#ask me qs

[bobfloydsbabe]

If anyone wants to ask me stuff about my OCs, my fics, or writing in general, now’s the time! I finally have some time to relax and would love to talk.

#helena rants #ask me qs #maybe about my top gun darlings #or any of my OCs really

[8pxl]

hi maybe a dumb question but i’ve gotten into pixel art and want to post it eventually, how do i make it so that the image i create (usually like 100x100) isn’t literally tiny when i post it? i know pngs are more pixel art friendly but that’s it. thx!

it depends on your program of choice but they should all have a built in tool to resize. when resizing you want to make sure you resize by 100%, usually i'll go 600%-800% larger for uploading. Another important thing to note when resizing it, make sure you select the 'nearest neighbor' method, thats what keeps pixels crispy and not blurry when resizing :)

#also def not a dumb question!!! tbh there isnt any dumb qs #feel free to ask me whatever :)

[darqx]

Got an evil eye

In which there’s a small Demon!Rire Angel!Rire comparison.

❗️For commonly asked qs please see my BTD FAQ

😇 The lore of Angel!Rire is essentially:

Possibly rogue angel that kills people under word of God.

Word of God being debatable because his criteria for killing people changes a lot - (eg: might kill a bad person cos they’re “bad”, similarly will kill a good person to get them to heaven faster, similarly will just “mercy” kill whoever because humans are a plague to themselves and others etc) - EITHER WAY no one seems to be stopping him.

Also debatable is whether he believes in his justifications for his actions or if he’s just doing it for fun and purposely smoke-screening that fact.

I have described their main similarity before as deception since they both seem viable (as a normal human / normal angel) at first. Their main personality difference is that their modus operandi is flipped - Demon!Rire will often see how long he can con someone, but will eventually reveal his true nature and will match what he says with it. Angel!Rire is more blunt and will reveal his true nature almost immediately, but will continue saying things in complete antithesis to that reveal thus masking the reality of his intentions.

I do know what OCTs are! But I probably would never join one due to lack of time. They seem to be very large commitments and i’d be better off trying to find that time to do BP :V

There is no set location for BTD (considering that me, Gato and EP all come from diff countries LOL)...other than maybe “Earth” and “some city/town place that predominately speaks English”.

This is, actually, one of the more popular questions I get asked over time about Rire XD; Which makes me think I need to update my FAQ to include it. Anyway in my FAQ i put it like this:

CAN RIRE FEEL LOVE? I don’t know if you could classify what he feels as “love” in the same definition we are used to…

And from other answers to similar qs:

IF he becomes fond of someone for whatever reason, he will probably become more possessive. His methodology might not change so much, but there would be more aftercare (cos if you want someone to last longer...)

I never go any more in depth when answering these kinda qs even though i’m sure people would like me to XD

At first I was going to say “I don’t know Depeche Mode”, but when i looked them up on Youtube i saw “Just can’t get enough” and was like OH I KNOW THESE SONGS.

As for Rire it’s not super in line with his usual, but I don’t think he’d mind the music!

He’s gotten used to moving between different climates quickly so it doesn’t really affect him as much.

You would not be the first so go for it if you want lol.

#boyfriend to death #rire answer dump #answer dump #also one q unrelated to Rire but i didnt want to answer it by itself lol #also also thank you to all the lovely compliment asks people have been sending me! #they're not qs so i dont answer them but i do read and appreciate them and leave them in my inbox so i can keep reading them later #<3 <3 <3 #angel rire

[mercyisms]

hello anon and apologies for promptly dropping off of the face of the earth after promising to reply to this. in the interest of trying to be useful, i'm going to dash something off-the-cuff, but i hope it helps! i think this idea is already routinely demonstrable in the text, but tamsyn muir was also kind enough to explicitly spell some of this out in this lovely interview: "That said, the God of the Locked Tomb IS a man; he IS the Father and the Teacher; it’s an inherently masc role played by someone who has an uneasy relationship himself to playing a Biblical patriarch. John falls back on hierarchies and roles because they’re familiar even when he’s struggling not to." one of the ways this is dramatized in the text is, y'know, john shoving some of the earth's soul into a barbie. pygmalion the earth into perhaps the most iconic form of white femininity. it's a move that may be complicated by details such as a) john's indigeneity and b) the queerness implicated in john preferring barbie to any of his more 'masculine' toys, but there's a lot to interrogate here on how john's proximity to systemic oppression (across various lines) is retained and the ways in which they're replicated despite his intentions, or the ways they come through even when certain axes of oppression (gender, race) operate differently in the nine houses than on contemporary earth, or what john prioritizes above altering these systems. so on one hand, thinking about john's affinity to tall blondes might lead you there. however, because the 6ft tall blonde is not just alecto but is, in fact, an enduring role, now you can open up some more questions. for me, these questions might look like: what is the relationship between this role and john and john's empire?

the 6 ft tall blonde is always john's bodyguard. that's another key point of comparison. we may consider: when the bodyguard is alecto, she is stylized as a (to really simplify it) romantic counterpart in some ways; she is a caretaker (i'm quite sure there's a line in ntn about how john is unable to sleep unless alecto strokes the bridge of his nose or similar; possibly the only one granted access into the fact that john is afraid); she, based on what we have to go off of, trusting of and ultimately deferential to john's judgment prior to entombment. she is also stylized as a highly, and traditionally, feminine person (see: barbie), though alecto is repulsed by and in conflict with her body and gender presentation. and then you might consider augustine. at the urging of his lyctors, john entombs alecto. john identifies augustine as one of the lyctors most repulsed by and mistrusting of alecto. in her vacancy, the lyctors come into their roles as the emperor's fingers, and augustine, first saint, takes up a particularly key role. we might also note that augustine is staked out by the text as deeply gender ambiguous (g1deon and mercy, among others, are gendered without hesitation. the narration questions augustine's gender), but frequently pivots on misogyny. certainly, he accuses mercymorn of trying to become A.L. bodyguard 2.0 but in a way that a) suggests she is failing and b) while mercymorn and M-- both function as guardians and protecting figures to John, both come to the table with a different texture. augustine (exchanging 'your mom' jokes, etc., with john pre- dios apate minor) and A-- (thinking especially of how john remembers only A-- calling his new eyes 'cool') is also fulfilling a role for john that his other (remaining) lyctors are not. humanizing confidante, perhaps. he is not only a thousand year old friend but a caretaker for a slightly more fallible and human john. augustine also reaches a point where he can no longer support john. where john-as-emperor and the goals and demands of his empire diverge from what augustine sees as morally defensible. and so he's replaced. augustine and john wrestle. they reach an equal impasse. and ianthe -- rather than save her mentor and overthrow god -- chooses to sacrifice augustine and take up his place. of course, kiriona is also present and given some nicer titles, but by the end of nona (see: the tower besties little fight before the tomb is opened) we understand gideon is being used by john, while ianthe is the bodyguard proper, choosing what information to feed back to john (NO new updates on his duplicitous sluts, thanks!) and working very hard to keep john separate from alecto, in order to keep mr. gaius in a state that benefits ianthe and ianthe's goals. ianthe also has some wild and fucky (complimentary) gender shit that may also be fun to track. also, notably, ianthe is not of particular interest to john, who vastly prefers harrowhark. the strain of desire is possibly broken. so we don't just have, you know, a very fun enduring bit of the 6 ft blonde bodyguard, but we also have an interesting progression. we can see how this role evolves. john shaped alecto in one way, and had to set her aside. augustine allowed himself to be shaped by and used by john, up until a point. ianthe is the consequences of john's empires and the decisions or neglect that coalesced into the nine houses' politics and hierarchies, but we've reached a point where john is now (wittingly and unwittingly) in conflict with these hierarchies. the 6 ft tall blonde is not only a signal that certain hierarchies, roles, and systems persist in john's empire, but i think you could compellingly map out ianthe is the logical conclusion of said systems & that provides a really interesting context to read her actions & plots, both in conversation with alecto (and her shifting position) and augustine, but also with john. (and the 'rebrand' john is engaging in during nona, as he moves away from the neo-roman lyctors to tower princes & a flirtation with greater indigenous stylings, ex. 'kiriona' over 'gideon'.) anyway! i hope some of this helped. i know i'm not necessarily spelling out the entirety of my personal reading here, but i hope i've laid out some of the pertinent points of analyses and also some of the 'work' (points of comparison or characterization, etc.) that i think is happening wrt to our tall, tall blondes.

#sorry tumblr wouldn't let me reply to this as an ask?? so here we are #also i sincerely apologize for taking so long! and i hope this contains some of what you hoped to receive #follow up qs very welcome though speedy replies not guaranteed #and also god sorry for any typos but we are just posting no proofing being complete scallywags etc #anonymous #asks #and very loosely but so i can find it later if necessary: #m: tlt meta #ianthe tridentarius #augustine quinque #john #alecto the first

[harbingersecho]

ask not what you can do for your country, ask what your country did to you

#rvb #red vs blue #mark temple #mine #*23 #art #this song's in my mercs playlist but that part also reminds me sm of temple i had to draw him real quick #CREDIT FOR THE TEMPLE HC GOES TO AWNRII !!! i saw his + loved it lol. no notes. its perfect. #i was debating if temple would have mascara but like. OF COURSE he does. why would i even question that #anyway. temple was so right abt all the sim trooper shit. an i'll say it the armor lock room was gnarly as hell #slowly dying in your armor? oof. hard to think of worse ways to go #also if temple actually looked like this i'd 1000% understand why loco simps for him so bad and why everyone follows him no qs asked #im not immune to goth man. not even remotely resistant actually

[flowercrowngods]

oh no now i’m thinking about a follow-up to this :/

#i have no TIME but i want eddie to freak out and wayne to take care of both boys #i want eddie to talk to steve keeping him awake during the car ride asking him the randomest questions and learning so much about him #one time i kept someone lucid by asking him the randomest questions as we waited for emergency services to arrive #he just suffered a massive head injury falling with his bike at full speed landing on his head right beside me #eddie learning steve likes playing the piano. eddie learning steve likes to dance in the kitchen as he cooks. #eddie learning so much about robin too because steve won’t stop talking about her. asking all of eddie’s qs for himself and robin #eddie panicking as wayne takes care of steve bc what on EARTH is he supposed to do with all that knowledge now bc steve and he Don’t Talk #hhhhh

[steampoweredwerehog]

Can the Narrator see himself now that Stanley's shown him what he looks like, or was the last image in the latest comic metaphorical? I ask also because of that other comic where Stanley comments on the Narrator's size and the Narrator demonstrates how he can change it at will. Is it just that he can 'physically' sense himself, or am I reading too much into all this?

So I’ve been retracing my steps and I think I now have a coherent answer:

All The Narrator has is his perception (I Think Therefore I Am), so how he exists depends entirely on how he imagines himself. He wants to take up an entire room, so he does. He FEELS like he has limbs and a face, so he does, even if he can’t look down and see them. And lately, he’s gotten quite a lot of positive reinforcement from a Certain Little Protagonist on that front. It’s more real now, at least subconsciously. Maaaybe even enough to instinctively reach out and catch Stanley when he falls. 👀

So yes, The Narrator is Feeling more than outright ‘seeing’ in that last drawing, but he sure is feeling…a lot. All at once.

#Asks #greentrickster #tsp #the stanley parable #a bit long but #I like Qs like this cuz it forces me to take what I’ve made #& make it make sense lol #nysm!au #Now you see me AU

[seeminglydark]

the way i was squealing with excitement every time caro mentioned their neighbour omggg i really was listening to it like

Ehehehehhe gas station Caro may or may not still have big unresolved feels. How dare he just up and disappear and leave them alone like that. If people thought I wasn’t gonna sneak some pining into the podcast hahahahahaha

#ask box #rj rambles #IN LOVE YOUR HONOR #but what if he saw me now and didn’t like me anymore?! oh no #fears #and loves #original characters #mil-liminal podcast #I’m having fun with all your qs today

[potato-lord-but-not]

every time i see your art it makes me hungry for your art style. i literally want to EAT it it looks so funky and expressive, it's like disney but BETTER. anyway where did you learn to draw? :) like, did you go to art school, or is it just something you love to do often? aaallsso, do you have anywhere where i can get art prints of ur art.... because i literally want to hang your art on my wall

BEST reaction tbh please eat up- also Disney but better is definitely a new one, I’m here for it tho. Drawing has just been something I’ve always done tbh, it’s been my only hobby all my life lmao.

Also! just told someone else this too but I’m 100% alright with you going to get em printed somewhere yourself! Since I don’t have a good place to print em myself yet, you can just send in a kofi tip if you’d like n go crazy.

#dm me if you have any more qs cus I be crazy #ask

[whinlatter]

Hello Elizabeth, I’ve loved all your metas so far, and you do a great job of pointing things out that we as readers may have overlooked. You honestly made me want to read the HP series again because I feel like I missed out on so much. Apologies if you’ve already done a meta on this before and I missed it, but how abused do you think Harry was by the Dursleys? We know the basics: malnutrition, neglect, and emotional abuse for the majority of his life, but I remember reading the book as a child and getting this uneasy feeling that he was being physically abused. If you read between the lines and pay attention to his interactions with the Dursleys in the beginning of each book, I think it's indirectly mentioned... but maybe I've been reading it wrong all these years? What is your take on this?

TW: generalised non-specific discussions of child abuse and neglect

Thank you so much for the question and for reading all my jumbled thoughts! Totally relate - I re-read the books for the first time in the better part of two decades last summer and was like, sorry all this stuff was there the whole time and I missed it? I learn so much for other writers' close readings revisiting these texts (@ashesandhackles's re-reads spring to mind, but there are many others) and love to be a part of these ongoing conversations.

On the Dursleys and child abuse... I haven't written anything on this before, and the short answer is: yes, I think it's clear that Harry experienced some level of physical abuse at the hands of the Dursleys, at the hands of both Vernon, Petunia, Marge and, to a lesser extent, Dudley.

That said, I do have some caveats. One is that I think fandom speculation over the extent of the physical abuse can sometimes risk overstating the canonical scale of the physical abuse (any abuse, including psychological abuse, is awful enough, and some fics claiming canon-compliancy can sometimes risk gratuitous depictions of really horrific abuse in problematic ways). Two, I think sometimes fanfic depictions of Harry at the Dursleys' can risk overstating how canonically Harry perceives his treatment at the Dursleys, in ways that risks predetermining how child victims of abuse ought to feel about their experiences rather than how they describe them themselves. Three, and the one that's particularly interesting to me as a historian, is how Harry's treatment at the Dursleys shines this fascinating light onto changing audience tastes and attitudes towards depictions of harm to children in mass-market children's and YA literature between the time of HP's initial publication and the present day.

I've done a longer little lunch-break discussion of some of this below the cut. Yes this quickly became a long-winded discussion of the character of the abused orphan/child in the publishing market for late twentieth century children and YA literature and Thatcher's Britain. I am sorry about that, and know that I apparently simply cannot be stopped.

It's undeniable that what happened to Harry at the Dursley's was child abuse and neglect, for all the reasons you rightly cite. Both Harry and the loving adult caregivers he finds in the Wizarding World recognise that he is abused and neglected at the hands of the Dursleys. This includes physical abuse, with examples readers rightly cite off the bat: Harry being held tightly around the throat by Vernon and later citing 'a need to duck' around his uncle (OotP), Petunia trying to hit twelve-year-old Harry with a frying pan (CoS), Marge hitting Harry with her walking stick (PoS), and repeated instances of the Dursleys withholding food and confining Harry to small physical spaces. I hope it goes without saying that these instances are plainly incidents of physical violence against children. Each is horrific on their own terms, and likely part of a pattern of repeated physical roughness and low-level violence towards a child (I say low-level only because the strangling incident takes place after Dudley appears to have been harmed in OotP, and Harry's response to Vernon holding him by the throat suggests this violent incident is particularly extreme even for Vernon).

It's also clear, though, that while Harry bitterly hates the Dursleys for all of the harm they have done to him, he does seem to see this physical abuse as part of a broader set of failings they committed as his caregivers, and doesn't single-out physical abuse as uniquely traumatising. Confinement, being shouted at, and failing to protect him from bullying by other children are all crimes the Dursleys commit against him that he clearly views as just as harmful as the physical abuse he endures at their hands. We don't know how Harry the character would come to think about his experiences with the Dursleys in adulthood, of course, and it's reasonable to speculate that he may come to acknowledge himself as a child abuse victim and have either suppressed memories of traumatic incidents he endured as a child. With that said, I personally feel a certain level of discomfort with fan speculation about further or escalated incidents of child endangerment against Harry at Privet Drive beyond what we see either in the text or is implied within patterns of the Dursleys' behaviour. What the Dursleys do to him in canon is bad enough as it is, and exaggerated depictions of the Dursleys' treatment can get dangerously close to implicitly suggesting child abuse has to be a certain level of physically egregious to be sympathetic to the reader that the canonical text doesn't achieve, which I think is intensely problematic.

One thing I will say, though, is that I think the example of the Dursleys' treatment of Harry is a fascinating case study in HP's reception history and the cultural acceptability of depicting and using child abuse as a plot device. The topic is such a good a litmus test for the gulf between how the series was read and consumed when first published and how it is increasingly thought about and revisited by audiences. Changing attitudes about Harry's experiences with the Dursleys reflect how HP as a piece of literature which was written, edited, published and marketed to a consumer audience with certain expectations about depictions of harm to children, but which now continues to be closely re-read/revisited through the films and consumed by a market audience with increasingly different comfort levels and expectations about child welfare.

Children's and YA literature in the mid-to-late twentieth century had certain certain norms and conventions. Often, this took the form of the orphan child as either the protagonist or as a key sympathetic hero. Lots of media used the abused child both as an immediately sympathetic character for audiences to empathise with, and also used the absence of things like family, safety and love as central motivators for these characters, which then sets up the plot of the media at hand to resolve. The literature that for most UK school-children became canonical between 1980 and 1997, so in Thatcher/John Major's Britain, often centred characters who were usually orphaned or bereaved and who experience child abuse, neglect or mistreatment, often depicted in a slapstick and almost pantomime-esque way. This includes predecessors to HP like Roald Dahl's Matilda (1988), Michelle Magorian's Goodnight Mister Tom (1981) and Jacqueline Wilson's various books but especially Tracy Beaker (1991). This period also saw enduringly popular older works of literature experience a resurgence as older English-language TV or film adaptations made in the UK or Hollywood became even more commercially successful and entered 'classic' status - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Roald Dahl wrote the Child-Catcher into the 1968 film - he's not in the book!), Ken Loach's Kes (1968), Peter Pan (including Hook (1991), the Spielberg version), or mid-nineteenth century works of literature that became commercially successful popular musicals after 1950, like Oliver Twist or Cosette in Les Mis. Even in media where children appear in dysfunctional but fundamentally loving homes - Billy Elliot (2000) - or face physical violence at the hands of adult villains - Home Alone (1990) - we can see from both critical reception and popular audiences responses that the consuming publicly were on the whole less likely to be disturbed by either violence or the threat of violence against children than audiences, especially young audiences, three or four decades later, who typically find such depictions, even in their slapstick form, abhorrent.

In this period of writing (and particularly publishing and/or market media production beyond print fiction), there was far greater flippancy about depicting violence or the threat of violence against children as an empathy device for readers, especially young readers. I think this is for reasons that I think relate to changing ideas (and legislation) around children's agency, child welfare, endangerment, protection and the boundaries of the state and family life in late twentieth century Britain and elsewhere (a mammoth topic for another day). These were increasingly pressing political issues into the 1990s, especially the late Thatcherite/Major period into the Blair years. The violence that was depicted in literature during this transitional period almost always had a slightly farcical, or even slapstick or comic dynamic to it that I think is true also of the Dursleys around Harry in those early books - the frying pan being a classic example. We're supposed to think of the Dursleys as ridiculous, a parody of Thatcherite Home Counties surburban culture. While authorial intent is to show a character defined by the absence of familial love at the hands of clear villains, the Dursleys aren't intended to be read as vicious child abusers inflicting irreparable psychological and physical harm on a pre-teen child. They're supposed to be within this genre convention of cruel but ridiculous adults who behave badly and embarrass themselves and who the reader is supposed to immediately root against.

My point, really, is that we as readers can certainly revisit these books decades later having absorbed this greater popular literacy about child trauma responses and PTSD and see these characters differently, but we should keep in mind that this is a lot about the changing sets of ideas and expectations we have as a reading audience than it does about how the author and the text's editors intended these characters to be received. If we are reading the Dursleys' treatment of Harry and thinking - how is Harry remarkably fine after all of this? How could Dumbledore leave him with these people? - we're asking questions that the aspects of HP as an artefact of literature fulfiling certain genre conventions was never set up to be able to answer. I just think is something that fandom discussions and fanfiction authors (particularly those drawn to canon-compliancy) need take into consideration when trying to reconcile their horror at the Dursleys' treatment of Harry and interest in how this abuse would shape him as a character, with an interest in remaining true to the canonical text.

(I absolutely don't mean to be overly relativist about this, and want to make clear I'm talking about depictions of children's abuse in literature. In reality, children who have experienced violence and harm at the hands of adult caregivers have always felt some level of pain and distress. My point here is less about the lived experience of abuse and neglect, and more about changing cultural norms, attitudes and tastes about fictional depictions about abuse and neglect.)

#ok lunch break's over i'll shut up now #i've talked a lot this week even i am sick of me #my ask box is full of interesting Qs i am v grateful for and desperate to answer #but don't want to spam everyone's feed so will be pausing/slowing down answering for a little while if that's ok! #the dursleys #meta #writing #fandom discourse #TW: child neglect

[atthebell]

Why do you think Roier and Missa are easiest to understand? I found the same thing as someone who's just learning Spanish, and I wasnt sure if it was because I've watched so much Roier content that it influenced my ability to understand him, or if there's a deeper reason due to some regional accent differences being easier for non-native speakers to understand. I'm curious about your thoughts since you have really good insights into linguistics, but ignore this if it's too much for tumblr lol!

neither of them talk super fast, and imo their accents are fairly easy to understand-- for me, missa is easy to understand bc he's from the north and that region has accents i'm more familiar with, and roier's accent is somewhat neutral although obviously still clearly mexican and he uses a lot of slang. i think that also helps-- roier uses a lot of the same vocab, so if you're still learning spanish, you can pick up that slang and then understand quite a bit of what he's saying because he swears literally five times in a single sentence. they both speak pretty clearly and, additionally, i think most non-native spanish speakers, especially U.S. americans, are most familiar with mexican spanish rather than other dialects. so that's why someone like rubius or spreen is harder for nonnative speakers to understand, unless they're more familiar with spanish or argentine dialects specifically.

for me it's hard to parse bc i understand most of what they all say regardless since i've spoken spanish for so long, but i think rivers is just difficult because she speaks very fast. mariana is pretty easily to understand as well, there's just less for me to say about him tbh idr where he's from and i don't really have a hard time understanding him, i just watch him less than anyone else really.

for quackity, his accent is more noticeable, and his spanish is a little weirder, in that he is so bilingual and if you're not familiar with that way of speaking it can be hard to pick up what he's saying sometimes. this is partially why i wish there were a few more latino americans on the server so people get more familiar with that type of bilinguality-- i think quackity is in a unique position that he doesn't full share with other server members (aside from mouse, in that she is also a latino who lives in the states, although from a content perspective she doesn't do the same kind of bilingual split that q does nor does she stream in spanish), and i would be interested to see more of that kind of diasporic latino experience on the server. that's me rambling and doesn't have to do with accents i've just been thinking about it for a while and i think it would be cool. but yeah q phrases things funny sometimes because he's thinking of the english way of saying something or vice versa, and he is by far one of the most fluently bilingual members of the server, so it's an interesting dynamic for people watching him who aren't super familiar with spanish nor the kinds of calques and things that end up happening with bilingual speakers.

anyway back to your actual questions i do also think exposure does tip the scales lol most of us watch more roier than anyone else and esp for people just learning spanish, you're gonna understand him better than anyone else because of that. which is nice in some ways bc you learn a lot of slang but also if you're going to speak spanish in any kind of non-casual setting please do not talk like roier he is a fucking crazy person who swears so much it's actually unreal

#asks #anons #also this isnt me trying to label q as mexican american since he doesnt call himself that at all #just that he is a latino who lives (part-time) in the states so its a slightly different dynamic if that makes sense? idfk #labels are difficult im not trying to put any on q i just think that element of his life is important to acknowledge #when it comes to his bilingualism #also im not putting a value judgment on fluency levels its just very clear q is extremely fluent in both in a way most people aren't #sorry i have to give a billion caveats i dont want anyone to think im trying to be a dick or assume too much about ccs #and again im white us american and not latino myself #also unrelated to the rest of this but the funniest thing to me about qs accent in eng is how randomly he throws in east coast vowel change #like where did he get those. i need to know #anyway this is way more answer than was probably needed and i spent forever writing it #and now my nephew is here i have to go play with hotwheels

[swansong-if]

I love how half the asks we send you are aesthetic-based. That being said, please look up Sara Mrad's Arrival of The Birds, spring 2024 bridal collection

And I love each and every one of them<3 also,,,

hell yeah

#asks #pomegranate-cuties #t: fashion #i would very much like for tumblr to give me back my inbox icon? why is it gone.... #i'm getting the qs in notifications but there's no inbox in the topbar. where did she go

[wellhalesbells]

[Based on Asks I Get] Here’s the Cheatsheet to My (Sterek) Fics, Folks:

Why am I Following You Again?:  👋🏻 You’re probably here because of There’s Monsters at Home.  Stiles is a BAMF, Derek is a Failwolf, the Pack has to actually learn how to form Voltron (figuratively), Derek gets possessed by a demon (literally), Stiles is blind (temporarily), and there’s a semi-sentient phoenix tattoo.  There’s art from @andavs​ for it here because she is one of the coolest people I’ve ever known.  Big facts.  There’s also a gifset that eeames made that can only be found in the fic now (thanks, tumblr) so check that ish out!

You Wrote a Sterek Fic Where, Like, They’re Dicks... But It’s Good?  Also, Stiles is Correct™ about How Much It Sucks to Sleep in the Same Bed as a Human Heater: You’re thinking of Seat Belts & Gravity, and your description is much better than mine.  On.  Point.

There was One Where, Like, They’re in College and There’s the Pack But Not Really Because I Think Everyone was Human and No One Knows Derek and Stiles are Together Even Though It’s Not a Secret?: You’re thinking of We’re Burning One Hell of a Something, aka The One You Will Never Find If You Don’t Bookmark It Now.  I’m serious, I just told you what it is but navigate away from this page for one minute and what’s it called?  You don’t know, but an Ellie Goulding song is stuck in your head and this is going to drive you gonzo now.  Just bookmark it, for serious.

😭 B-But Protozooey?: That’s Of Bananas, Babies and Buzzkills and I’m sorry.  Oh, and get all your bwhahas and wah-wah-wahs in podfic form: here!

What are the Rules to Brackets?: Brackets is a fictional game created in The Quadruped, Rhypophagus Team of Goatliness that is based solely on the pure chaotic energy of True American in New Girl ..... what about any of that fic makes you think rules belong there?

P.S. What Does Rhypophagus Mean?: Granted this was never a super popular word but it did used to be a... word and it means trash-eating - I cannot explain to you why there’s only, like, one link on Google that will tell you that now.  I’m thinking Larry and Sergey liked my fic so much they decided: all roads must lead to this miss!  It’s the only thing that makes sense really.

Did You Write a Ballet One Where, Like, Afterwards I Wanted to Crawl into a Dark Hole and Eschew All Human Contact?:  I did!  Thanks for noticing, and you’re welcome!  It’s called Birds of a Feather Fuck Together.  You probably remember this art for it too!

There was a Nerd/Jock Thing But Also Still Werewolves... Am I Remembering This Right?: You are!  It’s Option C) Some Bad Guys are Werewolves, but Not All Werewolves are Bad Guys.  I should make longer titles, huh?  Also there is awesome art for it by NateintheAttic.

Are You the Person Who Did the One Where the Hales are Still Alive and There’s, Like, Magic and Scott’s a Seer and Also Everyone Thinks Scott and Stiles are Gonna Bone (Including Derek)?  No, Right?:  I can see why you would think I am not that person because it is all kinds of happy but that was me!  It’s called Instructions for Dancing.  It’s got a bittle prequel on tumblr here and a scene from Derek’s PoV here.

Did You Ever Finish that One that I Started to Read on Tumblr and Then Lost Track of around Part, Like, Fifteen?:  I did!  It’s completed on tumblr as the Subway Sleeper Series and posted to AO3 as a huge block of zaniness under the name Hibernation Station.  Oh!  And art exists for it: here and here!

There was One about Allison?: There was!  It’s called Phases of the Weaker Heart and it’s entirely from her point of view with some of my fave pre-slashy Sterek sprinkled in.  @goodoceangonewrong giffed one of my absolute favorite scenes: here and lunchee did an absolute gorgeous reading of it here.

There’s One with a Dog and Baltimore and Frosted Flakes and Baseball and Smiling and Also, Like, So Much Baltimore Though?:  That’s [Hilary Duff Lyric Redacted]!  You might also remember the art for it: here.

There’s One Where Stiles Talks, Like, So Much?: That could be so many, help me out here! .... Holy-Os, Now with Thirty Percent More Bonermallows?  Oh, of course!  That would be How Weetabix Got His Marshmallows Back!  You’re welcome, you dirty birds 😉

Okay, This is Going to Sound Weird but Boyd was Just, Like, Stealing Clothes Off Dead Hunters in the Background?: That’s Apathy, Apathy, You’ll be the Death of Me and it sounds perfectly in character to me so I’m not even sure what you mean by “weird.”

Are You Ever Going to Finish Your Series/Write a Sequel Like You Said You were Going to?:  I am super sure that I am one day going to do those things, yes.  Is that based on reality or previous patterns?  Listen, sometimes you just have to have faith, y’know?

#sterek #teen wolf #calrissian18 #these are all based on real asks i've gotten or real search terms i've seen to try to Find The Fic #i've gotten the one about the college au like.... multiple times too #you may not think you love it but you will try to find it again and just... save yourself the headache now y'all #also the person who couldn't remember the fic but could quote BONERMALLOWS to me? hero. #if there are any others that you just like.... lose sometimes let me know and i'll add them here #but in the years i've been on this hellsite..... #THESE are the ones i get qs about and oNLY these

[spagnews]

4 out of the 6 parts of my spommy 5+1 are completed... I am working on finishing one more. This may be happening soon? kinda crazy I am so nervous and excited

#spommy #smosh rpf #rpf #pls come ask me qs about this!! i wanna talk about it #this is the longest fic i have ever written it's kinda crazy #bless my friend for being my beta reader this is gonna be a trip #iwythm

[jonathansknife]

More Mina!

I assume you mean more headcanons, in which case here you go! Ty for the ask!!!

Link to previous headcanons

She is around 21-22 years old during the events of the book (a baby :(.)

She feeds stray animals whenever she can.

She's a bit of a jealous person, but feels her jealousy is illogical and tries never to act on it. When Lucy got engaged to Arthur, despite how happy she was for them both, she got a bit sad and thought Lucy might tire of her once she was a married woman. She tried to hide her jealousy but it wasn't very hard for Lucy to suss out. Lucy had to gently remind her that she was already engaged to Jonathan. Mina was just like, “Yeah but that's Jonathan, he's one of us, he doesn't count.”

She, Jonathan and Lucy have all known each other their entire lives. As children they would all talk about getting married and Mina had a running joke of proposing to them both. But before she and Jonathan started courting in earnest, she secretly hoped he would marry Lucy because she couldn't imagine a lovelier couple.

She was very easily scared as a child but grew to love horror. Similarly, she cried often as a child but rarely does as an adult.

Elaborating on her OCD: she mainly has moral/scrupulosity obsessions but also has occasional episodes of distrusting her food, during which she sometimes spends several minutes inspecting each piece. This is especially the case after Dracula (not being able to taste or smell anything but rot doesn't help). Sometimes she worries that her food is contaminated with blood. For this reason, she prefers to make her own food.

Since she likes both fibercrafts and papercrafts, she really enjoys bookbinding. She also finds the process of gathering up a stack of information and binding it together satisfying on a conceptual level. She's probably made at least one fully bound copy of Dracula.

She likes rhythmic counting. She uses it as a calming technique.

She has relatively short hair (about shoulder length) because it was once cut off for purported health purposes (in the Victorian era this was a common treatment for brain fever among other things). She likes having it short.

She has creaky joints.

She enjoys really cursed food combinations that disturb the people around her. Again, especially true post Drac. I'm thinking instant ramen with chocolate syrup levels of cursed.

As a child she wanted to be a priest or an undertaker when she grew up.

Don't give her your pens and pencils if you don't like germs because they will end up in her mouth if she isn't paying attention.

Her hands are very sensitive after Dracula. She used to like when Jonathan squeezed her hands but after what happened she prefers to gently hold his hand or wrist. She often wears gloves.

She occasionally writes poetry. She especially likes sonnets.

She is not genuinely superstitious, but she, Lucy and Jonathan like to cycle through superstitions together to sort of test them out. They spend too much time in cemeteries to hold their breath the whole time, but they often hold it as they enter and leave so as not to spread the cemetery air. For a while they carried pigeon feathers because they were thought to hold off death. (This was generally thought to be a negative thing, prolonging the suffering of the dying, but they thought maybe they could “hack” the superstition and use it to their advantage.)

That's all I've got for now. If you wanted a different question answered regarding Mina (or any character), let me know! My askbox is always open and I love talking about my beloved blorbo <3

Send me character asks!

#tysm for the ask aaaa I love answering qs about Mina!!! #pls send more asks or tell me about your own hcs in my askbox #mina murray #mina harker #dracula #re: dracula #dracula daily

[eqt-95]

20 Questions More

A deeper and more detailed version of the 20 questions for AO3 fanfic writers. Thanks @fabulousglitch for the tag!!

1) How do you keep getting ideas for your ship/fandom?

The blorbos won't leave me alone.

2) Which authors inspire you in your fandom, and why are they so freakishly good?

There are too many to count. I was introduced to Supergirl through fanfic and the canon I know to be true has been built on the backs of hundreds of contributors. It wouldn't do anyone justice if I started a list because 1. it would become a monolith of names and 2. I would definitely miss one(s). If you're in this fandom, you've likely inspired me, and that counts both for written, gif-ed, and drawn works.

3) Aside from the characters of your main ship, who are the characters you love to write?

Alex, but I don't always get it right.

4) Are there pairings or tropes you know for sure you'd never write about? Which ones?

There is a lot I probably wouldn't do, but I also for sure never expected to write an F1 au, so...

5) What is your writing process and why is it cursed?

I can either sit down and crush 1-3k words or sit down and tweak the same seven sentences for two hours. There is rarely an in between.

6) What is your favorite part of your writing process?

Editing. Oh boy do I LOVE editing. Those opportunities for finessing and fine-tuning and tweaking are *mwah*

7) What’s the weirdest thing you’ve had to research for a fic?

This isn't weird but is more recent: I did a deep dive into star constellations for a throwaway line in 'new kind of romance'

8) Is there a particular writing rule you struggle with (grammar, spelling, tense, reality in general)?

This is a nonanswer, but I would love to expand my vocabulary. The thesaurus is my writing buddy, but there are very real moments where I pout and scowl and glare at the ceiling because I can't think of the word that I'm feeling.

9) What was your hardest scene to write so far and why?

Any sort of conflict/confession/confrontation is always really hard for me, but they're also maybe my favorite things to write. I want the characters to hash things out and be honest and vulnerable, and I think tackling big emotions is a delicate balance. I never want to sound too forceful, but I don't want to leave things unsaid, but I don't want anyone to do anything out of character, but i don't want to yadda yadda...

10) Have your characters ever done something you didn’t expect, changing your plot completely?

see: 'crisis of indulgence'

11) If you could converse with any of the characters, who would it be and why?

Lena; I think she'd be a lot of fun to debate/argue with (respectfully).

12) What are some of the tropes or themes that you find yourself returning to in your writing?

(so far) always a happy ending. the readers and these characters deserve it.

13) What's your most important resource as a writer?

Living experiences (which takes time!). I don't think I could write heartbreak without having experienced that guttural feeling of loss in the same way I don't think I could write about failure or anger or insecurity or love or laughter. I think reading and the act of writing every day are incredibly resourceful, but the act of my lived experiences and those feelings is something I draw from in everything I write.

14) Can you share some of your strategies for editing and revising your work?

I edit as I go which doesn't work for everyone; however, a super fun thing I've picked up in recent works is this: when going to do a final edit of a <insert: chapter, one-shot, etc>, I read the last few paragraphs first. That sets me up to know exactly what the chapter is aiming for: feelings, motivations, plot, etc. I then use that as the anchor for how I tweak/edit/add small details to the rest of the chapter during my final read-through. I find it helps flesh out the larger story with smaller details.

15) Which is worse: making the summary, picking the tags, or the anxiety when you post your fic?

none of the above really since nothing about posting is carved in stone. tags and summaries can always be tweaked.

16) How do you define success for your fanfic - hits? Kudos? Comments? Bookmarks? Or just if you like it?

If it's finished. Bonus points if people get something out of it, but the act of having written something feels like the biggest success.

17) Do you have a playlist for your favorite character/ship?

Not really. I have go-to soundtracks for 'writing vibes' but nothing project/ship dedicated. (though 'like we're made of glass' was definitely inspired by very specific songs)

18) If fan art was going to be made from your work, which fic would you pick and which fan artist would you like to create it?

Again there are too many jaw-droppingly talented artists in this fandom to choose just one. It would of course be a wild crazy honor to see a work inspired by one of my fics, but there's already so much in this fandom to be inspired by that it doesn't feel like a loss.

19) How many WIPs do you currently have?

*sighs* for supercorp? there are a few (five). but the one that has most of my creative down time is a supercorp wicked au i have wanted to write for years but only have the faintest wisps of an outline for.

20) What's your advice to new fanfic writers?

Do it, do it, do it!

But also, one of my favorite pieces of advice for ANY creative venture is from Marc Dalessio who made this super cool 'creative process' graph in 2010 and included this line to summarize it: The ability to see improves before technical skill, and we often have difficulty assessing honestly exactly how our work looks.

It helps during those ruts when I look at everything I've recently written/drawn/created and scrunch up my nose in snobbish disgust because it just means I'm growing in some new way and not that anything I'm doing is inherently bad.

- - - - -

tagging (respectfully and without pressure) @sideguitars @fazedlight @inkedroplets if you want some rapid-fire q's thrown your way. but also anyone who wants to take a swing, i'd be jazzed to read the different answers

#figured i'd fill this buddy out since i've got post-new romances time on my hands #fabulousglitch #ask game? #qs with quinn #ask me things!