#the amount of effort going into these posts...

[thefrogman]

Back in the olden days, if you used the "keep reading" function on a Tumblr-dot-com post, it would

not get very many notes.

At all.

I am not sure exactly why.

I think people hated pressing an extra thing.

But maybe it was also a psychological phenomenon where, given the choice, they were unwilling to trust me with their time.

But if I sucked them in with a good story or a compelling image, they would get serious FOMO.

When I created a super high effort post-of-length I would get comments like, "This was way too long but before I realized it I was reading the last sentence."

That was a really good feeling.

I used to do tests to figure out the best posting strategies and I think I figured out you'd lose about 90% of your notes if you did a "keep reading" post.

So that notion was ingrained in my brain again and again from when I was very note-obsessed and I have since avoided the "keep reading" option almost like a conditioned response.

Just seeing that squiggly line appear still induces a Pavlovian fear.

But that was probably a decade ago and I did a new experiment. My story about replacing my mailbox did reasonably well with a strategically clickbaity "keep reading."

This was a promising result due to the fact that some people like to send me hate for writing a lengthy post.

I recently got a death threat for writing too much, which was a fun reminder of my M&M days (I melted men's rights activists' brains with a poorly worded analogy and they launched a years long harassment campaign).

It seems in present-era-Tumblr-dot-com many more people prefer pressing an extra thing rather than scrolling a bunch on their smartphone. The collective behavior has changed. And maybe I don't need to use tricks and running gags in order to get folks to "keep reading".

Unfortunately I started writing that ring light post a few months ago so I wasn't able to include that in the experiment. But I am going to try using the keep reading function in the future and as long as the average number of folks that usually read my longer posts continue to read my posts, that will be the standard approach.

I also tag these posts with "long post" so you can flag that if you wish.

While I am no longer in the audience-building phase of my Tumblr career, these essays and stories and educational posts take a considerable amount of time and effort to create, so I do want to make sure everyone who wants to read them is able to. But posts without hearts and reblogs can quickly die a gruesome algorithmic death. Even my most ardent followers would tell me things were not showing up on their dash. (I think replies help mitigate that, so if you like a long post, you can help with engagement.)

The collective noun is a "business" of ferrets.

Do you want to see a business of ferrets ready to do some business?

KEEP READING

I love writing and it is a huge catharsis for me. And I love sharing any knowledge I feel like I have the earned expertise to speak on with authority (technology, photography, light, fun ferret facts, etc). I wish I had the energy to be a photography teacher, but long posts on Tumblr are probably the best I can do for now.

I know my posts are super long, but I try to make them as fun and informationally dense as I possibly can. I don't like wasting people's time if I can avoid it. Though maybe I should trust my follower's attention span a bit more. I have this fear that if I am not constantly entertaining, people will click away or unfollow.

I think a good business for a business of ferrets would be selling pool noodles that look like ferrets.

So as long as I get roughly the same amount of notes I will do the keep reading. And then maybe people can lay off on the mean comments and occasional requests to end my own life because I bloviated about soft light.

100% true ferret fact..

If you ask a ferret what their business is, they will crawl on your shoulder and whisper in your ear...

[sinful-lanterns]

I’m curious about your Sugar Mommy/Baby list especially the dynamics of Court Chelsea & Cinnabar.

Also side note: DAMN ELEVEN STACKED WITH SUGAR BABIES

Although Cinnabar was very reluctant to accept Chelsea’s proposals of becoming her sugar baby, Cinnabar is also very weak to the pleas of beautiful women, so she found herself being dragged to the Sugar Mommy’s Club rather effortlessly 😅

Going further into their dynamics, Cinnabar served as Chelsea’s bodyguard (she still does) before becoming her sugar baby, so it was only bound for this relationship to happen as Chelsea firmly believes that Cinnabar should be spoiled for her efforts. It’s cute to see Cinnababy get so flustered whenever she’s surrounded by pretty women who want to spoil her and have a good time (especially whenever it involves you) <3

Also yes, Eleven has a surprising amount of sugar babies indeed! It was somewhat inspired by posts on Twitter where everyone was shipping Eleven with various women (usually Shawn and Angell, tho I added Bianca in there because why not) so Eleven now has 3 sugar babies of her own that she acquired!

[lilbittymonster]

Day 20: Duel

Read on AO3

A dusting of snow drifted across the roof as Kitali paced listlessly along the top. The camp had decidedly wound down, efforts focusing on healing the wounded and maintaining supplies. Hardly anything she could help with. It didn’t help that the land was so barren there was almost nothing worth seeing.

She pivoted on a heel as she reached the edge of the roof to walk back the other way, and stopped just short of running into Estinien.

“D’you need something?” she asked.

“You’re getting restless,” he observed. “Come spar with me.”

“What, already run through the rest of the camp?”

He shrugged. “There’s no challenge to it if I have to worry about pulling all my punches. I know you can handle me at my worst.”

A smirk pulled at her lips. “Just out of curiosity, how many shinobi have you fought before?”

“None,” he answered. “Why?”

Her smirk grew wider. “You want a challenge, yeah?”

Estinien’s eyes narrowed in suspicion but he couldn’t hide an answering smile. “I do.”

Without another word, Kitali turned around and stepped off the roof, landing lightly on her feet and startling a nearby Serpent. She strode with haste to her quarters and began rifling through her pack for the folded set of clothes she had tucked away, just in case.

Though the cloth was heavy, it felt almost too thin in the climes of Garlemald, not that the cold could touch her as much as it should have. Compared to the weight of her armour, the air on her bare shoulders and through the thin links of the arms was freeing. Her twin daggers at her hips, she made her way back outside into the snow.

Thancred was passing by as she walked to the north gate, and he did a double take at her clothing.

“Going somewhere?” he asked in amusement.

“Estinien said he wanted a challenge, so I’m going to give him one.”

He raised a brow. “Now this I have to see,” he said, falling into step behind her.

Estinien was waiting a little ways down the hill, narrowing his eyes as he saw Thancred behind her.

“Don’t worry, I’m only here to spectate,” Thancred assured him, taking up a post against one of the nearby trees. “It’s not often I get to watch the show, as it were.”

Estinien turned to Kitali again. “Right, then. Best of three?”

Kitali laughed. “Oh, that’s going to be over far too quick.”

“That confident, are you?” he said, backing away from her and taking his lance into hand.

“I am,” she retorted easily.

“One way to find out.”

Once he was a good ten paces away, Kitali summoned up a wind to whip up the snow into a flurry around her, blowing outwards, and in the second of his blinded distraction, she surged forward to punch into his stomach.

“One,” she counted.

Immediately she spun around to tap the flat of a blade against his back.

“Two.”

Completing the circle, she held the back of a dagger up to his exposed throat.

“Three.”

Estinien stared down at her incredulously.

“How in the Fury’s-”

“I told you,” she sing-songed at him.

His nostrils flared indignantly. “So you did.”

“And here I thought I was going to be entertained,” Thancred called sarcastically to them.

They looked at him, then at each other.

“Well, shall we give him a show?” Estinien asked quietly.

“You wanted a challenge, didn’t you?”

Kitali backflipped so there was a good amount of distance between them once more. He followed almost immediately with a leap of his own, the air whooshing by as the blade of his lance cut through it. It felt like dancing the way she would twist and dart to avoid him by ilms, the way he would leap in and away again. It almost reminded her of the way Arienne would investigate anything new brought into the house the way he seemed to be assessing her.

After several passes of her getting within reach and slipping past his defense only for him to leap upward out of her grasp, Kitali was getting bored.

“You said I could handle you at your worst,” she taunted. “I know this isn’t it.”

“Don’t say you didn’t ask for it,” he shouted back.

The outline of him shimmered before shade after shade of himself broke off and launched into the air. Kitali threw her head back and laughed in delight before summoning her own wall of duplicates before her.

“Oh, come on!” Estinien yelled in exasperation.

Kitali blinked across the field while their respective shadows battled each other into dissipation, taking advantage of his distraction to land another blow to his side. The clink of the flat of her blade skidded along his breastplate as he just managed to evade her next strike. He swung out with his arm and caught her against her chest, sending her flying. She landed square on her back, and she used the momentum to roll backwards onto her feet again.

“Got any other tricks up those sleeves of yours?” he called.

Not taking her eyes off of him she slid her body through the familiar movements. Pulling the heavens down to meet the earth was as natural as breathing by now. The bolt struck the ground directly next to him, the resounding clap of thunder stunning him into stillness.

“I see,” was all he said.

With a wicked grin, the familiar red smoke began to surround him as he leapt up into the air. Kitali waited, and waited, and at the last second jumped into the air as he impacted the ground where she was standing not a moment before. She twisted her tail to direct herself back down onto his back, but he managed to flip and roll them so she was pinned beneath him. The snow next to her neck crunched as he stabbed the blade of his lance into it.

“My win,” he said triumphantly.

Kitali gave him no time to gloat, blinking through space to several yalms above him and twisting midair again to land on her feet. He had barely turned to face her when she blew a wreath of flame from her lips, melting the snow and ice around him into a slick surface. With a flick of her wrist the freshly melted water swirled up in ropes to wrap around his legs up to his waist, and then it was frozen again in thick crystals of ice.

“You sure about that?”

He struggled against the ice, the splinters spreading as the ice groaned under the strain. After a moment, and with a sound of shattering glass, he jumped free. Kitali didn’t even bother to deflect the next flurry of blows he sent her way, only dodging and ducking away at the last second.

“Seven hells, Kitali,” he growled. “What did they do to you in Doma?”

She just huffed out a laugh as she sidestepped another thrust.

“Getting tired, yet?” she teased.

“Hardly.”

In a blink of an eye she was behind him again. She spun on her heel with an arm up to deflect the blow she knew was coming. While she had an opening, she swung around with the other arm to hit his exposed side. Estinien was quick to pull the shaft of his lance over her head and across her chest, holding her snug against him and pinning her arm.

“Got you,” he said smugly.

“Do you, now.”

In a blink she was a yalm in front of him again, already circling back around to his right, neatly dodging the butt of the spear as he swung it up towards her. With an arcing slice, he brought the lance down at her, and Kitali was forced to bring up both knives to catch the blow. The wicked red blade was mere ilms from her, and already her arms were trembling under the full weight of him. Shifting her weight to her toes instead of her heels she allowed herself to slide backwards across the frozen ground.

“You haven’t learned, have you?” she panted before quickly sidestepping out from under him, rolling him forward on his own momentum.

To her surprise, he caught himself at the last second and spun, grabbing her by the wrist and pulling her to him again.

“I learn just fine, thank you,” he said as he towered over her.

Before she could protest or move, his other arm locked behind her and he launched them both backwards into the air. Someone was laughing, and Kitali couldn’t tell which of them it was. The world tilted as they reached the apex and began to descend, and a small thrill of fear ran up her spine at not being able to see where they’d land.

Their descent was halted quite abruptly in a cloud of white powder. She kept laughing into his chest, the sound bubbling out of her with an edge of mania tinging it. Estinien’s rare gravelly wheeze of a laugh pressed against her hair as he continued to hold her.

Once the laughter and excess energy finally dwindled, Kitali rolled onto her back, a small cascade of snow falling into her face. Pushing her hair out of the way, as well as another clump of snow, she looked over to Estinien who was looking far too pleased with himself.

“You’re a right piece of shit, you know that?”

[ineffablyruined]

Prompt for Week Seven:

Whisper.

Saying something snarky under someone's breath? Soft mumbles across someone's skin? Disembodied voices in a haunted house that must be investigated? Something else whispering that I haven't thought of here? They're all fair game for this week's prompt!

The Rules Are Simple:

Every Friday until the Season 3 premiere, I'll post a prompt.

You will have a week to write, draw, paper craft, record, completely scrap and start from the beginning after a crisis of confidence (oh, is that just me?), and post your interpretation of the prompt.

Tag your post #IneffablePromptAThon, #IneffablePAT #Ineffable Prompt-A-Thon, and/or #IPAT. Make sure to use them on Tumblr, X, IG, and AO3 so everyone can easily find your works!

Also tag your posts and AO3 with the Week Number and the Prompt, so we can all tell which prompt your creation accompanies.

Tag me @ineffablyruined in all of your posts, too, so I can reblog!

Add your contribution to the Ineffable Prompt-A-Thon collection on AO3 for this week. Link is below!

Look for the next prompt. Rinse. Repeat.

HAVE FUN!

This is meant to be zero stress. If you can't do a week, that's completely fine! Prompt not working for you? Skip it. Going to be late? No worries at all!

It is just meant to be a fun outlet to get your creative juices flowing and keep the fandom well-fed with copious amounts of fic and fun until our Ineffable Duo makes their return to our screens (whenever that may be).

There is no length requirement, no rating requirement, no timeline requirement. It can be canon-compliant, AU, crossover, whatever tickles your fancy, as long as it's Good Omens related and incorporates the prompt. It's all Tickety-Boo!

Let's be real - this is basically now a joint effort between @interesting-egg and me.

If you want to be tagged in the posts, let me know!

Link to this week's collection:

Tags under the cut:

@naturallyteal @bumblee27 @czitara @martinsharmony @ineffable-xenanigans @dierama-mojo @lickthecowhappy @ineffably-queer-book-lover @eybefioro @crowleys-hips @goodoldfashionednightingale @depraveddame

[rayofspades]

Helluva Boss fans after Mission Antarctica, trying to figure out whether or not Blitz has been giving Stolas good head

[wild0moon]

i bring you: my casual clothes tankman design (and steve too) i am so normal about found family tankdad

happy pride month lol

[estrangedandwayward]

Still thinking about larys helping aegon off the floor, a display of physical strength which he would normally keep hidden, a brief slip of his mask of helplessness he told aegon about last episode. He disarms himself in a way, by showing the strength most assume he doesn't have

[triglycercule]

it must get boring as hell doing continuous repetitive genos like dust does. he probably constantly questions how his human can keep on going and like not get bored (me too tho ngl because what type of person is out there that's trying to minmax every single undertale geno route interaction???) so i say he changes things up during his own process for a variety of reasons

sometimes when he's feeling REALLY apathetic he might just view everyone as stats and precoded scripts and lines and he just goes about the geno as if he was a player playing a video game (this is incredibly hypocritical because he's acting like the player but also this is dust sans we're talking about. pinnacle of hypocrisy. he'd deny any sort of human like actions because he's not the human and what he's doing is for the greater good). also its kinda fucked because it just means that there's been so many resets that he doesn't view his friends and family as simply people that he's taking the lives of but more as just npcs and numbers. but yk of course he moves on from that episode (and refuses to acknowledge the fact that he was acting very much so like the human. nope nope nope)

or maybe whenever he feels really really really shitty about himself he just lets the human kill him sometimes. he purposely interacts with other monsters before he kills them so he has to hear them beg for mercy. he just lets himself wallow in as much guilt and pain and misery as possible because its really really addicting to be sad and upset and feel bad. and dust is never like "hey i should stop doing this because its getting in the way of be killing the human" because he knows damn well it ISNT. he's still gonna be on that him vs. human grind no matter what even if he spends a few resets fucking around and being miserable and the humans always gonna reset anyways. ALWAYS

even if he's not at lvl 20 or something but still above the human in lv then maybe he'd kill them. but then that also means that there'd still be some monsters left because he nor the human maxed out their stats. so then that's just more suffering for dust (because i really think he'd like to make himself suffer because he feels so much guilt for what he did. his suffering is self inflicted and he knows that and still does it. good for him) because he has to walk around the underground knowing that there are some people hiding in corner or something watching him and scared that he's gonna kill them because thats what he did to everyone else. some nicer monsters might go up to him and try to talk to him but dust doesn't have the chill welcoming friendly vibe sans does anymore so it's just creepy and awkward. angrier monsters might try and yell or fight him and dust just sits there and takes it because theyr totally right. to them it might just look like he killed monsters just for shits and giggles one day and theres no way for him to explain the resets without people just forgetting it in the first place so theres not much he can do except accept the suffering. what in the mental masochism

[corvidcentral]

Nora SoSu ref!! I love her (she has been put through the wringer)

More lore below cut v

Like I said she was an extremely talented criminal defense lawyer. She almost always won the cases she was assigned to, and if she didn’t win, she managed to get her clients sentences dramatically reduced. Closer to her maternity leave, however, she picked up a case where someone was falsely accused of being a communist.

(In universe, Fallout has a LOT of anti-communist/red scare propaganda hence this)

She won the case, but her “credibility” instantly tanked, as no one wanted a “commie” defending them. So she was basically bottlenecked into defending communists or people accused of such. She, being one of the top lawyers, won almost all of them, and sent several companies into bankruptcy after settlements were paid, but this made her nationally hated. Her name was in newspapers often, smearing her name and her skills, which often went hand in hand with racist/bigoted rants from these publications

She “retired” after becoming pregnant with Shaun, both because Nate asked her to, and because it was becoming far too dangerous for her to keep at her practice. So she was a sahm until the Great War, upon which the canon events of FO4 happen

She becomes extremely anxious and depressed after being released, and while she does immediately start looking for Shaun, she also begins to look for things that distract her as well, eventually resulting in her appointment to the Minutemen’s General as well as becoming a Railroad member. As stated she does NOT like the Brotherhood, and they make her anxious with their similarities to the American Army (she also doesn’t particularly like Danse, not through any fault of his own, just that he reminds her too much of Nate).

She does find Kellogg and. Punches him to death. It’s cathartic for her, in a way.

I don’t have a solid grasp on what happens after that, but I do know that she chooses to evacuate + blow up the Institute, and that she tries to bring Father with her, but he tells her to take Synth Shaun in his place. SShaun is also a fun concept to play w/ I do have some lore for him

I will say she is friend with Nick, one because they’re both pre-war (on technicality), and two because they actually both knew of each other. Nora often defended people Nick arrested, so they’d see each other on court, and because they were both in the paper often (Nora for the Commie’s Lawyer thing, Nick for the Eddie Winter’s case). They’re. Super shocked and a little disturbed to see the other after “meeting again” but they do become decent friends once they get over their heebies :3

[muppetsnoopy]

i.am normal in both thoughts and feelings

[rikufanclub]

"  I know that I have to stand up with these feet.   Both love and pain, I want to take on everything. "

recreated frames from ‘little cry of the abyss’

[yet-another-heathen]

Well. It's now 3am and I'm still so heartbroken that I can't sleep, so I guess Tumblr might as well be the place for this.

Today a complete stranger came by while I was at work and mowed my front and back lawn for me. I'm sure it was something he was trying to do out of neighborly kindness, but he ran over and killed four of our young trees and shrubs. One of these was a very, very rare native plant. I'm talking so rare that I have never found one before or since, and can't give its name without doxxing myself. It was, by the simplest definition of the word, irreplaceable.

It was the first thing I ever planted in this garden. It took it two years to get to the height it was, and was going to get so much bigger. It will not survive being cut off to the ground like it was. It is going to die, and there is nothing I will ever be able to do to fix or replace it.

I am so completely and utterly crushed.

I never had a chance to stop him. He went around most of our saplings, but every single plant that was under 12" tall is gone. The only one that might survive is a lilac bush that we planted just last week. I can't even find what's left of the others.

I'm sure he expected me to come home and be overjoyed. Instead I'm here with a knot of grief in my chest that's been stuck there for hours. So I'm going to tell you what I might not be able to tell him:

Please remember that the single kindest thing you can do for another person is ASK.

[mantisgodsdomain]

Fun fact about us: we really, really like doing crossovers, whether between different Things or just between different AUs of the same Thing. We deeply enjoy throwing things into each other and seeing the relative "normal" interact, tinkering with different potential outcomes of the same general thing, fucking around with culture clash and alternate realities, and all of that fun stuff.

Unfortunately, we also get into flavors of media that isn't quite finished a lot, and we often really want to throw together AUs that we have to write ourself together with things, which means that we're nearly constantly running into the same handful of roadblocks: it's really hard to write about stuff when people have no idea what you're talking about, and it's also really hard to write about stuff when you don't know half of what's going on.

This means that a decent chunk of our writing that is finished tends to stay in drafts - fics based on information that needs to be revealed in stuff we haven't yet written, fics based on media where half of the things we need to know aren't yet revealed in canon, and similar situations easily make up our second most common category of "finished but unpublished" and "finished except for That One Thing" fic (our first most common category is "we need to come up with a decent opening and writing a good hook is hard")

This is, of course, a hell of our own creation. A problem of our own authorship, that we still consistently fail to escape because of our sense of pride and unwillingness to turn out anything that isn't at least half-decent. Similar to the way that we force ourself to reread any media that we write fic of for the sake of accuracy before we can publish it. It makes things take longer, but allows us to ensure quality - though it may hold us back from a certain degree of self-indulgence, mischaracterization is the thing that bothers us most, and if we release a misreading or mischaracterization, that'll haunt us more than any level of soul-baring ever count.

Anyways, all of this is to say that peak self-indulgence for us looks like an isekai Dungeon Meshi/Runaway to the Stars crossover where we stick a handful of characters into the dungeon and let them just kind of cope with that for the forseeable future and the only thing stopping us from doing this is a sense of pride and the fact that Runaway to the Stars doesn't actually have finished & published books right now.

[fordanoia]

I was thinking about stuff again and looking into the transcript and this exchange really does just pull some unspoken weight in it

Stan: How did things get so messed up between us? Ford: We used to be like Dipper and Mabel. The world's about to end and they still work together. How do they do it? Stan: Easy. They're kids. They don't know any better.

Of course we know Stan and Ford’s whole deal, but the whole sentiment here really just pulls a tragic note

There’s this unspoken acknowledgement that they both want to have a relationship, but (at this point) it’s treated as something that just... can’t happen

There’s a sentiment a lot of times that if you really love someone and they love you - that things turn out fine. Or at least, on the surface you’d think ‘well why would we ever stop being close?’ because logically, it doesn’t make sense

But in practice - it happens. It’s a falling out where you still both love each other, but now there’s this obstacle

really love the show for having this moment between them btw

And here in the show - Stan and Ford both see so much of how they used to be in Dipper and Mabel

Even here though where Ford directly draws that parallel though - he’s not connecting how they’re able to not squabble when everything’s going wrong - how they pull together instead of apart when the stakes turn high

and Stan saying it’s because they don’t know any better-

It just really paints a picture of how behind the pair of them are to Dipper and Mabel - especially after the Mabel-land episode

The Little Dipper episode is an instance where Dipper and Mabel have a similar squabble to the Stans’ petty hand-holding debacle, but afterwards they open up to one another and stuff is fine again.

-

The thing about this whole thing - it’s not that Dipper and Mabel never have moments of broken trust between each other or insecurities or anything like this - it’s that when this stuff happened they were eventually able to open up to one another and that’s how they got through it and came to work together without bickering

Because it’s not about blind or naive trust - it’s about that trust and putting in the effort to show some vulnerability and even talk about stuff instead of burying it down

Stan and Ford’s relationship acts as an obvious cautionary foil to Dipper and Mabel’s own, and it’s tragic because like with Dipper & Mabel you can see how Stan & Ford could also have possibly reconciled.

And the tragic thing in this set of lines is that, they really don’t understand and they still view it as this near-impossible thing for themselves.

[theghostofashton]

.

[ghoulhusband]

ok because i’m on the train and i just bought some what do you think the best post apocalyptic rugelach filling would be. (if you don’t know what rugelach is, click that wikipedia link, or the truncated version is it’s a filled small pastry originally from jewish communities in poland but now it’s made all over the world and people put all sorts of fillings in them. the filling can be jam, nuts with spices, flavored pastry cream, or even savory fillings. the kind i just bought are chocolate, in case you’re wondering.)