#starting a new sideblog and still having to use tags is so tough........

[eddiediazenjoyer]

eddie begins and buck begins together are sooooooooo 😖 😖 😖 😖 like what if you were a deeply unloved child who can only see yourself through the lens of how unwanted you are and you don't know why but you know that it's real and the only person who loves you in the entire world leaves you alone and the people that are supposed to love you no matter what look right through you and your sister gives you her car but you don't want her car you want her to come with you so you can protect each other like it's supposed to be but she doesn't so you leave and wander the world and you're so so lost but you're determined to BE something and eventually you find it. and you find a family but still something is missing. and then. and then. a man shows up and becomes a part of your family and you become a part of HIS family and then a well collapses on him and you are so important to him that he uses the image of you and his kid that you love to claw himself out and you were once unloved and unwanted and everybody that was supposed to love you either looked through you or left you but now you have somebody who loves you enough to claw his way back to you as you try to dig him out by hand.

[friends-to-lovers-tournament]

♡ FRIENDS TO LOVERS TOURNAMENT ♡

Are you a fan of the classic friends-to-lovers trope? Do you live for the moment of “Oh. Oh.” in fics? Do you scream at every instance of pining? If so, then this is the tournament for you! This tournament is brought to you by two mods, Mod Deli (she/her; 18+) and Mod Soba (she/they; 18+) , and we hope you enjoy your time here! ♡

Rules & Guidelines:

As the name implies, they have to be FRIENDS to lovers. The ship does NOT have to be canon; headcanons are perfectly fine. Edit: You can submit OCs, but there's no guarantee they will be shortlisted. It will be tough competing with canon characters so you'll want to make your propaganda super convincing to increase their chances of being shortlisted

“How about enemies to friends to lovers?” That’s a fantastic trope which deserves a tournament of its own. As such, we won’t be allowing any enemies to friends to lovers ships (same with rivals to friends to lovers). However, strangers to friends to lovers are acceptable. If your ship has any unique variations of this ‘friends to lovers’ pipeline, please send an ask and we’ll use our best discretion to determine if your ship meets the criteria

Polycules are welcome!

Be respectful at ALL times, to us and to others. If we see any hate or ship bashing, we’ll block you on sight, no questions asked. TERFs, racists, sexists, ableists, and other breeds of bigots stay the fuck away. Our tournament, our rules.

No Harry Potter or Youtubers/Vtubers/other real-life public figures who are still alive. We’ll only consider real-life sources if they are funny enough

Please keep to an appropriate age difference between your blorbos. As a rule of thumb, no one under 18 with anyone over 18 (though if your blorbos are very close to 18 by +/- 1–2 years we would consider them)

You’re allowed to submit multiple ships from the same fandom; just start a new form if you want to submit a different ship. However, please only submit ONE ship each time

Propaganda and info-dumping is welcome and encouraged!

Shortlisting criteria: We’re looking for at least 3 submissions for a ship and/or very convincing propaganda, so show your passion for your lovebirds! That said, we’re also humans with our own blorbos so we may give ships from fandoms we’re in favourable consideration, but we’ll also try to be as fair as possible to everyone

Between the two of us we know a fair number of fandoms but we don’t know EVERY piece of media out there. We’ll do our best to do background checks, but things might still slip by us. As such, if you see any ship you think is problematic, please politely let us know and explain your reasoning in an ask (no DMs because this is a shared sideblog, but you can request for us to answer your ask privately as long as you turn off anon)

Submissions ARE CLOSED NOW will be closed on 30 June 2023, 6am PST or when we have enough submissions (we're looking at maybe 64 right now but that's subject to change)

Tagging other tournament blogs that inspired this one @obscuremilfoff @greenhairandpronouns-tournament @weirdass-shiptournament @a3playshipbattleroyale @pinkhairswagtourney @retirement-home-rumble

Reblogs are appreciated! ♡

[thebiggerbear]

Some Announcements

Hello, all! Just wanted to give a few updates. All underneath the cut:

Firstly, thank you for all of the follows (1k? you guys rock!!!), reblogs, comments, and likes! They are truly appreciated.

Secondly, there are a few things I just want to mention quickly about this blog.

1) Clean Up: I have been doing some reorganizing and cleaning up of this blog in the past couple of weeks or so (and I'm almost done with it; I have some more pages to add for the main navigation list). While the look and layout hasn't changed, some things have been updated, particularly the organization. Hopefully, this will make the navigation much easier for anyone looking for something specific.

This clean up also includes the fic tag list I have. I left everyone who requested a tag in the last 30 days or so as well as those who continue to interact with the posts they asked to be tagged for. I've removed anyone who has been inactive or not interacting with said posts for a while. (I'm not talking previews or anything of that nature but fully posted works) If you find you are no longer tagged and decide you'd like to be re-added in the future, please let me know and I will add you back on.

I also have moved some works to AO3 that were getting very little to no interaction in recent months. I have provided the AO3 links for them in the main works list in case anyone decides they would like to follow them over there.

2) Four new blogs: Yep, you read that right lol. I'm a big organizer (in case you couldn't already tell lol) and I decided to spawn off some sideblogs for different kinds of content.

I have started a fic/fic writer rec blog @biggerbearficrecs Here I will be posting monthly fic recs and writer spotlights. It's in the beginning stages so there's still a few things I'm working out, but I'm excited for it. Getting back into my reading zone and discovering some truly amazing stories and some wonderfully talented people out there!

I also have a blog @biggerbearsreads which is where I reblog all of the fics that I would like to check out.

I now have a blog @biggerbeardailies that is pretty much for everyday type of content being reblogged.

And I redid the writing sideblog and created @thebiggerbearwritings. Here is where I will reblog my fics/works to a space that is dedicated exclusively to them. So if you would like to follow that one for the writing only and turn on notifications, it should send you a notification anytime there is a new post.

3) Writing Hiatus: Speaking of writing, I'm currently on hiatus here until further notice. I have a lot going on right now personally and I'll be frank, I just don't have the same drive that I used to. This year has truly been a...special horrible one and that in conjunction with the decrease of activity and interactions on here on fics over the last few months, I just don't have it in me to keep pushing to churn them out. So I'm putting myself on a writing pause and up on a shelf until I feel ready to get back into the saddle and give it another try. I know I have a lot of incomplete works (some not even posted here or on AO3) but this felt like the right decision. It was either that or deactivate permanently, and I figured the former was a better way to go.

And I'm not going to lie, this was a tough decision for me to make, about putting writing on pause. It's always something I've been doing since I was a kid, but the amount of shit that has gone down since February, between passings and the amount of hospitals (not me, loved ones) and the up-and-down rollercoaster ride all of that entails just truly kicked my ass. I won't lie, some days I just want to stay hidden in bed, head under pillow, and not deal with anything. But that's not the answer so I have to shift some things around to try to make things better that are under my control. Or at least, I'm trying. 🙂

Anyway, sorry for the long ramble there at the end but these are the updates I wanted to give you guys. I do currently have the ask box closed. Whenever I start writing again, I'll put it back on. I also have not forgotten about the fic requests I've received here and on AO3. Those will be completed! (I started most of them) But I just have to wait for myself to feel ready to do anymore writing before I do so. Sorry, I don't want to disappoint anyone but I have to do what's right for me.

Thank you for all of your patience, support, and understanding in what has been a very fucked up year (for all people, seriously). I truly appreciate it. ❤️ I hope you all are having a great week and have an even better weekend!!!

[rpbetter]

Reblog Etiquette (and ships)

At this point, we all know about “reblog karma” and “reblogging from source.” Though, I say that...and am questioning it. You should fucking know this by now, but in the event you don’t, let me define that shit for you.

Reblog Karma: the RPC’s oldest attempt at keeping people from clogging notifications and using others as meme resources. Essentially, don’t reblog a meme from a mutual unless you are sending them something from that meme first. Not all blogs practice it, or practice it the same way, please see their rules.

Reblogging from Source: another effort to stop being used as a meme/aesthetics resource. Many RPers would like you to reblog quotes, aesthetics, and memes from their source (original post location or the meme/aesthetics/quotes resource blog they got it from), even if you are sending them a meme. This is especially applicable when not interacting with the RPer.

Okay, that’s out of the way.

There is more to Reblog Etiquette than this!

And, when that etiquette is nonexistent, it almost always deals with a RPer’s ship. Mentioning ship partners and/or tagging ships on a reblog from another RPer, not removing that RPer’s mentions or tags, and even dropping a mention or outright RPing in the comments of another RPer’s reblog.

Don’t reblog from another mun and tag your ship or mention (@) your ship partner(s).

Don’t reblog a post with someone else’s mention still stuck to it.

Don’t reblog a post and leave the previous mun’s tags still in the tags.

Don’t go into the comments on someone’s post and mention your ship partner(s).

Don’t roleplay in the comments of someone else’s post.

None of this is alright, I have no idea what would make anyone think this is appropriate reblog etiquette, but it very much is not. It’s incredibly rude and lazy. Because I know that many people have similar ship aesthetics and so on, I’m not saying you shouldn’t reblog something for your own ships that a mutual has for theirs. (That’s a whole other in depth conversation we’ll have later.)

I’m saying that this is how you should be going about it:

Reblog from the source.

-What if there is no source because it’s deactivated, or there is another reason why I can’t access it? 

Go into the post’s notes. At some point, damn near every post that could be used as an aesthetic, quote, or prompt for a ship (and RP in general) has been reblogged by at least one source blog. Look for RP meme, aesthetic, help, and other resource blog urls. If you cannot find one of those, look for urls that are general resource-style blogs. Personal blogs reblog aesthetics etc. as well, and there are many such resource blogs out there. -If you’re uncomfortable reblogging from a personal, that’s tough shit; I hate to break it to you, but most of your resources came from personal blogs. Deal with it, or don’t reblog anything you can’t find filtered through a RP specific resource.

-- “But this takes time/effort lol I just want to use it for my ship.” Again, tough shit. Sometimes, it does take energy not to be rude and do the right the thing. In all honesty, it’s fairly rare that doing the right thing is effortless, even when it’s something as simple as RP. Grow up.

--- You went through the notes, but there’s no appropriate blog to reblog from, now what?

Just because it’s a rare occurrence doesn’t mean it’s impossible. I know this one isn’t, I’ve had it happen too! My choice was to not reblog it at all, I just sent the link to my ship partner privately instead. If you don’t have that kind of friendship, you really wanted it on the dash, or another reason, you are now left with one option, and you’re not going to like it. Message the mutual you want to reblog from. Politely, explain that you’d like to reblog the post for your ship, and ask if they’re comfortable with it. No guilting, begging, or general, weird ass rudeness. If they decline, accept it just as politely, thank them for their response. If they accept, thank them, and especially if this isn’t a mutual you interact with much, be sure you’re showing them continued support on the dash by reading and liking/commenting on their headcanon posts and other appropriate material. (You should be anyway.)

Remove any mentions present (@’s)

Seriously, this is incredibly rude! Yet, with the typical lack of self-reflection and awareness of others in the RPC here, I see it multiple times a day on my dash. Not just with RP-blog-to-RP-blog interaction either, I also see RPers reblogging from personals and leaving their mentions attached. (I see it the other way around too, but I’m not here to school personal blogs.) For all the excessive emphasis RPers put on appearance, you’d think they’d want to get rid of something that looks this sloppy, but no. Not if it takes one extra second of effort!

-I know that xkit’s editable reblogs tends to break whenever tumblr gives us a new, exciting, hideous, insulting, limitation, I mean update, but come the fuck on. It is also one of the quickest things to regain functionality, so, maybe you should save the reblog to drafts, be following xkit’s blog for updates, and edit it once there has been a patch. If it’s worth it to you, it’s worth a short wait. When it’s working, you can easily remove that mention with editable reblogs.

--If you’re going to use being mobile as an excuse, or if you don’t want to wait on it/don’t use xkit, again, go to the source. And, also again, if that isn’t an option, you can find where it has been reblogged by an appropriate blog at some point in its history, sans mentions. Reblog from there.

Do not reblog someone else’s tags (#)

Some people have their xkit set up to reblog automatically with the previous poster’s tags. While that can be useful in some situations, I can think of, very literally, no situation this is appropriate for an RPer to use. If you have this set up on your personal/resource blog/wtfe and your RP blog is a sideblog (or you are using certain methods of having your browser open to two separate blog accounts where your xkit settings are transferring over), it’s up to you to delete the tags on these posts.

-It takes maybe one full second to click in the tag field and hit your delete button a few times to clear it. Do that. It’s never, ever, appropriate to keep someone’s ship, muse, verse, or other personalized tags attached to a reblog.

--If you are a personal blog reading this somehow, maybe you’re wanting to get into RP, please take note of this. This is one of the many reasons why most RPers will not interact with personals. We don’t like you reblogging an aesthetic post and keeping our tags on it.

In the case of both situations, not only is it rude and lazy, it’s fucking with someone else’s tags and privacy. Most RPers don’t want their content showing up in generally searchable tags, it’s one of the reasons that personalizing tags came about. Furthermore, if I’m on my dash and click a mutual’s custom tag for aesthetics, verses, ships, and so on, it’s now going to come up with instances of those tags on someone else’s blog as well.

Delete the fucking tags if they auto-populate. Don’t use someone else’s custom tags of your own volition either.

“Subverting” reblogs to mention in comments is a hard no, too

-So, you don’t want to reblog the post, but do want to @ your ship partner(s) in it? There’s no way to do that without being rude and strange. To be honest, this is even worse than just reblogging and tagging your ship.

I may not be the OP, but you came onto a post on my blog, one very likely tagged for my ships and/or having my ship partners mentioned on it, and commented on it mentioning your ship partner. It’s every bit as offensive and more so than someone reblogging from me and using it for a ship I’m not a part of. I don’t know what’s worse, when that other mun is a ship partner, casual mutual who doesn’t interact, or a writing partner but not ship partner. It’s all deeply fucked up. No one’s RP blog is here for your use like this!

--You’re also not subverting anything. I think the idea is to be polite or go unnoticed. People seem to lack a basic grasp on how tumblr works; you get notifications on reblogged posts you are not the OP of when someone comments on them just like you get a notif when someone likes it. The only way to genuinely be secretive about this would be to comment on it from the source or a resource blog. They will get the notification.

If you are commenting on, liking, or reblogging a post you see on the dash, the person having reblogged it, putting it there for you to encounter, will be notified of your interaction with it.

---What I’m saying, just in case it isn’t abundantly clear, for the third time now: you’re not being slick. Your mutuals will see that you weirdly @’ed someone in a comment on their reblog. They know.

----The appropriate behavior is to do just as advised in the above points: GO TO THE SOURCE. If no source exists, find an appropriate resource blog in the notes. You may then, and only then, give that mention in a comment.

Frankly, it’s still weird, and I would recommend you just reblog it from the source to interact with it. There is always the option of sending it to the intended party by way of tumblr’s messenger or linking the post in an off tumblr messenger like discord.

I say this because it hasn’t escaped my attention that the only time I have this issue on my own RP blog is when the imagery or text is fucking filthy. As in, Other Mun didn’t want something that sexual, kinky, violent, and so on to be posted to their own blog. You need to grow up if that’s your deal. Like writing smut or violence, if you need to do it in private only, you’re obviously not adult enough to handle the topic.

Keep your roleplay where it belongs; in your inbox and threads

-It’s not appropriate to start up RP in the comments of another RPer’s reblogged ship aesthetic. (Or anything else, this just happens to be the most common.) It’s incredibly odd and offensive to look in your notifications and see that a mutual and their ship partner are flirting, or outright fucking, in the comments of a post you reblogged for your ship.

It’s just as awkward feeling and offensive when someone reblogs the post and begins full-blown RP on it. It’s one thing when it’s a post originating from an RP resource blog, or when it’s kept to something like a mention and a short line that your writing partner can start their original post in inspiration of. But...

--You know how I said above that auto-copying tags thing is one of the reasons why RPers are iffy about personal blogs? Well, this is one of the reasons why personal blogs think RPers are exceedingly weird members of fandom that need to be excluded and devalued. It’s odd, especially if you’ve never encountered RP, to see someone reblogging your quote, moodboard, or other original post and RPing on it.

Listen, we all need to RP some crack and commentary sometimes, but it’s best left in the tags or put into a new post.

---Instead of RPing (not sorry, especially if it is smut) on that post, link the image to show in a new post, and go from there.

Please remember to be polite about artists, including photographers and gifers, when you do this! Tumblr automatically gives the source of imagery when you use a link to display the picture, that’s why I recommended doing that instead of saving, then re-uploading the image as though it is your own. If you’re going to do that, even if it’s just silliness going on, give mention of the artist, photographer’s blog/site, or gifer’s blog in the tag or below the image.

Tumblr is deeply unfriendly to artists of all sorts, don’t be fuel that. When you upload artwork for the sake of RP, again, even if it’s just crack, that’s literally violating what artists ask people not to do; you’re reposting their art without permission and credit.

[jadegrey711]

Who is This? I Like Her.

Eric Northman x Fem!Reader

A/N; Hi everyone! So I’ve gotten a couple of Eric Northman requests and I am here for it! I love me some hot Viking vampire. 😂😂. So here’s one of my Eric Northman requests, I’m trying to go through my requests and get them done but I’m slow and sometimes inspiration just doesn’t want to hit me lmao. I hope you like it ANON it’s a bit short but I made it cute and tried not to spoil anything for s4 (which is my fav season btw).

*Credit for gifs to @bonniebirddoesgifs *

Request Prompt Oooh could you maybe one where eric and the reader are kind of new at seeing each other like they’re still a bit unsure of what they are but they’re both crazy about each other and then the next time the reader sees him it’s when he’s lost his memory in s4 and it’s really funny because he’s acting so different (btw I’m only on s4 so pls no spoilers)🧡🥰

Prompt: The reader goes to Fangtasia unaware of what has happened with Eric and the witches.

If you like my stories you can check out my sideblog @jadegreywriting​​ to see all of them and my masterlist without filtering through my main blog.

I own all rights to this story and do not give permission for my stories to be published, translated or reposted anywhere else. The only places I have published my stories is here on Tumblr and on my AO3 account (LadyAuthor711) 

You pulled up into the parking lot of Fangtasia and was surprised to see that there were no other cars in the lot apart from yours and surprisingly enough; Sookie’s car was there too. Why would Sookie be here? Did Eric have some kind of business for her? You parked the car and started walking towards the front of the club and pulled on the front door, finding it unlocked. As you entered the club you started to hear voices coming from the backroom.

“Hello?” You shouted. “Eric. Pam. Are you guys here? What’s Sookie’s car doing in the parking lot?”

“She needs to know.” You heard someone say. “She is Eric’s isn’t she? She deserves to know what happened to him.” Someone was saying in the backroom.

“What happened to Eric?” You called out and just as you did you felt a gush of wind and turned to find Eric standing behind you. He wasn’t wearing a shirt but that wasn’t the odd part about his appearance, what was odd was the dark navy basketball shorts that Eric had slung low on his cut hips.

He tilted his head at you, and stared into your eyes. “Who are you?” He asked, just as Pam and Sookie came out from the back room. You turned your attention away from your Viking vampire and towards the women.

“What’s wrong with Eric?” You asked and suddenly felt his presence was closer than before and he reached out for a piece of your hair, grasping it and twirling it between his fingers.

Sookie looked from you to Pam, then to Eric and back to you before she spoke. “Eric is cursed.” She said simply.

“Cursed?” You said, raising your eyebrows in suspicion. “How the hell did he get cursed and better yet who cursed him?” You asked not even bothered by the tall vampire behind you who pulled your hair to his nose to inhale your scent.

“Bill Compton sent Eric after some witches and they cursed him.” Pam said obviously fuming about the whole situation. “I think he purposely sent Eric into danger, thinking they’d kill him.”

“Do you really think Bill is capable of that?” You asked.

“I think he’s a power hungry little turd who’s had it out for Eric from the very beginning. So, yes I think he’s capable of sending Eric into a trap to get him killed.”

“Okay well, what kind of curse is it?” You asked, feeling kind of silly talking about curses but you were sort of seeing a thousand year old vampire so witches and curses couldn’t be too much of a stretch.

“They wiped his memory.” Sookie said gently. “He knows what he is just not who he is. Or who any of us are. I mean I found him shirtless on the side of the road, just walking and he had no idea who I was. Or who Pam is either. We had to tell him who we were and explain to him that he’s Pam maker and everything else.”

“Did you tell him about me?” You asked, feeling a bit selfish saying that, when Eric suddenly spoke up, dropping the piece of hair he was still twirling in his fingers.

“Who is she, Pam?” He said his eyes wide with curiosity and hesitation; something that you never would’ve seen in the eyes of a non cursed Eric Northman. He was always so sure about himself, confident and arrogant as fuck but he could be sweet when he wanted to be. When he was with you and it wasn’t until you started seeing each other for a while that you saw the barest hint of that sweetness. But now it was like that tough, arrogant outer shell was completely gone leaving that sweet interior fully exposed.

“That’s Y/N.” Sookie said before Pam could say anything.

“Y/N.” He said, trying out your name on his tongue, before looking back at you with a smile on his face. “You're beautiful.”

You felt your cheeks flush at the wonderment in Eric’s eyes as he looked at you and called you beautiful, before Pam cut in.

“Oh, good he likes his fuckbuddy. Maybe her pussy will trigger his memory.” Pam said sarcastically and you felt your cheeks heat dangerously and Eric’s eyes were back on you.

“We’ve had sex?” He asked his eyes wide.

You bit your lip. “A few times yes.” You admitted bashfully.

Eric seemed to chew on this information for a moment before he asked. “Are you mine?”

“She is.” Pam said before you could speak. You looked back at Pam in confusion. Eric never claimed you as his at least he never said to you that you were his.

“No. I’m not.” You said to Pam before you turned back to Eric, who looked a little disappointed by your answer; before he quickly bounced back.

“Would you like to be mine?” He asked, hopefully, making you chuckle.

“She’s already yours Eric. She has been since the moment she first walked into Fangtasia. You told me so yourself.” She directed that last line towards you to let you know that she wasn’t fucking around. While Eric didn’t publicly claim you as his, he had claimed you without your knowing and now he was like this.

Eric’s eyes were intensely focused on you now, taking you in as you stood before him.

“I wish I remembered something as memorable as being with a woman as beautiful as you. Even if you aren’t mine.” He said with a sweet smile, that made your chest ache and long to run your fingers through that gorgeous blonde hair to soothe the worried look on the viking’s face.

You turned back to Pam and Sookie. “What are we going to do?”

“Eric can’t stay here.” Pam said simply. “He’s venerable right now and he needs a place to stay, to keep him safe. You need to take him in.”

“Me?” You asked and you could practically feel Eric’s smile behind you.

“Yes. I’ll be the first place they look for Eric, and then they’ll look at Sookie’s. But you, they don’t know who you are, Eric will be safe with you.”

You felt Eric’s prescence grow closer and found him standing next to you, with that same soft smile still plastered on his face. You looked from Eric to Sookie and Pam and sighed.

“Alright I’ll do it.”

Tag List;

@mysteryoflourve

[porchwood]

Hi just so I understand cause i keep waiting for it and it doesnt seem likely to happen have you kind of fallen out of love with wtm? and everlark in general tbh? cause ive been following you for a while now and you always had lil quotes and pictures and things that reminded you inspired you whatever it was about katniss and wtm and now alllll it is is gadge i followed you because personally i love what you did with everlark and im just wondering if thats gone and not foreseeable any time soon?

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to answer this… It’s afair question - to a point. If you’re more of a drop-in person (like me) thanlive-on-the-dash, coming back to find my blog awash in Gadge might have beenquite upsetting. There are several reasons for the current state of things:

1. Life has been driving me into the ground since December26, 2013. (Yes, going on six straight years.) If you were a WtM reader from thebeginning, you may recall that I was pretty energetic and prolific in 2012-2013.Oh, there were tough times, but nothing like what started on the aforementioneddate (a car accident where I was in the “bystander” vehicle and it still got totaled)and has continued relentlessly ever since. Sometimes adversity leads to greatcreativity and sometimes it turns you into a depressed, exhausted, reclusivelump, and the past 5+ years have seen periods of both from me. These past 18months have been exceptionally awful (and expensive), resulting in very littlewriting at all, about any pairing.

2. Writing WtM takes a lot out of me. I don’t know whether thisis common knowledge or not, but it’s the gospel truth. I love that world, Ilove that version of Everlark, but every chapter requires so much hard work, itmakes me tired just to think of it. Not to mention, over the past couple of chaptersEverlark have been pushing for more intimacy than the plot/timeline allows, andso I’ve been struggling with how I want to handle that. Do I fight them andstick to the plan? (I can’t advance the timeline for several reasons.) Do I tryto figure out a cheat for them? They’ve got minds of their own and have changedmy plans multiple times, but this is something they genuinely can’t have, and Ihave to fight them on it. ☹ Which is sad, frustrating, and exhausting.

3. I’m a multi-pairing shipper, and have been from about 3chapters into WtM. Which means that my Everlark fics almost always feature asecondary pairing (or more than one), and sometimes I’ll get a plot bunny for afic about a pairing other than Everlark. Most writers in the THG fandom exclusivelywrite their OTP, whatever the plot bunny, but I find that some plot bunnies don’tfit Everlark as well as they do another pairing. (This is why I’ll never write aBeauty and the Beast Everlark fic unless Katniss is the “Beast,” if you will.)

4. The Everlark fandom is…tricky. I’ve never fit in there. Idon’t write Everlark the way the majority of fans see them (except for Peetabeing “sweet,” I guess), I hated the movies (I refuse to see MJ 1 or 2), and I’vemanaged to really rub some people the wrong way over the years –unintentionally, and for a variety of reasons – all of which leaves me feeling kinda down about Everlark in general. Don’t misunderstand me: I love Everlarkand WtM, but it’s really isolating to be this sad little island of unpopularopinions and unwelcome side-ships. That’s the part I really wish I could makeyou understand. For six years I’ve had Christopher Plummer in my head saying, “You’llnever be one of them,” and he’s so, cruelly, right. I want to cry every time Ithink of Embracing the Season (my E-rated Everlark modern AU oneshot for Lovein Panem - lots of daring for me!) because I poured heart and soul into that andit still wasn’t the Everlark that people wanted.

5. About a year and a half ago (when Strawberry Time reallytook off of its own accord) I participated in Gadge Day 2017, working my buttoff to find and schedule (and tag) over 100 carefully chosen Gale/Madge/Gadge aestheticposts, and for lack of a better way to say it: it turned on my Gadge-dar. After that, thosekinds of posts just leapt out at me whenever I had a chance to scroll, and forseveral months I wasn’t sure what to do with that. With a little encouragementfrom @ghtlovesthg, I came up with #march madgeness – wherein I turned my Tumblrinto Madge/Gadge-land for one month, and it was a blast. (Side-stepping Gadgefor a moment: Madge is a highly underappreciated and underused character,especially in fic/on Tumblr and I love splashing the dash with Madge-love.) Thenext month I launched a run of pent-up Everlark posts (i.e., regularprogramming), but I missed my Madge, so I instituted #madge monday – one day aweek when I could splash the dash with Madge/Gadge. At every juncture I gavepeople tags to block if they didn’t want to see this content (though I stillget unfollows every time I post, alas). I participated in last summer’s THG Reread– on the fringe of it, but my posts (reblogs and meta) were strongly Everlark-focusedagain during that time. So there’s definitely still been Everlark on my blog,but if you’re just dropping in (or for that matter, glancing at my archive), you’regoing to see a majority of Madge/Gadge.

6. Frankly, Gadge is fun. It’s a completely different dynamicthan Everlark, with less pressure to create something transcendent, and whenthe chips are down, I’m more likely to work on something that isn’t my six-years-runningopus. This spring, in the midst of lots of awfulness, I finally wrote a piecethat I’ve had in my head for years – The Best Part of Waking Up – with a differentpairing featured in each drabble “chapter,” including Gadge, Luka/Johanna (whoI’ve been wanting to put out there for AGES) and Jack/Raisa. I haven’t beenable to write quickly in years, and I think I finished those three “chapters”in about two days, maybe three. I completed the Raisa drabble in a couple ofhours and I consider it one of the best things I’ve ever written. (Honestly, ifa pairing was going to topple Everlark in my heart, it would be Jack/Raisa, i.e.,Mr. Everdeen/Mrs. Mellark. I love them to distraction.) Once upon a time I could drabble/sprint Everlark too – notoften, but I could manage it. Maybe it’ll happen again someday, but for thetime being, when I write in quick eager bursts, it’s usually about aside-pairing.

7. Because I just need to say it: about a year ago, I set up a secondary Tumblr for almost all my side-interests and ships outside of THG. When I first joined Tumblr, porchwood was just a fun page where I posted whatever struck my fancy (pretty things, funny things, whatever I liked), and over the next few years, I honed it into a pretty “writer’s notebook” for WtM and my other THG fics (related quotes, aesthetic posts, writing check-ins, etc.). When Star Wars: The Force Awakens came out, I shared a handful of posts pertaining to a new ship (not a new direction for my blog or writing, just sharing my excitement) and it was made very clear to me that people didn’t want to see that content on my page. So when I started watching Voltron: Legendary Defender, I had a sneaking suspicion people wouldn’t want to hear about those ships either. So I started an entirely new Tumblr for that content, and every so often I accidentally post something to the wrong page, which I immediately correct in horror, but people still unfollow. Point being: this blog is THG (and a few personal life updates) ONLY, with a pretty consistent aesthetic. I hide literally everything else that I’m interested in so you don’t have to be bothered by it. Is it really so unacceptable for me to have side-ships (complementary to the main pairing, not threatening to them) in the same universe??

8. Believe it or not, I’ve been working on WtM all along,just not making any massive strides. I tried to chip away at the current chapterduring Camp Nanowrimo last July, and it was a disaster. I thought joining awriting group would be helpful, but I didn’t realize that Camp Nano is basicallya lot of writing sprints in which you try to churn out as many words aspossible, which you then report to your “cabin” – and that’s the onlyinteraction with your fellow writers. I can’t write like that anymore (seeabove) and especially not when it comes to WtM, so I got discouraged veryquickly and sort of drifted away. I reattempted Nano on my own in April and wrotealmost 15K words, but in that instance I was really just using the Nano platform toset and reach a goal (which I didn’t ☹ ); I wasn’t in a cabin and didn’t interact with anyother writers, except my friend @ghtlovesthg, who read the finished portion.

9. I want to finish this dang chapter so much, and frankly, theonly way that’s going to happen is if life gets a little better and I holemyself up with my laptop for hours on end for weeks at a time – and somemagical being comes to support/cheer/comfort me while I do so. It’s currentlysitting at about 25K and I anticipate it will need to be at least double that,which is beyond ridiculous, but that’s the nature of WtM. The chapters are asmany words as it takes.

TL, DR: I still love Everlark and I’m still working on WtM, but my life has been extremely difficult for a very long time and I don’t have a great Everlark lifeline. Gadge and all my other ships are fun, and most of the Gadge you see on my Tumblr is aesthetic stuff for themed days/months/occasions. Anything non-THG goes on my sideblog.

[mischiefiswritten]

The Care and Keeping of Your Writeblr | Pt. 3 - Connecting with Other Writeblrs

Hello all, and welcome to my possibly-useful, possibly-not advice for creating and maintaining your own writing blog and connecting with the online writing community.

I'm in no way an expert, nor am I the best, most popular writeblr out there. Not all the advice I will post will work for or even appeal to everybody, but I'd like to share what I've observed and found useful in my own time running this writeblr sideblog.

This installment will be covering basic tools for MAKING CONNECTIONS.

See also: Pt. 1 - Getting Started, Pt. 2 - Anatomy of the Common Writeblr

The writeblr community is an amazing place. We're incredibly lucky to have such an easily accessed creative space, and the best resources for writers are often other writers. It can be intimidating, though, to break into a large, established community, but things don't have to be so tough! Keep in mind that most writeblrs were once exactly where you are. Many are still nervous reaching out to new people, and that's okay! Here are a few tips that may help ease your way.

Writeblr Intro:

These are absolutely essential if you want to get your writeblr noticed! If you've read Pt. 2 of this series, you're familiar with the function and content of these introductory posts. This is where you get to announce your presence and your writing when you're ready. Most writeblrs are only too happy to reblog other people's intros - we all remember how happy it made us to see people spreading the word about us when we were new! Don't worry about making yourself sound too universally appealing or about revealing personal information you don't feel comfortable sharing. (Protect your privacy, guys.) Just take this time to be yourself and let everyone know what your blog will be all about. This is the easiest, simplest way to start connecting with other writeblrs and to see how friendly this community can be!

Reblog Other Writers:

Writing is tough, and we all need support. That's one of the greatest aspects of this community - writers supporting writers. It can be challenging to get your work out there (not to mention intimidating), and it means a lot to see someone re-sharing what you've posted. For people looking to participate in an online community, reciprocal relationships are a big draw. If you show an investment in someone else's work, they're often glad to do the same for you. Key word here: relationships.

Note that relationships in this context doesn't have to be anything personal or deep. Show an interest. Be a supporter. Hit the reblog button.

Reblog Yourself, Seriously:

Okay, this sounds super uncomfortable at first, but it's nothing to worry about. People do this all the time, especially people with creative content to share. You're going to have to promote yourself sometimes, and there's nothing wrong with that. Go ahead and reblog yourself, even if you don't have anything new to add. People aren't online every day. People live in different time zones and log on at different hours. Dashboards get cluttered. With all of this going on, it can be easy for your posts to get lost. Don't be discouraged when this happens - just post it again!

Reach Out:

Writers. Love. Mail. Send some! Drop by a blog that's caught your interest and leave a message, ask, or comment. Try something like, "Hi! I'm a new writeblr, and I've just come across your blog. I really like it!" If you're feeling brave, throw in something along the lines of, "I hope we can chat about [insert topic] sometime." It can feel easier to leave messages like this on other new writeblrs, so check some out! There are always going to be lots of users in the same boat as you.

If you're not feeling brave enough to leave messages like the above, maybe it'll be easier to simply comment on their posts, OCs, or WIPs. I personally feel awkward when I try to compliment someone directly, but asking a question makes it easier. Leave someone an ask about one of their characters or projects, like, "[Project name] sounds really interesting! Where did you get the inspiration for it?"

If you're comfortable with it, just get the ball rolling with some interactions. Step back when you need to, and try not to feel pressured.

Ask!:

Really! There's no shame in a post saying you're looking for followers, mutuals, or writeblr friends. Lots of people are, so you may be surprised at the results it will yield! If you're looking for someone to exchange content with, ask for that. If you're looking for a group to chat with, say so.

Use Tags:

Tags are a major tool for navigation on Tumblr. It's how we find the content we're interested in and looking for. Someone finding your blog may come down to the tags you use.

Some common tags in the writeblr community include:

#writeblr (go figure)

#writeblr intro

#writing

#writers on tumblr

#new writeblr

#writeblr community

#looking for blogs to follow

Tags in this vein will put your posts in a pool of posts written by and read by likeminded blogs. Be creative if you want, but be accurate with your tags. (i.e. Don't tag a post as something it's blatantly not related to.) Pay attention to the tags other writeblrs use for additional ideas.

Add Yourself to Tag Lists:

Just about every writer on Tumblr is beside themselves with joy when someone shows even the slightest shred of interest in their work. We all love to have our efforts recognized and to feel heard, so if you want to make a connection with other writeblrs, you might find some blogs with WIPs you like and ask to be tagged in their original content. Most writeblrs are happy to see people asking to be tagged in a comment, reblog, ask, or message. If someone says they don't do tag lists, don't be discouraged - you still put yourself out their and spread some writer positivity!

Being tagged in a user's posts about their work will help you navigate to it quickly and easily without missing anything, and it opens a channel for potential communication. They may even ask to be tagged by you!

Repeat:

Making connections with other writeblrs is an ongoing process. Keep looking for and using different methods of connecting, and soon enough, you'll find your follower count growing, have bright writers appearing on your dash, and meet a few friends. Just hang in there!

Comments? Suggestions? Corrections? Additions? Let me know what you thought about this guide and if you have any ideas for future installments, which are coming soon. Happy writing, everybody.

[beyondthetemples-ooc]

Tagged

By proximity more than anything, but as Storm tagged “whoever wants to do this”, and I wanted to do this: I was tagged by @stormwaterwitch

Nickname// RWT, Shadow, Stellar, Snow, Crow, among others.

Zodiac Sign// Aries sun, Scorpio ascendent, Cancer moon. 

Height// 5"3.5

Time// 11:59am

Fave Band// Evanescence (For 12 years and counting. Have you heard their new stuff? Righteous EXPERIENCE.) But also Tarja, Xandria, Epica, Nightwish, Kamelot, and Alex Dalliance / Vulture Culture.

Song Stuck in my Head// Danny Boy, by Celtic Woman?

Last movie I saw// Felidae

Last thing I googled// "one dollar movies”

Other blogs// Oh boy. ~ Personal: @beyondthetemples-ooc ~ Moderating: @teentitansheadcanons ~ Singing blog: @rhs-sings ~ Blogs for my OCs: @beyondthetemples, @mind-on-magic, highpriest-in-training-tests, flames-and-fury, thedemonevangeline. ~ Blogs for canon characters: @girl-outta-hell, @made-of-valor, @amanita-cemetarium (among others) ~ A couple of private blogs for medical logging, and spiritual/past life/etc. experiences too weird to even put on this blog.

Do I get asks// Mostly headcanon submissions, but maybe once or twice a month from friends.

Why did I choose this username// “RWT” because it’s the abbreviation for My “True” Name. On my old personal account, I had a sideblog called “rhs-mystic-corner”. Because, like the blog says, it’s “My Mystic Corner of the Universe”. But I’m trying to dissociate myself from the RHS identity. Hence: using RWT instead. (That, and it’s more true to my magical identity, anyway.)

Following// 573 (many of which are no longer active. So maybe more like 300?)

Average amount of sleep// 8 hours (varies between 4 and 12.)

What I’m wearing// My favorite shirt (an elegantly-cut top with shawl-like open “sleeves” that drape over my shoulders down to my elbows), long black skirt (which i’m never NOT wearing, let’s be real)

Dream Job// R e t i r e m e n t ! 

But, if I’m really allowed to DREAM here: I’d love to become an MD Veterinarian, specializing in nutrition and exotics, particularly small mammals and birds. Ornithologist would be amazing, too! But the “Dream” part comes in where I want it to be debt-free, starting at noon and going until 8 or 10, and being able to practice in medicine or science without relying on others’ contributions to pay my bills. (So like: Having money, but being able to run a charitable office where someone whose dog needs a surgery won’t have to pay money they simply don’t have for it! Screw CareCredit; I want to go all-in CHARITABLE FUND about it!)

Dream Trip// (Well, excluding my astral adventures, because I don’t think that’s what it means?) Going to meet my friends in Europe with a substantial budget, for a week or two, seeing everything they want to show me, finding their favorite local places, cooking with them (maybe FOR them!), cozy moments with tea and rain, watching our favorite shows together, and the real DREAMING part of it would be getting my pets overseas so they could meet them, too. ;P (but diamond doves and chinchillas don’t mesh well with airplanes.)

Fave Food// Ooh, that’s a tough one... sushi, peppermint, matcha anything, saag paneer, chana masala, black licorice (aniseed), gingerbread, herbal tea? 

Play any instruments// I play piano. I never bothered much with classical aspects, but I’m excellent at aimlessly improvising. (Singing, on the other hand? Pseudo-operatic.I consider my voice an instrument.)

Eye color// Depends on my mood. Anywhere from gray, to deep blue, to greenish, and there’s a green-gold ring around my iris. Shrugs?

Hair color// "Sandy blonde” is what my ID calls it. So that, I guess. (There’s a band like an accidental hombre of purple from when I had my hair all dyed dark violet for a Raven cosplay. Two years later and it still hasn’t faded entirely.)

Languages I speak// English, semi-fluent in Spanish and Latin, decent in Japanese when I have a kanji dictionary, and specklings of Italian, ASL, German, and, thanks in large part to my girlfriend, French.

Most Iconic Song// (Depends on the day! Here’s a mini-playlist, though.) ~ Lost in Paradise by Evanescence [x] ~ Torn by Kamelot [x] ~ Dark Wings by Within Temptation [x] ~ Outcast (remix by Alex Dalliance) [x] ~ My Little Phoenix by Tarja [x] ~ Omen by Epica [x] ~ Diamond Shuffle by Next Level (long story; no link because it’s Rare.)

Random Fact// My life has literally been saved by songs and pop culture.

Describe yourself as aesthetic things//  * The quiet places in the shadows of the night. ~ The billow of a thick black cloak. * The vanilla-earth scent of old books and parchment. ~ Silver down feathers floating on the breeze. * The soft, pervading sound of wind rushing through the pines. ~ Stars reflecting on the calm surface of a lake stretching towards the horizon. * New growth in an old forest. ~ Baptism by fire, destroying the dead and dry. * The ceaseless scratching of a pen in a tattered notebook. ~ The feeling of the first breath after immense relief. * The touch of paper when you turn the page. ~ The connection in a hug, a met glance, a shared giggle.

I tag: Anyone who sees this, under the condition that they want to!

[copperbadge]

There was a recent discussion on tumblr, which I didn’t reblog for obvious reasons, about how people with a large readership cope with a heavy interaction load -- how the person would be anxious if they dealt with that volume of notes on each post, that amount of interaction and contact. I was tagged in it because of my habit of "lochnessing", where I cause an activity spike on posts I reblog that looks like the loch ness monster.

It never occurs to me, because I’ve dealt with high-volume social media for so long -- realistically about ten years, probably closer to fifteen -- that it’s difficult for people to handle that, because they don’t have the systems in place that I do. I mean it does occur to me in the sense that I have become more cautious about what I reblog and its impact on the OP; there are things I’d like to share with you but don’t because I recognize it would be harmful to the person who wrote them. But it doesn't occur to me that someone might struggle with a high volume of notes purely because it's a volume that they don't have a system in place to deal with the way I do.

So I said I'd do a writeup on the "entire ecosystems" I had in place for handling the high volume of interaction I receive online. I sit at a weird place where I'm not so well known that I can just ignore most of what comes at me with impunity because everyone acknowledges I can't answer it all, like say a youtube star. But at the same time I do get too much attention to return it at the same level I receive it. I am one and you are sixteen thousand. So I had to make systems to return as much as I could and feel okay about not returning the rest.

Reading through this, of course it sounds like a weird humblebrag: "Here's how I deal with my MASSIVE POPULARITY". There's no real way around that; I can't talk about how I deal with comments without talking about how I get a disproportionately high number of them. The fact that I do is what leads me to do things like the Zero Comment Challenge, or Radio Free Monday, to try and balance shit out. So, as I mention occasionally below, you can think I'm an asshole for talking about how I am popular, but I can't talk about how to deal with that popularity without acknowledging the reality of it, and someone somewhere's gonna think I'm an asshole anyway, so whatever.

These are the systems I use to manage my life -- work, play, the weird inbetween space that's kind of both. Many of these are akin to the systems that I use in managing my depression, in that they involve a lot of small steps building up to a big result, but each small step on its own is manageable.

Let's start with AO3, because it's actually probably the simplest.

I clean out my comments once a week. Usually there are between forty and a hundred and fifty, depending on if I’ve published something recently or been recommended by someone. 

I go through all the one-sentence comments first, because those are the ones that are least likely to require a response. I read all comments but I learned through trial and error, twice in ten years, that I am physically and emotionally incapable of responding to every comment I receive even if it's just with a "Thank you!" and I'm just going to live with the fact that people think I'm an asshole for that. Also while I appreciate someone who leaves a "Great fic! <3" comment, that's genuinely really cool and validating, I don't think they truly need or expect a response. So most one-line comments, unless they are super weird or contain a question, get read, appreciated, and then deleted. 

Then I go through the longer comments that need a closer reading, and delete any that are cool but still don't seem to require responses. If someone has left a ton of comments, I'll find the one I think is coolest or most needing of response, delete the others, and reply to that one comment with a thoughtful response including a line thanking them for all their other comments.

Finally, I respond to comments that are in-depth or have questions that require some thought. I find that if I don't respond to these on a weekly basis they pile up and then someone who asked a question like six months ago is still waiting for an answer, so this one is non-negotiable: my AO3 inbox has to be empty at the end of each week, and everything that needed a reply has to have one. (I do have one or two that just live in my inbox because they are cool ideas I will one day get round to writing, and I want to credit them when I do, but it's never more than two.) For me, it's easiest to wait until Friday or Saturday and just take an hour to clear them all out, rather than clearing as I go, because I don't have AO3 open all the time the way I do some other sites.  

Tumblr: Every morning, before work, I go through the previous night's responses; I open all reblogs/mentions in new tabs to read and reply-as-necessary, and I reply to all comments that need responses. (This is also something I'll do throughout the day, but especially if I'm tired or pressed for time, the comment replies might be saved as a draft or left in an open tab until I can get to them). Occasionally shit doesn’t show up or I miss stuff but I’ve learned to just live with that as the price of doing fandom on Tumblr. 

If there's a post by someone else that requires a response from me -- either a reblog of one of my posts, or someone tagged me in a post -- I Like it to find it later or I save it as a draft. I don't use Likes as anything other than "I want to be able to find this again in less than a week's time" and I never have more than about 20 Likes in my files. (Unless I’m traveling; it’s easier to Like something than save it as a draft or respond, so when I get home from traveling I often have 30-50 Likes in my file.)

Often on Tumblr I go through what I call the Line Cycle -- I read my dash, and then I go "down the line" and open all the other pages that might need attention, in specific order. I open asks and try to respond to a few -- I try to answer at least five every time but sometimes I don't manage to answer any for whatever reason -- then I open likes and try to convert as many likes as I can to either queued reblogs or drafts. I open drafts and try to convert some of those to queued reblogs. Then I go through the same process for one or two side blogs.

(Also in drafts are a lot of things that I'm not sure I want to put in my queue yet, or things that I put in the queue weekly like the Zero Comment Challenge post, which I dust off when I'm ready to queue it, then immediately re-save to drafts when it posts.)

Occasionally if I feel shit is getting out of hand I dedicate myself to, every time, not leaving the page I'm on until I've reduced its "count" (number of asks, likes, drafts, etc) by five, or at least to below the next multiple of five -- if I have 23, for example, I'll try to get it below 20.

Sometimes posts in tabs sit open for a while because in order to respond I have to read an article or watch a video, which take a lot of focus and attention. It used to be that recommendations for books or stuff to watch also sat open forever until I could get round to doing it, but now I just have a "reccs" file on the cloud that is a list of what I've been recommended and who recommended it, and I work my way through them slowly.

Email: Once I've read them, site notifications in my inbox get deleted; I've turned off follow/kudos notifications because they tend to be white noise.

Email is tough for me, it requires a lot of focus and emotional attention to answer emails, so I treat it the same way I would asks or likes or whatnot, but much more slowly. I tend to have a backlog of about thirty emails in my inbox, though often five to ten of those are emails that don't need response and that I'm saving (I star them to mark them as not needing attention). I have the multiple-stars function in Gmail turned on, and when it gets really bad, I start opening emails and triaging -- "This will be easier to answer" "This will take some time" etc. by starring them different colors.

I like to have no more than fifteen emails in my inbox but that is a rarity. 

The Internet: Because social media takes up a lot of my time and I also work eight hours a day (well, four, we'll get to that in a bit) I have streamlined the way I encounter the internet, as well. I have a list of "daily reading" bookmarks that I open every morning and check through -- the horoscope page, the mustard tag on tumblr (which I don't follow because then the same dumbass two hipster fashion posts keep showing up on my dash), a blog that follows and posts about new small flash games that I might enjoy playing, a few others. (I also have a Monday file that I open once a week, it's calendars of events and such, and I go through on Mondays and add anything to my calendar that looks interesting.)

But if I can, any regularly-updated page that has an RSS feed gets converted to RSS and put into my Netvibes reader account, where I peruse it at my leisure. The Netvibes reader account includes a direct feed from the Steve/Tony and Steve/Sam tags on AO3, plus a few others; longform.org, some cooking blogs I follow, a bunch of podcast pages, a few webcomics, and one or two tumblrs that I don't want showing up on my dash (mainly artists' porny sideblogs, what up you glorious pervs) or think I would make the person uncomfortable by following them.

I have five tabs pinned to Chrome at any given time, and four tabs pinned to Firefox. The Chrome tabs are my personal Netvibes, Google Drive, a Google Sheets spreadsheet with my calendar and accounting tabs in it, Gmail, and Tumblr. The Firefox tabs are a second Netvibes account I use for work (we have several news sources we all monitor daily), my non-fannish gmail, my non-fannish facebook with a custom reading page so I never see anything twice, and the Google "family calendar" that I and my family use to track where we all are and what we're doing.

My parents use this more than I do, which is why I often open the calendar app on my phone to check my work schedule and find that my parents are taking the dogs to the groomer's today (yes, I know I could turn this off, but it amuses me). When I introduced my mother to Google Calendar her eyes got super big and she fell in immediate love; the first three things she added were the birthdays of her two dogs, followed by the birthday of Jesus. I would be more insulted by this but I had already added all the family birthdays, so at least I didn't come in behind the dogs AND the Christ Child.

Once in a while, when I'm at work and I feel like I'm not sure what I should be doing or that my day is spiralling out of my control, I'll take a deep breath, pull up Chrome, and go through all my pinned tabs, one by one, changing or fixing something on each -- I'll clear out my Longform reading, answer a few emails, check the calendar, etc. Then I'll go through any open tabs and try to close at least one. I get anxious if I have more than five or six non-pinned tabs open. Like having an inbox that's rarely over thirty emails total, it's not a sign I'm more effective or efficient than anyone else, it's just a sign I'm debilitatingly anxious about this kind of thing.

Work: I've read, many times, that people who work eight hours a day in a white collar job like mine really only do four hours of actual work. And for a while I joked that I wondered if I even did four, because I dick around on the internet A LOT. But lately I started to genuinely wonder, and so for the past six weeks, I've put that statement to the test.

When I arrive at work, I immediately put in two hours of solid work. I don't read tumblr, I don't read anything but work-related material. I triage all my work emails, I go through my Google Task list for the day and sort things by most to least urgent, and then I work my way through them for two solid hours. It's not easy at all, but any time I think "This is when I would stop and read tumblr" I shake my head and try to do one more work thing, and then I get back in the groove and can do like, three more. I also use this first morning period to take care of "personal work", stuff which has to get done to keep my life running smoothly, like mailing packages or replying to my parents' emails or whatnot.

Then I get a half-hour break to read tumblr, play a flash game, maybe read a piece on Longform. (I don't read fanfic at work; I sometimes clean out Netvibes of fics that from the tags and summaries I know I won't be interested in, but I don't open fanfic at work at all.) I also use this time to get some food in me.

Then I do another two hours of work, same deal. And that's four hours of work. And I get a shitload done, let me tell you.

For the next three hours after, I am basically free to do whatever I want. I usually use about an hour to do some freelance work, and I spend time on tumblr or on personal email, reading articles, listening to podcasts, playing games. I eat a snack, I talk to my coworkers. I find I actually run out of new stuff to read, and I do try to process the old stuff, like empty out my drafts and likes. And of course the nature of my job means that sometimes there is work to be done that comes up suddenly, but it's usually just a matter of teeing it up for the following morning's work shift.

For the last hour of my work day, I go through my work inbox, make sure everything's set up for tomorrow, send any last emails, do any last wrap-up, and make sure all my documents are either saved or closed. (Our IT team likes to run updates and involuntary restarts without warning, so I've learned to always save at end of day.)

So, yeah. Those are some of the systems I have in place in order to run a very mentally busy life. I'm not necessarily recommending them; a lot of them won't work for everyone because everyone is different, and I recognize that some of them are inapplicable (I work a job with no outward-facing element to it; a barista or a librarian or a teacher can't do what I do, schedule-wise), and some of them are a level of regimentation I'm not sure most people would find healthy. But that's how I do my thing, and maybe some of my techniques will sound appealing to other people who occasionally feel, as I do, like they're drowning a little bit.

(Did you find this useful or interesting? Keep me organized and drop some change in my Ko-Fi or at my Paypal!)

[theday]

hello! as 2017 is ending nd 2018 is starting i thought i’d do a mutual appreciation post like many others are doing/have done because wtf i love my friends [dowoon voice] hey! and yes thats me down there bc hashtag love myself hashtag love yourself - big time rush, 2017 

heres some (hopefully) short sappy story lads,, so ive converted this blog 3 times from a 5sos one to an aes blog and now we’re here! ive had this as a kpop sideblog since the start of july and i never expected to make as many friends as i have now and it still wows me so much wtf... i love all of you im gonna throw myself off a cliff into a sea of love 

legend: ☆ - people i love a lot, ☾- the most important to me!, bolded for trusted mutual

short message to my moon people alright hopefully i dont write an essay

☾ @softshouyous: falen waht the fuck u know when u told me we were only friends for a whole year and a half i didnt believe it ;-/ i thought we were pals for longer thats just how close we are i guess ive done so many falen love essays so ill be repeating myself lmao youre one of my greatest friends on here and twitter and i just wanted to say thank you, for a few things!! first for staying strong and being here today!! second is for following (back?) on twitter which lead us to not Dying off u kno...,, third is for being someone i can rely on whenever i need to and talking to you makes me feel the safest bc i know.. i know u rly like being my friend ur my safe friend my special place i love u :D 

☾ @briwoon: hey boxy!!!!!!!!! i dont remember how we became friends but i have a lot to say to u why didnt u send a tree in dhhdh u dont have to bc ill be professing my love for u here b*thc ! dude ok i always say this bc im basically a broken record but thank you sososososoosososososososoosososo much for introducing me to day6 because damn without you i wouldnt be here and i dont know how id have managed to survive the rest of the year without them so really- thank you so damn much i love u the mostest :( i know u might be going through some tough times but please know that i am here for you (so is bell!) so feel free to talk to us anytime!! another thing, thank u for introducing me to mx as well you really brought happiness into my life bc of everything..! ur imapct my dude!!!!!! this all happened bc of you! this is happening bc of you and i just want you to know that youve given me a reason to smile everyday nd im hoping one day youll have a reason to smile daily too! im glad astro are helping you out too and that you like them :-( i love u 2 the moon and back! 

☾ @tokayhk: bell just 2 start off ill be saying no homo duhdjhdh just kidding i love u so much okay i know we havent even been buddies for that long but it feels like ive known u for more! !!!!! ur a friend i can rant to (and be extra shady with) and youve also helped me accept reality (thank u god) even tho i did hate u for like 1 minute but im over that please dm me any time to tell me 2 wake the fuk up bc sometimes i need it ;-/ despite being a youngin youre super mature which led me to think u were like 18 but thats clearly not the case jdjs its okie though ur doing amazing for a [redacted] year old!!!!! please i love ur humor so much and every time u say ur not funny i wanna punhc u but with love bc ur the funniest person i know :-( u always make us (the hq) laugh and pleas its amazing ur presence in the gc rly brightens the whole place up i love u also ur impact ive been using the phrases u say a lot more often now i shld start crediting u in the tags or smth (c) bell ! also! im glad u got into astro bc before boxy u were the only person id be yelling to on twitter about astro im glad u like them too wtf ! i love u so much and thank u for being my friend and being born :-0 i already told u like a few lines back but u rly are funnie and also ur art i mcdie every time huhuuhu i miss ur streams but idk when im free ;-( ur streams rly made my day we became friends through that and the gc is thriving its been a good year ! 

ill stop there bc this post would get super long if i didnt now on 2 my buddies!! (?? how many alphabets are there)

A-L:

@astrofireworks / @briwoon ☆ / @ckyun / @chaekkung ☆ / @cinnamoonbunbin ☆ / @dalkkong ☆ / @eggkyun / @eunrocky / @gothhyungwon ☆ / @heybinnie / @hokidan / @hyyh-pt2 / @ikyh / @imchangkyute / @ilovedowoon / @jianhyuk / @jinwooes / @jooheun ☆ / @kihyunswife ☆ / @kimkyungsoos / @kiwirn / @leedongmlns ☆ / @ljh-94 

M-guys i cant do the fucking hashtag what the fuck pretend its there:

@m1nhyuk ☆ / @minhyukt ☆ / @mxgoth / @myunghjun / @mxrays / @minhyukwithagun ☆ / @monbeebs ☆ / @morningcallz / @nubebe ☆ / @oikawayylmao / @parkminhyuksegg / @softki​ / @softshouyous​ ☆ / @space-triangles​ / @smileyrocky​ / @tokayhk​ ☆ / @vmxns​ / @whonpil​ / @warmhyungwon / @04yeol / @1showho ☆ / @15hyungwon / @94honeyluv 

if you werent added in here (aka my dumbass forgot) just like this post and ill add u immediately!!! also dont worry if you werent bolded/starred i love everyone!!!!!! all of you have made my 2017 a little bit better and brighter and i hope we’ll be able to stay friends/mutuals in the next year as well 

feel free to unfollow/break the mutual anytime though!! :D your dash should be filled with things you want to see/love! this should be posted at 12am my time so happy new year (eve, for most) i hope everyone has a good day/night! thank you once again for making my year better ♡

i neevr shut up but another thing,, good job to everyone for managing to make it through another year!! im proud of everyone okie i love u guys :_) oh ya god can i shut up but shout out to my secret santas!!! miss cryptic if ur out there thank u for being an awesome ss i hope ur doing well !! 

[sunlightbi]

hi guys !! i promise i’ll do a proper follow forever later in 2018 when we survive 2017 but today i want to give a shout out to some amazing people whom i’m very proud to call my friends and best friends. all of my mutuals are extremely special but these ones mean the whole world to me as we always talk and laugh together and i’m pretty sure i’d die for every single one of them. i hold each one of you very close to my heart :’) so here’s a list of people that make me smile every day and also make my world brighter and my dash a better place !! (1. idk how long it takes im sorry i lov y’all 2. also idk why i have this summer pic as my header but happy new year i guess)

i’ll start with the most important person for on this website @alloutshirt. lisa, you’re truly my soulmate and i can’t even imagine my life without you now. you always make my happy by just liking random posts on my blog or tagging me in pure stuff. i just want you to know that i’d do anything for you, i care about you so so much and i don’t think i’ll ever stop. i hope you’ll always be happy because you’re too precious and incredible and you have my whole heart. i love you to the moon and back, baby :’) YOU’RE ALSO THE PRETTIEST GIRL IN THE WORLD DON’T FORGET THAT

@twofronteeth amal even tho you never check ur activity page and have a face like a goddess (no kidding im crying every time i see your selfies) somehow we are mutuals and friends, i still don’t know why the fuck you noticed me but that was the best day of my life. please please never change, you’re literally the cutest person i know and your spelling mistakes make you even cuter !! just the way you talk to ppl makes you cute idk how you do that. you truly deserved your nickname ‘baby honey’ and i’m very proud to call you that i love you

of course i can’t even imagine myself without Pure Squad even tho it exists like 3 minutes but !!!! these people are already so important to me that i cry every time we interact

@spaceboysweater arsh i swear i couldn’t love you more because you’re one of the purest people on this website. and ur laugh !!!!! oh my god this is the best thing i’ve ever heard i need it as my ringtone. i will love you forever, you always make me smile and i wanna hug you so tight !!!!!!!!!

@babieharrie ahhh karri you’re just the most adorable person ever and i love you so so so so much. we almost made it !!! almost started a gc aksjfgffkj. you are incredibly lovely and you have a special place in my heart even tho you hate cats which i still can’t believe oh my god

@rainbowsboa 1) where the fuck are you i miss you 2) i’ve never seen a blog with more posts than yours i swear i need hours to scroll through it. but bella you’re my sunshine and you always bring me happiness, i really enjoy talking to you and omg i just love you so much i’m sorry i’m crying

@bibi-harry becca i can’t even put into words how much you mean to me !!!!!! i appreciate it so much when you come to talk to me because you’re sad or feel alone. i’m really glad i can help because you’re too amazing and flawless to be sad ever. i just hope you’ll have the best 2018, i love you with my whole heart cupcake !!

@haryslytherin eleanor baby it feels like i’ve known you for ages, you’re such an incredible person even tho your blog is a mess aklsjkdh. i love talking to you, you’re a pure bean. please make more 1d edits in 2018 that’s a need for me !! your art is wonderful just as you :) also i hope in 2018 you won’t change your icon every day

@fireprooof le !!!! just as you said i can’t imagine my tumblr experience without you too (tbh that message made me cry i love you so much). you were one of my first larry mutuals actually and i’ll never forget how excited i was that day. and i was extremely happy when you messaged me and said you miss my likes !! that was iconique. your edits give me life, i’ve never seen anything more beautiful, i just want to make a whole sideblog to reblog everything you make.  hope you’ll have an amazing 2018, i love you endlessly :’)

@louieh ghadeer aka the most iconic fanfic writer i know ;);)));)) i know this had been a tough year for you but i hope 2018 will be much better !!! you deserve the best only, i love you so so much and appreciate you more than you could imagine. i wanna give you the world and the stars and the moon and everything pure in the universe !!!!! i just hope everything will be okay darling :)

@stylesappreciation flo even tho you forgot about me i’m still here like hachi bc i love you very much a lot. anyways !!! skldjdfbhdskl you’re one of the most iconic people i know and your edits make my heart melt, i cry every time you post something new. we don’t talk as much as we used to which is sad but that’s okay, i’d sill give you my liver and everything you want. hope 2018 will treat you well baby :) ( @nosuchblue take care of her !!! i love u too erin and wish you all the best in 2018)

@liamsgrammys and @blushlouie you just go together and i can’t tell you apart. we actually don’t talk but you two are the most iconic gays ever and i’m so glad to witness ur gay relationship and reblog ur gay selfies and cry my gay tears !!!! i hope 2018 will be amazing for you, i love you two so so much, this gay experience is very important for me

@rosesau syeda aka ome of the most popular binches ever. i’m shook that like everybody knows you??? wtf??? how you do that honestly. you’re truly iconique and i’m pretty sure you make everyone’s tumblr experience much better. your text posts are my favourite thing ever and i just love you so incredibly much !!!! have the best 2018 biatch

@honeyhaz jackie !!!! the most precious flower in the land, i adore you so much. i really really really love talking to you, you’re the loveliest person ever, i hope you’ll have a lot of friends in 2018 !! you deserve only pure things darling. you make my heart burst with love every time you appear on my dash and i would just like to clarify that i love you to the moon and back :’)

@iconichalo well your url just speaks for itself so !!! i only wanted to say that alex you’re really an amazing person and i’m hella glad that we met thanks to gorgeous people we both talk to. i hope in 2018 we’ll become closer because i really like you !!! wish you the best stuff in new year darling :)

@ann-fortunately maybe i’d love you more if you stopped exposing me !!!!! alsjddgdgdkdj nevermind i actually love you very much a lot, you’re a pure puppy and i just wish 2018 treats you really well. all the love my dear !!! (also pls make more edits)

@dreamsmp3 eden baby idk when you’ll see this but i just want you to know that it’s not the same without you here, you’re incredible and i hope you’re taking care of yourself !!!!! i’m still thinking about that post i made when i just saw you on my dash and i oliterally became so overwhelmed that wrote big ass paragraph about how much i love you on the verge of tears and tbh this is Mood. you make everything better and brighter and i just want to wish you the best things in 2018, you deserve the whole world my love :’)

@lwtrainbows gio !!!! i’m so happy that i’m friends with arsh’s soulmate aldjfhfgjn you are just wonderful !!! i hope you won’t ever be sad, you need to always smile and laugh because the world needs more of this. you are one of the purest people ever and i just want to wrap you in a big blanket and give you forehead kisses. i wish 2018 treats you well sunshine !!!!

@alwaysycu well rhian you’re just an angel (my-my-my-my only angeeeel) that deserves better, always better. you make my heart go ‘!!!!’ when we talk and you’re just so nice and sweet always. i hope you’ll never be sad in 2018, it just goes against nature tbh. you were created to spread love and light so i hope next year will be the happiest for you :) i love you very much a lot

@iamlouis oh damn sarah !!! (this is just The Mood always with you) you’re a popular bitch and i’m still wondering why we are mutuals because your cool ass is too cool for me. everything you do is iconic and i’m tired bc you’re too good and pure wtf !! but i wish you become iconicer in 2018 because why not we all deserve some glow up i lov u

@delicatelou pinja you’re the softest person i know !!!! like literally. everything about you and your blog is so aesthetic and beautiful and just perfect??? h o w. i’m friends with a literal angel what the heck !! hope 2018 treats you well, you deserve the best only my pure baby. i’ll love you til the end of time darling, you’re amazing :’)

@ftdtlouis @lesbianhoran @larriez @definegirlfriends i’m only mentioning you because you broke my heart to pieces !!! but it’s new year so i gotts forgive you so you could dissappoint me in 2018 with something new. ALSMJDHNDG JOKES I LOVE Y’ALL EVEN THO I WAS HELLA SCARED YESTERDAY i just want all my mutuals to be happy and fine. is that too much to ask?.. anyways i wish you all the best i hope the nest time this shit happens i won’t be online bye

@rainbowstyles sabine i wouldn’t ever forget about you !!! you’re the sweetest creature ever, so so pure and lovely that you melt my heart. you deserve lots of love and happiness and laugh in 2018 and always. i hope you won’t ever be sad even tho it’s impossible but you are meant to be a sunshine !! i love you so so much, please don’t forget that :)

@poshlouis and @louari you two are iconic bitches and i couldn’t love you more. amanda thank you for always being nice to me and aline ,,, just thank you. you are a dream team and i love seeing you two interact on my dash !!!! hope you’ll have the best 2018, i love you two very much a lot

i hope all of my amazing mutuals will have the best 2018, you darlings mean so so much to me, i love you with all my heart !

[dreamofspring]

can you give us (begginers) some tips on how to get followers? Or even notes to the things we post idk it's very hard to start

This is a tough question to answer because truly I don’t know! So I would say just continue to create because you love to, so whether that is gifs/graphics or writing or making art, whatever you like to do! Keep doing it! Don’t do it for the notes or followers, or else you’ll be getting bummed out very quickly. Last year I had barely 500 followers and my stuff didn’t get any notes. Sometimes it quick and other times it’s a slow burn but the point is you keep making and posting things because you enjoy it, if it makes you happy. I’m not going to act like gaining followers and having lots of notes isn’t nice, because it’s a really great feeling to know that people like the things you’ve put in such hardwork to make, for FREE, that they “like” or “reblog” or follow you! I am just saying, don’t make it the reason for having tumblr, if that makes sense. 

I feel like tagging things correctly is a huge part of gaining notes. Here is a small list of good tags to get your things seen and possibly reblogged:

gotedit

asoiafedit

gotcharacter (replace character with the name of the character your edit is about, ex: gotjonsnow, gotaryastark)

iheartgot

gameofthronesdaily

gotcastedit

Only the first 5 things you tag in a post will show up in the actual tags! So tag wisely. Always tag “gotedit” if it’s game of thrones only. The “got(character)” if that character is actually in your edit. Only tag “asoiafedit” if it’s only asoiaf related, no pure game of thrones in that tag please! It’s also smart to NOT tag “gotedit” if it’s a cast edit, try to only tag “gotcastedit” or even “gotcast”. I would say the two big game of thrones blogs are @iheartgot and @gameofthronesdaily so a lot of people will tag their blogs to get their stuff at least checked out, even if those blogs don’t reblog your things there are still people who check those tags to see new content! There are also many other character blogs and other game of thrones blogs you can tag as well, if you have a favorite blog that you want them to see your stuff then usually they say what tags they track in their descriptions. 

I’m sure there are a handful of personal blogs who post game of thrones stuff whom you can tag as well. You are more than welcome to tag me “dreamofspring” in your edits! I can’t promise to reblog them but chances are I will, if not on my blog then on one of my sideblogs. Keep in mind sometimes I miss an edit or two or the post doesn’t show up in the search. 

A small thing that goes for the above: as for the tagging of the specific blogs please realize that especially after the episodes air and for a few days after things are pretty CRAZY! There is no way everyone can see everything so you’ll have to forgive if people miss things. 

Besides tagging things correctly the only other way I can think of to gain followers/notes is to watch other blog’s posts. By that I mean sometimes blogs offer shoutouts or you can send your url to be rated, idk if that’s what it’s called but it’s something like that! Those are great ways to get your blog out there! :)

So sorry this is so long, you probably didn’t even want all this. lol

[princeadams]

The Ultimate BATB tag

Rules:

- Always include the rules.

- Answer the questions as truthfully as you can.

- Tag at least 3 people at the end of the tag.

- You don’t have to be tagged to paticipate, you can do the tag even without       being tagged.

- Tag the post “#BATB Tag” so we can keep up with the tags.

- That’s literally all there is to it! Have fun!

You can use this as reference:

https://gastt.tumblr.com/post/160009844702/the-ultimate-batb-tag

When did you start your blog, and why? I started right before I saw the movie because I knew I’d be obsessed and wanted an area away from my  main multi-fandom blog where I could freely fangirl and shitpost and whatnot. Also, my “likes” on Tumblr were filled with four years worth of BATB meta, fan art and fanfics, and I wanted to clean my likes out so they would actually be a specific place for bookmarking. I had 14,00 likes before I made the blog, and now that I’ve almost completely cleaned it out I have about 900. Still not great, but it’s getting there.

Where did you get the idea for your url? Obviously the growl at the end. I decided I wanted daysinthesuns for my main blog, and I'd had danstevensgrowl saved for a little while. For daysinthesuns, I saved it when the titles for the new songs were announced, I think that was in late summer.

Where did you get the idea for your icon? I didn’t make my icon, I just got it from an icons post by someone on Tumblr. I like the color pink and I love 1991 Belle, so I went with it. 

What was your first choice of url? dayinsthesuns was the first one I had for this blog, then I switched to danstevensgrowl. If you mean what my ultimate choice would be, I’d really like to have daysinthesun or princeadam. On my main blog, my first URL was weareteenageheartsforeveryoung and it stayed like that for 3 years or so.

What was your first icon, or the oldest you can remember? And if you can, post it. This is the one I’ve always had, but on my main blog I had a picture of Miley Cyrus from the movie LOL once, a picture of Elvis once, and my freshman year of high school I had my favorite fan art of Adam hugging Belle from behind with his chin on her shoulder while she’s reading. 

Would you die for the person on your icon? I mean, I consider myself to be Belle, so that’s a bit weird. But if my icon was Adam, yes, in a heartbeat.

Which url of your mutuals are you most jealous of? Hmm. I don’t know, I honestly like my URL. However, if we’re talking about @gastt‘s mutuals…you know who.

Which icon of your mutuals are you most jealous of? I love @ohstaythisway‘s icon, I would use it if she wasn’t already.

Do you have any sideblogs? And if you do, what are they about? And if you don’t, what would your sideblog be about? I have a ton that I made while cleaning out my likes to get meta and fanfic out of there, I have an Anakin Skywalker one and a Pride and Prejudice one. I also run the Tally Hoes Archive, and I have a professional blog to showcase my articles and other things I’ve written.

Are you satisfied with your blog currently? If not, what would you change? I guess, I mean, it’s a trash blog so I don’t aim for the content to be high quality. 

If you weren’t in the BATB fandom, what would you post about? Star Wars, Doctor Who, basically everything I post about on my main blog.

What fandom(s) did you belong to before BATB? BATB was actually my first fandom, but after that, Divergent, Once Upon a Time, Doctor Who and finally Star Wars. 

Which blogs do you regularly check up on? @je-suis-em-jee and @theteaisaddictive because they’re my favorite fic writers.

What would you say is your most common tag? “Prince Adam” because I reblog gifs of him a lot.

How many people are you following, and how many people follow you? I think I follow around 300, my main blog has 1,700 followers and this blog has a little over 200.

Who are your current top three fans on Tumblr (for this month)? For this blog, it’s @trippsykes, @lee-lee-ed and @snipandsnail. Thank you guys :)

What is your top post (for this month)? It actually won’t show for some weird reason, but I’m guessing it’s my Ultimate Fic Rec post. 

Which post are you most proud of? Probably my meta about the enchanted object’s part in The Mob Song.

Which post are you most embarassed by? The Meme Queen Adam fic and every time I’ve self-promoted (which is a lot of times.)

Weirdest message someone ever sent you? When I posted my selfie for the Introduce Your Self(ie) challenge, I immediately got a DM from some girl with a weird URL saying I was hot. I assumed it was a porn blog so I marked it as spam and blocked them, but then I looked at their blog and it was kind of normal? So I hope that wasn’t one of you guys lol. 

Weirdest message you ever sent someone? God I don’t even want to know

Have you ever received anon hate? And if so, for what? When I was 13 I got a ton but I honestly deserved it. I had this ongoing joke where I acted like I was really self-absorbed and snobby ironically, because I actually hated myself and had been struggling with an eating disorder. But either way, I took it too far and I was really obnoxious and people called me out on it, some less gracefully than others.

Do you have any blogs blocked, and if so, which? I’m sure I have a lot blocked for spam and stuff. 

Have you ever thought about quitting Tumblr? If so, why? Not really, because I’m kind of terrified of ever deleting anything. I hate the idea of erasing any part of my life, even if it’s a part I’m embarrassed by or don’t want to think about.

What device do you use Tumblr the most? (e.g. Laptop, Tablet, Phone, etc.) Probably my iPhone, since I’m always in class and stuff.

What was the last thing you searched on Google? Meme Queen Adam bc I was too lazy to go on my profile on Archive of our Own and click on my fic, I just wanted to get the link the quick way lol.

What time is it currently as you make this post? 11:45, I really should go to sleep after this.

What are you wearing currently? Star Wars pajama pants and a black camisole. 

If you had to legally change your name (in real life) permanently, what would it be and why? Belle, because I’m a dork.

What kind of characters and/or pairings do you tend to turn to? Is there a recurring theme to it? I feel like in terms of male characters I always love the brooding, angsty, damaged guys with tragic backstories, like Prince Adam or Anakin Skywalker. For female characters, I always like strong, witty, outspoken women, like Belle and Elizabeth Bennet.

Tell us a favorite of yours and why? (Literally any favorite, something that touches you and you’re passionate about.) I guess Beauty and the Beast in general, honestly. There’s so much to love about it, but it really changed my life when I fell in love with it all over again the summer before my freshman year of high school. I was doing a Disney movie marathon alone, because I really didn’t have any friends at the time, and I actually skipped Beauty and the Beast because I figured I remembered it well enough from my childhood that I didn’t need to waste time re-watching it. However, I still had some time to kill before school started, so I watched it again, and not only was I struck by the Beast’s character and how deeply and unconditionally he loved Belle, the message of Beauty and the Beast really got to me. After I recovered from my eating disorder and dealt with (deserved) backlash on Tumblr for my crappy sense of humor and coping skills, I’d become really tough and rigid and pessimistic as a default. Suffering from such an awful illness really kind of stripped me of the usual kindness and warmth I held. Belle kind of helped me get it back, helped me find myself again, and the movie in general helped me to believe that maybe it was okay that I was fat or my voice is weird or that I’m short because I’m eloquent and I’m kind and true beauty is found within. Maybe my words and my heart is enough. I still struggle with believing that today, but I would’ve given up on believing it and given up on myself a long time ago if it wasn’t for Beauty and the Beast. When I started at a new high school after becoming obsessed with Beauty and the Beast, I was both a new person and my old self at once, and the optimism and kindness and open-mindedness I’d regained helped me to finally let people in a bit, and I made a ton of friends. My love for the musical also inspired me to join theatre, which I never would’ve given a thought if I hadn’t loved the musical.

Tag 3 or more blogs to do this tag, and also add what you associate them with and tell them what you truly think about them.  I can’t tag @gastt because they already did it and literally made the tag, but gatt, you are such a loyal and supportive person. I don’t even know your name or your face or anything like that, but I don’t have to to know that you an amazing person and all us Tally Hoes are so lucky to know you.  I tag @mmedegarderobe, my sin sister and fellow Mass Communications major, my other fellow mass communications major @thestanfoubrew, the mother of the Heelys meme @uncledisney, and my two favorite fic writers - one I’ve loved since I first fell in love with BATB, the other more recently, @theteaisaddictive and @je-suis-em-jee. You both are so talented and wonderful and portray the characters that are so close to my heart perfectly. 

[scudas-a]

    WHEEZES BECAUSE I AM REUSING MY FUCKIN GRAPHIC FROM MY FOLLOW FOREVER BACK IN AUGUST its just for kicks tbh IM SO LAZY. I AM SO LAZY.     I just wanted to thank you all so much, I honestly believed that I would never get as far as I have on a blog, especially this blog, which I made just for kicks when I was sleeping during they day and active active at night at my friend’s house in Oregon. I expected myself to just give up on this blog after two weeks and go back to my Zim blog, or one of my Rick and Morty ones. But no, this muse persists, people had shown interest in him that I wasn’t used to. He progressively became more fun to write as I developed him more and more from the perverse boy in DR2 that practically survived as a joke. I’ve had this blog for nearly eight months now, and it’s honestly because you all made this blog worthwhile. I enjoy coming on here because all of you guys make it so. Thank you so much. Every single one of you. I am going to miss a lot of people, but here is a small, meaningful follow forever, please don’t be upset if you aren’t on here, it doesn’t mean I love you any less!!

@bestiascuro where do I even start with you? You’re the one who pulled me back into this mess of a fandom, which I hadn’t been active in since 2014, this burning trash heap of a fandom. I have known you longer than most people here, with the exceptions of Kaycie and Sadie. You’re my best friend, my favorite writing partner. I don’t know what I can say here that I haven’t repeated to you hundreds of times over Skype, but every word is genuine. I adore you. Every time I see that you have tagged me in something or messaged me, a smile never fails to cross my face. You’re the best Gundam in this entire fandom. Everyone can fight me on this.

@kamukurx / @fcture ABBY ABBY my sweet darling, you are absolutely amazing at everything you do, and I am honestly SUPER excited for our interactions on Henry. Kazuichi will corrupt him. Regardless, you have been both my favorite Kamukura and Hinata since the day Whitney had introduced me to you, and I cherish you a lot. I am super, super glad that you’re able to open up to me and we can just talk for hours on end. I’m super excited for you to finally have your own house! You’re going to do great. I am so proud of you.

@novoselicnobility Whit, you’re honestly the coolest, ok. Fight me. You put so much effort into Sonia and Sakura, and your writing and headcanons are just flawless. We don’t talk one on one very much?? But we do talk a lot in the GC so I guess that counts!! I enjoy your presence a lot and you deserve the world, let’s be real. Don’t let the world drag you down, you’re above it all, okay? You deserve only happiness. I’ll also forever be apologizing for how terrible Kazuichi is towards Sonia but really, what else can you expect?

@aurousheiress / @crispymura / @hexapodboy  Bon!! Thank you so much for everything you’ve done! I’m so glad that you’ve made the blogs that you’ve had (though I’ve never been a fan of Hiyoko, she is what this fandom truly needed) You have always been super kind to everyone? Which is a trait I envy a lot. You’re so patient and open, and all around just so easy to talk to?? We seriously need to write more, dude.

@rclinquere MY QUEEN HAS RETURNED!! THE ONE HOLDING MY HEART CAPTIVE! Dude I missed you so much, you have no idea. I wasn’t really aware of what was happening (and I’m still not, but I digress) so your departure was rather sudden for me?? I always hoped you’d come back and honestly I’m so happy you have, you’re so sweet and I absolutely adore the relationship between Junko and Kazuichi, who’d of guessed out of all people that they would literally act like siblings? I still have the playlist from the day we met. In hindsight, it’s pretty cringey, especially the title, but it gives me something for me to hold onto and cherish.

@kxaito Peyton!! I can’t believe I was ever shy to approach you back on your Jin blog! I honestly used to be super anxious to talk to you because I thought you were super out of my league and would be disinterested in me?? Obviously that wasn’t the case, considering all the friggin AUs and headcanons we’ve formed together, especially with my Hagakure (who I SERIOUSLY need to use more once I have the time), but also our new middle school verse! I’m super excited for what the future brings for our future threads.

@craniumaniac I’ve known you for like 90 years, of course you’d make it on here, let’s be real. You’ve remained one of my closest friends forever, I mean we haven’t talked nearly as much as we used to, but that doesn’t make a difference to me? You’re incredible, I’ve known you since our days RPing Rick and Morty, and then popped into the IZ fandom together. I still find it absolutely hilarious that it was by coincidence that I found you here, but I’m so glad I have! Aside from occasionally seeing you on Facebook, it was nice to regain that contact we have lost because I never send anyone any goddamn messages on Skype. I know you’re going through a tough time right now, but it’s okay. You’re so strong, dude, you’ll make it through. I am so happy that you’re here.

@bill-rick SADIE, you’re seriously like a sister to me. You’re so funny and smart. I apologize for promising to go back on Zim, but just. Never looking back. Whoops. Whatever, it’s okay to assume that he just ran off because like fuck, man. He’s Zim. He does whatever. But MAN, I don’t even know how long we’ve known each other. Damn well over a year, though. I remember when your Bill was still a sideblog, and for some reason it still gets recommended to me a lot. You’re so fun to write with, and I absolutely love helping you make graphics! (If you ever need any for your Aku blog, just hmu. I am Prepared.) Your writing is so nice to read, it’s so well-composed and I’ve always enjoyed reading the drama between him, ER, and Rocker. Thank you for putting up with my obnoxious ass for so long. <3

    Aaaaahhh, there are so many more people that I want to tag in this, but I fear that it’ll get repetitive and bland, but these people right here are the ones that I have kept closest, I love these people so much and I wouldn’t be who I am today without any of them. Thank you all so much. You make every day so much better.

[adhdvane]

Anon back again, don't worry about delay in answer! I'm not expecting you to reply in a matter of seconds and I'm patient anyway! (●'◡'●) (and yeah, tumblr's notification system kinda suck so really, not your fault haha)

I understand your struggle with fics all too well lol I'm sure a time will come when it just clicks and you can write the good stuff ( •̀ ω •́ )✧ And no need to feel bad if you haven't posted a lot on ao3! You don't have to have 1000 fics or 200k word-long fics for your works to be enjoyable!! Even little ficlets and drabbles are good to have around ♥

It's good of you to have taken time for yourself if you needed it ♥ And yeah, completely understandable to hesitate and come back to fandom in general with the current state of things (a couple years ago I made an IE/Go sideblog and I'm still terrified that someone is going to come up and yell at me for shipping the characters lmao And that's without counting the Problematic™ fics I wrote when I was 16 lmao)

Regarding your tags, I'm just sitting there like starry-eyed because YES TenKyou. I'm DELIGHTED to know that's your preference because that's mine too for the ship asklhjkh

As for Todd and Prof Mirror, that's a tough and personal question, so good luck! (I'm thinking Todd topping's nice but does it make the prof kink better or not is the question!! ALSO in the french version, I know there's a line from Todd going like "Mirror was already being called Professor before he was a professor" so maybe he's not the only one with a prof kink, just from a different angle, hah)

(you say sorry for rambling, but joke's on you, I ramble too! Sorry for clustering your blog though woops Have a good day! (´･ω･`) )

rip, okay, once again i apologize about this one being even later, mostly bc i saw it early, but i haven't been able to sit down and respond to it. this week was the last week of the month so i actually had a lot to do at work and was able to go in every day (as opposed to 1 - 2 days bc business is still so slow). but at the end of the month i do invoicing for inventory charges for that month for each customer. though i was able to actually get a lot of it done sooner than usual (bc i actually started the process on tuesday instead of thursday), there were still three big ones i couldn't even do until thursday bc they had several orders in production that didn't get shipped until thursday. I was going to finally get to this ask on friday when i got home (we only work half days on friday and close at noon)… but the new gbf event had started… and uhg… a sho centric event. g od.

rest of the word vomit under the cut

before i just—IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ ABOUT THIS GBF RAMBLING FEEL FREE TO SKIP BELOW TO THE END THE GBF OF RAMBLE—this event askjdsjkdfslkdjsdjg talk about giving the antag his redemption art event. the emotional growth in sho. so many new assets to save… there are fricking 6 different versions of his character labeled _painful (_painful, _painful2, etc.), and like so many zoom in's that basically every one of his images has an _up version (the battle ones ((the ones of him on his gearcycle)) also have a bunch of _up2 versions that are zoomed in between the default and _up close up) anyways these in particular kill me.

sho "i'm-not-going-to-cry-or-show-expresions-of-gratitude" awkwardly smiling and crying in this event (while also repeatedly getting the shit kicked out of him/getting hurt. having a moment of breaking down from exhaustion and pain, in the rain, before deciding he has to swallow his pride. every single english word that comes out of his mouth, cv: taniyama kishou is a gift (on a side note i can't believe he fucking played alpha in chronostone. like thats fucking hilarious a va and voicalist capable of such range and drama voicing alpha and his serious monotone ass). Sho (@tsubasa): You showed me the light before—[…] Tsubasa: Wait, what? Whaddya mean I showed you the light? ((you mean when he punched you in the fucking face at the end of the previous event of this series?))). I mean I already shipped bc of the their last event, how can you not ship the guy screaming he's going to kill the protag w/the protag esp after getting punched in the face by the protag at the end makes him calm down and be like fine i guess you win i'm not going to try to kill you know and our gangs don't have to fight. also they're both like 16 (or at least tsubasa is canon 16 (a yeas totally looks like a 16 year old) and sho is at least still in school and at least confirmed to be a minor (not age of majority, which idk what that is exactly in universe, could be 18, could be 20, bc it is fantasy, but it's also japanese, thoguh japan's age of majority is actually lowering from 20 to 18 next april (2022), drinking/smoking/gambling age will still be 20, and the comment in this event was about we're still minors save the smoking for when you're an adult). sho could arguably be 18 or 19 and still believably in school and be considered a minor legally (if in universe gbf follows japanese laws) considering the time he spent in juvie he could easily have been held back. gbf will probably just make him tsubasa's age if a canon age is release. but thinking about sho being 19 and tsubasa being 16 would make some ppl upset and that brings me joy. (also just how funny it could be thinking about (bc everyone is perpetually the same age) how later when sho a year older and legally being able to drink, and tsubasa not, and despite the fact sho being like i will break the laws about physically assaulting a guy but underage drinking, smoking, and drugs is a no-no is fucking hilarious. (the app is rated t so i guess there's only so much you can do…) (oh and one last note, a character in the event asking if sho enjoys the pain and is a masochist, to have other character be like dude you can't just ask someone that. sho saying no he doesn't enjoy the pain. only for later when they are escaping, a character noting "You look rather happy about all this. Now I'm sure youre a masochist." gbf first crushing my sho masochist headcanon and then building it back up in this event, thank u gbf). anways, rip that was a lot and not even everything, as you can see i have been… distracted by this event. apologies

—END OF GBF RAMBLE—

oh god worry about ppl like that in ina like, there really people out there who don't want you shipping ficitional children?????? and the main ina cast is roughly between 12-15. and got i started watching ina in 2013 when i was 19. which apparently for some people is like bad uwu because it's a show for young teenagers (like lol too bad i'm 27 and even though i haven't kept up with aries i still love ina and all the little babies and wont stop shipping). i didn't even know there was people out there who get UPSET AT AGING UP??? like wtf???? sorry i want them to be old enough to marry, adopt children, have a job, and also f.uck. the dpk au is my lifeblood (and has a lot of Problematic™ content that's never even been posted online anywhere bc it used to be an rp. my favorite is that out of all the relationships in the au, tenma and kyousuke's is probably the most unhealthy bc of kyousuke's mental health. some very bad things happened to fei (per request of my rp partner) (part of vanfeny and garsha's revenge on saru as they were sent to megun while saru walks around ''free'' (what exactly is free is a whole other lore mess in itself that i wrote up about post chrono stone future). and that just lead to more bad things fei then did to himself. problematic™ content 9492347 in the dpk au, shipping ozrock and lalaya. (even worse, bc of lore planning i did for the au and decided how their species worked, lalaya is about 6.5 cycles (faram obius years) or roughly 130 earth years and biologically similar to 13 year earth years, and ozrock is about 48 Ixal years roughly 48 earth years and biologically similar to 24 earth years. so like even a worse ship. i mean just ignore cultural norms would be different on an alien planet and also she's royalty and has an obligation to be wed even younger and is probably socially more mature than a human 13 year old. rip sorry i just like alien stuff. a lot of this was also because wouldn't it be great for lalaya to have a really long lifespan so the human friends she makes get older faster and also die way before her :) ina's gunna hurt me with the bug aliens then i'm going to… continue to hurt myself with more alien life span stuff.)

Anyways, With TenKyou, idk I think it's easy to paint tenma as the innocent ~pure baby~ and kyousuke as ~bad boy~ bc of the first inago… and seed kyousuke was a little bastard man (affectionate). which would idk explain the default to kyouten. but like kyousuke chills the hell out in chrono stone and galaxy. and just bc tenma is a dumbass with a heart of gold obsessed with soccer doesn't necessarily mean he's has to be ~innocent baby 受け~ trope. (not that these are the only tropes that decide) (maybe it's bc i sort of like messing with what it must be like to be the main protagonists best friend and watch him continue to overcome everything and be in the spot light and how everyone praises him. kyousuke with self-esteem issues, looking back at all the problems he's caused, tenma has flaws but they're either negligible or something to love about him and mine have only hurt others. disregarding his own goddamn plot armor in the past. complex, emotional, suffering kyousuke is how i like my kyousuke. need we even get into how god eden was canonically revealed to be physically/mentally abusing seeds and that whole can of worms) (also just "nervous baby i don't know how to approach tenma" kyousuke, "cheeky little shit doesn't have any regards to personal space and boundries" tenma) at least if anyone starts giving me shit about an ina ship or problematic fictional ina content, i can always respond with something i drew back in 2015.

back to the matter of new snap though… that line is so familiar (im pretty sure it's in the eng txt, i have it set to jpn audio tho). i recently started keeping a log of the messages that pop up on the camp, lab, and map screens (but haven't saved too many bc i get distracted or at least i know i'm missing quite a few i have vague memories of). (also idk why my first thought to that line was mirror responding with "That was because you were the one calling me that.") there actually were a couple messages i saved initially that would be useful for fic writing:

Todd: "The professor used to be kinda reckless back in the day. I suppose after 10 year he must've calmed down a bit."

and

Mirror: "Todd's calmed down since I last saw him. Or maybe he's just acting mature because you kids are around…"

possible implications from these that I'm deciding to consider for headcanons:

both reckless and wild in their early 20's but that's not unusual, so they were acting like reckless young adults when they were 20. makes sense.

because mirror mentions the last time i saw him (which is definitely implied not 10 years ago since todd had a research team pin so obviously he's been around a bit since the lab was established) meaning todd is potentially still a chaotic bastard but is just trying to act like an adult in front of the kids. beautiful.

and on that note another wonderful Tood message:

Todd: "I never invited Phil to be my pupil—he just declared himself my "number one student" and started tagging along! But honestly…I was kind of flattered."

the possibility that when todd showed up in game, after that cutscene he went to talk to mirror like "this 10 year old just started following me and wont go away, pls help. what do i do?????"

this unsupervised 10 year old just followed a ~30 year old man into the wilderness and somehow just declares todd is mentor (and took the research team pin from todd to ''borrow''). this is a hostage situation. todd is the hostage.

the idea that perhaps todd just got back from a long expedition and was glad to be back and spend time with mirror, except this kid started following him around and wont leave him alone or go away, and then when he got to the lab there were two more kids there. how the fuck am i supposed to get it on with mirror when we have little alone time and when we finally do we're constantly at risk of being interrupted and/or walked-in on. (that last part was mainly the premise of the fic i wanted to write. "these kids are a handful how are we supposed to have intimate time. especially bc they're all so young and have child energy levels and when they go to bed i am already fucking exhausted." i'm thinking it might work better as like a drabble collection, that way i don't have to adhere to a plot line and can pick and choose scenarios to write because i keep winding up with more scenario ideas that i can nearly piece together into a coherent timeline anymore.)

(also a bit that rita becomes suspicious that they are 100% fu.cking even though all that happened was mirror wasn't asleep up in his bed above the lab and fell asleep in one of the bungalows w/todd and then tried to cover it up like haha what no, i was checking on todd he's not feeling well uh… what? where are my pants? oh. oh i can't believe i just totally got out of bed and left the lab without my pants haha.) (todd and mirror just trying to keep their relationship a secrete out of fear of rumors spreading and it affecting the lab's funding, even though rumors definitely started ages ago but neither of them realize). (also todd doesn't trust phil to keep his mouth shut and doesn't like the optics of the random 10 year old who started following him (UNSUPERVISED) just blabbing to his parents about how his cool mentor is dating the professor at the lab like yikes that could end badly worst case scenario.)

(i like the idea of mirror playing along with todd's ki.nk, albeit a little awkward sometimes (not very good at being intentionally 'sexy' about it, but that's not what todd wants anyways bc it's already inherenty sexy for him). Phill has a message "I barely get half the stuff the professor talks about. Do you?" and i can only image if he said that to todd

todd: （人*´∀｀）i know it's hot

phil: what)

anyways i hope you don't mind me rambling even more on your asks like this. last time i totally just cut chunks out to be smaller but this time… i'm going to leave things in rip.