#sorry for not posting i have been busy and feeling burnout lol

[sparkleyiff]

Not sure if I'll be doing anything more for artfight this year I am. suffering. sorry :(

[candyredappledragon]

h-hi! the name is kieran. nice to meet you! ive been here for a bit and uhm.... sadly figuring out how to use this site! ( kind of afraid of interacting with others especially but im trying my best to not be easily scared ! ) i am not familiar with technology and or online things/words so please be patient with me. i know there are other kierans here too and honestly theyre pretty cool! ....d-dont tell them i said that. im not really a battler so if you are trying to look for one then im sorry to say that you will be disappointed but you can ask the others though. really sorry

..uh thank you for checking my blog— furret youre on my facEXSFDGCVHH

🍎 Please no genuine anon hate, nsfw, or anything really bad. ( You can be mean to Kieran! ) Pelipper mail is okay ( but malice is off for now ). Sapient Pokemon or the likes of interacting are fine too, Kieran is too much of a goofball to notice it. Please don't give him Pokemon the thought is appreciated but if you do they'll turn into stickers lol.

Please don't be weird. I'm serious. As well PLEASE be patient with me and not be pushy. I'm trying my best!

This Kieran is in AU as to what happens if Florian doesn't lie to him about Ogerpon and whatnot! Kieran still doesn't get Ogerpon and is fine with it ( kind of, as in this made him feel inferior to having friends and will always be chosen over by other people. ) His way of thinking is that maybe he should try to be nice and kind to others so that will help him get friends as he sees Florian do this the same to others. ( The only thing Kieran thinks he's not good at is having a funny personality. He is very awkward in person. ) Blueberry Academy was hard on him as he was almost practically as ignored and students tend to forget he is the champion because of his cowardly personality. Florian took over later as champion. Okay there.

(By the way this is a summary please don't hurt me. 💔)

Plus I will try to draw for asks but they won't be the best but surely will motivate me to draw! If there are no asks then I'll just draw daily things with Kieran so it's a win-win for me!

💥 This Kieran doesn't like to get involved with stuff so feel free to drag him into antics! He isn't the one to approach people either so if you are wondering why I don't start convos with other blogs with asks that's why. ( I'm shy too. ) He's a bit of a coward online and in person but he won't shy away trying to be friends with others.

🍎 Posts are tagged to make things easier! Feel free to block one of them to make your experience smooth!

Art related: art tag , art reply , daily Kieran art

Text related: text reply/reply text , text ask , text post , ooc post , reply reblog

Other: long post

Anything you want to be tagged? Please let me know! :)

"Can we use your art?" Feel free to use the art or whatever! Don't need to credit and I prefer not to be credited. You can edit it too! Idgaf just no bigotry. :,] "What do we call you and do you have pronouns?" Uhm, you can call me Eight or any other version of the number 8 itself. [ Ex: Ocho, Hachi, Acht, etc ]. No pronouns! Refer me to by name or just call me mod or some other third thing lol. "What art program do you use?" Clip Studio Paint! "Are you okay with collabs?" Of course! Please feel free to message me anytime. :] "What time do you post art/responses?" Uhm....... anytime to be honest? My sleep schedule is ABYSMAL. I am very much online unless I'm busy doing comp. "Are replies time sensitive when interacting with this blog?" Nope! Take your time with your replies. I am pretty chill and everyone is pretty busy with real life. Fair warning I'm a ditz. :( "Why did you make this blog?" To draw Kieran a thousand times over until I'm dead lol. ( Even if it isn't posted on this blog!) And world build my stupid au. :u I'm just currently on a small burnout on drawing. I'm sorry. :c

"Is this a sideblog?" Yeah, you are never going to find out my main!! It's very cringe ( it has different media art ). I will interact with my other sideblog with thoughts and reactions at times. [ if you are curious @/hahahasquib ]

"Do you like Kieran?" No. ( Yes. A normal amount. )

[badbatchposts]

🎱 🍓 🌵🔪🪲. I reblogged the ask game from you, so I wanted to be courteous and send you an ask! I'm honestly curious about these.

Thanks for the ask, friend! It's really nice to be able to reflect on some of these things!! Sorry in advance for the super long responses lol.

🎱 ⇢ post your AO3 total stats:

Works: 2

User Subscriptions: 6

Kudos: 204

Comment Threads: 84

Bookmarks: 67

Subscriptions: 51

Word Count: 67,351

Hits: 4,652

I honestly have no sense of how these stats compare for the usual fanfic writer, but it makes me happy to see how many people have subscribed to my longfic, especially since I don't always get a ton of comments on new chapters. But it seems people are reading! And definitely more people than read my dissertation, lol.

🍓 ⇢ how did you get into writing fanfiction? 

I used to write a lot of original work in high school and early college, but then as things got busy--and as I convinced myself my writing wasn't good enough to be worth it--I largely stopped. I always felt guilty about it. I really enjoyed writing, but didn't think I was creative enough or had the right amount of stamina that it took to complete a long work, and I had this perfectionist idea where it felt like it wasn't worth doing if I couldn't be the best at it.

Then right as the new Bad Batch season came out this year I was struggling a lot with burnout and found that I was spending a lot of time thinking about the show, and decided that I might as well start reading some fanfiction--for the first time ever--and felt like writing it would be a nice creative outlet that might help me recover from my burnout. It really has been great, and some of what's made it so good is actually exactly the sort of things that used to make me think writing fanfiction wasn't worth it. Namely: it's not professionally publishable.

That is, legally, I will never be able to professionally publish and profit from any of what I write--it can only be posted and enjoyed. This actually just took so much of the pressure off. It doesn't have to be perfect--it doesn't even have to be very good, because that's not what it's for.

I started thinking of it more as an exercise for working on my writing skills (things like, okay, in this chapter I'm going to practice writing dialogue, or in this next one I'm going to work more on establishing an interesting setting). As a result, I'm now thinking more about the writing process and improving my storytelling, rather than worrying about trying to make it perfect or good enough to publish or feeling competitive or down on myself when I encounter writing that I feel is much better than my own. It's been really freeing.

All of this happened over ten years since I stopped writing in college, and the other great thing has been seeing that my writing skills didn't disappear. In fact, they've gotten better and grown as a result of the learning I did in the meantime. I'm now much better at envisioning narrative arcs, outlining, getting myself to write consistently instead of just waiting for inspiration to strike me, and a whole load of other skills. It's really helped soothe a part of me that worried that I had abandoned writing, that it was too late for me to "do" anything with it, or that I only would have gotten worse.

🌵 ⇢ share the link to a playlist you love

Parasailing in Rio de Janeiro with a Caipirinha in Your Hand

🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

I've been spending a lot of time researching historical kitchens on sailing ships and historical brothels for the Pirate AU that I'm working on. Once for an academic paper I was working on a novel that depicts a (non-sexual) human-animal relationship but through very intimate and erotic terms, and I accidentally googled a combination of terms that came back with information on bestiality while on my university's wi-fi.

🪲 ⇢ add 50 words to your current wip and share the paragraph here

The most recent thing I wrote for my Pirate AU (I'm skipping ahead SEVERAL chapters to inspire myself with the steamy bits haha)

“I hardly think I can get into much trouble here. Your crew have been perfect gentlemen.”

Hunter’s eyes glinted in the half-light of the lamps. Though he didn’t move, all of a sudden she was all-too-aware of how close he was, how easy it would be for him to reach out and touch her. “And what about me?” he murmured. “Haven’t you heard from the ladies in port? I’m a scoundrel. A very dangerous man. Maybe you ought to be afraid of me.”

Thanks again, this was a lot of fun!!

[pnutbutter-n-j-elyy]

HI SUNSHINES PLZ READ

Hi guys!! Sorry I've been updating so infrequently 😅. I've just been kinda busy with school and clinicals (urgghdjh).

First off I want to say thank you to all of those who are following me because 1.7k followers is something I NEVER thought I would even be close to so I'm genuinely eternally grateful for you guys!!

But I've gotten a lot of requests in my inbox and I just wanted to assure you guys I'm getting to the one's I've seen!!!

To be honest I go through phases where I feel a bit burnt out writing, but it is one of the few things that bring me immense joy that I'm willing to work through burnout and blockage to get to :).

And sometimes I'll get burnout with one story idea and kinda hop back and forth while writing them; which I've noticed isn't really helping with my management of stories lol, so it's a habit I'm going to start to fix now by setting deadlines for myself, which I've found have helped with other aspects in my life.

So I'll be updating my masterlist today and please don't worry if I take things down or move them around. If I have put your request on the masterlist then it will be done.

But since I've become complacent with a few of the prompts I'm going to randomly choose (wheel of names is my bsf frfr) which ones I'll be focusing on first- but this will happen after I finish up the series I am working on :3.

And I've chosen to release on or two standalones a week once I've caught up, and then update the series fics on the off days.

And I'll be posting quite frequently these upcoming weeks.

TONIGHT I plan on releasing Redamancy Pt3 and a new teaser.

Anyways I don't know if that makes sense, I'm kind of tired haha so my words are not wording :P

I love you ALL <3

[ravencincaide]

RAVEN HELLO BBY 🤍🤍🤍 gaah I'm so sorry for not checking up on you sooner! I've seen that you've been having some complications abt some things and I've come to cheer you up !! pls don't ever hesitate to come ttm if you need to, and that you're an AMAZING writer. no exaggeration there! anyways back to the main point, how are you doing recently? that's what I really wanted to ask lol

OMG hiiii Ruru dalin thank you for checking up on me, and the chuuya pick *squeal* I'm gonna use this post as an update on my life. So well yeah aside from still dealing with stuff, dancing on the edge of burnout and deep depression, sleep deprivation and an inch of insanity I am also trying (donno if I will succeed or not) to get in my master thesis in on the first submission date which is... a month away *small panic* So even if I get sparks of inspiration I don't really have the possibility to write anything T-T

BUT the good thing is I am becoming very VERY acquainted with naked bodies. So be prepared for a ton of smut once I am back and a ton of angst and fluff and gawd so many ideas so little time. But yeah feel free to send me requests, send me messages and inboxes. I am here, I am alive just very very busy with writing 20 000 words T-T Huge love ~ Raven

[guppygiggles]

hello ! (sorry if this sent twice! Tumblr glitched!)

Thank you for replying to my asks at all- I appreciate any form of contact in reply!

If I maybe said or expressed anything that was off putting about things in expressing ideas about Avery & all- Im so sorry!! I may be overthinking or misreading things (a good part bc im still burnout and a bit stressed probably���) but wanna make

sure you know that if anything did come across like that- you know im being sincere and listening to you!!

That's all super interesting about the world Avery came from and the life forms it may/may not have!!

The little creature is adorable and anything you create from these ocs are super interesting to hear about! I love hearing about the new characters and info you post! So thank you for telling me more so l can also understand more! It's nice to learn! ...and maybe learn how to send more affective teases to see if they'd fluster a certain Cloud or better yet...a Casp-Lee, if you will- {sorry for the silly play on words lol} ehehe)

I hope you are doing okay though!! I keep contemplating making a blog to talk more as me/my OC & actually DM’ing you directly!! but I worry I would be bugging you and the whole little tickly tumblr community a bit! But I hope you’re having a good day and getting some more down time since it seems like you’ve been working so hard/ busy!! Lots of good vibes and silly teases sent your way~✨

-Firefly Lee 🎇

No no, don't apologize! 💙 Nothing wrong with your ask at all, I just can't help infodumping about Avery and his world... haha. //// I'm so glad you liked the little critter, though!

Geee! //// Trust me, your teases are... plenty effective on me. 😵‍💫 If there's anything you DON'T need to apologize for when it comes to me, it's a play on words... 💙

WAAAAAA!!! 💙

Not forced, obviously, but I'd be thrilled to interact with you and chat if you wanted to!! You wouldn't be a bother to me at all!! I obviously can't speak for the whole community, but I personally say the more the merrier when it comes to people expressing themselves through art or writing! I'd love to have you, I'm sure we all would!

Yes, I am still very busy, sadly! 😵‍💫

I actually decided to stop doing tickletober for that reason... I probably should've made a formal announcement, but I guess this is as good a time as any. I had so much fun with it, but the main thing I really wanted to challenge myself to do was complete a sketch every day... and then I realized that even before tickletober, I was pretty much already doing that, haha. I don't see that stopping any time soon, either... I still have more ideas than I can even draw, especially now that Damon is here, and I'm getting ready to bring in another OC soon! I wish I had time to draw my lore stuff and do tickletober, but unfortunately I don't have time for both.

Anyway:

Thank you so much for this ask, happy Monday, I hope you had a great weekend, and feel free to message me any time!! 💙

[noonaishere]

over the past few weeks of keeping up with music of the heart, i can’t help but think that she was wrong for being so mean to him. i absolutely understand her pain because i went through something extremely similar, but after all these years she still so mad at him. hongjoong and jongho seem to understand something i don’t, so i’m pretty sure i’m just a little slow or something 😭 he made a mistake, yes, but he didn’t do it on purpose :( maybe i’m just soft because it’s yuyu, but i’m finding it so difficult to not find her slightly annoying 😭😭

but i’m so obsessed with online/offline 😩 your writing in general is just 😩😩😩 i read work of art even though i don’t know anything about nct just because i knew it’d be good due to it being your writing 😋 (i read it in two days, i couldn’t stop 😭)

sorry if i upset you by calling t/n a little annoying, but i just don’t really understand her :( i do really love your fics and can’t wait to see where they go <33

Hii! Sorry for taking days to respond I was busy cleaning for a day (😭😭😭) and then I spent a day trying to figure out how I wanted a character's "monster" form to look for an original book and I think I got it (🥰🥰🥰)

I don't want to say too much about t/n's mental state, because we're not totally done exploring all of why she feels the way she feels, but it has a lot to do with: what happened was really traumatic + she hasn't seen him since it happened and has basically been working to survive since then, so (=?) she was just never able to deal with it in the tiniest bit (since something that would have been really helpful - therapy - costs money that she had to spend on food and rent). And I'm not upset, lol. I don't mind if you don't like her atm, we haven't even finished the drama of t/n's family so don't worry, you might still end up liking her.

And don't worry about being soft on yuyu, this whole fic has been an experiment in "how do I make a reader hate a male lead and then like him once the reader has forgiven him" but I knew I'd start with a handicap because no one wants to hate loveable yuyu lol.

I'm glad that you like my writing 😭😭🖤🖤 while I like how these fics came out ("came out" since, they're all finished and just waiting in the queue until their post time lol) I wrote them after I experienced some pretty intense burnout, so I was really worried I had lost the ability to write. I was reading an older fic I never finished and my writing feels so different to me now. I'm hoping I can recapture my older style at some point (or, alternately, continue to improve). I have a Loki (smut) fic on my AO3 that I really liked the style of, and I read it now kind of like "…how the fuck did I do that?" lol

Did you like Work of Art? I was like "I've never written a smau, what if I just write a fun little indulgent thing?" and I wanted to try writing a "man verses self" story since I hadn't done one yet, and that's the product lol. I still really like that y/n (you can tell because I kept doing epilogues months or years later 🤣)

Thank you for all the complements! 🥰🥰🥰 I hope you keep enjoying my fics 🖤🖤🖤

[slasherlaurie]

Hi everyone, your friend Laurie is back!! I don’t really know how to start this so I’m getting right into it but summary for babes who cbf (honestly same lol). If you’re the anon who kept popping into my inbox with kindness in the months I was gone PLEASE read the edit at the end.

TLDR: I’m back and I’m writing again! Things will be different but I’m figuring it out as I go. Hope you stick around <3

First of all, I’d like to apologize for my months of disappearances with no explanation. I know that was probably very frustrating for people who had requests or were waiting for more posts. Since the start of this year I’ve been horribly overwhelmed with irl stuff which I won’t get into for the sake of keeping heavy subjects out of this update, but I’ve finally been able to get some free time to get back to the things I love. Which moves me onto the next talking point.

I really have missed this blog and writing, but I think I need to go about it a different way. I put too much pressure on myself to fulfill requests without flaw and in a timely manner that I pushed myself into burnout, and so I’ve been thinking about how to do this the past couple of days. First of all, I’m deleting all requests in my inbox while I figure out what I wanna do. My inbox will still be open for a little while, but please don’t expect me to get around to it. I likely won’t do all of them, but I will make a post about it if I do stick with a request. I’m sorry to anyone who had a request or something in my drafts, I understand if this is upsetting.

I think from now on I’m mostly going to post when I’m inspired, maybe every once a month or so on average. The time pressure of someone waiting for me to churn something out really turned me away from writing so at least for a while I’m going to be completely unscheduled with my posting. Again, I’m very sorry to anyone who had a request in.

As well as this, I’d taken a BIG break from dead by daylight. Not only because of the irl stuff I mentioned making me too busy, but also because I kinda lost my love for the game and the characters. Thankfully, my feelings about it have been rekindled, and I’m really excited to return to the community.

Lastly, to my friends I’ve made through this blog. I’m so so sorry for disappearing and cutting people off, I know it doesn’t excuse it but I’ve been so socially overwhelmed the past couple of months that I’ve neglected to keep up with my online friends. I hope you can understand I wouldn’t have ghosted anyone without warning if I could’ve, but the circumstances made a lot of things extremely stressful at the time.

Sorry for this post being a bit serious, I’m not really sure how to cover everything without sounding like a bunch of excuses otherwise. Also I wrote this in my notes app at like 2am and copy pasted it here so I apologize for the messy format 😭 ily all and I’ve missed you!

edit: To the anon who kept leaving supportive messages in my inbox despite my absence, I appreciate you beyond words you are a REAL one <333 Whoever you are ilysm and I’m so sorry I didn’t see them earlier!!

[namocchi]

Im so sorry i've been absent these couple of months,, maybe a year?? ;o; I opened a store 2 years ago,, it has kept me WAY too busy but recently decided to close it LOL so i can go back to drawing pretty pictures :) I hope you guys dont mind, but i've felt too boxed in fanart, which lead me to burnout, picked up a bunch of other hobbies to help. i'd like to post here more than just artwork :) I want to focus on cute food art and landscapes because that makes me happy, but also i wanna talk about some books i've been reading, crochet projects, some of my pretty journaling pages. Maybe i can make this account my cozy hub of things i enjoy to do instead than having the pressure of just posting art im not super keen to do but feel like i have to 😅😅😅 I still have pastry suggestions on my inbox!! im working on some cream puff art, and some mini cheesecakes :3 and the water drop cake!!

[the-daydream-archives]

Is the sim modeling your Sweet Cavity CC apart of the food sims series, or was that just a sim you cooked up for display/modeling purposes only?

I'm asking, bc they look so cute, do they have a backstory?

Lol, funny you should ask that.

While I mainly made her to just model my Sweet Cavity set, I also originally wanted her to be part of The main Food Sim series as well as the model in the Misery Meat set. However! I typically have a habit of taking their photos first and posting them as Food Sims before I release the CC but was unable to do this since I wanted the CC to be a secret for Simblreen. And since you guys have already seen them, it felt redundant for me to post them (especially since it was past Halloween at that point) and I was feeling deep burnout by the end of the event during that time.

The only moment I disrupted this habit was when I posted Cherry. Since I felt like I could post her since unlike the 2 that I previously mentioned, her design wasn't limited to the holiday that I made her for. Sorry to the model at the Crafter's Workshop but I felt I could have made him better asdfghjkl

But yeah, I'd like to think she would be a side character in my Food Sim Series even though she's not part of the main collection, she would have been called "Halloween Candy" and her story would be that she's a demon that would tempt people into severe overindulgence in the Halloween season (She gets to play hooky for the rest of the year so this is the only time she's busy lol) and has pet bats that she simply adores.

That's pretty much the premise I had when I originally made her. :)) If you guys have any other questions about my sims or etc; feel free to ask! :D

Bonus photos of the Sweet Cavity Model and Misery Meat model (warning on blood/gore) under the cut.

[8beats-per-minute]

Uncanny Valley AU Designs!!

ITS FINALLY HERE

You can skip to the designs if you want then come back, I wouldn’t blame you but I would like to apologize.

I don’t know what happened, I started this right after Christmas 2022 then worked on it basically nonstop for a week and a half. I basically finished Mikey’s design with a few changes and started brainstorming for Raph then my brain was like “lol no”.

It might have been part finding reference poses for Raph or stress from school and exams or burnout or idk. Whatever it was made my motivation disappear. For 3 1/2 months.

I was like “yes stuff is coming!!!! I’m making stuff!!!” And then that just didn’t happen.

Again, I’m sorry.

I’m not going to do much in descriptions (unless I add them later) cause it’s late and I’m tired. I’ve been actually busy for the past 2 weeks.

General design notes!!

I need up doing the connected ears to head idea so that’s why they look so flat

These are meant to reflect Black and Japanese features. I AM NEITHER. If I did something offensive to one of these groups in these drawings I can guarantee I did not know and did not do this on purpose.

PLEASE CORRECT ME IF I DID SOMETHING OFFENSIVE AND I WILL CHANGE IT. I would appreciate it if it is done in a calm matter but I understand if it’s not. Just please don’t call me stupid or racist cause I also have feelings. You can yell at me if I take longer than a week to respond. It would also be best if it was in the comments so it’s easier to respond.

They all have naturally really sharp and thick nails, I just couldn’t show for some of them

I tried giving them masks that incorporated how they wear fabric in their hair. It looks okay but a little weird, especially for Leo and Donnie

I’m writing/posting this between 11pm and midnight after a very long day and with a long day tomorrow so I’m not writing the (aaa I forgot the name for it. The text that explains what the picture looks like) I’ll add it when I have time I’m really sorry tho

Now, without further ado��

The designs!!!

(These might be changed, I have a tendency to change things after and be like wait I like that more but these are basically the designs. They’re also all post-movie so if you want to see pre-movie, as kids or apocalypse let me know :)).

LEO

I gave Leo both vitiligo and red birthmark stripes. Everything is blue (of course) and I’m not a huge fan of what I did for his clothes design but oh well he’s allowed to switch styles. I was stuck between giving him short hair and long hair and blond extensions or not but this is what I settled on. He’s also 10% the type of person to have little bracelets on (Mikey made him the braided one obviously). I have this headcanon that he’d look the most similar to Splinter (as a human obv so Lou Jitsu) so I tried to do that, it’s just hard to go from animated to semi-realistic. Anyway he’s got that superstar dazzling smile/mysterious troublemaker grin. You can’t see but his hair tie is blue. Maybe an actual hair tie maybe a strip of fabric, maybe a scrunchie. It changes every few hours. 

DONNIE

I was actually pretty excited to do Donnie’s face specifically (him and his very square face). I had a really fun time with his shell tho and all the little spots and scars and spiny parts. I tried to make him look similar but not the exact same and I think I did okay. I definitely think they’d look pretty similar just cause it’d be like “haha were twins :)) -Leo”. I was going to give him headphone but forgot so just pretend there’s headphone plz lol. I also believe he’d wear very baggy clothes but I made his collar way too high cause I feel like he’d hate the feeling of stuff on his neck (no this is not me projecting 👀). He also has sharp teeth but I didn’t show them.

MIKEY

Oooh boy. I was so excited for Mikey!!! I also gave him vitiligo on his face, arms, hands and legs )not visible). I also feel like he’d change his hair around A LOT so I gave him a few different hairstyles. He also definitely has paint on most of his clothes and paints on them intentionally. He’s a cool sock guy I just KNOW it. I tried keeping his little shell stickers on his “casual” design but had to move it to the other one cause it looked weird. I did put them on his knee pads if you looks close. I had to keep his other cool face knee pads of course, they’re iconic. And I of course kept his off-centre gap tooth.

Last but certainly not least…

RAPH

I had so many ideas for him and I got most of them but they’re so half-assed I’m sorry Raph 😭. Especially the pose ughhhh it’s so bad. And the shoes 🥲. Anyways instead of focusing on what I did badly were going to focus more on the idea. A few thoughts I knew I wanted was the scar on his eye and shoulder and to add markings cause Raph deserves to glow too. I added some markings on his forehead and just below his ears if you look close. I also added some on his shell and the spikes on his shoulders. He definitely has the most obvious shell out of his brothers but it’s still smaller than how it is in the show. AH I JUST REALIZED I FORGOT HIS RAPH CHASM 😭. Sorryyyy. I also wish Raph’s markings were lighter but oh well.

That’s all for now! Now that I can stop stressing about finishing this I can try and post more about this, whether it be art or talking about it idk.

Also I plan on making a proper logo soon I just have a very busy month ahead of me so we’ll see how fast that gets done

[onlinewolf]

[makeste]

[39 weeks later]

well all right then. I owe some explanations and some updates, so let's just get straight to that.

1. "what the hell, makeste. you can't just disappear for nine months and leave a sign on your blog that says "gone leavin'.'"

yeah I know. sorry guys.

so there are a lot of reasons for my long absence, but when you boil it all down, the essence is basically as follows: at its absolute max capacity, my ADHD brain is capable of keeping up with any two of the following: (1) work; (2) school; (3) tumblr. that's it. only two. no more and no less.

and for years this has not mattered at all because school was no longer in the picture! but as mentioned in my last two update posts, as of this past January, I had to start taking classes again for career advancement reasons, meaning my brain was quickly overloaded and something had to give. so yeah. I can assure you the past nine months have absolutely sucked and I am not AT ALL sure that it was worth it, but it is what it is.

I also want to add that I never intended to basically fall off the face of the earth anywhere near to this extent, let alone for this long. but in retrospect I probably should have seen it coming, seeing as this is not the first time it's happened, sob. and also in hindsight, towards the end of last year (during which I was already struggling to keep up with the weekly BnHA reactions) someone mentioned that it sounded like I was showing signs of being potentially close to burnout. turns out that observation was spot on lol.

so yeah. tl;dr, burnout + an obnoxiously busy real life schedule + a sprinkling of good old-fashioned ADHD "somehow I always underestimate how hard it is to restart something after taking a long break from it, and the longer I go without returning the worse it gets" brain shenanigans (more on that last part further down).

2. "MAKESTE. WHILE YOU WERE GONE, IN THE MANGA, THERE WAS A THING -- "

yes I have unfortunately been spoiled about The Thing.

3. "so wait, exactly how spoiled are you?? CAN WE TALK ABOUT THE THING"

I will make a separate post to talk about The Thing! I expect that many people will want to talk about this, and tbh I've really been wanting to talk about it too! I'm telling you, when I say the past nine months have sucked, I mean they have truly SUCKED, you guys. school is so fucking boring and I miss rambling about fandom stuff so fucking much.

anyway but with that said, ~*~PLEASE DO NOT TALK ABOUT ANY SPOILERS IN THIS POST~*~. I don't want to delete anybody's comments! but I will if necessary because I am a spoiler narc and I don't want to risk accidentally ruining stuff on the off chance that a non-spoiled person comes across this post. so yeah. however please do feel free to message me or comment in my other post (which I will link once it’s up; eta: here it is) if you do want to talk about The Thing.

4. "so aside from The Thing, are you otherwise caught up with the BnHA manga currently?"

so here's the hilarious part: no, I am not caught up. not even remotely. literally the last chapter of BnHA I read was chapter 339, which is the most recent chapter that I liveblogged, all the way back on December 31, 2021. I literally have not read a single new BnHA chapter in the year of our lord 2022 lol. :') basically for the same reasons I mentioned in my previous update post. tl;dr, reading/liveblogging a single new BnHA chapter is a minimum 4+ hour commitment for me, and by this point I have accrued a backlog of... oh sweet lord. 35 total chapters lol. so yeah. that's approximately 140 hours of catch-up that I need to do, which is paralyzing just to think about.

I do still plan on catching up, obviously! I'm just not sure how, lol. I may have some time to spare this weekend, so I might try to binge a few chapters and see how it goes. then I'll have to come up with some sort of sustainable posting schedule. I've been thinking about this for a while and I might try to do a Mon/Wed/Fri thing if I can swing it, but I don't want to commit to anything for sure yet until I see how those first few chapters go. fingers crossed, though.

anyway so I guess that's it. post is getting long. anything more will just be rambling.

sorry again, guys. how is everyone? what did I miss. aside from twitter dying and tumblr welcoming the refugees into our culture by inviting them to participate in the newly created fandom of a nonexistent 1970s mafia film.

[ivyandink]

Hi, Cara! I've been feeling a little stuck with my writing, and since you have written for both sims and a novel, I thought you might be a good person to ask, if that's okay. 1) How did you format your writing when planning sims posts? (screenplay, prose, etc.) 2) How do you keep yourself motivated to work on writing? (sims or not) 3) How do you deal with or prevent burnout? Thank you so much! (Also, how's your novel going??)

Aw I love this ask 😭😭😭 Might be a monster answer, sorry y'all lol. Below a cut for courtesy :)

How do I format sims posts – So if it's for a pure story post (i.e. not gameplay oriented) I always start with the idea for the scene first. From there, I'd loosely format the dialogue (I wouldn't necessarily always write it fully) and any other written info that need to be included!

Depending on the post, and tbh depending on my mood/phase at the time lol, I would bounce between dialogue only on the photo posts, dialogue on images with prose in the post body to support, or fully prose. Like, if there was a lot of internal things I wanted to communicate that I couldn't get across via dialogue, I would write prose style. I personally was never a big fan of writing screenplay style (i.e. Bob growls: Whatever you say Eliza!). I gave it a shot and I didn't vibe w it so I didn't do it again 🤷‍♀️

And then based on the direction I'm taking the writing for the post, I'd know what shots to get! i.e. for dialogue-based scenes, you need a lot more shots, than for something that will be fully-prose. Sometimes if I was feeling lazy or couldn't find the right poses, I'd write prose style to communicate what the scene was lacking visually.

How do I stay motivated– Honestly, this answer varies for sims stuff vs my novel! For my sims stories, I really just went off of when I felt that natural motivation 😂 So because of that I posted really inconsistently, lol. I did try and use the queue feature to my advantage– when I hit a good stride, I'd make sure to schedule posts out over a while rather than dump them all at once, so there'd be less of a post "lull". But other than that, I wrote simblr stories purely for fun, so if it didn't feel fun I didn't do it 🤷‍♀️ Or i'd like throw in a wacky plot if things felt a lil stale (hi remember when Levi randomly had a baby bc of a virtual coin flip lmao). For my novel, I'm currently working on getting my motivation for it BACK rn 😂 I took a pretty decent break from it to work on finalizing all the deets for our wedding, and to focus on my design business! But honestly, the biggest help for me for my novel has been PLANNING. It's a lot easier to motivate yourself to write when you know what TO write. I've seen some people suggest to never stop a writing session at the end of a scene/chapter– at the very least, knock out the first part of the next scene, because that takes advantage of your current moment AND makes it easier to come back to next time, because you're not starting from nothing for that scene.

Dealing with Burnout– Honestly, just REST. And let it be okay to read. If you spend your entire rest period feeling bad or beating yourself up it doesn't ACTUALLY count as rest!!!!

I'll say it again for the people in the back

If you spend your entire rest period feeling bad or beating yourself up it doesn't ACTUALLY count as rest!!!!

For something like simblr, tbh just let it go for a few weeks and come back when it feels fun. Switch things up. Try posting something else for a bit. Start a story, do a few fun scenes, and never finish it. Whatever feels exciting, FOLLOW THAT ITCH!

This is a hobby at the end of the day– the moment is stops feeling enjoyable or like it is fulfilling a goal you have, it's time to take a pause. There is definitely value in cultivating discipline around even our hobbies (I personally have a very....... easily distracted personality type??? Idk. but i give up on stuff easily due to shiny object syndrome lol and tht is something I have to and WANT to actively be working on, personally) but you don't want to push yourself TOO hard that it effects you negatively! Don't put too much pressure on yourself. :) Always, always extend grace to yourself. Whether it's a hobby, a job, or anything else in life. We all deserve rest.

Update on my novel– First off, thanks for asking! 😭❤️ It's..... going! Lmao. I got about 18k words in, and now i've decided to tweak the plot a little bit, which is both incredible and annoying 😂 Currently resisting going back to it, bc I haven't decided if I want to just keep going with it, or go back and restart with the new plot switch.

Tbh, working on a novel is THE most fulfilling creative endeavor I've taken on (aside from my business, but that's a wholeeee other beast lol and more work, less play haha) and it has been so freaking cool watching it grow and develop and morph and REALLY turn into a real story 😭 And as annoying as it is every time things change (I've literally replotted this thing like 15 times lmaoo one day I'll have to share all the plot iterations i've been thru bc it is NUTS how far we've come 😂) it is also really, really neat bc I really feel like I'm chipping away at something real– not something just floating in my head. I read a metaphor once that writing a novel is like a sculptor chipping away at a hunk of clay. It takes a while, but each pass thru, it looks more and more like the thing.

I've also been trying to read a LOT more (up to like 13 books so far this year 😎 ) specifically in the genre I'm writing, and I can already feel how much better I've got at crafting a story because of that, which is exciting, and I just really can't wait to have a finished freaking product in hand that reflects all that lol.

––––

I hope you don't regret sending your ask since I literally wrote you a novel in response 😂 It's just ~who I am~. I hope my answers were a lil helpful for your questions, and thanks for giving me the opportunity to gush about my novel a bit! 🥰 Maybe this will motivate me to work on it this week hehe.

[alb4do]

hii how have u been? its been a hot minute LMAO

hi anon, thank you for checking up on me, i’ve been doing really good thank u !! yeah it’s been a while ahh, i didn’t think anyone noticed i was gone (i’m not even sure if people will see this post) but even so i still feel really bad for leaving out of the blue haha, im really so sorry for that 😭 i never had much dedication for long term stuff so i really just wrote like 3 things and dipped lmao. i got busy with school & genshin burnout and all that, so in the process i lost motivation for writing. i’m hoping that someday in the near future i’ll rekindle the passion i had for writing, which i’m definitely sure will happen again once i get the impulse lol. again thank you for checking up !!

[randomingoftherandomness]

I don;t know if you already saw (I don't know if Ao3 sends out alters) but I have posted the first chapter of an omega Booker fic heavily inspired by your wonderful omega and househusband Booker fics, and also because you turned what I though was gonna be just another 🌶🍋minific/notfic into a full blown fic. Please ignore me if you want! I know you said you're moving onto different fandoms and stuff now. Sorry again for bothering you.

Omg hello friend! I've been swamped at work so I've not been checking my emails but I'll have a look once I'm on my evening commute home.

This is super lovely and completely unexpected! I'm looking forward to checking it out. I'm feel very touched that you'd even thought to undertake this. Thank you for it ❤️ I've been feeling rather tetchy about writing anything to do with TOG lately - maybe it's burnout, maybe it's just the creeping existential dread, maybe it's Maybelline (lol) - and this has really made me smile about the whole endeavour.

Please do not ever apologise for sending me asks and messages about loveliness such as this. You've definitely made my very exhausting and very busy week, for sure ❤️

I'm a multifandom hoe, I always have been, so whilst I may not be posting much TOG on this blog, I'm still flitting around on the fringes with extreme caution and happy obliviousness to the... Whatever goes down on the main tags 😂

Can't wait to read that first chapter x