#so anyway if anyone would like to read it or just rb so other people can find it i would very much appreciate it 🙏

[yutaleks]

Hi aleks, sometimes I feel like, no one wants to connect on this social media site? Idk. The like to rb ratio is depressing. I mean, I’m grateful that people are liking my posts. But like. I wanna hear what they think too, ya know?

not sure if you are a writer im guessing from the wording of this ask that you are. but I think it's a bit hard these days to get the level of interaction that you may be asking for

depending on what fandom youre in or what character youre posting about or what trope youre writing etc etc the size of the audience will change. like I already know in my mind if im writing something that is more geared towards stereotypical heteronormative relationships that will get much more interaction than something that is subversive. or if im writing a fic for a popular character that will get much more interactions than a not so popular one.

But at the same time, coming from someone who used to write for a very popular character, I have to say that the grass is not always greener? As in, I think there is a difference between quantity and quality of interactions. If im writing something that I know a core base of people who follow me will like, I know I will most likely get at least some sort of interaction from people who typically enjoy that content. I find that interaction to be more meaningful, especially if it's something I enjoy talking about. vs, if I write something with a bigger 'audience', perhaps there will be more reblogs but the back and forth interaction does not happen. that person will read the fic, reblog or leave a comment, and then be on their way. It does not create this relationship where you end up having a back and forth conversation or becoming mutuals or anything like that (at least, in my experience).

Like if I post a fic that EYE enjoy, and I get ten comments from lovely people, that means more to me than a hundred interactions on a fic I didn't put my whole dick into. ya know?

idk where im going with this. I guess I wanna say if you are passionate about something, and you receive even a few bits of feedback, that will feel so much more rewarding than trying to 'chase' the feedback by writing things you think others will enjoy. and I think too that people will be able to tell when you are writing something that you feel passionate about.

im of the opinion that you can't force people to reblog and interact with your work. ive seen every excuse under the sun for why people wont reblog. but I think if someone feels as passionate about something as you do, they will overcome whatever shyness they feel to come tell you that they appreciate what you are doing

#idk if what I said makes any sense but #I think coming into Tumblr as a writer its okay to want a better rb to like ratio but don't feel discouraged #there is a lot stacked against you right now #no one that I know uses the tags anymore cause they are full of spam #so sometimes the fics that appear on the dashboard are just mutuals reblogging each other. and as a newbie those circles are hard to get in #so someone with no writer mutuals and no following... their posts wont be seen by anyone with significant pull/reach #I would say that I think 'bigger' writers on here should at least try every once and a while to peek into the tags and boost writers #that are new / starting out and making genuine efforts to write #I wont explain but I think when you've been on here long enough you can tell who is posting in the tags for 'Tumblr clout' and who I postin #fic bc they genuinely are passionate about it #but I know most writers on here only read whatever they see on their dash #if people actually stopped spamming the tags with nonsense and the tags were more useable I think we would all use them more... ironic #anyway. I personally always try to reblog fics with comments and check the tags every once and a while for fics to read #I think that is best practice for writers but I know not everyone does that... #in the same vein #i think if you put effort into being a good reader consistently. writers with larger followings will notice / want to be mutuals and help #boost your writing to the dashboard #writing fic is a community that takes genuine effort to grow #TLDR: be a good reader and reblog fics and interact with writers. write things that come from your heart. interactions will follow with tim #*time #long post #ϟ asking aleksandria

[fangirleaconmigo]

Follower Appreciation I Will Read-Your-Fic-and-Comment Activity

So I reached a nice round number of followers on here. (Thank you my friends!) and I thought I'd do an appreciation post for the other witcher fic writers who follow me.

I do this occasionally and it is always fun to read fics that may be outside what I usually search for, and to get an idea of what people are writing in the fandom. I'm always blown away by the talent and passion in the fandom. SO,

IF YOU FOLLOW ME and have

a Witcher fic from any Witcher canon or mix thereof

that centers any ship* (or it could have no ship/gen, platonic)

and is under 30k words complete (I'm going to try to get through multiples here, so to make sure I get to everyone I'm doing a word limit)

any rating (I read smut, no worries about that!)

and you would like me to comment on it

and you can send me a link in the next two weeks by March 15 2024

Please do! *grabby hands* Put the link in the replies! (you can also send an anon ask with it if you're shy.)

And if I've already commented on your fics, but you have a new one for me to read, send it along!

If you don't have any witcher fic but would like this post to reach more folks, please RB!

Disclaimers below!

Disclaimer:

Obviously, I'm a regular ol person with their own triggers and squicks and whatnot, so if I don't think I can read a really dark fic without it fucking me up, I will read something else you've written. (I'll poke around on your ao3) or I'll have to say no. That would be like 'on the page' noncon between shipped characters, mcd, that kind of thing. I read some dead dove stuff but of course we all have limits. If you're not sure, feel free to send and let me decide for myself what I can do. No judgment, we just all have our things, right?

*Again, I'm just a mere human and have my Notps like anyone else. I can read them anyway unless its Ciri with her parents. That's my one I just cannot. We are all allowed one lol.

#the witcher #the witcher fic #follower appreciation

[beansterpie]

ES21 japanese volumes part 2/??

< part 1 || part 3 >

Thanks for the warm reception on part 1! Honestly wasn't expecting anyone other than me and maybe a couple of friends to read, so it's nice to know that people enjoyed it! Also @blaka-smoko provided me with a link to scans of the VIS translation here-- it has up to volume 29 I believe for anyone interested (you'll have to make an account on the site to borrow the volumes though! but it's all free)

Now, to pick up where we left off--

Sena has just managed to escape the bullies, but they're in pursuit. He ends up running into a busy shopping street, where Hiruma, Sena's demonic upperclassman, happens to witness the following...

(First page -> Kuroki: "Alright! I caught...")

I love these pages sm, they're SO silly. This is the beginning of 'these kids might as well have superpowers', and I love that for them. And to be perfectly honest, I think the extra dramatic action scenes make for a really engaging sports manga, which is a genre where I tend get very bored of the whole, you know, Sports™ of it all. But ES21 always keeps me really engaged during the matches, and the super dynamic art is definitely one of the reasons.

Putting the rest under a cut!

I think I'm just gonna go ahead and post the next few pages because I love this bit lol

(Panel 3 -> Juumonji: "Shit-!" Kuroki: "I SAID MOVE!!!" Old Man: "That hurts you BRAT"

Panel 4 -> Hiruma: "That cut...." (note that the kanji here is 走り方 which is pronounced ha-shi-ri-ka-ta and means 'way of running' or 'running style', but the romaji says カット (ka-tto) which is just the English 'cut' as a loanword. I told you Hiruma does this a lot!))

Love how they somehow make Sena navigating a crowd really well into something so cool lol. But I love this entire segment.

(Panel 2 -> Togano: "Aaallright, now sto--"

Panel 4 -> Togano: "--p??"

Panel 5 -> Hiruma: "Whoa, a spin!"

Panel 6 -> The Bullies: *sounds of struggle and pain*)

(Panel 1 -> Sena: "Hiieeee-- (this is just a sound of anxiety he makes a lot) It's no good--!!"

Panel 2 -> Hiruma: "No, you can make it"

Panel 4 -> Hiruma: "With your legs, you can make it!"

Panel 6 -> Hiruma: "FLY!" (also means 'jump', but fly feels more apt))

TOUCHDOWN!!! (of getting on the train yayyy!)

I just love this whole segment-- how good the art is, how intense and dynamic and fun they managed to make a simple chase scene, how it works so well with the football visuals that Hiruma is laying over Sena's movements in his mind, Hiruma's weird omniscient presence cementing itself into the narrative lol. Properly introducing the One Thing™ that Sena is crazy good at to the audience, and that is running (usually away from something lmao).

(Panel 2 -> Juumonji: "GUHO!?" (sound of surprised pain)

Panel 3 -> Hiruma: "Toooouchdooooown! Ya-ha--!")

I love him your honor.

ANYWAY onto the next day!

(Panel 1 & 2 -> Kurita: "Oh that's right! Yesterday, a new member joined the club!" Hiruma: "Ooohhh, I actually found someone too."

Panel 3 -> Hiruma: "Truly a golden-legged Running Back. He was so full of spirit that he approached me directly, saying that he wanted to join."

Panel 4 -> Kurita: "Wow-- amazing! Good job finding him, Hiruma!"

Panel 5 -> Hiruma: "He should be here already"

Panel 6 -> Hiruma: "K, now fill out the application form~" Kurita: "S-SENA-KUN!!?")

The audacity of Hiruma casually and blatantly lying that Sena joined of his own volition lol. He just lies because it's fun, why not? 😂 Also, when Hiruma says 'running back', it just says "RB" with furigana that says ランニングバック, which is 'running back' as a loan word lol.

(2nd pic -> Kurita: "Whoa number 21! The eyeshield is so cool!" Hiruma: "If we don't hide his face like this during matches, it'll start an all-out-war among the other sports teams.")

Lol I love how shrimpy Sena is <3 In the fan-scans, the idea that the other sports clubs would try to get at Sena wasn't really mentioned until the Cupids match, so I figured I'd include it. Also Hiruma looks SO NORMAL in the first couple of chapters lol, he just increasingly gets more spiky and demonic as the story progresses, and I love that for him, but seeing little babyfaced Hiruma is fun too.

(Panel 1 -> Sena: "But I'm the manager~~!!" Hiruma: "Then, player-and-manager. do both"

Panel 2 -> the posters say: "Stay away from him -- Or the mosaic comes off")

Mosaic meaning the blurred out bits, obv. I feel like there's certain lines from Hiruma where the translation doens't quite capture the like... cavalier command with implicit threat he has in Japanese lol.

Also I get this slight vibe from his Japanese dialogue that Hiruma is like, funny lol. There's more of a deliberate sense of set up and pay off when he talks, which I get a kick out of.

Finally, end of chapter one 😂 the fuck is brevity?

Bit of an aside, but something I never noticed before about this pic of Sena's room is that he seems to collect figures of some kind? And he has a lot of games (or possibly anime) in the tv cabinet. I know in the pilot chapter (which I might post about separately sometime), Sena was characterized as A Gamer™, but that seems to have largely been abandoned in the actual series. It's fun to see the lingering remnants of that aspect of Past-Sena lol.

Moving on to chapter 2!

(Mamori: "The American Football Club!?")

(Panel 1 -> Mamori: "But American Football is... You shouldn't pick something so dangerous!")

Regarding panel 2, there isn't a mistranslation really, but I wanted to point out-- because it's fucking hilarious-- that Mamori uses four separate words that all essentially mean weak and feeble to describe Sena 😭 She's like "--because Sena is (physically) weak, insubstantial, fragile, and The Weakest™!"

Sena: "Y, you don't have to go that far...."

She really didn't 😔 how's a bitch supposed to come back from that...

Then of course Sena reassures her that he's just the shumu/manager (whatever), and won't actually be playing in matches, which she is very relieved to hear.

(Mamori: "Huh? But then why are you here so early in the morning?

Sena: "A meeting about club management!!")

Oh Sena :')

Cut to:

(Hiruma: "Come now, it's morning practice!!!"

Sena: "ALL LIES~~!!")

Soon, soon Sena, you will learn. But man look at the unbridled joy on our demon spawn captain's face <3 we love a chaotic gremlin.

Just wanted to gush a little about how much I love Murata's establishing shots, especially this one. Gives such an excellent vibe of early morning at a school before most students are present-- plus over the course of the series you end up getting such a good sense of the overall layout of the school!

(Panel 1 -> Kurita: "Well-- you know how we haven't had three people since the formation of the club? I was just so happy that I had to wake up early"

Panel 2 -> Kurita: "I was so amped up that I've been at it since 2am!" Hiruma: "An idiot, there's an idiot here.")

All told basically the same as the fan-scans, but I think the Japanese version slyly implies the existence of Musashi a little better. I always wonder with these things just how much of the back stories were hashed out-- like was Musashi's design already established? When we see him for the first time later (unbeknownst to us) did the creators already know That Guy was Musashi? Questions, questions...

(Panel 1 -> Sena: "That was close! I was about to join in on practice without realizing!" Hiruma: "Right, guess we should go through everything once, starting with the ladder."

Panel 2 -> Hiruma: "Since we've got newbies present and all." Sena: "Hiiieeeee!" (he's like a small dog, he whimpers when he's scared)

Panel 3 -> Kurita: "Ah wait. Actually my neck kind of hurts. I think I might call it quits after doing a 40 yard dash or something."

Panel 4 -> Hiruma: "40 yard dash, huh? It's been a while. Alright, let's measure our times.")

K-Kurita.... your head looks like it's gonna pop off.....

(Panel 2 -> Hiruma: "Time?"

Panel 3 -> "Kurita Ryokan: 40 yard run: 6.5 seconds"

Panel 5 -> Hiruma: "This fucking fatty!! What morning practice, you've gotten slower than before!!" Kurita: "I can't help it, I'm already tired--!!")

@blaka-smoko mentioned this in their reblog on the last post, but Hiruma preludes all his nicknames with 糞 (ku-so) which means like, shitty, but the furigana says ファッキン which is just "fucking" as a loan word lol. So all his nicknames canonically and literally start with the English word "fucking". Fucking chibi, Fucking monkey, Fucking manager, etc, etc. The official VIS version changed this to 'damn', which is nothing but a damn shame lol. Let Hiruma say fuck!! He's literally already saying it!!

(Panel 1 -> Hiruma: "Alright, watch how it's done!" Sena: "!? So fast!!"

Panel 4 -> "Hiruma Yoichi: 40 yard run: 5.1 seconds"

Panel 5 -> Hiruma: "Ya-ha-! That's my best time!!" Sena & Kurita: "Whoa--!!")

He's so fucking spiky!! And I love how expressive their physical movements are, like Hiruma's little twist in the last panel is so fun.

The first three panels are basically accurate, (though in panel two, Hiruma is like "What's that? You want to run so bad you can barely contain it?" which made me chuckle) but panels 4 & 5 are different.

(Panel 4 -> Kurita: "But, isn't it weird? If he's that fast (and he uses 爆速 (ba-ku-so-ku) which means like, explosive speed) I think he would have been famous in middle school."

Panel 5 -> Hiruma: "Hmm... now that you mention it.... Well, we'll know for sure once we measure his time.")

I like that Kurita points out something to Hiruma that he didn't consider! These early chapters gives a bit more of a feel of Hiruma and Kurita's friendship imo, before there's more characters that the story needs to focus on, and the two of them solidly enter the Senpai™ realm among their teammates.

Of course, then Sena runs and gets 5.0 seconds, which is already fastest on their little team! But Hiruma isn't satisfied with that....

The fan-scans are aaaalmost right? But confused. It makes it sound like Hiruma is quoting something Sena said/wrote down in the past (that he somehow aquired as Hiruma is wont to do), and then the line in panel 3 just doesn't make sense. In Japanese, it comes across more as like, Hiruma looks up some records of Sena on his laptop, and the rest is him putting together an analysis based off of that.

(Panel 1 -> Hiruma: "In Kobayakawa Sena's middle school physical endurance records-- he came first only in Repetitive Sideways Hopping."

Panel 2 -> Hiruma: "Must be due to the explosive power that you built through your gopher-ing... which is how you have that rocket-start. But you immediately lose speed, which is why you never make any records in a footrace.

Panel 3 -> Hiruma: "So all we have to do is make sure you don't lose speed."

Panel 5 -> Hiruma: "CERBERUS!!!")

BEST BOY BEST BOY BEST BOY!!!

This is basically correct, so I used the scans for visual clarity because taking good pics of a double page spread is hard :')

anyway RUN BOY RUN!! Also love Hiruma's little fist pump in the last panel. Murata being awesome with gestures as usual.

(Panel 1 -> Hiruma: "This is beyond high school records! It's the top speed in the NFL! Nobody can stop this!"

Panel 2 -> "The Golden Legs!!")

I don't know if it's true that 4.2 sec is the NFL record (at least at the time) or not, and frankly I don't care. Within the context of this series, 4.2 secs is the speed of light, and Sena's got it!

I've always liked that Sena's got this glass canon thing going on-- OP in terms of speed only, extremely weak in every other regard. It's funny and unexpected in a shounen protagonist, and it makes for a very satifying arc, even if there aren't any surprises. I actually in part got into B.N.H.A . waaay back in 2014 because Deku reminded me of Sena (well, I got into it because I'd read the artist's previous manga and was curious, but Deku reminding me of Sena is what made me stay (well, until I left again a couple years later lol)). Point is, I'm very fond of Sena, I think he's fun!

Oof I wanted to squeeze in one more pic but I'm at the limit already lol. But chapter 2 ends with excitement all around-- and Hiruma says that they'll be winning the Spring Tournament. (Sena imagines himself as the manager and boy, after all that you still think you're just gonna be the manager? 😭)

Of course this is when Hiruma informs them that the first match is tomorrow lol. A team with 3 players. Good luck!

That's all for part 2-- hope y'all enjoy my ramblings!

#eyeshield 21 #es21 #eyeshield 21 japanese readalong #this one mostly ended up being me just gushing abt eyeshield but eh #that's how it is sometimes!! sometimes I don't have intelligent thoughts only !!! wow!!! this is so great!!! wow!!!!

[bonefall]

Your talk about Briarlight's mobility device is super cool, so i wanted to ask for your opinion, if a cat was missing a single back leg (amputated at the heel), would a mobility device be helpful? I'm assuming no, i've seen cats with only two legs hopping around, which leads to question #2.

The character in question got injured and their leg needed to be removed, a Cinderpaw situation of sorts. The clan begins pushing the use of the mobility device on them, parallel to irl people pushing the use of prosthetics to make amputees look 'normal'. Paired with a severe case of gifted kid syndrome, where their missing leg made training difficult and they begin to burn out because they're suddenly struggling, they get shoved/shove themself into the cleric role. They're miserable about this; They loved being a warrior, but simple training they used to breeze right past suddenly became difficult, so they've resigned themself to picking leaves and chewing herbs.

I'm mostly worried that it will be read the wrong way. The character COULD complete their training, they arent lesser than anyone else, but the gifted kid syndrome hit at the same time, along with a mild dose of peer pressure and internal ableism. It IS a case of 'disabled characters go in the square hole medicine cat den!', and thats the whole point because I wanted to explore the ableism in that situation. They just think that if they can't get something right in the first few tries, they cant get it right ever, so they resigned themself to the metaphorical square hole.

I'm just worried though that by trying to comment on it by adding it to the story that im instead encouraging it. Any advice is 100% appreciated, it's just a thin line and im super worried about walking it. Anyways sorry for invading your ask box i just really wanted to ask for second opinions and i have absolutely no one else to turn to.

A mobility device would not be useful, nope! I'm planning a "mobility device that is just for everyone else's comfort" with Thunder Storm too, though that arc is ending with Thunder pulling it off (and then finding out that Tall Shadow exiled Bumble and flipping his fuzzy little lid)

I think what you need most is clarity of your message, and confidence. You know WHAT you want to say about this-- so start thinking about how to show it. How do you impart this to your audience?

The cat in question doesn't need to realize it. They can have friends, mentors, family, other people who come to the right conclusion. Set up their Gifted Kid problems early, and SHOW that they give up and do as they're told when they struggle with something.

You seem to be doing well by establishing that Examplepaw doesn't like the cleric den, and so this was NOT the right choice for them. In my opinion, that's something that muddies Jayfeather's arc in-canon. He's forced into it but ends up just... fine with it and good at it. The fact Jay was pushed there against his will doesn't actually result in negative consequences.

And people argue, "ah, well, authorial statements say ACTUALLY he ALWAYS would have liked it but he felt like he was fitting a stereotype by going in there so actually it's good that they did an abelism because he wouldn't know what's best for him" and like... they don't see the problem in that lmao. Don't Be Like Them People.

But anyway, that's enough advice rambling on my part. @The Audience, if you guys have advice for this anon, feel free to RB it with commentary or reply to it, especially if you have experience with burnout and physical disability

#Bones gives advice #Always remember that a character isn't a person; they are a storytelling device #Sometimes the story being told is 'this is a weird guy who has interesting thoughts' #But I think it's an overdone and sometimes even harmful mindset to put Character Realness over telling a functional story #And part of that is that people will get sooo wrapped up in the character in question that they forget Other Characters Exist #And they can exist to benefit the arc of the main character by offering advice or insight #Not even TO the character in question!! But to the reader themselves!!! #A character who says 'youve gone mad with power!' Isn't always saying it so the powermad guy hears it #They're saying it for you or the other characters in the scene #But that's my mindset

[byierficrecs]

the year has come to an end. i hope you guys had a nice year; you're all amazing and i've been having a really nice time interacting with everyone here :] may any hardships you've experienced be solved promptly~

this year was not really kind to me (as i'm sure you're aware; i talk about personal stuff far too much x.x), but writing and making graphics for this fandom has really helped me and i genuinely want to thank everyone for being so kind and making me feel a bit better ^-^

as it's the end of the year, i believe some stats are in order! in three months i've

spent almost 540 hours making graphics;

taught myself to make aforementioned graphics;

read the works of 66 unique writers;

read 1,196,725 words

(which means i read approximately 2400 pages);

and made graphics for 89 stories!

i'm not sure anyone's noticed, but i like to alternate between pastel, colourful and dark aesthetics~

i would like to once again thank everyone who's interacted with this account in any form. be it a like, a rb, an ask or sending me a message, you've all been kind and i hope i can continue to make more stuff that you like~ the "slots" for next month are almost full, so i'll keep this train going for as long as i can~

(that said, i /am/ taking a one-week break once the 12 days of christmas are over x.x i am tired)

lastly, i would like to thank the authors whose works have been shared! thank you so much for all the work you do for this fandom, and for gifting us with beautiful stories to fill the void of no-content. let it be known that we appreciate you all a lot, and that without you this byler fandom thingy would be far darker and infinitely more boring. i wish you luck in any creative endeavours you might have (byler-related or otherwise), and i can't wait to see what other beauty you bring to this world 💖

@andiwriteordie, @anemori, @astrobei, @bookinit02, @buck-yyyy, @byeler, @byleresque, @bylerisc4non, @champion-rowlet, @chiquitablanquita, @claryfrayed, @clericxpaladin, @elmaxed, @etchedstars, @futureboy-ao3, @ghoulsanderson, @gleefcll, @hellfire-byler, @hiscleric, @itsromeowrites, @kastuud0n, @kiirotoao, @lilacline001, @nastyaex, @octopusoptimusprime, @perexcri, @saelotusline, @scout-the-wise, @sevensided, @smoosnoom, @strangerange1s, @strangersynth, @twelfthbite, @untitled-byler-blog, @uranium-suite, @voulezvulcan, @wheelerboi, @willuvbot, @wiseatom, @zombiewheeler

i'm probably missing people whose blogs i don't know or who just don't have a tumblr account; i'll add more people as i find them, but even if someone's not listed, i thank you sincerely for everything you do. you're all very talented!

anyway, i think i've rambled long enough. i shall leave for now, but i'll see you tomorrow! happy new year! i hope everyone accomplishes everything you set out to do this year :]

- - - - - - - - - - -

sincerely, angel 🧸

#📰

[astercontrol]

Callout post for myself

I'm writing this to clear the air about some things. Feel free to ignore if random vague fandom drama is not your thing.

At this moment, I'm not even sure if, or how much, anyone else is even thinking about these issues.

I do not know if, or how much, I may have inadvertently hurt others with the way I was doing things...

Basically...

I'm in a situation where I feel there' s been a conflict with some people. But none of the usual ways of trying to open communication with them feel… right, to me. It would be either DMing without consent, or addressing a post to them in public, and at the moment I don't feel they would be comfortable with either.

(This vagueposting approach is also… not good.)

(But it feels like the least bad option at this point. It won't force anyone to read these thoughts who's already decided they don't want contact with me. But I'll feel a bit more peace of mind knowing these thoughts are, sort of, in the open.)

Anyway.

...Until recently, this is what I had in the "About Me" post on my Tumblr blog:

DNI if: you don't wanna interact. (if I got any problem with the interaction I'll handle it, I'm a mature program with a block button)

I will block you:

… if your views are clearly so incompatible with mine that I don't feel we could ever have any positive interaction

…if we have already had interactions that I, for any reason, found too uncomfortable to handle

…if I see your posts on my dash a lot, but I notice that your blog says "NSFW blogs Do Not Interact" (or any DNI applying to me). I will do this because you don't want interaction from me, and I want to be sure I respect your boundaries and don't slip up and interact.

…(If you have already been choosing to interact with my posts, despite having me on your DNI list… then there's the additional problem that at this point I have NO IDEA how your boundaries work or what's the best way for me to respect them. So, again, I'll block.)

I've taken those words down and am considering something new to replace them. Because… I am trying to make some changes in how I handle these things.

I have enacted this "block people whose boundaries I don't understand" protocol. A couple of times, I think. Once that I remember clearly. Very early in my time on this tumblr account. It was somebody who had liked and reblogged several of my posts, and when I went to their blog, I saw "NSFW blogs DNI" prominently displayed.

This, of course, confused me. I freely admit to being a NSFW blog-- or at least, that I post pretty often about sexual attraction and sexual acts. If this person wanted to interact with me, why did they have a prominent post saying they didn't want interaction with blogs like mine? (And if they just hadn't seen the "NSFW" on my own blog before interacting, why would they expect others to check and see the "NSFW DNI" their blog before interacting with them?)

For the time being, I just... chose not to follow them, and not to go out of my way to interact. It was all I could think of to do.

But the status quo went on for a while: continuing to receive occasional likes and RBs from this stranger, and feeling increasingly uncomfortable about it… anxious that I might accidentally overstep a boundary.

Because… what even were this person's boundaries? How did they define NSFW, and in what circumstances did it actually bother them?

They had no problem sharing my tamer posts, so clearly their taboo didn't include "non-sexual interaction with a blog that sometimes posts about sexual topics." I felt pretty sure they'd be uncomfortable if I tagged them in any of those sexual posts or sent them a sex-related ask, which of course I had no plans to do... But their boundary must be somewhere in between, and it bothered me not to know where.

Eventually, I found it. A mutual of mine (someone else whose blog also openly admits to posting on NSFW topics) had reblogged a post from them.

It was a fandom post, an observation about a fictional character. My mutual had added commentary, but nothing sexually suggestive. I reblogged… and I made the mistake of putting something suggestive in my own additions.

The original poster-- in a move that somehow managed to take me by surprise-- reblogged it back from me, commenting something to the effect of "Don't add horny things to my posts."

And then I …well, I essentially panicked. And made the further mistake (at least, I now feel it was a mistake) of letting my panic response express itself with the block button.

At the time this made sense to me, for the reasons described in the About Me post that I quoted above. I had always agreed with those posts that sometimes go around, saying that it's perfectly valid to block others for your own mental health; that your online experience is there to be pleasant and relaxing, and there's no guilt in cutting off people who don't contribute to those feelings for you.

But later on (as things do sometimes go, over the course of gaining online social experience) I had an occasion to experience this from the other side. And it changed my feelings somewhat.

It wasn't an exact mirroring from the other side of what I'd done. The situation was different in a few big ways. But it did involve a person who blocked me without explanation.

Not a stranger or recent acquaintance. Someone who, up to that moment, had been treating me like one of their best friends-- including me in their private Discord server, replying to nearly everything I said, showing constant enthusiasm for every fan project I was working on. So, the sudden loss of contact felt to me like a totally unexpected double blow. Losing a close friend, and at the same time being implicitly accused of something, with no hint as to what.

What had I done? How had I hurt this person, badly enough to go overnight from friendship to complete non-interaction? What had I done that was so terrible that I was blocked from every avenue of even being able to reach out and ask this person what I'd done?

Since then, through conversations with others, I've been able to glean a general idea that this friend was experiencing a sort of crisis in their attempts to maintain an online social life that was beyond what they could deal with. It seemed they'd cut contact with a number of people, just for being part of certain social circles they no longer had the capacity to handle.

The patterns to which people they'd blocked were a bit confusing to me, but I imagine that my own… sometimes-overly-overt sexuality… might have contributed to why I was among them.

Unlike the stranger I'd blocked before, this person didn't have "NSFW DNI" on their blog; they were okay with talking about sexual topics in some circumstances. But not in all circumstances. And that boundary was never quite clear, to me or to several others who'd been in Discord servers and chats with them.

It's entirely possible that my own discussions of NSFW topics had overstepped the boundary and made this person uncomfortable, and that had been part of the reason for the block. It could also have been some other aspect of how I post (I do post about a pretty vast range of things, from silly and smutty to dark and depressing). Understandable, I guess, that anyone with certain mental health needs would need distance from that.

So... even though this all hurt a whole lot, I have been trying to understand or at least accept these other perspectives. I've been giving a lot more thought to how different people can have different ideas of what's a reasonable boundary to set.

And while there are some practical constraints on what one can realistically expect strangers on a huge online platform to adhere to... that doesn't change how individual people personally feel about their own boundaries, or whether I personally can feel some sympathy and some willingness to try and meet them where they are.

I've also been thinking about some things (which I discussed in the March followup to my February KOSA post) …some thoughts about communities that are built for mutual support in survival situations, and how their standards will differ when it comes to what's a dealbreaker for friendship. And how much effort people will put into trying to resolve conflicts when a group is smaller, less replaceable, and more necessary to one's life.

I mean, I'm not actually in that type of survival situation at the moment. But I'm becoming increasingly aware of how important communities are. And the community I've joined most recently through shared fandom interest is… a small, cult-classic sort of fandom, so the rareness and preciousness of good friends is kind of being hammered home to me at the moment.

And I have become more motivated to make some effort to heal what is broken, whenever I can.

I've never been good with conflict. Often my reflexive reaction to it is to isolate myself, to cut off interaction so I don't have to face what may have been wrong with it.

But I am trying to fight that response, because it's not healthy.

I've unblocked some people I blocked during those early conflict-phobic moments of panic. But of course I don't expect or feel entitled to be unblocked by anyone who has blocked me. As I've tried to express here, their reasons are their own... and while I may try my best to understand them, I acknowledge that I can't fully, and only the people who made the choices truly can. So I won't judge or expect anything in particular; only try to be open to whatever happens.

And I'm writing this post… not to try and argue against anyone, or convince anyone to do anything, but just to try and make clear what has happened from my end, and how I feel about it.

Like I said before, I don't know if others are even thinking or talking about any of this.

But my anxieties sometimes fear that they are, and that there may be people out there forming opinions about me, entirely from the other viewpoint in these conflicts.

And the only thing that eases that anxiety a little is… for me to communicate what I can, so that my viewpoint on what happened is at least out there.

Again, I know this was all vague... but, well, it's more info than was out there before, and I feel it would be wrong to go into much more detail. So, do with this information what you will. It's just me trying to make things a little less vague than real life seems to have made them.

#notron anyvirus #userworldproblems #drama #fandom #personal

[elizmanderson]

"a kiss to anger a third party," perhaps from this post? elizmanderson. tumblr. com /711617943947067392

okay so fun fact, I am actually an idiot who read right over “another kissing prompt” on the post this kissing prompt came from and rb it just intending to like save the list of different kisses for later

but then I was too embarrassed to admit that in response to this ask WITHOUT writing something so long story short instead of researching lighthouses today like I was supposed to, I wrote a 1,700-word short story about fake girlfriends who kiss in the hallway outside grandma’s sewing room to piss off some shitty relatives

so. yeah. uh. enjoy I guess.

A KISS TO ANGER A THIRD PARTY STORY THAT I DIDN’T MEAN TO WRITE BUT HERE WE ARE

Fake dating has been going shockingly well, considering you’re terrible at real dating and also at lying, and somehow faking dating is both. Then again, family get-togethers are always awkward as fuck. Your cousin and his wife always share a chilly silence; your uncle has a casually off-color comment for every occasion; your mother judges everyone like doing so is an Olympic sport; and your grandparents desperately try and fail to keep the peace. So no one notices that you and Maeve stand across the room from each other instead of holding hands and melting into each other’s bodies the way two lovey-dovey newlydatings should allegedly do.

Rather, if anyone notices, they figure it’s normal. That’s how relationships are in your family, grandparents aside, and everyone has long since written them off as sweet old weirdos. The only reason you don’t think the lingering gazes you share with Maeve are more action than your relatives have ever had is the existence of multiple generations of biological children.

You share a gaze now. Not because you’re actually into Maeve, although you’re not not into Maeve; you picked an attractive fake girlfriend. Tall, with an undercut and dark eyes and a crooked nose and muscley arms that sometimes you think would be really great for picking you up and throwing you onto a bed, before you remember this is fake and please brain do not.

The corner of Maeve’s mouth turns up. You look away, biting back a smile.

You would like to stand here not-smiling at Maeve all night—or at least until the end of the torturous family cookout, which hasn’t even technically started yet because your uncle decided to “help” Grandpa with the grill and ended up setting all the food on fire instead, and the second attempt at dinner just went on the grill three minutes ago—but you seriously have to pee. In lieu of food, you’ve downed three cans of Coke from the drinks fridge in the garage. You cross the kitchen, accidentally-on-purpose brush against Maeve as you exit, and head down the hall to the half bath.

When you come out, you hear voices. Snatches of words. Your mother and cousin-in-law, sitting in your grandma’s sewing room. They’re supposed to be organizing it for her, but instead they’re sitting on bolts of fabric, gossiping.

“...tried to tell me they’d found someone, but they look absolutely miserable with that girl they brought,” your mother says. With a jolt, you realize she’s talking about you. “Maybe they’ll sit together at dinner, but with how far apart they’ve been standing since they arrived, I doubt it. And that girl has been scowling at everyone.”

“She’s worse than Luc,” your cousin-in-law says smugly. “And god knows he has the worst resting bitch face I ever saw. Sometimes I don’t know why I fell in love with him. No offense.”

“None taken. He’s not my kid.”

You don’t even like Luc, but your fingers curl into fists. As usual, you wonder what the fuck you did in a past life to be born into a family of people who spend all their time hating each other.

“Anyway” —your cousin-in-law examines her nails, fresh from a day at the salon, where she surely treats the staff hellishly— “I don’t think it’ll last. They’ve hardly spoken two words to each other all afternoon.”

Your fists tighten. She’s one to talk. She and Luc have hardly spoken to each other since the day of their wedding; on the rare occasion you do hear them speak, they’re picking fights. She gushes about her perfect marriage to anyone who will listen when her husband isn’t around, but their marriage—your uncle’s marriage, your parents’ marriage, every marriage around you except your grandparents’—is exactly the reason you’ve been so reluctant to date. The reason you asked Maeve to fake being your girlfriend, so your relatives would stop offering to set you up with someone. They all make each other fucking miserable.

And they think you and Maeve won’t last?

Okay yeah sure fine, you and Maeve aren’t a thing in the first place. Not really. You’re neighbors, and coworkers, and maybe friends now.

But since Maeve agreed to fake-date you, you’ve shared more with her about yourself than you have with...anyone, maybe. Definitely more than you’ve shared with anyone in your family. Definitely more than they share with their respective spouses, or each other.

Silly things, mostly. You like it when the front door of a house is painted bright, aqua or magenta or chartreuse. Your favorite flowers are all the yellow ones, like dandelions or forsythia, even though otherwise you’re not that fond of yellow. You always like the sad songs and love ballads more than the fun, fast-paced songs that steal the show. Things that don’t matter, except that they do, because now Maeve points out all the brightly colored doors when you walk back to your apartment building together after a shift.

Your mother and cousin-in-law are still talking. The conversation has moved on now—apparently your uncle has cheated on his wife, again—but you’re angry. Your skin prickles. Your nails bite your palms. You could nudge the door open and confront them, but confrontation has never been your forte.

Instead, you tiptoe to the kitchen and touch Maeve’s back.

She half turns, an eyebrow quirked. “You okay?”

“Yeah. I just. I need you to come with me.”

“Why?” Maeve asks, but she’s already following you back down the hall.

“Because my relatives suck and I need you to kiss me.”

You stop far enough from the sewing room that your mother and cousin-in-law probably won’t hear you. You turn toward Maeve, leaning against the wall with your arms crossed. It hasn’t occurred to you that the words I need you to kiss me actually just crossed your lips. Maeve’s dark eyes flicker over you, but she mirrors your posture and waits.

“They’re all in shitty marriages,” you say in a low voice, “except my mom, because she’s in a shitty divorce that was so shitty it was almost as bad as the marriage, except that it was over faster. But because we’re not attached at the hip or making googly eyes at each other, they think my relationship with my new girlfriend is a dead-end that’s going to end before it’s begun.”

Maeve snorts. “Fuck them. I may not make googly eyes at my fake girlfriend, but they’re nuts if they think I wouldn’t go to the ends of the earth and back for my fake girlfriend. Or, like, bring home takeout every night after work, or always do the laundry because they hate doing laundry, or whatever.”

That gets you for a second, because okay yeah sure fine it’s all fake, but Maeve still just kind of said she’d go to the ends of the earth for you. And bring you takeout. And always do laundry, which honestly might as well be a marriage proposal, because someone doing the laundry so you don’t have to is well and truly your love language.

“So.” Maeve’s eyes rove over your face. “Not that I object to kissing you, but how exactly is kissing going to help this situation?”

Right. You asked her to kiss you. Or more accurately stated slightly desperately and angrily that you need her to kiss you. You tense, trying to sound cool and nonchalant when you’re now thinking about kissing Maeve.

“When my mom and cousin-in-law come out of that room,” you say, nodding back toward the sewing room, “I want them to see us kissing. Like, really kissing. You know.”

The corner of Maeve’s mouth lifts again. “Really kissing. Gotcha.”

You flush. “Yeah. That. I just. I want...” You want some really great kissing. Focus. “I want them to see that we’re actually fucking into each other and super affectionate with each other even if we don’t feel like turning it into a performance so everyone else will believe we’re in love.”

Maeve tilts her head. “Even though it’ll literally be a performance so everyone will believe we’re in love?”

Your flush deepens. “Yeah.”

Maeve shifts closer, her eyes flickering over you. God, her eyes. Dark and intense and always just a little bit sad.

“I think I can sell being fucking into you,” she says quietly.

Shit, you think vaguely, poor choice of words on your part, because fucking and you are the only things you can think now that Maeve has repeated them back to you. But the thought slips away, because now Maeve is an inch away, her tall body curving over you, and her hands are cupping your face and oh my god she is actually really for real going to kiss you.

Her lips brush over yours, soft and sweet. Your breath hitches.

The door opens down the hall. As your relatives step out of the sewing room, Maeve crushes your lips under hers. Her hands slip into your hair, your arms wind around her neck, you pull her down, closer, closer, and now you’re kissing her back, your fingers playing in her hair just because they can, your eyes closed, your skin glorying in the warmth of her breath, the press of her body against yours.

Behind you, Luc’s shitty wife makes a sound of disgust and says, “Oh my god, get a room!” Your mother hisses, “Do you want to give your grandmother a heart attack? Right outside her sewing room!”

But (a) your grandma is safely outside by the grill, far away from the sudden make-out session, and (b) your grandma, if she saw you kissing a pretty girl, would almost certainly say something along the lines of “isn’t that sweet!” or “good for them!” And frankly you don’t remember why it was important to kiss Maeve where your mother and cousin-in-law would see it. Or whether there was a point to kissing Maeve at all, unless kissing Maeve was the point.

Your brain is preoccupied with Maeve’s lips on yours, her hands cradling your head, your body crushed beneath hers. But as your relatives slink past and disappear, as the sliding door in the kitchen opens and slams, as Maeve goes on kissing you like her life depends on it, as you fail to say something along the lines of okay we can stop now—as you fail to say, in fact, anything at all—you think, distantly: maybe this dating is less fake than I thought.

#answered #writing prompts #kissing prompts #short story #e's writing

[astrobei]

This is kind of an odd question, but since you seem to have done it very successfully and I have no clue: How do you make friends online?

I always see people on here talking about their mutuals and about their online friends, and some of that’s def survivorship bias, but I’m guessing I’m not alone in having no clue how to get from recognizing someone’s username to having them be a person I would talk to about a bad day?

Anyway, this continues to be a weird ask so answer it any way you want and no worries if it takes a while, but yeah, with all the posts about you and haven meeting up I am just looking for advice on *how*

Ty so much!

hi hi hi hello!! i’ve actually gotten asks like this before and i’m so sorry 2 everyone who’s sent one bc i’m afraid i don’t have a super concise or helpful way to answer this,,, (but i’ll still try lol)

to be so so honest with you, i got super lucky because i was introduced to a lot of my friends in this fandom through group chats or mutuals’ discord servers that other people have added me to, which i know is kind of a lame answer because being added to gcs/others’ servers is not exactly something u can control … but you are so right in saying that you’re not alone in feeling like this !! i know so many people feel intimidated by the idea of making friends on here especially since there Are so many users i associate as groups and it seems like everyone has Those Friends (me included, i’ll admit) and it’s probably easier said than done because i did get lucky enough to meet a lot of my now-close friends rn through ao3/comments/writers’ gcs way back in the summer or fall 😗 it also definitely takes time to get close to someone in this way, and these friendships are not something that happened overnight, even for me !! i feel like it’s easy to get stressed out by the potential of every new mutual/friend you make being The Friend and that can put a lot of pressure on both you and the other person to be super compatible right off the bat, so on and so forth, which isn’t fair and will probably lead to more disappointment than anything, so i think it’s important to remember that (almost?) no solid friendship goes from 0-100 overnight and it takes time to build trust and emotional connection with anyone!

so i would say . basically . if you’ve stayed this long and all of this rambling that my biggest pieces of advice would be:

1. fr and honestly just go for it. like you said, i know so many people feel the exact same way as you do, so send that mutual you admire an ask or a dm!! every friendship has got to start somewhere so if you see them rb an ask game maybe send something nice or maybe if you see a post that reminds u of them send it to them ! i’ve made a couple of my closest friends because we sent each other asks a lot before moving to dms -> other platforms, or people have just dm’d me directly out of the blue and i was surprised by how well we clicked !! these are maybe lame examples but. u get the idea lol. Just Do It i believe in u 🥳

2. be patient !! i know i already said it before but close friendships, like the ones you’re talking about, rarely happen overnight. even with people i’ve felt a connection with immediately, it’s taken some time for us to really get comfortable with each other and past that awkward stage so it’ll likely take some dedication and commitment to communication on both your parts! something i would like to emphasize: don’t make friends purely out of strong expectations of being Best Friends because, again, this could lead to a lot of disappointment when someone doesn’t live up to expectations you’ve created In Your Head. find people you really click with and genuinely enjoy talking to, and maybe see eventually if they’d want to move from talking through asks to dms to discord/text!

ummmm. i think that’s all i have to say on the topic, hopefully this wasn’t too disappointing to read because again, i’m not too sure how to organize my thoughts on the subject LOL but i’m wishing you all the best and i’m promising u that almost everyone in this community feels the same way !! make the first move/respond when someone maybe makes the first move to you + take it slow + be kind and patient and you will have friends lining up in ur dms to talk to u 🫡much much love !! 🫶🏽

#this was so long #and mostly incoherent i’m so sorry #to be honest i can’t rly pinpoint how i became friends w my friends it just Happened #but like. it takes time #even w people i’ve gotten comfortable w over dms Fast #it’s still taken time to get to the point where we talk every day and tell each other abt bad days etc #any relationship takes time to flourish and for you to get comfortable so don’t be discouraged if it doesn’t happen right away! #mwah mwah sending hugs your way #🫂 #/ask

[maxdamax]

INTRO POST (finally)

good day, wonderful people of tumblr! here is a little bit about me: i'm just a young girl with an old soul trapped in the confinement's of who i want myself to be. i could be an ocean, yet here i am, a mere raindrop in the delicate tapestry of the universe. loved, yet unwanted. heard, yet misunderstood. beautiful, yet insecure. a living oxymoron.

im also the eldest daughter (of 3 siblings) in a desi family, a scorpio, neurodivergent (ADHD), bisexual, probably panromantic and a dog & cat mother. take what you want from that.

you can call me max! (she/they) -> please visit my pronouns page!

content you can expect to see here: POETRY! PROSE! MIDNIGHT RAMBLINGS! WEB-WEAVES! also a bunch of random reblogs of OG art / writing and activist stuff, deep shitposts and insightful garbage.

btw, i'm tryna to meet new ppl on tumblr, so if you'll be nice, you are welcome to send asks and/or tag me on anything you think i will like, including your own content so i can rb! i crave more poetry and art!

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WHAT I DO AND WHAT I LOVE:

my favourite music artists - queen, joan jett and the blackhearts, fall out boy, amy winehouse, bon jovi, guns n roses, tina turner, ella fitzgerald, bob dylan, taylor swift, and many, many, many more!

hobbies! - trekking, writing, reading (literally any genre), researching hyper fixations, embroidery, playing the guitar, meeting new people, discovering new cultures, soccer, volleyball, cricket, swimming, eating, breathing, photography.

my most re-read books - the 7 husbands of evelyn hugo (taylor jenkins reid), guards! guards! guards! (terry pratchett) and heartstopper (alice oseman)!!

my favourite poets - beau taplin, sylvia path, william shakespeare, amanda lovelace, albert camus, kahlil gibran, oscar wilde, camille paglia, courtney peppernell and countless others!

languages i speak: english, hindi, spanish, marathi (in order of fluency) and currently learning gujrati & german, so i'm welcome to asks in any of these languages :)

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MY WIPS:

a star’s wish (poetry): a collection of poetry all centring around the natural world and the natural state of humans.

blood into ink (thriller): the MC is a badass engineering major in Delhi, who after killing her rapist, has a side job of killing other peoples abusers. she falls in love on the way!

dying without living (historical fiction): 5 teenaged orphaned siblings living in Belgium during WWII. the story follows their survival of the war. nevertheless, *spoiler* they all were ultimately killed by racist cops after moving to USA. 

meaningless letters that meant something to me: a deeply personal collection of letters written to the people in my life. to the random stranger who smiled at me, to my parents, to my old friends.

*dm me if you would like an excerpt of WIP 1, 2 or 3!

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ATTENTION! HUMANS OF ALL TYPES:

here is a post i made a while back. i'm pinning it along with my intro just in case it helps someone. i know that many a time, life is so fucking hard. but its worth it. ohhh its so fucking worth it. please live. please. i love you. here:

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anyways... i hope you have a beautiful day! 🩵

i hope whatever you see/read on this blog lets you learn a little bit more about how the mundanity of everyday moments is what makes up a life. and i hope you learn a little more about yourself too <33

P.S. i will be updating this whenever i learn something new about me

P.P.S. if anyone wants to read poetry written by me, search the tags '#poetry', '#writers on tumblr', '#spilled ink' or '#prose' under my blog!

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FREE PALESTINE!!

https://www.tumblr.com/sulfurcosmos/732456971539775488/how-you-can-help-palestine

DON'T FORGET ABOUT THE CONGO!!

https://www.tumblr.com/alwaysbewoke/736349486350286848/ok?source=share

#intro post #introduction #desiblr #writeblr #poemblr #queer writers #muslimblr #tumblerina #long overdue #musicblr #bon jovi #female writers

[strawbrygashez]

ur rb from an hr ago… im late oops

👄 for p2 and narrator

🌑 for tyler

🍺 anyone of ur choice :з

ITS FINE! NO ONE HAS SENT ASKS ABOUT IT ANYWAYS :,D

👄 (Kiss hc)

Tyler- He’s really good at kissing since I think he’s uh.. had a lot of practice 💀 he’s probably had hook ups upon hook ups.. so he knows what he’s doing and is pretty good at it. It’s enough to make Narrators head spin at least 💀 but I guess even if Tyler was shit at kissing Narrator would still feel like he’s in heaven.

Narrator- Kinda awkward about it, hasnt had a lot of practice, and is that type of guy to give dry little pecks. It’s almost makes me think of some like.. Christian guy who doesn’t wanna do anything too hot n heavy until after marriage 😭 but of course if we are talking about if he’s with Tyler, he tries his best to keep up with him during make out sessions 🤭 probably even slips into being really desperate with his kisses if Tyler isn’t basically eating his face like he wants him too. Smh.

🌑 (A dark HC)

Tyler- hmmm. I’m not sure how to answer this one without just making it basically the sad hc question but I’ll answer with two things. One, the one that’s taking this as more of a sad thing, is that I think he struggles really bad about how he acts. Like he doesn’t wanna act the way he does sometimes but he just can’t stop :0 like having manic episodes, being impulsive & expecting the Narrator to read his mind. Like if he actually sits there he can acknowledge he has things he needs to work on (well. The manic episodes thing can only slightly be helped) but he just kinda pushes those thoughts away when something else catches his attention. Like he will be zoning out sometimes, almost dissociating but then he’ll hear Narrator coming in after work and he’s back to being himself & be like “:D JACK?!?!” and puts on his cool guy persona to meet him downstairs lol.

The other thing is that I think he used to be a little bit of a bully growing up :/ he wasn’t really absolutely terrible I think but I’m sure there were a good amount of moments where he’s said some random shitty things to people who weren’t even really bothering him. I think this bc of the scene where Tyler meets Bob. Also he just is kinda canonically the type of guy to shit talk everyone he thinks he’s better than lol.

🍺(Drunk HC)

Tyler- I feel like it takes a him a lot of drinks to start feeling anything but when he does start feeling it, he’s starts clinging onto narrator and gets all whiny when the narrator tries to leave or just get up momentarily (which has narrator sitting back down at the speed of light 💀).

If it’s in a party setting, I can see him trying to dance but he’s stumbling around a lot & probably spills his drink onto some people lol. I think drinking for him mostly just helps him feel more relaxed and lets him feel like he can put his guard down a little because he can just excuse any ‘soft’ or ‘lame’ moments he has on the drinking.

Narrator- drinking usually helps him get a confidence boost & leads him to being more wild. He’s so much more likely to say all kinds of nasty, loving, sweet things right to Tyler’s face when he’s drank so much. He pulls the first moves on him alllll night :3

He gets really embarrassed the next morning though when Tyler reminds him of the things he said and did.

#asks

[mcl4r3n]

the mclaren article is weirdly worded but i have to say that i really don't get why people are shitting on lando for it? like he was talking about the team's and the car's development in that part, and he's absolutely right too

monza 2021 was a fucking miracle because the mclaren car (and team) has been shit for a lot of years, and daniel (and lando) outperformed the car by like 500% that weekend. now the car is good and it is probably the first time in five years that they're actually continuously close to the other race-winning cars so yes, they are getting closer to winning races

like i really don't think it's as deep as that post makes it out to be. like if people would just actually read the article and see the context and not be blinded by their hatred of lando (and mclaren), i think they'd see what lando was talking about

but alas some people just want to hate lando. i mean, that boy could say "oh, i love daniel! he's a good guy!" and people would find a way to shit on him for not calling daniel a great guy instead lmao

(also sorry for being angry in your inbox, moss. nothing i said was aimed at you, i promise 🩷 monza 2021 will always be the dando day for us because it changed their friendship forever and we love that..... it's also dando day because they were so severely homoerotic with each other afterwards that it gave us the dando nation we know and love today)

- dando anon

It is weirdly worded because it made it seem like they'd never scored a win in the last five years. And likely, Lando was mostly talking about himself—sometimes boy runs his mouth before deciding on the nuances of what he's saying. But anyway, it's likely that the implication of the erasure of Monza 2021 is what's rubbing a lot of people the wrong way.

And I don't speak for anyone but myself, I just have always gotten this vibe that Monza 2021 felt like such a fluke to a lot of people. There are many who discredit that win by saying that it wouldn't have happened if Maxy and Lewis hadn't crashed out. There are others who will say that it should have been Lando's and would have been his if team orders hadn't prevented it. There are others who will say that "all Lando does" is "whine" for team orders. Idk. I just got here. People will believe what they're gonna believe.

It's true that many people will blindly hate on him for every single thing he says, and that's led me to blocking a LOT of people tbh because like you said, it isn't that deep.

It frustrates me personally as someone who loves Daniel first and foremost, and also loves Lando, to know that McLaren is central to that friendship, both for good and for bad.

I've seen people who have said that people need to stop babying Daniel about his time at McLaren for a whole slew of reasons, stop acting woe is me, etc etc. But also like it leaves me uneasy because Daniel—PR-trained up the wazoo, almost pathologically non-confrontational—outright saying that he no longer wants to talk about his time at McLaren, coupled with Simon saying that Danny was "hollow" after he came back to RB. . . it's like. How bad. How deep does this shit run. This is just the tip of the iceberg of what we know.

Then flip it over to Lando, who LOVES McLaren. Loves it. Is loyal to it. Carries the team colors with a pride that I only see in one other person on the grid (Charles). He wants his wins to be with McLaren. His devotion only pales in comparison to Charles because being papaya army isn't as religiously-tinged as being Tifosi seems to be.

SORRY I JUST FULLY WENT ON A TANGENT HERE!!!!! Anyway!!! back to your point. Yes Lando's right that this is the best the car has performed in a while. Two P2s this year after that incredible upgrade. If RBR wasn't as insanely powerful this year with their rocketship rn, we'd for sure be seeing really fun battles between Lando and Max. Hell, throw Oscar into the mix too, the way the McLaren has been consistently performing these last couple of races since the upgrade.

ANYWAY. Thank you for this message Dando anon even if my response was soooooo long-winded and all over the place skdkfkfkd. We will always have Monza 2021. ♡

I even have it framed hahaha ♡

#dando anon #IM SORRY THIS IS SO LONG AND ALL #OVER THE PLACE!!!!! #no one shout at me #please i am just a new fan

[fangirleaconmigo]

heya -

you did a four character game back in like, october, and what you wrote hit me so hard that i sometimes still visit the post/screenshot i have of it if i’m feeling particularly. sad. it’s one of the most important things anyone has ever said to me and you literally don’t know anything about me but it’s cool. and then at the end of my feels i always look at the tags you left , uh ,, ‘sorry im fully drunk right now’ and that is so goddamn funny. you suck. anyway i just looked at the screenshot again & thought maybe i should tell you. i had tony stark, sherlock, lambert, & iroh

Hello! Ok. I’ve read your ask a few times and I’m not completely sure how you feel about me because tone on the internet is hard. It seems like you like visiting the post but then you say that I suck so I’m not 100% sure 😅

So I am just gonna plow ahead and tell you how I feel about those posts. For those reading who weren’t following then or don’t remember, almost six months ago I posted this:

Ok, how about this game? Send me four pics of your favorite blorbos and I will psychoanalyze you.

Here’s how it works:

Send four pics

I need to know at least three of them. If it is live action scifi and fantasy, I’m very likely to know them. (If you want to do animated, I won’t know them unless it’s ATLA, Arcane, or Castlevania. I won’t know any video games other than The Witcher.)

I will psychoanalyze you.

This is for entertainment and fun. I am not a psychologist.

i might be too close for comfort. I might be incorrect. Pls pls pls don’t be mad. I don’t know you. This is just for fun.

I’ll do this til tomorrow.

Send me your blorbos.

I think waaaaaaaay too deeply about fiction, as anyone who follows me knows. I also think a whole lot about psychology and human behavior. That’s been more for my own survival.

So I thought hey this will be fun. I’ll look at the characters. I’ll find a common thread of emotional impact each of these characters can have on people. I’ll find a common point of emotional connection between them all. Then I’ll free flow.

And on one hand it was fun. I really do like doing it.

But on the other hand I started getting really really anxious every time I answered one. What if I missed the mark and offended the asker? Or worse? What if I hit too close to home and made them feel too vulnerable?

I know it’s just fictional characters and I was clear that it was for fun and I tried to come from a place of affection and positive uplifting thoughts for each person.

BUT STILL I didn’t know how I was making each person feel and that was freaking me out because what if I was making them feel bad?? (I often worry about the way I make people feel on the internet. I can’t see you guys so I don’t know how I’m making you feel so I get neurotic about it.) and not everyone responded to my answer and so ofc I just worried twice as hard when that happened.

So I have actually a lot of those asks left sitting unanswered in my ask box. It was really popular. People sent me asks who didn’t follow me, so even though people didn’t all rb their posts, it somehow broke containment (people were maybe sharing in dms or discord?) and I got a lot of them. But at some point my worry and anxiety about it stopped me finishing answering them. And now it’s six months later and I don’t know what to do with the posts I still haven’t answered. Would it be weirder to answer them or not answer them?

Anyway. Back to your post.

Everything I answer and put out there is with love even when inebriated and overly honest. And I just went back and reread my answer to you and went yep. That’s still what I see as the connective tissue between those characters. I hope on the balance it was a positive experience for you.

#asks #four character game

[egcdeath]

Hello! I have a question. Is there any trick to getting exposure when posting a fic? I’m about to start posting my first series I’ve been working on, but I’m not established in the community as a writer. Do I just say F it and post it and hope that it does well? I just don’t want to get discouraged if it gets no traffic because then I’ll lost momentum and not want to post anything else you know?

hii!! i’m not gonna lie, my numbers have gone down a lot recently so i may not be the BEST person to ask but i’ve also been writing here for a few years now so i’ve seen some fics flop so hard i want to delete the fic (and my account) and i’ve seen some numbers that make my eyes bulge out of my head like a cartoon character.

i would definitely say the character or pairing you’re writing for definitely impacts your numbers a lot. for example, i wrote two moon knight fics right as the show was ending, and those two got a lot of traction primarily because the show was SUPER popular. compared to when i started writing for the mcu and the character i had been writing for hadn’t been in a movie for a while, so fics would get around 100-200 notes. so being aware of how popular a character or pairing is just so you know where to keep your hopes. also, if you’re REALLY curious, you can look up the pairing and see how well other stories with that pairing have been doing.

i would suggest putting out a post giving a super brief summary of what the story is about and asking if anyone wants to be tagged in it, that way you know for sure you have a few people who want to read it. the people you tag may not always RB, but it’s pretty likely they’ll at least like the fic!

if you want more exposure, i would also suggest using a large variety of tags (relevant to the story ofc) because people sometimes don’t look up stuff like x reader, but might look up x y/n.

the last piece of advice i have is not to get caught up in the numbers. some of my favorite fics i’ve written have flopped super hard, but at the end of the day, it’s fine because i wrote it for me. there was some post going around that basically write for yourself and post for the one person who’s gonna love it and honestly that’s so true. do what makes yourself happy! the engagement should be an afterthought. also, don’t beat yourself up too hard on numbers if it’s your first fic!! it’s a lot harder for people to find it anyway.

but definitely send me your fic once you post it! i will definitely reblog and leave you some feedback <33 happy writing!

#neptune answers #dancealongthelightofday

[petphantoms]

the abusive flower husbands thing does actually just come across as homophobic at some point. interpreting things in your own way is all well and good but as a gay man seeing people who are not gay men (from a lot of what I've seen anyway, not saying it's true for everyone), bending over backwards to say "no really they're abusive because I'm going to take these jokes and bits completely literally" it feels bad actually. I'm also not cool with the way people also tie this into scott being aro, bc I'm also aro and implying that he's abusive because he is aro is bad actually! sorry i really don't want to start anything this has just really been bothering me and you're the first to actually bring it up. it just has uncomfortable ties to the way people treat scott (as a character and as a real life person) as a gay man, and i think people should be more critical of these patterns

i had no idea scott was aro? huh! so i wont be able to comment on that fully because i havent seen it personally used as a point of discussion but that's really interesting..and im sure ur telling the truth i just. i havent seen it so i cant say much about my experience with it

other than that, yeah! like i said in my rb response, people dont tend to give the way that joel and grian and etc all bully jimmy the same treatment, where theyre Also horrible and abusive to jimmy etc, it just. it strikes me?

i know not EVERYONE who is interpreting FH as abusive hates scott or is even homophobic but it does just come off weird when people just don't seem to like... enjoy. the people involved at all. ... i enjoy some problematic ships because im interested in the dynamic and how things happened and the outcome, um. .. not because i hate this other guy??

idk if that makes any sense. id love to talk about the nuance and importance of media analysis and interpretation/representation of problematic relationships whether they be intentional or not but thats not rly what ur here for.

personally i do love discussion so if you have more shipping takes i am literally all ears, even if i disagree i really enjoy trying to understand different perspectives, which is a huge reason why i even made that post in the first place. it was a cry of frustration and confusion with what i was seeing because i had no context.

anyways everyone please remember we love eachother and to be civil and that im just here for discussion and understanding. i dont think FH is abusive personally, to me it reads as very just messing around and rough housing in a bad and unfamiliar situation (the life series is not like. a kind game, and 3l was the first! ofc theyre gonna be less comfortable).

i dont think its actually indicative of anyones personal beliefs unless theyre being freaks but i would implore everyone regardless of what you do or dont like both CCs and ships and etc to like. ask yourself why you dont like it, and where you're getting that information from, ykwim?

ok ty for the ask nonnie xx -🍄

#asks #in the mines #mod mooshroom

[octothorpetopus]

hello mashblr i just posted chapter 10 of this fic!!

it recounts the war partially through bj’s pov in the moment and hawkeye writing his memoirs in the future.

#im very proud of it tbh #so anyway if anyone would like to read it or just rb so other people can find it i would very much appreciate it 🙏 #mash #m*a*s*h #beejhawk #hunnihawk #bj hunnicutt #hawkeye pierce

[elizmanderson]

Wondering about how to find beta readers? Especially finding those who would understand what your writing. The previous question you answered was SO INCREDIBLY HELPFUL LIKE OIGHSODPIHGDL K - Especially about how to respond and work with beta reader feedback.

because my family had been my previous 'beta readers' which... the 'best' time was when I got into a huge slump and hated my comfort writing because my parents said my MC was too 'overdramtic' when I was just... describing and trying to process feelings that I've felt before with characters? It did not feel nice whatsoever and sent me spiraling. Another time I got kicked out of the house for the day for not wanting my NON-HUMAN characters to be gendered... but I digress.

Which brings me to my next question, how would I find people (preferably online) who can give me feedback and beta read? It's been difficult to find people IRL who are as excited/understand what I'm trying to write with my plant fairy escapism comfort.

Thanks for answering my questions! It means a lot to me. :)

this is, alas, a tricky question, because...guess where I used to meet beta readers? if you answered "Twitter," you are correct! and that's obviously considerably less viable than it once was (and less viable every day).

with that in mind: if anyone else reads this and has suggestions for similar events/hashtags/ways of connecting on other platforms (including Tumblr), please rb or comment!

at any rate, in general social media can be helpful for finding betas because there are often hashtags to use when you're looking for readers. sometimes there are even specific events to help writers connect with each other for critique purposes! again I'm unfortunately most familiar with this on Twitter, but for example there's been an event there called like CPmatch or something like that where folks would pitch their books and then interested people would comment like "wow yes I'd love to read this!"

personally most of my virtual beta readers are friends I met online just by talking about my books and learning about their books! while several of us are agented and/or published now, we all started in the same place: writers finishing up projects and hoping for good luck in the query trenches. so we'd all just shout excitedly about our books on Twitter, and that's how we found each other.

(hashtag events for writers - weekly, semi-weekly, or monthly events at a set time where the host asks questions/provides prompts and writers answer them and comment on others' answers. I'm sure they exist somewhere other than Twitter, but that's the only place I've seen them. not to be a broken record lol but I fear my knowledge about connecting with people online is more useless day by day because of the incompetent grapefruit now destroying my favorite platform.)

anyway, sometimes you'll be more excited about someone's book than they are about yours or vice-versa, but overall being genuinely interested in other writers' work and making friends with them over your shared interest is the best way to find future virtual betas, particularly betas who will understand what your books are trying to do (as opposed to what you described coming from your family).

and I know you said "preferably online," but just in case you ever have interest in in-person meet-ups: depending on your location, you may have a home region on NaNoWriMo (dot) Org, the official site for National Novel Writing Month. (I think I mentioned that in my last post, but if you're like "what the hell is that," lmk and I'll explain.) various regions may have in-person events in November, which is a great way to meet people irl!

(actually, speaking of NaNoWriMo, it's a great time to meet other writers virtually, too! use the tags "NaNo," "NaNoWriMo," or "National Novel Writing Month" to declare your participation and find other writers who are also doing it. the official site also allows group chats - I think there's a maximum of 20 people per chat - and don't quote me but I think you can request to be sorted randomly into one in case you don't already know anyone there.)

additionally, try googling writing groups in your area. there may not be any (and I have zero tips on how to start one, as I am much happier joining an existing group), but it's worth taking a look. in my area, we have an unofficial NaNoWriMo group that chats throughout the year on Discord (so online even though we're also close enough to see each other in person!), plus a weekly critique group that meets up at a Panera to share feedback, plus a weekly writing group that meets up at a local coffee shop to chat and get some writing done! even if your area doesn't have a critique-specific group, you can meet other writers in your area if that's something you're comfortable with and able to do.

(of course you should always meet people in a public place until and unless you get to know them well enough to feel comfortable meeting them somewhere private.)

I feel like this was basically no help at all because all my virtual meeting-other-writers experience came from Twitter, but:

tl;dr

use hashtags to indicate that you're looking for beta readers (don't ask me which hashtags; I've never personally done it this way)

join hashtag and beta-matching events on social media to meet people

connect with other writers on social media by shouting excitedly about your projects and theirs

if you participate in NaNoWriMo, meet people using relevant hashtags or on the NaNoWriMo website

to meet other writers in person, google writing groups in your area or check your NaNoWriMo home region to see if a group is active near you

#answered #beta reader #critique partners #writing tips #writing group #more info needed because I hail from twitter