#tooting my own horn okay

[terrainofheartfelt]

Things I did today:

My job while half the dept was out—so really I did my job and my coworker’s job

Reached out to people I hadn’t talked to in FOREVER (lovely but still socially exhausting)

Confirmed a meeting for a Thing tomorrow

Asked 3 separate people for references for said Thing (not sharing yet because I am nervous/trying not to give away too much identifying info lol) and got yes-es from 2

Picked up my online order from a local bookstore which was all my xmas gifts for my family

Did 2 loads of laundry so I can wear what I want this week to the: 1 xmas party, 1 best friend hang, 1 punk show, 1 date with The Girl, and something else I’m sure I’m forgetting

Made a batch of homemade fudge for season gifts

Showered and ate 3 meals and took my meds

[nekrosmos]

First piece of 2025 and it's a mob boss Nikolai AU, inspired by both @panchulien and @on-a-lucky-tide (this fic and this fic respectively)

[xephyr-your-sticks]

The poll hath spoken and you all voted for Tomtord!

Tom is just there to listen. He doesn't understand any of it but he's happy to listen to Tord infodump.

[shomouno]

(📸 貝塚太一/mainichi shimbun)

[starflungwaddledee]

Hey got a question, is it normal for your heartbeat to beat rapidly wherever you look at really tense or angsty scenes?

It's Just a question I had in mind

putting these together because they're clearly related. i admit these have me a little bit stumped, but i'll take this in good faith and do my best! under the cut because of length.

topics include: physiological reactions to fiction, emotional reactions/empathy of creators, and finally addressing the unspoken question present in asks like this.

"is it normal to have a physiological reaction (heart beat, jitters, excitement, sadness, etc) to fiction"

absolutely! i cannot overstate how common it is to have reactions of any wide variety to fiction. the whole point of storytelling is to make you feel things! the reactions you have, their intensity, and the specific media or genre you'll have those reactions to will vary person to person. in regards to angst in particular, like i've said on this topic before: reactions will vary. some people might get excited, others might get sad, others might feel it like a gut punch but in a really good and cathartic way. none of these are better or worse or more normal or more abnormal than the other.

"do i as a creator have an emotional reaction to the work i'm creating?"

i personally do, sure. i was actually quite explicit in the tags of the comic that came right before this ask that i found it hard to draw, because seeing kirby so sad was emotionally pulverising to me. do all creators? no. do i feel a strong emotional reaction to all scenes? no. or all types of content creation? no. for me, prose is actually much easier to tackle than illustration; i can write trauma and suffering and psychological devastation until the cows come home, but drawing it is a different matter. consuming the work of others is different again. and this is different for everybody. am i somehow morally better or more empathetic than an artist that doesn't struggle to draw characters sad? hell no! being able to represent- in fiction- a strong emotion generally requires that you empathise with or at least understand that emotion. sometimes creators actually have to be able to turn this off to be able to create the content we make; the way we turn off strict adherence to reality in order to write fantasy. if we couldn't do this, content across the board- art, movies, novels- would be flattened to nothing but the cheeriest and most mediocre parts of our day to day lives. no fun monsters (because those aren't real). no challenges to rise above (because those make us sad). no characters who have different experiences to us (because how could we imagine or feel for that). and it would be okay for like... twenty minutes of all books containing 'the sun was shining and i woke up on time and had a yummy breakfast', but then it would suck, sorry. conflict and imagination are the root of content.

"it's just a question I had in mind".

a way to think about this might be; would you ask these questions about genres that aren't angst? would you ask "is it normal to be happy when these characters finally reunite" or "is it normal to feel resolution in response to a happy ending" or "is it normal to feel excitement when a character has their cool hero moment". perhaps it's because your reaction to angst is something you construe as negative, but if you wouldn't doubt your reactions to cheerful content, then there's no reason to doubt the reactions you have to angst either; these are just reactions! fiction is designed to make us feel things, but what you feel will be up to you. no one feeling or response is better or worse than any others.

lastly, i feel like there is an unspoken question here that i don't like.

and maybe you didn't intend it. i'm going to extend that grace to you, and because you seem to need reassurance about this (though i will not be reassuring about this further. i do not like reassurance seeking from strangers and this is a boundary i am setting right now), this is not an attack or even a criticism. your questions are fine if they are coming from a place of curiosity and- i simply assume- that these are new or difficult concepts to you that you have yet to have explored or explained.

but on the good faith assumption you didn't intend it, and wouldn't want to do this again (especially if you message other creators), i think you should be aware.

because it sounds like this: "do the people who make sad/angsty/dark content care at all or are you heartless to the suffering (of these characters). is angst/dark content made by bad people?" i felt it the previous time i got a question like this too when it explicitly stated "you seem like a nice person", as if being a nice person was in contrast with what i was creating.

please. we are just people. the relative light or darkness of the content you make says absolutely nothing about your morals, your real life attitudes, or your ability to be an empath.

someone making cute animal art could be a school yard bully. someone writing a complex sci-fi warhorror fic could be the most altruistic and compassionate soul in the world.

in my experience, creators are some of the most empathetic people i have ever met, and many of them know their craft intimately. these are people capable of stepping into the shoes of others as easily as breathing. of sitting down at their work station every day and finding inside themselves a way to answer "how would this really feel?" so clearly and honestly that they can put it onto the paper for you to feel it too.

[coldshrugs]

gpose dump #4: estinio. again.

[gongedtornado]

i actually hate being an artist with free will sometimes. on one hand i can sit down and draw something and spend hours on details and end up with something pretty like this

and then on the otherhand i use all my skills to bullshit something as a joke, put a little too much detail in it and end up with shit like this

i cannot tell you how many times this has happened and how many times my friends have fallen witness to these events. everytime i start laughing at my shitposts, collective “uh oh”s and “oh no”s are heard. i am being 100% serious

[the-one-who-lambs]

I've been crying for like 5 minutes because I opened up a fanfic and the writer's opening note gave me + a couple other cool people a shoutout for inspiring them. It's so so easy to get wrapped up in trying to make everything I do so polished and worrying that it never matches the invisible standard I've set in my head and then inevitably someone will, unprompted, just dispel all of that, telling me I inspired them or that they started writing because of me or joined the fandom because of me (or literally became best friends because one of my works brought them together? I will never ever ever ever forget that), and it always always always outweighs any self belittling critique I can think of

I've always known how creative works can bring people together and motivate them to find their own muse, but I didn't realize that I, too, was capable of having a part in making that happen for others. It's just surreal.

Tell your favorite artists how they've inspired you. Don't be intimidated because you think we're cool/popular/talented/whatever. When the creative flame gets low, hearing from you adds kindling.

[thesearchforbluejello]

I fundamentally do not understand this show. The Dominion War was RIGHT THERE. Like, RIGHT. THERE. Why did we need some whack Romulus-blew-up backstory when the federation was already decimated by the war?? A follow up on the fallout of that and how the ceding of territory, the betrayal by allies, and the xenophobia of threats from both within and outside would have been SO much more interesting to me.

And they're so busy pulling half developed plotlines out of thin air that they're not even pounding in their anchor points for it all. Like, case in point, Jay looking for Icheb's cortical node. SEVEN HAS IT. IT IS LITERALLY IN SEVEN'S FUCKING HEAD. Like, okay fine easter egg? Maybe? But a major plot point isn't exactly an Easter egg?? Like obviously Beyer knows a shitload about Voyager, so at least one of them must be aware of that, so I assume it's implied... but not everyone has seen every Trek and that is from one specific Voyager episode, and Seven had the perfect opportunity to rub that in Jay's face... And are we not going to talk about Seven becoming a Ranger which is HUGELY antithetical to where she was at in Voyager? Because the fact that she became an individual on a ship that was what, 1/3 Maquis? Um, that's a super fucking important fact? Love that for her, but Christ alive nail. these. plot points. home.

idk I guess these two are nitpicks, but I have so many more and just don't feel like writing a novel expounding upon what I perceive as their many (MANY) failures in writing this show. But this show is just full of those moments and I don't understand their choices. Easter eggs only work when there's actually something semi coherent to hide them in (hence why most of M*rvel's fail nowadays, just saying). This feels almost as incoherent as Renegades, and I am SOOOOO very sorry to be actually saying that because woooooof that is not a compliment. Like... it's the Romulans, it's the androids, it's the Borg. It feels like whatever unholy combination is happening with Applebee's and iHop right now. Like... Okay I guess? But it's just a weird combination and very unnecessary. Just fucking pick one and go from there.

I do however need like a lot more ex-Borg bonding that was such a good moment okay thanks bye

[gwyoi]

take me back to this era where people were still drawing bleach fanart 😭

[sexynetra]

hi can u do 1, 2, and 24 pleaseeeee :)

1. Do you have a word-count goal for the upcoming year?

Hmmm i did like 80k this year and I started in March or April I think, so I’d like to do 100k this year :) we’ll see though, I’m more interested in writing more individual stories than I am in the specific word count (and i love a long fic so we know the words will come 😭)

2. Will you participate in any fandom exchanges or fic challenges, etc? 

Probably! If my friends do! It was stressful but it was fun and I’m proud of the work I wound up with (and the beautiful amazing wonderful fics I got as a gift from one of my favorite people on this app <33333

24. By the end of this year, you want your fandom to think of you as “that author who _______.”

I don’t know!!! That author who writes really good long fics? That author who writes anarcia really well? That author who is sooooo pretty and cool and good at everything (😉)? I don’t know what I am to the fandom currently other than that author who takes forever to write 😂

[bellamyblakru]

i’m strong on the surface (not all the way through)

what if arthur wasn't the one to get stabbed that day... what if it was merlin, instead?

[windwheeler-aster]

me after writing some of the most suggestive shit i’ve yet to write:

[deepspaceclawstation]

I have to visit the great uncle (grand uncle technically but english kinship terms are weird that way) who doesn't like me (and once tried to convince me (a 25 year old) that a high-pitched sound has a low frequency) today so wish me luck I guess

[dapper-lil-arts]

More of the same scene lmao. Absolute fuckin gold.

One of my favorite scenes i've ever written lmao, from the fic "The Princess and the Peasant"

I seriously strongly recommend reading this if you're a fan of Rarijack like me. It's a three course meal and also the whole fucking menu yes, i'm basicaly writing a fucking book over here lmao

[jupiter-reimagined]

ate too much chocolate, goin to bed hyper now woop woop