#so hopefully we'll have a lot of participation again this year!!!!

[thebabycup]

test, test. is this thing on?

hang on to your hats and glasses, because tomorrow shits about to go down

[echoes-in-echoclan]

Took long enough- Here are the kits!! The sweeties <3

Also! Important announcements! Don't let the wall of text spook you, it's all good things

I guess this is a general rundown of the future of EchoClan over the summer! I'm having so much fun with this Clan, but I also have other responsibilities. I'll be working part time and working on my portfolio. I've decided to pursue rigging (for 3D animation), and in order to have any chance of jobs/internships I need to start on that. So that'll hopefully be one of my main focuses! Another thing I want to do is focus more on my personal art. I've neglected it a lot this semester, and I've been wanting to go back into things with my OCs and stories. Within the next few months I'll try making a personal art blog too. So all that to say, EchoClan won't be my #1 top priority over the summer. But worry not! I'll still be working on it! I'm going to try to get more of a backlog before I step back so you guys will still have 1-2 pages a week.

Speaking of posting every week, these next few weeks will be a little bit more radio silent on my end. I'll be going overseas for two weeks to study abroad! I'm incredibly excited, but that also means posting moons will be put on hold for a little. Any asks will be answered without any pictures or with traditional art! But again, no moons will be posted until I return. I think I'll post one more moon before I leave? But we'll see!

I participate in Art Fight every year in July! So during July I will be focusing on that rather than asks or moons. More info coming soon!

I'm also toying around with the idea of a timeskip. I have skipped all the way to moon 60 in the game, and I am stopping there for now. When we reach moon 60, I will be giving you guys the choice of whether or not I timeskip. If a timeskip is chosen, more options for the amount of time + circumstances will be provided. I want to keep providing new and exciting stories for EchoClan! And if that means doing a time skip, then so be it!

Thank you all for being so patient with me these past few months. School really kicked my butt, and even then I still have a few more finals + my study abroad trip. You all are the best <3 big things are coming to this clan that I can't wait to show you!

TL;DR: EchoClan is still going and will still keep happening but I'm also doing other things

[rwrbnygiftexchange]

Hello hello hello!

I'm seeing various fandoms start up plans for their holiday gift exchanges again, so I thought I'd dust this blog off too.

I know last year (this year? depends on how you look at it?) was a bit of a mess, but I hope everyone enjoyed themselves nonetheless.

With the sequel in the works we'll hopefully have a lot RWRB content coming our way in 2025, and what better way to start that year than doing another New Year's gift exchange?

So without further ado...

This is about participation only. If you think you won't have time but would still read/like/reblog people's creations, that's great, but then we'll just "see" you on New Year's Day 2025.

If enough people are interested, I'll set something up - and I'll probably make some changes to make things easier on myself and make it less messy this time around.

Reblog to spread the word!

[dreamlingbingo]

That's all, folks!

Round Two is now officially over! YAAAY!!

Congratulations to everyone who got a blackout with their cards, it was a lot of fun to watch the final submissions come in as we got closer to the end. Hopefully you all had fun and got some much needed rest after you finished! :D

We also wanted to give a shout out to everyone who submitted a fill even if you weren't able to finish your card. It takes a lot of work to create something and it's been a hectic year so you should still be proud of what you've accomplished! <3

If you weren't able to participate, then thank you for signing up all the same! The goal of the bingo has always been to inspire more works for the Dreamling fandom so if our event got you to even think about creating something then we consider that a success.

So a big thank you to everyone for joining us and leaving us all the lovely feedback in emails, tumblr posts and with the feedback survey. It's been fantastic to see how much fun you all had and, not only that, but all your feedback helps us see how we can make improvements for our next round.

To wrap things up, here are some final things:

We've sent out emails to everyone with a list of the fills we've received from you, if anything is wrong (or you'd like to get your badges faster) then please reply to the email by November 9th.

The email also has a feedback survey for all current participants that we'd really appreciate if you could fill out before it closes at the end of November.

If you wanted to make an OPTIONAL masterlist to advertise all the fills you made for the bingo then please either send us a link, mention @dreamlingbingo in the post or send it to us as a submission. These are due by November 15th!

We still have some final fills in our queue, but after those finish everyone's masterlists will go out and then we're completely done for the round.

Round 3 is still a ways away so we can’t make any promises on when we'll be back, but we’ll be able to confirm the schedule as we get closer to next year, so keep an eye out!

If you’re interested in some fun bingo prompt info or want to keep creating for your bingo card and have questions, keep reading!

If not, thank you for joining us.

See you next time!

——-

If you planned to keep creating for your bingo card…

The AO3 Collection for Round 2 will be left open for late entries until the end of November, but it won't qualify for badges unless it was submitted before the fill form closed.

If you plan to post something on tumblr you can drop it in the 2024 dreamling bingo tag so others can still find it. The posting guidelines aren't required for the tag so it's up to you if want to use them. :)

We're not going to be reblogging anything during our downtime, but we'll have promotional posts for the tag queued to help direct people to your work.

Keep in mind that you'll be able transfer a certain number of squares from your current card (completed or not) to your new card in Round 3 if you sign up again, but you won't be able to use previously posted work to fill the square! So be careful not to use a work you'd want to use during the next round.

——-

Finally, nerdy stuff!

TOP THREE PROMPTS PER CATEGORY:

ANGST

Haunted By Regrets

Brainwashing

Character Death

AU

Alpha/Beta Relationship

Crossover (Book)

Omega Hob

CREATURE

Android

Barghest

Feral

FANTASY

Magic

Woke Up Dead

Healing Touch

GENERAL

Love At First Sight

Missed Opportunities

Sparring

HISTORICAL

Circus

Library Of Alexandria

1700's

NSFW

Come Swallowing

Exhibitionism

Furry

SCI-FI

Steampunk

Technology Stops Working

Time Traveler Organization

SPORTS

Rival Coaches

Skateboarding

Sports Rivals

TOP MONTHLY PROMPTS:

July - Knight!Hob

August - Identity reveal

September - Insomnia

October - Injury recovery

TOP ADOPTABLE:

Bound And Gagged

TOP COMMUNITY SUGGESTION:

Retired Dream

Clockwise starting from “Angst”:

Angst: 11.4%

AU: 11.6%

Creature: 6.8%

Fantasy: 7.3%

General: 29.2%

Historical: 6.6%

NSFW: 16.2%

Sci-fi: 5.3% (not labeled above)

Sports: 5.7%

[stereopticons]

Fic Writing Review 2023

Thanks for the tag @hippolotamus!

Rules: Feel free to show whatever stats you have. Only want to show Ao3 stats? Rock on. Want to include some quantitative info instead of stats? Please do this. Want to change how yours is presented? Absolutely do that. Would rather eat glass than do this? Please don’t eat glass but don’t feel like you have to do this either.

Words and Fics

53,271 words published to ao3

an estimated 31,700 unpublished words in WIPs written this year

2 published fandoms (Schitt's Creek and RWRB) and one unpublished (911)

Most recent drop: currently two advent drabble collections: ribbons and bows (SC) and my only wish is one more year (and then i want them all) (RWRB)

Longest (published) fic: we were loud like love (david/patrick, E, 5.1k) (it was a rough year)

Caveat to that is that indie band patrick is currently ~26k and unpublished, all of that was written this year

Top Fics by Kudos

never knew a home until i found your hands (alex/henry, E, 1k)

paint me up (you're my favorite color) (david/patrick, E, 2.5k)

in the long tresses of your hair (i am a babbling brook) (david/patrick, T, 1.3k)

let my love fix you up (david/patrick, T, 1.7k)

tangle and stretch (david/patrick, T, 3.3k)

My fandom fic events in 2023

Raisins in Zhampagne New Years Exchange: the world would make sense again (if i held your hand) (twylexis, T, 2.7k)

Schitt's Creek Rare Fest: your secret's safe with me (stevie/ruth, M, 3.1k)

World BDSM Day Writing Challenge (yes, I'm counting events I made up): catch my breath to breathe your name (david/patrick, E, 300)

Schitt's Creek Passions and Pastimes Fest: crossed words and open hearts (david/patrick, E, 2.6k) and parallax (collab with @indestructibleheart, david/patrick, T, 5k)

Smutsgiving part one and part two

+1-2 fics for Schitt's Creek Frozen Over

Upcoming Events and Projects for 2024

to finish and publish:

certain songs (aka, indie band patrick): David, owner of the recently re-opened Perennial gallery in New York gets dragged by Stevie to a show where the indie band the Creek Waders are performing. He crosses paths with the frontman and guitarist, Patrick, and finds himself intrigued. Mutual pining, David being an idiot, discussions about queer art, Stevie ex machina, etc etc.

gather up the avenues: David and Patrick dated while in New York but broke up, now neither of them can stand to be in the city because of all the memories. Patrick drives back home to Canada, but ends up stopping in a small town with a ridiculous sign, while David flees to the place with the stupid name his dad bought him for his birthday when he was a kid. I think you can see where this is going.

come on, get higher, loosen my lips: five times alex and henry talk on the phone and one time they wake up together (workshopping this description lol). Actually hoping to finish and publish this in 2023 but we'll see how it goes.

I have a lot of other projects I'd like to finish but I'm not going to list them all here. We'll see how this year goes. I also love an event (clearly) so plan to participate in some of those as they come up (hopefully for both SC and RWRB).

Tagging @indestructibleheart @blackandwhiteandrose @kiwiana-writes @rosedavid @mostlyinthemorning @apothecarose @lizzie-bennetdarcy @smblmn @myheartalivewrites @missgeevious

[gracetopher-week]

Gracetopher Week: 2023 Event

Hello fellow gracetopher lovers! Welcome to Gracetopher Week where we celebrate gracetopher and ignore canon following Chain of Iron. We hosted Gracetopher Week last year and we're super excited to do it again this year! No pressure to participate but we'd love it if you would spread the word and support our wonderful TSC creators and fans this week 🤍. This is also a fun way to keep the fandom alive after TLH has been finished.

Day 1, August 1:

We're going to start simple. Reblog day!

Recommend or just reblog a few fics, art pieces, headcanons, or anything else Gracetopher that you've enjoyed and tag it: #gracetopher week.

Support each other and help people find more content for our underrated ship.

Day 2, August 2:

Because everyone usually has varying ideas about a ship/characters in a story: Headcanon day!

Tell us your thoughts/ideas and headcanons about gracetopher. Post a list or just one headcanon or submit a post/send an ask to a gracetopher creator/blog you know of. Don't forget to tag!

Headcanons are an excellent way to lead up to days 3 and 4 and 6!

Day 3, August 3:

Fic day! Today is for the writers!

Today is a short fic day and we recommend only one shots and drabbles because we'll be posting an AU/Canon Divergence day later, but long one shots are always welcome. Tag with #gracetopher week.

Support your fellow writers/fandom writers!

Day 4, August 4:

AU Day!! And it's a free for all!

Write/Draw/Headcanon/Explain any AU you can possibly thank up for Gracetopher. Don't forget to tag!

There's a lot of ways to create for this, and any AU is welcome!

Day 5, August 5:

A little break from writing anything, whether it be fics or headcanons. Edit Day!

Make an edit or post a picture or make something visual for gracetopher! Simple or complex.

We love to see the variations in edits and there's a lot of different ways to create them. Have fun with this one especially! Be sure to tag with #gracetopher week.

Day 6, August 6:

Fanart Day! Everyone has hopefully had enough time to prepare something special for later in the week.

Post fanart for our lovely couple. It can be one or both of them and any artists/art style amount of drawings are welcome.

Support your artists and fellow creators today!

Day 7, August 7:

We're going off with a bang since we're all still recovering from CoT. We have special instructions for today!

Tell us your headcanons and ideas or create something, anything, for Grace and Christopher in canon. They're happy healthy and living happily ever after today. Make sure to tag it as follows: #gracetopher week AND #christopher lightwood lives!

Canon isn't here today.

--------------------------

Thank you all so much for celebrating and we're so happy to host another gracetopher week. Feel free to @ us but we'll be browsing the tags for content to reblog here. You can find most posts and creations on this blog if you don't know where to look. Happy Gracetopher Week! 🤍

[maribatserver]

Tag Team Tournament 2024 - Special Acknowledgements

This year saw a lot of great submissions and great players, and as we love to honor creativity here we have a few special awards to share!

First, we'd like to take a moment to honor our artists, few and far between as they often are:

Both @velveteenshadow and @tree-reads created art for this year's Tournament, and we hope that you'll take the time to check it out.

As usually happens over the course of our Tournament, your creativity takes you in exciting new directions, and we love to see it.

We added a special new bonus for collaborative works to encourage people to work together this year, and @velveteenshadow and nory_gail took us up on that by co-writing multiple bullet fics for the Tournament. Hopefully next year we'll see more creators working together and inspiring each other, because it sounds like they had fun with this.

This year was also the first year that we decided to start accepting chapter updates to existing works, since those are just as exciting to see as new fics.

Many thanks to @olivia-anderson-fanfic for clawing his way out of fandom retirement to update some of his Maribat WIPs in the name of participating in our tournament again. We were delighted to see you back!

Another new facet to this year's tournament came in the form of our Team Playlists, which @newdog14 created to try and inspire you all. To her glee, she succeeded with at least one player.

Thank you @tree-reads for using the Art Couple playlist as inspiration for fics, you made Newsie squeal smugly (which we didn't know you could do) and she is never going to shut up about this.

It wouldn't be the Tag Team Tournament without prompt stacks, though this year only one work took on the challenge of using them all.

A round of applause for @velveteenshadow and Nory_Gail for using all of our prompts in one submission. Bravo!

Last but not least, a thank you to the unsung heroes of several teams, whose dedication ensured their team wouldn't end up in last place.

With the Tag Team Tournament over, our Team Playlists will remain public for all those who enjoyed them. They may also grow, now that there's nothing to say it's unfair if one has more songs than another. Thank you to everyone who listened to them, and we hope that you'll continue listening so that you might be inspired another day.

With our special awards accounted for, we'll move on to what we know you've all been waiting for with baited breath: The Tournament Top Dogs.

[meg2md]

We're recovering.

A month on gynecology, my favorite rotation, helped. Better hours, got to participate in a couple of hysterectomies (doing about 1/3 as an R2 isn't bad, and even got a couple vag hysts under my belt), went to the gym more frequently, spent time with MIGS attendings and made some decisions/organized plans to move me towards MIGS applications next year, deepened some friendships.

I'm on MFM now, which I'm neutral towards. I hated it last block, but this block I'm mentally doing better. I'm motivated to read (I've gone pretty in depth on cervical insufficiency and incidental short cervical lengths, aortopathies, anticoagulation in pregnancy, and syphilis). I don't like early hours and long MFM rounding, but I do like reading! I do like learning! I've enjoyed listening to my attendings diffuse hard situations (a 30 weeker with ICP demanding delivery) and bad news (a new diagnosis at term of fetal hypoplastic left heart syndrome). Nothing I want to do in my career, but it's at list enriching to experience.

I'm making small steps with research: submitted my first IRB for my residency project, made my second round of manuscript revisions for for my medical school project, trying to get an away research rotation to bolster my CV for MIGS. I'm slowly putting project pieces together for my advocacy extracurriculars: organizing an ACOG event, building a webinar for the new OB/GYN application. I got back into my favorite organization app (Omnifocus) and am trying to keep on top of all these tasks and my bills and the miscellaneous texts I need to send. I feel like maybe things are coming together.

I am, however, struggling to balance learning and free time. I come home and read, read, read for work and then don't get a lot of free time and get overwhelmed and burn out. A symptom of my new ADHD diagnosis? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Doesn't matter, I still need to figure out how to cope. It's Sunday and I'm working on MFM and MFM-adjacent things until 5 PM and then I'll try to relax. One of my best friends visited this weekend which was the only reason I wasn't working unnecessarily hard on Saturday.

I go to nights next. 5 weeks of it, which will be the longest I've ever done. I like nights in the sense that at this point in the year I'll hopefully be first pick for arrest cesareans, and my job will be keeping an eye on antepartum and covering the gyne service/consults. Ante is usually somewhat quiet overnight and I like gyne. But 5 weeks? 14-16 h shifts? No sunlight, free time? It will be rough. At least I have 4/5 weekends. And I'll be working on this new medication trial. Which is a mess in and of itself.

But, again, we're healing. And I'm working really, really hard to make sure I'm set up for success as I become a senior next year, especially with being the Saturday 24 h call chief taking care of every single service! It's terrifying but also exciting, because while the growth is going to be fucking painful, I'll be so well-prepared for my true chief year coming out of it.

So uhhhh. We'll see. Life is ups and downs. Finally, I'm on a long-overdue upswing.

[sockeye-run]

Up early on a Saturday (it's my Friday) again. Usually I get to work early to open the cafe for breakfast service so that our bee pick up customers have a coffee and hot food option on site; a lot of them drive for hours to pick up their nucs and packages, even from out of state. Just coming from north Texas is basically out of state by sheer distance alone lol.

But today is BuzzFest, our annual summer festival about all things bees. We have the American Honey Princess visiting from Iowa, multiple other apiaries and honey producers vending and doing demonstrations, honey tastings and trivia, educational demonstrations, food trucks and arts and crafts and games (including a bouncy castle and a water slide!)... It's expected to be a big event, hopefully nearing 1,000+ customers between 11-3 today.

I'm assigned to retail, so I'm lucky enough to get to stay in the shade and AC. I've been told that when in retail, you just stand behind the register all day, no time or space to do anything else. You have to force bathroom and food breaks for each other. I'm not too worried, I've worked many a high volume, high chaos event before. This is just my first experience with it at the farm. We've spent all week as a team prepping for it, and it should be great. I wanted to make kolaches for my coworkers for a morning treat, but I stayed at work so late yesterday and was exhausted when I got home last night and decided not to stay up late baking lol. I'll grab some from the bakery down the street and try to make everyone a latte or something at work instead.

Because of the absolute disaster that has been this years bee pick up season, everything has been pushed back at least two weeks. Usually BuzzFest, which is the same weekend every year, signals the end of the crazy bee season, but we still have orders going into June. I was kind of looking forward to the break, but it seems we're not quite there yet.

The kids have some family events planned for the beginning of June, so we're getting them a week or so later this year for summer break than usual. We want them to have fun with their free time, so we're cool with it... Plus honestly, I'm hoping it will show good faith for December when I have to ask to keep them longer for an event with my side of the family 😁 my grandma is slowly deteriorating from rheumatoid arthritis and parkinson's, and my mom wants all the generations to be able to spend another holiday with her while we can. I want the kids to be able to participate in my family too. And, it'll let me get through the late bee season with relative ease, I suppose. I'm not gonna lie, I take on a lot of the caretaking responsibility when the kids are around usually, but now my husband has to step up for once lol bc I'm busting my ass full time and won't have the mental or physical energy left over most days to do all I normally do for everyone. He's already suffering the experience of doing regular weekly chores alone and taking care of the dogs all day lolol.

We're also anxiously and concernedly waiting for word on the debt ceiling crisis. They've extended the decision date to June 5, but we won't know if my husband will stop receiving paychecks soon or not, and it's crushing everything with stress pressure. He makes more than me in his military retirement and we depend on his income for survival; I can't support us alone. If they cut military support and punish the average voter for no goddamn reason, per usual, we'll suffer significantly. He's even warned his ex wife that if things go south, we may not be able to afford having the kids visit for summer. We won't be able to feed them. We've already unsubscribed from any extra services like entertainment and delivery and such which we deemed not absolutely necessary, just in preparation. We've re-budgeted and cut out any possible extra spending and reduced allowances for gas and food. I'm hoping it's all a stupid pissing contest like it was about a decade ago, and things will somehow turn out okay. Hope beyond hope.

Time to go work for those pennies baby lol

[skystarweek]

Hey! I know it's a little late, but I want to say a few words. I want to thank the organizers of the event and all the participating authors for this wonderful summer week! I have problems with the AO3 to leave kudos and comments on the works, so I express my admiration here, all the works were interesting and reached the strings of the soul. I was glad to work for the second year with such a good selection of prompts and I hope that this event will be with us many more times in the future. Inspiration and good luck to everyone! P.S. An extra month for work helped a lot :D

Awwwwh! Thank you very much! Really glad you enjoyed the event and so many of the stories and the pieces! We're really glad you had such a fun time and of course that so many amazing pieces were created!

And thank you for the compliments, and hopefully we'll be here once again in the future!

[cryptidsurveys]

Friday, August 16th, 2024.

How are you? Compared to yesterday, I'm feeling a lot more grounded. I really needed this quiet day to myself to recalibrate.

What’s your preferred name? Hallie.

Have you ever sat under a bridge? I probably have at some point, but I don't recall any specific instance.

Do you ever go fishing or do you find it to be cruel? I haven't been fishing since I was a child. I would consider tagging along with others for the nature aspect, but I don't think I would participate. It's just not something that interests me.

What’s your favorite kind of donut? I don't think I have a definite favorite, but I do have a strong preference for simple glazed doughnuts.

When was the last time you went on a date? It's been years since I last went on a date.

What flowers look best in a bouquet? Idk.

Do you like chia pudding, if you’ve ever tried it? I've never tried it before.

Have you ever put the blame on someone for something that was your fault? Sure, or refused to see (or couldn't see) my contribution to a situation, etc. I don't really do that now, though.

Do you have trouble remembering people’s names? I'm okay at it. I try to make a habit of repeating people's names back to them when they tell me, and that tends to help them stick. However, I was introduced to a board member on my way out of the animal shelter yesterday afternoon, and I completely spaced her name. I think I'd recognize her face if I saw her again, though. The trick is to always be hospitable to strangers, lest they be board members in disguise. ;D

Do you separate your laundry or just throw it all in there and hope for the best? I just throw it all in and hope for the best. It's only failed me on a couple of occasions.

What is something you want? A spine would be nice. I think I might be reaching the point where it costs me more to be a doormat than it will to stand up for myself, so…we'll see.

Have you ever been in a castle? I've been to Bishop's Castle.

Can you sing well? Eh. I'm not terrible, but I wouldn't consider myself talented either.

Are you currently procrastinating? Not really. I should probably clean the upstairs bathroom, but I'll do that after lunch.

When was the last time you kicked a ball? I'm not sure.

What age did you learn how to tie your shoes? I don't recall.

When did you last change clothes? Yesterday afternoon. I just threw on a hoodie for this morning's grocery shopping trip.

What all have you done here recently that you found to be fun? I went to see Inside Out 2 with my mom on Wednesday and I did not expect to enjoy it as much as I did. Volunteering (despite my complaints, I still enjoy it; I think I'll enjoy it even more once/if Alex leaves - hopefully at the end of August). Playing with our "foster" kitten (I'm just calling him a foster for the time being, just in case we happen to find his home). Making art. Even going grocery shopping was pleasant - I love to see our favorite greeters/cashiers.

Do you ever like to watch the clouds? Omg, I almost toodled right off the road a few months ago because I was too busy marveling at the clouds. :') Now I'm just like, if you're so frickin' mesmerized, pull over and take a picture. It'll last longer and involve less paperwork.

Have you ever tried to make your own bread? I've made my own bread many times.

Have you ever shut your hand up in a door? Yeah, I shut my hand in the car door a few times as a child. I'm…glad I outgrew that…?

How did you get your last bruise? Probably from kneeling on the concrete floors at the animal shelter.

What’s your favorite kind of tree? Maybe pine or aspen.

Do you like to collect rocks you find outside? Sometimes.

Do you collect anything or would you like to? I don't seriously collect anything at the moment.

What’s something you find hard to believe? That being true to myself will have better results than whatever it is I'm doing now.

What color is your favorite pair of socks? I don't have a favorite pair of socks.

What makes you sensitive? Fatigue. Things seem so much worse when I'm far from well-rested. Better to reevaluate after a good night's sleep.

Does your town have a lot of graffiti? Not really? There are a lot of nice murals and such downtown, though.

Do you like mozzarella sticks? Yeah.

Have you ever tried to fit inside of a suitcase? I might have tried when I was younger.

Do you like mullets or wish they were a thing of the past? I don't really have an opinion. Do whatever you want with your hair.

What’s a current trend you do not like? It's not exactly a trend (like a passing phase), but the rapid progression of technology. I'm not against progress, but I'm just having trouble keeping up and I feel like I'm slipping through the cracks of the relevant modern world. Everything is so digitally based and you guys, my phone is a fossil, an absolute fossil! D;

Have you ever stepped on glass barefoot? Yeah.

What’s your opinion on The Beatles? They're alright. I like some of their songs. They're more nostalgic to me than anything else.

What’s sitting on your dining room table currently? Lol, Powerade, chips, cat food, and disposable plates. Oh, and a pinecone centerpiece type of thing.

What do you hear right now? The swamp cooler, light traffic, and the sound of my typing.

Do you ever argue with people online? Nooo. I haven't done that for a long time.

Have you ever caught someone doing something they shouldn’t? Probably.

Do you think it’s possible to fall in love with someone online? I don't really have an opinion on what's possible. One of my relationships did start off online, but we eventually met in person and I think that's when my feelings really started to develop.

Do you ever pluck your eyebrows? Just a few stray hairs here and there, nothing drastic. I just don't want to wind up with a unibrow.

Last time you ran into someone you know in public? I'm not sure.

What is for supper today? It will most likely be mixed veggies with sriracha sauce and a toasted cheese and jalapeno sandwich.

What is a tv show that you find annoying? Family Guy. I just can never get into that one. <- Same. I liked it when I was younger, but now shows like that are just…eh. Not my cup of tea.

Tell me about an embarrassing thing you’ve said to someone so I can feel less alone in being weird. 😅 I just trip over my words a lot or make really corny jokes that don't always land. Don't worry - whoever you are - you're definitely not alone in being somewhat socially awkward.

What’s a music video you enjoy? There isn't one in particular.

How long do you spend in a bath or shower? 10 to 15 minutes.

Are you accident prone? I am pretty clumsy, but thankfully not really accident prone.

Name a song that reminds you of summer. Just alternative rock in general. I have vague memories of riding along in a hot car while listening to those types of songs on the radio.

What did you last use a microwave or air fryer for? I've never used an air fryer before, but I microwaved a bowl of oatmeal earlier this morning.

What’s your middle name? I'm not sharing that.

Have you ever regifted something? Possibly.

Have you ever been scared of something you’ve seen on the internet? Missing 411 cases used to really creep me out.

Do you share any of the same favorite bands as your parents/guardian? Maybe not favorites, but we do have overlaps in taste.

How much money are you willing to spend on a new pair of shoes? It depends. My old pair of hiking shoes (recently retired) were around 100 dollars, but they also lasted more than a decade. My current pair were around 15 dollars.

What kinds of cereal do you have in your pantry/cupboard? Cheerios, Walmart brand Special K, and Premier Protein almond/chocolate flakes.

What’s the last thing you spent more than $20 on? Groceries.

Do you enjoy maple syrup? Yeah.

Do you or anyone you know want to run for any political office? Noooo. I would never want to be directly involved in anything political.

Have you ever used a kerosene heater? No.

What’s your favorite outfit to wear? Sweatpants and a hoodie.

Do you own any purple clothing? I have a pair of purple/black plaid pajama pants.

Do you currently see anything shiny in the room you’re in? Not really.

How many pairs of jeans do you have? A few.

Do you have any alcohol in your house? No.

Could you easily wake up at 5am every morning? I think 5:30am is about as early as I can tolerate. Any earlier than that and I don't think I'd be able to get enough sleep to function/avoid frequent migraines.

Would you want to know if you were adopted? Are you adopted? I'm not adopted, but I would want to know if I was.

Are you allergic to any foods? No.

What’s something you’ve owned for more than 10 years? Many of the things in my room are at least 10 years old.

When was the last time you were excited over something? Wednesday.

Is there a tv family that reminds you of yours? No.

If you had to create a character for a book or whatever, what would they be like? Idk. I am so not creative when it comes to fictional stories.

What’s the weather like where you are? Sunny, 81*F, and maybe ever so slightly breezy.

Chapstick or lip gloss? Chapstick.

Have you ever been in a wedding? I've attended a couple of weddings, but I've never been in one.

Do you or anyone you know constantly stay on their cell phone? No.

Do you know how long your screen time is? When it comes to watching YouTube videos…it's probably at intervention levels of long.

[shadowsong26fic]

Coming Attractions!

First Monday of the month (and year!) so here we go!

I'll tag an Open Question Night onto this, too--anything I've posted about here or on AO3 is fair game! I do take prompts but am not necessarily quick to fill them lol.

A little different than the others, since it's January and that means Resolutions of a sort, lol. But first, a quick regular post:

BSG Fic:

Didn't write or post any, but I did podfic for a few Galactica Big Bang/Mini Bang fics, and that was a lot of fun! I had a great time running the event, and am looking forward to doing it again next year (and maybe writing for it as well lol).

If I do write, the two ideas that are foremost in my brain right now (that would work for the event; as opposed to crossovers and/or projects that are Way beyond the scope of an event like this) are:

The Blood of Angry Men Zarek character study in the form of him looking back on his life as he faces his execution after the mutiny. Partly about the question of where does he land on the spectrum of actually believing his rhetoric vs. using it/the way people believe in him to achieve power; partly about this really great quote of his from Kobol along the lines of "it's a lot harder to get blood on your hands than to wash it off later"; partly about his relationships with his inner circle/followers (there would be some stuff about before he went to prison; about Gaeta; about the friend of his who died on Kobol whose name escapes me).

Percussive Maintenance Joke title that would Not remain lol. But yeah this is basically...so, that bit in Downloaded, where Sam is trapped in the exploded parking garage with Boomer, Caprica, and Three insert tangent about 'are there one, two, or three significant Threes it is Unclear' and he gets knocked out like three times? What if. What if all those concussions. What if they unlocked his memories. Probably building up to where he is before he has to be hybridized if not there initially but. What If. (The problem with this one is it miiiiiight also be out of scope, also there's the moment he wakes up and then going back to the school and having a Chat with Philosopher!Cavil and then...not sure where to go from there.)

I also really genuinely do want to get TOB off the ground this year (I know I keep saying that but). And maybe one of the crossover ideas I have floating around in my head, but We'll See. Hopefully I'll have Something out this month (but I'm also waffling a little on How I want to start it--I think it probably makes the most sense to just go in show order and bounce back and forth between the Pegasus and Galactica plotlines once I get all the miniseries setup out of the way there is so much setup omg but every so often I ask myself 'but do I really want to do that? XD)

Also, since I Obviously fell way behind and didn't finish the Year of the OTP project, I'll pick that up and do the rest this year XD

Star Wars fic:

Going back and forth about participating in SWBB this year. I need to actually get on that because deadline for signups is on the 10th, lol. If I do participate it would be the one I planned to do last year (Anakin never joined the Order and meets Ahsoka halfway through the Clone Wars) but never got off the ground.

Note about OTP fills applies here as well, lol.

Also hoping to finally dive back into Precipice this year, so fingers crossed lol.

Other Fandoms (mostly Les Mis, LBR):

I do plan on doing Pod_Together again later in the year because I generally have fun doing it! Will probably adjust my fandoms list though because I keep getting matched on secondary/tertiary fandoms and while stretching myself to write for them is fun, I'd like to do something a little less Stretchy this year if possible, haha.

And I will be updating P&J, I promise XD I know where it's going, and I know what Ari is going to learn, though the specific order/circumstances in which the information comes out I'm still sorting out exactly when and how. (I think there are going to be some Previously Unpublished Letters when Ari gets to the Marseille exhibit about Thierry that give a Name to J, but I'm not sure if Ari's going to go there first or go to Dover or Paris first. And then Calais which is Relevant and Important). Goal is to get At Least one more chapter out this month.

Provenance will come when I finish that--it fills in the gaps Ari can't because Certain People decided to Burn All Their Correspondence, lol.

And then I'm also working on Acheron which is a Groundhog Day AU that I'm excited for. May or may not be other things coming in this fandom, we'll see XD

I do also want to get back to Incinctus and/or other Castlevania ideas I had. May be rewatching that series and/or finally watching Nocturne to jumpstart my brain? So maybe that'll happen this month but it's definitely a lower priority than the other things.

Original Fic:

I think I had a fairly good year where this is concerned? Year of the OTP plus a series of anniversary challenges on Rainbowfic got me to put out a fair amount! Hopefully next year will also be good (I do still have to finish the Year of the OTP for the three ships I was doing here as well, lol.)

...yep, that pretty much sums it up!

So, on to Resolutions! So to speak.

2023 goals:

Post at least arc 8 (and ideally also part 9) in Precipice!Verse as well as at least half of the Preludes stories. ....nope. XD

Write at least 10k of origfic content. Nearly doubled my goal with about 18.7k words!

Complete SWBB and participate in at least one other challenge/exchange Half-completed--I ended up dropping out as a writer from SWBB, but I did Pod_Together and also Ran GBB so XD

Continue posting Incinctus and start posting The Other Battlestar and at least one other non-challenge fic project. Well, I didn't do Incinctus or TOB, but I did do other non-challenge fic projects? Lol XD

Write at least one holiday fic (Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Halloween, New Year’s, Etc.) and post on the appropriate day I actually did do this!

Bonus Goal: Update the origfic archives already. Bonus Goal #2: I have at least one half-finished AU outline I should actually finish and post that. And maybe update the Ventress and Luke time-travel one Yeaaaah neither of these got done, either XD

2024 Goals:

[basically repeating myself, NGL XD]

Get back into Precipice; post at least three chapters of Protectors and at least one Preludes one-shot.

Write at least 10k of origfic content.

Participate in at least two challenges/exchanges.

Start posting The Other Battlestar; complete P&J; and start or post at least one other non-challenge fic project.

Complete the Year of the OTP fills.

Bonus Goal: Write at least one holiday fic (Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Halloween, New Year's, etc.) and post on the appropriate day Bonus Goal #2: Update origfic archives Bonus Goal #3: Post at least one AU Outline.

[oathena11-writes]

Okay, so I have been very busy with all of my writing, and listing it all out would take ages. And I do not want to hunt down links to existing fics right now, of those that I still need to update.

But, here is an overview for my plans for the rest of the year:

I recently finished writing three different wip, and another two are almost done, probably one or two writing sessions left on each. Those I plan to start posting in August and finish posting by mid October. There's a reason for this, but I'm not getting into that right now.

My Clan Vos AU (the series is officially titled on AO3 'Beneath the Skin of our tattoos') will return in November, I hope. I am nearly done writing the war part of this AU. It is in two parts, however, and that complicates things a bit, especially as I want to keep details consistent. I'm looking at the two parts combined being 200k to edit so that's going to be a bit of time. November seems like a good month to aim for, between the five wip I'm posting up to mid October, and the rest of my plans.

I plan on participating in Whumptober, which means 31 days of whump, likely mostly Star Wars, but I might get inspired to work on another fandom here and there. 

I will hopefully be doing QuinObi week in October, though I haven't started any fics yet so we'll see how that goes.

I plan on doing the Star Wars Rare Pair exchange again this fall. 

I also plan on doing the Castle Cafe's November bingo. Each event comes with a prompt bingo, and I've been enjoying that challenge. 

Posting wise, I am very behind on posting the things I have completed. That is going to be fun to catch up with, but I will be trying to get back to posting this coming month, if only to reduce the amount I have to post.

This has been my year of attempting to complete projects, and so far, it's actually going decently despite how many new projects I've added. I've made a lot of progress and I'm looking forward to making more.

So... that's where things are at for now. 

[dreamlingbingo]

And that's a wrap!

Congratulations everybody, you survived the 2023 Dreamling Bingo! That's right, you made it to the end and you didn't even get a T-shirt. Boooo.

We had a lot of fun watching the last minute fills coming in and we were definitely rooting for all of you as we got closer to midnight. (It was pretty much us just going "You're at 24, you're so close! C'MOOON!!" LOL) We were also really excited how many of you got into the bingo spirit!

If anyone ran into technical difficulties or anything else that prevented you from submitting your fills, please reach out to us ASAP.

In the meantime, We. Are. Done! WOOHOO!! Thank you to all of you for making this year successful, we absolutely couldn't have done it without you! Even if you never even started your card, we're still glad you took an interest.

So what happens next?

Right now we're taking your masterposts! These are completely optional but are a great way to show off everything you completed. Just send us a message with the link to your post (or tag us) and we'll put it in our queue so they can run once all the other posts are finished.

If you're not sure what a masterlist is, check out this template for reference. If you want to make one but don't have a tumblr you can always submit a post.

The due date for masterposts has been pushed back to August 12th! Hopefully this will give everyone more time to wind down. <3

We're sending an email to all participants with a list of the bingo fills we received from you. Let us know if everything is good to go by August 12th. If we don't hear from you by this time we'll assume everything's fine and will get started on your badges. :) If you want them faster just get back to us ASAP so we can get started! :D

We'll have another follow up post soon with fun things like stats, a general idea for Round 2 and anything else we might have missed. While you wait, just sit back, relax and enjoy the bingo fills!

Thank you again to everyone for making this such a fun event!

[merrock]

I'm really interested in joining, but I've been very busy lately, so I was wondering how flexible you are with the activity checks? I'll try my hardest to be on consistently, I'm just worried I might get caught up for a four or five day chunk and end up losing my character because of it.

Good morning, anon!

This answer will be a little bit wordy, because we never want someone to join and not have the group meet their expectations, but also want to hopefully ease your mind by explaining exactly what we look for with activity!

Checks are conducted on random days -- normally once a week. Sometimes less, if we notice that everyone is active and participating, which is always the goal for admins, right? We do them on random days to avoid situations where players will only log in right before a check, post once, and then disappear, not to be heard from again until the next check.

When we decide to do a check, I look at each blog. If a character is on their 5th or 6th day of inactivity, they will be placed on 'warning' and given a reminder. This is simply to just give them a little nudge to remind them to watch activity, so that they don't get caught up in the next check! If you're on warning/reminder, you do not face removal.

If a character is on their 7th + day of inactivity, we will mark them down on check. From there, they are given that day, plus two more days to get active or contact the admins for a hiatus. If no contact is made and no activity is posted, we will then remove that character and give the writer 48 hours to reclaim them before the face claim is re-opened to the public.

If a character is placed on check three times in a very short amount of time, at their fourth check, we will unfollow them and ask them to reapply when they feel like they're up for it! If we notice a writer getting a lot of warnings in a short amount of time, we'll reach out to talk -- see if there's anything going on, something we can do to help, float the idea of pausing/dropping characters if they have multiples, but we won't remove someone for just being on warning/reminder unless it has become a huge issue.

Along with checks, we do just keep an eye out to make sure that writers are making an effort to be inclusive by replying to open starters, and are posting activity, and not relying on muse posts or photo sets. At this time, the requirement is only one post, but obviously we would prefer more whenever possible! Characters only posting one reply to avoid checks/warnings or to be taken off of checks/warnings will be marked down just so we can remember to check back in and see if that has improved.

We also periodically 'clear' our slates as far as activity goes. Normally after interest checks, which we try to do a couple of times a year, so everyone gets a fresh start with activity. And... honestly? Just communicate with us. Especially in cases where you only play one or two characters, we're going to be more lenient if you need more time (if you play more, we may ask you to consider pausing some until life eases up, since we don't want you to take on more than you can handle). We really value open and honest communication!

So! All of that out of the way, to tackle your exact concern: if you are worried about losing your role because every now and then you might get a warning, or even be put on check, I wouldn't stress it too much. It would have to be a recurring issue, something that's happening pretty consistently without much effort being put into the group. If you get put on check or warning and log in as soon as you have the time and do some replies, tackle an open starter or two, and make an effort to show that you want to be here, we get that, we wouldn't penalize someone for putting in the effort!

I hope that helps! And I hope that you'll give us a chance. I promise that as admins, we've never removed someone for just being busy and having a life, as long as they're genuinely interested in being a part of Merrock, we want them to be, too. xx

[daredevilexchange]

Want to be featured here? Head to this page and fill in the form!

See what this is about here, or if you’re using the app here.

What’s your fannish ID? He6o or He6oart on most platforms, but I also sometimes go by "Carrot", or my actual name, 'Skye'. My screen name is said 'Nebo', and is Russian for sky, because languages are cool 👀 I picked it years ago and it was short and snappy enough so I kept it, even if it does invite confusion at times.

What types of fanworks do you create? Fanart of the digital and sometimes traditional variety! I have also written original works in the past and am working on an original comic, but haven't written for fandoms before.

What are your favourite types of fanworks, when you’re not creating? I am a voracious consumer of fanfic, lurking and enjoying from various fandoms and being terrible because I am always too nervous to comment T_T But to all the fanfic writers out there, I adore you! Thank you so much <3 I think you have collectively increased my reading speed by a ridiculous level XD Very helpful when going through dry academic papers.

What do you like in particular about this fandom? I'm practically brand new to this fandom as a creator, but I really enjoy fics with DD interacting with the defenders or the punisher. Or just anyone we haven't seen yet - avengers-with-daredevil fics are so cool! (Hopefully we'll see more with the recent MCU news! 👀) I'm generally not a shipper in any of my fandom interests but I will still read and enjoy good content regardless of my personal preferences for creating <3

Of course, I am here for Matt 😂 He's basically one of my all time favourite characters now, and he carved that spot out after I saw only a single episode…which I think is the fastest I've ever latched on to a character in my life.

Do you like participating in fan events? Absolutely! I'm a more active participant in the Final Fantasy fandom (particularly for FFXV) and have been a part of big bang (as an artist), along with contributing art and merch for several fanzines, modding several and running one of my own, all of which was a LOT of fun. Would be totally down for something like that in daredevil fandom too when I have a few more artworks behind me and am a bit more known!

I am also a regular con attendee, though not in the last couple of years, but hopefully again soon! I need to dust off my cosplay skills.

What about your creating process? I have basically been fused to a pair of headphones since I was 7 years old and do everything to a playlist. If I don't have music blasting away it's too easy to get distracted, so it's the best way for me to zone out and focus in on my work (favourites include mostly soundtracks, QOTSA, NIN, Coldplay, Garbage and Ladytron). Otherwise it's pretty straightforward…I tend to get an idea that wont leave, and just glue myself to my iPad until it's done, day and night. Usually culminating in me going to bed at 4am.

In terms of my creative history, I was an artistic kid but I stopped creating for a various number of reasons during college (I'm in the UK, so that's age 16-18) right up until I finished my undergraduate masters in 2016…and it wasn't until I started my PhD that I realised I needed a good stress outlet and picked it back up again…so given the time I lost, I've been trying to be productive with my time and hone my painting skills. My favourite sort of work is the old religious renaissance works so I really want to reach that level of artistry with understanding lighting and accomplishing realism, but keeping textures and brushstrokes. I'm working mostly digitally as it's definitely a cheaper way to learn, but if I can paint something amazing on canvas one day I'll be thrilled. I have a lot of influences, so sometimes I'll see a work by someone and get inspired to try a totally different colouring style, but my best works tend to come back to my strongest influence.

Do you interact a lot with other fans? In this fandom, I'm basically brand new, but I do a lot of interacting with FFXV fans. We're a small community that's only decreased in size as interest waned after the game's release, so it's pretty easy to sort of know everybody? I am always down for making new friends but tend to need a bit of a push as I often feel like I'm intruding on the cool kid's table when I branch into a new fandom XD My approach is to basically just make content and exist on the fringes waiting to get roped in. I'm a lot more active at talking to people on twitter though so feel free to poke me on there!

Is there any particular piece you'd like to showcase for this post? Probably the second of my Daredevil/Matt Murdock pin trio.

I designed this one and two others (Black outfit(s) and horned S2 outfit) as a set to make into acrylic pins, but I think I'm particularly proud of this one because it took me so long and went through so many revisions…I felt like I was more critical of this artwork than of anything I've done in the last year, including multiple zine pieces 😂

After I finished the first one with the S2 outfit (which was a fun experiment with textures) I was kind of impatient and raced into wanting to paint Matt with no costume, so I forwent any kind of face study and just started sketching and painting using the same palette from the first one, and wow did I have to redo it so much. This trio of DD pieces was both me learning how to draw/paint Charlie Cox, but also a test to see if I could consistently apply the same palette to multiple works of art despite my photo references being all over the place in terms of both colour and lighting. I think it was a success overall, and I learnt a lot from these pieces, including how much I really enjoy painting Charlie Cox 😂

Do you have other fandoms you'd like to talk about? Ah, I float around different circles but Final Fantasy is probably my home base of sorts. Mostly I am really into video games, so my interests lie there a lot (FF, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Detroit Become Human etc). Tolkien's works are another big area of interest for me, but often my interests tend to lie in one-off areas because I am difficult to impress.

I tend to enjoy a wide range of things, and when I fall really hard for a character or series I am compelled to create. I think few characters inspire me enough to form the kind of attachment I have with daredevil now - the last one to do that was Ignis from FFXV, and just a quick skim through my past works will show that I absolutely put that passion into art (and buying merch - I think my bedroom can probably be described as 50% Ignis shrine at this point). What can I say, I love virtuous acrobatic characters with hidden depths, especially when there's a dichotomy to their personality 👀

Is there anything else you want to tell us about yourself? A bit about me, I suppose: I am from the UK and in my early 30s, a recent graduate with a PhD in Observational Astronomy, a threat to all coffee supplies everywhere and a huge fan of philosophy, architecture and politics/law. As a kid I was known for: breaking up fights on the playground, being "the artist" kid and wanting to know literally everything about anything (give me any subject and I will just fall into a pile of books). My academic history is a mess of contradictions because I had no idea what I wanted to do with myself at 16 and I was your stereotypical straight A student with options in everything XD

If there is a Starbucks within a mile of my location, I have probably been there (and bought a mug,). I one day hope to live in a big city because places like London, Tokyo and NYC are architecturally fascinating and 24 hour coffee shops are not a thing in my smaller city XD. I tend to keep a lot of my thoughts private and mostly I live on discord. And I am really into fashion and am as attached to my sunglasses as I am my headphones (though some of that is due to light sensitivity XD). My preferred pronouns are also They/Them, but I am pretty chill about it so no worries if you forget 🙌

I do post a lot of FF art, naturally, because my other love is Ignis. But I can see my hyperfixation on Matt is definitely going to lead to a bunch of art on that side - and I have a few sketch plans in mind for October prompts (probably doing those face studies I neglected too 🤔) So give me a follow if that doesn't bother you!

Also, I talk a lot! Definitely something to note (but you probably guessed that by now!)

Where can your fanworks be found? Twitter, tumblr and IG are where I post things (cross-posting mostly, though I am not particularly good at remembering instagram exists outside of being a place for me to appreciate other people's work 😂). I have a couple of storefronts but they're currently going through revisions, and I also forget to use tags too often 😓

Twitter - https://twitter.com/He6o Instagram - https://instagram.com/he6oart Tumblr - https://he6o.tumblr.com Patreon - https://patreon.com/he6o

Or everything all in one place! https://he6o.carrd.com/

Thank you, @he6o !

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