#self-insert january 2017

[mercair]

Goodbye Mercair

On January 7th of 2017, i posted my first song ever. It was a shitty self-insert megalo that never got any likes and barely got listened to. But i didn't really make it to get popular, i knew at the time that that would never happen and i was okay with it, because i didn't make that song for that. That first song was my way of thanking this community for helping me so much during a grim part of my life, to thank YOU, Undertale/Deltarune fan just for being there, creating stuff, and making people happy... I wanted to pay back the happiness this community gave me, and it has been like that ever since.

But now i realize, after 7 years, that... I'm not needed here. Whether i'm here or not, people would still be happy. People would have banger songs to listen to and characters to obsese over, without me. And that's wonderful! I enjoy seeing people happy more than i enjoy seeing myself. Just like in real life too, i'm the kind of person that can disappear from earth, and almost nobody would notice. But it's not like i can blame them, in the last 7 years i've been here i barely talked to anybody, i barely interacted and i barely got any friends.

And also, i'll just never be able to pay my debts with this community. I owe you guys so much, but nothing of what i do will ever be enough, not for me at least. And now i just have nothing to offer. I have no new ideas, i'll have no way of composing in what seems like months at this point, and i just lost my motivation. I've ran out of excuses to justify my presence in this place.

But also, in all honesty... After 7 years of creating stuff, even though i told myself that i never did it for popularity... I just thought i would stop feeling like a nobody, and that i'd stop feeling jealous of everyone else's success on this community. Is that ungrateful of me? Am i being greedy and not appreciative enough of what i got? Honestly, that's another reason of why i decided to leave; i'm just so secretly jealous of every other famous person in this fandom, i just think it'd be unfair for you guys to have a person like me around here. Ungrateful, greedy, jealous.

So i decided it's just time. To give up. To leave.

Once i'm done writing this letter, it'll be over. I'll stop being a musician, and i'll stop being an artist too. But please don't be sad about that. I don't want you to be sad. I want you to keep being happy, living in this fandom, like always. Keep making banger tracks, keep making cool art whether it's of your favorite characters or your own awesome ocs, keep talking to your friends and the people who love you, and overall, just forget about me. Forget about all of this. All my creations, all my characters, songs and concepts, they're not worthy of your praise. But everyone else's stuff is. So please, don't remember me or else i won't be able to leave this place in peace.

And now, i guess the question people are more interested in right now is "What will happen to all your stuff then?" Well, as some may have noticed, i've already taken down all of my original tracks from my soundcloud account, except for the covers/songs i made for other people and collabs, which are still up, since they're either not my characters, or i just wasn't the only one that worked on it, and it would be unfair to delete it. The soundcloud account will soon go unnamed, and i'll erase any connection to me it has, so people will be able to listen to those songs, without my name in it. As for my Tumblr and Twitter account... I'm now debating on whether or not to delete them, or just do the same and erase my name from both of them. I also gotta point out the possibility of me regreting this decision, but even if i do, i'm most likely not coming back.

So that's it. But before i go, i want to apologize. For everything.

I'm sorry i wasn't the best at what i did.

I'm sorry if my music wasn't good enough to make you smile or bang your head to it.

I'm sorry if my artistic abilities never catched your eye.

I'm sorry that i was never able to make a character you could obsess over.

I'm sorry if i was just too awkward and unfunny when talking to you.

I'm sorry if i was never able to become your friend and be someone you could talk to on the daily.

And most of all, i'm sorry for thinking that i could be like you. That i could be one of you.

All of you are so talented... SO incredibly talented and such good people... You're all legitimatlly amazing, and don't let people tell you otherwise. You're all gonna do great stuff in the future with the skills you have now, i guarantee it.

Well, i have to go now.

Thank you. For everything, and for what you did for me so many years ago. Thanks to you, i managed to be happy for the last 7 years of my life.

Goodbye UTDR.

[wheezel]

transness & suicidality

obvious tw for. the above

hello. my name is max.

i’ve been going by max on the internet since like 2014 or 2015, when i’d join roleplay plots on creativefun, or maybe even before that, or parallel to that, i had some blatantly obvious self-insert OC with the same name. in every pokémon game i’ve ever owned, i’ve had an eevee named max. i don’t know why i was so attached to this name, but i don’t think i ever really foresaw it becoming Mine.

i started using tumblr “full time” in 2017. mostly for fandom stuff, especially harry potter. i’ve been max on here since the beginning of that— co-ran some hufflepuff blog under that name, and i thought it was the coolest thing.

i’ve always struggled in the mental health department. i wasn’t diagnosed with anything, but i’ve probably been contemplating suicide since the fifth grade. it didn’t start out serious, i don’t think, but throughout middle school it was a thought that never really left my head.

i’d known that i was queer since maybe the sixth grade? luckily i grew up in a general area where that wasn’t shamed or anything, so tbh it wasn’t super hard to come to terms with.

i don’t think i knew what being trans was until like 8th grade, but you wouldn’t believe that— i don’t wanna do the whole “i’ve been acting like a little boy since birth Ah Ah” thing bc i know that’s not a universal trans experience & i don’t want to make it out to be, but also.. i literally basically grew up as a little boy 😭 i was very outspoken about not liking anything “girly,” was friends with mostly guys, i’d always make my character a boy in any game i played, probably announced multiple times that i wished i was a boy or said that i “basically was.” i believe in tomboy/weird little girl rights and obv there is no “acting like a boy/girl” but. the point‘s that it was a thought in my mind.

wtv wtv quarantine hits, my friends become more homophobic/transphobic for some reason, i start looking more towards online queer communities. this makes me more active here, obviously, but also to a handful of discord servers. at this point i’m very well acquainted with transness, but still very sure in the fact that i’m just a very tomboyish lesbian— like i’d genuinely thought about it, a lot, and just didn’t ever “feel trans.” i wasn’t dysphoric, i liked my hair long, i had a lot of pride in being a lesbian, and i just. ‘didn’t mind’ being a girl.

time passes again and i start realizing that i’m not, in fact, cis. this pill was a little bit harder to swallow, but mostly because i didn’t know what i was. i played around with my identity for a while— i was pretty comfortably genderfluid for like a year or two— but i was still only out online. when i did eventually come out to my friend group at the time (shout out HS backstage crew), they were really accepting n stuff, but they’d almost exclusively refer to me with masculine terms. and like.. at first i was like ‘nooo they’re misunderstanding woe is me,’ but after a while, i got less & less comfortable being referred to with feminine terms, she/her pronouns, et cetera. some time in january, i started hanging out with a handful of people who i kinda knew but wasn’t all that close with, and i got to introduce myself as max. i danced around the topic of my gender for a while (“you can call me whatever i don’t really care”), but maybe two months ago, i resigned to the fact that i was just. a guy.

you’d think this would be about as easy as the rest of my little realizations, but. you’ve seen the news.

realizing that i now exist in a world that would blatantly rather i be dead than happy was not something that i was ready to grapple with.

i had made so much progress mentally since the beginning of this year— i *liked* who i was four months ago. i think i genuinely started loving myself.

now? i feel like i’m 12 again. i‘m so self conscious & i feel like everyone’s always looking at me funny and i can’t order food without embarrassing myself and i can’t. talk to anyone without feeling guilty that they have to know me. i’ve had this awful, heavy, guilty feeling in my chest for two months straight, and i don’t think i can get rid of it. i keep spiraling and hurting people and every time i think about talking to them about it i almost start throwing up because i feel so disgusting about myself. i shut myself out from a lot of people because of the shame. i couldn’t face them. i can’t convince myself that i belong here, or anywhere, or that i’m not actively making everything worse for everyone i know.

and you know. i almost did it.

to be honest, i don’t know why i didn’t. i still think about it all the time, if i’d actually gone through with it.

i think about the numbers all the time. i’m constantly turning them around in my head— 82, 40, 86, 56. it felt like what i was supposed to do.

though, clearly! i’m still here. i don’t have some big Ha Ha Fuck You to the world reason or whatever, in all honesty i just kinda felt more guilty when i thought about what’d happen if i did it. which stopped me, sure, but also led to me stewing in this miserable, suicidal limbo for like two weeks straight. i’ve been slowly getting better, but it doesn’t really get easier.

i wish i could make some grand statement about transphobia and society and the state of the world, but honestly? i’m just tired. i have nothing to say.

except maybe that my name is max, i’m transmasc, my pronouns are he/him, and i’m still here whether i or the world want me to be or not. because i gotta be.

[val-selfships]

F/O # 1:

January 19, 2021 was when I finished his route in the game he's in for the first time! I've taken a BIG interest in him way back in 2017 but was too broke and didn't have the motivation to farm game currency at the time, so I eventually gave up.

Fast forward to being in the middle of lockdown I one day remembered him and the game he's in and I was so determined even after the price of unlocking the mode his route is in got higher

Selfshipping with him had its own ups and downs, on the first year I was questioning and looking for labels that describe my identity, was learning how to handle the jealousy of having to see so much oc/self-insert x canon with him even after blocking accounts and filtering tags. I even see one who selfships with him a lot have an actual wedding + commission artists left and right so I moved to a different f/o for a while before coming back to him. (What took me back: the first post I see of him one day is a drawing of him phonecalling mc/the player saying 'I love you' to them and bc I get some 'signs' or 'pretty specific stuff that almost feel like it's him making me see those' every now and then, it just fed into my delulu-ness)

Then around late 2022-2023 I started commissioning art and writing of him ✨

(Adding this here, I've also drawn him a lot and was my main source of motivation to draw for a long long while. One day maybe I can finally use a picture of him and stare at it without getting too flustered and end up not drawing anything)

Right now I still do love him even if it isn't as intense. I still think of him as my main f/o and he'd still be the first one I'd propose to if he magically became real. Some stuff happened for a year which made me constantly feel unloved by him but that's on me for not doing much about it either (or lack of energy idk)

He's pretty much my partner still and I still yearn to one day get so much merch of him

But yea anyways!

F/O # 2:

I had a MASSIVE crush on him back in 2015-2016. I even made my first OC because of him. I don't really make much stuff for that OC and don't anymore but last year I got a little interested in him again and plan to read fics of him sometime. I bought the game he is in which was what 2016 me has always wanted and because is was on sale. I now have another F/O from the same source but I still adore this F/O a lot as well. He's still full of secrets.

And another game he is in makes me smile whenever he says something funny. I playfully glare at the screen whenever he messes with the character the player is controlling because of course he would do Thing but of course I didn't expect it anyway.

Currently saving up and looking for artists to commission, have drawn selfship art of him like twice (excluding my really old arts of him and my OC from back then).

F/O #3:

My first f/o from when I was like 5 and didn't know what selfshipping was. He pops up in my mind every now and then, especially lately, and I have Ideas for writing and drawing for him. I can't find much fanart and fics of him anywhere though unfortunately. But might as well practice art and writing by making stuff about him!

F/O #4:

So like, they're like 3-in-1

Typing's starting to get a bit tiring but I've adored them since early 2022! Early 2024 was when I saw and animatic of them proposing to y/n which was super sweet, f/o #1 got a wedding illustration mid-2023 and like idk, I'm considering just making an au with f/O's 1 and 4 where I smooch them all in the same world I keep getting signs from posts I see skdjdb 💖

a special shout-out for selfshippers who have been loving their f/o(s) for years !! 🤍

you guys are truly one of the best kinds of people out there! your dedication and your overwhelming love for them are very admirable and inspiring.

loving someone so deeply that you stayed with them for years and still madly in love with each other through thick and thin. ♡

how long have you been in love with your f/o? tell us your story! (⁠人⁠*⁠´⁠∀⁠｀⁠)⁠｡⁠*ﾟ⁠+

rbs encouraged!! ♡♡

[riecaloca]

saved this to my drafts to respond later when i had energy and then i forgot (i think i've seen this film before)

First of all, A+ gif usage, and funnily enough, the mcu fic i wrote was about Steve Rogers... *embarrassed face*

I think I started writing it right after Civil War came out and I saw it, and then I finished it like December or January of 2016/2017.

It was kind of a love triangle with steve rogers and natsaha romanoff fighting over the self-insert-oc i created during the events of civil war and after (when they went into hiding). it was literally shit because i was what, 13/14 when I was writing it, and sometimes i go over it and am like "why did anyone read this crap"

it's long deleted from quotev now, it only exists in my documents lol

Nah my lie was the potatoes thing. Unfortunately I paused reading that book for a while, but I am still reading it (as you would know of you were stalking me on goodreads)

Hmu with those stories of being doubled jointed though. I myself am what the doctors call "overly flexible," in reference to my ligaments. (also what do you mean you wrote mcu fanfiction?!)

It's exactly what it sounds like.

Opened this up randomly and i see this ask is from may 18th or something, so SORRY for not replying, i am SHIT at looking at asks mona you know this

what was the potatoes thing again? what book was it? lol i will, though the stories are mostly about making people HELLA uncomfortable. as a kid i'd be like "hey, look what i can do!" and show off my skills and adults would cringe and walk away lmao

uhhhhhhhhhhhh, i would deny writing mcu fanfic but i see i gave you evidence against that lie.... all i'm gonna say is that it was shit and you will never read it lmao though i might give you a cliff's notes summary of it if you want cause it's comical at least.

[abandoned-as-mustard]

I finally devised a timeline.

Edit: I've revised some of the dates, since Felix can't come before cat blanc because marinette's further attempt at telling adrien her feelings after Cat Blanc's failed. I don't even know why I'm still trying to make sense of this show.

So Felix arrives on the anniversary of emilie's coma in season 3. Meaning season 4 ephemeral is at least a year after that. Logically. But we know there's no logic here. 🤷‍♀️🤦‍♀️

So I've come up with my own timeline that tries to at least accommodate "canon" (ignoring marinette mentioned as 14 still in dearest family. No she's not.) Some official days would have to be changed, though. Also seasons don't matter, since they clearly don't care about animating snow in January or February.

Emilie's coma: May 2015.

Season 1: September to October. Exception of dark Cupid. Chronology a mess, probably any order with exceptions of character that must be introduced before they reappear, and animan happening early because of Nino and alya.

Season 2: October 2015 to April 2016. Again, next to impossible to tell a chronological order. Marinette turns 14 in october in Befana, and that's the last time we see Lila.

Prime Queen actually happens later, after the Valentine's day kiss. We're pretending heroes' day is a month earlier, in April. Adrien finally wears the derby hat from season 1 in style queen. Around March, Paris floods and they figure out how to modify their powers.

Christmas special: December 2015.

Shanghai: April 2016.

Season 3: April to May 2016. Lila reappears in chamelion. The first ladybug movie comes out (ignoring the "3 years wasted" comment from Thomas' self insert.) Western Christianity celebrates the athanaesus name day on 2 May, but we can slide that over a few weeks. (it's probably actually the January day for France but let's ignore that.) Somewhere, Mr Pigeon is probably being akumatised at least once or twice a day. The oblivio kiss happens somewhere here. Chat Blanc appears mid May before Felix arrives. Marinette becomes guardian.

New York: June 2016 Mr pigeon has been akumatised for the 51st time. Miss Bustier is pregnant but continues to have a flat belly.

Season 4: June 2016 to April/May? 2017 (I haven't finished season 4 yet, I swear if the last 4 episodes throw this off I'll scream). Mr pigeon comes back for the 72nd time. Marinette turns 15 in October. Probably gets with Luka after new york in May or June (why would alya try to set up her friend that's already taken? Either that or she didn't know.) This way we can pretend that Qilin actually happens early on in late June, at least right after Mr Pigeon (because protective charm), it's "more than a month late for mother's day", because Qilin returns in Dearest Family for January. In early season 4, marinette is on holiday because school's out, but she's already broken up with Luka, and they were shown riding off together from school, which ends in July. Then dearest family happens in January, because of King's day is on the 12th day of Christmas (and I don't think we can change christmas can we?) Somewhere in this, glaciator 2 happens late 2016 because they're voted couple of the year with that photo. The sequel to the ladybug movie comes out around 2017.

And ephemeral is in April, 4 weeks shy (Because 52+52 = 104) of the anniversary of emilie's coma, the 100 week mark. In dearest family we're ignoring the fact that her relatives are arguing over her being 14 when grandma gives her the motorbike. Grandma still could've been there for her 15th party (or maybe they just remembered wong). Either way, given that this show stinks of retcon, I think we can retcon that dialogue easily.

Miss Bustier is either still pregnant or has already given birth. We can excuse her flat belly because the writers already think they can excuse logic.

Total passage of time from origins to season 4 end: 19-20 months.

And there ya go, this took me over an hour to write (and days to modify). Even if the writers then write an episode with marinette's 15th later, I'm just gonna pretend it's 16 because we know they can't count very well anyway.

[wandering-panacea-artblog]

Aristomenis(DORUmon) First Evolution line

My Digimon OC, Aristomenis the DORUmon, partner of my tamersona/self-insert Margarita Maganari. I have him from 2017 and use him for two Digimon groups on DeviantArt and Discord.

The first five forms of Aristomeni's evolution from left to right in the height chart are official digimon, the last one is original mega evolution which I am really proud.

From left to right:

Dodomon(Fresh) > Dorimon(In-Training) > DORUmon(Rookie) > DORUgamon(Champion) > Grademon(Ultimate) > *Atharraich DORUgoramon(Mega)

This is his first evolution line which took me a lot of time to finish, I made the drawings of the three big forms of Aristomenis on the right in the beginning of 2021 and finished them yesterday and today, the drawings of the three smaller forms on the left side of the height chart where made in January of 2020. Height Chart is from Spud133 from DeviantArt.

-Panacea

*Atharraich(Scot Gaelic)= Alter

Atharraich DORUgoramon is a combination of two Mega forms of the DORUmon evolution line, DORUgoramon and Death-X DORUgoramon.

Information of Aristomenis and his Tamer and Atharraich DORUgoramon's wing design under the cut:

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

September 19, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

Last Friday, Marine Corps General Frank McKenzie of U.S. Central Command admitted that the August 29 drone strike in Kabul, Afghanistan, that the U.S. had claimed hit ISIS-K fighters had instead killed 10 civilians, including seven children. This “tragic mistake,” as he called it, at the very end of the country’s 20-year engagement in Afghanistan, opens up the larger question of the growing U.S. use of unmanned aerial systems—drones—in warfare.

Drones are a relatively new technology, and we have not yet had a national discussion about what it means to use them.

The U.S. began to develop armed drones in the early 21st century and has used them against terrorists in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Pakistan, and Yemen. President George W. Bush used them experimentally, launching 9 drone strikes between 2004 and 2007. In 2008, he launched 34 strikes, illustrating an increasing reliance on the unmanned weapons that spared U.S. lives while disrupting terrorist camps.

When he took office, President Barack Obama followed the trend toward drone strikes, dramatically increasing their use in the war on terror. S. E. Cupp of the Chicago Sun-Times notes that compiling numbers of drone strikes is difficult but that in 2018, The Daily Beast attributed 186 drone strikes in Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia to Obama in his first two years and that the Associated Press and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism counted 154 strikes in Yemen during the eight years of Obama’s tenure. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, a UK-based think tank, noted 1,878 drone strikes during the eight years of Obama's presidency.

Obama did add bureaucratic restraints to the use of drones, permitting strikes only against terrorist targets that pose a “continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons.” His administration also provided that “[a]bsent extraordinary circumstances, direct action against an identified high-value terrorist (HVT) will be taken only when there is near certainty that the individual being targeted is in fact the lawful target and located at the place where the action will occur. Also absent extraordinary circumstances, direct action will be taken only if there is near certainty that the action can be taken without injuring or killing non-combatants.” In 2016, under pressure for more transparency on his use of drones, the Obama administration began to publish the number of civilian casualties associated with drone strikes.

Once Trump took office, his administration wrote new rules for drones, permitting strikes without a threat standard against any person deemed to be a terrorist and allowing military commanders themselves to make strike decisions. It significantly increased the use of drones and revoked the Obama administration’s rule about reporting the number of civilians killed by drone strikes, calling that rule “superfluous.” According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Trump launched 2,243 drone strikes in the first two years of his presidency, a significant jump from the 1,878 launched in Obama's eight years.

Famously, Trump launched a drone strike against top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani in Iraq in January 2020, killing him and nine other people. The UN's expert on extrajudicial killings at the time, Agnès Callamard, said the attack violated international law because the U.S. had not provided evidence that Soleimani presented an imminent threat to justify the attack. The administration responded that she was “giving a pass to terrorists.”

On his first day in office, President Biden suspended Trump’s rules and began to review how the policies of both Obama and Trump had worked. On July 21, Foreign Policy reported that in its plan to end “forever wars,” the Biden administration had brought drone use to an all-time low.  But his move away from drones got little attention compared to the August 29 drone strike on Biden’s watch that killed 10 civilians.

American presidents turned to the use of drones because they enabled the U.S. to attack terrorists without risking the same numbers of U.S. soldiers ground operations would require. But scholars note a significant downside to the use of drones. First of all, on occasion, they fall into enemy hands, transferring new technologies that could lead to military proliferation. Second, they lower the bar for military engagement, enabling the U.S. to insert itself into other countries at a much lower cost than in the past, opening the way for permanent hostilities around the world.

And, third, they kill civilians.

It is not clear what the ratio of military deaths to civilian deaths actually is: estimates of the civilian casualties from drone strikes range from 30% to 98%. But we do know that the U.S. admitted to killing dozens of civilians at an Afghan wedding in 2008 and more than 100 civilians in a strike on Afghanistan in 2009.

What seems to be different about the August 29 killing of civilians in Afghanistan is that the U.S. government has admitted the killings, taken responsibility for them, called them “a tragic mistake,” and offered “profound condolences to the family and friends of those who were killed.”  In the wake of the strike, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin has ordered an inquiry into “the degree to which strike authorities, procedures and processes need to be altered in the future.”

—

Notes:

Ahmed S. Hashim and Grégoire Patte, “‘What is that Buzz?’ The rise of Drone Warfare,” Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses, 4 (September 2012): 8-13.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/07/01/us-drone-strikes-all-time-low-biden-forever-wars/

https://www.justice.gov/oip/foia-library/procedures_for_approving_direct_action_against_terrorist_targets/download

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/08/trump-war-terror-drones/567218/

https://www.rollcall.com/2017/05/31/trumps-total-authorization-to-military-gives-some-deep-concerns/

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47480207

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/world/asia/05iht-afghan.3.17553439.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/world/asia/15farah.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/17/us/politics/pentagon-drone-strike-afghanistan.html

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-53345885

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

* * *  * *

[from comments: 

”Peppered throughout today's thoughtful letter is the term terrorist. It has become like the hypnotist's trigger to suspend analysis or curiosity. A famous American dissident has observed, "There is no right to self defense against the empire." And those of us looking critically at our country's actions globally have long seen with clarity how we are expected to suspend judgment when "terrorist" is applied. Famous Israeli general, Matti Peled, went on a speaking tour in the US in the last century to say that US military aid to Israel was corrupting the country, creating "irresistible temptations" and that the country was losing its soul in its occupation of areas taken by force. I visited then-senator John Edwards' office with a group seeking closure of the infamous "School of the Americas" which taught torture to Latin American military officers. The CIA officer posted to Edwards' office was overjoyed in anticipation of a coming "electronic battlefield." It was chilling to hear the delight at armchair warriors pushing buttons to kill people far away, at no personal risk. We now read even in the New York Times, always ready to deliver official excuses for war, some truth about the irresistible temptations of extreme military power, and the inevitable crimes of those ready to term self defense "terrorism."

jc markatos

[noxyfied]

This, is Noxy/Noxyfied/Nox. This is the character I identify as online, and I want to tell you my story with this adorable Arctic Fox because it is one heck of a tale from not so long ago

Things did begin rough at the beginning of my persona’s history. I honestly can’t recall how I came up with it, only how I inserted my love for something and went with it.

From the early years of 2017 to 2019 I was all paper and pencil. Ah yes traditional art was my big thing for a couple of years during that era of 2013 to 2020. I had a time where I wrote stories about characters I made, and not much. No fan art, no nothing, I wanted to stick to my own original ideas at first before I took the step to do something that I did not own; it was a weird mindset I know, I couldn’t hold myself to want to be original and develop to be good enough to draw other things.

It took me some time to develop, hell even to this day I still am unsure of my own skills but I enjoyed trying new things. I don’t reject much criticism even if it comes harsh it still lingers in my head when received anyway. I needed someone to identify as online, a persona who I would have an identity through as I was moving forward on this hopeful career I want to make with my art.

Idea #1 draw my own self accurate to how I look 

Scratch that...

Nononono, I am too bad at showing my face, even at that I don’t like myself.

So I had to come up with something else, 2019 was ending with my skills rising up to something neat. I had Fire alpaca and a wacom cheap tablet which I used time to time back then, and with how I moved foward I said “why not, lets draw a glaceon.

Not bad, not bad. I do enjoy anthropomorphic animals, and for a anthro Glaceon it wasn't so bad. Even back then I did not enjoy much of this picture but the idea sparked. I did roleplay around online a lot as a Glaceon. People always had referred to me as a Glaceon when talking, because furry friends tend to be like that and I don’t mind. It had definitely sparked the idea of identifying as one for my persona.

I had a hard time how I would draw this character, a more personalized Glaceon with my own flare of the art style I carry should be nice, should I make it tall? short? anthro? feral? the questions rose up. Even more as time passed, took some time unsure of it, Unluckily I had a Glaceon FURsona, not a persona. (Yes those were two separate things as I carried 7 fursonas as individual characters in their own stories).

But soon one day in class, my artsy self was bored and it just sparked.

This is it! yes! I love it! something about this just clicked for some reason, it was like nothing I had seen before I could not look away at it, this was it.

After class I went home and played some games. The idea was there but man am I tired. Things did go slow, but not for long as of January, the classes I took gave me the ability to better understand this Adobe Photoshop, an amazing tool for editing pictures but also... To draw?!? I have heard of using Photoshop to draw but was amazed to have the ability using such program. During my time 2019 I would doodle around on Photoshop in my school or at home (thanks to the campus giving me a cheaper prize to use it for assignments) Not bad, not bad, the program was for sure something nice to use. Look! I even drew my Fursonas there too, ain’t that nice

2019 was something for sure. It had just begun making 2020 quite the year as I took my wacom tablet, opened Photoshop, and on January there it was.

Oh how cute! I felt so proud of myself, firealpaca was nothing like how clean and pretty Photoshop was, I was amazed at this ability.

“I made this?” that would be what I ask myself everyday. Time to time I would, and still, look at my phone to my drawings and remember what I used to make some pieces, I will not forget how I used thick outlines with the line too from photoshop, added some depth on the eyes. But most importantly, I had a persona, and I introduced it

My friends loved it, I could not believe I am starting to do the shift, my days of traditional art were at a halt. Not at a complete stop since I do use traditional art for a few other things of course, this was just my main focus now.

This little creature was everything to me, cute, easy to make, helped me throughout a few months as I practiced with my digital art.

I also perfected it’s look, but something looked rather familiar about it. Could not put my finger to it, so I went on drawing it.

that was a few exceptions where I shifted the proportions for “it”

“It” “it” what was this thing supposed to be, I myself was unsure how to identify myself with this persona. Male? no, female? no. The issue was there, who am I really inside, who was my persona gonna be.

I still cannot tell you exactly what my persona was for the longest time. I at times felt lost and confused with my identity, it did not help that 2020 did its mumbo jumbo and a pandemic happened, it was a lot of time on my own at home just questioning really who I had been for the longest time. Classes were minimal so my free time was big around April and May.

I was always unsure of who I was exactly, through my early years late 2000′s I had in me that my body was uncomfortable for looking the way it did, 2010′s went silent but there was something in me I did not understand. why did I feel this way, why do I feel as I am not happy with who I am, and who I identify with.

This persona was the wake up call to who I really wanted to be. I saw it in me that I knew being a male was the main issue in me feeling unhappy. Throughout my life I did not enjoy masculinity as much as other kids, yeah I had some boy traits but it was rather minimal, I enjoyed other things more. I enjoyed a lot of things about being female it was something I had never seen before. as hard or confusing things tend to be from me to explain, its a rather hard thing for myself to explain. But that how it felt “confusing” I researched and looked for things and to my conclusion I had come to be, I come to identify as a MtF trans.

I felt relieved in me of it and I already enjoyed my days more after from it. The only issue is “who do I tell..?” I was timid to tell this to anyone, friends or even family. Especially family, those I come to admit they will never be told of what my decision was because of how hard headed they are. It is a tragic story to tell since most families are such closed minded people of rejecting others.

“My friends tho, my friends? I would feel bad if I told them” that was the mindset I had for a while before admitting to them time to time, one by one. This was a chapter in my life that had changed me early 2020′s but I felt a lot of joy in me to be who I wanted to be, I no longer took anyone else's guidance for controlling who I am, I just went with my own flow.

My persona was.... more comically confused, it could be either so I just left it how my mood wanted it to go for when drawing it. So, things went well, in 2019 with the money I got I found myself enjoying a lot of second handed games, with a game coming real soon that had me pumped for I had to get a console I wanted for so long

A PS4 for the the Final fantasy 7 Remake, I was so pumped waiting for the game, I got a used PS4 for it and even bought couple other games for it to get to know the console: Final fantasy 15, destiny, and later on this Persona 5 game a lot of people talked about. Hmm ok, well lets try it out and oh me oh my, a few days later:

The art style captivated me, can you tell I went all out to trying anything with my persona? I cannot believe I was my own guinea pig for these sorts.

Going around some friends and they will tell you that I used this pfp quite a lot back then, as well as updating it with a new oc I had come up with

A tale in due time will be told about this gal.

well, it was set and forth that this was me, my persona, this glaceon was who I was. People loved it, my friends really liked it, and I had a blast having this first pure year of digital art only. Meeting new friends, and admiring their art. Having old friends come back, and even losing a few others on the way. During the time of june, to July I was rapid about drawing my persona in many ways, short, tall, anthro, feral

even metallic.

 But there come some time I did not grew tired of. But a little worried that I had to rely on a franchise for my own identity, of course there is nothing wrong for those doing it. But reflecting on myself, back then when I wanted this art career to happen, I wanted to go all out letting out my imagination  with my own creations. I had to make the decision, it was time to move on...

...To a new art program and new drawing tablet

No, it wasn’t that. I had to branch out from this Glaceon, but keep my identity, my legacy of this persona in check, but with a new coat of paint of course. did not take a long time before choosing that I had to use a real life animal as inspiration for this change. Something at least close to it, ah yes of course! the inspiration of the Glaceon was an arctic fox, well those are some good stepping stones to begin with so what happened one day is that I began sketching, not before saying good bye to this old self that helped me begin. It was weird, this is me but it was old me?

Tested the new Brushes from this amazing program called Clip studio paint, and I gotta say I love the program. Sincerely the best choice I made to leave Photoshop for this.

At last, this is it. the new Me!

Familiar looking isn’t it,baby steps we can say.

I cannot blame the people for calling my new persona a “Glaceon-alike”

I headed to the right direction stepping away from it, but it was hard to let go

new program, new tablet, new me. the later half of 2020 went onto a lot of changes with myself, the chibi small version did not make me happy to make anymore, I was losing the touch and with the few comments I got of looking like a “powerpuff girl look a like” did set me off to do a drastic change I am thankful to do. This new me had some weird phases, don’t we all tho?

where else to brainstorm than back to the traditional old ways. Now, you may see this and ask what was I thinking when making this. the order of when i started and finish goes as: Top right: ok what if it was feral, nah nah scratch. Top left: Can I still make it cute with a round face and features I had from before? ew no! that looks scary Bottom right: lets make it more natural and wow hey! yes yes yes! this looks hundred times better. Bottom left: It is time I go all out and make it humanoid, it was how I found myself enjoying drawing most things but still did some anthropomorphic things. I was just not the best of it.

Back to digital and.... Amazing, I really out did myself this time, lets go for it, lets keep going with this

I even got a cool sword too!

My practice continued from here, the second half was great and fun. New persona got me in a place where I was happy with and through October and December I was having a blast with the more possibilities with it. I went on to practice with even more suggestive things after a life drawing class I took, proportions mattered to me and with this new persona I went out to make more better looking proportions that were attractive and stylish.

This persona was great, and I managed to make so much of it. even Drawing the more suggestive stuff had left me with an answer for this persona. Just make it gender fluid, my selection for this character being male or female made me so tired I did not know why I just made it gender fluid since the beginning. My mood swings for this character, and I can’t resist drawing it either way. Was I finished? of course not, this persona still had some work around to do. The hair became a pain to make to keeping up with  consistently.

2020 ended, with a year of exciting new things coming for this new year. I went through quite a lot in my life and my art career took a shaken with this new digital life style, my persona became the identity I saw myself through, something im happy with drawing to represent Me.

That isn’t to say that I gave up on drawing Me Me.

I drew who I hope to be, and will use this from time to time, nothing fancy but something.

It has been a year already since I began identifying myself with this persona from last year from now. ever since I sketched that doodle in class, it has been a happy trip through memory lane writing it and I am happy how things turned out. 2021 is what I hope to be as good as 2020 was (by that I mean drawing only of course) In 2021 one more change was made that had made me just as happy to continue on with.

I got more hair! as crazy as it is yes. More hair, and a different front style has been to this day what I been using.

I even made a discord emoji for all the warm hugs to have with my fursona!

and my first ever animation I have ever done before!!

I am always experimenting new things, and i’m proud to be an artists to go out there and leave my art out there to be noticed by anyone. The love and appreciation friends and others leave me are the best thing I could ask. I look foward to see what is up ahead, for me, my career, and Noxy.

[wandererharu]

; 𝖆 𝖌𝖔𝖆𝖙 𝖆𝖒𝖔𝖓𝖌𝖘𝖙 𝖒𝖊𝖓

“𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐬 𝐩𝐚𝐬𝐬 𝐦𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐢𝐭𝐲, 𝐢𝐭’𝐬 𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐲”

“𝐈’𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐤𝐟𝐮𝐥 𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐢 𝐦𝐚𝐝𝐞 𝐢𝐭 𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐲 𝟑𝟎′𝐬 𝐧𝐨 𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐦𝐮𝐫𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐞”

bar for bar, word for word, rhyme on rhyme, this is just a quote from an amazing rapper on his recent album “the off season”, the song “pride is the devil” it is a symbolism on how rappers grow on the roots of evil and the streets as they call it, and everyone somehow just fights and gets entanglement from everyone around them, especially those in success , in this case , the rapper enunciates how he is above 30 , and still prospering in life, which is not normal for them.

𝐉𝐞𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐋𝐚𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐫 𝐂𝐨𝐥𝐞 [ j.cole ]

a rapper born and raised on North Carolina , U.S.A, age 36, born on January 29, 1985, well here comes the part where you think why him? why not out of all these people, i could have chosen Gandhi, Mandela, MLK, or other better and more well known famous people? simply because, J.cole is different, and no, i am not talking about any of his awards and accolades, im going to express why he is the chosen person for this article, and by the end , you’ll have a firm grip on my sight as well.

Jermaine cole is an icon, he is known by everyone in the rap and hip-hop industry, i stumbled upon his music by mid June 2017, and I was in awe, the first song or track i had listened to was “4 your eyez only” and by the title you would think it’s cliche, because a rap turned romance song? well that is indeed false, because the song is dedicated for his daughter, he explicitly talked through the story contemplating about being a young father, a rebellious teen, but you could feel the empathy and guilt, this rapper possess during that song a sense of fear of his life, which you could vividly hear from the song itself. and also fun fact when J.cole was writing the lyrics to this song, his producer said, he did not move from that spot he was in for 12 straight hours.

“𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐭 𝐠𝐨𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐧𝐨 𝐩𝐬𝐲𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐜 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐞𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐧, 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐡𝐞𝐥𝐥 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐢 𝐝𝐨𝐧’𝐭 𝐦𝐞𝐚𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐡𝐲𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐛𝐨𝐥𝐢𝐜”

you could see the pain from the lyric, meaning that he was brought into this world in suffer, he lived through this world in suffer, but he had made it out of his own slumber.

"𝐢 𝐛𝐞𝐞𝐧 𝐬𝐨 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐲 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐠𝐧𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐭, 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐡 ----- 𝐝𝐨𝐧𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐚 𝐜𝐨𝐫𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮, 𝐬𝐚𝐲 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐜𝐫𝐚𝐳𝐲 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐰𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭, 𝐝𝐨 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐝𝐫𝐮𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐠𝐨𝐧 𝐥𝐞𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮"

well this is  my favourite J.cole lyrics of all time, all of his songs combined, no one compares to the might of this. the quote comes from the song, “sacrifices” and he was featured as the last rapper and acquitted with the last verse, well simply put, when a person is rich it has power and when you have power and money, no one dares to step on your decisions. it is just wild how J.Cole comes up with this stuff, the word usage, the beautification of words and story played and inserted into a song, made me realize how great this man really is, especially in showing out feelings in his songs.

i think you have’nt gotten any clear answer as to how relevant this man really is, allow me to change that, see jermaine was so humble that people who walks past him just non-chalantly at ease with him, because we know how celebrities are so passive when it comes to those things, guards that are 7 ft tall, 5 guards circling the celebrity, flaunting their gold chains and accessories, but as a huge fan of J.cole, he is more than that, he flaunts ideals, his charismatic attitude, his very down to earth nature is actually true, and many videos about him that are circulating the net, shows how good of a man J.Cole really is. 

might be thinking as well, why is the title, a goat amongst men? well in the industry there are alot of rappers right? some are bigtime righteous prolific artists, and those who are self proclaimed and self earned rappers, but J.Cole does not belong to any of those, he casually just lives his life to the fullest without entangling his life to any people around him, the slang (GOAT) means the greatest of all time, hence speaking it into existence, J.cole without a doubt not only because of his musics and albums but also his ideals as a person, and he never forgets his roots especially now, when he’s in top of the rap game and is showered in glory, in the end he is still, Jermaine Lamarr Cole

[discoveringenterprise]

“RYAN WHERE THE FUCK DID YOU GO?!” and other shit you might wonder

First off: I am so sorry for disappearing off of the face of the earth oh my god

Second off: I’m going on an indefinite hiatus as of Sundayish. Yes, you read that right, an indefinite hiatus. All the content on the blog will stay for our enjoyment, and I fully authorize use of my gifs anywhere and everywehre

Third off: if you’re struggling rn, shit gets better, PLEASE trust me on this.

TLDR of this post; I got better, so can you, and I’m heading out.

ENT GC: let me know if you want admin. Do what you want with the blog, and if you wanna make a new group chat, please do so since I won’t be around to add people.

How can I contact you/get your contact info before you go? Dallyn and Daphne have my contact info so if you ever need to reach me and I’m gone... yeah. Like I said, I’ll be heading out Sundayish, so I’ll periodically log in here if you wanna talk to me/get my info before I go.

What’s your actual name? That... that’s a long story, too. LMAO. Especially if you know me. DM me for the story if you know me.

Why are you leaving? So, as you guys know, I started college, which is completely and utterly whack. Everything is changed, everything is different and I have friends now? Like, WTF. I’ve been so wrapped up in work it took me forever to get on here after Dallyn texted me “your account got hacked” so... oops. I let everyone into the ent gc (oh my GOD i look back at that and have a love/hate relationship with it!) and let me know if you figure out a way to make admins on it??? I’m confused AF.

I’m going to be focusing off college and staying off Tumblr for a while. It was 2 am technically today and I was reading all my old posts like “jfc I was so depressed???” and now I’m just... not. I made friends, real friends, over the summer. People who understand and get it (and yes some of them are ent stans.)

Why did you disappear in May and why are you leaving again? Shortly put, and I don’t mean to sound mean, I made real friends. Real as in I will physically interact with them in real life (aka college friends). I kind of weaned off Tumblr slowly, and only kept going back for the ent gc (I LOVE YOU GUYS THOUGH!!!). And it kinda became a drag.

When I came back to Tumblr, it was like late January and early February. I’d just got out of the Instagram rping world and was so tempted to start one here, but I was scared and intimidated, and I’m glad I didn’t. Breaking off rp was the best thing I’d ever done for myself, and the best thing that this toxic girl ever did for me. My shitty mental health had been kinda dependent on this rp, it’s hard to explain, but I was being a jerk and kinda had been since freshman year with projecting my feelings onto my character’s and blurring the lines far too much between me and her. She was (and is!) still hella overpowered, hella perfect, and something that would absolutely never happen in canon.

Honestly, this whole situation was basically the lyrics to the song Clarity ft. Foxes by Zedd. I love that song, go give it a listen.

Point being, I got myself off of that once I realized. The problem had started in January 2017, ran through October 2017, and then took a hiatus until junior year but only started to really manifest itself in February 2019. And honestly, mainly when school started back, in September/October 2019 and lasted until January 4 when she and I had our last fight. (She messaged me again, later- here- and since making that post, we’ve ended things on neutral terms.)

So I came here. Tumblr. I’d been here in 2017 right after the OTHER rp ended, and I think Tumblr became my new outlet then, too. I was a baby in the middle of my freshman year then. And then there I was, coming full circle. As a senior in high school. I read all of my old posts about how I’d never make it, and there I was. I’d made it. The end of HS was in sight.

I straight up vibed through all of May. Now, I was slowly making friends in college already, but it only really took off in April and May, which is when I left. I focused more on those, building those connections. I loved you guys on Tumblr, I still do, but I was definitely going to meet these college friends. And as I pulled my head out of Tumblr, I got a job, an actual paying job , in June- and I was already gone.

As I looked back on my posts last night/this morning I was thinking “oh my GOD what the fuck” because jfc, Tumblr had turned into the place where I vented. And then as I got through the months, I became happier. The pandemic was around, duh, and I didn’t have as much school stressing me out, there wasn’t as much craziness around. I was free, I didn’t have people from high school to deal with, and I got better on my own.

YEAH, I was talking to a college guy. And yeah, that was nice, but it was more of a side thing. He was my friend, and he played me, but I learned to be myself. Learned to love Enterprise wildly and give absolutely no fucks.

And it is oh so nice to give zero fucks. It’s an amazing feeling. I hope everyone gets there someday. And yeah, I’ve had moments where people don’t like me, and moments where I’ve felt down, depressed. That’s not saying life is always perfect 100% of the time.

But what I’m trying to say is: it gets better. And to me, Tumblr was like a crutch. Sometimes you need it to help you stand, but when you think you always need it, and can stand on your own, that’s where the problem is. In May, I became confident enough to let the crutch go. And I’m thankful that I did that.

I still love you guys, everyone reading this post, the people that know me and are going to miss me. It’s not that I hate this website or anything- I just stopped using it as a crutch, you know?

Where can I read this crazy fanfic? DM me, haha. It’s the classic “self-insert but NOT a self-insert” fanfiction originating form a fifth grade idea, reformatted by my depressed fourteen-year-old self. And I wouldn’t change it for the world. Yes, it’s Star Trek.

I also have one for the girl’s relative, too, which IMO is much better. She’s less overpowered, more of a real human being.

So why mention the fanfic and RP? It’s weird; I’ve come full circle. I wanted to be this perfect girl, and then I planned how she’d finish her story (and I’m finishing it. I am, I promise, because she’s a part of me that I wouldn’t trade for anything). As I’ve taken a break from the E/AP-verse (my public nickname for it haha, someone found out here) I’ve realized again, I came full circle.

All I wanted back then was to be happy and I thought a guy would do it. Popularity, a bunch of friends, a “hot body” (btw FUCK BODY SHAMING and you’re all perfect) and all that BS that the media tells you. What really gives you happiness (or at least me)? Confidence. The fact that I know I have friends I can count on here. Yeah, a relationship is nice, but complete yourself before you get into one.

And when I planned my OC’s ending back in February, that’s what she got. She’s married in my head now, to her (and my!) perfect guy, but the important part is that she’s happy, and she’s herself before she got married. Before she got in her relationship.

So, yeah. I think that covers it. In all honesty, if you have more questions, send them to the ask box and I’ll tag them and all this as “ry’s goodbye” and update my nav page. It’s 12:39 AM so please excuse any typos!

Bye, guys. For now, at least.

I love you.

[thesevillereport]

In Focus: GameStop

There may be no better feeling for a business owner than seeing a large demographic start to shift in your favor. For example, a company that specializes in faux fur or faux leather couches had to be excited when more of the society started to care about the treatment of animals and nature. Chipotle's market value increased as more Americans became health conscious, and began to question and analyze what they ate.

For video game companies the numbers started to look really really good in the early 2000s. At that time, a population of people who started playing video games on the Nintendo Entertainment System back in the 80s were beginning to graduate college and enter the "real world." A good portion of that generation, Generation X, still played video games, and now they were going to be able to financially support their own gaming habits. No more relying on mom and dad for games.

This was going to be a huge windfall of profits for gaming companies. My self for instance, by the mid 2000s, I could comfortably afford to purchase a few brand new games a month, and maybe more if I decided to cut back on something. Gaming companies were looking forward to this, and it's continued growth as more young adults stayed connected to gaming. GameStop (GME)

created a hiccup in the grand plan of the gaming companies by allowing gamers to buy and trade pre-owned games.

If you aren't aware of how it works, a customer walks into GameStop a week or two after a game is released, and asks for that game title, the GameStop employee by default sells them a pre-owned version of that game, unless the customer specifically requests a new game.

Through GameStop, brand new games were bought, played, and then sold back to GameStop. GameStop would then resell the game for a profit to another gamer, and the gaming companies only saw money from the first sale of their brand new game. To couple insult with injury, for game titles that were really in demand, GameStop would sell those used titles for only slightly less than the cost of a brand new copy.

GameStop circumvented billions of dollars from gaming manufacturers. Instead of someone like me buying two new games a month, I was often buying two used games a month, and only buying a new game when I was compelled to play a game right away, which wasn't often, because the real world left me with little time for gaming.

Operation Get Them The F*ck Out of Here

By the late 2000s and early 2010s the gaming companies had had enough of GameStop. As the Xbox One and PS4 were in the works, one of the issues both Microsoft (MSFT) and Sony (SNE) took on together was how to stop or slow the pre-owned game market.

The easy answer was to stop producing physical games, and instead just make everything digital. That ideal at the time would have mimicked the music industry, which had seen CDs all but disappear, but video games are much larger files than a full length Jay-Z album, and digital storage was getting cheaper, but it wasn't cheap at that time. Also, the internet infrastructure was still sketchy in many places around the world, and not everyone had access to high speed internet. A full game download over a bad internet connection could take hours to complete.

Microsoft flirted with an idea of a digital lock that would bound one game to one system, making it impossible for the game to be played on any other system after it was played on and matched to its host system.

Essentially, the GameStop problem was solved by gaming companies creating downloadable content or DLC. Now gaming companies sell to consumers what they say is a completed game, but then charges the consumer to make character upgrades or obtain tools that can make the game play easier or more fun. DLCs are purchased while playing the game, and have allowed game companies to get even more money out of consumers ($60 to purchase the game, and then more money spent on DLC), and it's caused gamers to keep games longer, because DLCs can extend the life of a game by adding difference levels and challenges, which again, the gamer has to pay for to access.

In addition to the DLC, the rise of smartphone gaming has been a thorn in the side of GameStop. Also, digital space is now the cheapest it's ever been, making digitally distributed games an option for gamers. Both Sony and Microsoft's newest consoles come in versions especially made for digitally distributed games. In these models, there is no CD drive to insert a physical game.

DLC, mobile gaming, and digitally distributed games together has been able severely hurt GameStop's stock price. In late 2013 the stock was trading above $55 per share, and it entered 2020 trading at under $6 per share, an 89% drop in a little over six years.

GameStop 2021

Today it appears GameStop's stock has gotten it's swagger back. The stock closed last week at $65.01, it even halted trading on Friday January 22, 2021 due to the volatility in the stock. Traders ran the stock up to as high as $77 per share on the day.

The GameStop's hype started last summer when Chewy (CHWY) co-founder Ryan Cohen's investment firm RC Ventures bought a 9% stake in GameStop. In the past week Cohen secured a board seat at GameStop, which played a big part in the week long rally in GameStop's stock.

Cohen helped build Chewy into a real player in the pet care space, which prompted PetSmart to acquire the company for over $3 billion. Investors are looking to Cohen to do it again, but this time with GameStop.

There's also a massive short squeeze that played out, that also contributed to the rocket-like rise in GameStop's stock price. The short squeeze occurred when investors who were short GameStop had to buy the stock to cover their positions as the stock price started increasing. The rapid buying of GME by short sellers to cut losses or prevent bigger losses helped to drive the stock price higher. A Barron's article suggests that GameStop short sellers have lost nearly $3 billion betting against the stock in 2021, ouch.

My Concern

My concern about the newfound love for GameStop centers around the company's problem, and what investors believe is GameStop's problem. Chewy has been applauded for its ability to survive against Amazon (AMZN)

(It's too early to say they've beaten Amazon). Because GameStop is considered a brick-and-mortar retailer, I believe investors see Amazon as the problem, which is understandable because Amazon is the problem for most brick-and-mortar retailers. Unfortunately, Amazon is not GameStop's biggest problem, and I say unfortunately because GameStop's problem is much bigger.

GameStop is disliked by the gaming industry. They're the partner none of the other partners care for. EA, Sony, Microsoft, Ubisoft, TakeTwo, Activision, they all win big with GameStop gone. With GameStop as we know it now gone, the plan I discussed earlier goes back into motion, and video game playing adults are back to buying new games all of the time, with a few going to eBay for pre-owned games. How does Cohen and his firm fix this issue?

Personally I'm out on this one, I'll watch it all play out from the sidelines. We won big shorting GameStop back in 2017, but I'm not ready to short it here. Investors should beware here at $65 per share. If you believe you see a solid pathway towards success for GameStop, and you believe that pathway leads to the company being worth more than $4 billion, then by all means, invest a way. To me, at this price level, it feels that the best possible plans for GameStop have already been incorporated into the stock price, not leaving much value to invest in at this time.

[rj-selfship]

Info Post

F/O List

Mycroft Holmes (BBC Sherlock) (since mid-April of 2017)

Greg Lestrade (BBC Sherlock) (since mid-January of 2021) (I said in my intro post that he's a really recent one)

Ship Names

Rycroft (RJ/MH) (an actual name I found on a baby name app when looking for my own dang name lol)

Rystrade (RJ/GL) (not really ripping off Mystrade - my actual first name is Ryan, so it works gdi)

Rycroftstrade (RJ/MH/GL) (kinda hastily thrown together lol but idc)

Emojis/Symbols/Nicknames (b/c I love nicknames)

MH - 🌂, My

GL - ⚜️, G

RJ - π, RJ (the pi may be in purple, depending on if I remember to do it)

Types of Content

Reblogged ask lists, and answers to those

Random shippy stuff probably

Maybe a tiny bit of NSFW? I am an adult (22), though I'm also asexual... but I also have little "AUs" where there are NSFW activities. All NSFW will be tagged as such if it is posted

Maybe some art and little bits of writing. Any art will probably be doodles, suck horribly, or be sucky doodles.

DNI

The usual list.

Other

Unlike some others, I'm not comfortable sharing F/Os. I won't be rude about it, I won't say anything (unless forced to), just... I get very very attached to people and even canon ships with my F/Os make me upset (with the recent exception of Mystrade, because that's my ship just without me)

I frequently just use abbreviations to refer to characters - initials, usually - so I may forget to change that between drafting and posting a post, just warning you. Nicknames will also probably be used very frequently in the "random shippy posts"/ship "updates" (i.e., we went to Walmart or something, lol)

I'm not really used to talking about my selfshipping as if it's actually me in the ship, since I've been writing self-insert fics forever atp and I'm used to referring to my S/I as a separate character from me, but I'm working on it.

It's a full-on polyship. We're all in love. They are annoyed by my inability to sleep rn and I'm getting at least one weird look for being on my phone at like six in the morning.

I may come up with more ship names later, and the F/O list will likely become an actual blog page, but I'm on mobile rn and I don't feel like going down to my desk to use my laptop for anything.

~RJ

[starqueen87]

October 4, 1951: Henrietta Lacks died from cervical cancer at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Henrietta Lacks was an African-American woman who was the unwitting source of cells (from her cancerous tumor) which were cultured by George Otto Gey to create the 1st known human immortal cell line for medical research.

This is now known as the HeLa cell line.

In 1955 HeLa cells were the 1st human cells successfully cloned.

HBO announced in 2010 that Oprah Winfrey and Alan Ball were developing a film project based on Skloot's book, and in 2016 filming commenced, with Winfrey in the leading role of Deborah Lacks, Henrietta's daughter.

The film The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks was released in 2017.

DIAGNOSIS:

On January 29, 1951, Henrietta went to Johns Hopkins Hospital because she felt a knot inside her. It all started when she asked her cousins to feel her belly, asking if they felt the lump that she did. Her cousins assumed correctly that she was pregnant. But, after giving birth to her fifth child, Joseph, Henrietta started bleeding abnormally and profusely. Her local doctor tested her for syphilis, which came back negative, and referred her to Johns Hopkins.

Johns Hopkins was their only choice for a hospital, since it was the only one in proximity to them that treated black patients. Howard Jones, her new doctor, examined Henrietta and the lump in her cervix. It was like nothing he had ever seen before. He cut off a small part of the tumor and sent it to the pathology lab. Soon after, Jones discovered she had a malignant epidermoid carcinoma of the cervix Stage 1 (cervical cancer).

Lacks was treated with radium tube inserts, which were sewn in place. After several days in place, the tubes were removed and she was released from Johns Hopkins with instructions to return for X-ray treatments as a follow-up. During her radiation treatments for the tumor, two samples of Henrietta's cervix were removed— a healthy part and a cancerous part— without her permission. The cells from her cervix were given to Dr. George Otto Gey. These cells would eventually become the HeLa immortal cell line, a commonly used cell line in biomedical research.

Lacks returned for the X-ray treatments. However, her condition worsened and the Hopkins doctors treated her with antibiotics, thinking that her problem might be complicated by an underlying venereal disease (she had neurosyphilis and presented with acute gonorrhea at one point as well).

DEATH:

In significant pain and without improvement, Lacks returned to Hopkins on August 8th for a treatment session but asked to be admitted. She remained at the hospital until her death.

Though she received treatment and blood transfusions, she died of uremic poisoning on October 4, 1951, at 12:30 A.M. at the age of 31. A subsequent partial autopsy showed that the cancer had metastasized throughout her body.

BURIAL:

Henrietta Lacks was buried without a tombstone in a family cemetery in Lackstown, a part of Clover in Halifax County, Virginia. Her exact burial location is not known, although the family believes it is within feet of her mother's gravesite. Lackstown is the name of the land that has been held by the (black) Lacks family since they received it from the (white) Lacks family, who had owned the ancestors of the black Lackses when slavery was legal. Many members of the black Lacks family were also descended from the white Lacks family. A row of boxwoods separates the graves of whites from those of the blacks buried in the family cemetery. For decades, Henrietta Lacks' mother has had the only tombstone of the five graves in the family cemetery in Lackstown.

In 2010, however, Dr. Roland Pattillo of the Morehouse School of Medicine donated a headstone for Lacks after reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. The headstone, which is shaped like a book, her grandchildren wrote her epitaph:

"Henrietta Lacks August 01, 1920 – October 04, 1951

In loving memory of a phenomenal woman, wife and mother who touched the lives of many. Here lies Henrietta Lacks (HeLa). Her immortal cells will continue to help mankind forever. Eternal Love and Admiration, From Your Family"

RECOGNITION & LEGACY:

●In 1996, Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, the state of Georgia and the mayor of Atlanta recognized the late Henrietta Lacks' family for her posthumous contributions to medicine and health research.

●Her life was commemorated annually by Turners Station residents for a few years after Morehouse's commemoration.

●A congressional resolution in her honor was presented by Robert Ehrlich following soon after the first commemoration of her, her family, and her contributions to science in Turners Station.

●Events in the Turners Station's community have also commemorated the contributions of others including Mary Kubicek, the laboratory assistant who discovered that HeLa cells lived outside the body, as well as Dr. Gey and his nurse wife, Margaret Gey, who together after over 20 years of attempts were eventually able to grow human cells outside of the body.

●In 2011, Morgan State University granted her a posthumous honorary degree.

●On September 14, 2011, the Board of Directors of Washington ESD 114 Evergreen School District chose to name a new health and bioscience high school in her honor. The new school, scheduled to open in the fall of 2013, will be named Henrietta Lacks Health and Bioscience High School. "It is such an honor to name our new school after a person who so impacted the world of medicine and science," said school board member Victoria Bradford, who also served on the naming committee. "It is also a privilege to be the first organization to publicly memorialize Henrietta Lacks by naming this school building after her."

●October 11, in Atlanta, Georgia, is Henrietta Lacks' Day

IN THE MEDIA:

■In 1998, a one-hour BBC documentary on Lacks and HeLa directed by Adam Curtis, won the Best Science and Nature Documentary at the San Francisco International Film Festival. Immediately following the film's airing in 1997, an article on HeLa cells, Lacks, and her family was published by reporter Jacques Kelly in The Baltimore Sun.

■In the 1990s, the Dundalk Eagle published the first article on her in a newspaper in Baltimore City and Baltimore County, and it continues to announce upcoming local commemorative activities.

■The Lacks family was also honored at the Smithsonian Institution.

■In 2001, it was announced that the National Foundation for Cancer Research would be honoring "the late Henrietta Lacks for the contributions made to cancer research and modern medicine" on September 14. Because of the events of September 11, 2001, the event was canceled.

■In 2000 Mal Webb released a CD with a song about Lacks called Helen Lane.

■In her 2010 book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, Rebecca Skloot documents the histories of both the HeLa cell line and the Lacks family. Henrietta's husband, David Lacks, was told little following her death. Suspicions fueled by racial issues prevalent in the South (see Night Doctors) were compounded by issues of class and education. For their part, members of the Lacks family were kept in the dark about the existence of the tissue line. When its existence was revealed in two articles written in March 1976 by Michael Rogers, one in the Detroit Free Press and one in Rolling Stone, family members were confused about how Henrietta's cells could have been taken without consent and how they could still be alive 25 years after her death.

■In May 2010, The Virginian-Pilot published two articles on Lacks, HeLa, and her family.

■On May 17, 2010, NBC ran a fictionalized version of Lacks' story on Law & Order, titled "Immortal". An article in Slate called the episode "shockingly close to the true story."

■On May 31, 2011 Jello Biafra and the Guantanamo School of Medicine released the CD Enhanced Methods of Questioning with a song about Henrietta Lacks and the HeLa immortal cell line called "The Cells That Will Not Die".

■In May of 2012, self-proclaimed "Middle Eastern-psych-snap-gospel" band Yeasayer officially released "Henrietta", the first single from their third album "Fragrant World". Lead singer Chris Keating reports that Henrietta Lacks' legacy inspired the creation of this song.

LAW & ETHICS:

◆Neither Lacks nor her family gave her physician permission to harvest the cells. At that time, permission was neither required nor customarily sought. The cells were later commercialized.

◆In the 1980s, family medical records were published without family consent.

◆In March 2013, German researchers published the DNA code, or genome, of a strain of HeLa cells without permission from the Lacks family. This issue and Mrs. Lacks' situation was brought up in the Supreme Court of California case of Moore v. Regents of the University of California. On July 9, 1990, the court ruled that a person's discarded tissue and cells are not their property and can be commercialized.

◆In August 2013, an agreement by the family and the National Institutes of Health was announced that gave the family some control over access to the cells' DNA code and a promise of acknowledgement in scientific papers. In addition, two family members will join a six-member committee which will regulate access to the code.

[awkwardtaco056]

so now that i’m no longer in the Hell that was school and after finding the lovely blog @endcringe i’ve decided to talk about my own experiences with cringe culture, bullying, and why it’s Really Bad to not let people enjoy inherently harmless things, especially neurodivergent people (read more because this is gonna get long and triggering at times, TW for mentions of bullying, suicide, child abuse, a brief mention of incest shipping. I won’t be naming any of the peers that I discuss my experiences with, because my point with this post is Not to “cancel” anyone, I just want to speak out on my experiences)

I’m neurodivergent; I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was 8 years old. I didn’t know a lot about it, and a family member even painted it as “oh it’s nothing blah blah blah just apply yourself more. Because of this, I had no idea about the concept of hyperfixations until I was in my late teens. Due to that, I would obsess over random things and my family would shame me relentlessly for it. My mother said I had an “addictive personality” and that she feared I’d end up a drug addict or alcoholic because of it.

I look younger than what I am, I’m short, and small. AKA, the perfect candidate for being picked on by people bigger and stronger than me. People made fun of my art when I was around 13, but fortunately that was an instance where spite fueled me to improve drastically. However, just because I happened to take the shitty comments and have it fuel me then does NOT mean bullying people will have that effect all the time. At some point someone put my old South Park fan art on a cringe blog. I was temporarily hurt, and a little angry, but I realized that if someone was making fun of a 15 year old’s art, they probably didn’t have much going for them in life, so I moved on.

Fast forward to high school. Everything was horrible and I’m not exaggerating when I say I barely made it out alive. I was living in an abusive household up until January 2018 and I found comfort in many different interests. I’ve always found great comfort in music and the arts in general. In 2016, I drew a picture of a mermaid. I was inspired by the chocolate opal gemstone, and I thought it’d be fun to draw a gay chubby mermaid with dark skin and a rainbow tail and freckles. Junior year was lousy and I wanted something that sparked Joy. I was immediately told that “scientifically, mermaids wouldn’t look like that. Mind you, my take looked like this:

Obviously I wasn’t going for realism, I just wanted to draw a cute mermaid. However, they continued to tell me that they wouldn’t look like that, going as far as writing so on the back of said drawing. When I got angry at her for taking it too far (as I’d established before that I didn’t like it when people wrote on my art without permission), they got angry back, accusing me of being unable to take criticism. Heated by the accusation, I went as far as asking my art teacher if it was fair for them to say that, and she said no, stating that constructive criticism would be talking about how I could improve my lineart and coloring in the digital version. I took her actual helpful criticism and since then have improved Drastically in digital art. Even with that being said, I found myself hesitant to participate in things such as MerMay because I was leery of hearing that peer berate me for having cartoony mermaids. 

 During high school I grew to love many musicians, a lot of emo/alternative stuff, a couple being Twenty One Pilots and Melanie Martinez. I love how unique TOP’s style is, their open discussion of mental illness, and as someone who had a rough childhood, I connected with every single song on Cry Baby. It was like nothing I’d ever heard. I started listening to mashups featuring all these different artists I love, adoring how they could change the tone and sound so drastically. A peer Bully of mine in junior year condemned these two artists, declaring that they made “Bad Music” simply because it didn’t fit their tastes. They’d throw my drawings on the ground, write over them in pen, steal my headphones so I couldn’t listen to music, push me around, complain that mashups sucked and gave them a headache, and in general shit all over conetnt that was actively preventing me from committing suicide. 

Some family members were no better. Once high school hit, I began listening to Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco, and My Chemical Romance. Their deep complex lyrics stuck with me. I would write down quotes from my favorite songs and thanks to hyperfixating, I remember each studio album in order My mother resented when I fell in love with the “Emo Trinity” because “the Columbine  shooters were emo and that event traumatized me” Despite that, not only did the Columbine tragedy occur in 1999 and none of the bands got together until the early 2000s, but I have a pretty good feeling those groups aren’t For gun violence. The other side constantly criticized the fact that I love FOB, P!ATD, and MCR because I’m black and “why must you listen to that white people music.”

 I grew fond of Dan and Phil in high school (and I’m still a fan to this day!), I loved Phil’s kindness and positive aura and I deeply connect with Dan’s sense of humor and personality. Their content made me happy during some very dark times in my life. It’s November 2017, I’m over a close peer’s house at the time, and notice PINOF is upon us. I drew the PINOF whiskers on my face, my plan being to quietly watch them in the corner of peer’s bedroom on my phone through headphones, the others were doing their own thing and I knew they didn’t like them, so I thought they’d respect it if I silently indulged in it. Unfortunately, the complete opposite happened. I was immediately shunned and locked out of the bedroom, told that I’d only be let back in if I washed the whiskers off because “absolutely not”. Me, being stubborn, washed them off temporarily but drew them back on in the room. Life during then was especially bad for me, as the abusive household I was in was getting worse. They noticed, of course, and even though all I wanted was to enjoy this small tradition in a time during a deep depression, I was immediately shoved out the room and locked out, only to have said peer’s family members notice. I’m a relatively shy person, so this was honesty a really harrowing experience that had a lasting effect on me. 

I grew to adore Sanders Sides as well, but the moment I found out most of my peers didn’t like Thomas, I was terrified.  I stopped watching Dan and Phil’s content for months and shied away from other fandoms too, only occasionally indulging in times of complete solitude. One time when said peers were due to visit my house for the first time, I saw the Phandom and Fander stuff I’d hung up on my wall in my little sanctuary that was my bedroom (it was the first time in years I’d had my own room), and I was filled with panic and fear. I took them down and hid them away, genuinely terrified of what they’d do to me if they saw. It’s still incites so much anger in me to this day because they turned around and ended up shipping incest, but somehow liking D&P and Sanders Sides was So. Much. Worse.

They were baffled by my actions, despite having humiliated me Twice by going on a private blog of mine separate from everything so that I could fully indulge and laughing at everything on there, once at a peer’s house, once right in school. I don’t think they realized how traumatizing it was to have a large group of people in public laughing at something I was deeply self conscious about for all of my life. I put on a brave face at the time, but ended up crying in the bathroom after first period began. I continued to be treated as lesser until things came to an ugly head August 2018 when I ended up in the hospital because I nearly attempted suicide. Years of child abuse, bullying, and being deemed “cringy” made me feel like I didn’t deserve to be alive, that everyone would be happier if I were gone.

After arguably one of the lowest points in my life, I cut them off and slowly began to embrace the Real Me. I started letting myself enjoy the things again, made true friends and even found love, my first boyfriend ever at 18. I still get choked up retelling it, but when PINOF 10 dropped, after he found out how much I’d been hurt over the incident in 2017, I was greeted with a photo of him with the whiskers on his face. I cried for a while, blown away at such a pure act of kindness. He listens to me ramble about my interests, he compliments my taste in music, he watched K-12 with me. 

This got incredibly long, but my point is this: Cringe Culture hurts people. You might think it’s whatever if the Thing doesn’t apply to your interests, but content you’re denouncing as cringy could be something that’s keeping them alive, that one flicker of light in a void of darkness. When I was contemplating suicide, I listened to The Black Parade, repeating Gee’s words to myself over and over, that nothing in the world was worth hurting yourself over. Some friendly joshing here and there is okay, but actively ripping someone to shreds constantly to the point where they have a mental breakdown in front of you and later on plan their own demise is disgusting. Nobody should abuse anyone for having harmless interests, no one. Unless you’re participating in p*dophilic/inc*st/s*xual assault/inherently abusive ships/content and pretending it’s not bad because “Fiction doesn’t impact reality!”, you have every right to like what you like and be happy. Read homestuck. Play Undertale. Draw up the Wildest OCs you can imagine. And stay away from people who try to rob you of innocent fun, life is too short and in this cruel, unforgiving world, you deserve to be happy, whether you’re a 13 year old who draws cute furries, a 16 year old cosplayer on TikTok, a VSCO girl, a 30 year old who writes/draws self insert art or a 20 year old who adores Invader Zim. 

Cringe Culture is just bullying under a different name, and it can lead to many instances of people, especially fellow neurodivergent folk to feel isolated and ostracized. Attempting to bully someone out of an interest they have isn’t going to fix them; it’s more often than not going to cause more damage. I suffer from diagnosed C-PTSD, anxiety, and depression, and sometimes I still find myself trying to over-justify my interests. To all who are roped up in bad homes and lousy “friends” who berate you for your innocent passions, I’m sorry you’re suffering, things will one day get better even if it doesn’t feel like it, and fuck those people. I’d also like to note that sometimes even if it seems more terrifying, it’s better to have one or two close friends you can truly trust than a whole group that walks all over you. You have every right to call them out for treating you poorly, and if things don’t improve, you also have every right to leave.

You have a right to live your True Self.

[obsessivelollipoplalala]

Even before COVID so much needless horror happened since January 2017, but if you look at 170k dead in 5 months and still self-righteously proclaim how you won’t vote because [insert excuse here], I think nothing can convince you. You’re a stupid asshole, in that order.

[ashiiblack]

Year in Review 2019

Total word count: 

Total fics written: 24 (a LOT of these are less than 1k)

Fandoms written in: BNHA, Yuri!!! on Ice, Harry Potter, Free!, and MCU

Chronological list of fics (in the order posted on AO3, not written)

Romance at the Roasted Bean (Harry/Draco, T, 1k) - Draco has a secret admirer.

Start With a Cold Brew (Victor/Yuri P, E, 5k) - Coffee Shop AU (this was technically written in 2018 but was in its exclusivity period for Victurio Anthology)

the music plays bitter, plays sweet (Harry/Draco, M, 1k) - Angsty with a hopeful ending of Harry’s marriage to Ginny ending.

The Taste of Something Different (Harry/Draco, T, 1k) - Harry is getting increasingly frustrated with his Auror partner’s inability to get him the right food.

Shining Bright (JJ/Yuri, T, 5k) - Five times JJ fails at asking out Yuri and the one time he succeeds (another 2018 fic in exclusivity for YOI Litmag).

The 80th Floor (Kirishima/Bakugou, M, 1k) - A deleted scene from the BNHA movie answering the question of how krbk ended up on the 80th floor.

Scars You Can’t See (Kirishima/Bakugou, G, 300 words) - Kirishima trying to comfort Bakugou after Kamino.

Strawberries (on your lips) (Kirishima/Bakugou, T, 900 words) - Studying with Kirishima turns into something unexpected.

The Bakugou Problem (Kirishima/Bakugou, T, 2k) - The Bakusquad decide to get Kirishima and Bakugou to date. Chaos ensues.

Fate Can Suck It (Kirishima/Bakugou, T, 3k) - Soulmate AU

I’ll unfold before you (Kirishima/Bakugou, E, 2k) - Post BNHA movie (and a sort of sequel to The 80th Floor)

Morning Light (Kirishima/Bakugou, T, 400 words) - After their first night together, Kirishima wakes up with Bakugou in his arms.

the fear of seeing death without ever loving you (Steve/Tony, E, 3k) - Steve returns the stones to their proper place but can’t help but see Tony one last time.

Truths in Letters (Harry/Draco, T, 5k) - Harry and Draco participate in a Guess the Penfriend inter-house unity game with interesting results. Epistolary fic written with just_another_loser.

Win-Win (Kirishima/Bakugou, E, 1500 words) - Bakugou likes that Kirishima can take his blasts. Kirishima just likes Bakugou.

Dare Me (Kirishima/Bakugou, T, 1500 words) - Uraraka gives Bakugou a dare. Eijirou isn’t sure what to think of it.

First Date (Kirishima/Bakugou, T, 1k) - Going from best friends to boyfriends isn’t the smoothest transition, but Bakugou and Kirishima make it work. (fun fact - this fic is based on @icicle33‘s Sims characters).

so good to be yours (Makoto/Haru, E, 2k) - Makoto visits Sydney while Haru is at a training camp for the Olympics. While things are awkward at first, they find their rhythm together again.

The Note (Kirishima/Bakugou, T, 1500 words) - Kirishima leaves a note to Bakugou on his desk confessing his crush to him. Humor and misunderstandings ensue.

everyday i want more of you (Kirishima/Bakugou, T, 2k) - Seven somewhat connected 300 word drabbles written for Chill November. Basically all krbk fluff.

Out of the Slipstream (Kirishima/Bakugou, E, 15k) - The professional road cycling AU no one asked for but I wrote it anyway.

Beauty, Like the Night (Iida/Aoyama, M, 10k) - A classic example of having to write the fic you want to read. Iida has a crush on Aoyama but it isn’t proper for a future hero to lust after his classmates.

Spark (Endeavor/Hawks, E, 2k) - When what Keigo thinks is a casual hookup suddenly becomes something more.

There’s also a week’s worth of BNHA Fluff Week Drabbles I wrote in June.

From my past year of writing…

My best story of this year: Honestly, probably my Stony fic. I was so raw after Endgame and this fic was screaming to be written. My most popular story of this year (by kudos, comments or notes): Stony again. One of those rare times I agree with stats.

Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: Take a chance on The Note? It’s only 1500 words. Most fun story to write: Beauty, Like the Night. Iidayama is my favorite rare ship and I fucking love Iida so much. Hardest story to write: Probably my cycling au. After thinking about this fic for so long, I really got in my head about it and didn’t feel like anything was good enough. Biggest disappointment: My drarry fics have been pretty off as of late. It doesn’t help when I have krbk basically always on my mind. Biggest surprise: Fun fact - I’m not a big fan of soulmate au tropes so I was pretty surprised Fate Can Suck It was so well received lmao. Honestly though I’ve warmed up to the genre since I wrote this one.

Most unintentionally telling story: Probably Stony again. I usually self insert into Tony but this time I went way into Steve.

Favorite Opening Lines: “We have a problem.” The Bakugou Problem

Favorite Closing Lines: “For now, they can sleep.” the fear of seeing death without ever loving you

Reflection time Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d predicted? I wrote a lot less. My goal was 100k and I ended up just shy of 65k. What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January? BNHA/Kiribaku/Endhawks. I fell pretty hard for krbk at the end of the first season then came the sports festival and their beautiful ship moments just kept coming. Endhawks I have no excuse other than they’re hot af together and so much opportunity for angst with feelings. What’s your own favorite story of the year? Dude idk. A lot of what I wrote was fun ficlets. I’m gonna have to go with either my cycling AU or iidayama. I know I said I struggled with the cycling au but I’m fairly happy with how it turned out. Did you take any writing risks this year? Not exactly. The Stony was definitely different from my usual style. Do you have any fanfic goals for the new year? Gonna shoot for 100k for 2020 again. I’m doing the Tododeku Big Bang and then I have two Kiribaku ideas I’m going to write. One will be a oneshot and the other will likely be a longer fic. I’d also like to do some sort of drabble event because I really enjoy the challenge with a limited word count.

Decade wrapped

If you’re still with me, I want to briefly reflect on my decade of fanfiction. I’ve been writing fic since 2002 but I fell in and out of it through high school. I didn’t really get back into writing until 2010 toward the very end of college. I met @icicle33 thru ffnet at the end of 2011 and she introduced me to LJ events and fests and exchanges and my writing style developed a ton. I fell out of it a bit in the middle of the decade but came back in full force in 2017 (thanks again in large part to Icicle), especially once I joined YOI fandom. In this decade, I’ve written/posted roughly 600k words (I feel like the distinction is important because I also have about 100k of unposted WIP/outline/nonsense). I’ve made friends, enemies, laughed, cried, met multiple fandom friends irl including my darling @phaytesworld and Icicle, modded and written for zines, and so much more. Writing has always been a way for me to explore a different side of myself, to play in a sandbox with no stakes. I can’t imagine where I would be without it. Here’s to another 10 years and you can bet in 2029 my old ass will still be writing. Should the world have ended by then, you can find me in hell writing porn.