#thank you gremlin!

[makenoplans]

*makes you look at this picture of my cat in the sink*

[cheeseplants]

STORYTIME. I am fairly new to fanfic and I committed the cardinal sin of deleting a WIP fic I was having a hard time finishing. At the time I persuaded myself noone really cared.

I got caught up thinking: it wasn't getting a lot of kudos or comments, I had rushed it, the grammar wasn't good, the story wasn't working, people didn't like my characterisation, it wasn't beta-ed etc etc etc.

I was embarrassed it sat there without me being able to finish it, because I listened to the mind gremlins that told me it wasn't good enough.

Then I deleted it.

The other day someone messaged me on another one my fics asking where that fic had gone! They were looking for it, and it had disappeared. They quoted a line back to me from that fic I deleted months ago. That they REMEMBERED.

It made me realise my mind gremlins were talking BS. Even if you have only a few subscribers or kudos or whatever, your fic could be someone's FIC. It could be one they search for, it could be one they remember lines from. They could be devastated it's not there anymore.

It's easy to get so all consumed by stats, and think that others are doing better or that your thing isn't working. But what if even with your small following, you are making someone's day!

I have learned a lot since I wrote that fic, and I have it in a Drive, and now feel motivated to go back, and fix the things that got me stuck.

BUT THE MAIN THING IS - SOMEONE OUT THERE ACTUALLY MIGHT LOVE YOUR FIC.

DON'T LET STATS BE THE BENCHMARK.

DON'T LET THE MIND GREMLINS WIN.

YOUR WRITING MATTERS.

Somewhere out there a lovely internet stranger could love what you made and that is special. ❤️

Thank you for making your art! Good job.

[ghostlysoaps]

Inspiration - @ghcstao3

There's something to be said about the way John "Soap" MacTavish, notorious for his fleeting fancy of any given subject when off an op, hasn't been able to get Simon Riley out of his head. Granted, even before "The Incident" his lieutenant occupied his thoughts frequently. But now, oh, not a minute goes by where his attention doesn't stray, where his eyes aren't drawn to Ghost’s hulking figure, and he wishes they'd been stationed literally anywhere else but the monotone grey of autumnal England.

His sketchbook is filled with pages upon pages of studies. Greens and browns and gold – the myriad of colours hazel can be – despite how none of them feel right. Too saturated, too dark, too light. Too much or too little. Then again... it is near impossible to recreate a work of art after a mere fleeting second of studying the original. La Gioconda del Prado wasn't made with a peripheral glance at Da Vinci's subject – so how is Johnny to do the impossible?

-

"Spar with me."

Ghost pauses with his fork mid-way to his mouth. A mouth Johnny would gladly analyze at length, or map with his own one day, if not for the unhealthy obsession he's taken with Ghost's eyes.

One thing at a time.

His irises are shadowed by the tilt of his head and the presence of eyeblack but there is a subtle difference between them. Johnny is fool enough to think he can see it no matter how shit the lighting. Deluded, even, if his long-suffering best friend is to be believed. They're also dark with question, narrowed with thoughts and opinions kept close at heart.

"Alright," Ghost says and pushes the rest of his dinner away, pausing briefly as if to say something before ultimately deciding against it.

Johnny follows him with a pronounced bounce in his step and speeds through stretching and warming up. It'll be a killer tomorrow but that's a problem for future Johnny. Sore muscles are a small price to pay if it means settling a mystery.

They take their places, circling each other lazily. Johnny, ever the impatient one, lunges first and ends up with Ghost's heavy weight straddling the small of his back a couple minutes later. He grinds his teeth and heaves himself back to his feet. Sweat beads at his temples, his neck, trickling down his spine. Alight with purpose, he throws himself back in the fray.

He sways out of Ghost’s reach, blocking and evading, bouncing on the tips of his toes, throwing punches when it's fitting while he awaits the perfect time to strike. They're both grinning. It's plain as day on his own face, more subtle on Ghost's. The way the corners of his eyes crease gives him away, the shift of his plain balaclava as his lips twitch.

Johnny is focused on them like a bloodhound on a scent and when Ghost tosses his head, tilting it up with a roll of his shoulders, the florescent lights catching them just so.

Oh, is all he can think with the truth of him laid plain to see – how Johnny had been right all along. They differ subtly in darkness but when cast in either sunshine sepia or lightbulb white the contrast between them is stark. One is the deep, dark of pine, a forest green with too many hues to accurately count. It compliments the wooden brown of tree-trunk bark, flecks of whiskey-gold therein framed by pale lashes of nearly the same colour.

A modern day Medusa who stops him dead in his tracks, mesmerised, as Ghost's fist slams into the side of his face with the concentrated power of an eighteen-wheeler barreling into a concrete wall.

-

Ghost's face swims back into view an undetermined amount of time later. Worry etched into the tense way he carries himself. His hands are cupping Johnny’s cheeks, thumbs stroking once under his lower lids before they tilt his head back a fraction. He hovers close, peering into Johnny’s eyes as if they hold the secrets of the universe therein.

"Fuckin' hell Johnny. Anything broken?"

Johnny blinks at him, a dopey smile spreading over his lips like molasses.

Ghost, if anything, looks even more worried.

"Talk to me, Sergeant."

"You've beautiful eyes."

Ghost freezes in place. Gobsmacked, if Johnny were to put an expression to it. He murmurs a string of delightfully innovative curses under his breath, manoeuvring Johnny to sitting upright, and the change in vantage point only makes him a little bit dizzy. The dark spots dancing before his eyes is nothing new, honestly, but they are annoying when they're ruining his view.

"Knocked what little sense you had left right out of your head, huh?" Ghost sounds amused and Soap realises, belatedly, that he might've said all that out loud. "Price'll have a field day with this."

"Take some responsibility an' kiss it better then."

"You're concussed."

"Och aye, an' whose fault is tha'? You and yer bonnie eyes. Could get lost in 'em, y'ken?"

"You're off your head, mate."

"Ahm'nt! An' if you'd jus' stay still for a moment an' lemme look at ye, this wouldn't 'ave been an issue," Johnny grumbles indignantly. Grumbles, because whining is for children and it never works in getting him what he wants anyway. Ghost usually looks at him with the flattest stare imaginable whenever he tries. Horrid man. Johnny kind of wants to kiss him about it.

"Tell you what, Johnny. If you're good–" Ghost slings his arm over his shoulder, kindly ignoring the way his words leave him shivering, "–i'll let you look all you want."

Johnny leans against him when he's levered to his feet, swaying like a branch caught in the wind. "I can be good."

"Mmh. You're gonna listen to the nurses once I drop you off at medical?"

Soap groans and smushes his face deeper into Ghost’s surprisingly comfortable shoulder.

"I'll take that as a yes."

-

Ghost keeps his promises, it is an irrefutable fact, and Johnny can and will take advantage of that with shameless abandon.

Crawling into Ghost's lap with a shit-eating grin, paints and brushes well-within reach, wobbling precarious on his perch until Ghost takes pity and steadies him with scorching hands on his hips feels like a victory despite the dull throbbing in his temple and purpling bruises lapping up the side of his face. There are no protests when he guides Ghost's head this-way-and-that. No complaints are heard even when the warm glow of his bedside lamp shines at his eyes and their kaleidoscope of colours become present again. Ghost keeps his gaze unwavering focused when Johnny's hands rest on his face in a mirror of the day prior – though his eyelids droop down the fraction of an inch. It's intense and intimate and Johnny, no stranger to selfishness when he can get away with it, can't help but be greedy.

"Can you be good for me now, Simon?"

His lieutenant nods as far as Johnny’s hands allow and though him closing his eyes is the opposite of good, Johnny can't fault him when his own slide shut as he brings their faces together for the first time – a new obsession flaring to life in the wake of lips brushing fabric.

[winxwiki]

Bloom's new reboot test clip from Napoli Comicon 2024 panel

[kiruamon]

*Picks moon up bridal style and just walks away with him.*

Well, let's see how this goes.

Step 1. Picking up Moon. Yes, yes, this is looking good so far.

Step 2. Walking a- Oh. Hmmm... not sure what this lovely smile is telling us.

Step 2. Walking away. Stealing Anon. Looks like Moon is pulling the uno reverse card on you.

[xbraveheartx]

Still drives me absolutely bonkers thinking about the moment you first start to change and become human in Lies of P, is the moment after you fight Romeo and go back to the hotel. Sophia notes you don’t look so good after she mentions the necklace Romeo had— the one that says “To Romeo from your friend C”. It visibly affects you and you’re not sure why just yet.

Where only after that, you hear Romeo’s voice whisper “Carlo” and suddenly you have physically changed. Your hair is longer, your shoulders are broader, you have physically been altered because encountering Romeo and hearing him say that name awakened something deep within you that wants out.

And the menu screen where your very heart sits is now the Opera House in flames with a bundle of white stargazer flowers sitting beside it.

Bonkers, man— BONKERS!!

[tag-redfield]

Thank you for the birthday messages! Sceptical about my new spectacles tho...

[general-cyno]

I saw this one tweet and I had a vision

[inkskinned]

hey it's nanowrimo. i have tips bc i've done it about 34 times.

Don't edit. Ever. Stop it. If you just decide to start a new project half thru this one with all new characters, no problem. pick up and keep writing as if you'd already written the first half of that.

"but i spelled it wrong" whatever. "but the grammar" whatever. make it exist first. no time for sense. think like you're working on a typewriter. no backspace. only forward go.

Don't re-read further than a paragraph or two backwards. "did i mention the gun before?" listen - it doesn't matter. if you need there to be a gun there, the gun is there. put it back in once you finish the book.

"i forgot the specifics of X thing i already wrote" whatever. change it, make a note/comment to figure it out later, and just write what makes sense for the moment. "no raquel it's legit the characters name and origin" idc that character is now reborn as Claudius from Elsewhere. it's fine.

only you see your mistakes. nobody else knows. one of the ways writing and dance overlap - only you know the choreography. nobody else will know if you miss a step, so just keep dancing and pretend you meant to do it like that.

it's an illusion that you need to write linearly - from point A to point B to point C. Nah; that's just timeline propaganda. I've written a LOT of books out of order and just reordered them once i've finished. if you have a scene you'd LOVE to write but can't get there yet because of plot, just fuckin write the scene. I've always found its easier to establish "point F" "point J" and "Point A" and then wiggle my way between those scenes.

write what you WANT to write. 230 pages of smut? of well-researched discussion on bread? whatever. the point is to strengthen muscles however you can.

if you miss a day, a week, whatever. not the end of the world. we all have dry days. also time is a myth so u can do this challenge whenever u want.

as soon as you try to write for a specific audience, you kill your voice. you are writing for yourself. stop thinking about how people will take ur book. it don't matter. what matter is u, enjoying writing. i luv u.

play to your strengths. i have characters talk so much because i don't know how to write a plot if it kills me but i'm really good at dialogue so.

i love a flight of fancy. write a poem in there. shift tactics and write in code. keep it fun for yourself.

see what happens if you shift something major about ur main characters - gender, wealth, superpowers. or if you change point-of-view. or if you kill everyone in a big explosion. do NOT edit anything before this or after it. often these little weird one-off exercises teach me what interests me about what i'm working on. it is never what i thought. plus it is a fun way to add like 1k words.

stretch.

it's for fun and for practice. stop doing that project if it's giving you anxiety. once my nano was literally 50k words of half-started stories. just things i tried and tried and tried and wasn't able to flesh out. oops. but i am now 50k words of a better writer.

add dragons?

read books/listen to books on tape/etc. people often make the mistake of "buckling down" to just write. you need inspiration. you need to like. fill up on words. you need to remember how it feels to lose yourself in a story.

i don't have the time or space to really talk about this in this post but a lot of creative people turn to drugs/alcohol because it can help you be more creative. this is harmful, and walking a blade that only cuts deep. if you notice you and your loved ones are turning more to substances, please know i love you and i hope you are able to get help soon. i feel like this almost never gets mentioned because it's kind of a hazy underbelly to art. you are always more important than the work.

on that note. drink your fukin. water.

don't talk about a story until you've finished it. once you tell the story, it exists already, and isn't about discovery. i usually have a very canned "haha we'll see" response.

grapes :) tasty snack.

i love you be free.

[finzphoenix]

As Thanks, I offer you a gift

Teheheheh

There is absolutely no way that you drew me something after already having done me the honor of buying a commission from me?? Oh, I am FLABBERGASTED! Utterly SMITTEN!! Look at this little guy, y'all! He is most precious and I will treasure him for the rest of my life ;///0///; 💖💖💖💖💖

[remyfire]

I've said it once, I'll say it a million times. I love it when he's the worst.

[stealingyourbones]

[doodle-girl]

Happy one month, sitcommies 🎉

Edit: TUMBLR FUCKED UP THE COLORS AGAIN HOLD UP I FIXED IT

Edit 2: THEY KEEP FUCKING IT UP I HAD TO UPLOAD A SCREENSHOT OF THE ART RAGJRHJHFJFHJ

[explodingstarlight]

"who gave this child coffee?? WHO GAVE THIS CHILD COFFEE?!??" my reblogs cry

it was me, i'm not sorry >:)c

*taps microphone* yes, thank you for tuning in 😌✨ now go follow the creator of the Alpha Stage/de-aged!Donnie AU, @snailsnaps and consume their content (not literally /j)

[lazybakerart]

Cursed Child and Master of the Evil Eye, Hiei from the live action Yu Yu Hakusho

[gomzdrawfr]

Hehe here's ghost swimming in soup (soap 👀) for you! Also remember to hydrate

PS. CAN I EAT UR ART THEY'RE SO EDIBLE HDBKSBSGDJ LEMME AT THEM CHIBI(?) 141

Naomi whAT IS THAT SOAP I MUST KNOW IT LOOKS DELICIOUS

and yeah ofc u can eat my art here i baked the 141 into cookies