#<- my own organizational tags oop

[vitasexualiiis]

Mori + Dazai in Dark Era:

Ever since finishing the Dark Era novel in full, I can't stop thinking about the end where Dazai confronts Mori??

After almost every exchange they have, Mori asks Dazai some very leading questions:

"Very well. You have my permission. However, I would like to know why." "Of course, he's a dear ally of ours, but is he worth sending executive-level men to the front line to save?" "I understand your plan, but but in all likelihood, Oda doesn't want help. What do you think of that?" "No matter what the cost, you have to get yourself dirty to keep the Port Mafia going. [...] you must also willingly perform any logically conceivable atrocity. Do you understand what I'm saying?" "What remarkable inference. There is nothing that needs correcting. I have just one thing I'd like to ask: What is wrong with that?" "It's a win-win situation. So why are you so angry?" "We have always brought darkness, violence, and cruelty to this city. Why is that a problem now?" "Stay, or do you have a logical reason for going to him?"

etc., etc. I assume the story is (textually) painting two pictures: one, that Mori is, above all, rational, and will win this argument no matter what. The second, that Dazai is no longer acting rationally, but is being lead by his emotions--something that, up until this point, was something he didn't (intentionally) give into.

Dazai didn't say a word. That was just about the first time he'd ever been unable to articulate his feelings. Logically speaking, Ougai was right, and Dazai was wrong. Ougai's narrowed eyes harbored a tinge of cleverness, as if they could see into his heart. It was the same kind of light that was once in Dazai's eyes when he looked upon his enemies or allies

Obviously Mori is asking these questions so he can refute them, but it does genuinely make me wonder if he has an ulterior motive here? We know that by this point, their relationship has deteriorated. Mori says, "It's not often you come here yourself." Which is a far cry from Dazai being his confidant and right-hand-man in Fifteen.

Are his questions rhetorical? Is he genuinely telling Dazai, "If you can give me a better option, I will take it"? Is he defending himself, knowing that he hurt Dazai immensely? Is it a plea for rationality? Is he testing his loyalty?

Does he want Dazai to realize he's languishing in the Mafia? ("Why are you so angry?") Is he giving him permission to live authentically--outside of the Mafia--by making him admit that he no longer holds its values?

Is he simply laying everything on the table so that Dazai can make the choice he needs to make? Or, is he pushing him away intentionally, knowing that Dazai will hang on until it kills one or both of them?

The thing we need to understand here, is that Mori never hated Dazai. He was (is?) afraid of him, yes, but Mori (STILL!) wants him by his side. Dazai was his confidant, his project, the ace up his sleeve and his heir.

Yes, Mori got the permit, and it was all worth it in his mind, but it's a Pyrrhic victory at best.

Two weeks after Dazai leaves, Mori is STILL described as "listless," and outright refuses to replace his executive seat (which...iirc he never has).

The organization had received an item of great value, something that more than made up for the total pecuniary damage and loss of talented subordinates. That included Dazai's disappearance as well. Logically speaking, the results couldn't have been better. Everything was going according to plan. Ougai folded the document [Oda's Silver Oracle] into a misshapen paper airplane. Then, with his chin still resting on his hand, he threw it. The deformed plane almost immediately crashed into the floor. "Things sure are going to get boring around here..."

Sooo...yeah. It really makes me wonder just what Mori was trying to accomplish with Dazai during all of this, and especially during their final exchange.

Was one of his sacrifices as boss Dazai's presence and loyalty? For the health of the organization? For Dazai's health and happiness?

I dunno! Given what we're shown here, I'm kind of inclined to believe it was a little of everything.

[cozylittleartblog]

Oop, hello there! ^^ I remember you from DA, still think your art is so cool!! Still fond of the vintage characters and the world of Tessa n' Val! I'm currently testing the waters on Tumblr lol, hoping to get around a different vibe for documenting my projects n' chatting about stuff I like, and wanted to ask: as someone who's been on Tumblr for a while, what are your main tips for a starting artist in the platform? Wish ya a great day! Stay artful n' creative :]

HI!!!! i remember you too, i always get really excited when artists i like come here. tumblr is the only website i really use for myself and not just to post art, so it means i get to follow them and interact with their art 🥺 i ditched deviantart for everything that isn't posting art and bitching about the website via status updates lmfao, the new inbox and watched deviants tabs are so... out of the way and counter intuitive. hate it there.

anyway, I've written a general tumblr how-to post because there's been so many exoduses (exodi??) from other platforms over the last few years, but I don't think I've ever written one for artists? or at least I can't find it if I did. so here are some hot tips 😎👉👉

NUMBER ONE BIGGEST RULE: if you're an artist and you want to actively gain a following and curate your art, please have a separate art blog where you post exclusively or near exclusively art. it's ok to reblog a post here or there, but tumblr is a website About curating and having specific blogs! it's not that people don't want to see or hear about the artist behind the work, but they don't want 43289 unrelated memes and posts for fandoms they're not in 😅 admittedly i have skipped following some good artists here because their reblogs completely drown out their art and clog my dashboard. people really like curated blogs, almost every artist has a separate art blog 'round these parts. (it's completely fine to post WIPs and text posts discussing your art too, some people would like to see your process!)

speaking of curating: tags are your best friend! tumblr tracks the first 20 tags I believe, so use the first 20 tags to add your important search terms. this is where you put anything you'd want to turn up in the search. really you probably wont have more than 10 of these tags. after that you are welcome to ramble in the tags or use organizational tags for your specific blog.

not sure how to tag? search up what terms you'd use to try to find your own post if you were someone else, and see what tags popular posts in that tag used. you should ALWAYS use the #art and #artists on tumblr tags, as well as any relevant common trigger/content warning tags :D here's how i do it:

FOR FANDOM POSTS: where applicable, I tag Fandom, Fandom Acronym, Featured Characters, Featured Ships, and sometimes #[fandom] fanart and/or #[fandom acronym] fanart. FOR ORIGINAL POSTS: you can tag your art medium (digital art, traditional art, sculpting, etc), the general aesthetic or themes, time periods, and if it features your OCs you can use #oc and their names so if people want to see all your OC content they can find it. admittedly i mostly post fanart so i am very spontaneous with the tags i use on my original art posts lol

4. shorter captions seem to be preferred by the masses, I personally either dump my extra comments in the tags of the original post or I'll put them under a cut. unless it's extremely relevant to the post, like explaining ideas or headcanons

5. have all your handy links in your bio! you can use basic HTML coding to insert links with text and put in line breaks. you should have links to other socials (or something like a carrd that links them for you) and your support streams, like shops and tip jars and patreons. and ofc a little about you and what people can expect to see you draw!

6. have your inbox open! you don't have to take requests, but sometimes someone will throw a brilliant idea at you that you may Coincidentally be inclined to draw. it's also just fun to interact with people who like what you do! sweet comments go a long way

7. last one i can think of - do a seIf-reblog at some point in the day. people live in different timezones and not everybody finishes their dashboard. personally I schedule posts for 12 pm cst and then one seIf-reblog at 8 pm cst. it's also okay to reblog your older artworks for new followers to see, especially if you haven't posted in a while. TV airs re-runs and so can you B)

hope some of it helps!

[aprillikesthings]

Note to self, stop tumblring without my glasses after taking a Benadryl, I found two posts I queued last night that posted today with the wrong tags, and one was just “oops I wanted it in this other tag for my own organizational purposes” but the other was me using the opposite of the word I wanted and nearly calling myself a terf

(“Abolitionist” as a word is good in many circumstances but not the one I meant to use that time, and the post was up for seven hours before I noticed, jfc)

[maverickbackalley]

h Elp my dashboard just KO'd me with this combo.

I don't think he's okay, Trucy.

[credit: 1 / 2 ]

[saintyasha]

How come you don’t have separate tags for the different campaigns?

the short version is i’m a little lazy and don’t want the extra tag 😔

the long version is i started this blog during c1 and didn’t prepare for the possibility of more campaigns (i.e i should’ve started a c1 tag day one of this blog) so now if i want to find posts from specific campaigns i just narrow down the search to a character name, ship name, or the party name

hope that answers your question 😊

[caffernnn]

Ok, not to be like all in your tags, but I haven’t met many people that like both mdzs and free! I’ve seen you mention it a few times now and would love to hear your thoughts on it, if you’re fine with sharing. Wangxian and the juniors, best characters in the story.

Ahh feel free to look in the tags!! I forget sometimes that people see me clowning in there and I’m not just yelling into the void, but it’s essentially where I’m leaning over and whispering side comments into everyone’s ears 😌 (people who use tags in an actually systematic organizational way: you have my respect)

Recently started checking out the different MXTX stories after hearing about Hualian and Wangxian for so long without any context 😅 finally gave in by watching Heaven’s Official Blessing first, then moving on to the MDZS donghua. Finished that pretty recently, have read a few different chapter translations, and started The Untamed (which we’ll see if/when I make progress with that; I’ve been bad about starting new shows and keeping up with other ones to actually finish them once I’ve started OOPS). I get why everyone got attached to Wangxian now, like the brainrot is realll

To nobody’s surprise, I adore LWJ. WWX is a powerhouse and I love him for different reasons, but of course the character carved out of devout obligation to the point of feeling so intensely and struggling for years on how to ever process or show those emotions (if they feel they can show them at all) steals my attention. The fr! brainrot always has me trying to relate anything and everything I consume back to the characters and qualities I enjoy from fr! and it’s interesting to compare the way Wangxian’s dynamic/journey draws me in to some of the dynamics I enjoy talking about here. The stories are vastly different in the stakes involved, but the potential to explore devastating longing mixed with unique grief and emotional breakthroughs/catharsis is something I’m, like, totally into (because why be ~normal~ and enjoy media ~casually~ when I can be like ~this~).

I don’t talk about sourin as much as makoharu, but the feelings I have about Wangxian are comparable to those I have with sourin and love to see explored in sr AUs and meta posts. Hear me out: two characters who have immense prowess in their own rights and have their own barriers with displaying/confronting emotions, but it presents vastly differently to people on the outside looking in. It’s a sun and moon dynamic in the classic redblue “stoic vs spitfire” way where outsiders overlook how much passion/devotion actually resides in the moon character and how much emotional baggage the spitfire is hiding in their facade of brazen vulnerability. There’s the character who doesn’t verbally express emotions (because they never figured out how, because it hurts, because it could destroy, because because because) and covertly expresses their devotion through repression and covert actions. Then, there’s the object of their affection, who seems like an open book and lives life vibrantly, who cares about the other character but takes forever to actually process just how deep that emotion resides in them until there’s that one moment of breakthrough. LWJ realizing his feelings for WWX and enduring behind the scenes for years is very reminiscent of Sousuke’s feelings in those years where Rin was ghosting everyone, plus the emotions that led up to the “because I knew you would cry” scene. Rin is a character we know is emotional and is regarded for being emotional by others, but tried to put up a stubborn front of being numb and fine with being hated in the pursuit of his dream for a time. His breakthrough of learning to rely on a team again, embrace his friends, and let himself be vulnerable feels similar to WWX’s breakthrough in the confession scene — that immediate confrontation with how deep LWJ’s care ran, plus getting hit by a bus with his own longing that he hadn’t fully processed before that point, followed with the immediate urge to do something about it?? Very Rin. Not to bring a whole other show into the mix, but this specific type of dynamic is also what draws me into bonrin/bonfire in the AoEx universe. The flavorrrr of it all!!

Also I’m with you on loving them with the juniors; some of my favorite moments are watching WWX guide and teach them in his own way, resigned to himself of having less pride in his second life (still cocky, but he’s internalized how much he was hated and what led to his downfall the first time), and just knowing LWJ is inwardly preening because “look at you, look at how wrong the world was; they thought you only knew how to bring about ruin, but I keep getting to bear witness to how you care and create.” Lighthearted and humorous and sappy sappy sappy 🥰🥰🥰

[scullydubois]

Only the Light Ch. 4

Description: Missy and Scully’s girls night gets interrupted by an uninvited guest.

Read on Ao3 here. Tagging @today-in-fic​.

A long--and fun!--part. Hope you enjoy!

-------------

The elevator doors part, releasing Scully into the tranquility of her hallway. She steps out, glad to be away from the bustling FBI building and the noisy street and the elevator so squeaky that she’s pretty sure she’ll find herself trapped in it one of these days. That’s a problem for another time. For now, all Scully wants is to take off her shoes, pantyhose, and bra. The simple pleasures.

She sticks her key in the doorknob and turns. The deadbolt clicks. She’s locked it. She sighs. Missy left the door unlocked again. She twists the key the other way and it opens. She enters and drops the key, her purse, and her badge on the side table.

“It’s me!” Her voice echoes through the place.

“I’m in here,” Missy responds from the kitchen.

Scully enters the kitchen. Her sister’s still in the hostess uniform for the restaurant job she just got. She flips mindlessly through an issue of Better Homes and Garden.

“You left the door unlocked again.”

Missy flips a page of the magazine so hard she almost tears it. “Oops.” 

Scully sighs and sits down at the table. Her sister has always been the dramatic type.

“How was training?” she offers.

Missy sets down the magazine as if she’s thankful to have an out.

“Pretty standard for an upscale eatery that calls itself casual but charges twenty dollars for a bowl of soup. Turns out, the East Coast isn’t actually that different from the West Coast.”

“Wow. Who’ve thought?”

Missy chuckles. “I know, right?”

“Speaking of the West Coast…”

Melissa groans. Her sister’s been trying to get information about her whereabouts ever since she moved in. She’s under the impression that everyone’s life is as interesting as working for the FBI, and while Melissa tries to make hers so, there’s just not much to report. Except for the one thing she’s specifically avoiding. She will tell Dana at some point, she has to, but for now she doesn’t want to add to the cacophony of things her sister has to worry about. Besides, it’s not anything bad. If anything, Melissa is looking forward to telling her. It’s their mother she’s worried about.

“I told you, it’s nothing juicy. I was out there doing odd jobs. Waitressing, mostly. There was a stint as a gas station attendant.”

Scully laughs. “A gas station attendant?”

“In Oregon you’re not allowed to pump your own gas.”

Scully raises her eyebrows. “Seems like it wouldn’t be a very safe job for a young woman late at night.”

Missy shrugs, then, with the dedication of an Oscar-winning actress, says, “It was a male dominated profession, but I made do.”

Scully smiles. She knows the feeling. She steps out of her heels and carries them into her bedroom. She shimmies off her pantyhose, then sits on the edge of the bed and presses her thumbs deep into the arches of her feet. Heaven. After a moment of bliss, she takes a pair of pink fuzzy socks from her drawer and slips them on.

She returns to the kitchen--“Have you had dinner?” 

“Just a bowl of salad,” Missy replies. 

“Am I to assume by your pitiful tone that you’re up for something else?”

“If you order something and tell me I can have it, who am I to say no?”

Scully chuckles. “How courteous.”  She pulls out a drawer full of take-out menus in various conditions. Some of them Scully has had since her Academy days. 

“The ones on the top are Mexican, the middle is Chinese and Japanese, after that is Italian, and the bottom ones are Indian.” 

Few things that Dana has said have surprised Melissa as little as this organizational structure. What she doesn’t expect is the sheer volume of her sister’s collection. Her eyes widen as she approaches the drawer. There’s literally hundreds of menus stacked in there. 

“Um, may I ask for the chef’s recommendations?”

Scully pulls a couple menus out like it’s nothing.

“Well, if you’re in the mood for curry, this one is great,” she slides a colorful menu toward Missy. “But this is the best Chinese takeout in the city.” She sets down a menu with the Chinese symbols for good fortune on it (yes, Missy knows some Chinese). Missy figures they could both use some good fortune, so she picks up that one.

“Do they have hot & sour soup?”

“I’m sure. I always have the fried rice and orange chicken.”

“Oh, that sounds good too. Can we do a bowl of hot & sour soup and two portions of rice with orange chicken?”

Scully picks up the phone. “Of course.” She dials the number from the menu. As it’s ringing, Missy whispers, “And fortune cookies?”

“They always give you some. They’re not very goo-” The restaurant picks up. A fast-talking voice buzzes in Scully’s ear. 

Melissa laughs at this slip. As her sister’s about to recite the order, she adds, “I don’t care, I just want to read them.”

Scully tells the woman the order, confirms that it’ll come with fortune cookies, and gives them her address and unit number. She thanks the woman, hangs up the phone.

“It’ll be 25 minutes,” she tells Missy.

“Perfect.” Scully can tell from the sound of her voice that she’s up to no good. 

“Perfect for whatever villainous plot you’re about to drag me into, you mean?”

“Perfect for us to get ready for the girl’s night we’re about to have,” she replies matter-of-factly. 

Scully opens her mouth to protest, but Missy beats her to it. “I know, I know. It’s Thursday, you have work tomorrow, you’re tired...but it doesn’t have to be anything grand. Just a little self-care and relaxation, okay?”

Scully frowns in her funny, ‘I’m not actually upset, I just can’t think of a good comeback’ way. 

“And besides,” Missy continues, “you don’t wanna be a party pooper, do you?”

Scully frowns for real this time. This unearths some childhood insecurities she had forgotten she had. It conjures up the image of teenaged Missy with a pack of cigarettes--their mother’s--begging her to sneak out the window and smoke them together, that it would be fun. How she said no until she couldn’t bear her sister’s juvenile belittling anymore. It figures that she has to be guilted into having fun. She bets that her parents would never have imagined that their little girl smoked a cigarette younger than their free-spirited daughter ever did.

“Come onnnnn,” Missy drawls. “We can get in our pajamas and slippers, and I have some avocado face masks we can do. Plus, I brought my box set of Golden Girls.”

Scully can’t help but smile at that. On nights before big exams in medical school, she would put Blanche, Dorothy, Sophia, and Rose on in the background to keep her company as she studied. She called it her golden good luck charm because she passed every test she did this with. 

“Fine.”

Fine. The Dana stamp of approval! Missy leaps into action. “Go get dressed, and I’ll grab the face masks.”

Scully does as she’s told (per usual). She chooses her silkiest pajama set because this feels like an occasion to go all out. A few minutes later, she’s sitting on the couch letting Missy spread the avocado paste across her face. 

“Is this just mashed up avocado?” she asks. “Could we eat this?”

“I think there’s honey in it too.” Missy scraps a dot off where it spilled over to Scully’s headband and licks it. “Not bad...Are you that hungry?”

Scully chuckles. “No, I was just wondering.”

“Well, if it does to your insides what it does to your face, then watch out.”

“Yeah, I think I’ll pass on that,” Scully remarks.

“Good choice.” Missy finishes Scully’s face and turns so that Scully can do hers. Scully dips a finger into the green paste. It’s cold and sticky, not exactly a desirable combination.

“Do you do this a lot?” she asks Missy.

“Usually once a week, if I think of it.”

Scully wouldn’t have the time to think of it, let alone do it. “That’s nice,” she says wistfully, realizing there’s not much farther she can take the subject.

“I brew some tea, light some incense, and boom. My own personal nirvana.”

“Mmm.” Scully’s feeling increasingly isolated by this conversation. Missy reads her mind in the typical way.

“You don’t take much time for yourself.” It’s a statement, not a question.

 “I just don’t have much time in general,” Scully replies on the defensive.

“And you certainly don’t allot what you do have to yourself.”

Scully lifts her finger off Missy’s face, dips it back into the paste. “I take care of myself,” she says.

“But you don’t spoil yourself.”

“Who am I to be spoiled?” And there is the fundamental ideological difference between Missy and her sister. Missy, who wants life to be overflowing with joy, bereft of nothing. Dana, who believes that nothingness gives her strength, and strength gives her character.

The delivery man's knock on the door eclipses any response Melissa was planning to make. Probably for the best. This is the rift the sisters cannot manage to pave over.

Missy grabs the food and pays the man. She knows her sister would be embarrassed to be seen with the mask on, and she’ll do anything to make Dana’s life that much easier. 

They dig in, eating straight from the cartons. Missy insists on using chopsticks, which works great for the chicken but not so hot on the rice. She doesn’t bother trying them with the soup. Scully doesn’t have the patience for any of it, so she sticks to the plastic fork that came with it all.

Between bites of chicken, Scully reaches for a fortune cookie. Missy swipes it out of her hand, sending it catapulting toward the floor. 

“What was that for?” Scully exclaims.

“Haven’t you ever heard that it’s bad luck to read your fortune before you finish the meal?”

“No?”

“Well, that explains a lot then.”

Scully smirks, sets the cookie back on the table with the others. “I think you just wanted that one.”

Missy feigns innocence, then shrugs. “I have a good feeling about it.”

-----------

A few minutes later, the girls have settled on the couch, empty cartons of take-out strewn on the table in front of them. The four fortune cookies they received are all wrapped up. They’re too full to bother with them just yet. They chirp bits of commentary about the Golden Girls episode they’re watching back and forth between each other.

“I see some Blanche in you,” Scully comments, “but mostly I think you’re Rose.”

“She’s my favorite, so I will gladly accept that,” Missy replies.

The episode’s laugh track nearly conceals a slight rap on the door. 

Scully looks toward the door. “Did you hear something?” 

Missy clicks the volume down on the remote. “Maybe. I’ll check.”

She heads for the door,  peeks through the peephole, then unfastens the chain and lets the door swing on its hinges.

“It’s Mulder!” she exclaims after Mulder has already stepped through the doorway.

It is, in fact, Mulder. Still in his work clothes and holding a manila folder. His eyes widen in surprise.

“Oh. Melissa.”

She smiles slyly. Evidently, he did not expect her nor her face mask.

“Hello, Fox.”

Scully pulls her feet up onto the couch and crosses her arms protectively over her chest, hoping that somehow, maybe, he won’t notice her here in her own apartment. Her first thought is that she’s not wearing a bra. She realizes that this is an unproductive thought to have because it’s not like she’s naked or anything, she’s wearing a pajama top, and he’s seen her in a pajama top before. Hell, he saw her in her underwear on their first case! Not to mention that he’d seen her on her deathbed, and is there anything more naked than that? Still, she hadn’t expected him, and she feels caught off-guard by his sudden appearance. 

For what it’s worth, Mulder is caught off guard by her too. She looks...soft. Relaxed. He very rarely gets to see her in casual circumstances. Even in the assortment of motel rooms he’d sat with her in, she was always keyed up, her mind trying to piece together the puzzle of whatever case they were on. This was new territory. 

“Hi, Scully,” he croaks. 

“Hello,” she replies sheepishly. 

Mulder can’t take his eyes off her. He’s endeared by the green face mask and all of its components. The headband pulling tendrils of her hair tenderly away from her face, the stray locks that have slipped out and stuck to the paste, the extra youthful look it gives her...he never realized how much he missed out on. How much she keeps from him. Suddenly, he’s certain: the woman sitting on the couch isn't Scully. It’s Dana, and there's nothing he wants more than to get to know her better. 

Remembering what he’s there for, he holds the folder out to her. 

“Uh, I just came to give you these toxicology results. I thought you might want to review them before tomorrow.”

She takes the folder while keeping one arm stationed in front of her chest.

“Thank you. I will.”

She plops the folder with the mess on the coffee table and returns both arms to her chest.

Feeling like the intruder that--in Scully’s mind--he is, Mulder glances at the TV.

“Golden Girls. That’s serious business, I’ll get out of your hair.”

Melissa mutes the TV. “Actually, we were just discussing what Golden Girl we think we are. We agreed that I’m Rose, but we’re still trying to figure out Dana.”

This is a challenge Mulder is more than happy to accept. 

“Dana…” He looks at her with a lop-sided smile, letting the word roll off his tongue in a teasing way.

Scully blushes. Oh how she wishes her body would not so easily give her away. Figuring there’s nothing to lose, she takes this opportunity to catalogue the colors in his eyes. She has an ongoing debate with herself about what color they actually are. She’s seen green, brown, and blue with such certainty that she’s pretty sure he has the ability to change them like a mood ring. She’s not sure she would want to know what each color means. 

She decides that they’re looking quite green tonight (is that good?) and breaks eye contact with him out of necessity. Call it self-preservation.

This silent exchange pleases Melissa, maybe even more than it does Mulder. She loves being right as much as her sister does. 

“I was thinking she’s a Dorothy,” Melissa pipes up. “What do you think, Fox?”

He flinches. Melissa scoffs. “Sorry--Mulder. What is it with FBI agents and insisting on being called their last name? That’s got to be some sort of psychological phenomenon.” Then, because she can’t resist--“You should open a x-file on that.”

Scully chuckles. Mulder just purses his lips.

“Ha ha. Very funny.”

“I know,” Melissa claps back in jest. “That’s why I said it.”

Scully looks toward the window. She could have sworn she saw a flash of lightning outside, but no thunder follows it. When she looks back, Mulder’s eyes are trained on her once again. Yep, still green. He pushes some of the cartons aside and perches on the table in front of her and Missy. If Scully put her legs down, their knees would touch. 

“Dorothy is the obvious choice,” he says. “But that’s too easy. Scully’s not easy.”

Scully flicks her gaze toward Missy, who bites her lip to keep the sarcastic comment in her mind from slipping out. 

“So what is she then?” Melissa challenges.

Scully’s eyes meet Mulder’s. She’s not sure what he’ll say, and she’s not too worried about it. What matters is that she’s looking at him, he’s looking at her, and her skin feels like it’s been warmed by the sun. This is not a normal reaction to another human being looking at you, she knows. She made a pact with herself early on not to think too hard about it. It’s moments like this that make her question the point of that.

She feels sated...she so rarely feels that way. Realizing that there is nothing worth keeping from him, not right now, Scully lowers her hands into her lap.

Feeling like he’s done something right, Mulder smiles. He answers Missy’s question without taking his eyes off his partner. Scully’s burning up.

“Well, she’s smart but not pretentious, curious but not unconventional, reliable but not naive, honest but not a curmudgeon, and diligent but not intense...so I don’t know.”

He looks to Melissa. 

“Are any of the Golden Girls as interesting as that?”

Scully’s breath catches. This is quite possibly the most romantic moment of her whole life...What does that say about her? She lowers her feet so that her silk pajama bottoms nuzzle his coarse slacks. Call it a gesture of goodwill. Meanwhile, Mulder wonders if Scully notices that their kneecaps are touching.

Missy smiles. She’s engineered a moment, and what a wonderful one. 

“I suppose not,” she replies lightly. “Dana’s one of a kind.”

“That’s for sure.” Mulder clasps Scully’s hand, and for a second, she thinks he’s going to kiss it. His fingers slip away and grab a fortune cookie off the table instead.

He rips the plastic off it, then snaps it in half. He sets a half in Scully’s open palm as if on instinct. She didn’t even realize she had turned her hand up. Her fingers close over the cookie. She couldn’t possibly eat it now that he’d touched it. Or was that all the more reason to eat it?

Mulder pulls the paper from his half, pops the cookie in his mouth, and crunches as he reads the fortune. “Depart not from the path which fate has you assigned...huh.” He crumbles up the plastic and sticks it in his pocket. “Never seen that one before.”

“Me neither,” Scully remarks dreamily. Melissa looks on, feeling like she’s watching a movie play out in front of her.

Mulder rubs his hands against his pant legs to extend the moment, then stands up, bumping Scully as he does.

“Sorry,” he says, resting a hand on her shoulder. She shakes her head to indicate it’s nothing. “You’re fine.”

As she looks up at him, Mulder finds himself struck with the desire to swim in those blue eyes of hers. He knows that his feeling for Scully--whatever it is--is different from the girls on his magazines and tapes. His thoughts about Scully are somehow both innocent and ridiculously gratifying. His thoughts about the other girls are neither.

“Well, I’ll get going,” he says, stepping around Scully and Melissa’s feet. He turns back to meet Scully’s glance one last time--

“See you tomorrow morning.” He winks.

Scully is so charmed by this all she can muster up is, “Uh-huh.”

Missy bursts into laughter as soon as Mulder closes the door. Scully lets her. She looks down at her palm and realizes that she has put so much pressure on the fortune cookie that it crumbled. She won’t read into this either.

[tazmilyxfamily]

@salmonidparty​​ inquired:

🔥 lay an RP unpopular opinion or hot take on me mate, do it

Send me a “ 🔥 “ for an unpopular opinion.

Bonus points if you include a topic. ( IE. shipping, roleplaying, ect. )

{ throwing this under a cut cuz it got long oOPS- }

{ having consistent tags is not hard, believe it or not! you don’t need anything fancy, either, as even a tag system like yours (i.e. how everything for your Agent 8 is just tagged as “Transformed Agent 8″ and that’s it) works perfectly. no one needs a fancy coded navigation page for all their tags (all of my tags are in a google doc for me to copy and paste lmao) and no one needs to use these stupid fancy fonts. }

{ at the end of the day tags are meant to be a both organizational and informative system. it organizes certain types of posts so you or someone else can find them later (like how if you wanted to read an old headcanon post i made for L/ucas then you’d just throw “https://tazmilyxfamily.tumblr.com/tagged/▷Lucas ✿ About.◁” into the url bar and you’d eventually find it) while informing people of what the post is about at a glance as well as allowing them to actively avoid it by blocking the tag. obviously there’re some tags that are purely one or the other but they’re all important for their own reasons. as soon as tags start being an extra Visual Aesthetic:tm: off of the checklist they’ve most likely lost a good amount of their purpose because they stop being fully accessible. }

{ and you don’t really have an excuse to be lazy??? it’s not as if you have at least 3 different varieties of each tag like you would with tagging your art or fanfiction. you simply copy-paste your drabble tag and maybe an ic tag if you’re picky like me and hit post! it’s as complicated as you make it, only getting really crazy if you’re a huge multimuse and/or love to be thorough with your “other characters” tags. again, don’t need a fancy navigation page either. }

{ all of this is why i don’t enjoy following and interacting with people who either tag super inconsistently or don’t tag at all, because i literally can never avoid or find anything i need and it tells me that they don’t care if they can’t even be assed to tag things as simply as “💔 | IC” or whatever- }

{ i have no idea if this is a particularily unpopular opinion but i don’t think i see people complain about it as much as i just did so here you go :D }

[infinitethree]

OOC:: Welcome to a discussion of my current sub-hyperfixation, aka Daz's Backstory, aka Blood & Gold (or Gilded; Guilted, the previous/placeholder title), aka me gleefully planning to emotionally bludgeon my readers with a baseball bat I hammered nails into.

I'm not even going to pretend I won't need a cut here.

Fun fact: Innit is new. Innit is the manifestation of a metaphor that decided to grows its own goddamned legs and start sprinting.

It's...it exists somewhere in between the space between an alter and not an alter? Daz is just a special snowflake who accidentally made the right conditions for his admin side to manifest as more or less its own entity.

It's not evil, just deeply traumatized in Several Ways. The hoodie color is more a stubborn refusal to stop wearing red + wanting to be different from the existing color it had worn. And calling it a monster, its not-quite-right appearance, and its pronouns are...for some complicated reasons that boil down to 'admins are Built A Little Different and what's good for a normal ass person is VERY bad for an admin'.

I did not consider that OOPS it looks kinda like I'm demonizing alters! Which 1. isn't the intent and 2. Innit isn't entirely one of those. It's...closer to an extreme version of a common trait of improperly raised admins. Dream has a much more mild and not self-aware version.

I'm going to be trying to toe the line between explaining enough to be interesting but not so much there's no point in reading. Even if you DO know how it ends, there should ideally be at least SOME curiosity about what the fuck happened to make Daz so...aggressively Daz.

The biggest problem will be on if my muse can manage to chew on this fast enough to outpace Daz's rapidly approaching introduction in Three to the Infinite.

Though, to be fair, that might just raise a lot MORE interest.

Anyway, I'd like to take a moment to share my lovely organizational methods.

So here is (most) of the key. And this is part of what it looks like in use:

Checkmark means that this chapter is, at this point in time, more or less done. I don't need to worry about it other than checking details against things later on. The ! means that there's an outline of the broad strokes of the chapter done. The books mean that this chapter has two POVs, Tommy and Dream. Then is the outline. And after that, not pictured, is...something a little special. The one on the first chapter is this:

The curtains rise; the book falls open.

It’s familiar and yet…not.

Or maybe it is. Who are we to tell you what you’ve seen before?

AKA I'm going to be ominous and meta on main and nobody can stop me. These are the Ominous Asides in the chapter summaries! There's one for every chapter.

I'm going to be tagging the fic with Deux Ex Machina because, well. Obviously the T3 show up. That's kind of a given at this point. But people who aren't familiar with my bullshit are NOT going to be expecting that and it feels rude to make them wait and then spring that on them without warning.

Oh, yeah, also--this will be fully written, ideally actually beta'd, and scheduled to go live on a consistent basis until it's all up. This has already saved my ass because I cannot emphasize how much Innit did not exist like three weeks ago! Innit is brand fucking new and sort of important now!

I would also like to emphasize that the bits of that were written at the very VERY start, aka mid December...are now almost entirely being scrapped. Some turns of phrase might be re-used but, uh...currently something like 13k is left in the discard bin.

My stated goal with this is to make people cry. I want incoherent keyboard smashing and "NOOOOOO WHY"'s in the comments. I want to build up something beautiful and then set it on fire so that everyone screams because YOU STUPID BASTARD YOU COULD HAVE HAD IT ALL AND INSTEAD. INSTEAD YOU DO THIS?!

Some (but nowhere near all) of the tags that will be used are: Mutually Possessive, Protege Tommy, Tragedy, Major Character Death, Amoral Tommy, Administrator Dream, & Administrator Tommy. And did I mention there's extreme fluff? That I'll be using to cause maximum pain? And EXTREME foreshadowing?? For the same reason??

Eagle-eyed readers of this askblog will be able to spot the seemingly minor thing that Dream does that heavily contributes to everything going sideways in the way it does. I very much hope someone catches it and calls me out on it.

Hmm. Maybe I should make a note to give a prize if anyone can figure that out. That could be interesting.

[news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog]

Forest is a useful app that helps you go phone-free by inspiring you to plant trees

I'm obsessed with my phone. Addicted to it, really. It's not something I'm proud of, but alas, it's true.

I've tried my fair share of productivity apps in hopes of cutting down on screen time, and while many have helped me hone my organizational skills, apps rarely hold users like me accountable if we don't follow through. That's what makes the Forest app so refreshingly different.

With a simple mission to help users "stay focused" and "be present," Forest trains people to manage their time and become less dependent on their phones in a fun, purposeful way. By spending time away from their phones, users grow virtual trees and earn coins, which can then be saved up and used to help plant real trees in five countries in Africa — Cameroon, Kenya, Senegal, Uganda, and Tanzania. The app also gently shames you if you don't successfully complete your goal, which is apparently the component I've always been missing.

In an ideal world, I'd spend less time glued to my iPhone on the weekends. I'd give dining companions my full attention during meals rather than rudely checking incoming push notifications. I'd spend my commute deeply immersed in a book instead of pausing to check social media every ten minutes, and I'd drift off to sleep in the dark without having exposed my retinas to a half hour of blue light beforehand. I downloaded Forest in hopes that it would help turn my unplugged dreams into a reality, and to my great surprise, it did.

SEE ALSO: The Hear app makes trippy sounds, but it probably won't help you concentrate

Forest can be purchased on iOS devices for $1.99, and though there are several in-app purchases that help you receive more coins per virtual tree planted— $0.99 for a bottle of Sunshine Elixir, or $1.99 for a box of Sunshine Elixir — you can definitely enjoy the app without them.

To plant real trees across the world, the app partners with Trees for the Future — a nonprofit organization that works to end hunger and poverty by planting trees that help feed families in need. But understanding how the partnership and the app itself work takes a bit of explaining, so let's dive in.

Welcome to the Forest

After downloading Forest, all first-time users are welcomed with a simple set of instructions. The app explains that it will encourage users to stay focused and be more present in their daily lives by planting virtual trees. The trees planted in the app take a certain amount of time to grow — which you can customize depending on how long you want to abstain from your device — but because the trees can only grow if the app remains open, people have to put down their phones if they want to add to their virtual forests.

Before you get started, I recommend visiting the settings page in the app and creating an account so all of your data will be tracked. After that, you're ready to grow.

Image: mashable composite: forest app

To plant a virtual tree, set a timer by dragging the green button around the circular photo of a plant on the app's homepage. The app allows you to set the timer for a minimum of 10 minutes, a maximum of 120 minutes, or any 5-minute increments in between. During the set time, your virtual tree will grow provided you keep the app open, and it will die if you exit the app or attempt to use any outside feature on your phone for longer than a few seconds.

While the death of a digital tree is obviously very low-stakes, and there are no real consequences if you let it bite the dust, over the course of a week using the app I learned that just knowing a few measly minutes away from your phone is all it takes to save a life — even that of a fake tree — is a surprisingly successful motivational tactic.

Planting a virtual tree

When it came time to plant my first virtual tree I wanted to get the feel of the app, so I only set the timer for 10 minutes.

Once you hit the "plant" button, Forest graciously gives you 10 seconds to cancel your impending phone-free commitment, just in case you want to send an important text first, or realize you've made a horrible mistake and aren't ready to unplug, but don't want to put a virtual tree's life at risk.

After embarking on my first Forest experience, I noticed that after the 10-second grace period expires, the cancel countdown is replaced with a button that straight-up says, "Give Up." You can press this at any time during the run of your timer to abandon your mindfulness mission, but just know that doing so will prompt the guilt-ridden question: "Are you sure you want to give up? Your cute little tree will die." 💔

If you're not the type to admit defeat via Give Up button, you always have the option of leaving the app of your own free will — which I will admit I did several times accidentally, simply because I'm so addicted to using my phone. But before killing your tree, Forest gives you a chance to redeem yourself.

The app will send a push notification seconds after you leave, which reads, "Go back to Forest immediately to prevent the tree from dying!" You have less than a minute to return to the app and save your tree, and if you fail to do so, the next time you open Forest, an image of your sad-looking husk of a tree will appear alongside the words: "Oops! you can do better next time!"

Image: MASHABLE COMPOSITE: FOREST

Should you fail to wait out your full timer, a dead tree will show up in your virtual forest to serve as a reminder that you gave up. You won't receive any coins for the minutes you remained in the app before abandoning it, but they will be counted towards your total daily focus time, which is nice.

Planting my first tree was a delightful experience until I received a measly THREE COINS as a reward! After playing around with the app, it appears the maximum reward users can receive for a single plant (without the help of in-app purchases) is 43 coins from a 120-minute timer, which wouldn't be so disheartening if a real-life tree didn't cost a whopping 2,500 coins to plant.

Planting a real tree

If you're downloading the app with the goal of planting real trees, it can definitely be done, but it's going to take a bit of time (or additional money invested in the app) to save up the necessary coins.

The way the system works is that each time a user spends 2,500 virtual coins on a real tree, Forest donates real money to Trees for the Future, which uses that money to plant a tree in Africa.

Unfortunately, due to "budget constraint," the number of real trees each user can currently plant using the app is limited to five. Forest assures users that there will be "limited time events that will allow users to plant more real trees" in the future, though, and planting five trees is still far more productive than not planting any.

Image: forest

Features galore

While the app's teal home page presents an extremely minimalist design, Forest is full of elaborate features. 

For starters, by using the notch located in the upper center of the screen, users can switch from planting solo to planting with friends or family. Enabling the app's Plant Together feature syncs several Forest accounts and raises the stakes by challenging everyone to go phone-free simultaneously. If one person in the group uses their phone, everyone's trees will die, which makes it perfect for group dinners or movie nights.

In the upper left of the app's home screen lies the main menu, which offers a trove of customizable options. It includes nine expandable features: Forest, Timeline, Tags, Friend, Achievements, Store, Real Forest, News, and Settings. Each has the potential to enhance your in-app experience, should you take advantage of them, but I want to highlight the most important.

Image: Forest

The "Forest" option in the Forest app is where you can see all the virtual trees you’ve planted so far. You can use it to track your visual progress over days, weeks, months, or years, and use more specific filters to review your historical app data.

The Tags feature allows you to search more specifically, by the labels you use to tag your plants, such as Work, Study, Social, Rest, Entertainment, and more. This is especially helpful if you’re curious about which types of activities you spend the most time on when you’re not glued to your phone screen.

Achievements allow you to keep track of all your performance awards, such as when you reach four hours of focus time. (These rewards are extra fun because they come with coins.) And the Real Forest page is where you go to turn your coins into real life trees, should you ever reach that impressive milestone. The page also reveals that many real trees have been planted as a result of the app. (At the time of writing, Forest and Trees for the Future had planted 434,459 trees around the world.)

Image: mashable composite: forest

For those of you itching to blow your coins as you earn them, however, the store is the place for you. Forest's in-app store allows users to unlock different species of virtual bushes and trees in hopes of making the virtual gardens more exciting.

Each additional plant — from virtual cacti and trees to flowers and more —  takes 500 coins to unlock, and you can also use coins to unlock ambient sounds like "Café in Paris," "Rain and thunder," and "Times Square" to turn phone-free time into a more meditative experience. To listen to an ambient sound while planting a tree, simply press and hold the headphone icon in the upper righthand corner of the app screen.

The verdict

Up until a week ago, I seriously struggled to separate myself from my phone. Now, I'm free from my mobile device whenever I want to be — even if it's only 10 minutes a day.

After using Forest for just a few days, I felt transformed. I used the app at a restaurant one night and it helped me fight the temptation to periodically check my phone. I turned on timers when I wanted to watch television or read books and successfully did so distraction-free. And right before bed, I'd set a 120-minute timer to prevent me from falling into the vicious cycle of late-night social media scrolling. (The creators of Forest have another app called SleepTown that was specifically created to help build more healthy sleep patterns.)

I love that Forest lets users categorize each break they take, and add descriptions — this way I can track whether I spend more time working or binge-watching Queer Eye. And I had some fun with the personalized message feature, which lets you write your own encouraging phrases that pop up throughout your phone-free journey.

Image: forest

The app also lets you set up to five Planting Reminders during a day, so you don't forget to unplug, and I discovered that if you really need to send a timely text message in the middle of a Forest timer, you can cheat the system.

By quickly leaving and returning to the app a few times, you can manage to type and send a text without sacrificing your plant progress. It's not a loophole I abuse often, but it's one I do like knowing exists. There's also an additional "Work With Phone" option on the settings page that allows users to leave the app without killing plants, but you have to sacrifice half of the final reward and the tree will not be counted towards the leaderboard.

Ultimately, I think the app is well worth the money, and I have very few complaints, but I would like Forest's timers to show up on my lock screen when the app is in use like a regular iPhone timer does.

If there's a setting to make that happen I haven't found it yet, but when I'm in the focus zone I'd rather be able to tap my home button and see how much time I have left until my tree grows than unlock my phone and go back into the app.

Otherwise, Forest exceeded my expectations and genuinely helped me unplug during times when I desperately wanted to but didn't know how. It's an uplifting app that celebrates and rewards you for the time spent away from your phone, rather than trying to curb your phone addiction by highlighting all time you do spend using social media and other apps.

If you have a healthy conscience, the low-stakes death of a virtual tree will be enough to inspire you to focus. And the thought of working toward planting a real tree should successfully motivate you to commit the app for the long haul.

WATCH: 11 meditation apps to help you de-stress

[gooeychewy]

hey, so i've been thinking of making a stim blog? do you have any tips for starting out, like any type of theme to use, things i should tag, stuff like that?? thank you!!!

(I’m answering this kinda late oops, hopefully you see this!!)

Honestly the best tip I can think of is to just go with whatever you want and have fun with it! Your stim blog is for you more so than it is for anyone else, so  It’s no fun if you don’t post/reblog stuff that you like! You can go for a theme if you want, but just make sure it’s a theme that you love and won’t get tired of, lol! (I’d say it’s probably easier to run a blog with no set theme, since you wouldn’t have to limit yourself from posting/reblogging one kind of thing, but it’s all up to you! Plus if you go for a broader theme, like food or slime, that wouldn’t really be much of an issue ^^; )

As far as tags go, I would just tag some of the most widespread triggers first (I’d start with trypophobia, food, hands, and fast things!), then from there wait until your followers ask you to tag certain things! That way it’s not too overwhelming from the start ^^; It really helps to keep a list of things to tag too, so you’re less likely to forget! If you want, you can add organizational tags too so that people can search your blog for specific things, like different kinds of slime and stuff! (Or you don’t have to tag anything at all if you don’t want to! I know of plenty of stim blogs that don’t tag anything because they don’t have the capacity/energy to keep up with everything that needs to be tagged, and that’s totally fine!)

Lastly, I think stim blogs should mostly be for your own enjoyment rather than for the sake of gaining followers, but if you’re focusing on gaining followers, it helps to make some original content if you can! Making gifs is one way (just be sure to credit the source!!), or if you make slime or anything like that, or have any neato stim toys, posting your own videos is another good way! Also don’t be afraid to ask for promos from other stim blogs as long as they don’t mind, that’s a huge part of how I got my start lol!

That’s about all I can think of really!! Like I said, the main advice from me is just go with whatever you want! Most of all, you should have fun running a stim blog, so just do things at your own pace, it’s all up to you! ^^