because i've put no effort into growing this so i don't feel as disappointed when only 20 of my 700k followers on webtoon see it.

ik this completely dismisses my silent followers, which i know there are a lot of, and i'm trying really hard to account for them. but man, it's really hard. and i dont think how lonely the process is helps either. i remember numbers never used to bug me as much when i had a close friend to gush about OCs and ideas with, but now that i just gotta kind of do it all myself and be my own cheerleader with nobody to gush about upcoming stuff to, its doubly defeating when it finally posts and nobody's that excited. i don't know how i can feel so alone when there's a good amount of people who follow me, but the whole thing is an incredibly isolating process and it's just gotten so much worse with declining readership and algorithms doing everything they can to make sure nobody sees my work.

sorry if i veered off a bit, but it's been on my mind lately haha. i appreciate every reader so much, silent and vocal. like no seriously, you guys are literally the only thing keeping me going bc i know we're supposed to "create for ourselves" and stuff, but i think most people at least have a friend or partner that they're gushing about their OCs and stuff with, but i just have you guys lol. so thank you for reading, enjoying, and giving me someone to actually share my creations with.

[tree-obsession]

Gold and Red Text in Penacony

So, for some reason, I have decided to torture myself by creating a theory that will likely have some plot relevance??? but not totally sure. it has popped up a bunch of times and seems to confuse a lot of people, so I'm just putting together what I know! feel free to tell me if I missed something, as I haven't done many of the side quests yet...

Anyway, spoiler warning for 2.0 trailblaze mission and possibly some of the side quests?? idk proceed with caution! I don't read many leaks so I doubt there's spoilers for that but tell me right away if there are any!

Alright, so the first time we see different-colored text in this mission is during Acheron's first meeting with the Trailblazer. According to this twitter thread (credits to user mobnermal, NOT me) Acheron's dialogue will change, depending on the gender of the tb and how we respond to her queries. She also says towards the end of the convo something along the lines of "It feels like multiple different versions of you were talking to me, saying a different thing each time".

So, I'm not entirely sure why she's lying, or even if she's doing it intetionally. It does seem like there's some aspect of "different possibilities within the Dreamscape" happening- almost like the Dreamscape itself is changing the tb's answers/Acheron's questions. But again, we'll get a bit into the dreamscape later.

2. Aventurine's final convo with the tb, and then Black Swan later.

My screenshots were failing me so hard in this quest lol.

Anyway, as far as I know, these two are the only ones in this mission who use gold text. It's mostly used to highlight the word "truth", and according to the wiki and playthroughs I have watched this dialogue doesn't change- only Acheron's red seems inconsistent. I find it interesting Black Swan put quotations around it, and I have no idea what this could imply. I assume she knows something we and Aventurine don't about Robin's death, which seems to be what they were referring to during this part.

As to how that "upends everything"... I don't know what the implications of her death are. It's implied by the npc who raised Robin (can't find any screenshots- I didn't take any, but it's dialogue from an npc in the Golden Hour) and Sunday and Robin's dialogue in the very beginning- the one where they were "shades"- that Robin's voice may have some special quality that could mind-control/ brainwash people to some extent. This is a bit of a tangent, but may point out why the gold test is so important- the new Harmony trace mats match Robin's design very well, and are part of the Order. The Order's- Ena's- symbol is an eyeball, which can be found in a lot of places on Penacony, but most importantly Sunday's clothes. Judging from what we know of Sunday's control-freak-esque personality (sorry dude ):) it's possible he or someone else in The Family is using Robin's potential powers to brainwash the people of different factions. If you choose the alternate ending, everything wraps up a bit too nicely, and nobody seems to want to leave Penacony after that. Tb never finds out about Robin's death in that ending, either. There's a lot of implications there that I don't want to get into for this post, but basically- The Family is orchestrating something, probs pinned the blame on the IPC in the bad ending (since otherwise why would hoyo tell us that?) and then brainwashed everyone to never leave. Why? No idea! But it does explain why Robin's "truth" (in quotations, because Black Swan's dialogue does imply Robin's not dead) is so important to the plot.

That was a bit of a tangent, lol. Going back to the first sc, I find it interesting Aventurine is the one to tell us this, and if we're going with the idea that gold=truth, that just tells us Acheron's most certainly an Emanator, no matter what the Dreamscape does. Why they choose to have Aventurine reveal this, especially with the first instance of golden text- that's still up in the air. However, something I want to throw in is that there was a theory floating around Twitter comparing his eyes to the eye behind Ena in their official art. They are identical- even the gold outline on Ena's eye matches his eyeliner. Since it's implied in his conversation with Sparkle his eyes are a defining feature of his race, Sigonian, and that their civilization has been taken over (I'm not clear on details) or fallen apart somehow- akin to how civilizations under Ena's rule fell apart after their death- there may be some relation. Also, Aventurine was sent to Penacony specifically, which Topaz questioned- this may be why Diamond sent him. It implies a lot of plot relevance for him later, certainly!

3. The really, really ominous text you can get from a side quest.

If you go to the Reverie(Dreamscape) VIP lounge teleport beacon and head to the wall, you find a broken Clockie surrounded by purple bubbles. If you haven't done this quest yet- do it now, I really can't explain all this! search up a guide- there's a couple good ones on youtube. you do get a sticker!

anyway, some screenshots of the tape's text (cw for slight gore, explosions, screams, overall very ominous and vague tour-guidey stuff):

sorry for the text overlap lol, this was very inconveniently sized for screenshots.

anyway, yeah! possibly the most unnerving thing in the game so far (aside from those lost text stickers...). but, as you can tell, I'm gonna focus on the gold and red text. fair warning, I don't really know what to make of this, but I think there's some connection...

first, gold. this is, if we go off what I previously thought, the "truth". My current theory is that this gold is true of within or outside dreamscape- in other words, the dreamscape cannot alter that thing in the gold text. It's there, regardless of how the dreamscape screws other things up. The "truth" in the dreamscape isn't necessarily reliable, since dreamscape seems to fuck with everything, but gold is apparently truth, so we're sticking to that. That means that bloodshed, mind-opening (?), and pressure-releasing (???) is... true? It's kind of interesting- the other things in gold we've seen are statements with meaning, and this... kinda isn't. However, it could imply this is actually what's happening in the Dreamscape. Some kind of deranged, creepy thing that the dreamscape/ the Family is doing while everyone else is on this cool-looking vacation. I have no idea why that line, of all the lines, is gold, but it's certainly not something someone trying to make Penacony look good would say! That's all I know.

Not much I know about why the red one, specifically, is red either. Are the instruments/music fake? That's certainly a recurring motif in Penacony, between bands in the Golden Hour and Robin being a songstress, plus Ena's "Beyond the Sky Choir", their exclusive faction, which fell apart upon their death. Something about Ena being swallowed by XIpe will certainly be brought up later, I'm almost totally sure. It's also interesting it gets cut off by static, without even finishing the statement(I think). I have no idea what to make of these- I just needed to point out the similarities between this tape and the dialogue.

Also, the tape itself is suspicious. According to Woolesley, there are multiple, appearing all over the Reverie (Dreamscape) and sometimes even messing with the Dreamscape.

First of all, why the hell is he telling us this very classified-sounding info? Also, he literally might pop up next to you- it's inevitable that you give him the tape at some point, really showing how The Family is cracking down on these.

Also, who's making these tapes? Why are they leaving them around the Dreamscape if they know it'll be taken? What's with these side effects/corrupting? And what's the relation between the tapes, Acheron, and Aventurine/Black Swan- are those things revealed in the tapes things only those three are aware of, or care to tell tb? It's really weird, especially since they're apparently in Clockie statues? Also, why tapes even- the tapes themselves seem corrupted(or censored?) weirdly, judging from the lines, and also just... why would anyone make these? Someone against the Family presumably wouldn't do rebellion in such a way, and someone within would have no reason to create this at all- is the Dreamscape itself making it? it's the only thing using both red and gold text...

there's probably some connection to Clockie, since that's who is most likely talking in the tape... and that's the statue we found it in too. Clockie is sus in a whole host of ways- don't even get me started, but I'm not sure how they relate to this theory just yet.

I have no idea. The tape is super creepy, but things probably will clear up a bit in 2.1!

tldr/clarification(sry for rambling so much): red text = lie/subjective/ easily changeable, to the dreamscape at least

gold text= "truth", dreamscape is unable to change it(?)

ena probs will have some lore relevance along with Robin, who seems to be the center of this "truth" for the moment

the bizarre tape is very mysterious and questionable, with nothing solid that we know about it- however, it uses both red and gold text, which automatically makes it suspicious even beyond what it's saying directly

what the hell is the family cooking up? i don't know, but it's probably not good! (for us, at least)

thank you for reading this lightly-proofread, very rambling theory/speculation- you are an angel for making it this long!

edit: so number one- I've added a reblog to this post- plz check it out, it has some other details from the Chadwick quest. and also, there's this Youtube video that mentions the red text in the beginning! It has a very similar idea to mine, but the thing it mentions is not an option I made (I accepted Acheron right away lol, so I didn't grab this detail). And the entire vid is pretty cool, so you should see it!

[mustluvcatz-reloaded]

The following is going to be a combination vent/whine post. I'll put it behind a read more for sanity's sake.

Alrighty, here we go. I've asked on Facebook and in Facebook groups. I've Googled until my eyes crossed (not hard to get them to do that these days, haha), Nobody ever has an answer OR, if they do, it''s not a helpful one. SO - does anyone have any clue/leads/ideas on where an adult with NO children can get help with basic things like new underwear, socks and bras? AND, on top of that, if there is anywhere that will help an adult with NO children with Christmas? It seeme like everything is for those with little ones OR there is help for older adults but not in my area.

I'm so frustrated. I can keep us fed, I can keep a roof over our heads, I can keep the lights on, I can keep the internet on (eh..for the most part, lol), I can keep the cat fed. Laundry, toilet paper, etc., - good to go. But clothing? It's been about 4 years since I've been able to get myself new underwear, socks or a bra. The church up the street used to have free clothing - I don't mind used clothes, I DO mind my old sweatpants falling down because they're stretched out. Holey undies, broken underwires. Bleh. Christmas, I can make the boys snack baskets, it'd just be nice to be able to get at least one thing.

I'm also going to have to try to save a bit of money. My youngest and his fiance finally set a date: Feb 14th, 2025. My baby is getting married!! (They've been engaged for a couple years.)

One last thing: I'm making it next years mission to get my eyes taken care of. I have to, this is ridiculous. I don't know to work it all out but damn, I can't do anything anymore. Read a book? Nope. Work on crafts? Nope. Puzzles? TV? Work on new stuff for TS2? Nope, nope, nope. I've given up walking anywhere if it's sunny because the sun totally blinds me, even with my sunglasses. I can be on my phone and laptop for a bit at a time thanks to high contrast and being able to zoom. I cook and clean mostly by feel.

Any ideas, any leads. Please share them with me! I may not reply but I will definitely read them!

[mankrchronosod8]

Finally getting around to posting more art here. And by "more art" I mean entirely reposts because I haven't finished anything new to post anywhere.

I still really don't even know what to type in the descriptions. I feel like I should add something about the images or my feelings about the images but I find lately I find myself just completely out of things to type like I've been completely drained. I feel like I thought I'd be using this tumblr as a secret place away from my activities on Twitter or my twitter friends, but I find that there's basically nothing separating the two to me. It doesn't really matter, in the grand scheme of things. Nobody reads what I type here any more than they did on my twitter when it was public, so I think I need to find different type of value in my experiences on these websites. I need to stop using these websites under the assumption I'm going to get views or something because that's clearly never going to happen.

Still I think I like the idea, of this tumblr being a quiet little place away from my friends, at least for a while until it's discovered. Maybe being alone and self reflecting will bring me some peace of mind eventually... Anyways, first re-post of the bunch. This was a parody image I did on 𝗝𝘂𝗻𝗲 ‎𝟬𝟲, ‎𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟯. It was a parody of those god awful "Tumblr OCS" that used to be popular and still occasionally show up with their stupid ass fake gender and sexuality flags(that are entirely made up and confusing to everyone but the artist) on twitter now mostly.

Yes I made a parody image of Tumblr OCS, in 2023. I'm a bit late to the party.

I had a lot of fun with this when I drew it, though I admit I don't think I had previously cringed so fucking hard while drawing something in my entire life. One of my friends referred to this as "Steven's Universe OC!" LOL.

I'll never draw this ugly looking thing ever again but it was sure fun to do! It was fun to let loose and draw something I didn't consider "serious" which at the time I was forcing myself to only draw "serious things".

He's probably a zhe/zhir/they/them ACAB vegan activist nonbinary, transgender pansexual grayromantic polycule lesbian dragqueen.

RESPECT THEIR PRUHNOUN OR UR RACIST!!! 𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐞𝐞𝐞𝐞𝐞!!!🐸🔥💢

[olderthannetfic]

Okay first as a disclaimer... Yeah I guess my first disclaimer was unnecessary I'm just paranoid and stuff

But on to the follow up I might not have explained myself properly or given enough context or my question was incoherent? But for context while I do like plenty of canon ships, my favorite ships tend to be MxM ships of characters who don't have canon female love interests. My fandoms tend to be fujobait/card game anime plus video games. (Honestly I kind of feel like the guy you called 'some fuck' in your answer tbh lol (Hopefully I'm not as obnoxious and arrogant as them though)).

Anyway the stuff I was mostly thinking about was stuff like the Ike/Soren defenses and the Ash Ketchum shipping wars. (Although I only read that instead of participating) But from your answer and thinking over it I realized that I had actually seen a good amount of Hassel/Brassius hint finding etc but I didn't realize it was the kind of stuff I was thinking of (probably because they weren't being defensive or worried about homophobic attacks). So yeah the kind of stuff I was asking about does exist but I just didn't realize it.

Anyway on the anti stuff... I feared that people interested in this stuff disappeared because they became antis but fortunately it seems that's not true.

Anyway thank you for the answer and apologies for any inconveniences and vagueness in my asks.

--

Ahaha. Really, anon? Your whole preamble was pure canon het shipper from big US TV circa 2005 in its tone.

Now I'm even more confused about why on earth you think you and I have beef.

--

I think the basic answer to some of your questions may be that:

Yes, people who like all kinds of things exist.

But if you're looking for shippers of something very specific, 99% of media and ships never generate A Fandom™ in the Destiel/Sterek/Drarry/etc. sense. Canon, not canon, slash, het: doesn't matter, most are small.

Have a look at that other recent post about what percentage of AO3 fandoms are what size.

--

Guys from "fujobait" who don't have canon female love interests seem like... not actually canon ships?

This just seems like the same speculation and looking for confirmation that all the other m/m shippers are doing unless they're into MDZS or Jordan L. Hawk novels something.

I'm not clear on what sets what you're talking about apart from... just the average shipper on tumblr.

I don't know much about the social dynamics of Pokemon or Fire Emblem fandoms except for a vague sense that FE has the usual modern fandom full of young idiots harassing each other problems.

People do move on from particularly unpleasant fandoms... but... mostly, people just move on from everything and usually quite quickly.

The only fandoms people stay and stay and stay for are those that are generating a huge volume of new material, usually fan-made, often in the form of novel-length fic. And even then, it takes a specific fannish personality type to stick to one particular ship or fandom for ages. There are people still shipping those two dudes from The Professionals and nobody else, but they're a rare breed.

--

I still don't understand what you were asking in the first place.

Someone who knows these fandoms, explain????

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

im so sorry to send you this but im confused. i thought izzy hands was obviously homophobic while i was watching the show but now people on the internet are telling me that calling him gay and homophobic is a conspiracy theory. i want to trust my instincts on this as a queer myself but they say it so much i think im starting to believe it. i know literally none of this matters but its genuinely bumming me out. maybe we all just have slightly different definitions of homophobia?

I would love to answer this for you. Your instincts are correct. Izzy is gay and homophobic. You should trust your gut on this because it's important for you be able to identify guys like Izzy irl if you're someone who might be on the receiving end of homophobia.

What happened is that back in June of 2022 everyone fully agreed that Izzy was one of those repressed gay men who's internalized homophobia rotted his soul and became externalized. We wanted to put him in a jar. We all interested in how this weird little freak got this way. Then everything changed when the canyon formed. Since then it has been a mad dash to beat the allegations. Unfortunately an actor has validated them in a way that makes me really wonder about him frankly, because he seems to be operating under the impression that people are saying that Izzy is a "homo sex is sin" Style homophobe when nobody was saying that, what we were saying is that Izzy is incredibly weird about and hateful towards feminine men and he believes that Stede is corrupting Ed with his foppishness, which is still homophobia it's just a different brand of homophobia than the religious right's obsession with the mechanics.

Tbh tho I don't actually care about that actors' take because he's not a writer, he has a history of not being very good at reading the subtext given that he fully didn't realize it was a gay show for half the episodes, and David Jenkins has liked multiple metas on twt about Izzy being a homophobe so I'll trust that lol. The only consequence that Con O'Neill being publically wrong has had for me is that people occasionally do an unearned victory lap when he says something.

But also I low key sometimes feel incredibly unsafe knowing that there's a substantial group of people who claim to be queer and against homophobia but who can't understand that the whole subplot with Lucius in episode 5 and the thing with Ed in episode 10 is laced with bigotry against feminine gay men. I don't think admitting that means you have to think it's his only motivation or that it's contradictory to the read of him being attracted to Ed and Lucius or with the concept that he's mostly just power hungry, but it does sort of mean that I have to move through the world knowing that there are people in my own community who would fully blame me if something happened to me. I don't fucking like it. That's why I get so upset about this so publicly. It's like so what happens if I get attacked but the guy calls me a namby pamby or a bitch instead of a faggot. Are you gonna be like "well we don't know~". It's just an uncomfortable thought. I don't understand why they're so desperate to beat the allegations either, like he's fake. People who have experienced things like what Ed and Lucius went through at his hands are real. The argument that gay people can "do something to (someone)'s brain" is written into legislation trying to ban trans people from public life. Nobody wants you to stop liking Izzy we just want you to stop saying shit that's harmful

And I don't necessarily think that everyone who chooses to put more emphasis on Izzys obsession with Ed wouldn't be able to identify a hate crime, I just have seen more than one piece of meta that goes "Izzys not homophobic he just thinks Stede is a mincing fop who's corrupting Ed with his frilly whiles there's nothing homophobic about that" and I just have to block them for being homophobic themselves because what else do I do with that? When I vague post about this shit I'm talking about specific ass things that I've seen that have made me feel very uncomfortable and unsafe not generic canyon trends. I just really feel like we need to calm down about Izzy. Like you can feel empathy towards a gay guy that hates himself and write a bunch of fic about him getting laid without deciding actually he did nothing wrong and everyone who can see that that's not true is making shit up to oppress *checks notes* people who like a fictional character. I don't get why that's so hard to do.

[miitarashi]

IM A HADDOTIN NON SUPPORTER TOO LIKE TF IS WRING WITH SOME PPL😭😭

ALERT: this post is basically me hating the ship,but! It's my account and opinion,i didn't mean to offend nobody,if you don't like,don't read.

OH??? YOU ARE A NON SUPPORTER?????

YOU! I LOVE YOU BEAUTIFUL PERSON THAT I DON'T KNOW NOTHING ABOUT!!!

But,making things clear here.

It's a normal ship. There's a lot of ways for a relationship like this happen and be health so i don't spread hate,i just scroll away when something like this happen to show up.

I hate it for mostly because it's almost

EVERY

FUCKING

WHERE

You can't normally search for Tintin content without seeing some of those. I just want some photos of my precious boy and best friend/father together you know? But it's difficult because there's A LOT about this ship.

Oh,and people assuming every single act of affection between them as a lover thing. This. This makes me want to commit war crimes-

Like bro??? They can hug like normal friends too you know??? I remember seeing other account talking about the tibet adventure. One of my favorites because showed Tintin's relationship with haddock beautifully. That even when Haddock didn't believed he still followed his friend and was more than willing to sacrifice himself for him. I cried bro.

But then,it's reconized as a love story??? God give me patient because if you give me strength i'll kill for fun.

Even so,i normally keep it for myself because it's kinda of idiot to go and hate something that you literally can just scroll way and go on with your life. Damm,i didn't know how much i was needing to vent about it lol.

Just to finish it properly. My dear unknow person,feel more than welcome and safe to be a non supporter on my blog,i'm really happy to have other peoples that think the same! 😌❤️

[claudiajcregg]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Tagged by @mihrsuri. Thanks, Lil! I feel like I've answered these in the not-so-distant past, and might have accidentally ignored one or more tags. Oops. I need to check the Mentions tab and check it out!

(I also started writing this… earlier this week, and forgot about the tab. Sorry this is so so long.)

01. how many works do you have on ao3? 24 fics, though one of them has eight ficlets… So some would count it as 31. (It's still 24.)

02. what's your total ao3 word count? 167,815 words

03. what fandoms do you write for? TWW.

04. top five fics by kudos?

maybe everything's just turning out how it should be

(big gulf here)

say it's here where our pieces fall in place

just your smile lit a sixty-watt bulb in my house that was darkened for days

nobody knows how to get back home

we could be the way forward and I know I'll pay for it 

05. do you respond to comments? Yes! I try to get to all of them, and feel bad when I hoard them (because they're lovely) or they slip through the cracks. (I tend to wait some time before replying to the comments on my most recent fic, so if anything comes in later, it might be immediate or two months late.)

06. what is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I feel like I always struggle with this answer because they're mostly hopeful endings! Which is just my perception and now how it is. Tempted to go check what I've answered in the past.

Most recently, I think what if the way you hold me is actually what's holy has that 'right person, wrong time', on borrowed time vibes. But maybe not! My go-to answer always feels like my post-Portland Trip fic, don't want you to go but I'll be okay, because it feels so final and bittersweet then.

07. what's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Oh, which one should I pick? I think the Cali/Jan 22nd fic from earlier this year (oh, and I will be with you to feel the California sun) is just pure happiness, tbh. Memoir fic (still you never took your hand from mine) also feels like a saccharine, sweet ending! (Could've also picked the literal wedding reception-set fic, lol.)

08. do you get hate on fic? No! Luckily. If I have, I don't remember. I've gotten a weird comment or two, but those weren't about the fics. So no!

09. do you write smut? Nooooo, of course not. (This is the last time I'll beg you to read on main and that's under a cut lol.) Up till now I could say it was mild scenes in yet-to-be-posted fics, which remains true, but I posted a literal smutty fic last Friday, lol. I'm proud of it and myself, for getting out of my comfort zone, and while it's flopping I'm glad those who've read it liked it!

10. craziest cross over? This is the question that undoubtedly makes me go “lol I've definitely done this before.” Because I always joke that I've already seen the craziest canon crossovers on screen. That said, I haven't personally written one, and don't have ideas.

11. have you ever had a fic stolen? No? Sometimes I wonder if some ideas have been borrowed but wouldn't say stolen.

12. have you ever had a fic translated? No! Maybe one day I'll do it myself. (I don't think there's demand for it/Spanish-written fics in this fandom.) (Once again, I'm sure that this answer matches the previous ones.)

13. have you ever co-written a fic before? Sounds fun! No. But anyone interested? hmu.

14. all-time favorite ship? In what sense? I cannot choose, but at the same time… We all know.

15. what's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I don't like putting this energy out in the universe. It's one thing to post (that's probably a long list) but actual WIPs that are worth it? I want to believe I'll get to them eventually. (But. Unfortunately, the answer is many of them.)

16. what are your writing strengths? Internal world? As in, I am ���good” at describing the internal world of a character. idk.

17. what are your writing weaknesses? I write in my second language. I feel like everything's a weakness. (World building, descriptions, dialogue.)

18. thoughts on dialogue in another language? As long as it doesn't take the reader out (and makes sense in the story), 👍 I might have peppered in some Spanish in some of my writing but it feels wrong somehow.

19. first fandom you wrote in? Bones.

20. favorite fic you've written? I cannot pick a favorite child. I can affectionately call them flops because they mostly are, stats-wise, but there's something about them that I love. And I feel like some of my favorite stuff is what's not yet posted! Because it stops feeling “mine” once it's out there.

don't want you to go but I'll be okay · Portland fic · my automatic answer because I felt it was special the second I finished it. So many things came together (that quote, particularly).

we could be the way forward and I know I'll pay for it · St Augustine, a precanon campaign fic ·(Any of the first four (posted in 2021) is super special to me. This one was another one I knew would be special. And it has big “there wouldn't be this if there hadn't been you” energy.

your love is a secret I'm hoping, dreaming, dying to keep · (3+1 fic set in the last third of S7, ft the press corps) · Taylor sang KOMH on N2 because she loved this. I just know it. (I just really love secret relationships/working around that S7 period so much.)

nobody knows how to get back home · itsotg missing scen) · I just like it a lot, and it's also a good candidate for angsty ending. When did it get so many kudos?!

maybe everything's just turning out how it should be · big block of cheese 2008 · felt disingenuous not to include the fic I always knew I wanted to post, even if it's another early one. It's my most popular by a huge margin, and I'm glad.

I so wanted to add fics like the Cali one but this always depends on my mood! So this is the answer that might always change haha.

Shoutout to some unposted ones that I love but won't get published. Or others perpetually in limbo, like the two big multichapters (IM and S5 pregnancy). I feel like some of my best stuff is in What Once Was Ours (the IM AU fic I wrote in 2021), or the S5 Pregnancy AU (which I hope to finish this summer! And I want to start posting once I feel like I'll make that deadline)… And I'm currently really fond of one I've started to call “demons that you know raise hell worse than a stranger.” Coming to you soon, if I get my crap together!

[crplpunkklavier]

I'm rereading Exorcism (now that its finished! yahoo) and I love Kitty Poes sm shes such an interesting characterrr would you wanna tell me about your process for developing her? ig I couldve DMed you but I myself love a chance to rant publicly so here you go lmao. I am unfortunately only on chapter 14 (though I got further than that last time) so if you wanna be spoilery just give me a warning and I'll read it later >:3c

kitty my best friend kitty

i think i can go over this without any spoilers past chapter 14! you have already seen her big arc and i am sooo happy people liked her <333

so! i've never mentioned this to anyone before, but kitty is a bit of a riff off of one of my oldest OCs. when i was about 18, i was big into katekyo hitman reborn, mostly because i was even bigger into organized crime as a general topic. catalena foggia was the youngest of four, and after a rival family took out her parents and all three of her older brothers (you know, the sort of backstory you give people as a teenager) she very grimly stepped up to the throne.

now whenever i need a female character with a "hello, i Run This Place" air about her, my mind goes to catalena, who of course was called cat by all her friends.

and i knew that i wanted a character like that as klavier's manager. generally, whenever i get to make OCs for my aa fics, i try to make most of them women if they aren't already implied to be men by canon like the rest of the gavinners, since aa refuses to have adult female characters that don't die. the gavinners started out as a bunch of teenage guys, the music industry is tough as nails, LA is horrible..... nobody but cat could've done it, man.

the whole dutch connection sort of happened on the fly. i knew i didn't want to call her catalena foggia, even if nobody but, like, the two irl friends i still have who knew me at 18 lol, knew of that oc. it was still important to me to differentiate, because this wasn't cat, this was a new oc who was very similar to and inspired by her. i remembered that kitty is a valid first name, so i went for that, because i like to think i'm funny. :^)

once you reach the end of exorcism, you'll find a little gdoc with bonus content i left in the end notes there, which among other things contains explanations for all the pun names i've used in the fic. including kitty's, but i'll reiterate here: the reason i stuck with a cat theme was that klavier gavin, in my mind, is absolutely a golden retriever, so i wanted to give him a manager/babysitter who is a cat. a big cat. kitty is short in stature, but i mention her lion's mane of hair often enough in the text, so, u know.

that's also part of what i wanted her to be. yeah, she had to be tough simply for the industry and for the fact that she was managing teenagers for a while, but i also knew that i wanted to give klavier friends, and people in his life who really care about him, and will stick with him through all this. kitty is lawfully loyal: if she doesn't agree with something, she has no trouble walking out, but once she actually takes to someone like she took to klavier, she will be fiercely protective. i never mentioned her age, but i imagined her in exorcism to be somewhere in her mid to late 40s. she's seasoned, she's experienced, she's capable - she's what klavier deserves!!! that's what i wanted. kristoph and daryan are so painfully incompetent, when it comes down to it. klavier needs people in his life who know what they're doing.

so, i wanted a big little lion lady for my dog boy. i sort of just clicked through my various dictionaries for a while looking up different cat terms in different languages to see if any of them sounded enough like a last name, and that's how i landed on poes. only after that did i decide to make the dutch conundrum A Thing.

thank you for asking about her <33333 enjoy the rest of the fic, feel free to keep me posted about ur reading experience too :3c

[beardedjoel]

happy 5k celebration julie! i saw your response to someone asking if IRL peeps knows about smother and was super inspired by what you said. i don't post fics but experimentally write for myself to get things out and read a LOT lol nobody really knows though, not my bf or friends. honestly dunno if it would be that big of a deal, esp w/ bf, but just i'm dumb about my own shame and fear of embarrassment *sigh* anyway i've seen ppl ask their faves that question before and your response rly inspired me, thx for being an icon. i thought i'd drop some ask game stuff in here! 🍓🛼🧃🌿🧩 congratulations again on 5k and one year of smother! i really adore your blog and writing sm.

hi friend! i'm so so behind, but i'm trying to tackle some more of my celebration asks. i'm sorry it took so long to get to this. thank you SO much for your kind words and i hope that maybe you've been inspired to share more about your writing to someone in your life since you sent this! 💖

these question choices were so fun! i'll answer under a cut 😇

🍓 ⇢ how did you get into writing fanfiction? 

i dabbled in it years ago but never got very into it, but i've always on and off written little stories etc since i was a kid! they were romance self inserts basically and so cringe but everyone has their roots! i started reading pedro character fic in 2023 and thought wait i want to write some self indulgent shit and hence closer was born 😂

🛼 ⇢ describe your latest wip with five emojis

😭🙏🔥🏃‍♀️⛰️ heheehe (my wip is 22k long so this is the best i got)

🧃 ⇢ share some personal lore you never posted about before

this is a tough one hmmm. i think people are surprised usually to find out i was engaged at 20 years old and i broke it off like 6 months before our wedding and it was messy and shit but it's always a wild story to tell!

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

i struggle with this for sure. but honestly, usually my best advice is to step away. if it's not flowing, it's not flowing, as hard as that is to accept at times. i'll focus on other things like a book i've been wanting to read or a tv show. and sometimes i listen to certain music to try to inspire creativity and try to match the vibe to whatever i'm trying to write. but mostly, i just end up having to ride the wave!

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

i don't think too many immediate nos for me! but an obvious one that i think i see a lot of people say is using y/n and that's a big no for me. also, i would immediately exit if it was rpf for sure. i would consider exiting if it was older woman/younger man pairing 😂 that just does not do it for me.

[zephfair]

More Fic Writer asks! #1, 3, 11, 12, 17 annnddd 30 for a story of your choice ^_^ Enjoy!

Thank you so much the ask! I appreciate you!!!

the last sentence you wrote

This is from my Raven Cycle Hallmark Christmas movie fic that will probably never be posted but like I said in a previous ask, it's my holiday emotional support fic.🤣

“Dick,” a low, gravelly voice growled down at him. Gansey hid his wince from the cold voice as well as the chill of lukewarm coffee soaking through his cashmere, and most probably, the black shirt of the brick wall/man he ran into.

“There’s no need to resort to name-calling. I was about to apologize for spilling on you,” Gansey said, pulling himself straighter but it only brought the man’s stubbly Adam’s apple and chin into focus.

“Fuck, no, that’s not...” then a softer voice—a tone that brought back memories of green fields, the smell of hay and cattle, the tug of a boyish hand in his, days filled with laughter—warmed him in an instant when it said, “Gansey? Is that really you?”

3. how you feel about your current WIP

Oops, this is the one I answered here about that holiday fic that I am trying to work every single Hallmark Christmas movie trope into.🤣

11. a WIP you’d like to finish someday

I have one more Bleach fic that's been halfway done for years. I'd like to finish it just for completion's sake. And I have a bunch of Raven Cycle fics that I still open, read, and then close because the magic fic fairy has not visited me and finished them. Unfortunately. 🥲The two that haunt me are the Mr. and Mrs. Smith AU and the Sugar Daddy AU. I want them to just be exported directly from my brain onto the page without me having to actually type, you know?

12. a trope you’re really into right now

My bedtime ritual includes curling up in bed with my iPad and rereading some of my favorite Ronan/Adam fics. I am always in the mood for a good AU that's either romantic comedy or just romantic with always a happy ending. No dark themes or angst for me please.

17. talk about your writing and editing process

I wish I had more of a writing process tbh. I don't have any energy these days. I plan fics and get all this great dialog and plot while I'm driving on Saturdays, but when I get home, I'm too wiped out to even write a word. Sometimes I scribble down an idea or a phrase that will hopefully jog my memory about the witty conversation I'd imagined. (Spoiler: my memory doesn't like to jog anymore than the rest of me so much of my imaginings are lost.😂)

But when I'm actually writing for real, I try to just keep the flow going. If I get bogged down in a scene or want to add something that I'll need to check on, I just put a placeholder. I don't want to interrupt myself when I'm in the zone, so to speak, and I can always come back and look up or fix that section later.

When I first get a fic idea, I do try to write down the outline as it comes to me and those snippets of conversation that I can hear clearly.

I'm guilty of only performing minimal editing. I know my stuff could definitely benefit from a beta reader, but it's been years since I've had one. I'm always on the lookout for basic spelling, grammar and punctuation errors but gah, they still sneak past me. I know I tend to be verbose so I do try to cut when I can. I keep a file with some of the things I cut, if I really like a passage or a phrase, maybe I can use it again someday where it will fit better.

But in the end, writing fanfic is mostly for me. I adore and crave the validation, for sure, and I'm sure with a beta and much care, I could create a better story. But right now, I don't edit as strictly as I should because I might really love that paragraph, and I'm going to leave it there anyway. For me.

30. share a fic you’re especially proud of

I answered this before and said my Bleach tentacle smut fic lol, but I'm actually proudest of my earliest Da Vinci's Demons stuff. Nobody outside the minuscule fandom has even seen the show, but I was in a strangely good writing mode those couple years, and I think I wrote my best "writing," with pretty turns of phrase and actual plotting and pacing. And smut, always smut.

Thank you so much for the ask, lovely! 😘💖💖💖💖💖