#Honestly was pretty disheartened for the first few days of it being posted

[houseofstraw]

I’m getting to the point where I can totally understand why people have such a difficult time sticking to diet and exercise if they have a lot of weight to lose

It was pretty easy for me at the start because I did a complete 180 in my habits and weight started coming off pretty quick right away so it was easy to stick to

But after 19 straight months of being in a caloric deficit, saying no to so many things, purposely avoiding certain social gatherings, and complicated the way I approach dating, it’s starting to get exhausting

With that said, I set a goal for myself in October 2022 and while the goal has shifted a few times as my weight has gone down, the one thing that has remained is my dedication to this

As much as it’s sucked at times, the sacrifice has absolutely been worth it because I’ve lost over 120 pounds but at the same time, I’m still kinda fat and it’s getting a little disheartening

I’ve been so consistent and worked so fucking hard on this so to lose 120+ pounds and still be able to grab handfuls of stomach, back, thigh, and love handle fat.. it’s just like.. how much longer do I have to grind this out, you know?

This is what’s getting me to my first statement. It’s not that I’m going to give up, I’ve come way too far to quit now, and I truly love weightlifting and how it makes me feel, but shit man, how much more weight do I have to lose?

I’m currently at the weight that I had set as a “big” goal a while back and thought I was going to look awesome and kinda settle in around this weight so to objectively look at myself and still see at least another 20-30 pounds I want to take off has me feeling, not defeated, but just, I don’t know

On the positive side, while I’m still flabby in areas, I am starting to look kinda good (for me, anyway) especially compared to what I used to look like. That’s honestly night and day. I’d post a before picture but it’s so painful to look at, I don’t want anyone else to see it so any pictures I do end up posting will be somewhere along the journey and current ones

Anyway, I like taking long walks around my neighborhood and to get some steps in so here’s a couple quick hip fire phone pics from my walk today

[roger-that-cap]

meet me in the gardens

summary: being the widow of a decently wealthy lord and sitting on a large plot of land automatically meant that you were a candidate for the program that you couldn’t say not to; the hosting. you had to sponsor a knight and keep them in your home for an entire year, which was troublesome enough on its own. but you never expected your knight to be a woman, and you certainly didn’t expect to have a full on illegal love affair with her, either. 

warnings: lots of emotions, feelings, slightly cynical and bitter reader- she’s honestly just being a realist, we are chugging forward, did not check for typos, format could be fucked up bc i’m posting from my phone quite literally minutes before i clock in- PATHETIC LMAO

word count: 2.7k

this is a short chapter by my standards, but it felt long to me because of the things in it??? this is part five! all other parts can be found on my masterlist, it’s my pinned post!

“What’s got you smiling like that?” Wanda asked while she tied your corset, not even needing to ask whether it was too tight or loose. You looked up in your vanity and immediately tried to wipe your smile away, but it was too late. She knew you better than anyone, and she had yet to see a thoughtful smile on your face, ever. Pietro, who had caught you going back inside the previous night, caught on to the fact that you looked more carefree, and that you just seemed to look like you were carrying around less. 

“Nothing.” 

“Hmm,” Wanda hummed, an entertained look on her face. Something told you that she already had an idea of what was going on, even though there was no way she could have. Besides, you hardly even knew what was going on. “I’ll ask again later.” She looked you in the eyes through the mirror, a slightly mischievous smile on her face. “Maybe then you’ll tell the truth,” she said, flicking you on the side of the head, and then letting it rest.

§§

Natasha was out in the village doing whatever it was the knights did one night, and she was planning on spending the night at a bed and breakfast before coming back in the morning. As disheartened as you were about not being able to see her for your stargazing, you were partly glad for it. You missed being with the twins. 

You had dinner with them alone, sitting and laughing about old memories and scheduling times to make new ones together. You loved the way you could be with them. Your laughter was allowed to go over the volume of a giggle without them looking at you like you had grown seven heads, your silverware were allowed to take a tumble onto your plate with a clatter without a second glance, and you were allowed to use whatever language you pleased. You missed the comfort that you felt with them, the comfort that your brain and the part of you that would always be the farm girl felt with them. 

“And Pietro chased him all the way off, you should have seen how terrified he was,” Wanda recapped, and you couldn't help but grin at Pietro, who was sipping wine with his charming grin. “That boy will never lift another skirt, I can assure you of that.” 

“I’m glad,” you mused, shooting Pietro a look that made him laugh. 

“Enough about me,” he said after swallowing a sip of his wine that was much more like a gulp. “We’re not going to talk about how you’ve been walking on the clouds for weeks now?” 

You nearly dropped your fork again. “What do you mean?”

“We’ve both realized,” Pietro said, motioning with his buttered knife towards his sister, who had a soft smile on her face as she observed your reaction. “That you have been significantly happier. Even with the circumstances-”

“Pietro,” Wanda hissed, but you just snorted and shook your head. 

“It’s like you found your own little pocket of happiness. We were worried about you, but, you’re doing alright.” Ever the blatant one out of the three of you, he leaned forward with his trademark smirk, eyes full of curiosity. “What do you know that we don't?” 

You hesitated for a second, mouth opening and closing twice as you grappled for anything to say, even a lie. And then, you settled on just shrugging your shoulders with a grin, shaking your head. “Honestly, Pietro, I know nothing. I don’t know anything.”

§§

Your heart was beating faster than normal as you looked at the woman next to you, your hand subconsciously itching closer to hers as you sat on the ground, ass on the blanket that you had brought out.  “I would like to… show you something.” 

It was probably the twentieth time that you and Natasha had met with each other, and still, you were entranced by her and everything that she did.  And you were entranced while you stared at her and waited for her answer, just a little nervous as to what she would say. 

As if she would ever say no to something you said. 

“Show me anything you’d like me to see,” Natasha urged on, and you fought back a smile. You stood up, and she did the same, and then you were picking up the blanket and walking side by side with her. It was quiet the entire way there as you walked in step with her, hand brushing against her every few steps and sending tingles down your arm every time it happened. 

The feeling that you got when she touched you made you feel both alive and scared to death. You weren’t stupid. You knew what you were steadily collecting more than friendly feelings for her, and that she may have been on the same page you were on. The game you were playing was a dangerous one, the risk threatening to swallow up the reward more and more by the day. 

You had known that being with her by yourself was bad judgement, ever since the first time you did it. Hell, the look you gave her the first time you met her was far from appropriate. Every single conversation that you had with her was a risk, and both of you knew it. And now that your soon-to-be husband was approaching, it was even more scandalous. No one knew and you hoped no one would ever find out, but hiding forever wasn’t a choice. But what would you be hiding if there were no true feelings? 

You hated yourself for falling for her and her pretty words. 

“I used to come here to escape,” you started, pulling yourself out of your thoughts, voice low as you passed the tree line to get into the thick of the woods. You narrowly missed stepping in a particularly muddy spot on the ground. “This was my spot, before I got the garden of course.”

“The woods?” 

“No, Nat,” you said, slightly amused as you stepped over a fallen branch. You smiled a bit when the sound of running water hit your ears.  “The stream.” 

You knew the exact second that she saw it, because her eyes widened and her breath hitched.  “That’s not a stream, that’s a river.”

“It’s the forgotten part of the main river,” you explained. “It’s much skinnier and more shallow, and it doesn't have nearly as much fish coming through, so people forget about it.” You looked towards her and saw how intrigued she was by it, so you judged her armor free body with a slight smirk. “What? Never seen running water?”

“I lived in the capital, all they had was the ocean. And even then I was never allowed on the harbor if I wasn’t selling clams, and I didn’t sell clams much.”

You felt silence start to grow between the two of you, so you said the first thing that you thought of. “You don’t look like a clam seller.” 

He looked away from the river and to you, a slight grin on her face even as she talked again. “And you don’t look like a petal kisser, blossom, but look where we are today.”

Your heart raced in your chest. “Blossom? Is that what you’re calling me now?” 

“It’s only payback for calling me ‘cherry’,” she said, and you stifled a laugh at the retired name, glancing up at the red hair that you had gotten inspiration from.  

“You didn’t actually mind it,” you said, looking off into the distance, only looking back at her when a warm hand slotted over yours. You blinked and looked down at your hands, which she had intertwined, and then back up at her again, only to see that she was staring straight ahead in the dark at the way the moonlight hit the water. 

“How could I?” She asked softly, a subtle breeze picking up.”You were the one saying it.” She looked at you, and in the dim lighting, you could have sworn that her eyes were saying, you can call me anything in the book, and I will own it proudly. And then, the look changed to something else, something less devoting, and something more passionate. It took you a few seconds to understand what the look meant, and before you could fully register it, she was leaning forward. 

A few seconds came and went where you could feel your heartbeat all over, and you tried to look somewhere other than in her eyes. You couldn't. “Don’t look at me like that.” When all Natasha did was tilt her head to the side and give you an even more intense version of the look, you let out a small sigh. “Please.”

“Why not?” 

She knew why. She knew why probably better than you did after living in the capital. She saw what happened firsthand to people who committed crimes, and those who committed second degree adultery. If you two did what you were wanting to do with your entire heart, you would fall right into that category. “I know where this is going,” you said softly, “and this won’t end well.” 

“Why not?” She asked again, and you turned your head to the side, shaking it slightly and closing your eyes. 

“Because, I’m about to get married,” you hissed, and though you didn’t mean to sound so angry, you did. Natasha was hardly affected. 

She lifted her arms and let them fall against her clothing with a soft slap that still echoed in the night. “You’re not married right now.” 

“But I will be, Natasha,” you said, gripping her hands and squeezing  them softly, begging for her to understand you. “What’s going to happen when I get married to a man who already has a streak for murdering his wives, and he finds out that I have feelings for you? He’ll kill me. He’ll kill you. And if he doesn’t, we’ll both be hung for adultery, after being put into torture camps for being… together as women.” 

“I’m not going to let anyone hurt you, Y/N, you know that.” The fervency in her tone nearly shocked you as she took a bold step forward, nearly surrounding you in her scent and energy. “I would never let anything happen to you.” 

“You’re too important for me to condemn to death and dishonor just because I have feelings for you. It was selfish of me to meet with you in the first place, but I can’t let myself do this. It’s a bad idea,” You said, voice hushed even though no one would have followed you. You were trembling, hand shaking more than anything else as you tried to understand how fast everything was moving; forward and backwards, sewing together and ripping apart all the same. If you were any more attentive to her expression, you would have seen the grin that lit up her face as your confession. “We were just about to cross a line. We’ve crossed quite a few dotted ones, but this one? It is bold and blaring.” 

“Blossom,” Natasha started, and you just shook your head and kept going. 

“And-and what we were just about to do? That crosses the line. We cannot.” 

“Do you really think my feelings for you are going to change depending on whether or not we kiss?” She asked, her voice slightly deeper than usual, almost sounding insulted. “You’re telling me to close my heart off from you, not to not kiss you. And you know that.”  

“What if I am?” You asked, eyes starting to burn with tears. “I’m doing it for the right reasons, Nat. I’m trying to save us from a world of hurt when reality finally sinks in.”

“That isn’t today.” She took another step forward and this time, you couldn't find the strength in you to step back. “And it isn’t tomorrow, and not even within the fortnight. You and I have something, and I know that you know it’s different. It’s special. We would be so stupid to ignore it, so stupid.” 

“I know, I know,” you said, voice tapering off into a whine as you slowly felt your resolve come apart, even though you thought it was stronger. “I’m sorry.”

 “You don’t have to apologize,” Natasha said after a few minutes of pure silence, and you found yourself exhaling. “I just wish things were different.” 

  “I know,” she said, and you turned to look up at the sky, tears threatening to come down on your cheeks. The stars seemed to twinkle and wink at you, talking amongst themselves about a future you had no idea about just yet. 

“Guess they’re never gonna line up,” you murmured to yourself, and then you heard Natasha grumble something from your side, and then she was coming closer, a barreling energy force full of passion and intent, and you knew exactly what she was coming for. For less than a split second, you thought about it. And then you turned your head and met her halfway. 

You would have been surprised by the passion in it if you weren’t just as desperate for the contact. You twisted in her arms, already wrapped around you as she drew you in close, closer than you had ever been with her, and the tears that were welling up before were now escaping for a different reason. Your lips were pressing into hers, moving fluidly and with an air of fervor that she matched equally. You felt wanted, and needed, and you felt loved. You felt the tenderness of the moment with every brush of her fingers on the back of your neck and with every rub of your back over the thin material of your night dress. 

Your legs were shaking, and she noticed before you did that you were getting weak in the knees. She held you up and pulled back slightly, just enough for you to feel her lips brush against yours while she asked if you were okay, like she wasn’t willing to take herself from you just yet. And honestly, you weren’t ready for her to leave you, either. You nodded, and she leaned in again, much slower, and then you had time to think. 

Her eyes weren’t the same shade they were when the sun hit them, they were almost an eerie pale blue, but they were still just as gorgeous to you, especially now that they were slanted with desire. Her hair wasn’t perfect like she somehow always managed or it to be, and you realized that it was because you had gotten a hand to run through it despite the way that she had previously held you like a lifeline. Her lashes were long, and you swore that she was close enough that you could count them. Her cheekbones were accentuated in the lighting, making her look like something straight out of a fairy tale, like a floating fae creature that led people to safety. In that moment, you could have sworn that she was the answer to every prayer you had ever whispered, to every question you had ever asked your etiquette teachers. In that moment, and in every moment to come, she was your ending and beginning, your creation and destruction, your sunrise and sunset. She was Natasha Romanoff, and in that moment, no wedding or murderous man even held a candle to the way you felt about her.

  What a beautiful person. 

“Now you’re looking at me strangely,” Natasha said, her voice quieter than you had ever heard it as the both of you treated over the moment carefully, trying not to break it and leave it in shambles. “What are you thinking about?” 

“How I’m going to have to pretend like this never happened in a few weeks,” you said softly, and part of you hated yourself for bringing up the bad part of the future so soon after you both had just lost all ties to reality. 

“You don’t have to,” she said, stroking your hair. “We can just keep doing what we’re doing, sneaking off in the night and coming back in the morning before anyone realizes. Nothing really has to change, I just want you to know that I… that we can be whatever you want us to be.” 

“As long as we’re in the confines of the garden walls.” 

“And now the woods,” Natasha said, and you couldn’t help but laugh in her arms. 

“And now the woods."

****

this is short, but i couldn’t see anything being tacked on to this. we’re at an important part, and from here it’s gonna be fun!! thank y’all for reading; if you liked it please drop a like and a reblog bc it makes my day!! comments also make me ascend y’all

tags!! : tags! : @teenwonder @saamwilscn @procrastinatingsapphictrash @fayhar @8plasma @slut-for-nat @dontmindmejustreading @swords-are-cool @200605chaeng @thescottishavenger @antidaytime @jenny-song @madamevirgo @natasha-danvers @blackxwidowsxwife​ @shycucumbersandwich @dailyavengering @xxxtwilightaxelxxx @ima-gi--na-tion @chickenhavewisdom

so sorry if i forgot anyone!!!!!

[comedicreliefonlyworkswhenfunny]

I am against the "Americanization" of fandoms.

What this applies to

Holding non American characters (and sometimes even fans) to an American moral standard. This includes

Refusing to take into account that, first things first, America is NOT the target audience, so certain tropes that would or would not pass in the west are different in Japan.

Like seriously, quite a few of the jokes are just not going to pass or hit, because they require background information that is not universal.

Assuming all American experience is standard. (This could mean watering down just how much pressure is placed on Japanese youth irl by saying that sort of thing is universal (while it is, to a degree, Japanese suicide rates are pretty fucking high because of how fast paced and work heavy some of their loads tend to be), and it's really annoying and rude when someone is trying to speak out about how heavy and harsh the standards are placed on them to succeed just for some American whose mom occasionally yells at them to do their homework dropping by to say "it's like that everywhere")

Demonizing (or wubbifying) a character using American morals, including and up to harassing fans over their interpretations or gatekeeping whether or not a character "should" get development (while you shouldn't do that fucking period, it's rude and annoying- this is specifically for the people who use American standards without acknowledging the cultural gap between them and, you know, the fucking target audience) ((Like seriously, saying "It's different in Japan" is not the end all be all excusing someone's actions, but sometimes the author didn't immediately think that maybe (insert vaguely universal thing) was that bad or that heavy of a topic before they put it into their media. If you don't want to see things like that? Pick a different series and stop harassing the fans))

Getting mad at or making fun of Japan's attempts to satirize their own culture. (A good example is Ace Attorney! To most of us, it's just a funny laugh can you imagine if courts were actually like that- guess what? Japan's are! (Not that America's are actually that much better, they just look good on paper))

Making America/American issues the center of your fan spaces

(Usually without sharing or bringing light to the issues that other countries are going through)

Your

Experiences

Are

Not

Univseral!

Seriously, very few things across America, even, are universal. Texas things the hundreds are nothing while Minnesota's like "oh it's only thirty degrees below zero"- so for fucks sake, stop assuming that all other countries work in ways similar to America.

It's good and important to share Ameican issues with your American followers, but guess what? America isn't the only country out there, and it's certainly not the only one going through bullshit. Don't pull shit like "why's no one reblogging this?" or "why should I care about what's happening in (X country)?"

Don't assume everyone lives in America.

Stop assuming everyone lives in America.

America is not and has never been the target audience for anime, and it's certainly not the only country outside of Japan that enjoys it.

Like I said above, sometimes Japan attempts to satirize its own culture. We can't tell what is and isn't meant as satire, because it's not our culture.

Social media activism can be tiring and maybe you don't have the energy to focus on things that are out of your control, but, if someone tells you about the shit they're going through, don't bring American politics up.

For the neurodivergent crowd out there thinking, "But why?" it's because a lot of social media, especially, is very heavily Americanized- sometimes to the point where people assume that everyone is American. Not to mention, it's disheartening. I'm sorry to say, but you're not actually relating to the conversation, you're often diverting the focus away from the topic at hand. Even if you mean well, America is heavily pedestaled and talked about frequently, and people from other countries are tired of America taking precedent over their own issues.

Don't divert non-American issues into American ones. Seriously. It's not your place. Please just support the original issue or move on.

Racist Bullshit

This especially goes for islanders and South Asian characters, as well as poc characters (because, yes, Japan DOES have black people)

Making "funny" racist headcanons. Not fucking cool.

Changing the canon interpretation of an explicit character of color in order to fit racist stereotypes.

Whitewashing or color draining characters. Different artistic skill sets can be hard, yes, but are you seriously going to look at someone and say "I don't feel like accurately portraying you or people that look like you, because it's difficult for me." If someone tries to correct you on your cultural depiction of a character and/or their life style, don't be an ass. (If possible, it would be nice for those that do the corrections to be polite as well, but it does get really frustrating).

Seriously, no offense guys, but, if you want to persue art, you're going to need to learn to depict different body types, skin colors, and/or ethnic features.

On that note, purposefully, willingly, or consistently inaccurately portraying people or characters of color (especially if someone in the fandom has "called you out" or specifically told you that what you're doing comes across as racist and you continue to do it). If you need help or suck at looking things up, there are references for you! Ask your followers if they have tutorials on poc (issue that you're having), whether it be bodily portrayal, facial proportions, or coloring and shading. Art is so much more fun when you can depict a wider variety, and guess what? Before you drew the same skinny, basic, white character over and over, you couldn't even draw that!

Attempting or claiming to DEPECT CULTURAL ACCURACY within a work or meta, while being completely fucking wrong. ESPECIALLY and specifically if someone calls you out, and you refuse to fix, correct, or change anything.

*little side note that the discussion revolving art is a very multilayered conversation, and it has quite a few technical potholes, which I'll bring up again farther into this post.

Fucking history

Stop demonizing or for absolute fucks sake wubbifying Japanese history because UwU Japan ♡0♡ or bringing up shit like "you know they sided with Nazis, right?" It's good to recognize poor past decisions, but literally it's not your country keep your nose out of it. And? A lot of decisions made by countries were not made by their general peoples. Even those that were, often involved heavy propaganda that made them think what they were doing was right.

Seriously, it's not your country, not your history. Unless you have some sort of higher education (but honestly even then a lot of those contain heavy bias), just don't butt in.

^^^ this also goes to all countries that are NOT Japan (specifically when people from non American countries talk about their history while in fandoms and someone wants to Amerisplain to them why "well, actually-"). When we said, "question your sources," we didn't mean "question the people who know better than you, while blindly accepting the (more than likely biased) education you were given in the past."

What this does NOT include:

Fanfiction

FANfiction

FanFICTION

FANFICTION.

Seriously, fanfiction is literally UNPAID WORK from RANDOM FANS- a lot of which who are or have started as kids. ((No, I'm not trying to excuse racist depictions of people just because they're free, please see above where I talk about learning to grow a skill and how it's possible tone bad and get good, on top of the fact that some inaccuracies are not just willful ignorance))

"Looking it up" doesn't work

"Looking it up" almost never works

Please, for fucks sake, you know that most all online search engines are heavily biased, right? Not to mention, not everything is universal across the entirety of Japan. You want to look up how the school system works in Hokkaido? Well it's different from the ones in Osaka!

Most fanfiction is meant to be an idealized version of the world. Homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, ableism, and racism are very prevalent and heavy topics that some fan authors would prefer to avoid. (Keep in mind, this is also used by some people in those minorities often because thinking about how relevant those kinds of things are is to them every day).

A lot of shit that happens in writing is purely because it's an ideal setting. I've seen a few arguments recently about how fan authors portray Japanese schools wrong- listen, I can't tell you how many random school systems I have pulled from my ass purely because (I need them to interact at these points, in these ways). Sometimes the only compliment I can think of is 'I like your shirt' or sometimes I need character A to realize that character B likes the same thing as they do, so I might ignore the fact that most all Japanese schools require uniforms, so that I can put my character in a shirt that will get someone else's attention.

Sometimes it's difficult to find information on different types of systems, and sometimes when you DO know those things, they directly rule out a plot point that needs to happen (like back on the topic of schools (from what I've seen/heard/read- which guess what? Despite being from multiple sources, might still be inaccurate!) Japanese schools don't have mandatory elective classes (outside of like gym and most of them usually learn English or another language- I've seen stuff about art classes? But the information across the board varies.), but, if I need my character to walk in and see someone completely in their element, I'm probably not going to try and gun for accuracy or make up a million and two reasons as to why this (non elective) person would possibly need something from (elective teacher) after school of all things.)

Some experiences ARE universal- or at least overlap American and Japanese norms! Like friends going to fast food places after school doesn't /sound Japanese/ or whatever, but it's not like a horrible inaccuracy to say that your characters ate at McDonald's because they were hungry. Especially when you consider that the Japanese idolization of American "culture" is also a thing.

Also I saw someone complaining about how, in December, a lot of (usually westerners) write Christmas fics! Well, not only are quite a few of those often gift fics, with it being the season if giving and all, but Japanese people do celebrate Christmas! Not as "the birth of Christ," but rather as a popularized holiday about gift giving (also pst: America isn't the only place that celebrates Christmas)

But, on that note, sometimes things like Holidays are "willfully ignorant" of what actually happens (I've made this point several times, but (also this does by no means excuse actual racism)), because, again: plot convenience! Hey what IF they celebrated Halloween by Trick or Treating? What if Easter was a thing and they got to watch their kids or younger siblings crawl around on the ground looking for tiny plastic eggs?

Fanfiction authors can put in hours of work for one or two thousand words- let alone ten thousand words, fifty thousand words, a hundred thousand words. And all of these are free. There is absolutely no (legal) way to make money off of their fanworks, but they spent hours, days, weeks, months- sometimes even years- writing. It is so unnecessary to EXPECT or REQUIRE them to spend even more hours looking up shit that, no offense, almost no one is going to notice. No one is going go care that all of my combini prices are accurate or that I wrote a fic with a Japanese map of a train station that I had to backwards search three times to find an English version that I could read.

Not everyone has the attention span or ability to spend hours of research before writing a single word. Neurodivergent people are literally a thing yall. Instead of producing the perfectly pretty accurate version of Japan that people want to happen, what ACTUALLY happens is that the writer reads and reads and reads and either never finds the information they need or they lose the motivation to write.

^^^ (This does NOT apply to indigenous or native peoples, like Pacific Islanders or tribes that exist in real life. Please make sure that you portray tribal minorities accurately. If you can't find the information you need (assuming that the content of the series is not specifically about a tribe), please just make one up (and for fucks sake, recognize that a lot of what you've been taught about tribal practices, such as shit like human sacrifices or godly worship, is actually just propaganda.)

Not to mention, it often puts a wall in front of readers who would then need to pull up their OWN information (that may or may not be biased) just in order to interact with the fic ((okay, this one has a little bit of arguability when it comes to things like measurements and currency, because Americans don't know what a meter is and no one else knows what a foot is- either way, one of yall is going to have to look up measurements if they want to get a better understanding of the fic)). However, a lot of Americans who do write using 'feet, Fahrenheit, dollars,' also write for their American followers or friends (which really could go both ways).

On a less easily arguable side, most fic readers aren't going to open up a new tab just to search everything that the author has written (re the whole deep topics, not everyone wants to read about those sorts of things, either). Not only are you making it more difficult on the writer, but you're also making it more difficult for the reader who's now wondering why you decided to add in Grandma's Katsudon recipe, and whether or not the details you have added are accurate.

Some series, themselves, ignore Japanese norms! Piercings, hair dye, and incorrectly wearing ones uniform are frowns upon in Japanese schools- sometimes up to inflicting punishment on those students because of it. However, some anime characters still have naturally or dyed blond hair some of them still have piercings or wear their uniforms wrong. Some series aren't set specifically in Japan, but rather in a vague based-off-real-life Japan that's just slightly different (like Haikyuu and all of its different prefectures). Sometimes they're based on real places, but real places that have gone through major changes (like the Hero Academia series with its quirks and shit).

Fandom is not a full time job. Please stop treating it like it is one. Most people in fandoms have to engage in other things like school or work that most definitely take precident over frantically Googling the cultural implications of dying your hair pink in Japan.

Art is also meant to be a creative freedom and is almost always a hobby, so there are a few cracks that tend to spark debate. Like I said, it is still a hobby, something that's meant to be fun (on this note!)

If trying new things and expanding your portfolio is genuinely making you upset, it's okay to take a break from it. You're not going to get it right on the first try and please, please to everyone out there critiquing artists' works, please take this into account before you post things.

I'm sorry to say, but, while it gets frustrating to see the same things done wrong over and over again, some people are genuinely trying. If it matters enough for you to point out, please offer solutions or resources that would possibly help the artist do better (honestly this could be said about a lot of online activism). I get that they should "want" to do better (and maybe they don't and your annoyance towards them is completely justified- again, as I said, if this becomes a repeated offense and they don't listen to or care about the people trying to help them, yeah you can be a bitch if it helps you feel better- just please don't assume that everyone is willfully ignorant of how hurtful/upsetting/annoying a certain way of portraying things is), but also WANTING to do better and ACTUALLY doing better are two different things.

Maybe they didn't realize what they were doing was inaccurate. Maybe they didn't have the right tutorials. Maybe they tried to look it up, but that failed them. Either way, to some- especially neurodivergent artists- just being told that their work is bad or racist or awful isn't going to make them want to search for better resources in order to be more accurate, it's just going to make them give up.

Also! In fic and in writing, no one is going to get it right on the first try. Especially at the stage where we creators ARE merely in fan spaces is a great time to "fuck around and find out", before we bring our willfully or accidentally racist shit into monetized media. Absolutely hold your fan creators to higher standards, but literally fan work has so little actual impact on popular media (and this goes for just about every debate about fan spaces), and constructive criticism as well as routine practice can mean worlds for representation in future media. NOT allowing for mistakes in micro spaces like fandoms is how you get genuinely harmful or just... bad... portrayals of minorities in popularized media that DOES have an impact on the greater public. OR you get a bunch of creators who are too afraid to walk out of their own little bubbles, because what if they get it wrong and everyone turns against them. It's better to just "stick with what they know" (hobbies are something that you are meant to get better at, even if that is a slow road- for all of my writers and artists out there, it does take time, but you will get it. To everyone else, please do speak up about things that are wrong, but don't make it all about what's wrong and please don't be rude. It's frustrating on both ends, so, if you can, please try not to escalate the situation more.)

Anyways, I'm tired of everyone holding fictional characters to American Puritanical standards, but I'm also tired of seeing every "stop Americanizing fandom" somehow loop into fanfiction and how all authors who don't make their fics as accurate as possible are actually just racist and perpetuating or enabling America's take over of the world or some shit.

Fan interpretation of published media is different than fan creation of mon monetized media. Americans dominating or monopolizing spaces meant for all fans (especially in a fandom that was never meant for them to begin with) is annoying and can be harmful sometimes. Americans writing out their own personal experience using random fictional characters (more often than not) isn't.

[historicfailure]

Weekly late Heads-Up

Coming up:

The long promised Madara Smut fic! I’m really happy with that one and can only hope you guys will also like it! :D As always, you can expect it this Saturday :D

The week after that, the 18th chapter of FCC can be expected ;D I’m currently working on it, but trying my best to keep my usual two-week rhythm up! We’re nearing the ending of the fic, after all ;D

Working On:

the 18th chapter of FCC ^^ The release party is something I envisioned for so long, you have no idea. It was probably one of the first scenes I had in mind when I started this fic, so to finally being able to actually write it is... definitely a strange experience xD

I’m also working on the next fic (work title: “Love Notes”), which will be on the shorter side... I hope. You know how quickly things can escale with me ^^’‘

I’m also sporadically working on the Attorney!Madara fic, but only very sporadically. It’s kind of on the backburner for now.

I also have to confess: there will probably a slight pause between the end of FCC and the next fic. A) I want to have some chapters already finished before I start posting them, B) I need a little break to not stop midway again and C) ... well, my RL picks up a lot. I’m in the middle of moving into a new flat, I will probably be hired by my current employer fully, as in, not “learn” anymore, but work like a real adult (bleurgh). I have no idea what that means for this, for my blog here and for my writing in general. I guess I have to see how my schedule will change. But I will keep you guys updated.

Some more personal stuff below the cut ^^’‘

Lately I’ve been a bit disheartened that there have been little to no interactions on Tumblr. Shoutout to the people who still tag me in ask games/chains, to the people who comment and talk in the tags of reblogs etc, I’m so sorry that I don’t react much at the moment, and I appreciate you more than you believe. Apart from that I just feel that interaction has dropped since last year, which is probably due to finishing Communication is Key, which was infinitely more popular than FCC.

Also, one-shots are a more liked format on Tumblr which definitely isn’t my strong suit at all xD Plus, maybe I seem a bit unapproachable? I think? Plus, I always take a long time to answer asks, which also doesn’t help. I don’t know, honestly. I understand those reasons too, logically. Yet, a small part of me is pretty envious of other writers I see on my timeline who seemingly get lots and lots of asks every day.

This is not meant as a guilt trip of any kind. I’m not here for that. I just wanted to be honest for once and not keep everything in (which I definitely tend to do in RL) and that’s what the anonymity of the internet is for, right? Kind of. This is more of a... more personal update, my view on my current state as a person, and my current feelings. If something happens to this blog, you guys will be the first one to know. This is just me stating some of my feelings, nothing else. Maybe things will change in a few weeks again and I will overcome that stupid slump i’m in right now. Right now, the schedule above is king, and I will definitely at least finish FCC ^^

Sorry for the little rant! Hopefully you can forgive me for going off the rails for a bit there ^^’‘ The most important parts are that soon, I will be pretty busy RL, I’m a bit bummed out but still motivated, and I will definitely finish FCC ^^ Thank you all for reading (to the people who made it that far). Stay safe and sound you all, and see you all this Saturday :D

[maliciouslycreative]

How I played damage control to an anti in a small anime fandom and may have led to her ultimate downfall

I know I had a really nice write up of this at one point but oh well. I’ll spill more of the tea in this one because honestly the tea was so hot.

There are a few things that I have to give context to first. Gaia online was like THE mega forum of the 2000s, you made a little avatar and through posting and doing other activities on the forum you made money to buy clothes for your avatar. There were forums for everything but the fannish portions were really what drew in most of the people. The anime I was into was Beyblade. It was a shonen anime about fighting with tops that were possessed by the spirits of magical creatures. The story was honestly pretty average but the characters were fantastic and the fandom is to this day still one of my favourites. The series had a primarily male cast and didn’t even have a female lead until the second season. This led to the fanfic for the English fandom being about 70% canon/OC, 10 % canon m/f, and 20% slash. The most popular character in the English fandom was by far Kai Hiwatari, the loner badboy of the team.

Also before we get started I would like to add that one of my best friends was neck deep in this and the two of us were more or less fandom married. This is the same friend that I fake dated, had feelings for, and she nearly got me into kpop in 2011 so like if you haven’t read that story please read it too because it will give you a good idea of how stupid I am and how much of a fanfic I have truly lived. 

To set the stage I was 16, soon to be 17 when I joined the fandom and it was 2004. In September of that year I wrote a humour longfic that became an absolute smash hit and I found myself somehow fandom famous. It was around this time that I joined Gaia online. I made my little avatar and immediately went looking for the beyblade thread so that I could make new friends. I found the main thread, made my little introduction and at the end of it mentioned that I was a slash writer but I supported all ships. This is where I met C. She had declared herself the authority on Beyblade in these parts and I had just committed the crime of mentioning slash which was very obviously not canon and we did not discuss in this thread because we only discussed canon things. I was like well that’s a bit severe but like sure whatever I just want to hang out and have fun. 

Oh boy did I have no idea what I was in for. 

C was a year older than me and unfortunately that made her older than the majority of the fans at the time. Her favourite character was Kai, and she was not shy about talking about this fact. She stanned Kai above all other characters, and often at their expense. She was also a fanfic writer of a popular canon/OC series. Actually, she was so full of herself that she didn’t even call herself a fanfic writer, no her stories were in fact novels and were apparently very good. I never read them. But more on that later. 

Eventually the slash fans got tired of her being rude to us in the general thread so we made a Beyblade slash thread. There was a core of like 8 or so of us and we honestly had sooo much fun. When C would be too unbearable in the main thread the people from there used to come over to our thread and we’d chat with them about non slash stuff because we were honestly all multishippers and just wanted to have fun. We’d get comments like “wow, I’ve had more pleasant canon het ship discussions in the slash thread than the regular thread”. We never worried about C coming over and getting upset about comments like this because she refused to be associated with anything related with slash lmao. 

I tried my best to keep the peace between C, myself, and the rest of the fandom because ultimately I hate being in fandom drama. I just want everyone to have a good time. I’m a people pleaser. Unfortunately my newfound fame put me in the awkward position of being the most fandom popular person in our small community aside from C. Virtually every fan that read fanfics that came into our thread knew one of us or the other by reputation and C HATED this. Especially because people would come in to the thread, recognise me and go “oh my goodness I love your fanfics!” and I’d be super sweet with them and it’d lead into “I can’t believe how nice you are, I love you” which would lead to us crying at each other. This was not the kind of fan interaction that C got, no her fans were more kind that were there to praise her and worship her like a deity that had blessed them with some gift. Rarely did they tell her how kind she was. 

Back in the mid 2000s there were really commonly those commercials (usually by Christian organisations) asking people to sponsor say children in Africa or to help build schools or provide drinking water. You all probably know the ones; know the language that they used in those commercials. My fandom wife, who I suppose I shall call wifey because yes we were THAT couple back then, once said that C described her fics like those people described donating money to save the lives of Children in Africa. So we used to joke that her fics were so good they’d save lives in Africa. Looking back at it all, she almost had a very fundamentalist Christian approach to bringing people into her fanfics. She of course tried to get all the slash people into reading it. None of us read canon/oc fic mostly due to our poor treatment at the hands of their fans and creators. Getting fed up I one day told her that if she would read any one of my fanfics that I would read the entirety of her novels. Yes, I was willing to commit to read a couple 100k of canon/oc fanfic that I’d never touch normally if she would even read one of my 1k 1 shots. Heck, I had a fic even that shipped 2 minor characters so she didn’t even have to sully herself reading about one of the main characters. It was honestly a good deal in her favour. I kept this up until the day we all left the fandom. Sometimes I do wonder if her fics were even ¼ as good as she claimed, but I will never know because she refused to read my fics. 

She wasn’t all bad and a tyrant all the time. As long as people kept the conversations on track and didn’t come in to the thread saying things like “KAI IS SO HOT ND T3H BEST N I AM GUN 2 MARRY HIM” she stayed mostly civil. It was always hilarious watching InuYahsa or Naruto fans try to come in and bad mouth Beyblade because they’d unleash the dragon and C was great at chasing off undesirables in the thread. 

The real apex of goings on though on Gaia was the guild drama. So guilds were like exclusive themed mini forums within Gaia. Anyone could buy one and run it however they want, as long as it still adhered to Gaia’s ToS. C of course was the owner of the only Beyblade guild. The fandom wasn’t really big enough to support 2 guilds so we just kind of let it go. Technically she allowed people to post slash fanfics but like everything had to be explicitly tagged and there was absolutely no slash RP. Wifey and I controlled a handful of minor characters together in the forum RP and definitely used to try to push the boundaries a little bit. Some ambiguous flirting here, a stray comment there. It was such a fragile balance though because C was heavy on the ban button. The active portion of the guild was just people that were in the cult of C and worshipped her writing. 

Understandably the other slash fans and myself were getting disheartened by this. So we pooled our funds together and decided that we’d open a second guild that though it was run by slash fans we would welcome anyone into our ranks. We just wanted to have a fun place for everyone to hang out, and to hopefully run a few events out of. In hindsight, we should have seen what would happen. When we opened the guild, with me as the guild leader, it was like somebody blew up the whole dam protecting the delicate ecosystem we had cultivated. Every single person in the Gaia fandom that was not a zealous follower of C applied to be in our guild and left her guild. We of course figured that we’d attract some of the gen population but we did not expect to accidentally poach all of it. All of the moderators were getting messages from people thanking us for giving them a place where they could say whatever they wanted without fear of getting their faces ripped off or banned. 

C lost her shit. She was so mad that we went behind her back to ruin her guild. We literally had to show her posts in the very public slash thread that we had been planning this in public and that it was not to ruin her life. We just wanted a place where we could freely post slash. The two of us had some spicy comments back and forth and then she dropped an absolute bombshell on me. Since Gaia’s mail system is terrible I unfortunately no longer have exactly what she said but it was something along the lines of “Ok, you win. I’m going to close my guild.”. Us slash fans had never been doing this to win anything. We had never been competing. We just wanted a safe space to be ourselves. 

C never joined our guild. The fandom slowly faded out within the next year anyway. We weren’t getting new content so naturally people just drifted into other fandoms. C kept up with the main Beyblade thread for a lot longer than most of us but eventually that eventually faded into obscurity too. 

I learned a lot about fandom bullies from those days. But honestly the thing that stuck with me the most out of everything was that if you provide a positive safe space for people they will flock to it. It may seem like there are so many hostile people out there, but there really aren't. They're the minority but they just make sure that their voice is the loudest. The best way is to ignore them and just do your own thing. The bullies just want attention and if you don’t give it to them and prove to them that their opinion doesn’t matter to you then they’ll move in and find something else to yell at. 

[beetlemancy]

hi beetle, this is coming from a friend so i really hope you take it to be in good faith. recently i've been kind of frustrated by the way that you've been discussing the whole potential racism in c3 issue. i know you do actually care about people of color and our concerns, and i know you also care about critical role--the cast, the story the people. what's been kind of concerning/disappointing to me lately is that you have a lot of focus on the (mostly white) people who are (1/?)

making "criticisms" of c3 already with ridiculous complaints like "it's racist to set it in marquet to begin with", etc. i know how you feel about purity culture/cancel culture etc and i'm absolutely not saying it's wrong to call those people out, however it's been pretty disheartening to me to just see stuff like "of course it's different if poc have concerns" in your tags, while there's dozens of posts about how annoying the cancel culture people are. and i mean i 100% agree, (2/?)

they ARE super annoying, not to mention incredibly harmful. but one of the biggest causes of harm right now is that they are speaking over people of color with real concerns. this has ALWAYS been the case with cr, and it makes it very easy for white fans to not look at what poc are actually saying. i don't know if or what research you've done in your free time on some of the concerns and racism already present in cr or what actual poc are worried about, but i do know that (3/?)

just from looking at your blog, i get a sense of "ehh there's probably racism here, maybe? but all i want to talk about is the people calling out fake racism, cause they're wrong." i know that's not consciously who you are as a person, bc you've always been very kind and willing to listen to me. all i'm asking is, please consider maybe signal boosting some of the poc talking about their concerns, if you're going to discuss the people with invalid concerns. if you wanna talk more i can dm (4/4).

A few things before I respond - to anyone reading this, this is valid criticism coming from someone I know. They are on anon but we talked outside of this because of technical 'tumblr is broken' stuff, however this is the first time I'm actually responding directly to this. Please do not clown on this post, if you reply! I'm good, my friend is good, and this is important criticism coming from a good place. <3

So. I did a little digging through my own blog because my memory is bullshit and I found this response to an ask which I believe is the crux of the issue:

Now, I'm going to say this as an autistic person trying to parse through behavior and not as a way to excuse myself, but here is what I believe is happening: Generally, people come to me with the disk horse about the people who are being obnoxious about it. Generally, people don't come to me with reasonable, in lane, valid criticism. I'm very used to only responding to the "purity culture" version of fandom drama. Rarely do people send me asks about the real stuff because there's nothing to be angry about it.

I also haven't personally seen many takes by fans of color who are vocally worried about the setting based on being uncomfortable with it in the past - many of the people I follow are actually excited about it and honestly I took my cues from them. I actually try to avoid the tags these days because so much of it is spam or active trolling. I, and I think along with other people in my autie circles, find it truly difficult to figure out whether someone is -actually- worried or just being pre-mad for disk horse reasons as well. This is room for improvement and I'll be doing more research to find blogs that are talking about real concerns - that's on me for not being more active in following different perspectives.

I 100% understand where you are coming from in regards to how it comes across, now that I've taken a step back to assess. I understand why you are disappointed in my responses about it, especially to that ask in particular. That was someone directly explaining that they were worried and for good reasons and I definitely side-stepped answering with any real deep thought.

I do still struggle with knowing what is the right thing to do in situations like that. I was being honest when I said I didn't believe this was "my lane." I thought it would be disingenuous for me to really talk about my feelings in depth about it - but had not considered the fact that by only responding about the obnoxious people that I was adding to the noise drowning out fans of color.

Now I write all this out because I think I'm not alone in this and hopefully others will read this and be like 'oh, yeah, i fall into this trap too' and maybe we all can do a little better. We pride ourselves on having nuance in the face of bullshit, right? But nuance isn't a constant - its a learning process, and I'm definitely still learning - with the help from my friends who love me enough to point things like this out.

I'd also like to follow more people who are talking about this for real (aka, not the usual crowd of pre-madders) and I might need a little help finding people (social deficits make things more difficult but are not an excuse to not try!). I'll be hitting up some other people I know privately to find blogs, but if anyone has someone or if you are someone and would like a signal boost, hit me up!

In conclusion. I'm really glad I have friends who are patient with me even though you don't have to be and I'm glad you told me about this issue. My hope is that I never disappoint you again, but if/when I do, I hope anyone - one of my friends or not - feels like they can come and talk to me about it. <3

[theweasleysredhair]

One For The Road [S.B.]

Character: Sirius Black

Word Count: 2029

Requested?: Yes/No

Summary: Post-Azkaban Sirius is a jealous guy... especially when it comes to his girl and Snivellous.

Disclaimer: Gif isn't mine, credit to whoever made it

A/n: I hope the requester enjoys! (requests still open, feel free to send some my way!) also yes I only named this fic ‘one for the road’ bc of the arctic monkeys song

+ + + + +

“Do you have to go back to Hogwarts this year?” Sirius groaned as he wrapped his arms around your waist from behind, resting his head on your shoulder as you tried to wash the remaining pots.

“I reckon so, being a teacher and all,” you laughed, placing a pan on the drying rack. He nuzzled his face into your neck, his long hair tickling as he placed a soft kiss there.

“I’m going to miss you.”

You’d been waiting for this. Sirius hadn’t really made any comments about you having to leave, even though he and you were aware that you’d be away most of the school year, just like Harry would be. You had begun to worry about him being alone in Grimmauld Place again, especially after being around people constantly over the summer holidays.

You dried your hands on the tea towel and spun around in his arms to face him, “I’m going to miss you too. But you know you can write, and I’ll write too, and Christmas will be here before you know it. It’s only four months away.”

Sirius pushed his lips against yours for a moment, his hands gripping your hips as he pulled you closer to him. You responded immediately, kissing back and wrapping your arms around his neck. “That’s four months too long, love,” he mumbled against your lips as he pulled away a couple inches.

“It’ll fly by, I promise. Remus said he’d stay with you in the meantime so you’re not here alone. I hate thinking about you here, especially with that bloody painting... I just want to take you with me.”

“I’ll happily jump into one of your suitcases love, just say the word and I’ll do it.”

“Don’t tempt me,” you grinned as you turned back to washing. You were just placing the last pot on the drying rack as people started arriving at the house. You placed the tea towel on the counter and slowly pulled away from Sirius’ arms - much to his dismay - to greet Remus, who was followed closely by Tonks.

“Wotcher, Y/n!” Tonks greeted as she pulled a chair out at the dining table. “Hi Tonks!”

“How are you doing, Y/n? Ready for work?” Remus asked, taking his own seat at the dining table. “I’m not doing bad, I’m half packed for the next term, still got a few bits I need to sort out but I’ll get there. You’d think I’d be a dab hand at this by now but I still end up forgetting something every year,” you said with an airy laugh and a shrug, leaning against the counter.

The sound of Walburga Black screaming in the hallway made all of you look over, Sirius sighing dramatically as he left the room to go shut her up - although not before giving your bum a cheeky squeeze, causing you to swat at him with the damp tea towel and making him chuckle.

He returned a few minutes later with Kingsley Shacklebolt, Mad Eye, Arthur Weasley and Bill Weasley, who were followed closely by Severus Snape - an old school mate and colleague of yours - and finally Dumbledore.

You greeted them all with a smile, taking a couple of steps over towards Snape, who you chatted with for a small while about the year to come at Hogwarts. At some point, Sirius had sidled up to you and threw an arm around your waist not-at-all subtly, making you roll your eyes playfully at him. You turned to Arthur instead.

“No Molly today?” You asked him. He shook his head, “No no, not today, she’s with the rest of the kids, getting ready for Hogwarts. Thought it best she keep an eye on them all.” You nodded understandingly.

The rest of the meeting went off without much drama, besides the glares you saw Sirius shooting over at Snape, but that was to be expected by now, what with the whole hatred thing they had going on. You didn’t really understand it, even back when you were all at Hogwarts yourselves. And whilst you didn’t agree with the way he treated Lily the last time they spoke, you’d never personally had a bad experience with the man, and actually got on well at Hogwarts - or as best you could, anyway.

When everyone had finally left a couple of hours later, you decided to continue packing for Hogwarts, knowing it would be worse to try and rush the morning of your travels.

As you placed some of your final items into your last trunk, you turned to Sirius, who was stood in the doorway of his - or rather, your shared - bedroom, leaning against the frame with his arms folded across his chest.

“You’ve been uncharacteristically quiet, what’s up love?” You asked, raising an eyebrow worriedly. “Nothing,” he replied, not quite meeting your eyes.

You smiled to yourself and walked the short distance over to him, wrapping your arms around his neck and making him automatically rest his on your hips. “Is this about Severus? Because you know I’ve told you to ignore the things he says,” you said brushing your nose against his. “Snivellous,” Sirius spat his name out, “Can say what he wants about me. What I don’t like is when he’s so close to you.”

“Ohh, you’re jealous!” “I’m not jealous.” “You’re so jealous! Oh Godric, I never even realised. Oh love, you know I adore and love you and no one else, you don’t have to worry about him. He’s just someone I have to work with. No one could hold a candle to you,” you said, closing the small gap between you and pressing your lips to Sirius’. He kissed back easily, spinning you round so you were pinned between him and his bedroom wall. “You promise?” He mumbled against your lips. “I solemnly swear it,” you teased with a laugh, finally making him crack a smile, “I’ll be back before you know it, don’t you worry.”

***

It had been nearly two weeks since you’d arrived back at Hogwarts. The students were starting to settle back in, as were the staff, and honestly you loved being there, loved your job. Sure, it was disheartening sometimes when you couldn’t see Sirius but the smiles on your students faces made up for some of it.

You’d just owled a reply to the first of Sirius’ letters for the school year, wanting to update him on your first couple of weeks back. You were also worried about him, knowing he hated being stuck in Grimmauld Place, especially when he was alone. You’d also happened to mention Snape’s idea of starting a duelling club, and how excited you were to be a part of it, loving the idea of teaching the students more magic. What could be better?

A couple of days later, you were sat in your classroom, a pile of students’ essays sat in front of you as you marked them. This was the part of teaching you didn’t like as much, but it was nice to know that nearly every student you taught had handed something in, and most were to a high standard. Not a huge surprise, considering many of your students adored your lessons, but the response was still nice to see.

You were lost in your work, when suddenly there was a knock at the door that made you look up, “Oh Professor L/n?”

Although you couldn’t help the smile that was fighting to show on your face, you exclaimed, “What are you doing here?! You could be seen - are you mad?”

The dark haired man stepped inside and closed the door behind him, “Of course I’m mad, I spent 12 years locked away. But anyway, I just came to visit my lovely girlfriend at her amazing job.”

You moved around your desk to give him a hug, “You must be careful, I can’t have anyone seeing you - did Dumbledore agree to this?”

Feeling Sirius chuckle under your embrace, you rolled your eyes good-naturedly.

“Of course not. I never asked permission. I just missed you.”

“I missed you too! It’s only been two weeks as well,” you said with a grin as you pulled away slightly to look up at him, however still staying in his arms.

“A very long two weeks. I don’t think I’m going to make it until Christmas without seeing you, I just felt I had to come and see you, I missed your pretty face.”

You looked at his ‘innocent’ face and squinted your eyes, before scoffing with amusement, “Bullshit... you were jealous weren’t you? Of Severus? Because I mentioned him in that letter?” “Of that greaseball? No way,” he shook his head but you could tell he was blatantly lying.

“You do realise I love you and only you right?”

“I know, I know. You always say and show it and I’m so lucky to have you. I just... I’m so scared you’ll realise you deserve better,” he sighed, looking down as he gently squeezed your hips, “I mean... you deserve someone who can take you out on dates and show you off to the world! I can’t do that, I’m just an old fugitive.”

“I don’t care about all that, I don’t want someone else, I want you. I deserve you and you deserve me. I love you, Sirius, and I wouldn’t change you for the world. You’re a fugitive because the ministry were incompetent - as always - with handling the entire case, but regardless, I don’t care. No one, not Severus, not anyone could take me away from you. I waited for you because I knew you’d escape and I knew you’d come back to me because we love each other. I always have, from way back when you were a bloody heartthrob and girls chased you. You used to tell me that none of them mattered because they weren’t me. Now it’s my turn to tell you that no other guy matters because they’re not you. I love you so bloody much.”

You pushed your lips to his, kissing him passionately and with as much love as you could pour into it. He kissed back, lifting you up onto your desk and nudging the papers out of the way as he stood between your legs, one hand squeezing your thigh as the other cupped your cheek. He tilted your head to deepen the kiss, licking across your bottom lip as you parted them to allow him access into your mouth. “I love you,” he mumbled between kisses. “I love you too.”

You didn’t know how long you were there, all you knew was that you were thankful no one had tried to walk in on you both - although you weren’t sure you would have noticed if they had. You ran a hand through his hair and pecked his lips again, “As much as I want to keep you here, you probably need to go before you get caught!”

“What if I don’t care?”

“I do care, I want you to spend Christmas with me, so please make sure you get home safe,” you said.

“Fine, fine, I’ll see you again at Christmas, counting down the days!” He stepped backwards, before quickly kissing your swollen lips again and then reluctantly beginning left the room.

“See you then, my love,” you called after him, receiving a loving smile in return. You just about caught a glimpse of him turning into his dog form before you took a deep breath, going to sit back down at your desk to continue marking the papers.

You’d just written down an “O” on one of them when a head popped round the door of your classroom. You looked up, expecting a fellow teacher or perhaps a student, instead being met with the cheeky grin of your Sirius Black.

Just as you opened your mouth to speak, he beat you to it, his grin turning easily into a smirk as he said, “I don’t suppose I could have one more kiss for the road?”

And well... when he looked like that, who were you to deny him?

[minisception]

2021 Summer Painting Challenge: Retrospective

Summer has come to an end, and with it Warboss Tae's 2021 Summer Painting Challenge. That was... a lot of painting, most of which has been collected above. Huge thanks go out to Tae - if you haven't checked out his youtube channel you can do so HERE, as well as to all of the other participants. There were a lot of cool projects, and you can see them all on Tae's discord HERE.

My main goal in participating was to get together a fully painted starter army together. Despite some stumbles along the way I'm happy to say I met that goal, with a small but playable Soulblight Gravelord core units of 20 skeletons, 20 zombies, and 10 dire wolves, a couple elite unit options in the Blood-born and Vargskyr, plus a selection of hero options including a Vampire Lord that I'm quite proud of plus a couple necromancers, not to mention the named character options from Cursed City and the Underworlds Warbands.

Speaking of underworlds, I now have three fully painted warbands to play against my roommate in that game. And I made some progress on the long overdue Ravenguard commission, so that's cool.

More importantly, for the first time since I came up with this paint scheme way back when the Oldhammer Fantasy 8th edition Vamp Counts book was released, I finally have enough painted models to put them all together and have a feel for the overall effect, and yeah, I'm pretty happy with it.

I definitely learned a few things along the way - though as per usual it mostly came from mistakes. Looking at what I learned/screwed up month by month...

JUNE

Pledged - Cursed City, 3 Underworlds Warbands, 4 Sidequests Completed - Everything, though the Sidequests got extra time

June was the only month where I actually met my pledge, despite it being the most ambitious of the pledges by a fair bit. But the pace I set was absolutely unsustainable and I was already crashing by the end. In the future I'll have to set a more realistic pace.

Other things I learned: Don't use your good brush for washes (RIP my favorite brush), you can wash a wet palette in the dishwasher, but only if you take it out before the dry cycle (RIP my palette). I also think I went a bit too excessive on the greens. I want the army overall to be darker so the greens pop more, so moving forward I'm using more black cloth, reserving green cloth for detail bits, and details like gravestones and rope that I painted ghosty greens on the June models are greys and browns after.

On a more positive note, I really liked how the black armor with green highlights turned out on the Crimson Court, and have decided to make that the distinctive feature of vampire models in my army going forward. The process is a pain, and I will eventually have to go back and re-paint the dragon lord's armor to match, but it's worth it.

JULY

Pledged: 10 Zombies, 10 Dire Wolves, Rhino Completed: 10 Zombies, Rhino

I was already crashing hard when July started and ended up spending most of my free time in the early part of the month playing video games. I though I had balanced this out by aiming for a reduced pledge and not committing to daily updates, but a smaller pledge than June was still way too more than I could sustainably handle, and without the daily updates I ended up letting my break run on way too long, plus I was stuck out of town for a week. But while I may have failed my pledge, I still got 10 nice looking zombies done, plus the commission rhino, which is a lot for me, and I was really on a roll going into August.

The main thing I learned is that regular posting does a lot to keep me engaged with the hobby, and that's something I'd like to try to continue after the challenge is done.

AUGUST

Pledged: 10 Skeletons, 5 Blood Knights, 1 piece of terrain Finished: 10 Skeletons, July's Dire Wolves, June's Sidequests

I honestly should have known better that to pledge so much with so much leftover work to do, including the sidequest tutorials that I still needed in order to confirm my project from back in June, but I was on a high and on a roll at the end of July, and I let my ambitions get away from me. And I knew almost immediately that I had made a mistake, just assembling the Blood Knights I could tell that each one of them was going to require more work than most of the heroes I've painted.

Unfortunately, that wasn't the most important thing I learned. The most important thing was that Army Painter brand black primer is SUPER grainy, to the point of obscuring some of the surface texture and details of the models I sprayed it on, which tragically includes the Blood Knights. They weren't quite as badly done by as the poor skeletons, but on such a cool and important unit it's still a bit disheartening.

On a positive note, I learned from the dire wolves that hexwraith flame can be used in my paint scheme to punch up saturation a bit & add a bit of slimy green gore effect that I quite like. At some point I'll have to go back and use it to punch up the zombies & maybe the zombie dragon a bit.

So where do I go from here?

I'm going to be out of town till the middle of next week, but when I do get back I want to keep up the monthly goals with regular update posts. Maybe not every day, but a few times a week at least. But I don't want this to be my only hobby, either. I got games to play, and now that hectic summer vacation schedules have calmed down I've got a family D&D campaign to start running again. Plus some other stuff to work on. So I'm going to try to keep future commitments more manageable. One unit per month sounds about right.

I need to make some more progress on the Raven Guard commission, and I want to save October for something spooky and undead, so for September I think the one unit will be a Raven Guard landspeeder.

I'd also like to actually get to the local store to try to get a game or two in with my newly painted models. If I do, I'll be sure to take some pictures and report back to you on how badly I get thrashed.

[emachinescat]

Okay, I’m supposed to be grading papers, but I have to say this really quickly (and I am in no way trying to stir up trouble or create conflict, but I just really need to get this off my chest).  I have seen a lot of negativity on Twitter and Tumblr toward MacGyver and Mac’s character in general.  And it’s really getting me down.  

Of course, people have the right to say what they want wherever they want, but so much negativity toward my favorite show is disheartening for sure.  Especially since we’re in that delicate time when a show is up in the air for cancellation or renewal.  But anyway.

Here are a couple of thoughts (you could call them counterpoints, but I’m not arguing with anyone, and not addressing anyone in particular, just the barrage of negativity I’ve been noticing in general) that I have on the matter:

Regarding the Mac/Desi vs. Mac/Riley situation.  I feel like I’m back in the heyday of Twilight with Team Edward and Team Jacob.  It’s sad to see a fandom so divided.  I’m Team Riley myself, but I also like Desi as a character despite her flaws (because everyone has flaws).  I just don’t think she’s right for Mac.  However, who Mac ends up with isn’t why I started watching the show, and I’m not going to stop watching it no matter who he ends up with.  And if it is a make it or break it deal for some people, there’s nothing wrong with that.  But the bickering, the snide comments, the accusations... We all love this show, right?  Can’t we agree on that one thing, even if we don’t agree on the finer details?

Regarding the inconsistency.  Yes, there has been a ton of inconsistency, especially this season, with tone, characters, plot, and relationships.  But please don’t forget that this show just went through two major upheavals.  First, George Eads left, and with what a beloved character he played, it’s no wonder they’re struggling to regain their footing.  For the most part, I think they’ve done a great job with that.  And second, Covid and everything with L*nkov.  Like, this season is a literal mish-mash of episodes from different showrunners, one decidedly more progressive than the other.  I just wish we could give the new showrunners and the show in general a bit of a break, and a lot of grace.  I honestly think it’s pretty admirable that they’ve struggled so ardently through all of the change and hardship and are still producing a show that tons of people still love and enjoy.

Regarding Mac himself.  I’ve seen quite a few posts criticizing him for becoming unreliable or a bad friend, or accusing him of no longer being the nice person he was at the beginning of the show.  I wholeheartedly disagree.  Has he made some mistakes?  Absolutely.  But mistakes are what make us human.  Also, growing, learning, and reacting to the changes in our world around us makes us human.  If, five seasons in, after searching for, finding, hating, loving, then losing his absentee father, losing people like Zoe and Nasha, finding out his mom and aunt were a part of a terrorist organization, losing his aunt, and then losing Jack, he were still the same person as he was at the beginning of the show, I would be shocked and honestly disappointed.  Yes, Mac fell out a bit with Bozer and made some questionable decisions.  Yes, he has lied some to Desi.  But he realizes his mistakes and desperately has tried to remedy them/reconnect with those he loves.  He even comes to the realization that he has been so wrapped up in his own losses that he has lost sight of some of the most important things/people in his life.  And that, again, shows humanity and growth.  I actually love Mac’s character more now than ever before.

And finally, there’s a lot of speculation and bitterness and frustration surrounding leaked stills and episode descriptions.  However, even though I have become quite invested in MacRiley, I am not going to let the future episodes that I haven’t seen dictate how I view the show now.  We know the writers haven’t always made the best decisions.  But they’ve given us some great moments too.  Also, we know all too well that episode descriptions, stills, and sneak peeks can be very deceiving.  I’m not saying that people shouldn’t freak out about things like this, especially if they are internally freaking out.  I’m just saying this is my personal approach, because I worry about enough stuff in my real life.  I don’t think I can afford to worry about a show as well lol.  

Again, none of this is said in anger or in hate or even criticism.  It’s more so said because it’s been on my chest all day, and I needed to get it out.  If you disagree with my approaches, that’s totally fine.  I’m just trying to scroll past negativity so that I can more fully enjoy the show I love. :)

Okay, back to work for me.  I hope you all have a lovely weekend!

[tlbodine]

Things That Do (And Don’t) Sell Books (in my experience)

I’ve just finished reading this book:

I am both amused and a bit disheartened to have read the whole thing and discovered that I knew pretty much everything in it. Amused, because I guess I’ve picked up a lot of knowledge over the years. Disheartened, because it clearly has not led to me becoming the break-away success I always dreamed of. Ah well. Live and learn. 

I’m all about transparency in this business, so I wanted to talk honestly for a while about book marketing and what I’ve experienced in terms of what does and does not seem to work. I’d love to hear your thoughts, so chime in with your own experiences! 

Branding and Audience 

The first third of Burke’s book is dedicated to this aspect, and it’s an important marketing step that’s easy to overlook. The idea is basically that you can’t market a product unless it has a brand identity. To create your brand, you need to do the following: 

Identify the audience who you are trying to reach with your work, or who would be most receptive to what you’re writing

Identify your dreams and goals so you have a clear picture in mind of what you want to accomplish 

Figure out how to position yourself in such a way that you a.) stand out from the competition but b.) people can still relate to and understand at a glance

Find a way to communicate your brand consistently in terms of the language used, your aesthetic, the way you act online, and so forth. 

When it comes to brand-building as an author, I think I’ve got a bit of a corner nailed down. I at least hope to be perceived as someone level-headed, thoughtful, generally positive/empathetic and humanist, but also critical and looking deeper into the meanings of things -- all of which are traits I personally possess and which are baked in to the work I do. In support of that branding, I curate my activity online as best I can: I post things that are of a certain horror aesthetic that I feel overlaps with my own interests/style; I give writing advice and boost people in the community where I can; I wade into discourse selectively and thoughtfully; I give media reviews and analysis that I think would be interesting to like-minded people. 

The “identify the audience” part is much harder for me. I’m still honestly not sure who my ideal reader is, or where exactly to go to find my audience. At this point I’m kind of scattering crumbs of myself out into the wind and hoping it will attract people who will, in turn, be interested in the work that I do (and both willing and able to support it financially). 

Things I’ve Done With Varying Degrees of Success: 

Aforementioned blogging activities. I have slowly but steadily grown my following her on tumblr and other social media sites as well as my author newsletter on substack, but it’s not clear to what extent that following translates into book sales. My writing advice posts vastly out-perform all of my other content, but I haven’t seen compelling evidence that the people interested in my writing advice are especially interested in my fiction -- it seems to be two separate groups, with maybe a sliver of overlap. 

Content marketing with more short fiction. This seems like it should be the safest, surest way to find more readers, but it’s time-consuming and discouraging because of the discoverability cycle. My horror flash fiction posts don’t get nearly as many notes as my advice posts. My attempts to get into the big anthologies that pop up have so far amounted to little, although I do need to write more. It’s just that coming up with new ideas and writing them all the time is a lot of work, and if it’s not paying off maybe I’m still better off dedicating that work to my novels. 

Sending ARCs to book bloggers/reviewers/booktube etc. I sent out dozens, if not hundreds, of these and got next to no response. I do think part of the problem is that, at the time, I had no Twitter presence, and -- like it or not -- there seems to be a bit of cliqueishness to this aspect of the book world. Now that I’ve spent more time on Twitter ingratiating myself with the horror community, I suspect I’ll have a somewhat easier job securing blurbs and reviews at least from the people in my extended social circle. But I won’t know until I try it again. *I also know I would have greater success with this if I’d been sending paperback ARCs instead of digital. I didn’t, because the cost of buying more author copies + shipping was prohibitive. 

Author Newsletter. I maintain mine in conjunction with my Patreon account. I send a monthly news round-up, making a point of shouting out both industry news and the milestones/achievements of others in the community as well as providing what I hope to be value-added or interesting content (in the form of blog posts my patrons vote on). It does OK. I average a couple of new sign-ups per month this way and tend to hover around a 25% open rate, which isn’t terrible. But it’s not great, either, and I won’t know for sure whether any of those opens will actually yield sales at any point. 

Interpersonal relationships/community building. Hands down the most successful “marketing” thing I’ve ever done is make friends with people. My writing discord group is small but very close-knit and interacting with them is one of the genuine highlights of my day. I didn’t really make it with mercenary intentions of selling books, but it has directly resulted in sales. Similarly, there are a handful of authors from Twitter and Wattpad that I’ve developed genuine friendships with, and we buy each other’s books and support one another. This whole community aspect is extremely rewarding and I’d do it whether or not it sold books, but it’s also not exactly easy to scale. I can only maintain genuine friendships with so many people. 

Posting in reading groups. The books that allow self-promo are so saturated with it that nobody pays any attention. The good groups do not allow self-promo, unless it’s in the form of getting down in the comments and recommending a book on a per-person basis to people looking for a specific thing, and only then if you’re not being spammy. Again, this is time-consuming. You could spend your entire life in these groups, hand-selling books to these people, and maybe picking up a few sales. They do seem like a good place to identify trends, though, so they’re good for market research if not direct selling. 

Things I Have Not Done, But Which I Suspect Would Sell Books 

Paid promotions. The golden ticket for book sales still seems to be landing a BookBub promo. If you’re unfamiliar, this is where you price your book at 99 cents or free and then pay bookbub to include it in their deals newsletter. Bookbub is very popular and moves a lot of copies. Ideally, you want to set it up so that your cheap book is the first in a series, and people snap that up and then come back to read the rest. This requires you to have written a series. Also bookbub is expensive because these are premium ads. We’re talking hundreds of dollars for one ad. There are other book promos that are cheaper but don’t have the same buy-through rate. 

Ads on facebook/amazon. I’m only dimly familiar with the ins and outs of these ads. They can be relatively cheap, but the amount of visibility they have is tied to your budget -- so the more you can spend on a campaign, the better your performance will be. 

Calling bookstores/libraries and asking them to order. I should do this. I have not done this purely because I am a coward. 

I am not certain what more I can do to promote my books without spending money. 

I understand the “spend money to make money” concept, but I also understand the “I have a limited budget and cannot spend it willy nilly on things that still might not actually pay off, especially considering how expensive self-publishing is when you want to do it right.” 

...This post ended up in a much more bitter place than I meant for it to. Sorry. I’ll check in if I remember additional points that could be successful strategies. 

[incorrectfmaquotes]

Hey, I love your blog! I'm sorry to bother you but I was just wondering if you got my submissions and if you've approved of them and will post them?

(Long Post; press ‘j’ to skip past if on desktop)

Hello! Thank you for loving the blog! I did get your submissions, and they have been approved. I will post them, but with the way I run this blog, the earliest one of your submissions would show up would be mid-February at this point.

(And now a little behind-the-scenes look if you want a more in-depth explanation for why that is, or if you’re just curious.)

How that works is that I like to fill the queue all the way up to the max (which is 300 posts) with quotes and other fma posts all at once when it is a few days from running out. I press the ‘shuffle’ button a couple times to thoroughly scramble the order in which I have entered the posts, so there is a better mix between new original incquotes, new submitted incquotes, old reblogged incquotes, and other fma posts. I set up the queue to post 3 times a day, so that gives me the next 100 days to make new incquotes and find other fma posts and receive submissions, and I put all of that in the drafts. Hopefully, by the end of the 100 days, I have over 300 new posts waiting in the drafts.

The last time I filled up the queue was a couple days before last Halloween, so the submissions that have been posting in that time were submitted before the last week of October.

I do apologize for how long it takes to see your submissions. I have thought about maybe changing the timeline in which I post submissions, but because no one else has brought it up before, I thought it was something that only I had some issue with and therefore, not worth changing.

And if you are still concerned about having quotes approved, well, here are some things that have made me reject submissions, or change them, or just keep them in my inbox because I don’t know what to do with them:

Biggest No-No: Absolutely no quotes that support pedophilic or incestual ships! This is the one I have made sure to put down in the submissions page. It says before the submission box that even if you did not intend for it to be romantic, if it can conceivably be perceived that way and tagged as a pedophilic or incestual ship by someone reblogging, then I will alter it in a way that would make it more not like that, like adding another character. I feel incredibly guilty changing someone else’s submissions though, especially in this case, because they are clearly going for a wholesome platonic, familial vibe. Unfortunately, what ends up happening sometimes is that some of those submissions just end up sitting in my inbox longer as I wrestle with that guilt and how to potentially change it.

Offensive shock humor/humor rooted in bigotry. Not too long ago, I had to delete multiple submissions with humor based in transphobia and sexual violence. It was incredibly disheartening to receive, and I am not gonna force anyone else to read them or anything like that. I rarely get this type of stuff, which I am grateful for.

Quotes that are graphically NSFW, especially if they involve the teenage characters. These are INCREDIBLY uncomfortable for me to read. I’m usually fine with posting some dirty humor, but either the lines are too blurred with these submissions, or they are just waaayyy too inappropriate out the gate. I have actually posted some of these because I thought that maybe I was having an overreaction to these quotes, maybe I’m being too prudish, maybe they actually are that funny to more people. I don’t know if others are having the same reaction to them that I do, but they usually end up being some of the least popular quotes, so I’m probably just gonna reject them now. I will admit, there are a few quotes that I had posted in the very early days of this blog that are more NSFW than I would think to make now. I’m honestly surprised that I did make those, I think I was just excited to find more quotes for this blog, my mind has changed now.

Quotes that I have already done before.  Even if you have submitted it with different characters, chances are that I’m still gonna delete it unless it is really different. If you happen to submit a quote that I have not posted yet, but I do have it waiting in my queue or drafts, I won’t add the submission. I know this is harder to check for anyone submitting, especially because this blog has almost 5,000 posts, but yeah, this is just one of the things that make me reject a submission.

More specifically, do not send me that quote from Brooklyn 99 where Jake accidentally calls Holt “Dad”. This is, without a doubt, the quote I keep getting sent the most. At one point, I had 7 submissions of it from different people in my inbox all at once before I deleted them. I still get submissions of it that I delete on sight at this point. Y’all. That is one of this blog’s earliest quotes. I’m pretty sure it’s within the first 100 posts. It’s already been done. Please stop sending me this quote.

I don’t think you were expecting such a hefty response, but I hope you have the necessary information.

[razieltwelve]

My Origin Story

I’m often asked about how I got into self-publishing. It’s something I’ve talked about in previous posts, but I want to talk about it again. It’s been years since I started, and I think time has given me something of a different perspective.

I’ve wanted to be a writer for a long time. However, I first began to take my writing more seriously in high school. I started posting my writing on the internet under various pseudonyms, and I gradually honed my skills. I won’t say I was good back then, but I steadily became less horrible. It still wasn’t something I showed to people I knew in my everyday life, not even to my family. My writing was, in my opinion, still too rough and raw to present to others, except via the anonymity of the internet.

Fast forward to university. I continued to improve my writing as best I could. In fact, I devoted most of my spare time to writing. It was at this point that I began to write fan fiction. Now, I can already tell what some of you are thinking, but writing fan fiction was honestly the best decision I could have made at the time. Fan communities are wonderful things. You don’t have to be the best writer to be welcomed, and you can get access to a far larger amount of critique and advice than you would get as some random lone writer on the internet.

My writing improved markedly during this time since I was now getting regular feedback. Now, obviously, it’s true that most fan fiction readers aren’t professional writers or critics. Sometimes, all you get is “I like the bit where people got stabbed”. Yet amongst all of the one word reviews, random hate messages, and simple but welcome words of encouragement, you do meet people who are genuinely interested in helping you improve. I’m talking about detailed reviews that can be pages long, covering everything from sentence construction to overarching plot critiques.

In my Honours year, I finished my first novel. Before you ask, it’s not something that I’ve published although I do intend to go back and fix it up one day. What mattered wasn’t how good it was. No. What mattered was that I actually finished a novel-length story. It was a bit of mess at times, but it was 100,000 words of original fiction. Sure, it wasn’t great, but it was mine. I actually printed it out and had it bound in a manner similar to my Honours thesis.

During my PhD years, I continued to write, and I began to submit my short stories to fiction magazines while sending out inquiry letters to agents and publishers about my longer stories. Over the four years of my PhD I wrote three novels and many short stories.

And this is where my origin story takes a bit of a dark turn.

Do you want to know how many short stories I got published?

Zero.

Do you want to know how much interest I got from publishers and agents about my longer stories?

Zero.

That’s right. I got absolutely zero interest from anyone about my original fiction.

That’s not a good feeling, let me tell you. It can be very disheartening. I might have thrown myself into fan fiction with a bit more enthusiasm then because at least there, in those communities, people liked what I wrote. Despite all the rejections from publishers and agents, I could at least say that in certain communities, my writing was well-loved and respected.

After bashing my head into the proverbial wall for a couple of years, I began to look into self-publishing. If my writing was genuinely good, then surely I’d be able to sell at least a few copies if I self-published. I wasn’t going to get ahead of myself and predict best-seller status or anything, but I had to be able to sell something, right?

I spent the next few months studying the market and learning how to make eBooks and design covers. Finally, I was ready. The very first book I self-published was The Last Huntress. That book was a labour of love. I pored over every sentence. I obsessed about the characters and the setting. I promoted it as best I could via the communities I was a part of, and then I sat back and waited for the magic to happen.

That last part, the bit about the magic? That was sarcasm.

There was no magic.

In that first month, I sold something like 17 copies.

All told, that translated to around $6.50 for me.

Staring at that result was not the happiest moment of my life. I did the mental arithmetic. Even if I increased my sales a hundred fold, it still wouldn’t be enough for me to make a living via writing. Heck, I could increase my sales three hundred fold and it still wouldn’t be enough.

Luckily, my years of unrelenting failure had somewhat numbed me to this latest failure. I decided to try again. The sequel and some other stories actually managed to do a little better, but that was hardly saying anything. It’s kind of like how if your leg has been cut off, you probably won’t feel the pain of a broken finger all that much.

After a full year of massive failure, my knee decided to explode because of course it did.

Cue surgery.

Cue misery.

Cue six weeks with my leg locked straight in a brace.

Sitting on my couch with my leg propped up beside me, I decided that I wanted to write something different. No more serious fantasy. No more high fantasy. My humorous fan fiction was what had first endeared me to readers, so maybe it was time to write something funny. Besides, it might take my mind off the fact that I had weeks of my leg in a brace to look forward to along with months of physiotherapy.

And don’t even me started on how awkward it was to have a bath or use the toilet.

I was throwing around ideas for what kind of story I could write when a scene came to mind: a necromancer being forced to beat his own wayward creation to death. All I really had was that one scene. It sounded pretty funny to me, so I started writing just to see where it would go.

Two Necromancers, a Bureaucrat, and an Elf is what that idea became.

That book sold more copies in a month than all of my previous books combined had managed in a year. In fact, it managed to outdo all of my previous books combined several times over.

I can’t tell you how much it meant to me to see those numbers rolling in. It wasn’t a bestseller by any means, but it was the first time that I began to think that maybe, just maybe, I wasn’t wasting my time, that maybe I could actually do this.

Things have changed a lot since then.

I’ve written more books, and although they’ve had varying degrees of success, they’ve all done so much better than I could ever have imagined during the doldrums of that first year. Humour, it seems, is what I’m best suited to, along with slice of life, and I’m more than happy to embrace that. I’ve even been lucky enough to have some of my books turned into audiobooks.

So there’s my origin story.

It’s easy, I think, to only remember the things that worked, but it’s important to remember the failures too. Writing isn’t an easy thing to do, especially if you’re aiming to make a living out of it. People can be cruel. You’re going to get reviews from people saying that you’re awful, that your story sucks, and that you should quit writing. But you’re also going to get reviews telling you that your story made someone’s day, that you made someone smile, that they can’t wait for the next book.

I wouldn’t be the writer I am today without those years of failure and disappointment. One of the most important qualities to have if you’re going to write humour is the ability to laugh at yourself and to make light of both the very strange and the very mundane. Moreover, a writer should be honest with themselves if they want to improve.

You can argue with reviewers. You can argue with critics. But you can’t argue with $6.50 worth of sales in a month.

I suppose that’s why I tend to be quite sympathetic to the underdog in my writing. I am one. I know what it’s like to put your heart into something and come up empty handed. I had that happen to me for years. I also know how important it is to celebrate the little wins and the small triumphs. Sometimes, they lead to bigger things, and sometimes, they’re all you have.

Well, that’s it. That’s my origin story.

It’s not exactly glorious. It’s filled with more than its fair share of failures. But it is my story. Mine. And that matters. Anyone who tells you that there isn’t some luck involved in the writing business is crazy. Luck is definitely a thing. But just being lucky isn’t enough. It takes years of hard work to become good enough to make the most of that luck, and it takes a certain level of idiocy/stubbornness to keep going despite everyone slamming doors in your face.

It’s a good thing, then, that I’m a lucky, stubborn idiot.

If you’re interested in my thoughts on writing and other topics, you can find those here.

I also write original fiction, which you can find on Amazon here or on Audible here. Also, just in case you missed it… The Sheep Dragon is out on Audible now! Get it here. It’s 26 and a half hours of fun, humour, and adventure!

[dramionecommentfest]

Reader Profile: Kiwi05622

The Dramione Comment Fest is the fest where readers take center stage! We’re excited to feature profiles of some of our readers throughout the course of the fest. First up, we have the most delightful and lovely @kiwi05622​!

Location: Middle East Hogwarts House: Slytherin Pronouns: she/her When did you start reading Dramione? How did you originally find fics to read?  I started reading in 2017… I think. Or was it 18? I'm not sure anymore. But one of those years lol! So yes, I'm still relatively new to the fandom. But I have devoured so much that it's come to the point where all the stories I've read have started to mingle with each other, and I can't tell you which story is which unless it had a massive impression on me and stood out. How did I find fics? I had this friend of mine, who was a closeted fic reader (I will never forgive her for not introducing me to this world sooner) that kept on dropping these obscure hints my way whenever Harry Potter would come up in our discussions, which was often. She would call me and ask what I'm doing, and my answer would either be, I'm reading HP, or watching one of the movies. She never once judged me or asked me why I'm spending so much time re-reading and rewatching, and I love her for that. One night, she got a little frustrated with me when I whined about NEEDING MORE of it, and she snapped. She was like KIWI JUST GIVE ME TWO CHARACTERS THAT YOU LOVE, and I shyly replied Hermione and Draco? She had the audacity to sigh (she is not a Dramione lover by any means). She sent me a link to Ao3 with a message "Welcome to my life, and I wish you luck stepping foot inside this black hole. Bye.” because I didn't know better. I didn't know what I was getting myself into, I clicked on the FIRST link I found, and this is how Bleak Manor by Pushthebutton became the first story that made me -surprisingly- fall in love with Dramione and fan fiction.  How have you gotten more involved in the Dramione community? What platforms/websites have you participated in, and which do you like? I'm not VERY involved in the fandom, if I'm honest. I'm an introvert by nature. Even though I started reading years ago, I only started joining Facebook groups last year. From there, I stumbled onto Tumblr (which was the weirdest platform I've ever been on, but now I LOVE IT), which then led me to Discord. This is where I'm currently stationed. I'm not as active as I used to be on Facebook. I also reached out to many people on Discord and found friends that I no longer call "internet friends," and I find it easier to communicate to authors over there.

Tell us about any reading preferences or practices!  Okay, I won't talk about my past habits, because looking back, it was really unhealthy. But I remember I used to read at every waking hour; I would only *sleep* to generate energy to keep ongoing: Goodbye food and social life. However, now, I dedicate time to reading, and it's usually 2 hours before I sleep. So I'll have dinner, and then open up my kindle and read until my eyes can't stay open. My days are usually spent talking to friends and doing many things that need to get done. I started off reading with my laptop until my boyfriend got annoyed by the bright lights emanating from my screen (honestly I didn't even think about reading from my phone). He later suggested reading from the iPad, and I stuck to that for a fair bit, until one night, I ran out of battery, and I couldn’t find the charger, so I reluctantly read from my phone, which I later obviously loved. I could read on the train, while making dinner, taking a walk (because we all need to exercise at some point). Then, after my boyfriend was SURE this wasn't just a phase, and I'll probably be reading for the rest of my life, he surprised me with a kindle, and the rest is history.  

Do you like to leave comments? If so, what is your advice for leaving comments?  If I'm completely honest with you, sometimes. I'm guilty of moving on from a chapter to chapter without taking a moment to comment. Telling myself that I'll go back and let the author know how much I enjoyed this part or that part. But I forget. Once I'm done with a story, I want to MOVE ON to the next one. However, in the past year, I've made an active effort to write down everything I feel on my phone while I read on my kindle, so I can go back and paste my review. That’s the other thing, I read SO much from my kindle, that it makes it so easy to forget to go back online and submit a review. And with Discord, I usually read with my friends, and sometimes the author will be there while we talk, theorise and flail all over their work. It's a much more interactive experience. I think authors would prefer that over a thank you. This isn't to say that a thank you doesn't go a long way or isn't appreciative, but honestly, how many times can an author say you're welcome? Or thank you for reading? This takes me to the second part of your question. The one advice I would give is, don't expect a response back. Do it because you genuinely liked it. Suppose we keep expecting and wanting the author to respond, especially if a chapter gets SO MANY reviews. In that case, it might seem disheartening to the reviewer, and they're left feeling unseen or that their review was lacking, which isn't the case most of the time. Tell them how it made you feel, which parts did you love, which string of emotion was plucked and left vibrating in your chest. Tell them that. But also, saying a simple thank you is enough. Personally, I would go to the last chapter and tell the author how much I've enjoyed their story if it's a story that was posted years or months back. If it's a story published years ago and they seem inactive, I would slide into their DMs and flail all over the story. You'd be surprised how many actually respond.

What is your all-time favorite fic you’ve read?  ALL TIME FAVOURITE is such a difficult question to answer. So I’ll compromise and tell you which one I really really really LOVE but also list a few that I can't be parted with. If my room was caught on fire and I had all these stories in front of me and I had to only choose ONE I would say Risk Reward Ratio by @MissiAmphetamine and its sequel! Okay, I know I cheated, but *sigh* honestly I love it. And I’m not sorry about it either. It's not what you would typically hear because it's not really a fluffy story and there are some questionable actions, plots and let’s not start discussing their relationship. But you see, I enjoy a story that questions my morals sometimes, where I find myself asking “what would I do in this situation?” Plus, as you’ll see below, I have a thing for angst with a happy ending. That being said, I also love love love these stories and they each hold meaning to me, because I've read them at various stages of my life: 

Redemption by @anondracomalfoy (wonderfully written story and very enjoyable!!! It’s a memory trope mixed with some suspense)

Revert by SUPRNTRAL LVR (this is when I found out that I can actually cry while reading a story lol) 

Remain Nameless by @heyjude19-writing (I will FOREVER love this story and no one can taint it for me. If you ONLY knew how much this story means to me *cough* I spent every moment I wasn’t reading this making her moodboards that's how much it moved me *cough*)

The Art of Betrayal by @hathawaywrites

Across The Hall by @takingflight48 (this one just hold a special place in my heart)

Thirteenth Night by Nelpher (This is the story that changed my mind about memory loss trope which is my LEAST favourite)

Nightmares and Nocturnes by @olivieblake (one of the most creative and unique war stories ever written)

Hindsight by @floorcoaster (This changed my mind about T rated stories)

Broken by @inadaze22 (this taught me a lesson to READ THE TAGS, but the pain was worth it)

Sugar and Spice by @inlovewithforever (ummmm do I need to say more? This is one of the best triads I've ever read)

Looking Glass by @kyonomiko​ (Every time I'm in a rut I go back to THIS and it never fails to bring me back to life and remind me why I fell in love with these two. It's light hearted, funny and has my second OTP. it's a win-win for me)

Find Your Way Back by @willhavetheirtrinkets​ (Musyc) (I will forever rec this story to everyone)

Pound of Flesh by @pennilynnovus​ (HELLO STRIPPER DRACO! This one tore my heart out, I love it!)

Honestly, the list can go on and on and on. There are just SO many good ones out there that I haven't mentioned yet, but I wanted to list only a few that I will always go back and re-read. Also, just because I haven't mentioned the ones that we keep seeing everywhere, doesn't mean I didn't enjoy them or loved them! 

What fic gave you the most feels? Definitely “Risk Reward Ratio.” It gave me SO much feels. Some were good, and some were pretty bad. It took me on a wild roller coaster ride. I was happy, sad, angry, happy, sad, angry. I laughed hard in some places, I cried even harder in others, I wanted to pull my hair out MOST of the time, and some parts were oh so good the butterflies wouldn't settle the fuck down. But ehh I like what I like, and I'm unapologetic about it. :D

Who is your favorite side character from any Dramione fic? This one is easy! Theo-fucking-Nott! Without a shadow of a doubt. You want to make him the most awesome sidekick character, go right ahead. The best bro, be my guest. The one that has secret feelings for Hermione? GIVE ME THAT TRIAD!!!!! You dare to make him evil? FUCK YES! I'm SO here for it. Even if he is one, I will STILL love him. I always get slightly giddy when Theo makes an appearance, and I tend to enjoy the story that much more. He's an interesting character to me because he's ambiguous. Canon never gave us much about his personality and reading how everyone interprets him makes him one the most versatile characters in my humble opinion. :D

Last question: Do you really like kiwis?? Hahaha!!!! Yes, I really do. This name was given to me by the people who were worried I had a mild obsession with kiwis. You don't have to ask me what I need from the store, because my answer would always be “we've run out of kiwis, BRING ME SOME MORE.” However, let me just make it clear that I'm not a heathen and I don't eat them with their skin on (no judgment if you do).

Thank you so much, Kiwi, for sharing with us! The Dramione community is lucky to have you <3 

Don’t forget, sign ups for the Dramione Comment Fest close February 6, 2021. Check out the rules here and sign up for the fest here.

[igarbagecannoteven]

re: commenting i think for me it feels like there's sometimes too much pressure on how you comment. i tend to lean on the side of "you should comment on many of the fics that you read" but the way that I go about commenting on other fics vs. fics in this fandom are different because lots of these writers are my friends and i want to encourage writing and community in this fandom. i don't always comment on fics i read in other fandoms, but if i like the fic i find it easy to put a quick "i really liked this! thanks for writing and posting!" and call it a day. i also think that the size of this fandom plays a role in what weight comments have, i guess? like, when i write for almost any of my other fandoms, i get more comments because the fandoms are larger, and i think that fics have a better shelf-life there, too. i'm more likely to get a comment a few weeks after posting, whereas in this fandom i've found that i get comments within the first two days and then typically don't get any more. as a writer in this fandom it's really disheartening to me to not get feedback and to feel like no one is reading. i post to share, and i want people to receive it. when what i post isn't received it can hurt, especially if i like the fic a lot or if it took a lot of time/effort to write. that's partially just the sting of a small fandom though: you can't count on other people to comment, because there are less people reading.

that being said, i also find it really interesting how being part of a writing community changes the feedback/comments/validation. i posted a fic in this fandom not on my normal account earlier this year (shhhhh) and, while it has the most hits of my 2022 5sos fics, it has no comments, and i think it's because people feel more of an obligation to comment when it's someone they know. you want your friends to feel good, so you tell them that their fic is good. the vast majority of the comments i get are from other writer friends, usually the same few ones, probably partially because lots of them are the ones reading, but also because they know and understand the joy of getting comments and how writers crave them.

anyway, i honestly don't find comments difficult, which makes this easier for me. i think sometimes we get caught up in needing to write a "good" comment vs. a "bad" one when bad comments don't really exist! sure, it's fun when someone goes through and points out specific lines and says you made them cry or they feel mushy, but someone typing a heart in the comment box and clicking send makes me happy too! honestly sometimes after i read fics i don't have anything extra to say besides "this was nice and i liked it" and that's okay, but me leaving a comment saying "this was nice and i liked it!" is still going to make the writer happier than me not commenting (i assume, as it would make me happy).

anyway, apologies for the length, i'm sure i left out a thought i intended to include here or there, but community response to content is something i feel strongly about lol -hazel

no need to apologize for length! we here at igarbagecannoteven are big supporters of words :)) that being said i am going to put my response below the cut bc (suprising no one) it's pretty ramble-y lol

i really agree on your point about the pressure on ~how~ you comment, it's something that i've really struggled with in the past (and tbh still struggle with). being in a smaller fandom like this one makes commenting complicated, and not just because once you get to know people it makes things more personal. i often get caught up in the headspace of "am i saying enough? are they going to think i liked this fic less if i leave a short comment here since i left a long comment on a different one?" and so on and so forth (which i think might be more of a me thing than anything else lol) like i have dozens of fic posts in my drafts (possibly even in the triple digits at this point) waiting for me to tag and schedule that i haven't bc i started overthinking what to say in the tags and now it's overwhelming and well we all know where that goes. while i don't read many fics from other fandoms, it's definitely easier to leave a short comment of "yay i liked this!" bc i don't know them, they don't know me, and it's easier to remind myself that any comment is a good comment.

that being said, it's more rewarding to know the person on the receiving end of the comment and knowing it'll bring them joy does make it more motivating to comment! i know i'm generally more likely to comment or return later to comment if i know the person (or am more likely to feel guilty for not commenting lol)

i don't have experience posting in other fandoms so idk if i can add much to your point but i've also noticed this fandom's,, "bias towards recent fics" isn't the right term and has more negative connotations then i want to convey but it's the closest one i've got. like, if you look at comments on most fics almost all of them tend to be near or on the date of posting, and it's always a surprise to have someone comment on something i posted more than a week or two ago. i'd be really interested to know why it's like this in this particular fandom, and whether it's dependent on how it's big enough for new fic to be a semi-regular occurrence but still small in the grand scheme of things *or* if it's connected to something else entirely!

as to your last point, i do agree that there can be an (often internal) emphasis on "good" vs "bad" commenting that is ultimately harmful and untrue, but as someone who does have trouble commenting sometimes, i would like to note that's not always the reason it's a struggle/a comment doesn't get written (although it's admittedly often a factor despite the fact that i know in my heart it's nonsense)

thank you so much sending in your thoughts! i always love to hear from you :)) if you think of any other points, i'd love to hear them

[kingkatsuki]

hope ur havin a good day and u had some beans on toast if u like that

43. Talk about a positive experience with fanfiction or the fanfiction community that you will always remember.

44. Rant about something writing related.

Hi Emme!! I love beans on toast. It’s the superior choice. 💕

43: So a big one for me was when Quizilla closed down back in the day, there was literally nowhere that you could post xReader fanfiction without either being flamed or it just being deleted because ff.net had this dumb rule where they didn’t allow any xReader fanfiction. Which obviously lead to everyone making these ridiculous OC’s just so they could post their work on there. But then there were these sites that popped up that actually allowed xReader fics. Like Lunaescence and GOTV, and this was the first time for the longest time where I felt like I found somewhere I could actually post my writing, where other people who wanted to read the same stuff would all kinda gather together? I don’t even know if they’re still a thing now, but they were awesome.

44: Ooft, I know you were expecting a rant from me when you asked this one haha. Honestly I’ve been talking about this with a few other people recently and its the whole trend of tagging literally anything and everything with the main tags? I completely get that Tumblr is a complete wasteland and you need to be noticed and get your work out there so others can enjoy it, but tagging “I’m thinking of writing a Bakugou x reader fic” with the main tags? Why 😭 It just makes it harder for people to find the actual writing that they are looking for, you’re literally drowning other creators in the tags. It seems to be the latest trend on Tumblr where people are writing 3/4 lines and putting a pretty banner on it and slapping a few tags on it for notes. I was talking to another writer recently who wrote a 5k masterpiece that got less notes than a 300< word Bakugou thirst and it must feel so disheartening. Especially when the 300< word posts are basically the same regurgutated tropes or ideas that have been done time and time again. I know no one can make anyone read anything and comment/like but its just sad to see people feeling this way over their work. And when the warnings are longer than the actual post~

Fic writer ask game.

[optimismrpt]

HOW RIGBY RUNS A ROLEPLAY : A VERY SPECIFIC GUIDE ( OF SORTS )

BONUS CONTENT: ACCEPTANCE DAY

I think it’s essentially to start with this disclaimer: This is merely how I run a rp and I’m not saying by any means it is how a rp should be run. I have found success through these methods all in combination and I can’t promise that they work all the time.

IMPORTANT ! if you use this guide as a basis for your rp please credit back to me somewhere on your front page, rules, or plot! this is a very specific type of rp (small limited run plot heavy skeleton rp) that i have worked very hard to develop over the past five years. i want you to learn from my successes and failures, and please give credit where it is due!

It is a lot of work! Like A LOT! And if you don’t have time to admin with full commitment this is not the right type of rp to attempt.

With that in mind, let’s go!

FULL GUIDE IN THE SOURCE LINK! 

BEFORE THE ACTUAL DAY

First of all, getting apps is fun and it’s easy to get wrapped up in the excitement and want to move things forward as soon as possible. However, I recommend you don’t rush! Do not move up your acceptance date or the date that you close the inbox! This isn’t fair to the people who were planning on finishing up their apps before the original deadline who now have to crunch to meet the new deadline or may not be able to make the new deadline at all because of irl responsibilities. It’s always good to give lots of warning for the inbox closing and stick to it! 

I also recommend that you do not lower the threshold of people needed to open. Sometimes it can be disheartening to set an app threshold at ten and then only get six apps, even if the days grind on with no new apps, stick it out and keep promoting! Opening with less than eight characters (and for apples I’d say 15 characters) is going to make activity lackluster. It’s better to delay opening for the sake of having a grand first day than to jump the gun and end up making the rp fizzle before it can even start. 

About 52 hours before acceptances are set to take place I like to write out a to-do list and put it in my drafts. It usually involves ‘write acceptance posts, update skeletons, update main, post acceptances, post follows, post opening note’. Just having everything you need to do between then and opening written out in order is so helpful. And being able to check things off the list creates both a feeling of relief and excitement. So make a plan, determine how soon everything needs to be done, and work through it meticulously. In the rush of opening day it can be easy to forget important things like updating the triggers page.

If I have time I try to write everything hours in advance. When it comes to things like opening announcements and plot drops I try to write those at least 24 hours of their release time. And this is why I like, for competitive rps, to close the inbox and then give myself at least two hours to deliberate. But I’d even encourage giving yourself 6 hours between the inbox closing and posting acceptances. I know that’s a while to make people wait but apps can get pretty long and reading them all (and probably rereading a few of them multiple times) can be a lengthy process! 

I always try not to read the apps at all before the deliberation time. I find that if I read an app when it comes in that gives the first person an advantage because they have more time for me to adapt to their vision and start to assimilate it and get attached. And that’s not fair to the people who may have stumbled upon the rp later. So I just read the app far enough to get the info for the app count.

Just as a general rule I like to post important dates and times in at least two different timezones. For example ‘Acceptances are at 6am GMT / 1pm EST / 10pm PST ’. That way you can show that you are keeping other timezones in mind. And plus it’s nice to just to the conversion work so your applicants don’t have to. 

DELIBERATION TIME

Start by reading the apps which don’t have competition. These ones are easiest because it’s not a matter of determining whether they are the best of the bunch, it’s just deciding whether or not they are are passable. So I always read those first and then write their acceptance post immediately after I make my decision so that at least I’ll have that to post at the set acceptance date. That way, even if I haven’t made a decision on all the apps I’ll have something to post to show that I am reading apps and trying to stick to schedule! 

When your are dealing with competitive apps there are a few things I look for in an application: 

The most important is that the applicant seems willing to talk to you. This could be asks, ims, or even a little note in the app! Writers who want to make it clear what their intentions/desires/goals are ooc are going to be the easiest to work with! Plus it gives you an idea of how flexible they are! Those who dig their heels in when you offer up alternative suggestions are probably not good to work with. You want to find someone who has direction, intention, and ideas but don’t treat your ideas (or anyone else’s) as lesser than their own. 

Call for humor! I’ve found that I have trouble with people who take themselves and their characters too seriously. This means that they often won’t be up for plotting since they don’t want their character to be anything less than graceful. Humor is a really good sign that a writer is fun, creative, and understands their character. 

I also get wary of people who overhype the rp. Making edits/adding memes in the talk tag is all very nice, but when it looks like an rpt is promoting my rp just to give themselves an advantage over other applicants I tend to count that against them. I don’t like the idea of an rpt trying to use their signal boosting and popularity in the rpc as leverage over me. 

One of the biggest red flags is someone not sticking to the skeleton! If someone blatantly disregards one or more aspects of the skeleton that is an instant strike against them. I don’t like it when people have ocs that they adapt to fit a skeleton because most of the time that means that they don’t really care about the skeleton and your ideas. However, if they contact me about changes to the skeleton in advance and ask if some edits are alright then that’s actually a really good sign! I want people to play a character that they are happy about and I’m willing to change up any skeleton. I just need to know the applicant is willing to work with me instead of against me. 

Do not be afraid to deny applications. I used to never do this because I felt it was too mean and judgmental but now I realize I reserve the right as an admin to deny any app or character that I don’t vibe with. Go with your gut, and if the application is making you uncomfortable or nervous in any way, do not accept them. Sometimes it’s better to have one role go unwritten than to have someone who isn’t good for the group. Because both ic and ooc dynamics contribute to the effectiveness and survival of the group, you need to be excited to work with everyone and their characters. 

One of the ways that I protect myself from muns who may not be right for the rp is by putting a password in the rules. Often the apps that make me uncomfortable are the ones that disregard or contradict the skeleton or plot. It’s clear that the mun either wasn’t paying attention, reading the pages carefully, or just chose to ignore what they read. It’s often That the apps that I don’t vibe with end up being the ones that don’t read the rules and therefor don’t put the password. So not only is it a good indicator to me that the mun might not be very considerate but it’s also a great default reason to deny an app without having to tell the mun directly that you didn’t like other aspects of their app. Most often I allow them to reapply if they’d like to but their acceptance won’t be immediate, so that there’s a chance someone else might apply for the same role with an application than doesn’t skeeve me out.

ONCE YOU’VE MADE THE DECISION

Write out your acceptance notes. I try to write a full paragraph for everyone when I am accepting for a skeleton rp. If there’s more than 20 characters being accepted then obviously don’t, since that’s way too much to ask of you. But if it’s a small group I always endorse writing a little welcome the chosen mun saying what ti was about their appt hat you gravitated towards. It’s kind of a way to also provide feedback to those who were denied as to what their app might have been missing. Plus, it’s just a good way to get the right vibes going for the ooc portion of the rp. Muns need to feel appreciated! After all they put in the work to get there! 

I also like to offer feedback to those who were denied but with a disclaimer that most apps are chosen based on how they mesh with the other apps, since that’s something no one can anticipate. Usually the quality of the writing isn’t as big of a factor as how the character plays into dynamics with the others and whether or not their desired plots and connections with your vision and everyone else’s. Most of the time people won’t take you up on it, but be kind and thoughtful to those who do. However, if they are aggressive towards you in any way because they are upset about being denied block them immediately. Just trust me on that one. 

Keep everyone updated as to your progress! Just telling everyone where you are at (in the process of reading apps, writing the acceptance notes, or taking a break) is a good way to put everyone’s minds at ease. It’s especially important to let people know if you are logging off for a while on acceptance day.  That way people aren’t stuck refreshing the page and dreading that you might be ignoring them. On acceptance day I like to make a post every time I come online or go offline. It may seem like oversharing but it’s honestly so helpful to both you and the applicants. 

POST-ACCEPTANCES

Once you are about to start posting acceptance notes, turn off anon. I know that anon can be very useful for those shy and curious folks that don’t want to im you directly, but this is another case where you’re just gonna have to trust me. For your mental health turn off anon and keep it off for at least 48 hours. I usually keep it off permanently unless there are more roles that need to be filled in a second round of acceptances. There aren’t really any questions that should need to be asked anonymously once you have a full roster of muns and this is a good way to get people used to asking you questions via discord, im, or dm. To prevent nasties from bullying you and to open the line of communication between you and your members, turn off anon! 

And finally, once you have posted acceptances, close your laptop or turn off your monitor and don’t come back to it for at least an hour. I like to give myself two hours to go on a walk, eat some food, and just do non-rp things for a while. Acceptances are stressful and it’s important not to get swept up in it and feel overwhelmed. Taking a step back and remembering you exist outside of rp and outside of being an admin is so important. It’s hard to resist temptation, but if you have anon off really the only thing that’ll come into your inbox are follow messages and those can wait for two hours (or more)! But like I said above, keep everyone updated that you are going to log off for a bit and you’ll be back. Just so no one assumes the worst. 

Just remember to be kind to your applicants and to yourself! It’s a stressful time for everyone!