#anyways!! who remembers this post tumblr will not let me forget it <3

[olderthannetfic]

You've encountered site changes over time as a fan elder, what do you make of Tumblr potentially being put out to pasture? Tumblr was my coming of age fan site, and im looking for advice to transition to the next thing with grace and less bitterness than I feel now.

--

Ahaha. God, you should have heard the howling about LJ. "Fandom is over!" "Never again shall we dwell in fandom's True Home!" etc.

Hell, this endless "only LJ was good" crap turns up in replies here on posts where I as OP have very clearly laid out why that's rose colored glasses nonsense and you can so make friends on tumblr, have a conversation on tumblr, etc.

I had my crabby phase about this during the transition from Yahoo Groups to LJ. A lot of the real olds had it over paper zines and the transition to the internet.

I don't know if reading these hilariously samey old posts would help. It does give perspective, I think.

--

As for what you should do, do what I did with Tumblr:

1.

Look around to identify the Next Thing fandom is going to camp out on.

It may take a few guesses and some time to figure this out. You will likely not be an early adopter. Fandom was well established here by the time I joined at the end of 2010. Of course, by now, all those 2009 and before accounts are long gone, but at the time, I was a n00b joining other people's space despite having been in fandom for ages.

2.

Don't expect to enjoy it

I didn't join tumblr because I liked it. In fact, I despised it. I kept right on despising it until a brief stint in Sherlock fandom, a fandom that was so active here at the time that I was able to finally see the good aspects of the site's structure and features.

This is the mistake a lot of people make. They give things a cursory try, don't enjoy them, and go "not for me", forgetting that the last site also had a steep learning curve that was either difficult or that they didn't notice because they were in a different phase of their life.

Bitterness and grief are, frankly, an inherent part of the process. You can try not to be a debbie downer in your public comments, but you can't just not feel those things during the awkward part of the transition. Sometimes, acting positive and cutting off excessively negative thoughts can make you feel less negative overall, but it doesn't happen immediately.

3.

Accept that feeling cranky and old is both a you problem and a state of mind, not a property of the new site

Relatedly, the way we remember fandom platform X feeling usually has more to do with us being in college with fandom friends down the hall or having discovered Our People for the first time or some other time when we had a lot of energy and positive emotions. Often, we were in the throes of a first or new fandom love too, probably for some megafandom that other people also cared about at the same time.

When fandom is leaving some site, there's a grieving process anyway, but we're also often in a worse part of our lives for starting new things. We're busy. We're tired. We're between fandoms. We feel like we already paid our dues to build up our community. Why should we have to start again?

But let me tell you, you always need to start again eventually. I go to a weekly vidders' zoom chat, and a lot of the people in there are old as balls, including Kandy, the person who invented vidding back in the 70s. She's a lot of decades and a few cancers in, and she had to relearn how to vid on a computer after transitioning from slideshows to VCR vidding back in the day. If bad health, platform changes, and dead friends were going to stop her, she'd be long gone.

It's like sharks: you stop swimming, you die.

This isn't just about fandom, obviously. It's about avoiding a midlife crisis and, later, about avoiding feeling emotionally geriatric even when your body is falling apart.

Change gets us all, but being mentally old is a choice. The real reason I gave tumblr such a try was that I had been so resistant to getting on LJ. I was 20. Even a year later, it was fucking embarrassing to have been a crotchety old hag as a college student. I promised myself I'd soldier through the next change instead of dragging my feet about it. And it totally worked in the end! But boy did it not make the transition any less unpleasant emotionally!

4.

Find your joy

As is obvious from the above, the vast majority of the problem is just emotions. Fandom has been on a million broken sites with shitty features. We go where the people are, regardless of whether it has the technological aspects we liked at the last place. The actual shape of that platform is largely irrelevant.

What does matter is whether we as an individual fan are still excited and happy about something. I was between fandoms recently and went looking around for BL series I hadn't watched yet. People kept suggesting things set in the present day with too-cheesy production values and too many banal schoolboys in modern day settings without even anything spicy going on. I realized that the BL/danmei scene wasn't really cutting it for me and I should go for production values and genre and non-canon ships. You probably scrolled annoyedly past the picspams that resulted.

(Of course, hilariously, someone has now shown me the trailer of Red Peafowl, so someone may be making BL that feels like it's for me after all. Look at all that badwrong and very dark color grading.)

When you're in a good place emotionally, it's a hell of a lot easier to weather any change, and when you have a new fandom, it's a lot easier to connect with other fans.

A lot of people wait around for lightning to strike twice. They found their first fandom by accident, and they expect it to happen seamlessly again. For me, it's far more productive to brute force it: collect up a big list of what's popular or what's new and go through it till you find things you might like, then try them all.

And part of this, obviously, is not waiting for other fans to make the party happen. The more you need to join something other people are already doing, the less choice you'll have in fandoms or in platforms. If you aren't picky and just go where the tropey longfic is, that can work, but even then, favorite authors disappear or go to fandoms you hate and former megafandoms dry up. If you're the one bringing the party, it's a lot easier to find a new fandom or platform or community to have fun in.

[rs-hawk]

Do you have any writing tips? Even if it’s not necessarily for smut?

I won’t be touching on tips for smut at all on this post but I can make a separate post for it if y’all want.

My Top 10 Writing Tips

Love all your characters. Yes, even your antagonists. Hell, especially your antagonists. Even if they’re evil for the sake of being evil, if you want a 3 dimensional character, you have to acknowledge that they’re more than just evil to someone. Their mother. Their friends. Their dog. You have to think of their motivations, and honestly?-acknowledge that every character you write has a part of you in them. Maybe just your anger, your fear, your trauma, but love them for that, and it’ll shape them and your works in ways you never thought of.

Don’t reread your work too often! It’s hard (so very very hard) but when you have to crank out 2k words a day every day of the month but 2 it gets easier. Lol. Fr though just keep chugging along. You can reread later. You can edit later. Just get it done.

Don’t edit too much while you’re still actively writing. I know that’s hard, I really do, but if you keep rewriting, you’ll never be able to finish. You’ll keep writing a handful of scenes over and over again until you hate it, your book and yourself for “giving up”. You can edit later.

Write for yourself. It doesn’t matter how good of a writer you are, how beautiful or eloquent your style, if you hate it with every fiber of your being, it’ll turn to dust in your hands. I consider writing work, and when people enjoy themselves at work, not only do they do better, but the consumer enjoys it more. Think about it. If you’re at a restaurant and the workers are laughing and smiling with each other and seem genuinely happy, you’re more likely to go back than if they’re miserable, on the verge of tears and seem to hate being there, right? The same is true for your writing. Readers will enjoy it more if they can feel how much you enjoyed creating it.

Don’t just write. Listen to music. Get up and go for a walk. Text/call a friend. Watch a TV show. Pet your cat. Experience something. It helps you write but it also reminds you that hey, you’ve been here like eight hours. Get something to drink. Take a screen break. Go outside.

Be comfortable while you write. I’m not going to lecture you on posture because I’m currently laying down with my legs drawn up under me, my upper body turned and my phone in the air because I’m trying to put enough pressure on my lower back to pop it. Anyway, even if you can’t stay in one position long, switch. Listen to your body. A “proper” posture can end up hurting you if you don’t ever relax or if you’re putting too much pressure on your lower spine. It’s okay to lean. It’s okay to lay down. It’s okay to sit cross-legged. Just not at the expense of your body. Be aware, and don’t forget to get up and stretch!

Take breaks. Eat. Drink. Stretch. Go to the bathroom. Some people need them scheduled, and that’s fine, but also listen to your body. If you need to use the toilet but you don’t have another break scheduled for an hour, just go. Pause your timer or delay your alarm if you want, but take care of yourself.

Don’t be too rigid with your “starting” plot. We know most of us have that one scene or one character in mind we want to write, so we create a plot around them. That’s fine and I love it, but your writing is like a living creature. You might change while writing it. Your characters and ideas might change while writing it. Let them change. Let you change! You can edit later.

Remember it’s not a race. Just because you see some people dropping 3 novels a year, or 5 Tumblr posts every day doesn’t mean you’re not good enough. No one can write what you write. No one can create what you can create. Your work deserves to exist and be judged on its own merit. Not compared to anyone else’s, even if it’s you five years ago who could crank out multiple posts daily. It’s okay.

Don’t expect anything. Start writing because you love it. It makes you happy. It itches that part of your brain that no other hobby does. That no other love does. I’ve been writing for about 15 years now. I don’t know who I am without it. I have tried giving it up, moving past it, doing other things, but I always come back. Nothing else makes me feel the way writing does. I have gone years without writing, but when I start writing again, it’s like a high. I can go for hours, and I have! I have been lucky to be able to monetize my work, but it took 10+ years and was only because I got goofy about werewolves on a PTR app. You can’t go into the arts and expect to make money right away, or ever. You can hope, and do your best, but don’t only do it because you think you’ll make a living. It’s a sad but real fact. Capitalism makes us think we should only do stuff we can make money off of, but that’s a lie. You can AND SHOULD create just to create. Humans are meant to make art, and if writing is your canvas like it is mine, write to create. Fuck capitalism. Your art existing is enough reason to create it.

#writers on tumblr #writing #author #queer writers #my writing #writers and poets #writerscommunity #writing tips #top 10 writing tips #top 10 #tips #writer things #writer problems #writers block #authors #i wrote this #i wrote something #stuff i wrote #i wrote some words #hope this helps #helpful #helpful tips #idk how to tag this #just trying to help #sorry it took so long #sorry this is so long

[silverflqmes]

ignore that im on my selfship account it’s luma lmao

some selfship questions for u and tooru <3

•does tooru get you flowers? if so, what kind?

ldoes tooru like to read books with you? or does he secretly collect all your favs and binge read them?

•what shows do you watch together?

•have you guys had any thoughts on marriage? (sorry if this makes you uncomfy i’ll note it for the future)

•do you guys match icons on like tumblr or insta?

•what couple do you resonate you and tooru with? like for example me and scara kinda resemble harley quinn and the joker (minus the toxicity)

•what video games do you guys play together? if you play genshin together, who does he main / what team does he use and do you do cute genshin couple things?

hi luma! no worries, i figured it was you😭 woohoo selfship questions, i’ll do my best to answer those<33

— tooru is the flower giving type!! i think he’s the kind of person to read into flower language and symbolism cuz like, it’s tooru.. he never does anything haphazardly and always wants to provide the best, so he definitely looks into their meanings before choosing accordingly depending on the occasion or mood<3 red roses are a common ( given their symbolism for love and passion ), forget me nots are also some he frequently sends ( often as a reassurance to me, along with himself ), daisies ( he remembers how i used to really like them as a kid, and brings them as a reminder of those times ) and a combo between lily of the valley and larkspur ( they’re the flowers of our birth months<3 )

— i think he would show interest in what i read and i would beg him on my hands and knees to read my favs, specifically the folk of air series, to scream with him!! bonus if he decided to annotate and swap copies with me so we could read each other’s comments<3 furthermore, he serenades me to sleep by reading on stressy nights :’) and just cuz his voice is so<3

— definitely star wars oriented shows.. the clone wars has consumed us wholly and we have not recovered from the siege of mandalore.. sitcoms FOR SURE, i love friends a completely normal amount, seinfeld too, modern family, big bang theory, king of queens, etc. anyway, other than that we’d probably watch a lottt of slice of life / romance anime since it’s super comforting and silly<333 although some shonen anime make certain exceptions ( owari no seraph my love ) OH AND CARTOONS BC OLD SPONGEBOB HUMOR >>>

— TOORU IS DEFINITELY A MARRIAGE KIND OF GUY and like same i want marriage too but later down the line cuz i wanna enjoy the youth and sillying around of dating.. but i think we would unironically refer to each other as husband n wife.. and act like a married couple.. proposing is gonna be a challenge because he wants to do it but i ALSO want to do it like babes let me get on my knee pls and propose to you like the king you are smh

— i don’t think tooru would be on tumblr, maybe he would be if he indulges in my nonsense.. so probably instagram!

— we are anakin and padmé for sure and take turns, although misaki and usui are definitely us too, as well as kuronuma and kazehaya ( THEY MAKE ME SO EMO AND NOT NORMAL )

— we play a lot of wii and ds games together pre timeskip, specifically super mario bros, mario kart, mario party, wii sports, just dance — all that jazz, and i would have begged him to indulge me in my tekken addiction despite the amount of times he would get his ass handed to him BAHAHAHAHA ( he’s petty bc i use asuka since she counters attacks ) now post timeskip, we would definitely play ssbu because it’s just sm fun ( a-and um um sephiroth…. ) — now i would get my ass handed here instead.. and of course we cannot forget the hit game GENSHIN IMPACT!!! bro mains either tartaglia, ayato or alhaitham because i am not normal about them and he makes it a goal to tease me using them.. think he probably uses vaporize a lot to stick to my synergy or spread; as for couple things, we definitely take each other to pretty locations we found or help one another with grinding / quests. if there are also co-op games, those too!! for the rest, we’d probably take turns on ffvii since it’s single player and i have a tendency to throw a controller at someone when things get too heated.. prepare yourself tooru!! especially if sephi is the final boss..

#luma🫶 #— ; 🏹 ) toorellie. #whoops i wrote too much.. #I CANT DO ANYTHING WITHOUT BEING DESCRIPTIVE #ahem anyways thank you for the questions luma<3 i will send some soon LMAO

[theflyingfeeling]

well said, Niko 👏

so I went to exit my emotions in Germany last weekend, details below:

we went to the shows in Berlin & Leipzig, with a VIP experience for the latter

and guyyyyyyyyssss let me tell you, BC really did not lie when they said we were there to Exit our Emotions 😩 the shows went straight to the very top of my personal BC shows list, the energy was amazing and all the new songs sounded incredible live, even the ones that weren't necessarily my #1 favourites, like Where's the Exit and Wolves in California. Especially the former sounds sooooooooooooooo good live 💖

and because I was there mainly to enjoy myself and to exit the fuck out of my stupid useless emotions, I barely took any videos or pictures (I never take pictures anyway, how do y'all manage to take such amazing shots at shows?!) despite having relatively good spots to do so. I kinda wish I had more so I could think back to the shows afterwards, but on the other hand I felt like I got way more out of the show when I put my undivided focus on it, and besides indoor shows are always challenging on that regard due to the flashing lights etc. and I felt like every time I was going to film the lighting was not appropriate so in the end I just couldn't bother 😅

I don't really have much else to report from Berlin other than that the venue was great, I had an excellent view and had the best time ever 🥰

not least because I met so many BC tumblr friends!! it was so nice seeing everyone, please come to the Nokia Arena show y'all, we'll be your host it's hocus pocus 🥺

and then there was Leipzig 🥴

I mean, this is my initial reaction immediately after it (written in my drafts):

🙈🙈🙈🙈🙈🙈🙈

but yeah, as you can see from this post, @exitemotions and I had bought some silly little gifts to give the guys (rock hand glass markers not pictured), and we were so incredibly chill about the whole thing, like, NO ONE has ever been as chill as we were in advance of the VIP experience, I'm tellin' ya 💅

(we were so chill in fact that when we came back to the hotel room afterwards, we noticed we had forgotten the ceiling light on. you know, because that's how chill and zen and calm we had been upon leaving for the venue 💅💅💅💅💅)

the acoustic set was fucking cute, almost like a little campfire hangout 🥺

about giving the gifts and having our pictures taken: I feel like I was working on some kind of autopilot and can barely remember much anything 🙃 which I'm kinda mad at myself about lol, but I guess the guys liked the gifts (Olli said the glass markers were important, as my foreword for them was that they'd no longer have to fight about which glass/cup was whose, and I remember Tommi saying that socks are always useful. the others are owners of feet as well, so I suppose they agree 🧦)

we had made all sorts of grand plans for our individual pictures with the band but ended up with having "regular" ones after all, because while there was no feeling of rush per se at the m&g, everything was still happening relatively fast and sort of in their own course, and if we had wanted to do any funny poses or whatever, we should've been faster and in a little...sharper mental state to ask for them 😂😭

but we were chill though, I promise 💅

(I'm just cringing at myself so hard because I look like a fucking teacher standing for a class photograph 😂💀 it's funnier if you know I'm actually a teacher lol)

during the show we were on 2-3 row because we kinda missed our cue to run and reserve our spots before the acoustic set. personally I blame Santeri the tour manager for this (and also the fact that there were so many people there who had already been to VIP on this tour before, so they knew what to do 🤷‍♀️ meanwhile we were just left standing like "...wat 🧍‍♂️")

the show was just as great as the Berlin one, I honestly can't put them in order because they were both amazing and really made me forget about my sad little life 🖤

Rock Band From Hell was also alright. the one with no shirt on was hot

Ghost Kid was cool too. the one with no shirt on was hot

...so hot in fact that I already fell in love with him at the Berlin gig, and so when we were on our way to the merch booth after the Leipzig show, we ran into him and I flirted chatted with him a bit and had my picture taken with him 🥰 he was soooooo sweet and funny and I hope he'll stay true to his promise and keep the thing I said to him ('the drummer of BC could never [swirl the drumstick in his fingers in between every beat like you do]') "just between you and me" 🤭

from the merch booth I bought the XOXO longsleeve which looks super nice (sadly the quality isn't as super though dfgdgdsdh)

the next day it was time to return home, and as @kraeuterhexchen was seeing me to my platform at the railway station, I broke into tears in the middle of an escalator and didn't stop crying until boarding my plane lol

it's just that I was really nervous about travelling back to the airport from Leipzig because I had two changes of trains and the horror stories I've heard of Deutsche Bahn always being late were only adding to it, and that stress somehow triggered some sort of emotional meltdown in me and I realised the trip that I had been waiting for 6 MONTHS was now ending?? there had been so much talk about how we'd "do this and that when we go to Berlin/Leipzig and see BC" and now it's all done and gone and ?????? how does one move on after that 😭

but mostly I've been crying about the gift I gave to Olli 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

some of you have already heard about this, but I had made Olli this pin cushion ring:

...because I wanted to "support his sewing hobby", as I told him then sdhfhdfhfhfh

he seemed to really appreciate it, and as I demonstrated how handy it was (because you can wear it and easily put the pins there while sewing instead of having to reach to a pin cushion further away on the table), he told me he only had this huge pin cushion ("a brick" he called it, the one you can see on this video), and aaaahhhhh I'M SO ANGRY AT MYSELF for not remembering much else or barely daring to even look at him to see his reaction 😭 I do remember he got very excited when he heard he was getting a sewing-related gift though ("yessss" he said, if my memory doesn't fail me too bad) 🥺🥺🥺😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

and I'm so sad I didn't even get a picture of him with it, because Joona the photographer was in the possession of my phone at that moment 😔 and I also forgot to tell him I had made it myself, though I believe it's self-evident. but, you know. still 😭

and the reason why I've been so emotional about it is because I had made the ring weeks ago already, shortly after the album release event, and since then I have admired it every day (because hellooooo is it not the cutest?!) and I had imagined all the scenarios in which I'd give it to him, what I'd say about it and how he'd react to it (I wondered if he'd even know what it was, but of course he immediately recognized it as a pin cushion when I showed it to him 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭), and yesterday it just suddenly hit me that when I'd be back home, the ring would no longer be there on my table for me to admire and hold in my hands, because Olli has it now? it's OLLI'S now, as intented, and yeah idk why but even now, two days later, I'm still literally crying about it as I'm writing this because I had grown strangely attached to that silly trinket and now I'll probably never see it again 🥺😭 (I guess I should just make one for myself too lol, my old one that I made almost 17 years ago is a wee bit shabby)

anyway, if anyone sees him, can you please tell him to take good care of it 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

the world's biggest thanks to everyone who I hung out with on this trip, but especially to @kraeuterhexchen whose stunning art I can now admire in calendar form on my kitchen wall every month of the year (yes I shall keep you updated):

...and to @another-sun the organizer extraordinaire, as well as to my travelling companion @exitemotions (thanks for all the laughs with a touch of chaos in between <3)

here's me with BC again, the only other picture that's not blurry af lol

in conclusion, 🎵 never again, never again 🎵

...until next time 👀

#gig reports by theflyingfeeling #was that even my tag idk #sorry for cutting that video short but i wanted to exit emotions 👋 #and sorry to disappoint anyone with whom i talked about that fun pose idea for my individual picture with the band 🙈 #but olli was already pocketing the thing (because i gave it to him (because he was reaching his hand towards it)) #so i was like welp there goes my chance ig #and i felt i had already wasted enough of their time lol (with all the other gifts + having pics taken together with @exitemotions)

[unrequitedloveletter]

Hi!! Wylan x reader who’s an inventor of sorts & just made a camera for the sole purpose of taking a picture of him <3 👾

Wylan x male! inventor! reader headcanons

hi!! Thank you for sending in the requests that you have and I'm sorry that they've taken so long to come out! I will say that tumblr has been very glitchy on my end lately and I've been losing requests and not seeing them for a bit--or ever again, some of them have been missing from my inbox for a couple weeks now--so if there's anything of yours I've missed that you can recall that you really wanted me to write please don't hesitate to just plop the idea into my inbox! If I end up deciding to write it I'll put it into my drafts to ensure I don't lose it but if I decide not to, I'll let you know!

I went ahead and did this as headcanons, which I hope is all right!

Fic type- this is just fluff straight out the gate

Warnings- this was written and then posted almost immediately after it was done, so there's not much to speak of as far as editing is concerned

Okay, so!

Photos as a concept were something that was being discussed just generally around Ketterdam a lot

Mainly in circles of the stadwatch because if they could get photos they could have evidence through more than some very shoddy paintings, sketches, or word of mouth

and with a lot of effort, a level of planning by which even Kaz would be impressed, and a bit of practice in being startlingly quiet footed, you wormed your way into the rooms where those discussions were taking place because you had an idea of your own.

You took the words spoken by government officials and inventors under the Kerch Merchant Councils employ and went home. You drew up a plan that was completely different to the sketches you'd seen while you observed from a point high in the ceiling, the back of your head pressed against a wall as you willed yourself not to breathe too loud and to avoid being noticed

You developed the first camera that Ketterdam had ever seen across the weeks to follow, something different to the sketches you'd seen from afar while you listened to the government drone on about how much of a benefit to society cameras would be while they were in the hands of the stadwatch

The ideas that the government were circulating all involved relatively clunky cameras, ones with tripods that came out the bottom and were exceptional only in stationary situations.

You developed a camera that you could take anywhere. It was lightweight, could fit between ones hands, and had the option of attaching a strap so that it could be carried while slung over ones neck.

The entire motivation behind the project made you feel a bit silly, but Inej found it to be rather romantic and Jesper thought you cheesy, as they were the only two you had told until the first prototype of the camera was complete.

They were your best friends, and they'd both happened to walk in on you planning out the invention at different points, ask what it was out of curiosity and receive your honest answer.

The entire reason you'd liked the idea of cameras was not for the gang related purposes most would've assumed had they known of it. You were not developing a portable camera to help Kaz and Inej gather intel for their schemes and their battles that would eventually have lead to a gang war.

You liked the idea of cameras because it meant you could take photos of Wylan, your boyfriend.

You could capture the moments where he looked so at peace while the two of you watched the sunset in the garden, the look of focus as he worked on an explosive, the sight of his head tilted back as he laughed.

You could capture all of the unforgettable moments that you were scared of forgetting anyway, seconds in time wherein you felt infinitely happy and needed something to remember that.

So, it was the first night you'd let yourself exist with the final product that Wylan finally discovered it.

He discovered it while he and Inej were laughing, glasses of wine in their hands when suddenly--

click!

Wylan glanced in your direction, where the sound had come from, found you yielding the camera with a grin on your face.

He would ask you how you got it and nod when Kaz observed that the government had unveiled prototypes that looked completely different at a discussion only open to those living in the merchants district.

You would shrug and tell him you invented things, and that you needed an excuse to get five steps ahead of government inventions anyway.

You were smarter than the lot of the government idiots combined and they wouldn't start shrinking camera sizes for a bit by your predictions, so you had time before a government official got wind of it all and approached you, offering to give you money in exchange for the patent and you said no.

You told Wylan the opposite of the truth in that moment, not wanting to get called a hopeless romantic or face any of Ninas teasing for the romantics right then and there.

You told him and the rest of them it was for intel gathering purposes and that it was the first prototype--Kaz would get the second, maybe the third, and he would get it for a price because you weren't going to sell one of them off for cheap.

Wylan knew you were lying but didn't push it.

Later that night, you told him the real reason you'd bothered to invent a camera that was so far ahead of the one that the Merchant Council was unveiling in fits and starts.

You'd done it because you didn't want to forget even the most unforgettable moments, and upon learning that, Wylan nearly melted.

He kissed you, and he told you he loved you, and he called you an absolute sap before he grabbed the camera and looked at the photo you'd taken.

He loved it. He'd never quite anticipated loving anything of that sort, but he looked genuinely happy in that split second, and knowing that you were the person behind the camera made him love the photo that much more.

In short, he loved you and he loved that you created a camera just to take photos of him and to not worry about forgetting the unforgettable moments you both lived through.

#wylan van eck #wylan van eck x reader #six of crows #shadow and bone #shadow and bone netflix

[my-castles-crumbling]

My opinion of you? Hmmmm. Well honestly, my opinion of you… really fucking good.

I dunno how comfortable you are with compliments so i’m putting a little warning here; compliments incoming :)

Firstly, you are an awesome writer. Like genuinely. Plus it’s so impressive that you write/post those microfics everyday, it’s serious (sirius haha) dedication, and most ppl wouldn’t have it in them to keep a routine like that. 

Two, you have legit saved people. People here felt safe enough to ask you for help, and from all i’ve seen, you’re damn good at giving advice. 

Plus I saw that one anon you answered where you told the person not to admit they cheated if it’d get them in more trouble than they deserve, and I salut you for that. (I remember you also told them that cheating is wrong and mostly don’t do it- don’t worry I got the right message). 

Anyway, my point is, there aren’t many places people feel safe enough to talk about their problems or insecurities or even dangers. Especially on the internet. So you’ve made a really good community here. You should be proud. 

But we’re doing full honesty right? So honestly, I think that it seems like sometimes you don’t have enough faith in yourself. 

I mean your fics are amazing, but also, they’re fucking free and a gift to the fandom. So you shouldn’t feel the need to meet anyone’s demands or be good enough for anyone but yourself. 

And here, you have helped so many people, I understand insecurity is a part of living, but maybe you don’t get how helpful your blog is. Whenever I come on here, you’ve posted a microfic or made a marauders joke or truly helped someone (with annoyingly good advice btw, i’m an adult and yet NO WHERE NEAR as mature, so good on u), and it’s soothing. You’re soothing.

Give yourself credit, is what i’m saying. 

You’re allowed to feel proud that you help people, proud that people love your writing, and ignore anyone who’s an asshole cause they’re dumb anyway.

And don’t forget that you don’t owe anyone anything. You don’t owe anyone a fic, or a tumblr post or an anon answer or even (within reason) kindness. You’re being generous with your time and your kindness by helping people. And while obviously that’s a good thing, you shouldn’t feel pressured to do so. 

Wait let me rephrase that- anyone who pressures you to do so is a bad person and should be strongly ignored. 

You don’t have to apologise for not wanting to post or be on social media. And anyone who cares should value that you’re taking time for yourself. 

Plus, and sorry if it’s weird to bring up your like, real life, but I think you’re probably a really great teacher. I didn’t have many people who believed in me growing up and you seem like someone who believes in people. And that’s what matters most. 

(Plus all teachers are criminally underpaid so like- good for you sticking with a half shitty job- though then again all jobs are half shitty) 

Also, and in this day and age this is a truly high compliment, you don’t seem like you’ve ever sent hate. 

You just have that vibe. You know… nice :)

So yes, that is my opinion of you.

Also, random question, how much gory stuff in films can you take? Usually i’m pretty alright, but I watched a pretty gross film earlier and it reminded I can’t watch everything gory. 

So yeah… that’s all ❤️

Hi, um...I am SO sorry, my my allergies are terrible and I seem to be sweating from my eyes....nothing to see here...😭😭😭😭

Thank you. Genuinely. I have honestly been struggling a fair amount lately, so notes like this make a much bigger difference than you would think <3

As far as films, I'm alright with gore. I actually LOVE horror films, but I prefer psychological horror and horror based on East Asian legends.

Thank you again <3 <3 <3

#ask #asks #ask cas

[rocketturtle4]

On Repeat tag game

In the unlikely event anyone saw the original version of this post that was up for 12 minutes before I realised I'd done it wrong and panic-deleted it only to realise 12 seconds later that no one would KNOW I'd done it wrong...

...no you didn't

It's Friday evening, I'm blaming weekend brain.

ANYWAY

Tagged by @visualtaehyun @sorry-bonebag and @thegalwhorants I feel so popular! Thankyou!✨

The game: Put your Spotify On Repeat playlist on shuffle and post the first 10 songs! (don't forget the shuffle like I definitely didn't)

Let's see what happens, I was very relieved to realise this is like RECENT on repeats lol, if it had been for the whole year...who knows what would have appeared. My music get's updated very rarely but recent joining of a spotify blend has dragged my music tastes kicking and screaming towards a little bit of variance lol.

Also this On Repeat thing is very cool so TY for the new feature!

Unsteady by X Ambassadors

ahhh what an opener. As some of you may know my bestie @plantsarepeopletoo has been breaking down the Only Friends music on the regular (it's so interesting, the music is almost predictive of the character arcs!!) and occasionally sharing the feeeeeels with me and @shouldiusemyname as they work through it. As part of this we have regularly discussed other songs that remind us of different characters and relationships in OF and this song put me deeeep in my Ray feels after Ep...5? or maybe 6 and yep I've been playing it A LOT ever since.

2. Mad love - Sped Up Version by Mabel, Speed Radio

I don't even remember how I found this one but it's a vibe

3. SPARK by A.C.E

Ooooh interesting, I recently finished a rewatch of Light On Me where I was reminded how much I love the ending song hence this!

4. Don't Blame Me by Taylor Swift

I'm with you @thegalwhorants, I'm a swifty, not a big one, but her voice and music are excellent. Plus Reputation yk?

5. Free Fall by Slot Machine

Lol is commentary even necessary? I'm not even a huge KP fan but this song kills

6. I do not know how to write/copy Thai sorry but its by Selina and Sirin

The Only Friends feels are everywhere it seems. But this is SUCH a beautiful song.

7. betty by Taylor Swift

Same swifty disclaimer as before, this is one of my all time fav T Swift songs and I will take no judgement.

8. Belly Dancer by Imanbek, BYOR

Now here's a throwback I'm surprised to see on my repeat playlist, I guess I listened to it enough that it's lasted lol, for a while I studied to this song on repeat for hoooooours. Don't know why but the repetition is non-distracting, Mad Love above falls into that category too.

9. Pretend by Nanon

Ahhh now this is no surprise, I am currently on ep 13 of the Jungle, hoping to finish it this weekend and this song is gorgeous. Love it, love Nanon, love The Jungle.

10. Bad Habits (feat. Bring Me The Horizon) by Ed Sheeran

oooh finishing off with Ed that rounds it out nicely. Ed Sheeran's concert came to my state in little old down under in March of this year and it was my first ever concert. Love his music and the concert was AMAZING. Though this version of the song can actually be blamed on a recent blend I've joined to drag my music kicking and screaming into any sort of variance as my personal playlists have the original.

I have NO Idea who has already played cause my PhD has suddenly dumped three projects which need immediate attention in my lap all at once so my tumblr time has vanished into the ether.

Of course I COULD stop watching 15 shows at once but they'd have to STOP AIRING first

[Image of Ayan from The Eclipse saying "I don't get myself either"]

Soooo @grapejuicegay @wanderlust-in-my-soul @pandasmagorica play if you want and if you already have feel free to tag me retroactively! I basically only see stuff if I'm tagged these days... or if they happen to appear in the 20 random posts I see at some point through my day.

#tag game #music tag game #on repeat tag game #rturts is wondering #Spotify

[lorillee]

3, 6, 14, 16. i want to see blood

3. screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr

i have to say the last one i talked about srsly takes the cake but another one i always think of is one person who was complaining about sabo from one piece's existence and was like .wait actually hold on i just remmebred there was this really annoying ace fan i saw let me see if i can dig up me complaining about it ACTUALLY WAIT NO NEVERMIND I JUST REMEMBERED A THIRD REALLY BAD ONE PIECE TAKE. sorry idk if you know one piece thats fine im goign to complain about ti anyways. for my remaining 5 one piece followers i will srsly never forget this one person who was genuinely ocmplaining about the end of whole cake island and OMG NOOOOO SORRY I WAS GOING BACK TO FIND THE POST AND I FOUND THIS ALSO

like im sorry youve srsly gotta be so crazy stupid to be making this kind of post DID YOU READ THE STORY WITH YOUR EYES OPEN....... "if any of you bothered to ask or care about me and my trauma" <- op forgot wci existed. EXCEPT SHE DIDNT BECAUSE SHE JUST HATES WCI APPARENTLY?!?@?!@??@$?#$?!?? BECAUSE ACCORDING TO HER THE STRAW HATS JUST DIDNT CARE ABOUT HIM no actually just reading this post over again im getting angry

1) youre stupid youre seriously stupid they were never going to let him stay with big mom as you would know if you read the comic with your eyes open and he literally told them its fine ill be fine let me handle it not to even mention that robin and usopps situations were like completely different 2) DID YOU READ THE SCENE. DID YOU READ THE SCENE. DID YOU READ THE SCENE WITH YOUR EYES OPEN. NO WORDS. FLABBERGASTED. 3) youve gotta be kidding me sanji also refers to them as his family as an identifier 4) did you read the comic with your eyes open. do you remember the context in which any of this was taking place. did you forget chiffons existence? 5) DID YOU READ THE SCENE WITH YOUR EYES OPEN. DID YOU READ THE SCENE WITH YOUR EYES OPEN 6) ill give you this one at least 7) "none of that for sanji" DID YOU READ WHOLE CAKE ISLAND. DID YOU READ WHOLE CAKE ISLAND THE ARC. DID YOU READ IT. BECAUSE IM REALLY NOT SURE YOU DID

6. which ship fans are the most annoying?

well my first move in any fandom is always to block every single ship tag for my favorite character with the exception of maybe like 1 or 2 but for the brief stint that i did not. ok because i havent actually seen any obikk shippers outside of scrolling on japanese twitter i just know theyre out there and rampant but the irukk shippers via the "posts like this" tab on the righthand side of the screen have assaulted my poor eyes with FAR too much maskless kakashi so for naruto fandom in my personal experience theyre sitting at number 1. also the ship just annoys me on principle because i KNOWWWWWWWWWW i know the kind of people who like this ship even though its srsly the most boring thing to ever exist ever and i cant believe im saying anything mildly positive about this stupid awful ship but at least obito and kakashi have a relationship. if you make it romantic it sucks and youre ruining it but at least its something thats not worlds most bland generic found family fluff like irukk so BORINGGGGGGGGG ITS SOOOOOO BORRINGGGGGGGGG and you know exactly the people who are like "omg..... my soft uwu gay beans.... KYAAAA!!!!!" eat this up. of course not to say that the obito/kakashi people arent the exact same im sure they completely erase their canon dynamic to make it this as well but since i havent been subjected to it and god willing i never will be i cant speak of it

14. that one thing you see in fics all the time

i srsly spent way too long trawling the naruto fanfiction archives and came to the conclusion IM SO SRS SICK OF TIME TRAVEL FICS THIS SUCKSSSSSS NONE OF YOU GUYS ARE DOING ANYHTING INTERESTING WITH ITTTTTTTTT I DONT CAAAAAAAAARE I SO DONT CAAAAAAAAAAAREEEEEEEEEEE. and also just rampant wild mischaracterization everywhere its so bad its so bad like theres this really bizarre situation the naruto fandom has where people are just so so so so so bad at understanding these characters i see so much random nonsense and im like HE WOULDNT SAY THAT SHE WOULDNT DO THAT THIS WOULDNT HAPPENNNNNNNNNNNN GUUUUYSSSSSSSSSSSSS. WHY IS THIS NONSENSE GETTING POPULAR WHO WANTS THIS..........

16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

soooooooooo soo many things but one thing that immediately jumps to mind is madara and hashirama and tobirama like i like hashirama and tobirama but not enough to actaulyl think about them and im always so shocked and surprised that people srsly like really love these guys. like for most popular things even if i wildly disagree (cough cough obito cough cough) i can see why people like them because it falls in line with the pattern of fanon behavior but hashirama and tobirama and madara im like SRSLY WHY DO YOU GUYS CARE SO MUCH.... idk maybe theres a filler arc or soemthing ill have to sit through whenever i get back to plowing away at the naruto shippuden filler. maybe one day ill post highlights of my review google doc

#ask game answers #anon #lord.

[nostalgia-tblr]

Thor: The Dark World

Hello I have now seen THOR (COLON) THE DARK WORLD. This film was not as bad as I was expecting it to be, though it also wasn't great so maybe I had just set my bar too low based on how nobody seems to like it that much. I watched this with a visiting friend who had not seen Thor 1 or The Avengers so I did her a Dramatic Presentation beforehand where I explained what had happened in those, except I couldn't really remember what happened in The Avengers so that recap was mostly "then something exploded, I think." So anyway she was a useful non-MCU-person barometer for this one.

Christopher Eccleston is in this yet also he is not, in that we kept forgetting his character existed. He didn't seem to be enjoying himself much either. Which reminds me, this film seemed a bit desaturated in an off-putting way, it was like if you were watching Thor 1 while feeling depressed and the depression had manifested visually instead of just as a metaphor. Because it was a Dark World.

The ending was very confusing, people were jumping in and out of invisible portals (maybe?) and the magic hammer was flying around for a bit like when a plane circles the airport while waiting for a spot to open to use the runway. Stuff was lining up in space except not because we'd have noticed by now if the realms of the gods were that close and it would indeed have a gravitationl effect though not the weirdo ones in this film.

The pacing in this film was pretty poor generally though we felt it did perk up a bit towards the end.

Friend's favourite characters were Erik Selvig and Loki, in that order because Erik is a bit mad in this film (I belatedly explained the mind stone stuff from Avengers 1, having forgotten about that until Erik was in his pants) and goes to Stonehenge (which may be magic or alien or who the fuck knows) to run about naked (and not even at a solstice!!) and then he was in one of those Creepy American Movie Psychiatric Hospitals (or possibly it was a police station in London???) with medication in plastic pill bottles like they don't really do in this country and as mentioned he was in his pants for no real reason and that's all very relatable. So hooray for Erik!

More tumblr-esque-ly, friend was like "i can see why people liked this Loki, he's popped in from a better film of his own to bitch about this one" and indeed things do get more interesting when we finally let him out of jail where he is sat being a goth because Angsty because Frigga got fridged. (It feels like there should be a great Frigga/fridged pun but neither of us could think of anything, which was very saddening. Though we did realise that Anthony Hopkins = Welsh Odin = Woden, which is the best we could do for a pun and fuck it it'll do after struggling for at least an entire minute with the fridged-Frigga thing.)

Natalie Portman was in this film.

They were in London for some reason, cannot remember why. Elves, probably. Oh wait was it so they were in the right country to have the Stonehenge bit? Stonehenge is pre-Celtic which means it's also pre-Norse but it was somehow relevant to the elves stuff, as was Snowdon, which isn't that just a mountain? But it was somehow put there by people in The Olden Days or... okay I admit we were lost by that point, but there are stone circles all over Britain, they were very fashionable for a while but nobody really knows why but if you start drawing lines between old rock things here you're bound to come up with proof that a layline runs though the Prime Minister's bathroom or some nonsense like that. I suppose Stonehenge is our Giza Pyramids in that films make up complete shite about it all the time, and so inspired by that popular tumblr post I have just checked where the nearest Pizza Hut is to Stonehenge and it's at "Solstice Park" about 3 kilometres away just off the A303, hope this information is helpful to someone.

Erm. Yeah it turns out I can remember less about this movie than I thought, so this review is lacking and no doubt as disappointing as the fact that you can't see Stonehenge from Pizza Hut :(

#journey into the mcu #mcu tag i guess #thor the dark world #also thor had a very unattractive poncho on in the middle of this film we didn't like the poncho #also once you've noticed that thor's armour has six nipple-guards on it you can never unsee that fact #i think he took his shirt off at some point but that's a given really isn't it? #thor movies

[cowboysandpilots]

I saw your post asking for writing advice and as cliché as it may be, I’d love a story of Chrissy learning to play guitar and Eddie learning how to do a cheer.

You can use the fight song from a college and just copy their cheers if you can’t think of one and it would work bc that what most high schools do anyway.

(Omg I think this is so cute and I am king of cliches so I do not mind one bit. ❤️ Thank you for requesting it. I hope you like it.)

It started off as a little bit of a dare, a challenge. Chrissy was still giggling about Eddie's makeshift cheer while he was teasing her with leaves in his hair. That was months ago now, before they were so much more than drug dealer and scared girl who needed an escape.

"I bet you couldn't do a real cheer if you tried." She smirks, taking another drag from Eddie's hastily rolled joint. They're sitting on Eddie's couch, Chrissy with her legs over Eddie's thighs as they play a game of puff, puff pass.

"Okay, fine. I'll do one of your cheers if you let me teach you how to play a song on my guitar." He grins back.

"You got yourself a deal."

—

It takes exactly 3 days for Eddie to take this deal seriously. He was planning on just doing a silly little rah-rah routine like he had in the woods, but that was before he saw how serious Chrissy was. She came to his trailer every day after school and barely said hi to him before she was slipping his guitar strap over her head.

They started with strumming. Eddie stands behind her and plays the cords while she strums along to the beat of the song that's playing over his small stereo. It seems hard for her to keep up, and she keeps giggling, blonde curled strands of hair falling into her face whenever she lets her head fall down. Eddie doesn't mind; he's laughing right along with her.

"Go, go, go." He encourages, through his laugh, for Chrissy to give it her all as the song gets to the chorus, and both of them headbang while jumping up and down. It sounds horrible, and Chrissy misses some cues, but Eddie's never had more fun playing in his life.

Learning to cheer seemed to take Eddie a lot longer. See, the thing is, he wanted to learn how to do a cartwheel, to really show off, and it was terrifying and painful. He dragged Chrissy back out to the woods so no one could see them like they could if Eddie had tried it on the grass in front of his trailer.

He spent days trying to copy the way that Chrissy would show and instruct him on how to do a cartwheel. All in all, he got grass stains on his favourite jeans, and he thinks he may have fucked up his shoulder, or at the very least, bruised it because the next time his guitar strap rested there, it ached. Chrissy felt bad when he complained and told him they could just forget the whole thing, but Eddie refused. He wanted to prove to Chrissy and himself that he could do this.

"Hold up, wait a minute,

Let me put some spirit in it!

Hawkins Tigers break it down,

Knock this team straight out of town!"

Eddie felt so stupid saying that cheer, even in the middle of nowhere, but that was the one that Chrissy taught him, and she was laughing with him, not at him; so, stupid or not, he followed it all the way through to the cartwheel.

For the first, and last, time, Eddie actually lands it, and the way his blood is pounding in his ears drowns out Chrissy's clapping. His reward? A kiss that tasted like nothing but Chrissy's pink bubblegum lipgloss, and he thinks... maybe cheerleading isn't so stupid after all.

—

A/N- Hi, I'm so happy you're here. :) If you would like to support me and my writing, please remember to hit the reblog button, as Tumblr has no algorithm and likes (while appreciated) do nothing to get creators work seen. Since Tumblr is hiding all my posts with my Ko-Fi link, THIS is a list of things I need/want while I'm away at Uni if you would like a commission or just to support me. It is beyond appreciated but, of course, not required. ❤️ If you would rather just donate to my Kofi ($3), you can find the link to it through this link. Again, not required but more appreciated than you will ever know. I only have two and a half months before I can leave my abusive household. ☺️)

#eddie x chrissy #eddissy #hellcheer #eddie munson #chrissy cunningham #stranger things #hellcheer fluff #hellcheer fanfic #hellcheer fic #stranger things fanfiction #hellcheer ficlet #my writing

[aeori-o]

Happy New Year! 1/3 (Tumblr why)

My oldest posts that I did for New Year’s just started with that very simple title and I’m feeling nostalgic. But I also like the ‘Farewell’ of 2021 so I guess we’ll see what I stick with as time goes on. (Also dang, would you look at that, fucking COVID is still around.)

Part 2 || Part 3

It’s funny, the more time goes on the more I actually want (as in: I remember and am then driven) to get stuff done ahead of time. All through school (which was forever ago) I really struggled with doing any task that wasn’t immediate. Homework didn’t exist until the night before (and the only reason I didn’t forget entirely was because I talked to people who would ask if I was done and I’d go Oh Shit), any basic task anyone asked me to do I would forget existed because it couldn’t be done immediately (and I also chaffed under tasks being sprung on me out of nowhere that had to be done immediately). Now I get the urge to do things ahead of time, with the same focus and drive that usually only showed up when something was ‘due’. The former is still a problem for a lot of things but somehow my brain has decided that sometimes we can and will remember to do a task ahead of time and get it done.

Which is to say I am currently writing this from December 26, 2023 and whenever I get tired of writing it today I’ll pick up tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after, until I post it. I just decided: Fuck it, instead of binge-writing this right at the end of the year we’re basically at the end of the year and I just want to chill the fuck out. I just had a mad dash to write something for my sister I don’t want to mad-dash write again. I think I wrote last year’s write-up a few days before but this time I want to be so deliberately chill. I just want to gently coast up to the new year. Which is good because I did a stupid amount of things this year and this has been the longest year-wrap-up I’ve ever done. Is anyone actually going to read this to the end? Maybe but these are mostly for me. I always like scrolling back through these and this year is a doozy. Who gave me the gumption to do so much stuff. And despite all that I just said It is January 1st and I am mad-dashing writing the second half of this and editing it.

Without further ado let’s get into it.

I dropped my goal to 25 books because I was in the last week of the year at 26 out of 30 books read like “yeah I can read 4 books in a week” and then I was like “yeah but… fuck it let’s not.” Why barrel towards the end of the year, panic reading books to reach some arbitrary number I set for myself. That’s not really how I want to read and experience books so… I won’t. I read 26 books this year and 17 graphic novels for a total of 43. Which is only 4 lower than my total from last year so despite reading a lot less that’s not bad at all.

I kept it the same as the previous year: Read for 30m a day, catch up days allowed. At this point what I usually wind up doing is reading a lot on one day and counting it toward multiple days. Same amount of time reading, but doing it in chunks. If I read for 6 hours on one day I highlight 12 days (30 minutes a day) on the calendar. That might sound confusing but my main focus is having spent the time reading and doing a task every single day just does not work with my brain.

I do it this way because the time-spent is the same but filling out a calendar like this is way more satisfying than just highlighting one day that I spent a lot of time reading on. Anyway as you can see my summer was largely spent not reading. A huge chunk of my summer my brain was taken up by wrapping my sister’s car (more on that later), from May to August I basically read almost nothing. It’s hard to remember to highlight in the calendar for other tasks I do (especially when it’s a task where I don’t know exactly how much of my time it will be taking up) but I do think it would be fun to be able to have a highlight calendar (or time track in some other way) to be able to see what I was doing when something didn’t happen on another calendar. I don’t have a super feasible way to set that up, though (as fun as it would be) so I don’t think I’ll be doing that.

Anyway, as always, I love the goodreads yearly recap:

Once again my average rating is “high” not because every book I read this year ruled but because I now use stars as a “would recommend”, “would probably recommend”, “my feelings are so Nothing I neither recommend nor not recommend”, “mostly don’t recommend”, and “do not read this” instead of the recommended level of how much I liked it. This means not a lot of books wind up below 3 stars anymore. I am also increasingly perplexed when I look at reviews for a book, see someone said nothing but good things about a book… and rated it three stars. It’s like dang, what does three stars mean to you.

I was shocked to see how few people had shelved The Game of 100 Candles though. I don’t know if people are scared away from it because that series is technically part of a table top role-playing game universe but the books absolutely stand up as their own thing. I’ll talk about it more in a bit, and then probably again when the final book comes out. But here’s the wall of books I read this year:

When I was thinking about what I read this year I could only really think of the books I had read recently and was like “man I don’t think I really read anything super good this year” but I did have some fun, cozy reads in there. So as has become custom I’m going to talk about some. Just so I don’t keep going forever I’m going to do a ‘top five’ kind of thing and then some honorable mentions.

As mentioned I was utterly shocked that Marie Brennan’s The Game of 100 Candles was shelved so few times and looking back at the first book, The Night Parade of 100 Demons, it’s only been rated 132 times (which is still 100 times more than the second book). This series isn’t done yet but it’s such a delightful and heartwarming read. It’s basically this quiet samurai from a smaller clan who has a lot of secrets he has to keep a lid on for the best of his clan and himself who has to figure out what’s going on with the demons/yokai in this village on the edge of their territory. Meanwhile another, bigger and more wealthy, clan has sent one of their much more extroverted scholars to the same village to also see what’s going on. They both have things to hide from each other but wind up falling for each other. It’s a really fun fantasy romp with a very sweet gay relationship that grows out of it.

Then the second book has them re-meeting and understanding the consequences of something they did in the first book so it also has some chronic illness (even if it’s magical and not 1:1 with anything in real life) representation. I’ve found both books very good so far and if anyone reading this is inclined to pick up anything I recommend I really hope it’s these. They’re so good.

So I really, really did not like Uprooted by the same author, Naomi Novik. A friend read this though and liked it overall and my sister-in-law happened to give me her copy (she didn’t like it) so I figured I may as well give it a shot and I was so pleasantly surprised. The way the faeries (which aren’t called faeries but whatever) work in this world is so cool, the magic is so cool, I really loved how the author managed to ride that thin line between everything feeling cohesive and like it ‘makes sense’ while relying on not overly explaining anything which means she had to rely on things ‘intuitively’ making sense which can be very hit or miss. It really hit for me and it was always fun getting to a point in the book where it felt like the plot was winding down only for it to get back up again. I was so delighted by this one I wanted to include it here.

Similarly I wanted to include this duology, The Assassin’s Curse Series by Cassandra Rose Clarke. I’m not sure I recommend them. The narrative voice is a little strong (I think it gets better in the second book but I also might have become desensitized to it) and overall the plot and characters aren’t anything to write home about. It did really scratch an itch I didn’t know I had for the most ridiculous ‘refusing to communicate’ relationship dynamic ever. I had a great time but I mostly wanted to mark these here on my New Year’s post because I read these a decade ago around the same time in the year and they’re a fun marker of how far I’ve come and how much the way I track books has come. I only had a rating for these from 2013, and now I have a long document of notes. I don’t know if I actually will reread these in another decade, but if I do it will be fun to compare how I feel then to how I feel now, and I wish I could have done the same to my 2013 self.

Going forward, though, I do want to re-read something I read a decade ago at least once a year. I think it will be fun especially once I start butting up against the books that do have notes written on them. I had a really good time with these and I want to continue circling back to what I’ve read before.

Hold Me Tight by Dr. Sue Johnson is a great read even if you’re not doing the exercises inside it. It’s a self-help book which I tend to roll my eyes at (maybe that’s unfair of me) but Dr. Johnson uses examples from her own practice and backs up claims and theories with scientific studies. It’s a really solid and insightful read, it took me a long time to get through because with nonfiction I tend to be much more thorough in my notes and I was reading this at the same time as other books but it was a phenomenal read. Even though it’s catered to romantic-relationships I honestly think it applies and shows insights that are applicable to any close relationship (romantic or platonic). I really enjoyed reading it.

I don’t see asexual characters often so Loveless by Alice Oseman really touched me. It’s funny, the first time I encountered ace representation in a book I really didn’t like it. I was, unfairly, annoyed that the author hadn’t captured my experience. And oh boy do I see a lot of that in the reviews of this book online, non-ace people upset that the asexual lead “shames” sexual people (she just doesn’t get it, which is not the same as shaming someone). Asexual people are upset that this isn’t their experience and remember fellow readers there are other ways of being asexual even though this book pretends there’s only one! (The book is told from one POV, of course it only reflects one experience.) There were things I really related to in this one, and other things I didn’t but overall it was a great read and I am very glad that there is so much more representation to be found in books these days.

So my actual honourable mentions are: Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree which was just a very charming, fun romp. I enjoyed my time with it and look forward to reading the second book. The Deep by Rivers Solomon which was insightful, depressing, and hopeful. It’s very short so if you look up the content warnings and think you can handle it I would absolutely recommend it. And Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata which is a very wild book that is maybe making an argument for fair wages for all or maybe ‘just’ a story about a neurodivergent queen, I don’t know.

The final two books in the Market of Monsters series by Rebecca Schaefer are on there because I mentioned the first book in my write-up for last year and while I overall had a really good time with the series (I find there’s always something almost relaxing about a book/series where the protagonists are terrible people) the ending left something to be desired. I’m not crazy about characters just going ‘yeah, we’re evil and we like it that way’ especially when the rest of the series was the character’s doing “evil” things because the other option was having evil done unto them. Oh well.

And Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett is peeking in because as far as I can tell people love this book (it came out this year and has been popular) but it really didn’t work for me. I’m spoiled because Marie Brennan’s Lady Trent series does what this is trying to do but succeeds, I just could not buy into the fiction that this is this woman’s journal from out in the field. I would enjoy myself when I forgot it was supposed to be a journal and then get annoyed every time I was reminded. I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more if it hadn’t bothered with the “this is a journal” conceit (or if it had done that well) but what can you do. It is a fun book, I get why people like it, but it was driving me wild (in a bad way).

And before I move onto graphic novels here’s some fun stuff from storygraph:

Onto graphic novels.

Ducks by Kate Beaton was the standout one here. Really incredible auto-biographical comic. My Wandering Warrior Existence by Kabi Nagata and The Girl that can’t get a Girlfriend by Mieri Hiranishi which were both really interesting auto-biographical comics that both revolved around sexuality and identity. Kabi Nagata’s comics, in general, can be very stressful to read but they’re so good. And the rest were fun! I was recommended the Given series made by Natasuki Kizu by a friend and it was charming, it’s not done and I haven’t checked in a while if more is out in English but, while charming, it hasn’t really captured me. Harley Quinn: The Animated Series: The Eat. Bang! Kill. Tour by Tee Franklin (and art and colour by Max Sarin and Marissa Louise respectively) was a really delightful little romp—and I have not watched Harley Quinn: The Animated Series. The art is just so freaking cute and while I have basically no knowledge or investment in the DC universe it was really nice seeing Ivy and Harley together. Horizon Zero Dawn: The Sunhawk by Anne Toole (and Ann Maulina doing the art) was mostly just amusing, I think it came out before Horizon Forbidden West did but I happened to read it right in the middle of Talanah’s quest in that game so I read the comic and then got to hear Talanah tell me about it in the game when I played it two days later. And finally The Adventure Zone: The Eleventh Hour was fun and, like always, just made me want to go and relisten to the podcast.

I’m making my goal 30 books again, and if some unforeseen project takes up the majority of my brain space I have no problem with dropping it to whatever it winds up being at the end of the year. And my filled in boxes will count for 30 minutes a day again. I’ve been setting the goodreads goal for the graphic novels to 5 just because chances are I’ll probably read at least five but it’s also not a hard goal.

Last year I mentioned wanting to read one book I own in my tbr pile for every library book I took out and looking at the books (not graphic novels) 15 out of the 26 were ones I owned (or were in my book pile being loaned to me by others) so that’s not bad! (The graphic novels I am also less pressed on this front—I have a small stack of them waiting to be read but 12 graphic novels take a lot less time for me to read than 12 novels.) I am pleased to have 15 fewer books in my tbr pile! Granted, two of those were books I had read a long time ago so they were previously on my not-tbr shelves but… well whatever.

I’m probably going to be watching a few more films after writing this as part of the lead up to New Years (I did, I have changed the numbers to reflect that) but, once again, the amount of movies/shows/etc. I’ve watched has again worked out to be in the 40s. I have watched 46 things this year, which is the exact same amount as last year. I am finding it really interesting that it always seems to work out to being in the 40s. I am extra tickled it’s the exact same amount as last year. Film I don’t really feel any desire nor make any effort to meet any sort of quota each year, I just sort’ve watch what I want to watch (or what I get roped into watching) and for the past four years it seems to work out to low-40s every single time. I am so, so curious to see if this is some sort of bizarre fluke or if this will continue into the future.

Just like with books, because a year is such a long length of time, without tracking what I watched this year it’s easy to sit here at the end of the year thinking I didn’t really see much. But then I look at my list of things I watched and go “holy shit I watched so many good things this year.” The power of tracking things, it’s incredible. As for new films/films-I-watched-for-the-first-time…

There’s some films from this year that I contemplated including on the graphic just to have them easy to spot as a reference point in time—like the Barbie movie and The Last of Us—because they were such big hits and while there’s more I really liked this year I didn’t want to make the image preposterously huge (says guy who wrote this before writing later sections in which they made preposterously huge images). And I also didn’t want to cram everything on in the weirdest way possible like I did last year (why did I do that).

Steph actually had me watch Knives Out and Glass Onion on New Year’s Day (which I don’t remember but that’s what I wrote down) and I really enjoyed both! I had been avoiding them because they just didn’t seem like my kind of thing but I was very glad to have been proven wrong.

I feel like I’ve been mostly out of the anime/manga world for a long time so I was surprised to see how much I had watched this year. Most of it I watched with friends and all of it was a good time even when the shows sucked. Chainsaw Man also surprised me, both because it is (so far) a very good show (I will cry if there is some kind of horrible training arc), and because Steph recommended it after not being sure if they would even finish the first season. I am very glad they did because this show is wicked cool. And then Trigun Stampede was so good that I started re-watching the 1998 show, and then all the friends I watched Stampede with wanted to watch the 1998 show so I stopped, and then nobody watched the 1998 show. Trigun Stampede was overall a delight even if I am mildly perplexed at the 1998 show had way more female characters than the new show does (but also Vash isn’t putting on a weird lecherous front and is just Baby so, it works out).

I waffled on whether or not to included Dungeons & Dragons: Honor among Thieves because it’s not like it was life changing or anything but I had a really good time watching it, and I had a really good time talking about it. It’s just a really fun film that didn’t feel like it was bogged down by trying to be anything else.

The Green Knight I had wanted to see since it came out and finally got around to it this year, twice, because the first time I watched it with someone who will usually fight me on putting on subtitles so I just had no idea what 90% of the words spoken meant the first time I watched it. Despite understanding almost nobody I really enjoyed every other aspect of the film and it was surprisingly watchable. Gorgeous film, great acting, great soundtrack, all over a fantastic time. The second time I watched it was with subtitles on and it still ruled.

It’s been such a long time since I read Nimona. I read it in its entirety when it was still online for free so I don’t know how long ago that was. After watching the film I wondered about going back to re-read it online and found that (I assume since being traditionally published) it’s no longer available. I’m glad for the author but also sad that we live in a capitalist hellscape that can’t let things be free. I have yet to re-read the comic and still plan to but the movie is gorgeous. I am so, so glad that more 3D movies are breaking away from the default style Disney had established when moving to 3D that everyone seemed afraid to stray too far from. I am genuinely so thankful we’re getting 3D movies with style now. Not to go on a tangent but I saw some video (or maybe it was a post?) recently where someone was going on about how the different art styles movies are being made in is now ‘less special’ because everyone is doing it and I don’t understand how someone could think more diverse styles could ever be a bad thing. People don’t do it to be ‘special’ people do it because they see beauty in different ways. Anyway. Nimona made me cry three times. I absolutely recommend it.

And of course, Spider-man: Across the Spider-verse. I went into this not knowing it was a two parter and I think that’s my only real upset with this movie. I was getting so nervous toward the end when I realized the runtime was almost up and there were so many loose ends to tie up, and then I realized it must be a two-parter. I was relieved to be right but also wish I went in knowing so I wouldn’t have to have the HOW ON EARTH ARE THEY GOING TO PULL THIS OFF stress. Otherwise this movie is more gorgeous than the original and I’m really liking where the story is going. I’ve been meaning to re-watch it and haven’t gotten around to it (I could not understand Hobbie on the first viewing) but this movie made me realize that physical media is getting harder to get. All the big stores have basically eradicated their movie/show sections and replaced all of that with one little ‘recent releases’ stand. Older things can still be ordered online but I am very nervous about all our media being in the hands of streaming companies and harder to own.

There were some other things I saw this year like, as mentioned, Barbie and The Last of Us that I also really enjoyed. Steph had me watched Midnight Mass which was sad but good. Vin and I watched the Lockwood & Co adaptation which was surprisingly good (and, of course, cancelled because why market something when you can just decide it failed). I’ve been watching a show called The Afterparty which I’m really enjoying.

I also re-watched a lot of things this year, many with friends.

I found out Vin hadn’t seen Moulin Rouge so I had to fix that. I don’t remember when the last time I watched this movie was but it’s so much fun and it looks like everyone had a good time acting in it. We had actually watched Van Helsing first (which ruled, for some reason in my memory this movie sucked but it was awesome and they do some astonishingly good looking stuff considering its age) and I can’t quite remember how Moulin Rouge came up (I am certain it was RP related, though) but when I realized the Duke in Moulin Rouge was the same actor as Count Dracula in Van Helsing that sealed the deal. I need to watch more of that man’s work, he’s a delight onscreen. I was also just totally shocked that it was Hugh Jackman as Van Helsing. I’m terrible with actors but when one I know is in something like this it’s always surprising to me.

Steph played the original Silent Hill game for all of us (which was also very fun) and we decided to watch the first Silent Hill movie afterwards as well. This was another one I hadn’t watched in years, I probably hadn’t watched it since I was a teen, and by default I seem to assume anything I saw a long time ago probably sucks. Once again I was proven wrong, the film’s not perfect but overall it’s a great watch. The costuming is incredible (especially for the monsters) which I did remember, but also:

Wow she looks awesome. Everyone was hooting and hollering when her helmet came off. (Shame about the jacket, though, and being a cop). And then Steph found us every lesbian amv they could with Cybil and Rose. It ruled.

We watched Darker than Black because, again, Vin had never seen it. I’ve rewatched this show a few times over the years and this is the first time I’ve watched further than Season 1. I didn’t enjoy Season 2 when I originally watched this show and never finished it, and still didn’t like Season 2 this time but the OVA for Season 2 was mysteriously really good. Izanagi’s design was awesome, though, even if nothing else was. The first season was also still really good, really cool, and I always forget about the weird this-must-have-been-inspired-by-Evangelion bit at the end. I will absolutely be watching the first season again at some point in the future, and maybe season 2’s OVA but not the rest. I’m not strong enough.

And I had the pleasure of showing my step-sister Howl’s Moving Castle. She had seen The Boy and the Heron and was interested in watching more Ghibli films and knew I liked them, so I decided to start with the one that everyone I’ve talked to lately says is their favourite Ghibli film (or one of their favourites if they can’t choose). It’s been a while since I last watched Howl and it was great to see it again. Steph and I also watched some more Ghibli films for New Year’s Eve and Princess Mononoke still rules and The Cat Returns remains as charming as ever.

I also rewatched Kill Bill this year which I enjoyed this time around a lot more than I did the last time I watched. Part of me is like: I should also write down my movie/show thoughts. The other part of me is like: Let’s not make homework for ourselves for everything we do. With stuff like this though it’s like man why did it hit so different. I rewatched some other stuff, too, of course but nothing I have much to say about.

I started 32 games this year and finished 32 (and 100%’d 4 of those). Spoilers: A huge chunk of that total number are Humongous Entertainment (HE) games that I played as a child. Let’s get into it.

I don’t know what happened last year with Nintendo’s thing but they are back to giving more info, unfortunately I barely touched my Switch this year.

By which I mean I played it a lot, but only two games. I think I almost exclusively played Splatfests this year after finishing the single player campaign and Pokemon Scarlet I have been picking at so slowly that I am still not done it (DLC just came out but I am still in the middle of the preceding DLC).

I’m assuming I missed the July splatfest, and I also missed the November one though I swear I chose a team so I don’t know what happened there. I guess I just got immediately distracted somehow. You may be wondering where Tears of the Kingdom is because everyone with a Switch played it this year. After hunting down a collector’s copy of Tears of the Kingdom, because I missed the pre-order for it somehow, instead of playing it I, for no real reason, decided I was going to play every single other Zelda instead and end it off with TotK.

So my 3DS and my N64 got more of a workout than my Switch did this year. For my Zelda-replay I mostly want to go in order but I wanted to start with the N64 titles first as those were my childhood Zeldas. Majora’s Mask is my favourite in the franchise, it’s the first Zelda I ever beat, and Ocarina of Time I never beat before starting this project. As a kid my friend’s brother would play on my OoT cartridge (his save file is still on it and I will never get rid of it) and then I’d just go mess around in his file. I was pretty familiar with the young-Link dungeons but almost all of the adult temples were a mystery to me. I got the 3DS version of the game at some point with the intention of finally playing OoT myself… and then still didn’t until this year. So I have now played: Majora’s Mask 3DS, Majora’s Mask N64, Ocarina of Time 3DS, Ocarina of Time: Master Quest 3DS, and before watching Ghibli films Steph and I finished off Ocarina of Time N64.

Images that make you feel nostalgic (I took this when trying to do the archery courses in Majora’s Mask because aiming is very hard when you only have one stick to do it on).

I don’t think I’m going to be playing every version available for the other entries in the Zelda series but as these ones have a special place in my heart and life I thought I’d do them justice that way. I’ve gone from knowing very little about Ocarina of Time to knowing where everything is in the game almost as well as I know Majora. I still think Majora is the stronger game overall and playing it like this it’s really clear to see how Majora, as a direct sequel, was improved on after Ocarina but it definitely has some totally mystifying problems that Ocarina didn’t have. (That said: The 3DS version ruins all the bosses in the game, they’re terrible, the N64 version is much better in how it feels to play. If you are going to play Majora’s Mask I recommend following a walkthrough, I adore this game but it definitely helps that at this point I know it so well that I almost never have to just wait around for things to happen because I can cram other things in if I have to wait for something.)

I don’t know how much time I spent playing the N64 Zeldas, but the 3DS does track that stuff and I played Majora’s Mask 3DS for 29 hours (sometimes a co-worker would play so I’m not sure how much of that time was her messing around) and Ocarina of Time 3D was almost 60 hours (so I’m assuming 30 hours for regular and 30 hours for Master Quest). I’m really looking forward to playing the rest of the Zeldas! My plan right now is to (finally) finish up some other games and play BotW as I play the oldest Zelda games just because it seems like TotK builds off BotW so I’m worried if I do those two in order I’ll wind up burnt out on TotK. I might not, but I also don’t want to risk it. Here’s my graphic for games I wanted to finish this year from last year:

Of the games I said I wanted to finish last year I was right in being so confident about Fahrenheit and Haunting Ground. As games that I was playing for friends it was a lot easier to be on top of them and beat them. Fahrenheit I even 100%’d because I have a weird obsession with 100%ing David Cage games (it was still a terrible game but was very fun to play with friends). Haunting Ground was a delight from start to finish, I know people want a remake but I’m not sure it’s the kind of game that would get made today.

.hack//G.U. I’m not too fussed on not finishing, it’s a long game and I was trying to show it to Vin so I’m not surprised it got lost in the shuffle. Pokemon Scarlet I’m also not fussed on having not finished because its DLC just came out—I beat all the base game stuff but haven’t done the DLC yet (well, I’m partway through the first DLC). That one I’ll finish this year, for sure. .hack//G.U. I’m not sure when I’ll return to it.

Horizon Forbidden West and Pokemon Legends Arceus I’m not sure how they kept slipping behind but I really want to beat those, preferably soon. I’m very good at getting busy with things, though, and then I feel too guilty to play games outside of times when I’m not doing it as a social activity with friends. I need to figure that out. Anyway for this upcoming year the ongoing games I have that I want to beat are:

I didn’t realize until I was reviewing this image that I accidentally went red-blue, blue-red, red-blue and I’m kind of laughing at how that turned out. I realize Folklore is more pink-y and Hades is really dark but the back and forth of red and blue games is amusing to me.

Three of these are the ones that slipped through the cracks this year that I already mentioned. Folklore I’m playing for friends right now (I’m having a good time but also what is even going on) so I’m pretty confident I’ll have that beat sooner than later. Hades I’ve been meaning to get back to forever, I mentioned it in my New Year’s post last year but maybe if I make it as a thing I can check-off next year I’ll actually get to it (or maybe not, who knows). And Tears of the Kingdom is here because that (should) be the last Zelda I play in my weird sudden desire for a Zelda marathon so by getting to and beating that one it means I’ve played all the rest.

Before I go over to steam I wanted to start chronicling the seasons of Fortnite I play through. I count each season as a game-played, and even though the experience is mostly social I still sink as many hours into a season of Fortnite as I would any single other game, so I wanted to start posting the season pictures as a memory-thing. Here they are:

And the most recent season is ongoing and won’t be done until sometime in 2024 (so I’ll post it on next year’s). I find it’s a fun social game to play, easy to hop on and off of, and while there’s a story the game is so gameplay focused that it really doesn’t matter if you do not pay attention to whatever anyone is yammering on about. I was shocked to discover there’s a community of people really into the Fortnite story. Good for them, I’m here to drive cars around the map excessively and be the quest-Adderall for my friends.

A friend had me try Destiny 2 earlier this year but I found the game weirdly ‘hostile.’ The gameplay itself is great, it feels really good to play, but the game does nothing to try and draw new players into the story in a way that feels good. We played for a while, I got up to rank 5 or something? Level 5? There was some weird progression thing and we got through all the basic-stuff and it was really trying to drive us into Lightfall-stuff (I think it was Lightfall that just released at the time) but the story was just incomprehensible. People are telling us to go places and do things and that some-guy is doing something and so on and so forth and it just felt weird. It didn’t help that I was having some bizarre computer issues at the time. I don’t know if I want to play more of it, honestly. I still have it on my computer and keep it updated just in case but I’m starting to wonder if I should free up that 100GB (jesus). Right now I really don’t need to, but I think about it.

The other social game I really got into this year was Plate Up!

I was introduced to it by a streamer, TheScareLab on Twitch, and it is so much fun. It’s a great game for me if I have a few minutes and don’t really want to get into something I can fire it up and work away at trying to make a fully automated restaurant (rng hates me) but it’s also very fun to play with others. Mostly it’s just me and my partner who play but sometimes other folks join in. The screencap is from their Halloween event I was delighting in being able to make hamburgers float in midair. There’s another holiday event on right now, actually, but I’ve been too busy with irl holiday stuff to check it out.

I love the steam recaps, both mine and looking at all my friends’ but I’ll just post mine here--OOPS Tumblr only lets you do 30 images per post and I'm unhinged, I'm unstoppable. To be continued in part two! I'll link it once it's up! Tumblr Why.

Next >>

#new year get better do better

[katnissgirlsmakedo]

cassandra is the funniest person in the whole world remember before tlh came out and someone asked her which characters in tlh would be gay and she was like umm i'm not telling <3 because LAST time i told you who was gay in one of my little trilogies before it came out you were ANNOYING AS FUCK about it.... just read the book when it drops lmao goddamn..... and i for one think she was so real for that. because i was there before tda when she told everybody about ty and kit. and we WERE annoying as fuck. and it was her fault actually because. ok let me explain to you how this went down. ok so before tda was out two things happened that are relavent to this journey. first thing was someone asked her if any of the blackthorns were gay, and she was like. ok well first of all all faeries are bisexual so jot that down, secondly yes one more of them is but it's so so super secret and i won't tell you teehee just try and guess..... reminder. here is a list of the blackthorn siblings: helen (half faerie, bisexual, exempt), mark (half faerie, inherently bisexual, exempt), julian (lesbian but a teenage boy. in other words he's literally the male lead in a ya romance. straight as can be), livvy (is a girl, cassie is lesbophobic (joke)), ty (skinny little weirdo with a cringe sherlock holmes obsession), dru (girl), and tavvy (literal toddler). so. you know. you guess. and the second thing that happened was cassie told everybody in vague terms that ty would have a love interest and she said and i quote, (i don't quote i paraphrase who the fuck can remember the exact wording of a tumblr post they read 7 years ago. oh my god 7 years. that's not right. hold on. it is. what the fuck. anyway.) she said these characters would have her favorite ship name she's ever come up with (and can we be so for real and admit that's why she named them what she did. girl wanted to make her little jokes soooooo bad. she is such a fucking cat person it's embarassing). anyway so she said this, like months before lady midnight came out, but we didn't forget.... ty girls don't forget.... (me when i'm 14 and have NO problems whatsoever) and then it was like, three days before the release? i don't remember but it was a little bit before the book came out, she dropped one last flower card and was like oh hey btw there's this brand new guy in this book i didn't ever tell you about before just now his name's kit he's blonde ok bye. and then within, what? 30 seconds? we'd all put the pieces together and were like cassandra what the fuck. so of course everybody was annoying under those circumstances....

#but she was still so funny for the tlh one. she was like um actually i won't tell u because u bitches r ANNOYING <3 #and i stand with her!!! #beth.txt

[dethkomic]

Hey lady, I hope this is where you wanted me! Now tell me every fine detail of how you make this comic!

Yes it certainly is and thennnnk you for coming over to the tumblrs and posting this question so I could post this answer! :)

I just love the vibrant discussions we get into here and on AO3 about how to do stuff and processes and tips and tricks, etc. etc. I've done a lot of sharing when it comes to how I get ideas for comics, but I guess I haven't shown you guys what my notebook looks like in the space between idea and finished comic. So here it is:

So, that text and the amazing thumbnail art next to it is how I often lay out the story treatments for each page. I think I've talked about getting a sense of "pacing" as you work on stuff, and how that's often a constant struggle between "I wanna get to this part and talk about it by itself for 14.5 pages", so this method allows me to work within the constraints of what feels natural for an audience to read while keeping myself in-check with the parts I really, actually want to write about. :)

In other words, I might write out a multi-paragraph scene in my notes that I really want to show you guys... Something like "Charles gets drunk and hits on Murderface", but intriguing as that idea is, I'm sure it might get old if I filled 22 pages of Dethkomic with just that (or maybe not? Maybe I should live a little). And indeed, when I look at the parts of the story that I want to cover in any given update, I'll notice I probably don't have the room to spend on that Charles/MF scene for as long as I'd like... so I pace it out!

I first try to break up the story into pages (3-5) per update, and then I sketch each page in a little thumbnail like what you see up there, to make sure stuff flows. By that I mean, I not only want it to read well, but I want to be sure there's enough space and consideration given to dialogue that needs to happen, like this panel:

I want to be sure that, if we've changed scenes and are in a new location, or the location has somehow BEEN changed, I put in an establishing shot, like this:

And if there's a joke, or something that comes in rapid-fire succession, I want to give that enough panels as necessary to pull it off:

So you can see, it's a lot of consideration for something as trivial as how much of a story actually ends up making it into the final drafts. If you guys let me write out every idea for Dethkomic I've had since I started it, despite the fact that it's already based off of a story I already wrote, it'd go on for years and never be finished. :)

So anyway, whether you're writing a comic or long-form prose, or a script, or whatever, I highly recommend writing everything out, breaking it down into parts, and breaking those parts out to pace. A lot of editors say a finished draft is often 20% shorter than the submitted manuscript. You often hear me say "I'd write a shorter story if I had the time." And this is what is meant by both of those things I guess.

Keep everything you can, though. Yes, simplify them on a different page, but don't just delete your notes. You never know when you'll gloss over an important detail you only managed to write out long-form on your initial concept. And those things will also help you to remember things that need resolving that you might be forgetting.

Anyway, hope this answer is useful to those of you who write! Great question and a thank you for moving it over here to my friend Rhea up there... and as always, Dethkomic loves you!

#dethkomic #comic writing #comic tips #writing tips #pacing tips #pickles eating the microphone still makes me laugh #answered

[thatoneguy031]

Can I talk about something? Out of character, I mean.

It's a long post, but you don't have to read it if you're not interested. It's more of a vent post than anything else.

I've been having a hard time with this blog. Not in the popularity sense, this is what I expected from this kind of thing. I mean like... I don't know what to do with it. I've experimented with a few things(You can go way back in my post history if you want to see what I mean), but those ideas sorta fell flat, no?

This was originally meant to be a storytelling blog. I wanted to share my little synopses of my characters and plot points or whatever, because I was genuinely proud of what I've done so far.

Then I resorted to trying to be a comedian. I would try to post something funny under most reblogs, leaving them be if I couldn't come up with a remark of any kind.

It wasn't until recently that I decided to turn this into a Pokemon IRL blog, and I'm not even doing that well with this. That, and I'm afraid that I come off as self-centered, so I cut any posts that give that kind of vibe. Heck, I even tried doing a playthrough series, but I keep forgetting about it, and when I do remember that it exists, I just postpone the next update to oblivion.

I really want to keep this blog going, and trust me when I say I'm going to, but it's not going anywhere, and I feel like nothing is happening. At first, I thought it was just Tumblr having boring days, but I realized that I'm just not doing anything entertaining. My blog just turned into a pool of reblogs with the occasional Pokemon-related post or rant. And I mostly wait for either @the-one-from-dres or @drizzileiscool to bring up the occasional topic that I might have enough insight to talk about. Sorry for @'ing you guys, by the way, I just need folks to know who I'm talking about. Y'all the goats.

Once I got my drawing tablet, I thought that I could do a bunch of art stuff, but then it devolved into the same potential self-obsession problem, where I would just draw that one character(which is literally just a Samurott with anxiety and a Goku complex, let's be honest with ourselves here) over and over again. I have other characters I can draw, and I'm even taking free art requests. Granted, I haven't gotten any requests yet, but the option was still there.

And that's how we got here. I have to retake my Regents in literally under 24 hours, and I'm bitching and moaning about how I'm not getting anywhere in my ha-ha internet blog, which everyone already takes as a joke anyway.

If anything, I think my problem comes from a lack of communication. There was this like, 4 day period that I didn't hear a word from Dres, and I thought he hated me for something I did, until he involved me in 3 back-to-back reblog games literally the next day.

I still feel awful about it now, it was so petty of me to even think that way. For context, Dres might as well be my day one, and he's inadvertently taught me the ins and outs of Tumblr, like how to use tags and things like that. Hell, we even played DnD together once. No exaggeration, he's the closest thing I've had to a real friend in years, and I'm convinced that's only the case because he hasn't seen me in person.

I love him deeply, and only wish the best for him. To think that he'd leave me after I did basically nothing, I've really hit a new level of desperate. He likely had his own things to do, while I'm still stressing about things that probably don't even matter in hindsight.

Back to my original point, I want to do a lot more on this blog, and I also wanted to make it a chill place.

That's one of the reasons why I don't talk about politics myself. I don't want to get involved in things like that at all, because I want people to live without worry. The furthest I go with that kind of thing is "Stop being dicks to each other. We're people, deal with it." I know it's more complicated than that, but at this point, I'm almost scared to get involved in that kind of thing. I don't even know what a terf is. I didn't know Rowling was a bad person until recently when Drizzile was talking about her.

And it's like, I don't even know why it's so hard to talk to people for me. But at the same time, I think I really have something wrong with me, but I'm too scared to get it checked out. And, while I'm not getting into personal details, I don't have the right circumstances to even have that happen in the first place. That's the out of character reason why I say I might have ADHD, instead of outright saying I have it. I literally can't get it diagnosed myself if I wanted to, and I don't do the self-diagnosis stuff because I always get paranoid and think my problem is worse than it is. For example, I've convinced myself three times within the past year and a half that I had appendicitis, because I would get this really specific pain in my stomach. Guess who I told about it?

No one. I was terrified of wasting someone's time just for it to be me freaking out over nothing, and if I'm being honest, I still am. At this point, I have a plethora of things wrong with me, I know that now, but I don't ever get them checked out. I'm doing well so far with them, why worry about it now.

I just don't want to offend anyone. All I wanted to do was make a place where I and other people could have fun.

This is still going to primarily be a Pokemon IRL blog, but I'm doing something different. Please, if there's anything you all want to see on here, let me know. Stuff for Guy, art stuff, whatever floats your boat besides the obvious. And I'll do my best to keep up with my stories and fanfics or whatever. Once I get my stuff settled again, obviously, but I don't want to make it seem like I'm doing this for myself.

I don't want to turn this into a pity party. I really don't. At this point, I'm sick of having people worry about me. Whenever they do, I feel like I'm being an attention hog, and it sucks. If you did read this, thanks for listening. I just needed to get this much off my chest.

#ooc #ooc rambles #serious #long post #personal #vent #again. you don't have to read this if you don't want to

[azzy421]

Okay I love how much effort you apparently put into every fic(let) you write, even though I am 100% sure that only half of it is even needed because everything you write is automatically good! And I can't believe you think that people might dislike what you share, you're one of my favourite writers in this fandom and the way you write AUs is AMAZING, you're so creative. Can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to the surfer and the adventure one. ❤️

Firstly, anon, that's really lovely of you to say, thank you (and thank you to other people who left me messages today - really appreciated!). I adore making up silly AUs and sharing them. :)

Headspace-y RL stuff under the cut.

My flippant 'i worry that everyone hates them' looks way more dramatic when I read it back now, and I feel a bit daft because I actually don't really logically think that. I didn't sleep well, and I woke up with pretty bad anxiety - which as I said in another post is hopefully transient, and maybe the combo of not enough sleep plus my meds has caused it? Who knows! But anyway, I was genuinely frustrated with myself for spending ages on a scene that didn't really go anywhere, so that bit stands. :)

I do still struggle with the intrusive belief that I have no value round these parts if I'm not at the absolute top of my game - and I would NEVER say that or think that of anyone else. It's purely down to low self-esteem and the way I've coped with social anxiety in the past. Again, I can logic it away, but it's still there. I love writing and sharing fic in the hope people enjoy it, and I write the things I want to write - but the anxiety of imagining what people are thinking about it, and by extension me, it is massive! Is it likely that everyone is bored to tears and secretly wishes I'd piss off, no, probably not (and what a self-centred view anyway!), but bits of me insist on worrying about it and they don't budge easily on days like today.

Also, my partner left for their work trip and I was like. This week! I will sort out my shit at work! I will write loads of fic! I will tidy the house! I will mend a jumper! I will reply to ALL my friends! I will respond to all the lovely AO3 comments I haven't responded to! I will play with the cats and enrich their tiny lives! I will be guilt-free New Azzy 2.0! And - well obviously I haven't. But I have fed myself, and washed my hair and written some fic and stumbled through my half-days at work and given the cats cuddles if not dedicated playtime, so it's not all bad news.

Work's been - frustrating, as well. I'm on a phased return back to full-time and unfortunately (due to circumstances outside of anyone's control really) at the moment I am very much just fitting my full-time job into part-time hours, which doesn't work in a multitude of ways. The meds are helping, but today and yesterday they've been a bit less magical than they seemed to be last week and I've been a bit more inclined to get sidetracked and not finish stuff and forget things. Just - more ADHD-y, really. Which might get fixed next week when I start taking a higher dose in the morning? We'll see.

(And I'm sorry if I'm repeating myself about the writing/social anxiety stuff. Due to the unique way Tumblr functions and a bad memory I can't remember how much of this I said already a couple of months ago...)

Anyway. Bad sleep, bad couple of days at work (if certain publishers would stop sending me books that would be GREAT), bad Azzy's brain. But I'm feeling a bit better this evening and writing this out has been cathartic and now? Pizza and fucking WINE.

If anyone else is going through it, hugs and love to you <3

#i will also add that i went for a walk this afternoon after my friend cancelled and it annoyingly helped #damn you smug self-help stuff i hate it when you're right #mental health talk #i will not disclose my pizza choice for fear of judgement. which probably tells you something

[payphonex]

Well, this is the first time I've written in almost 3 years. I'm not even sure what to say, honestly. I feel like my entire life has been taken from me. I feel like I've forgotten how to write.

Am i supposed to be angry? in love? sad?

lost?

Im lost. I dont know who I am anymore. I gave up everything for this toxic relationship. I stopped going to bars, seeing my friends. i stopped talking to anybody especially over text because everything would be read. I stopped taking phone calls unless i was home alone, which was rare. I learned to shut up, not talk about my emotions because it would be such a big fight; i wasnt paying attention to how she felt when i was upset. Even now, as im writing this i am terrified she'll see it.

She'll say something, she always does. She'll disapprove and ill be in trouble.

again.

We broke up, about 3 weeks ago. I moved to Tennessee. Im finally with my dad. Honestly, the only reason i didnt stay in town was because i finally had the courage to block my mom.

Maybe the universe was telling me it was time to go.

I finally listened.

I dont know how to feel anymore. What im supposed to feel, ya know? In some aspects i feel numb. Im alone out here, truly alone. I guess the good thing about that is i cant get hooked on cocaine again.

I crave it all the fucking time. Being sober for 2 years really doesnt matter when i still smell it laying in bed.

I guess i can thank my sobriety on my now ex, we did get sober together. I cant thank her enough for that.

You know, its weird being back on here. I feel like i could throw up just downloading the app. My old account was deleted, my ex swears it wasnt her but im sure ill never know.

I found you again, i re-read some of things you had written. I really have been looking through rose coldered glasses when it came to you. The pain of losing you in my life was so fucking real for months.

atleast until i realized you truly threw me under the bus. like i was just some freak obsessed with you. I loved you, you were my family.

we were 'inseperable'. Remember? you said that.

"I understand that it'll never be us, part of me knew that it never would be, but i decided to let you fall anyway. make me think it was wrong."

You remember that? you wrote that. I can finally let you know,

it.

was.

wrong.

Because youre so stuck in my fucking head that it is hard to breathe. People still tell me about you, I could never truly get away from you.

I cant forget those nights.

I never could wipe away the fucking smell of lavender and vanilla

Ive never been good at cleaning windows either. Im sure your finger prints are still covering the view i could have had.

You've always been such a good liar. Keeping my at your hip for a backup plan just long enough to leave me drowning again.

The last time i heard your voice was the night my ex called you. I was plastered, black out drunk. I found out my tumblr was deleted that night.

I hit her. Busted her lip because i couldnt let go of you. So she called you. Of course you didnt answer, but the next morning you called me off of a friends phone. She forced me to answer the call.

You sounded like you fucking hated me. Why?

because you lead me on? because you got caught up in the consequences of YOUR actions?

you responded to me! when i wrote about you. You always replied. always.

It was never "leave me alone" or "we need to stop this"

You played me. you fucking used me.

you.

you fucking hurt me.

and i shouldve known better. but youre angry at me? annoyed with me?

it was easy for you to drop me, wasnt it?

I liked one of your posts. im sure youre gonna block me now. i bet you didnt even read this.

im letting you go. i guess this is my goodbye. im moving on and it feels good to finally express myself again. dont worry, my tumblrs always been my own private thing, noone you know will see this, incase youre embarrassed.