#thought I'd do something like that since a bunch of new blogs started following me

[radicalrascals]

STARTER CALL ♥ Supernatural Muses

Like for a quick starter from one of my supernatural muses below; feel free to specify muse. If you're multi-muse blog please lemme know for which muse the starter is

Nick Silva - werewolf / bookshop owner - gay - FC: Wagner Moura

Miguel Guerrero - hunter - pan - FC: Diego Luna

Liam Talbot - mage-for-hire - gay - FC: John Simm

[kuleana--does-anyone-care]

capstone update #1

TO REITERATE: I'm planning to produce a 30-min documentary film.

Hello, I'm finally here to update my blog! I meant to do this last week, but didn't... I was struggling to wrap my head around this project and what I'll be doing this semester.

I think I'm a little crazy for taking this on. Sometimes it feels like too much, but I certainly won't be quitting.

My first reality check was trying to populate the workback plan. It was a necessary step, but so difficult. I had to come back to it a few times to get it sorted out. I always feel like I'm overlooking something when I'm planning out a project, and I've never tried to produce something of this magnitude before. But I sat down with my workback plan again tonight and finally have it in good shape. Coming back to it has helped me process what I'll need to do, and I feel pretty certain now that I'm not forgetting anything. I also recreated my workback plan in Notion, because I don't think I'll be able to stay on track if I only look at it on Google Sheets. (The formatting... the lack of color-coding and other viewing modes... Nah, homie, I can't. TwT) I also gave myself dates to complete things by. I know I can work to a deadline, and now I have a ton of them. Isn't that fantastic!

Anyway, I'm really happy with my organization on this project now that I have all my tasks thought out, written down, and with dates. The tricky part now will be keeping the Google Sheet updated according to the Notion.

Right now I have a bunch of tasks marked as "in progress." There's so much I need to do in the next two weeks, mostly making lists of people and Instagram accounts to reach out to. I already follow a lot of accounts but I have not created a master list for myself to keep track of them all. Once I have my list, I can start drafting up messages to send to them, asking if they might want to participate in my doc, or could put me in connection with people who would. I'm kind of worried that I don't have much to show for myself, a presence, or a reason why they should trust me, that kind of thing. But I'll try it anyway.

I also need to draft emails/ send texts/ make phone calls to people I know, who said in one way or another that they might be able to lend a voice to my project. Cast out a bunch of lines and see if I get any bites. 🎣

Another thing is, I want to find videos on YouTube and Vimeo of the ʻOnipaʻa Peace March that happened a couple weeks ago. I wasn't able to go myself, but I'd really like to incorporate footage of it into my film. Maybe someone would be willing to let me use a few of their shots. If not a person, maybe one of the local news outlets. I also need to do some research. I have a playlist of some news clips about the Red Hill water crisis from when I made my 5-minute piece about it in Fall '22. But there have been updates since then, and I need to collect even more. I'm not 100% sure what or how much I'll do with it yet. But my creative process is 'collect all the stuff, look at and absorb it all, ???, get vision, create the vision'... so step one is gathering more things. :)

Also want to find more PDFs. Last semester, I found some studies and national news articles about Red Hill, pollution by the Navy/ issues similar to what's happening here, but my research topic was persuasion, so I spent the vast majority of my time on that. There's definitely more out there, and I want to find it because I'm thinking of using scans/ screenshots in my film.

Oh, and I'm planning to request titles from ʻUluʻulu by 2.16. Gonna try my absolute best to stay on top of the deadlines I've set for myself. LONG POST: FINITO!!!

[dervampireprince]

Any advice for new tumblr accounts? I just joined and I have no clue how to grow a following? -shy anon lol

oh boy this isn't something i've really thought about before.

when i first joined tumblr in 2013 i wasn't looking to grow a following, i just knew some artists i liked were on here and i wanted to see what they were posting. it wasn't until years later i started posting my own gifs and art over on my main blog. follower counts aren't public but i don't mind sharing if it helps so on @emptymasks which i've had since 2013 and at times have posted a lot of gifs, art and fisc too and at other times have gone months and months without posting any of that because i don't see tumblr as a social media to like make money off or anything, it's just fun, i have 2988 on my main blog.

this blog dervampireprince has existed since december 2020 but it was a different blog with a different name until march 2021 when it became dervampireprince. so this blog has existed posting 18+ writing since march 2021 and audios since december 2021 and i have 3682 followers over here. never expected this blog to me my post popular but i'm not complaining.

tumblr isn't like other social medias, you can't see other users follower counts, following counts, and recommended and trending posts don't get thrown at you. you mostly only see posts from people you follow. yes there are recommended posts now but if you're an older tumblr user like myself you may use Xkit which is a 3rd party extension for tumblr that adds a bunch of features (blocking posts with certain words in them, mass tag editor/replacer, an outbox, ad blocker, use tumblr using older themes and layouts, etc) so some people don't get any recommended posts.

there's only one way to get your posts noticed by people on tumblr and that's using tags correctly, and relying on people who check their favourite tags to notice your posts. now a lot of people must not be like me, because i don't check tags for things very often, but clearly a lot of people do or my posts would have no notes. what tags you use though is going to depend on what type of post you're making. you can use up to 20 tags. tumblr will let you type more than 20, but anything above tag 20 won't be searchable, as in if you 21st tag is [marvel], your post will not show up under search results for marvel unless it's tag 20 or lower, not on tumblr general search nor in search results on your own blog.

(sidenote - tumblr's search used to take you to tumblr.com/tagged/[thing you searched for] and years ago they changed it to tumblr.com/search/[thing you searched for]. you can still get to the /tagged page by typing it in the URL bar, /tagged always shows most recent posts first which i prefer and also if you searched for [loki] then /tagged would only show you posts where the word loki is tagged, whereas /search shows you posts that have loki tagged and have the word loki typed in any text in the actual post. which is annoying and you end up with non relevant posts showing up in certain tags)

so for example if i'm writing a nsft writing posts these are the tags i tend to use are: #nsft nsftumblr #nsft concept #nsft fantasy #nsft writing #ftm nsft #mlm nsft #nblm nsft #t4t nsft #trans nsft #trans man nsft #transmasc nsft #lgbt nsft #bi nsft . Now all those tags aren't relevant to every nsft post, some are gender specific, but you can find what other tags exist by just checking the general #nsft and #nsftumblr tags and seeing what other people use as tags when they post.

(and having xkit means i don't have to remember and type these out every time, i just have them saved as a tag bundle and one click and they all go in the tags)

or for example if i'm making a post on my main blog for a sandman drawing i've down i'd use the tags: the sandman #dream of the endless #sandman #fanart #hob gadling #dreamling #dreamgadling #hob x dream #dream x hob #morpheus #lord morpheus #myart #sandman fanart #the sandman fanart . And then people find it through the fandom and ship tags mostly.

Of course if you already have followers then your followers will see your posts no matter if you use any tags or none, but tags are the only way to get people who aren't following you to see your post, and hope that some of them reblog it so their followers can see (unlike social medias like Twitter, like aren't public here, your followers can't see what posts you like, and even if you set your likes to public they can only see them if they go to a specific page on your blog, your likes don't show up in their dashboard/timeline like they do on Twitter).

This is my oldest original piece of writing on here

I had somewhere between 1-10 followers at the time and currently it stands at 52 notes. I didn't use many tags, I didn't know about the existence of many tags, but I used the few I knew about and specific kink tags and people noticed it.

And as always it's the posts you spend ages writing that get fewer notes than one silly sentence you post at 2am thinking no one will notice

Because that still sits at my post popular post on this blog. And despite this blog having much more followers than my main, my post popular post ever is a Loki themed edit I did where I just posted 9 photos from fashion editorials, recoloured them to be green and black and gold, and it got to over 15k notes within a few months and none of my posts here are close to getting that many. Follower count doesn't reflect how popular a post can get.

Basically tags are your best friend on this site, use them wisely, don't use more than 20. It doesn't hurt to follow and interact with other blogs who are posting similar content to you, your followers are going to see any posts you reblog as well as your original posts. I've never approached another blog trying to be mutuals or friends before, if I end up getting to know anyone it just sorta happens from us seeing each others names a lot in our notes and sending asks to each other. Like with with aspiring-house-husband for example, I never sent them a message saying 'can we be friends' because that's kinda creepy, I just was reblogging a lot of their writing, chose to engage by sending them some rp asks, complimenting their writing, and then i realised they'd reblogged from me, small world, and speaking of Fawn, in less than a year they got almost 7k followers which is insane and goes to show how talented at writing they are. If you're really only doing it for the followers then finding a niche can help, if you're wanting to write nsft stuff you could focus around certain kinks or creatures or something. I ended up focusing around royalty kink stuff, and I hadn't even heart of it until a couple months into making this blog so.

I hope some of that was helpful? My goal with my main tumblr was just to be able to see art other people posted, making this tumblr yes I did hope for people to reblog my writing and I liked the idea of being a nsft blog people followed, but I didn't have any plans that I would make audios and end up making income off this stuff, it just happened that by the time I wanted to make audios I was lucky that 1. people were already following me and 2. I was making them for a new fandom that was really popular at the time (Arcane).

Yeah that was long, hope it helped, I don't know what sort of content you want to make and tumblr isn't like other socials, there's no 'tumblr influencers' and you can't get sponsored or monetized posts or get payed to host ads on your blog or anything like that so I can only tell you so much.

EDIT: I remembered something else! There are some blogs called source blogs, these blogs are normally centered around a fandom, character, actor, ship, etc. For example marvelgifs is a blog that reblogs Marvel gifs. These blogs will check posts tagged with their username, not @ ing them in the post, but putting their username as one of your tags etc #marvelgifs . You can tag source blogs as a way to help get your posts potentially reblogged. Most of these blogs only post and reblog gifs and edits but some do also reblog fanart, fics and other content for example I also run a blog @europeanmusicals where I reblog and post all content about European musicals that I can find including fanart and writings, and I check the #europeanmusicals tag to see if there's posts people want me to notice to them reblog to that blog. I was able to set up that blog as I'd already been posting about European musicals on my main emptymasks blog for a year or two at that point and surrounded myself with others who like that content.

[braceletofteeth]

Tag 9 people you want to get to know better

I was tagged by @kissporsche 💕💕 which made me really happy because a few months ago they initiated a conversation with me and I was too much of an introvert to keep it going, so I had thought then that I had lost my chance at friendship forever 🥲

Three Ships

The (un)holy trinity: Hannigram (from Hannibal), Jongmoon (from Strangers From Hell) and VegasPete (from KinnPorsche).

First Ever Ship

It's hard to pinpoint the exact pair... Hmm... I'll tell you about the first one I remember being obsessed about, as in reading all the fics available about them-obsessed. I was eleven? Twelve? Anyway. That would be Cato and Clove, from The Hunger Games. They were not canon in the book (or the movie! They were done SO dirty in the movie!!! I CAN'T EVEN FIND A GIF OF THEM TOGETHER TO INCLUDE HERE 😤), there were just one (or two?) moments that could be interpreted like that, if you had a wild imagination 😅 Fortunately, at that time, me, and a bunch of other kids who enjoyed the tragedy of it all, read too much into it.

So, while everyone else was discussing the love triangle of the main characters or shipping themselves with Finnick Odair, we were in a dark corner crying and throwing up because of two kids who were raised to become killing machines—the star-crossed lovers from District 2, as we liked to call them.

Last Song

Keep Asking Me, by Francis Well. It has a feeling similar to Little House On The Hill, so I think of them as sisters.

Last Movie

Cherry Magic: The Movie. I had already forgotten the gifsets I had seen about it, months ago, so everything was a surprise.

[spoiler alert] My favorites scenes were the ones of Adachi and Kurosawa meeting each other's families, even though it seemed like my heart was going to jump out of my chest in both occasions 😀

Currently Reading

Making my way through the PrapaiSky tag on AO3 (meaning I'm reading literally anything and everything that sounds slightly interesting).

Currently Watching

1. GAP. I haven't watched the most recent episode yet, but it seems we're reaching the climax of the story. I'm already dreading the moment I'll have to let go of all my girls (+ Mon's step-father) :(

2. Star & Sky Series. I've finished Star in My Mind, and I'll start Sky in Your Heart (which is the part two? the spin-off?) soon (allegedly. Never trust a 'soon' coming from me).

3. TharnType. Only a few more episodes to go. Absolutely bonkers show.

4. Summer Strike. The healing type that I had been saving for when I needed it most.

5. Beyond Evil. I had been saying for a long time that I was going to rewatch BE, but never got around to do it (16 episodes! Who has the time!!). My brother was browsing Netflix looking for something for us to watch together, and suggested BE. I thought he was joking (he has already rewatched it 5 or 6 times by himself 🙃), so I agreed, also joking. Turns out, he wasn't joking 😀😀 So now we're watching it again (*in my first time, I watched it with him as well). It's been a really different experience, watching it from the perspective of someone who knows what they should be paying attention to (I wish I had forgotten the details so I could enjoy the unpredictable mystery again, but it seems I still remember most of it 😅) .

Currently Consuming

Crackers.

Currently Craving

Eight (or more) hours of sleep. No waking up because of freezing temperatures, bad dreams, or the men working on a new floor for my neighbour's house in the early hours of the morning.

... I haven't had one of those in a while 😞

Tagging

Since it's people I'd like to get to know better, I'll tag the blogs I started following more recently: @saturnskyline @leporschespam @ronandhermy @teakrush @stillqueerstillhere (it's absolutely okay to ignore this, though 😊✌)

**If there aren't 9 it's because I'm bad at math.

[liz-and-the-blue-bird]

Good evening to me

Since I've gotten some new followers: "Good ___ to me" indicate long personal posts. You don't have to read them ofc, they're mostly for me down the line.

This is kind of a weird one, it's mostly reflective stuff today. I don't usually make these without a lot of negative or at least melancholic emotions to work through. Regardless, I want to stop writing about the recent ex, but a lot of this is going to be tangential to her, so she'll pop up a few times. However, I want to focus on some personal thoughts that I've been thinking about.

Here's a song.

Right at the end of February, I took an OCEAN test or a "Big Five Personality" test. This is actually unusual among personality tests, it is actually supported by Psych research. Results tend to not change over a long period of time, etc. etc. You can take it yourself here, and be sure to share with me your results! I'd love to see them. In the meantime, here are my results:

The Extraversion and Openness to experience being so high is unusual, I think. It means a lot of what makes me comfortable involves art and people, or perhaps as an extension of that, expressing myself and communicating. With this context in mind, I've started to look back at my personal history. Moments where I'm sad or melancholic, I tend to write. When I was very young, it started with poetry, but now it has evolved into these journal entries. And I guess the reason I prefer to make them public is because of that extraversion, that longing to communicate with people my ideas or emotion.

Speaking of, I found a bunch of old notebooks the first week of March. So I've been reading through them all. And by a lot, I mean a lot:

And then, even older notebooks.

You can tell these are older because I doodled things on them. I never doodle anymore.

The first batch, the moleskins and stuff like that are primarily journals. Or at the very least, notes on what happened. The one that is open actually started 4 days after the ex 8 years ago. After a week of being sad and noting every single thing that has been happening, it abruptly jumps 8 months to me complaining about something else because I was not a very consistent note taker.

Meanwhile the one with the bird on it is actually a poetry notebook, before I started preferring to write exclusively online aka in the tumblr editor. The last poem written in there is Sucks. Then I stopped writing poetry for a very long time, and a lot of my writing energy became these journal entries, as well as other stuff on this blog, usually regarding anime.

The older notebooks, the spirals, are pretty much all poetry notebooks back from middle school and early high school. Though there's a few where I just doodled a bunch. They date all the way back to end of middle school.

But the poems SUCK. Like they're REALLY BAD. Most of them are actually on DeviantArt however, so they actually had an audience. Had.

I enjoyed looking through them. Interestingly, a lot of the love poems in them are reference to my first first girlfriend in middle school/high school. There was even a photo of us from back then, which was a big surprise. I don't remember much from her other than, well, making out a lot. I liked making out. I still do, but it started there.

We were a problem. We made out on all the band trips home. We would be late to band practice because I had brought her to a quiet corner of the school to just make out with her straddling me or me grabbing her butt. We made out so much in the practice rooms that the band directors ended up putting up signs in the band room saying to limit PDA ("no purpling" I think is what they said).

But I digress. I don't know her anymore. And she has such a common name that I wouldn't be able to stalk her if I wanted to.

Here's an indie song I just learned about and have recently been obsessed with.

I already kind of feel normal. I have spikes down but I've started waking up at 7/10 instead of 3/10 and winding up. 7/10 is about my default state. 10/10 is like... On a date with a girlfriend who I know is excited to be with me. 1/10 is trying to decide if life is worth living. 7/10 is "would dance to One Direction if it started playing right now".

I had a moment about a month after the break up where I just had a really bad breakdown. It was a combination of some more bottled up thoughts about the relationship that I had trouble finding a reason to write down or tell anyone and how poorly I had been taking care of myself and my surroundings because of my mental state. And I told it all out to a very old friend of mine. She comforted me but she said something that has made me feel better the most since the break up happened.

"But the fact that you're here, telling me this in this moment, just shows how much you cared and how much you can care for people."

It made me feel better. A lot better.

My capacity to care.

I care about a lot of things, very deeply, and often for very little reason. Stuff like the most efficient route to work, or my specific boba order that tries to get the "most drink per drink." How I tend to pause and stare at the sky for no real reason other than it's there and I won't see another like it. How I overthink things and memorize useless things. But this is the first time that that I've been told and thus realized, that it is no weakness or weirdness.

It's a strength. It's just me. A tremendous capacity to care.

I've been holding on to that ever since. I hope I don't forget it. Because from my old poetry and journal entrees, I tend to let girls and myself gaslight me into thinking that me caring about them so much, "too much" is a fault of my own. It isn't.

It isn't. It isn't. It isn't.

It is simply me.

But anyway.

I've started talking to a new girl. I've made it clear I just got out of a relationship, just to be fair to her, and tbh I'm not super certain on her, but it feels like I just want to see where this goes. I just really really want to meet people right now.

I think I have always had this fetish for nostalgia. Where I couldn't fall in love with anyone who I hadn't known for a long time. I think I learned about this very recently, and was why I was so aromatic until I re-met the ex. When I realized it, I started thinking I needed to grow out of it in some way. Especially if I'm actively trying to meet someone new. It's not that I wouldn't open up to people, I've always been a chronic oversharer (see, um, this entire tumblr post series), but rather I wouldn't feel supremely comfortable with people until I knew them for years.

But then a friend told me that my music taste is nostalgia. After I linked her that song I just linked. Because a lot of songs I send to her have this nostalgic feeling, even between different bands, genres, languages. Sometimes it's sad nostalgia, sometimes it's happy nostalgia, but it's definitely a longing for something deep and sentimental.

And I had just learned about that song.

This changed my feelings towards my "nostalgia fetish." I don't think I am looking for people who I have known for years. It just so happens that lot of my closest friends are that because I'm old and that's just how friends are when you're old. But I think it's moreso I'm looking for someone who has this same sentimentality. This same depth of emotion when looking at something old or close to them. My fetish for nostalgia isn't nostalgia for the person, but nostalgia in the person.

At least, I hope so.

Whatever, I'm looking forward to meeting new people.

Last song.

Many years ago, I remember the first time I felt normal after that break up. It was like 10 or 11pm and I was bringing someone home. They lived in Round Rock but I lived in downtown Austin, since I was a UT student at the time. After dropping them off, I still had like a 20 minute drive and I had just learned that The Summer Set's album, Legendary, had a deluxe edition, which that song I just linked is a part of. I look them up on youtube and hit play.

And on that drive home I found peace, somehow. I remember stopping before getting to the highway, next to a unkempt grassy field, and standing there, looking at the sky. I missed the sky and stars. I missed that hour drive home from her house when it was getting dark and you could see the constellations because I was between 2 medium sized cities. I missed that bumpy road that seemed perpetually under construction and twisted and winded and didn't make sense. I was a lonely boy who didn't have a place that felt like home and didn't know where he was going to end up. But I knew and, at least in that moment, was fine with it.

I still am that boy. But that constantly under construction road got finished in the past 8 years. That starry sky was gone, I noticed, from our drives to Austin together—too many small towns and buildings had popped up, too much light pollution. I thought I found a place person like home but it was a dusty extended stay motel that I ended up staying at for 5 months, with too high of a rent and a crummy landlord.

Last time I felt over her, I remember saying that my daydreams no longer had a girl on my shoulder. I felt really aromatic. Really antisocial. I became an island. And I don't know if I'm trying to replace her or what, but I don't think that will happen this time. I might be fine without a partner, but I know I am better with one. I know I'm ready.

For anything, really.

[one-abuse-survivor]

Firstly, i want to say thank you, so much, for hosting this space. I cannot tell you how much love I send your way foe that or how much I appreciate it. And if you ever need any help answering anons or anything like that, feel free to ask, I know I'm not the only one who would be glad to help if you need it. (This is not me pushing you to answer faster, just an offer if you ever want or need help.)

💜 I hope youre doing well. -Luci

Hey nonnie, thanks so much for your kind words and your offer ❤️ having this blog is, and has been since the beginning, a great experience, and it means so much to me to know this space is meaningful for others as well. Sending lots of love right back at you, and I hope you're having a lovely day!

Answering asks isn't usually hard, but I've been really low on spoons in the last few months. So much has happened 😅 I hope you don't mind if I use your ask to give a small life update! (separated from the rest of my reply so it can be easily skipped)

Since last September, I've started studying something new, quit because I couldn't handle it, somehow managed to find a job and spent the next 5 months trying to adjust to it instead of letting it consume me, and made a bunch of new irl friends who, despite being really cool, have put a strain on my social battery. I also very recently got diagnosed with a neurodivergence I'd always suspected I had, which has made me have to recontextualise basically my entire life experience, including (or rather, especially) my abuse and how I processed it. I'm just now overcoming the grief and anger this caused me.

But somehow, despite all that, I'm... doing well? My therapist is really impressed and proud of how I handle everything life throws at me, and I'm slowly starting to pick my hobbies back up and feel in charge of my own life again.

To reply to your help offer: this sideblog is one of the parts of my life I've had to leave on stand-by while I figured out how to be a functioning member of working society, but I really want to go back to being more active here again. I don't want to co-mod this blog and that's unlikely to ever change. But, that being said, I really, really appreciate it when my followers leave comments on the asks I answer offering further help and support, and when I get asks from anons wanting to help/support one another.

So maybe, what I could do is try not to worry as much about giving long and complete replies to every ask, and trust that some of you can help me by continuing to support one another via comments and asks? I know not everyone has the tools or the energy to do that, and that's okay, but... Maybe some of you do? How does this sound? If anyone has any thoughts on this, let me know!

[josephinesrphub]

Just reblogged the only 4 posts I ever made regarding the situation with em1grate and m1llionaires. I didn't know their new blogs until about 8 hours ago. I legit thought they were gone and leaving me alone but it seems that isn't the case. For the last day or so they've been accusing me of stalking them, and talking shit about them when I haven't. You can scroll back on my blog. I have nothing to hide. It's the #the puppeteer // mun tag if you didn't know. And I've been informed that ever since that incident they've been watching my blog, vaguing about me every single day, and even sent screenshots. Now, keep in mind. I originally found out m1llionaires had me blocked bc they were interacting with a mutual. I was curious who they were so I clicked their name. Found I was blocked. I went ok and carried on with my life.

Flash forward a week later, I find out that m1llionaires was h0rrorwood, who got all butthurt cuz I said not to follow me if you don't like my faceclaims. And I never told her bf to block her. I wanted him to say something to her cuz she vagued about me right after I made my post about the fcs issue.

I was gonna leave it there but it kept going (you can scroll my posts from earlier today. They're every single screenshot I had about it.) So I blocked him too and moved on. Now I'll admit I was a bit petty. I posted lyrics to Slaughterhouse, and Massacre The New American Dream, as well as reblogged several pics of palaye supporting LGBT, including trans people. But I eventually stopped and moved on with my life.

Flash forward to a few days ago, and the whole thing with nevermoreunihq starts up. Now, I'm not racist or ableist. I'm gonna say this rn before anybody jumps to conclusions. I do not wish to change my characters or rp characters who do not share the struggles I do, out of respect for the people who do. I don't feel confident enough that I'll get it right and I don't wish to offend anybody. This stranger things blog, inactive from August, chimes in only reading half the post, calls me racist and ableist. Not willing to listen. (These screenshots are also below.) I go into their dms and try to clear the air like an adult. They still are unwilling to listen so I blocked them. Then saw they got an ask from an anon and wouldn't you know. It was the same people with the FC drama. My post about nevermoreunihq, and my response to their post was deleted from here but it still exists on that stranger things blog brokenmvses. Go ahead take a look. As well as the Anon.

After that happened I decide to take a break. It wasn't good for my mental health. I was already dealing with a lot at the time of this happening. Then I get a DM from m1llionaires. (Screenshot is also below from the last day)

I shrug it off, screenshotted it and blocked them. Then I find out just who m1llionaires is. And oh boy. I find out from my sources that m1llionaires had been accusing me of stalking them for the past week, despite me not knowing their URLS until earlier today, and I checked both blogs to see what I could see what had been said. Now at this point, I'd made the new blog and sent dms out to a bunch of people with the new url so we could continue to interact. I found out that someone had ratted out my new blog to my stalkers. They sent me Anon hate but I didn't respond to it. I merely blocked it, hid the blog completely, and changed the URL.

Now here's what's going through my head. One person must've said something or was actively looking for my new blog. If it was the latter, you got too much time on your hands and you're clearly obsessed. If it was the former, somebody ratted me out. Now I told one person I didn't fully trust. And get this, they're mutuals with m1llionaires. So of course my first thought was "seriously? After I defended you after you attempted suicide? I did nothing to you." So I block them on both blogs. Then I got screenshots of a portion of a callout from em1grate.

The only thing that's true here is that I told people not to follow me if they didn't like my fcs. I wasn't sent the full callout bc it's apparently very long and I can't view the account cuz it's password protected.

And at this point I'd had my pinned post up for a WHILE. Then I get sent this.

I was never attacking you. I was proving a point. You're just trying to incite hate towards me by playing the victim. IDC if the original post wasn't about me. You vagued about me after I blocked you and told people not to follow me if they don't like my fcs. It's in my rules now because it has to be said now that if you don't like somebody don't follow them.

You need a life. I got better things to worry about in my own life than to worry what goes on in yours. I never actively sought you out. I didn't post about you at all until today. I never looked for you. And now you've brought this on yourself.

Now, as a conclusion. These two are stalkers. They've been stalking my blog since they made their new ones and have been vaguing about me nonstop since when I nearly forgot about them. Consider this a callout, will you? This is how you do a true callout. I am sick of being pushed around by you when I did nothing to you. I'm sick of being bullied. If you see this post, report m1llionaires and em1grate.

[rainyjackalope]

I've been extra in love with my sonas lately so gladly!!

I have multiple so...putting under a read more because I'm about to get wordy with it. Very, very, very wordy. Anyone looking has been warned.

I'm going to start with my most recent one.

Dezrin

They came about because for years now I've had an affinity for chickens. I feel like it started a long time ago when I was experimenting with what animals I thought suited me over the course of many months. I had this transitional phase in my art and inspirations where I went from feeling very much like the only thing in the whole world that could possibly be representative of me was some kind of canine/vulpine, to knowing that wasn't really true anymore. It was a weird time. Ever since I started drawing more seriously at ten years old I was drawing wolves and dogs, and they stayed as my main thing for years.

At some point I got into other stuff and my interests shifted, and I kept coming back trying to make some sort of dog or fox work as a sona again. In the meantime I had gotten into My Little Pony and then later Starbound, and I was drawing different subjects, using new styles, and learning how to portray bipedal, humanoid animals. I was drawing all these new things and learning so much and changing.

Starbound got me drawing birds and bird furries a whole bunch which is where I finally took that leap to being a furry the way most people think of them (I definitely always have been one, but outside of silly doodles I did not usually draw my characters as actual true bipeds who wore clothes and I was more into furry media with animals still otherwise looking/acting like animals. You know, Lion King and Balto and all that.)

After I got more comfortable with it, I made a few bird fursonas over time. I would pick a bird species I thought was cute and try to make it a character, but they never stuck for long. They never....felt right? I stayed emotionally distant from them. They were all species of sparrows or songbirds or other small seed-eating birds. I would draw them maybe a few times, pair them with my partner's sona who was a bird at that point, and then never draw them again.

At some point, I remember in my sketchbook I was playing around and I asked myself, "If you were to pick a kind of bird you would really like a sona to be, what do you feel fits? Or that is just fun to draw?" I was pretty into owls in the moment, and I drew some kind of owl-chicken hybrid creature. I thought chickens would suit me because they're usually pretty flightless and unassuming, and I just...liked owls. I still do but they were a specific favorite for a while. Honestly I think the Guardians of Ga'Hoole movie did something to me for a long time (no I did not read the books unfortunately, but I do want to as an adult sometime. That movie was gorgeous though.)

That character I drew did not become anything more. I'd show it if I had it but it's buried in old sketchbooks in a box I don't even have access to at the moment. I drew it maybe a few times on a page and moved on. Something about it stuck with me though. I think I even drew it with a fairly large build and gave it a menacing beastliness.

I don't know when my chicken infatuation really took hold but at some point in the last several years I fell super in love with chickens. Maybe I had seen some in person or something. Or honestly, most realistically, my guess is that it was the Instagram accounts I followed that posted them sometimes, then later tumblr blogs that would share them too. I don't use Instagram anymore but I believe I followed someone for their art, and they also posted about chicken-keeping sometimes. They're really cute and special animals! I also fell super in love with pigeons as a separate incident and a lot of people that keep pigeons seem to keep chickens, so you'd often see both.

Anyway, they've been on my mind for a long time now. I was no good at drawing them however so I think that kept me from doing much with it. I started drawing them in my sketchbook sometimes for fun, and I also got really into cockatrices. I mean...it's basically a big chicken-dragon. That rules. Then I thought....what if a chicken had lycanthropy but for turning into a cockatrice?

(As an aside, part of my cockatrice obsession was entirely the fault of the RLCraft pack. I already thought they were neat, but I was playing it with my partner for a while some time ago. I started a chicken farm because it's me playing Minecraft so of course my priorities included chicken farming. They always do. Also it was the one thing I felt like I had any control of in that hellscape. I loved playing it but I died 500 times. Anyway, a chicken laid a rotten egg and I had no idea what that was about. I picked it up and chucked it and a baby cockatrice came out. I think I yelped and was like OH GOD WHAT IS THAT AM I GOING TO DIE?? But then realized it was just chilling and it followed me around. I raised it to be an adult and I loved this thing more than anything else in that pack. I was protecting this girl with my life. I ended up with a shack full of like 5 cockatrices that I never let out because I didn't want them to blow up, and their models are so cute!!!! It gave me a brain parasite that made me obsessed with them really really bad.)

The concepts I started with were for an OC who is a very sweet hen lady that gardens and wouldn't hurt anything, but is cursed to turn into a horrible beast uncontrollably. Classic werewolf-styled stuff. She was going to be a salmon faverolles chicken, if you're wondering. She had a big fluffy face beard and a light coloring. I've never posted her or even fully concepted her, she just lived in my head. Maybe there's a sketchbook doodle of her somewhere.

However, I am terrible at making OC's with backstories that stick these days. I don't know why, I think I just lose interest in their specific stories too quickly. I loved the idea of the character more than the particular way it was being portrayed. I think she would make a great OC but I just never got into it enough to see the concept through as it was.

I believe when I started the concepts for Dez that I actually had not given up on the OC idea, but had decided that a chicken becoming a cockatrice was so fucking cool that I wanted to make a sona that does that as well. Dez is my most recent finalized design for a sona, and before zem, I had mostly soft and cute sonas. My other current ones aren't particularly rowdy or aggressive or scary in any way, as I don't see myself as such, but I do also have a side to me that fucking loves horror and monsters and sometimes I just really love drawing a little maiming and killing as a treat. I wanted Dez to connect to that.

Not to mention the gender vibes. I learned that a lot of chickens have some fun gender stuff about them such as hens starting to crow and develop spurs, and roosters that lay eggs. As someone with characteristics that don't align with expectations myself, I always think that's cool as fuck. I also just generally love a visibly androgynous sort of look in a character if I can achieve it, and chicken traits play into that extremely well.

I think that mainly sums up why zeir species is what it is. Have some concept art starting from the end of 2022 for making it this far.

Vitri

The sketches shown are actually more how I draw them now but I have not had time to update the reference.

Vee's story is a lot shorter. I've always liked dragons. I love dragons. I was basically born loving dragons. No matter what phases I've gone through or what stage of life I find myself at, I love dragons. This is just a truth of my soul.

That, and also the fact that when I started playing Roblox in late 2021, I eventually realized there were ways to make your avatar entirely an anthro character. At the time there were a lot less options than there are if you look at the marketplace right now, but one of the few furry creators of the moment had made some fluffy dragon heads. Vee was the first anthro character I made. I combined a dragon head with anthro shark ears and added horns I liked (the tail was in the set with the head) and I got attached to what I put together.

The reason for choosing what I did was because out of the few furry accessories I could get, the dragon heads were some of my favorites. I liked how they looked, and I liked their versatility. There were only a few color choices so Vee was grey. I gravitate towards greys and less saturation so that was an easy pick.

They weren't initially meant to represent me or be a fursona, but by nature of representing me in a game and me imprinting on them they became one of sorts.

Anyway....dragon good.

Zaedys

Similarly short, similar explanation: I always loved dragons. Naturally, I played Spyro since the PS1 was one of my main systems growing up. I played it a lot! Specifically the first one, it's my lifelong favorite.

A lot of areas of it are home to me so at one point I made a self-insert for the world. I'm a bitch who loves a fluffy character so I made them be the same species/type as the dragons that you find in the cold ice caverns of the desert realm because they read as having fur to me from their textures.

Easily summed up with 'I love dragons and I love Spyro so what if I was something like Spyro?'

Rainy

My beloved little bunny. My darling creature. I love this thing.

I made them in 2017. My thought process was something like, "Well shit. Every attempt I make at making a new fursona is failing miserably. I don't vibe with being a fox or a dog anymore. I don't even know what the hell I am now. I like deer but I made a deersona and they still don't feel truly correct. I'm a quiet, anxious creature. What fits that??"

I had been going with deer and deer traits in my concepts for a while, and that seemed almost correct. It was so close. There was just something missing.

I started sketching in my sketchbook, as I always do when I can't figure something out, and I ended up with an anthro deer-rabbit. They had lop ears because I think droopy ears are just the cutest, a little bunny nose and face, and antlers and hooves with deer inspired dapple spots. I really, really liked that. I realized I had made a weird jackalope of sorts, which made it even better. Jackalopes are cool! I love bunnies, I love antlers, I love cryptids and weird little beasts. That felt closer to being right than anything had in years.

Then I took that idea and that feeling and I made this:

I had realized I really preferred giving them paws, and that the dapple spots weren't fitting the kind of stormy vibes I wanted out of it. The rest is history. I kid you not, those two colored in ones are the only attempts I ever made at giving them markings with color. Before that I only had maybe a page or two of pencil drawings and they focused more on possible characteristics than patterns.

I saw what I made in the middle and something...clicked. I spent so much time flailing about trying to figure out who I was and how to convey what I was in a simple way online, and they just sort of showed up to take the role. I have since altered minor things about them, but really they are almost entirely the same as they were to start. Notably, the paw pads became blueish-purple in color and took on the shape of clouds and rain. Very small color tweaks may have happened to them but I don't think it went beyond the paws, antlers, eyebrows, and eyelids. It has mostly been to simplify things even more.

It is entirely possible that in my hopefully long time left in this world that one day they might stop feeling like me in the future, but 7 whole years have passed and they still feel like home.

I don't know exactly why they fit so well, to be honest. I guess I just see myself in bunnies a lot. They're quick to startle, find it anxiety-inducing to be outside in the open for long periods, and they spend a lot of time resting in their burrows. When they sleep, they can get really comfortable, and despite being a prey animal with every reason to stay alert and scared, they find themselves flopping over without a care in the world. My rabbit always looked so peaceful when he rested. It was such a stark contrast from his waking demeanor.

As a chronically anxious animal that loves a good sleep myself, they simply seem right. I love making sonas and exploring other designs, but I have yet to make something that gave me the same feeling. I've been established as a rabbit for so long that my friends love to send me bunny memes and tell me that when they see rabbits in person they think of me, and that makes me really happy. When I see bunnies, I do feel some kinship with them I can't explain. Their big ears and little wiggly noses are everything to me.

I have other sona designs I've done before but these are the main ones I use at the moment. I fucking love fursonas.

tell me why you chose your fursona's species :03c

[littleoddwriter]

Hii! i am so sorry for the poor spelling, bad at English, also sorry to bother but I sae your post about chromeskull cheating on his s/o, and I really loved it! And was wondering if i could have another one like it, where he cheats and his s/o goes bat crazy in a fit of rage and pain and leaves him, I am very sorry if you do not wanna do this and I understand! I love your blog!

Too Far | Jesse Cromeans/Chromeskull x GenderNeutral!Reader

Hello there! :) Gosh, there is absolutely no need to apologise for anything! Your English is more than fine (besides, I'm not a native speaker anyway, so don't you worry) and your request was lovely - super interesting! I said I'd write break-ups after all, and boi- this one just hurt, fhshfkjsh! Thank you for everything! I really hope you enjoy this. <3

summary; See above.

notes; GenderNeutral!Reader; Cheating; Break-Up; Angst; Hurt No Comfort; Yelling; Mentions of Murder; Fantasy of Murder; Mute Character; Signing/ASL.

Reblogs > Likes. Thank you!

After some contemplation, he’s eventually gotten rid of the tape. He’d hoped that it would be enough. That way, there wouldn’t have been any evidence of it and you would never find out.

Certainly, he didn’t expect to have it gnaw at his mind ever since; constantly nagging him to confess – to tell you what he’s done.

He was sure to lose you if he did, wasn't he? But you loved each other. Despite his mistake, as he’s come to admit to himself, he loved you more than anyone else in this world. And he knew for a fact that you felt the same way about him.

This was fixable, then, right? It had to be.

So, one night, he lay awake and thought about how best to tell you what he’s done.

Determined, he waited until after breakfast to get your attention and finally confess his mistake to you. It would be okay, it just had to be.

But it wasn’t.

‘I have to tell you something,’ he signed, looking at you earnestly. He left himself an open book to you that morning, wanting you to see every emotion on his face and in his eyes as he would come clean to you.

“Oh, okay. What is it, Jesse?” you replied, your eyebrows raised in surprise as you fidgeted with your hands in nervousness.

‘I made a mistake,’ he started, ‘a week ago; I slept with one of my victims before I even took her. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do it, it just happened.’

“What?” you yelled, quickly getting up from the breakfast table. Your chair crashed to the floor with the force of it. “What the fuck, Jesse? You slept- How was this even an ‘it just happened’ situation?”

Jesse wanted to placate you and work it through with you, but when he raised his hands to sign it to you; you wouldn’t have any of it.

“No! You know what? Fuck yourself!” you snarled and stomped away.

Of course, he followed you, determined to try and fix this mess he’s created.

“I overlooked the fact that you murder innocent women, because- Hell, I don’t even know why! Because I was blinded by my love for you or some bullshit like that, I guess! But now you come to me and tell me you cheated on me with one of those women? Seriously?” you continued to yell, while you got out a suitcase and turned to the wardrobe.

Walking over to you, he tried to stop you from packing your clothes, a pleading look on his face (and God, did he feel pathetic), as he signed, ‘Please. Let’s talk about it. Don’t leave.’

“No, Jesse! There’s nothing to fucking talk about. You chose to do this. You slept with her,” you hissed, jabbing your right index finger into his chest with every new sentence, “I choose to leave you, because this is a step too far for me. I’ve tried and tried to tell myself that it’s okay; that you do love me and that the fact that you’re a fucking murderer doesn’t compromise any of it. But it’s gotten harder to believe it as it was. This is just the last straw for me.”

A heavy sigh tore itself from you and you took out a bunch of your clothes from the wardrobe and sloppily put them in the suitcase.

Jesse didn’t know what to do. It hurt. He could feel his heart break; and seeing you pack your things with such anger underneath every movement only ripped it apart more.

He had really fucked up.

He’d been so lucky when you still stayed with him after finding his tapes.

But this really was it, wasn’t it?

Somewhere along the way, the urge to take you and tie you up overcame him. Maybe he should just treat you like any of his victims and put you in a casket, only to murder you eventually. All so you couldn’t leave him. He was the one who would say when he was done with you, not the other way around!

And yet, he couldn’t move himself to do any of it. Even though it would be so very easy to overpower you, he still loved you too much. He didn’t know if he’d ever stop loving you; if perhaps one day his anger at your abandonment would finally give him the freedom to hunt you down and turn you into one of his forever; another tape for the police to watch; another mutilated corpse in a coffin, slowly rotting away.

Only time would tell.

As of now, he could only stand and watch you finish packing and heaving the suitcase downstairs angrily.

Still, dutifully he kept following you to the doorway, where you dressed yourself to leave for good.

This was it. His last chance of possibly stopping you; but most likely the last time he’d ever see you for a long time if not forever.

Gently, he touched your shoulder, silently asking you to look at him once more.

“I don’t care what kind of excuse you have ready for me, Jesse. We are done and I mean it. I’m not coming back. Not even to get some of my last things. They’re all replaceable anyway,” you said coldly, before he could even sign anything to you.

It hurt him so much, but he understood. There was no helping it. It was over.

‘I’m really sorry, Y/N. I wish things hadn’t gone or ended this way. I love you,’ he signed his farewell to you, a sad, soft smile on his lips. He so wished he could at least kiss you one last time or just wrap his arms around you, but that wouldn’t happen and he knew it.

“Yeah, me too,” you replied softly, melancholy lacing your voice and gaze, rather than the fiery anger from before.

Then, you opened the door, got into your car and drove off without a single look back.

He stood on the porch for a good while, looking after your car that was long gone by then.

This really wasn’t how he’d imagined it going down; although he probably should have considered it more of a possibility than he had.

It was no use anymore, though.

It was over.

[sixamese-simblr]

Check-in Tags!

I was tagged by @13deadendlane to do check-in tags! Thanks so much <3

Why did you choose your url?

I wanted to do something with Sixam and a bunch of other ones were already in use, so this is kinda the one I was stuck with because I thought was reasonably different from the ones people were actively using.

How long have you been on tumblr?

That's classified information! Let's just say that I had a different account that got a lot of usage before 2018.

Do you have a queue tag?

No, I can't be arsed to tag them. I only usually queue gameplay posts and people will get that they're queued when they're released 4 per day at regular intervals. I don't care that what someone's posting by queue and neither should my followers. If you want to know when I'm awake and using Tumblr no you don't. I'll reply to your inbox within 1-4 business days.

Why did you start your blog in the first place?

I wanted to post the very first version of the Sixam challenge rules on the MTS forums but the mods were being stupid about really lame details so I decided this would be a better place. I was right.

Why did you choose your icon/pfp?

I made a post at some point where the then-current colony queen Grubbenvorst was at a birthday party, thought it was a fun picture and never bothered to change it since.

Why did you choose your header?

I spent dozens of minutes on the hood icon for Planet Birch, I'd better use it!

What’s your post with the most notes?

I create quality memes that are 2 years late with extremely crunchy images, OK?

How many mutuals do you have?

There's... a way to count that? I'm not doing data analysis in my spare time. Well, I take that back. Not on this particular problem.

How many followers do you have?

512 on my main! My most followed sideblog is a meme bot I run, with 1,567 followers. Good luck finding which one it is <3.

How many people do you follow?

695

Have you ever made a shitpost?

We post quality here.

How often do you use tumblr each day?

Too much. It's my main social media.

Did you have a fight/argument with another blog once? Who won?

No :(

How do you feel about ‘you need to reblog this’ posts?

Hate them. I feel like they've gotten less prominent so they feel sort of vintage now, but still hate them. Or maybe I've just curated my feed to have fewer people that reblog those? Idk man.

Do you like tag games?

I love being tagged, but I don't have a good idea on which people I'm on good enough terms with to tag them so I don't like tagging people. Which I feel is part of the problem in getting tagged rarely.

Do you like ask games?

Please just interact with me

Which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

Def @nerdyth and @jawusa are simblr famous, which is really the metric we're going by. There's a bunch more that are tumblr famous in my heart, no idea if they're simblr famous irl.

Tagging @nerdyth , @jawusa , @kaylynn-langerak , @roguebotanist , @berrysweetboutique , @sushigal007 , @mrbirchthebachelor a.k.a. a selection of the people people who are tumblr famous in my heart

[danikatze]

I got a bunch of new followers (hello 💖) bc of Inktober, and I came across this tag game today (on @vacationgerry 's blog!) so I figured I'd answer these questions as a sort of introduction :))

1. Why did you choose your url?

My name is Danika and a 4 year old English girl once, 15+ years ago, called me Danicat. I loved that so much that it's been my username most places since. It used to be danicat91 bc it wasn't available without numbers, but I hated the numbers so I changed it to the German version Danikatze a few years ago. (it's daanikatze on twitter and ig)

2. Any side blogs?

@danifanatic where I rb stuff is the only active one. I have another where I collect art refs/advice and only to never look at it anymore. And another one where I posted original art but that one's dead too (I don't make enough original art and I prefer posting it here anyway)

3. How long have you been on tumblr?

Since 2012 I think

4. Do you have a queue tag?

for my sideblog yeah. It's "q"

5. Why did you start your blog in the first place?

.. bc I wanted to post nsfw stuff and I heard this is where I could do it hehe. I deleted most of it since then. I had a nsfw sideblog for a bit, but I deleted that too a few years ago bc it was dying anyway and then the porn ban happened and I got sick of it.

6. Why did you choose your icon/pfp?

I love (and in some ways relate to) Shino and he's wearing one of my favourite hoodies in that one. Just really pleased with that drawing overall!

7. Why did you choose your header?

I thought it was cute and Wai just makes me happy :) (She's kinda my air bison oc? My best friend gave me an Appa plushie and it looked nothing like him, and so Wai was born ^^)

8. What’s your post with the most notes?

My dog dad Kakashi comic.. Almost 30k notes now

9. How many mutuals do you have?

Around 15 I think? I've talked to maybe 5 or 6 of them hahah

10. How many followers do you have?

A few thousand, but I accumulated them so slowly that I feel like half of them must've left tumblr by now hahah.

11. How many people do you follow?

78

12. Have you ever made a shitpost?

In hindsight I guess the dog dad Kakashi comic is pretty much a shitpost ^^;

13. How often do you use Tumblr each day?

Err about 15-30 min every morning and then compulsively checking the rest of the day

14. Did you have a fight/argument with another blog once?

Once, wwwaay in the beginning.. I followed someone who kept bullying one of their friends. I told them said friend didn't seem to think it was funny at all, and they told me to mind my own business, after which I unfollowed them. I've learned to just unfollow people when their blog makes me anxious in whatever way (if I can't blacklist the stuff that makes me uncomfortable)

15. How do you feel about “you need to reblog this” posts?

I skip those very quickly, or maybe see if I can rb another version.

16. Do you like tag games?

Yes, but tagging other people is bad for my anxiety :P

17. Do you like ask games?

Yeah! It's been a while since I've done one

18. Which of your mutuals do you think is Tumblr famous?

idk?

19. Do you have a crush on a mutual?

Oh for an aro person I crush so much.. Art crushes mostly, like a mutual will post something and I'll go 🥰 ohh 🥰 amazing 🥰 how skilled 🥰 how cute 🥰

[radicalrascals]

STARTER CALL ♥ Crime Muses

Like for a quick starter from one of my crime muses below; feel free to specify muse. If you're multi-muse blog please lemme know for which muse the starter is

Rafael Moreira da Silva - journalist - straight - FC: Wagner Moura

Gabriel Herrán - thief & con-man - gay - FC: Pedro Pascal

Evelyn Adeke - detective - bi - FC: Florence Kasumba

[doorbloggr]

Saturday 22/5/21 - Learning When it is OK to Drop a Series

The way I consume shows and books makes it difficult to keep a constant schedule of entertainment. I am very guilty of binge watching/reading, when I start a series, I will watch up to ten episodes in one sitting well after midnight. Then i sit around for weeks at a time putting off starting the next thing, knowing it too will take all my attention for a few days.

Unfortunately this binge behaviour means that I have often been a poor judge of character when it comes to whether I should finish something. Hey I'm already 10 episodes into this show, might as well watch all 24 episodes. And that has meant I've got a number of series on my Finished Anime List that I sort of feel wasted my time.

Higurashi is moe-horror, a very specific flavour of anime/manga where the characters and themes are cute on the surface but there is abuse, murder and monstrosities when you get even skin deep.

The true catalyst for this epiphany was an anime called Higurashi: When they Cry NEW. I followed up on it after a streamer I watch said the original series was one of their favourite anime. The show is a psychological and physical horror, and as I've discussed in previous blog posts, my domain is usually Slice of Life, so... a far cry from my comfort zone. I told the two friends I get anime reccomendations from that I was watching it and their reaction was very telling of signs I shouldve read.

The friend who suggests me Slice of Life and Isekai/Fantasy anime told me that he would never touch an anime like Higurashi with a ten foot pole. The friend who suggests me Fan Service and Horror anime told me that she tried to watch Higurashi but thought it was pretty dumb and hard to watch.

I continued to watch the show, I was 8 episodes in, and wanted to see if it got better. At 17 episodes, I was questioning again whether I should drop it, but I was almost done, so why not just finish? I regretted that.

This post is not a recommendation against Higurashu by the way, but my opinion is, if you're ok with very visceral gore horror, heavy themes of abuse, and looping stories that only get scarier with each retelling... hey, Higurashi could be for you, but in hindsight, it wasn't for me.

After I finished Higurashi, I caught up on Log Horizon, an anime I am very familiar with and enjoyed a lot.

After watching Higurashi I vowed to myself to only search out anime I know I'll be interested in, or take on suggestions from my friends who know what I like. Since Higurashi I haven't chosen to drop any series, but I also have only watched one Isekai and three Slice of Life's since then, and I thoroughly enjoyed all start to finish. But to safeguard myself against future bad binges, I'm gonna end this post with some advice to myself, and others, on how to ensure your media consumption is enjoyable.

1. Keep records and check for patterns

On my phone I have a Notes file detailing all the anime I've finished. I mostly do this because I have an obsession with documenting my habits and looking back, but it also helps as a way to reflect on what type on anime I have enjoyed in the past.

If you have a record of what you have watched, you can look over the list and find trends. Then you choose new series that have a lot in common with your faves.

I have enjoyed many romance anime, and the one mecha anime I've seen, Guren Lagann, I enjoyed a lot. So when heard that Darling in the Franxx was a mecha anime with romance, I was veryyy interested.

2. Swap stories with friends

On the list I discussed above, about 80% of the anime I've watched were recommendations from friends. It's like a learning AI, but with real people. Friends give you a bunch of anime to watch and you tell them which ones you enjoyed. Then they can get back to you with anime they think you'd enjoy based on past preferences.

Ben-to was an anime I recently watched because a friend told me it's just the type of show I'd enjoy.

My friends have gotten really good at recommending me anime that I enjoy because I've told them when I'm watching a new show and whether I like it or not. Because of my long dry spells, I dont watch a tonne, but I also give my own recommendations back and they've enjoyed my suggestions.

3. Unsure? Four episodes

Ages ago, I was watching a podcast run by 3 streamers called LewdCast and they had a segment where they had an anime bookclub; basically they'd come to each podcast having watched an anime and discuss whether they liked it or not. But having to watch an entire series per week not knowing whether you'd like it is exhausting. So their rule was to watch the first four episodes.

Food Wars was actually a recommendation from LewdCast that I was very hooked into by Episode 4, so I watched the entire series and it is still my fave anime this year.

Episodes 1 and 2 are usually world building and introduction of themes and characters. So dismissing an anime after the first episode isn't giving it a proper chance. But after 4 episodes, the themes have been established, you're introduced to core characters, and you've been given a glimpse of what the flow or hook of the show is. You're at least partway into an arc and you understand how the show will operate overall.

Some people will tell you, "Oh this show is a slow burn, but it gets really good deep into the first season", but the truth is, if you're hating it or not hooked after 4 episodes, it's probably not worth it. If a friend I know tells me, "trust me, you'll enjoy this", then I will probably stick with a show I'm on the fence with more then 4 episodes. But if you sought out a show on your own and you don't know if you'd like it, give it four episodes. If you don't wanna finish it after that, drop it.

[fansofvow]

Interview with Eve Golden Woods!

Many of you know who is Eve is. She's a writer and artist, a part of Dreamfeel studios whose beautiful game If Found won Best LGBTQ Narrative and Best LGBTQ Indie game at the first ever Gayming Awards presented by EA games. I am really excited I had the chance to ask Eve some questions about herself, her time at Lovestruck and her creative process.

Congratulations on the two Gayming Awards (Best LGBTQ Narrative, Best LGBTQ Indie Game) for "If Found" from your game studio, Dreamfeel. What was the inspiration behind making the game?

If Found... was a game that emerged out of a collaboration between Llaura McGee, the founder of Dreamfeel, and artist Liadh Young. Liadh's background is as a comic artist, and so when they started working together Llaura had the idea of showing off Liadh's art by making a diary game, and using an erasing mechanic she had previously developed to let the player move through the diary in a fun way. By the time I came on board at the start of 2019, the game had already been in development for a while, so in some ways my work on that game was similar to the work I did for Voltage, because it was taking existing characters and concepts and writing a lot of scripts for them. Unlike Voltage, though, my work for Dreamfeel was a lot more collaborative and I had a lot more creative input. I really enjoy taking something and helping to make it the best version of itself that it can possibly be, but I was also really happy that I got to reflect a lot of my own experiences in If Found. Llaura and I both grew up on the west coast of Ireland, and although If Found... isn't autobiographical for either of us, it was definitely really meaningful to be able to tell a story that reflected our own experiences of growing up as queer teens in a similar kind of environment. Since the game came out we've had fans reach out to us and tell us that they also connected to the experiences of the main characters, and as far as I'm concerned, that makes me feel like I achieved everything I wanted to.

You are a writer and a visual artist. Does one come easier to you than the other?

I used to think of art and writing as talents, and I always felt like my art was at a very mediocre level (that's probably still true, lol). So when I was younger I focused a lot more on writing. It was only later that I started genuinely trying to improve as an artist, but when I did, I think I had a much healthier mindset, and approached it as a skill I could learn with patience and effort. Because of that, even though I still have a lot more confidence in my writing, I find art more fun and relaxing, and I don't stress about it as much.

Did you always know you would follow a creative path?

Kind of? Both my parents are artists, and I grew up surrounded by artists and writers, so it was something that was always very familiar and accessible to me. On the other hand, I didn't exactly have a clear idea of how to make it into a career, or what kind of work would be involved. But there's never been a point in my life where I wasn't doing something creative, even if it was only writing fanfiction.

What did your path to working professionally as a writer/artist look like?

I did a creative writing masters in college, but after that I spent years teaching English as a second language. That was really fun and I got to live abroad, but it was so busy and tiring that I didn't have time to do any writing outside of the occasional fanfic. I only started to take art seriously again when I became interested in games and comics as ways of telling stories. I did some critical writing, which led me to speak at a few local events and get involved in zine fairs. That was how I met Llaura, the director and lead of the Dreamfeel studio, and it's also what gave me the confidence to start applying for actual writing jobs.

Is there any work of art, visual or written, that you look to for inspiration?

So many! I try to read and watch as widely as I can, although there are touchstones I always return to, like the works of Ursula Le Guin and Terry Pratchett. Right now I feel very passionate about the actual play podcast Friends at the Table, which manages to combine really thoughtful worldbuilding and storytelling with cool, fun characters and great action scenes. I'm also reading a book called The Memory Police by Youko Ogawa, which has extremely beautiful prose.

Do you have a favorite piece of your own art, whether it is something you’ve drawn, a screenshot of something you’ve written or something else?

My favourite piece of art is usually whatever I finished most recently (I think that's true for a lot of people). Especially with visual art, once a bit of time has gone by you look back on it and start to notice all your mistakes, which is very annoying. But actually I do still really like the first piece of Fiona fanart I did last year. I managed to use some effects to give it a kind of nineties anime quality that I find really fun, and I think it conveys an emotion pretty effectively. That's always one of the hardest things to predict with visual art, whether the different parts will come together to create the exact mood you're looking for.

I also really like the compass I did for Bycatch. Krissy (@xekstrin) was the one who suggested filling it with fingernails, which was such a good, gross idea! As soon as I heard that I knew it was perfect and that I had to try and draw it.

Many people who read this blog know you as a writer for Lovestruck. When you look back on your time there, what stands out in your mind?

Lovestruck was very important to me when I first started because it was my first ongoing, regular, paid writing work. It gave me a lot of confidence and helped me to get into the habit of writing consistently and rapidly, which is a really useful skill to have. I know I was right to leave when I did, though, because I am just brimming with energy to work on my own projects, and channeling that power into something that you can't control will always end up disappointing you. Also, I made a ton of incredible friends, through Lovestruck itself but then even more so through VOW (@vowtogether), and that is more than worth all the difficult parts.

Is there any character that you would have liked a crack at writing?

Oh gosh, what a fun question! There are so many, but one I do sometimes think about is Axia, just because I know there are a bunch of fans who want her route, and because I had fun writing her as a villain in Zain's route. I can see in my head the shadow of a storyline that takes place after Zain's route is over, where she's in prison and trying to understand how she lost the battle with Zain and MC. I think there's, like, a gap there, where you could see her downfall forcing her to reconsider her assumptions about power, and that could build into a very interesting redemption story. But maybe it's for the best I never got to do that, because I would have wanted full creative control over it, and also I think the story in my head is very different to the sexy, in control, menacing version of Axia that her fans enjoy.

Do you have any upcoming projects you can talk about?

Most of my current work is under NDA, but I will say that I'm doing something very exciting with other VOW members that we should be able to talk about soon(ish). Maybe I can even give a little teaser... It's not a game, but it is something you can read, and my part involves cakes, swamps, and a museum.

Do you have a favorite quote or song lyric?

It's a big long, but there's a section from The Dispossessed by Ursula le Guin that has stayed with me ever since I read it:

"For we each of us deserve everything, every luxury that was ever piled in the tombs of the dead kings, and we each of us deserve nothing, not a mouthful of bread in hunger. Have we not eaten while another starved? Will you punish us for that? Will you reward us for the virtue of starving while others ate? No man earns punishment, no man earns reward. Free your mind of the idea of deserving, the idea of earning, and you will begin to be able to think."

It's such a profoundly radical way of imagining the world, so different to everything I was raised with, but whenever I think about it I feel like I can see something very beautiful and powerful that I hope to come closer to understanding some day.

And of course, "Solidarity forever, the union makes us strong."

I was a big fan of the show Inside the Actor’s Studio. Host James Lipton asked every single guest the same 10 concluding questions. I’ve picked 3 of them:

-What is your favorite word?

My favourite word: for sound, I like words you can really roll around on your tongue. Chthonic, alabaster, insinuation. For meaning, I think simple words that encapsulate big concepts have a kind of power to them. We use them so often we forget how big they are, how much weight they really have, but they give us the space to imagine new possibilities. Love. Freedom. Revolution.

-What is your least favorite word?

I've heard that "moist" is a lot of people's least favourite word but it doesn't actually bother me. My least favourite word is probably one where I feel like the sound doesn't match the meaning. One of the Irish words for rain is báisteach, which I feel has a much weightier and more onomatopoeic sound than rain. Rain is just very flat and uninteresting.

-What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?

Oh, so many! I love history, and I think being a historian/archaeologist would be fascinating. Or something that had a physical component to it, like being a potter or a carpenter. I don't think I'd be any good, but I'd love to take the time to learn.

What would be your advice to anyone who wants to pursue a creative career?

All the work you do matters. Even the failed experiments, the things you hate when they're finished. It all helps to make you better. Also, creative career paths are often really unexpected, so chase any opportunity that seems remotely interesting. Don't work for free for anyone who can afford to pay, but work for yourself and put it somewhere. On a blog, twitter, whatever. You'd be amazed how many people get noticed and get offered opportunities because of something they made in their spare time. You'll probably have to work another job for a long time, so don't be hard on yourself if you're too tired to devote much energy to creative work. Try to make art consistently, but don't feel like that has to mean every day. Don't chase after celebrities. Make friends with your peers.

[coolmomdean]

I really admire the way you're not afraid to speak your mind about stuff even when you have strong opinions people might not agree with. I'm starting to realise that I'm way too scared of what people think of me. The thing is, I really dread being mass-unfollowed because I'm a small blog with only about 120 followers so I feel like I can't afford to say anything too controversial - and I really don't like the person that's turning me into. For example, there's certain internet people who make content about Supernatural who I'd really like to defend because I think that sometimes the fandom is too hard on them - and at the same time there's certain actors (who may or may not be planning a certain prequel series) who I'm starting to realise I really don't think much of at all. And I'd love to be able to voice my opinions a bit more but I always end up chickening out because I'm scared people won't like me because of it. I feel like the internet can be so judgy about just a few small opinions, and I love Tumblr so much in general, but also... I really don't ever want to be that person who has to follow popular opinions and can't speak my mind.

Anyway I just wanted to say I really admire you because you seem to be so good at sticking to your own opinions but not alienating people and I really wish that I could be like that.

First off, thank you! It isn't something I have always been good at. Like any habit or skill it takes practice and effort. a lot of times i'm still in the same boat as you, really admiring people who are even more bold about what they think on here. I think there's a certain freedom that comes with having a big follower base and there's another kind of freedom that comes with only having only a few followers. I have like 3.5k followers here (which is insane and not something i have dealt with ever in the past) and only like 400 on my main (which I've had since 2011) so sometimes i feel more comfortable sharing certain stuff on main that i wouldn't here, and vice versa. I also absolutely still hold some stuff back here cause that feeling of wanting people to like me is still really strong. I think on the one hand the internet mentality encourages us to share every thought and opinion we have on everything, and a good thing to keep in mind is that you don't have to do that. like you fully can just have opinions that you know will cause a stir and say to yourself : hey i don't want to deal with the fallout of sharing that i'm gonna keep that one in the drafts. there's a difference between not sharing something cause you're afraid of being judged and not sharing something cause you just don't want to deal with it.

more under the cut since this has turned into another long boy

personally the actor/rpf stuff that i can get on a medium sized horse about is a really firm boundary i want to keep so it only benefits me to share my opinion and have people who disagree with me on that unfollow. last time i fielded a bunch of asks about it i lost maybe 100 followers? even with as many as i have i still notice that and it did kinda bother me, but i don't want people who are really sensitive about that shit following me so ultimately that was a good thing. on the flip side of that, people wouldn't want to follow me if i just regurgitated what everyone else said first and better. i still lose followers when i get into stuff like that but lately i also gain about as many as i lose, so people are here for a reason i guess. everyone here brings something new and a little different to the table, and whatever your opinions are there are absolutely people on here who would agree with you if you shared. when you are your authentic self you can only benefit, because you give others the chance to interact with who you really are? that got too deep for a fandom post but you get what i'm saying.

also it is good to keep in mind that it is just tumblr. you don't need to base your worth on how many followers you have on here. its just a dumb show that we talk about on a dumb website and if you're dreading consequences when you talk about it i'd encourage you to take a little step back and think about what you get out of your interactions on here. are you making friends? do you want to make friends? do you want to get in heated internet arguments? do you want people to reply to your posts with "omg yes finally someone said it!"? you never need to be stressing about this website (not to say you're wrong for feeling stress, just to say it isn't worth the stress you're feeling).

idk this is yet another ramble with spotty capitalization and no spell check but those are my stream of consciousness thoughts. yeah.

[rnegitsune]

Ok so I thought I'd put together some horror stories from my time as a babymetal fan bc of how drastic the shift in the fandom has been the past year or so. For context I got into babymetal in like june of 2014 (all 3 girls were still underage at the time, I was 22; when I first got into them I thought I would be considered an older fan lmao the naivete, the innocence of new fan me wow I know now I'm not at all in the older half of the fandom esp considering I was born the same decade as su and moa), and I made this blog in I think may of 2015.

I've had people say I should compile men being gross into a post and I just couldn't do that out of fear for my own mental health but this will be pretty close. These are all my experiences with this fandom over the years; I'm definitely missing some but what I do remember should do well to cover most of how this fandom used to be vs now. It's gonna be a lot and tw for men being gross about minors.

Back in my first year or so of this blog I on multiple occasions got dms from men asking to be friends. At the time my bio only said my name and my pronouns. I've always been cautious of dms so I'd ask their age and every single one was considerably older than me. I wouldn't usually answer after that bc no thanks but they would generally try to continue convos til I blocked. The only one I still had was this one

After I put my age in my bio, which was 23 at the time, I never got a dm like that again; take from that what you will. But if you're young please be wary of this hell fandom even now. And if you're an older fan and esp an older male fan reading this, don't dm people trying to be friends. I was over 18 and it still creeped me out to no end.

One of my real first men in this fandom are disgusting moments was a blog back in like 2015 or 2016 who I had some contact with due to common interests; he was a huge yui stan and made bm content. He was like 28 or 29 at the time and I eventually noticed he would tag idols, mostly kpop girls, by their body parts (legs, butt, etc) which is disgusting enough as it is but then I saw him do the same for literal minors, like tzuyu from twice. I messaged him asking what the hell he was doing objectifying women but also actual children and he blocked me lmao. He later unblocked me to let me know that's just how he tagged things and it was my fault he had anxiety and then he blocked me again.

Back before the tumblr purge this fandom was repulsive to a degree I cannot even begin to describe. Someone would reblog something from me, I'd go to their blog and it would be underage jpop idols and japanese p*rn all the way down. I even stumbled upon a man editing underage su into p*rn gifs. Obviously no proof of that but I did go find my initial reaction to it

The number of times I'd get a follow from someone then go to their blog and it would be as mentioned above or their bio would be the most misogynistic trash I'd ever read was staggering. I genuinely considered giving up and deleting this blog so many times bc i felt oberwhelmed and outnumbered by these gross old dudes; and so the fact that this fandom has evolved into a bunch of chaotic wlw?? Amazing, I could cry.

Fun phenomenon of women running bm blogs was men sending messages asking if we liked babymetal. No joke. I think this happened to me two or three times but I spoke w other female creators at the time and it had happened to them as well. My entire blog is babymetal, and yet???

He said the weird guy idk bc he sent some random ass messages vaguely insulting me and when I responded coldly, he acted confused so I said you're some guy idk, hence the above message starting as such. Also that pic and the one up above that has my current pfp bc I just took those screenshots. Like I said I typically blocked weird dms but I guess these passed me by so I still had the messages.

Most people know the sub reddit is the worst and don't need me to tell you but it's a hellscape and I highly recommend avoiding it. A short list of things I've had to see as a result of going there: men discussing at length kano and momoko's appearances and how they look in costume vs in normal clothes. Men discussing at length the hope that the girls would marry men who aren't Japanese, a thread that was from when all 3 girls were underage. They aren't gonna marry you dude they're really not.

The insulting of billie Eilish, a 17 year old at the time, was horrible too. Su and moa got to meet her, something they were extremely excited for, and they posted a pic; the comments were disgusting as you can imagine. The yui rumors were terrible too, fatshaming, slutshaming etc all based on nothing. Some man saying the rumors about yui leaving bc, no joke this was a real rumor, she "got too fat" couldn't be true bc "look at saya." Saya being a barely 18 yo back up dancer who covered the third spot after yui left but before the avengers. Not to mention the upskirt shots from when they were minors, the constant editing of their faces onto explicit photoshoots etc. I remember being a new fan looking for a su pic on google and being horrified at the fact that one of the top suggested results after her name was “bikini;” she was 16 at the time. Also, the uptick in massively creepy posts and messages sent to bm blogs as each girl, but esp moa and yui, approached 18 was disgusting.

Now for some personal nonsense. A big reason why I haven't touched my youtube channel in months is bc I got tired of dealing with the men of this fandom. I poke fun at metal and get told I deserve to die. I say ped*philes and creepy men are gross and get a swarm of middle aged men cursing at me. Had a guy cry about how men are shamed for liking bm and then he turned around and said some gross shit about wlw. Had a guy call me racist for liking a band he also likes (and despite him having no way of knowing my own race) and tell me the babymetal fandom doesn't need my kpop feminist bullshit, which is honestly a great description and I thought about putting it in my yt about lmao. Had a middle aged man unironically say he'd never seen a man be creepy towards bm but fans su and moa's ages calling them hot was creepy. The disillusionment....the level of unawareness is astounding. If you want to see screenshots of some of these comments they are fairly recent in my don't mind me tag; I don't want to see them anymore tho bc they're infuriating so I'm not going to look at them to post here.

Essentially I haven't looked at my channel since may bc men are exhausting and rude and refuse to examine the fandoms they're a part of no matter what. They're told by a woman of the fandom that she's had bad experiences personally and they all start crying about how it's either a lie bc they haven't seen it or unimportant. I did stop reading comments in may and I will never read another one again probably as a result of this shit. Trash men being trash are not worth my time and I refuse to give them anymore of it. I do plan on making more videos tho and let my ~feminist kpop bullshit~ live in their minds rent free.

I will also continue to make fun of metal and the creepy men in this fandom bc it's important and I'm a spiteful asshole who likes disrupting these dudes perfect bubble of a fandom. It genuinely brings me so much joy seeing all the new fans recently (which sidenote if you got into them recently I am kinda curious as to how you found them; I've gotten tons of new followers and considering how inactive they are rn I'm curious). People sending messages about how they finally feel like they belong or that they have a safe space....like I don't even know what to say and I never feel like my responses fully convey how genuinely wonderful that is and how thrilled I am that this is where we're at now and I have had at least some part in it. As this post shows, my experiences have been negative for the most part so the shift recently is such a relief I cannot even begin to explain my gratitude.

So to anyone who read all of this and hasn't disintegrated from the male bullshit, thank you. Keep being yourself and fighting for your place in this fandom, esp if you're a young woman; keep making fun of the creeps and keep making wlw memes!! Babymetal's music is in such a huge way meant for girls and to see more and more finding their way to this previously hellish beyond belief fandom is incredible.