#How to Get Your Website Successful

[professorspork]

idk how to word this properly but wrt the fanfic thing you reblogged earlier. Why do fanfic writers have such different expectations than any other content hosting platform?

Like lets take youtube as a point of comparison, Engagement like comments and likes largely exists to boost the works place in algorithm, thats why youtubers put in calls to action and other engament bait. Few with decent reach even read the comments and the audience shouldnt try to develop any weird parasocial relationship with the youtuber. Fanfic authors ask for likes (kudos, because the websites gotta use nonstandard language for some reason) and comments despite them not having any impact on an algorithm, and seem to want the audience to try and develop a relationship with the author based on tumblr posts like that one.

Why the radical difference in behaviour away from the norm? And honestly with all the (usually) metaphorical blood spilled online about parasociality why are authors really surprised that the audience tries to keep their distance as is best practice with any other content producer?

okay I am going to answer this as kindly and as calmly as I can and try to assume that you are asking this in good faith. because my friend, the fact that you feel the need to ask is, to me, The Problem.

[this is, for the record, in response to this post]

fanfiction writers are not *posting content.* (I also have reservations about engaging with the term "content producer" or "content creator" but let's put that aside for now, I'll circle back to it.) you say "they seem to want the audience to try and develop a relationship with the author" as though it is strange, off-putting, and incomprehensible to you, when in fact that is the point of writing fanfiction. it is a way of participating in fandom. it is a way of building community and exchanging ideas and becoming closer with people.

if authors wanted to solely ~generate content~ that would get them attention (?? to what end, the dynamic you have described seems to equate algorithmic supremacy as winning for winning's sake, as though all anyone wants to do is BUILD an audience without ENGAGING with them, which I cannot fathom but let's pretend for a moment that is, in fact, true) then like. if that were the case why on earth would they choose a medium in which they categorically cannot succeed and profit, because it isn't their IP?

you are equating two things that are not at all the same thing. to the degree that parasocial relationships are to be avoided, and "that person is not trying to be your friend they are trying to entertain you, please respect their boundaries" is a real dynamic -- which it is!! -- like. you have to understand that the reason that is true for the people of whom it is true is because it is their JOB. they are storytellers by profession, and they are either through direct payment, or sponsorship, or advertising, or through some other means, profiting off of your attention. i don't say this to be dismissive, many wonderful artists and actors and comedians and any number of a thousand things that i enjoy very much go this route but they do so as a *career choice.* and so when you violate the public/private boundary with them, you are presuming to know a Person rather than their Worksona. the people who work at Dropout or who stream their actual play tabletop games or who broadcast on TikTok or YouTube are inviting me to feel like i know them to the degree to which that helps them succeed in their medium and at their craft, but there MUST be a mutual understanding that that's a feeling, not a fact.

however.

a fanfiction writer is not an influencer, not a professional, and is not looking to garner "success." there is no share of audience we are trying to gain for gain's sake, because we are not competition with one another, because there is nothing to win other than the pleasure of each other's company. we are doing this for no other reason than the love of the game; because we have things we want desperately to say about these worlds, these characters, these dynamics, and because we *want more than anything to know we are not alone in our thoughts and feelings.* fanfiction is a bid for interaction, engagement, attention, and consideration. it is not meant to be consumed and then moved on from because we are NOT paid for our work, nor do we want to be. the reward we seek is "attention," but attention as in CONVERSATION, not attention as in clicks. we are not IN this for profit, or for number-go-up. there is no such thing: legally there cannot be. we are in this because we want to be seen and known.

like. please understand. i am now married to someone i met because of mutual comments on fanfiction. our close friend and roommate, with whom i have cohabitated for over a decade now, is someone I met because of mutual comments on fanfiction and livejournal posts. that is my household. beyond my household, the vast majority of my closest personal friends are people with whom I built relationships in this way.

you ask why fanfiction writers want THIS and not "the norm," but the idea of everything being built to cater to an algorithm to continue to build clout, as though the only method of reaching people is Distant Overlord Creator and Passive Receptive Audience being "the norm" is EXTREMELY NEW. this is not how it has always been!! please think of the writers of zines in a pre-internet fandom, using paper and glue and xerox to try and meet like-minded people in a world that was designed for you to only ever meet people in person, by happenstance, in your own hometown. imagine the writers of the early internet, building webrings from scratch to CREATE a community to find each other, despite distance. imagine livejournal groups, forums, and -- yes, indeed, of course -- comment threads IN STORIES -- as places where people go to *converse.* in the past, we had an entire Type Of Guy that everyone knew about, the BNF ("Big Name Fan") whose existence had to be described via meme because it was SO DIFFERENT THAN THE NORM. treating fellow fans like celebrities or people too cool for the regular kids to know was an OUTLIER, and one commonly understood to lead to toxicity.

in the past, I have likened writing fanfiction to echolocation. i am not screaming because I like hearing the sound of my own voice, though i can and do find my voice beautiful. i am screaming so that the vibrations can bounce back to me and show me the world. the purpose is in the feedback. otherwise it is just noise.

does this make any sense? can you see, when i describe it that way, why an ask like yours makes me feel despair, because it makes us all sound so horribly separate from one another?

perhaps I will try another metaphor:

a professional chef who runs a restaurant will not have her feelings hurt if you never fight your way into the kitchen to personally tell her how much you enjoyed the meal. that would, indeed, violate a boundary. professional kitchens are a place of work, and you have already showed her you enjoyed the meal by paying for it, or by perhaps spreading your enjoyment by word of mouth to your friends so they, too, can have good meals. you show your appreciation by continuing to come back. if a bunch of people sitting around randomly happen to have a conversation about how much they love the food, it wouldn't hurt that chef's feelings to not be included in the conversation. however: EVEN IN THIS INSTANCE, it is ADVISABLE AND APPROPRIATE to leave a good review! you might post about how much you like this restaurant on Yelp, and it would probably make the chef feel great to see those positive comments. but the chef doesn't NEED them, because the chef is, again, *also being paid to cook.* that's why she started the restaurant, to be paid to cook!

i am not being paid to cook.

i am at home in my own kitchen, making things for a community potluck where i hope everyone will bring something we can all enjoy together. some people at the potluck are better bakers, some better cooks; some can't cook at all but are great at logistics and make sure there's enough napkins for everyone; some people come just to enjoy the food, because that's what the party is for. and if I, as this enthusiast chef who made something from my heart for this reason alone, learned after the fact that a bunch of people got together in the parking lot to rave about my dish but no one of them had ever bothered to tell me while I sat alone at my table all night, occasionally seeing people come by to pick up a plate but never saying anything to me -- of course that would bother me, because I am not otherwise profiting off the labor I put in. this is not a bid to be paid, because if someone WERE to say "hey, great cake!! here's five bucks for a slice" i would say no, friend, that is not the point and give them the money back. i'm not trying to Get Mine. I am in it to see the look on your face. I'm in it so you can tell me what about it moved you, so that I can say back what moved me to make it in the first place. so we can TALK about it.

because what happened in the first place is this: one time I had a cake whose sweetness, richness, flavor, intensity, and composition moved me so much that I *taught myself to bake.* so I could see how much vanilla and sugar was too much, so I could learn how to make things rise instead of fall flat, so I could even better appreciate the original cake by seeing for myself the effort and talent and inspiration that goes into making one even half as good.

learning to do so is a satisfying accomplishment in and of itself, yes.

but I also did it because at the end of the day we should EAT the cake. and it's a lonely thing, to eat alone when a meal was always designed and intended to be shared.

so, to answer your last question: i'm not surprised, i'm just sad. because somehow two things that were never meant to be seen as the same have been labeled "content," and thus identical. and it diminishes both the things that ARE intended to be paid for AND the things that are not, because it removes any sense of intimacy or meaning from the work.

i hope you know i'm not mad at you for asking. but i'm frustrated we've come to live in a world where the question needs to be asked, because the answers are no longer intuitively obvious because we're so siloed.

[insurance-brokers-india]

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[jolenes-book-journey]

Small Business Success: Streamline Operations with a Virtual Assistant for Website and Blog Management

Small Business Success: Streamline Operations with a Virtual Assistant for Website and Blog Management

Are you a small business owner wearing multiple hats, juggling endless tasks while trying to grow your brand? If so, you’re not alone. Many entrepreneurs find themselves stretched thin as they balance everything from customer service to marketing efforts and content creation. But what if there was a way to lighten the load without sacrificing quality or creativity? Enter the virtual assistant—a…

[trainsinanime]

I've seen a number of people worried and concerned about this language on Ao3s current "agree to these terms of service" page. The short version is:

Don't worry. This isn't anything bad. Checking that box just means you forgive them for being US American.

Long version: This text makes perfect sense if you're familiar with the issues around GDPR and in particular the uncertainty about Privacy Shield and SCCs after Schrems II. But I suspect most people aren't, so let's get into it, with the caveat that this is a Eurocentric (and in particular EU centric) view of this.

The basic outline is that Europeans in the EU have a right to privacy under the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), an EU directive (let's simplify things and call it an EU law) that regulates how various entities, including companies and the government, may acquire, store and process data about you.

The list of what counts as data about you is enormous. It includes things like your name and birthday, but also your email address, your computers IP address, user names, whatever. If an advertiser could want it, it's on the list.

The general rule is that they can't, unless you give explicit permission, or it's for one of a number of enumerated reasons (not all of which are as clear as would be desirable, but that's another topic). You have a right to request a copy of the data, you have a right to force them to delete their data and so on. It's not quite on the level of constitutional rights, but it is a pretty big deal.

In contrast, the US, home of most of the world's internet companies, has no such right at a federal level. If someone has your data, it is fundamentally theirs. American police, FBI, CIA and so on also have far more rights to request your data than the ones in Europe.

So how can an American website provide services to persons in the EU? Well… Honestly, there's an argument to be made that they can't.

US websites can promise in their terms and conditions that they will keep your data as safe as a European site would. In fact, they have to, unless they start specifically excluding Europeans. The EU even provides Standard Contract Clauses (SCCs) that they can use for this.

However, e.g. Facebook's T&Cs can't bind the US government. Facebook can't promise that it'll keep your data as secure as it is in the EU even if they wanted to (which they absolutely don't), because the US government can get to it easily, and EU citizens can't even sue the US government over it.

Despite the importance that US companies have in Europe, this is not a theoretical concern at all. There have been two successive international agreements between the US and the EU about this, and both were struck down by the EU court as being in violation of EU law, in the Schrems I and Schrems II decisions (named after Max Schrems, an Austrian privacy activist who sued in both cases).

A third international agreement is currently being prepared, and in the meantime the previous agreement (known as "Privacy Shield") remains tentatively in place. The problem is that the US government does not want to offer EU citizens equivalent protection as they have under EU law; they don't even want to offer US citizens these protections. They just love spying on foreigners too much. The previous agreements tried to hide that under flowery language, but couldn't actually solve it. It's unclear and in my opinion unlikely that they'll manage to get a version that survives judicial review this time. Max Schrems is waiting.

So what is a site like Ao3 to do? They're arguably not part of the problem, Max Schrems keeps suing Meta, not the OTW, but they are subject to the rules because they process stuff like your email address.

Their solution is this checkbox. You agree that they can process your data even though they're in the US, and they can't guarantee you that the US government won't spy on you in ways that would be illegal for the government of e.g. Belgium. Is that legal under EU law? …probably as legal as fan fiction in general, I suppose, which is to say let's hope nobody sues to try and find out.

But what's important is that nothing changed, just the language. Ao3 has always stored your user name and email address on servers in the US, subject to whatever the FBI, CIA, NSA and FRA may want to do it. They're just making it more clear now.

[followerofmercy]

Networking/Knowing A Guy: A Guide

This is the autism website. Now, as an extension of the power of love and friendship, there are few things more useful than Knowing A Guy. Knowing A Guy means you have a support network. Knowing a plumber, or a tax accountant, or just that one dude that's really fucking good at finding the information you need when you're really overwhelmed, can be the difference between being able to pay rent and having a fun party with friends to fix your shit.

How does one end up Knowing A Guy? It's a skill you can develop called Networking and it is one of the foundations of society. Unfortunately making those connections with people is fucking hard and nobody makes a tutorial for it. So, here you go:

The golden rule is you scratch my back and I scratch yours

It is necessary for survival to seek out useful people

Great news! Everyone is useful in some form or fashion - including you! When given the opportunity to learn about someone, do it! Extroversion does not come naturally to some people and that's okay. Just take whatever falls in your lap.

Types of usefulness: trade skills, connections of their own, personality you jive with, pleasant to talk to, niche interest in shared hobby, security - the list is pretty much endless. I know a guy that lives in the metro area - no job, no major hobbies, inoffensively annoying to me personally, kinda ignorant, not attractive to me, but you know what? He knows how the fuck to get around the city by foot. My rural-raised ass APPRECIATES the guide.

Remember important information: general personality, background, skillset, likes and dislikes. You can find this information by making smalltalk about their life. There is no such thing as pointless conversation. (Yes, even the annoying smalltalk)

The more people you know, the higher the likelihood that one of them will be useful in a given situation - or will know someone who is.

It is overwhelming. In a given clique/community/workspace/whatever, there is A Guy Who Knows The Other Guys. This Guy is a shortcut. Find them. They're often elderly, extroverted, a little bit annoying, a secretary or in some otherwise forward-facing position. Look for people that are gossipy/talk about other people a lot but not in negative ways. If they constantly talk shit, they'll talk shit about you too. They're still useful but be careful with the information you share

You do not have to like someone for them to be useful.

You do not have to like someone for them to be useful.*

If you have low self esteem, you're going to feel like you're using people. You're not. That's the devil talking. People like feeling valued and the connections you are making are the threads holding community together. Recognize people for their talents. It's only a problem when you're taking advantage of people

So: don't feel scummy about it. You're an animal. You have to claw out your right to survive and people will respect you more for it.

Luckily mutualism is the name of the game in the animal kingdom. Offer something back. The foundation of a Know A Guy relationship is Mutual Benefit

Sometimes that Mutual Benefit is just spreading news of the The Guy far and wide. My plumber friend is my actual friend and I love her to death, but I'm maintaining our backscratch relationship by pimping out her plumbing business to anyone that'll listen

Food is a good Mutual Benefit. People across cultures for all of human history have bonded over food. I have good success asking people for a favor and then offering to buy them lunch in return **

General compensation is also good. Offer a service in return and always do your best to offer financial compensation as appropriate. Having your plumber friend take a look at your drain: doable with a case of beer. Having your plumber friend redo the pipes in your entire house? You need to pay for that.

Being transactional is not necessarily a bad thing. I would advise against keeping an itemized list of things owed, but fish don't seek out cleaner shrimp just because they enjoy their company. Everyone gets something

Unfortunately being extroverted and generally personable is a huge benefit here, but that's the value of the Guy That Knows A Guy. There's someone out there that has consolidated All The Guys so you don't have to be the local expert. Always remember nobody can do everything and you don't need to master every skill

* This is the foundation of a functioning community. I have many acquaintances that I find incredibly annoying. They include doctors, welders, artists, social workers, lawyers, construction crew and random fuckers at the grocery store. I do not hang out with them. I do not have to in order to maintain a civil Know A Guy relationship. I can drop them useful tidbits and fuck right off so I don't have to spend any more time than necessary with them

** People may assume romantic intent. Be prepared for that. I generally denote that it's a friendly/work lunch by calling them bro at some point if they're my age. Otherwise my general demeanor is sufficient to show that I do this with everyone

Source: personal experience, mother's teachings of crime, booth vending and poverty

[eggshellsareneat]

Alright, I think I like tumblr now.

A pun post crossed my dash, and I reblogged it with an equally bad pun in return. A couple of my followers find it funny, it's a good day for everyone.

That was on July 7th.

Virality on Reddit was entirely algorithmic. You could garner a couple crossposts, but the success of a post was entirely dependent on whether or not it hit r/all--the main page of Reddit. If your post does that, it's immediately exposed to 10x the number of people and immediately gets upvoted.

On my pun post, I get a couple reblogs. And those reblogs get a couple reblogs--nobody really adds any content to the post, it just gets a couple reblogs here and there.

There's a specific chain of reblogs that I'd like to focus on. The most popular post on this chain has about 25 reblogs on it. Half the posts have three reblogs or fewer. Five posts in this chain have just one reblog total.

But the reblog chain keeps going. And going. It breaches containment many times over. And finally, after a chain THIRTY SIX posts long, at 9:30 AM, July 22nd this morning, it hits a popular account.

99% percent of the people who have seen the post--virtually unchanged from how it left my dash--have seen it because it was curated by 36 different people. That's insane to me.

None of those 36 people know that they're part of this chain. They saw a post, reblogged it, and moved on. If any one of these people had not reblogged, the post would have a fraction of the impact it has.

And yet, after two weeks, the post has effectively hit the main page of tumblr. It was picked up, only because people liked it enough to show it to their followers. There were no algorithms necessary.

You really, truly, cannot get this on any other website.

[letteredlettered]

feedback and fic in fandom (3 f's of our own)

This conversation about feedback on fic says everything I’ve been wanting to say better than I could say it. But I’ll go ahead and try anyway.

Over the last five years or so there have been some great discussions around the rise of commodification of fanworks and decline of fandom community. This commodification looks a bit like enshittification of the internet: a cool site exists; its popularity makes someone realize they can get money from it; it has more and more ads; the site adds features to drive engagement, including The Algorithm; the things that made the site cool start to fall away. The site exists now as a vehicle purely to get clicks, and the people on it are on it solely to get clicks—to make money, to be successful, for some kind of social cachet.

AO3 doesn’t have advertisements. It’s not making money. But what is happening to fandom is proof of concept that enshittification changes the way we as humans engage. A cool website in 2004 was often a community space where you could meet people, have conversations, find cool things, and make cool things. A cool website in 2024 is either a content farm that will continually feed you enough content to hold your attention, or a social media site where your participation will come with stats to show you whether you are holding the attention of others.

AO3 wasn’t built to be a community space. It doesn’t have great functions for meeting people and having conversations. The idea was that, because fandom community spaces already existed, AO3 would serve the part of that community where you can find the cool things and store the cool things you made. It was meant to be a library in a city, not the whole city itself.

But it was also never meant to be a website in 2024, a content farm constantly generating content solely for your clicks and eyeballs and ad revenue, or a social media site where the content creators themselves vie for your clicks and eyeballs.

The most common talking point when people discuss the enshittification of fandom is the folks out there who are treating AO3 as that first kind of enshittified website: the content farm. This discussion is about how people treat fanfic as a product for consumption.

The post that kicked off the discussion on @sitp-recs’s blog was about someone who wasn’t getting very many kudos or comments on their fic, and was feeling pretty demoralized about it, then joined a discord server and found an entire channel dedicated to people loving their fic. But those on that server had never come to share that love with the author, which the author found really discouraging.

There are more and more stories like this. Someone on tiktok pulls a quote from a fic on AO3 and makes a 10-second video with them staring at a wall, the quote pasted at the bottom, music playing over it. It has 100,000 hearts, and 100 comments with people gushing over the fic, which has 80 kudos on AO3. Overall, people notice more and more hits on their fics, but fewer and fewer comments or even kudos. Fewer and fewer people seem to feel the need to interact with the author, instead treating the fic like a product to be used and discarded—which the enshittified internet (a stunning feature of late-stage capitalism!) encourages. The fandom community is dying, these stories conclude.

I agree. 100%. Both of the stories above have happened to me—viral tiktoks about my fic, secret discord channels to follow and discuss my fic—and let me tell you, it fucking sucks.

But from these observations about fandom enshittification, the discussion continues in a very odd direction. The solution to the death of fandom community is our favorite enshittification buzzword: engagement. We should engage the authors. They’re producing these products for free. We consume them at no cost. We must demonstrate our gratitude by paying them back.

It’s as though the capitalist consumption that the enshittified web encourages is so ingrained within us that we must think in terms of payment, in terms of exchange, transaction. Or as though, by forgoing payment, authors are some kind of martyrs defying capitalism, and the only way to honor their great sacrifice is comments and kudos.

Indeed, the discourse around this sometimes does veer away from capitalist rhetoric into something that smells almost religious in desperation. Authors are gods who bestow us mere mortals with the fruits of their labor benevolently, through love; the least we can do is worship them. Meanwhile the authors adopt the groveling sentiment of starving artists: I produce great art; I only humbly ask that you feed me in return.

These kinds of entreaties make my skin crawl for a number of reasons. I’m not a god. I’m not writing because I love you. I don’t expect your worship or even your praise.

I think the thing that disturbs me the most about it is that it suggests that authors (or, if the OP is feeling generous fan work creators) are the most important people in fandom. I’ve even seen posts stating that without creators, fandom wouldn’t exist—as though readers aren’t just as important. As though conversations where people discuss characterizations and plot points and randomly spin out interpretations and ideas and thoughts related to canon are meaningless. I’ve even seen people scramble to include folks having these discussions as “creators,” as though realizing that these people are necessary and integral to fandom communities but unable to drop the idea that the producers are the ones who are important. As though that person who just lurks can never count.

Is this what community is? When you join the queer community, are you expected to produce a product of your queerness? If not, must you actively participate and give back to the queer community in order to be considered a part of it? Or is it enough that you are queer, that you exist as a queer person and want to be around others who are queer, you want to be a part of something? What is community, anyway?

The problem with people raising the authors above everyone else in the community and demanding that tribute be paid is that they are decrying the “content farm” style of 2024 website out of one side of their mouth, but out of the other side are instead demanding that AO3 become a 2024-style social media website. Authors are influencers. “Engagement” and clicks are the things that really matter. They are in fact suggesting that the way to solve the commodification of fanfic is by “paying authors back” with stats.

Before anyone comes at me with the idea that comments aren’t just “stats,” I will clarify what I mean. There are literally hundreds of posts on tumblr alone claiming that any comment “helps” the author. Someone replies that they are shy to comment. Someone else replies that incoherent keyboard smashes, a single emoji, or the comment “kudos” are all that is required to satisfy the author, all that is required as tribute—all that is required as payment to keep this economy healthy.

I’m not condemning the comments that are keyboard smashes or emojis or a single kind word. I receive them. They make me happy. If anyone wants to leave such a comment on my fics, I’m really grateful for it. But this is not community-building. This is a transaction. In @yiiiiiiiikes25’s excellent response in the post linked at the beginning, they point out that “you have a cool hat” is something that is “perfectly nice” to hear from someone—and it is! We all want to be told we have a cool hat! But as they go on to say, what builds community is interactions that are deep and specific, interactions that are rich in quality, not in quantity. A kudos or a comment that says only ❤️are lovely things to receive, but they don’t build community.

My reaction, when I see people begging for kudos and comments as the only means by which to keep fandom community alive, is very close to @eleadore's. I want to say, “No. Readers do not need to comment or kudos. Believe not these hucksters who claim to know the appropriate method of fandom participation. Participate as you feel able, or not at all; nothing is required of you.”

I’ve been told before (several times) that I’m not qualified to participate in such discussions because I am an established author who has some fics with very high stats. It doesn’t matter that I have also been a new writer with almost no one reading my fics. It doesn’t matter that I still write in new fandoms where no one in that fandom knows me. It doesn’t matter that I, like any human being, still care about receiving recognition and attention and praise.

And maybe that’s correct. I personally don’t think that billionaires have a place in deciding the direction of the economy, and--if we're really going to consider fandom an economy--in fandom terms, if I’m not a billionaire, or even a millionaire, I’m definitely in the infamous “one percent.” So, just as no one wants to hear Elon Musk say “money isn’t everything,” maybe it’s not my place to say “kudos isn’t required, actually.”

That said, I’m not the only one who has a problem with the stats-based discourse around fandom community. However, the main counter-response to this discussion I see goes something like this: you shouldn’t be writing fic for validation. If you’re writing for attention, you’re doing it for the wrong reason. Authors should write fic because they love it without any expectation of return.

This is, in my opinion, missing the point of what is meant by fandom community.

I wrote fanfic before I knew that fanfic, as a concept, existed. I read books; I wanted them to be different; I wrote little stories for myself with new endings, with self-inserts, with cross-overs, with alternate universes. I did it for myself in the 90s. It never occurred to me that anyone else would do this, much less that people would share.

As @faiell points out—creating and sharing are two different things. I created fics for myself, but I decided to share them in the early 2000s because other people might like them, too. And of course, I wanted to hear whether other people liked them. How could I not? I might decorate my home just for me and not for anyone else’s preferences, but when people come over and say my house is nice, how can I not enjoy that? And if a lot of people think my house is nice, which encourages me to post pictures of it online, isn’t it understandable I might do so with the hope that more people will say my house is nice? And, honestly, if no one is appreciating my pictures, I probably won’t continue to go through the trouble of taking them and posting them. I’ll just enjoy my house that I decorated without sharing, the end.

When I found out there were whole fannish communities where people discussed canon and tossed ideas around about it, made theories and prompts and insights into the characters, fics they had written and recs for other fics and analyses of fics and art based on fics and fics based on art—I wanted to be a part of that, too. Now, sometimes, I write fic not out of an internal need to do so but out of a desire to participate in that community.

The idea that we write fic only for the love of it, then post it only because we possess it, is a process entirely centered on the self. It’s fandom in a vacuum. The idea that we share this thing, that we feel pleasure if someone likes it but feel nothing at all if no one says anything about it, that it’s completely okay to be ignored and unseen—that’s not what a community is either. That’s some weird sort of self-aggrandizement through self-effacement—because yes, there is often a weird kind of virtue-signaling in this kind of discourse.

I say this as someone who has virtue-signaled in that way: “some people write for stats, but I write for myself.” It’s bullshit. Sure, I write for myself, but why post it on the internet? Honestly, said virtue has a whiff of the capitalist machine, which would like you to produce for the sake of production, work for the sake of work. The noblest among us expect no recompense for that which they give!

The reason that I’m bringing this back around to capitalism is that capitalism actively works to dismantle community. The reason that folks are out here pleading for “engagement” in order to “pay back” authors for the products they give us “for free” is because people no longer even have the language to discuss how to participate in meaningful community. And frankly, how to build back fandom community, in the face of enshittification, is getting harder and harder to see.

But I do think that if we value fanfic and the fanfic community, it’s really, really not constructive to judge whether someone’s reasons for writing fanfic are valid. It’s also weird to me that it would be considered wrong that someone’s reason for sharing fanfic is because they would like to receive some recognition for it, when in fact that seems to be the most natural reason in the world for sharing something so private and vulnerable with the world.

Let’s go back to that idea of how hurtful it is to find out your fanfic is trending on tiktok without anyone from tiktok saying anything to you about your fic, or how it can be painful to find out there’s a secret discord channel dedicated to your fic. The people who respond to that with, “Ah, but you shouldn’t be writing to get attention!” are missing the point. The fic did get attention. It got lots. Attention obviously wasn't why the writer was writing--they were writing to participate, and they didn't get to. At all.

However, if your conclusion is that the author was upset because these particular stats were not accruing under this author’s profile, thereby preventing them from achieving the vaunted status of BNF and influencer—I don’t know, maybe you’re right. But I don’t think that’s why I, personally, have been hurt by these things, and I doubt it’s what hurt the people in these posts either. They’re hurt because they want to participate, and they have been systematically excluded by the very people they thought were part of the community they thought they could participate in.

Sure, if those folks from tiktok and the discord server all came and showered the author with kudos and comments that said “kudos,” the author might have felt satisfied enough with the quantity of this recognition that they would continue writing. But in the end, this still does nothing to address the problem of fandom community, in which the deep, meaningful recognition, interactions, and relationships in fandom are getting harder and harder to have and to build, as a result of how people now expect to engage in online spaces.

So, how to address the problem of fandom community? You probably read this long, long post hoping that I had an answer, and for that I must apologize. I don’t have solutions. My intent was to be descriptive, rather than prescriptive. I wished to outline the problems that I’m seeing in what was hopefully a slightly new or at least thought-provoking way, rather than offer solutions.

But, now that I’m talking about being prescriptive, maybe I can offer one suggestion, which is—maybe the solution to this isn’t about prescribing behavior. I do understand the irony in writing a prescription saying we shouldn’t prescribe people, but I’m going to write it anyway:

Maybe we shouldn’t be telling anyone the appropriate reasons for writing fanfic or for sharing it. Maybe we shouldn’t be telling readers they need to kudos or need to comment. If we’re going to go pointing fingers, we should be pointing at the institutions of capitalism that have made the internet what it is today—but I don’t think that’s going to solve the problem either.

But I do think that describing this problem, understanding what it actually is, not blaming readers for it and not blaming authors for it—I do think that helps. The discussion I linked at the beginning of this post is what I think of as the fandom I miss, the fandom that's now harder and harder to access, the fandom that is dying. That fandom was a social space where people had opinions and disagreed and went back and forth and gazed at their navels and then talked about Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

In the words of @yiiiiiiiikes25, it was a fuckin’ discussion about hats. And we’re hungry for it.

[ivanovharris]

How to a get free info, pics, and documents from ur fave case

aka submit an FOIA request

*only works for incidents that occurred in the US*

find out which county the incident took place (ex: Jefferson County for Columbine hs)

go to the county's sheriff/police website (ex: https://www.jeffco.us/4873/Sheriff for Columbine hs)

find where it says "records request" or something similar

4. The Request Description (the most important part) - this is where you have to be very specific. You must include

Case number or Incident Report number (tbh i never include these bc i never know what the case number is. as long as you have the perpetrator's name you should be alright)

Full Name - First and Last name of the perpetrator on the record

Date of birth of the perpetrator

Date of Incident

Location of Incident

Type of record requested

5. submit!

Types of records you can request:

crime scene photos (make sure to ask for them in JPG or PNG)

mugshot photos (i have the newest mugshot for allen ivanov hehe)

arrest/holding cell photos (so like that tit pic of nik cruz)

body cam footage

cellphone texts and calls (only calls to 911 are recorded. calls between friends and family are not, so you'll only see the date and duration of those calls)

interrogation footage w/ transcript

social media photos (so photos from their instagram or even tumblr data)

copy of manifesto (written or typed)

home photos (most incidents require investigating the home AND bedroom of the perpetrator)

security camera footage (ex: footage of them at the gun store)

Tips:

if you're requesting multiple types of records, its best to make separate requests for each type

Make sure to request your photos in JPG or PNG and videos in .MP4 or .MOV (.vlc is okay, just download VLC media player)

Record requests are typically free but some may cost like ~50 cents per document, depends on the county. Videos cost more than scans and images.

By law you must use your real name for submission. In cases where you have to pay, your name should match the cardholder's name (there are exceptions tho).

When will they respond? By law, the county must tell you within 20 days if they accept or deny this request.

If you live outside the US, you can can still legally submit a request, as long as the incident occurred on US territory

If the case is still new, your records will take longer because the county needs approval first before they can release documents. The same goes for cases including perps who are young minors (like 14 and younger).

FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) is a law that requires full or partial release of government documents upon request.

if you need help making a request, my inbox is open!! i'd be happy to help. I've made many successful requests before.

[gallusrostromegalus]

any gardening advice for dealing with a million pill bugs consuming the plant life in a supremely wet climate? (there are so many they are killing my strawberries and rhubarb everything says wait for it to dry out but it is dry for like 2 months here max (pacific northwest) any and all wisdom will be accepted please god)

I regret to inform you that the real solution is multi-year terraforming, but this is also our duty as residents of planet earth.

The GOOD news is that in the interem, you can surround your strawberries with Diatomaceous Earth to protect what's left of them (make sure to dig around the stems to get any lurking there), and that when you break it out over the course of a couple of years, the terraforming is very manageable in both physical effort and financial impact.

The reason you have an ungodly number of ravenous rolly-pollies is because you have an even more ungodly number of rolly-pollies than you are imagining that have fuck-all to eat and fuck-all eating them. I do not know the exact circumstances of your yard, but odds are your property has no isopod food or real predators because it's either been terraformed into suburban sterility OR terraformed to sterility and then neglected, which is not the same thing as rewilding.

I can't speak to the PNW specifically, but I highly recommend reaching out to your county extension (look up "(your county name) extension phone numer/email") and they'll be able to give you contact information or websites for people who can tell you how to basically re-terraform your yard back into a viable landscape with native plants and minimal upkeep for your area.

Once you've got the local ecosystem going again, the isopods will leave off your strawberries to eat their normal detritus and will also be a lot more cautious about roaming far and wide for food once their predators like Woodlouse spiders, centipedes, frogs and newts and almost all birds are regularly patrolling the garden.

@headspace-hotel definitely knows more about this than I do, but I've had a lot of success with diatomaceous earth as a short-term protector, and every time I've put in more native shrubland/steppe plants in CO, my pest problems in general go way down.

[lilpaigeywbb]

⟡꒰ my eyes only! ꒱⟡

➜ summary: when paige sees whats in your my eyes only!

➜ warnings: smut + invasion of privacy if you squint + edging lowkey and orgasm denial || not proofread!

➜ pairing: paige x fem reader

➜ authors note: this IS on @slutzforbueckers page!!! i originally wrote it and sent it in to her and she posted it but pls dont attack me for plagiarism i swear i wrote this. also if yall want a part two where reader sees paige’s my eyes only, LMK! anyhoo enjoy!!!!

you and paige were cuddling like normal, greys anatomy playing in the background. her arms were wrapped around your torso, face buried between your breasts (her fav). one of your hands was absentmindedly playing with her hair while the other was holding your phone, going through your snapchat memories. there was a photo of a set of lingerie you had tried on ages ago that you had been meaning to show her but had forgotten up until now. you kept looking and looking but you couldn’t find the photo so you checked your my eyes only section. as you looked, you tried to ignore the other photos in there which turned out successful because you got distracted by both the show and the doorbell ringing with your doordash. with a kiss on the top of her head and a needy whine leaving her lips, you pulled away from your girlfriend, leaving your phone open as you went to grab the food.

paige and yourself always had a transparent relationship, whether it was allowing each other to see dms and texts or telling each other every secret ever, there was always trust. so, as she sometimes did, paige grabbed your phone and decided to take a peek but did not get what she was expecting at all. she thought she’d see a shopping website or pinterest but instead, she was met face to face with a picture of your bare tits, round and perky as always. she shifted, rubbing her thighs together and thought fuck it and continued scrolling. there were pictures of your tits, your pussy, you touching yourself… she was overwhelmed. AND she had never seen them before because you were saving them for a special occasion. you walked back into the room, smiling obliviously, “hey, foods out in the kitc-“

she didn’t let you speak any more than that.

she pounced and her lips were on yours in an instant, pulling you back to bed and murmuring, “you been savin those pictures for me?” you blushed, knowing what she was talking about and nodding shyly as she bit and licked at your neck. “wanted to surprise you…” she groaned, feeling herself dripping through her boxers. her mouth moved lower to your collarbone, pulling off your shirt to get better access to you skin. she kissed down your chest, grateful that you opted not to wear a bra because it meant she could get straight to sucking your tits. her tongue swirled around your nipple in a way that had you whimpering and whining under her which only made her more turned on.

“saved pictures of that pussy for me, huh? bet you wanted me to eat it, didn’t you?” she rasped against your stomach, pulling down your shorts and panties while spreading your slick around your folds. all you could do was moan and whine in response, words escaping you. she wasn’t playing around. she wanted to get right to it and so she did. her mouth was warm and wet, just like you always were. her arms were around your thighs, holding you open while she ravished you like a starved woman. your hands flew to her hair as she sucked on your clit and you moaned helplessly, already feeling the coil grown impossibly tighter. “pai- ima cum!” she chuckled against you, the vibrations making you whine more. she looked up at you, working her tongue against your clit as she slid two fingers in. “not until i say you can. you can be good, right?” she purred, kissing your thighs and pumping her fingers in and out of you. instinctively, you whined and nodded. she knew you’d agree to anything if it meant you could cum. she lapped at your clit again, feeling how your thighs shook, how your walls clenched around her fingers, and how you stopped moaning and just stuck to whining which was your tell-tale sign that you were gonna cum but she didn’t let you.

it went on like this for a while. you’d whine about how you needed to cum and she would say no so you’d hold it. all of this because of some pictures she had found (smh). it wasn’t until you started sobbing that she let you cum, slowing her fingers down and whispering, “shhhhh, mama… i gotchu. you did so good f’me. i love you.” you whimpered as she pulled her fingers out and moaned as she licked them. she kissed your thigh before getting a wash cloth and cleaning you up, tossing it to the side and pulling you into her arms, hugging you close. “i love you.” she repeated, kissing each inch of your face. “i think you loved those photos.” you murmured softly in response, a small smile on your lips. she laughed and playfully punched your shoulder. “so what if i did, huh?” you smile and roll your eyes. “i think now i should get to see photos of you like that.”

[slutzforbueckers]

honestly u can js copy and paste it onto ur acc if u want i dont rly mind :p

MY EYES ONLY

♡— pairing: paige bueckers x fem!reader

♡— warnings: smut

♡— synopsis: paige goes through your phone and finds your 'my eyes only' on snapchat and loses her mind.

♡— a/n: i did NOT write this!!!! all credit goes to: @igcarol11

❥•°❀°•༢

you and paige were cuddling like normal, greys anatomy playing in the background. her arms were wrapped around your torso, face buried between your breasts (her fav). one of your hands was absentmindedly playing with her hair while the other was holding your phone, going through your snapchat memories. there was a photo of a set of lingerie you had tried on ages ago that you had been meaning to show her but had forgotten up until now. you kept looking and looking but you couldn’t find the photo so you checked your my eyes only section. as you looked, you tried to ignore the other photos in there which turned out successful because you got distracted by both the show and the doorbell ringing with your doordash. with a kiss on the top of her head and a needy whine leaving her lips, you pulled away from your girlfriend, leaving your phone open as you went to grab the food.

paige and yourself always had a transparent relationship, whether it was allowing each other to see dms and texts or telling each other every secret ever, there was always trust. so, as she sometimes did, paige grabbed your phone and decided to take a peek but did not get what she was expecting at all. she thought she’d see a shopping website or pinterest but instead, she was met face to face with a picture of your bare tits, round and perky as always. she shifted, rubbing her thighs together and thought fuck it and continued scrolling. there were pictures of your tits, your pussy, you touching yourself… she was overwhelmed. AND she had never seen them before because you were saving them for a special occasion. you walked back into the room, smiling obliviously, “hey, foods out in the kitc-“

she didn’t let you speak any more than that.

she pounced and her lips were on yours in an instant, pulling you back to bed and murmuring, “you been savin those pictures for me?” you blushed, knowing what she was talking about and nodding shyly as she bit and licked at your neck. “wanted to surprise you…” she groaned, feeling herself dripping through her boxers. her mouth moved lower to your collarbone, pulling off your shirt to get better access to you skin. she kissed down your chest, grateful that you opted not to wear a bra because it meant she could get straight to sucking your tits. her tongue swirled around your nipple in a way that had you whimpering and whining under her which only made her more turned on.

“saved pictures of that pussy for me, huh? bet you wanted me to eat it, didn’t you?” she rasped against your stomach, pulling down your shorts and panties while spreading your slick around your folds. all you could do was moan and whine in response, words escaping you. she wasn’t playing around. she wanted to get right to it and so she did. her mouth was warm and wet, just like you always were. her arms were around your thighs, holding you open while she ravished you like a starved woman. your hands flew to her hair as she sucked on your clit and you moaned helplessly, already feeling the coil grown impossibly tighter. “pai- ima cum!” she chuckled against you, the vibrations making you whine more. she looked up at you, working her tongue against your clit as she slid two fingers in. “not until i say you can. you can be good, right?” she purred, kissing your thighs and pumping her fingers in and out of you. instinctively, you whined and nodded. she knew you’d agree to anything if it meant you could cum. she lapped at your clit again, feeling how your thighs shook, how your walls clenched around her fingers, and how you stopped moaning and just stuck to whining which was your tell-tale sign that you were gonna cum but she didn’t let you.

it went on like this for a while. you’d whine about how you needed to cum and she would say no so you’d hold it. all of this because of some pictures she had found (smh). it wasn’t until you started sobbing that she let you cum, slowing her fingers down and whispering, “shhhhh, mama… i gotchu. you did so good f’me. i love you.” you whimpered as she pulled her fingers out and moaned as she licked them. she kissed your thigh before getting a wash cloth and cleaning you up, tossing it to the side and pulling you into her arms, hugging you close. “i love you.” she repeated, kissing each inch of your face. “i think you loved those photos.” you murmured softly in response, a small smile on your lips. she laughed and playfully punched your shoulder. “so what if i did, huh?” you smile and roll your eyes. “i think now i should get to see photos of you like that.”

[writersdrug]

Just thinking bout how bartender!simon would react to to someone leaving their number with a tip for the reader. Just imagine he’s going through the tips at the end of the night and sees a ripped piece of paper with a lil note and number scrawled on it clearly meant for her👀

You must not have seen it - otherwise, you would have pranced over to the bar and gloated about yet another phone number. This one catches him off guard since you hadn't announced it.

It's alright, though. You and Ghost had worked out a system for cock-sure customers like this one. It acted as a coping mechanism for Simon, letting his frustration towards your universal attractiveness out - you thought it was just a fun way to cock block them, and assumed Simon thought the same.

At the end of your shift, you sit at the bar, Simon leaning over it and his phone between the two of you. He texts the number with a general "hi, it's me from the bar :)". He lets you send a few lines to the guy - you atart off simple, slowly sending more and more off-the-rails comments, like "What kind of car do you have? I had to sell mine so the police wouldn't trace me back to the crime." Or "I'm actually under a contract here. I owe the bartender a favor for getting rid of my ex-husband. I can't quit until I'm sixty."

After you've had your fun, and the bar begins to wind down for the night, you head home and leave the rest of the conversation in his hands. He scrolls through what you've said so far, chuckling at the strangeness in your creativity. He then sends his own series of texts. "If you treat me nice, I can show you where I hide the bodies." "Oh, I can't eat at Sevvy's anymore - I got banned after the incident." "Did you know that it's relatively easy to kill someone by breaking their nose? Well, that one guy was easy. Maybe everyone's different."

It's not too long after that when his messages stop going out, and a notification generates on his screen, saying "this number has blocked you." Simon considers it a success.

In the office upstairs, all of the receipts with mobile numbers scribbled on them are pinned to the corkboard by the monitors. Price gives it a disapproving look every time he sees it, but he only becomes impressed with how quickly they begin to take up space on the board. Every Saturday afternoon, before the pub opens, you and Soap go up there and choose a victim at random. He enters the number into several spam websites, like job recruiters or the farmers almanac. Goes on something like "Roommate Finder" and replies to a bunch of postings with the number.

When Price decides to comment on it, Soap gives him a shrug. "Should ne'er have left 'is contact information in a public area."

[velaenam]

𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐦𝐲 𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡 𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲

                                                                         ◦ ♡

𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐞𝐛 𝐱 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 – non!mc. you are a successful aerospace engineer, a girlboss, with terrible luck in romance. let's hope this strangers website brings you out of that rut! 𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐬 / 𝐭𝐰 – swearing/foul language, strangers, slow burn, tba notes – not proofread. bear with me as i attempt this cute romance. mc will be unbearable, and the reader may come off egotistical, but you're a bad bitch, so we're gonna highlight that. this was just a bit of world building >< sorry if its a lot of reading-- mention of said stranger site is NOT mentioned on this chapter. 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 - 1 of many ! next chapter

you were a successful woman. in fact, you were so successful you built your own company from the ground up. you were an aerospace engineer. you and your lifelong friends were revered in skyhaven as gods of some sort, due to the great contribution you’d all make with the DAA in such a short time. whom had the connection to partner with the DAA, none of you dared to speak of it. 

okay, that was a lie. your dad was once a very– very high ranking official within the DAA board. you definitely had to admit that your connection may have played a pivotal role in you and your team landing the partnership, but not to diminish your fantastic career. you are an extremely smart and cutthroat woman. a neuroscientist's greatest feat may very well be getting their hands on your brain to dissect it. your teams many tests and builds have contributed to the creation of damn near all of the modern fighter pilot planes. 

so how did such a prodigy such as yourself land in such a messy blind date?

your eyes scan the man in front of you. his smile, smug, his cologne, cheap.. to you. you can’t deny, he did dress well, but you also couldn’t help but your guttural instinct. he was talking your ear off about bullshit that quite literally did not concern you. next to you was your friend, stacia. her date was just eons better. he didnt reek. he looked comfortable, personable, and he cracked jokes.

you swore to yourself that you’d cuss stacia out when you both reconvened, but for now, you had to hold out for her. 

‘babe, this hot guy is asking me out on a date.. but he said its a double date– his fucking cousin wants to meet you! please , you have to help me’

‘i’m going to be busy this weekend.’

‘busy doing what?!’ she rolls her eyes– its insane youd lie to your bestest friend. ‘i have to check some batches at work.’

‘work work work– this is why you’re single! your free day off, and youre working! ’

ouch, but it was true.  you don’t revel in the world of love. you were so busy burying yourself in work and making sure shit went perfect that you completely neglected your personal life. sure you had flings, here and there, but that’s it. a couple days, hell, one last for a week– but nothing serious. your parents may have even worried you wouldn’t be giving them grand kids. but that’s okay! that is why you’re one of 4. 

as you speak, the man in front of you speaks over you. “you are so gorgeous, woman! i am so lucky you are my date!” you felt your skin crack. if theres one thing you didn’t tolerate, it was disrespect. you weren’t going to be called ‘woman’ when you had a name. call it an ego, but it was a well deserved one.

people worshipped the ground you walked, as they should, and you weren’t going to allow just anyone have your time. you shoot a glare at him, and you shift your hand in front of you, signalling him to quiet. stacia and who ever the hell she was with had went outside so it was you and whomever the hell this guy was. “i have a name.” you start, deadly calm. he blinks, eyes glossed. had too much wine. “im going to call it a night. take care.” you abruptly stand, fishing through your purse and slapping a band on the table. “should cover the tip as well. take care” 

your red bottoms click as you walk out of the restaurant. you walk towards stacia who was sucking faces with the man who was her date. upon seeing you she breaks away from him, and scurries towards you, “hey! where are you going?” you shake your head, smiling, “got a busy schedule tomorrow. i paid for dinner. call majors if you need a ride home.” you wave at the both of them as you slip into your vehicle. before you drive off , you contact majors, your family chauffeur to be on standby for stacia just in case.

you make it home to your skyrise abode. the valet takes your keys gracefully and you make your way to the elevator, clicking through your phone, seeing the hot goss of your friend group. 

same stuff– pregnancy scare number 10 from talia, a billion comfort msgs from all of you, marinas boy problems, and your message

‘date was a bust. not my type.’ as you exit from the msg your eyes close. you already knew you were about to be barraged by “your expectations are too high!” – “you didnt even give him a chance!” – whatever excuses they had for these men. you chuckled to yourself. at least you didn’t whine constantly that you were single.

there was this one guy who had caught your attention. he was a doctor at the akso hospital in linkon. however, he just wasn’t interested in you. you could just tell. or really, as much as you could tell in passing. 

the ones that were interested ended up asking for your number or showed more significant interest in you. he just simply treated you and he went on his way, like a normal uninterested doctor, which was fine by you (not really. you thought he was really fucking hot) 

you slid your apartment card on the handle and step inside. you flipped the lights on as you set your key and bag down on the designated spot. slipping off your heels you stretch, back aching form the shitty conversation you had with that random. you pout as you pass the living room to the kitchen. you sometimes wonder if you were being too complicated. somewhat. but you were so important to the city that you couldn’t help but be guarded. your job was important, and you wanted to date someone who could keep up with you. you grab your medicine from the cabinet and a glass of water, knee deep in thought as you start your nighttime ritual.

you sit down at the family table. your father had called you down earlier because he wanted to speak with you regarding an important matter, but everything was an important matter regarding the old man, so you agree, reluctantly . you stare down at the glass table that reflect your own face. it was spotless, just like your mom wants. you scan the porcelain vase in the middle of the table, appreciating the blue and white features it contained. as you dawdle your eyes meet your dads. “hi sweetheart.” his warm greeting echos through the room. “hi dad. i’m not in trouble am i?” you half joke, really hoping you werent. he gave you a soft chuckle before sitting across from you and shaking his head. he put his hands on the table, intertwining his fingers together as he stared down at you. an allowance would be made or a proper scolding was in place

“bug, i’ve had this talk with all of your siblings, and it’s your turn.” he starts, you attempt to scan his facial features on what it may regard, but to no avail. “pardon my language, but your mother and i worked very hard to get where we are. i don’t ask for much, but when the time comes, trust your gut. if you fall in love. fall in love with a person who wont disrespect you. marry a person who won’t use your money or career against you. only you can make the judgement of whom that is. i dont care if you become stuck up ‘cause of this. but i’ll be damned if i let my kids marry… beneath them.” he finishes.

you heeded his words very carefully and you carried that with you throughout high school, throughout college, through now. there were many men who tried you. some scared for their life at the sight of your parents. some tried to rush things with you once they found out about your family status. some simply ghosted you. those were just simple precedents that somehow ruined your thoughts on dating. 

not only heeding his words, but you used that as a good foreground for your expectations. does he have to make more money than you? hell no, because you have enough money that you donate monthly. you raked in, big bucks. you just wanted someone who wasn’t vain. not begging for expensive luxuries. you wanted a gentleman. someone who opened the door for you without you asking. someone who kissed your hand when they saw you. someone who loved you and understood you. called you by your damn name. took interest in what you had to say.

bonus points if they liked planes.

thats your favorite thing in the world. planes. aviation. its your job.

your internal clock kicks in, and you yawn. you finish putting your clothes away, and you sit in your bed. you check your phone see the messages. you see a couple of messages popping up and you roll your eyes,  preparing  for stacia

‘he was boring af. i actually dont blame u this time. but my date was so sweet. i might do a second date.’

‘btw he asked what u did cuz he saw the wad of cash on the table. i told him ur a lawyer fyi.’ 

‘thanks love, gn’ you text before you shut down for the night. you weren't too keen on people knowing about your occupation/career so you ask your friends to manipulate the truth sometimes. you're on social media here and there, and for the most part, the aviation world knew who you were, but people were dumber than they let on, and some people cant put two and two together, so you try not to give them a reason to.

“ let’s rerun the wind tunnel test with the revised control surface parameters– if the drag coefficient drops even slightly, we might hit our efficiency target.” you command, your eyes staring holes into the data. your colleague nods, obliging.

as they start, your phone rings. you roll your eyes, and look at your phone. 

‘jenna’ 

she rarely called, so this mustve been important. you hit the answer button and put your phone in your ear, motioning the others to continue without you. “let me know what the results are.” you walk out of the building, where it was a bit more quiet. “hello?”

“hey, how are you?” – “i’m good, jen, how are you?” you hear her laugh, “i’m good. sorry to call you on the job, but i have a request. kind of important. i need you to come down to linkon. asap.” you groan, rolling your eyes again. back and forth linkon and skyhaven rapidly was so annoying to you, but you sigh. “yeah– i’ll see you in 30.” – “thanks. ill meet you in the lobby”

you return to your testing and cut them early for the day. you’d explain that you had a family emergency and that you’d have them be paid a full day. after you finish shutting the facility down you had majors grab the family jet to meet you outside of the facility. normally you’d take the coelum express– since you actually enjoyed taking it, but she’d sounded so urgent that you didn’t wanna lag.

your eyes scan the building. ‘hunters association hq’ your heels clack, echoing throughout the main lobby. the receptionist greets you with a big smile, and you return the gesture. “good morning, i’m looking for jenna.” she scrambles through her computer, suddenly in a panic

“oh! i’m so sorry- i didn’t know she had a meeting today?”  her frantic was cut short by a pair of footsteps. “you’re fine. she’s my sister.” jenna smiles warmly at you and you nod at the receptionist thanking her, and you turn to jenna. you grin at your older sister as she leads you down a corridor of elevators. 

she leads you through the office, taking in how pleasing the building looks, “you guys have a gorgeous facility.” you hum, running your fingertips on the glass countertop. jenna chuckles, her hands behind her back, quietly walking next to you, “much appreciated. hows work been?” you give her a sheepish look, “it’s going pretty well. we’re running stress tests on the new airframe, only one day of pulling an all nighter– nothing is on fire. yet.” she chuckles at your response, and you join her laugh. it resonate in a way that complimented you both. definitely sisters.

“so the reason that you’re here is because of something related to a jet and a wanderer that we caught on camera.” she starts. you listen intently. you weren’t really related to your sisters job. you just made and tested planes, and you were never dealing with wanderers, so this came to an odd surprise. as she shows you the footage, it shows that a jet flying flawlessly- only seconds later it seemed to have lost power, nose diving straight down when a wanderer got near it. your brows furrow, confused at how the close proximity of the wanderer managed to scramble the power of the jet. your eyes study the video, attempting to find any intricacies that may give you any answers, and unfortunately, nothing lets up. you take a peek at jenna and her team, and as you tap your finger on the surface of the computer you hum. “can you give me a copy of this, so i can show my team? i need to discuss with them on how we can figure this out..” you start. you pull your phone out and pull up your notes. 

“also.. how hard would it be if you can possibly capture a wanderer.. we may need to test them out in close proximity..” you continue, typing it all out on your phone. 

as you look up, you notice the hunters staring at you in awe, including your sister. a soft smile etched on her face. they were all totally fangirling at how cool you just were. it wasn’t everyday that they got to see the master at work. they wracked their brain on this situation for days before calling you.

“is the pilot okay?” you pique, as the analytics team hand you a floppy disk. jenna gives you a curt nod, before you return the gesture, “if you want to pass his information to my secretary so we can compensate him for any possible damages, i would greatly appreciate it.”

the pilots of the DAA were just as important to you as anything in the world, because after all, they put their trust in your company to keep them alive. 

when you and jenna were left alone, you sigh, pinching your nostril, “this is going to be so annoying. i hope you know that.” you state matter-o-factly, slouching down on the chair. jenna nods, staring at the video once more, “hopefully you don’t have to use too much energy.” she states, referring to your evol, “i wouldn’t ask unless it was important.” she reassures you. you put a hand on hers and smile across the table, “i know. it’s fine– really.”

nobody aside from your family and work really know of your ability. it goes hand in hand with your job, really. 

ever since you were young you had an interest for planes. your parents thought it was a cute obsession you gain as a little kid, like when jenna had an obsession with dolls as a kid, you had one for planes.

 it happened one afternoon. it was ‘take-your-kids-to-work day’ and you were walking around the hangar. 

you’d been walking through the rows of jets, when your eyes land on ‘maverick’ your dad’s pride and joy– that happened to be currently out of commission. as your hands made contact with the jet’s sleek wing, a warm jolt shot through your fingertips– followed by a flood of images in your head; pressure readings, airflow calculations. you briskly pull your hands away, blinking, disoriented, as the jet seemingly came alive beneath your touch. 

you freaked out, because this wasn’t normal. you didn’t just feel the jet. you understood it. you slowly realize, that your brain worked different. way differently. you placed your hand on the plane again. 

you noticed that there was a slight misalignment in the primary fuel injector. you didn’t understand what the hell that meant, so you quickly grab your father and his engineers, telling him what you had just discovered. at first they laugh it off, confused as how a 13 year old knew a thing about fuel injectors and the like, but after you kicked and threw a tantrum, they were forced to check it out, and surely enough your diagnosis was spot on. they replaced the faulty component, and shortly after, ‘maverick’ roared to life. 

your dad looked at you with the biggest, and proudest smile he’d ever given you. 

you don’t often use your evol, because it came at a cost. you’d get killer migraines, become disorientated, and the like, so you used it sparingly, and hence why jenna shared her grief of having you do this task. but everyday you spent fixing your creations is a win in your book, so you ultimately didn’t mind it.

you make small talk with your sister, catch up a bit, as you both walk back down to the lobby. she escorts you outside and you give her a tight hug. “thank you again, please update me when you can.” she says, as you give her a sweet smile, nodding as majors opens the door for you.

it had been a couple days since you saw your sister about the wanderer problem, and you’re currently at a gala held for the recent graduates of the aviation academy. you and your dad were the primary speakers of the night, and you couldn’t help but feel nervous. 

as you were confident and powerful, you weren’t too keen on public speaking. not that you were bad at it, you just enjoyed when the attention wasn’t on you, let alone damn near hundreds of people in one room staring you down. 

you stare at the mirror, lips pursed as you finish applying your lipstick, and straightening your dress up. you wore a black maxi dress that sculpted your neckline and outlined your chest, but in a classy way. waist adorned with a small belt, with a long cape sleeve that flows gracefully from your shoulders. you smile at yourself in the mirror before you clear your throat, readying yourself to socialize.

as you walk out of the bathroom, you take in the row of future pilots in front of you. holy fuck what did they feed these hunks? you blink, staring at how hot some of them were. tall, check. chiseled jawline, check check, sexy.. check! you take your phone out and record the event, giggling internally. your friends were going to definitely bitch at you for not asking them to come. you send the message to them and you walk over to the punch bowl where many of the men were giggling. 

in the middle of the group was your silly father. retelling stories of his time in the force. 

“ general!” you call out playfully,  and the men all turn their heads towards you, causing you to feel super self conscious. maybe you shouldnt have done that. he gives a hearty laugh, motioning you to come over. you reluctantly do so, your warm smile striking the hearts of the men.

“men, this is my genius daughter –” you give them a small polite wave, and you scan them all. they were definitely intimidated by you- except one man. your eyes linger at his purple gaze, longer than you wanted to. he was the tallest one of the lot, his brown hair contrasting his perfect eyes. his shoulders broad, jawline sharp as if he was sculpted by a god. to say this man was handsome was an absolute understatement. your favorite part of this man was his smile. that was the sweetest smile you’ve ever seen in your life.

you tear from his gaze, before you look at your father. “i was just telling them about maverick!” – “ahh, your 5th child?” he nods, laughing once more, “i was just about to tell em how i was able to get it up and running again.” he starts. here he goes. before he started, you hold your hand up to cut him off, respectfully, “dad i hate to stop you, but they’re looking for us.” you mutter, nodding over to the committee of speakers. his eyes widen scrambling up, placing his drink down on the table and standing up, straightening himself. he nods to the men and excuses himself, “congratulations men. i am extremely proud of you all.” and with that he walks off, with you trailing behind.

caleb watches you walk off, his eyes never leaving your figure. his eyes finally snap back to the group once you were out of eyesight, and he tunes back into the conversation, “the generals daughter is fucking gorgeous.” his friend muses matter-o-factly, an understatement, he thinks to himself. “i hear that they’re going to give the ‘maverick’ to one of us rookies. who do you guys think its gonna be?” – “probably caleb!” they all take a look at him, and he only gives them a laugh. the man was too busy thinking about you to really capture the conversation.

the pilots find their place in  their seats as the room dims. you shuffle into the stage alongside your dad. this was an esteemed event. it wasn’t held every year. much to the unfairness of the previous generation graduates, the gala was held every time the amount of graduates exceed the projected amount. this was honestly more of a connections event. previous legends, special DAA registrars, important persons, etc. the graduates can figure out how they want to approach such treat, (like the pilots talking to your father.)  however unfair, the other previous graduates who aren’t given the lavish gala treatment do get compensations, so in a way, everybody can win, depending on how individuals look at it. 

your father takes the mic in his hand, his arm resting on the podium. the chatting halts. you had always admired your dads ability to command a room. probably why he was so good at his job. he clears his throat,

 “ladies, and gentleman, esteemed faculty, distinguished guests, and most importantly, the graduates of today. it is an absolute honor to stand before you today as we celebrate the incredible achievement of these exceptional men and women. today marks the culmination of years of dedication, hard work, and sacrifice that have led to this very moment, where you are no longer just students, but now, graduates of one of the most prestigious and demanding programs in the world. graduates – your journey has been demanding, and you’ve proven yourselves capable of not only mastering the art of flying, but leading with integrity and making critical decisions, when it matters most. you’ve earned your place here, and the skies are now yours to navigate.”

you smile gently, looking around– as best as you can from the damned spotlight, but you barely could see a thing in a sea of dark blue. caleb listens in absolute awe, but he couldn’t help stare you down. you were quite literally the apple of his eye. he had never seen anyone with the beauty that you possess. his lips curve into a slight grin as he watches you look around. a part of him hoped you were looking for him.

“as pilots, you’ll continue to learn and grow, but always remember; you are more than prepared. you are part of a proud legacy, and it is your time to carry that forward. on behalf of all of us here, congratulations, we are incredibly proud of you. fly high, stay safe, and may your journey be as remarkable as the achievement we celebrate today. thank you.” 

your father nods, and the entire room erupts with a thunderous applause, that you almost- just almost teared up at how wonderfully put that speech was. you clap alongside the audience and he steps back, allowing you to take reins of the podium. you smile, a little too wide, but you were giddy with excitement,

“hello everybody– i surely cannot top my fathers congratulation speech for you all but i will definitely do my best.” you hear an eruption of laughter before you go on, “today we stand here not only to celebrate your incredible achievements, but to acknowledge the bright future ahead of you. you’ve all worked tirelessly to reach this moment, and we are immensely proud of each one of you. in recognition of your hard work and the vital role you will play in the future of aviation, we are thrilled to announce a generous donation of 5.5 billion diamonds (dollars?), which will go toward supporting your ongoing training and development.” the entire room erupts in gasps, hushed whispers. your own fathers eyes shoot open, clearly surprised about the insane lump sum. you chuckled into the mic, sultry, deep– something that woke caleb’s neurons up. alongside his friends, he was clapping loud.

“additionally… in a gesture of commitment to your success, we are excited to gift a dozen state of the art aircraft to your training fleet, ensuring that the future of aviation continues to soar to new heights.” another round of applause, even louder than the last. it was starting to deafen you, but you smile, continuing, “these contributions are a testament to the belief in your potential and bright future you are all shaping. you have proven that you are ready for the skies, and now you have the tools to continue reaching for the stars. congratulations to each of you, and we look forward to seeing all you will accomplish. fly high, and know that this is the just beginning of an extraordinary journey.” you close, and the room erupts one last time, whistles flying around. caleb stands up, along with his friends, giving you and your dad an ovation, even though this was an event for you all. 

you bow as you make your way down the stage. photographers snap a picture of you and your father as you both make your way towards the graduates. you were looking for that handsome hunk in particular. 

as your eyes dart around, caleb stands up, slowly making his way towards you. he’d tower a couple of people around him, but your eyes connect. as he starts to move his feet he feels a sudden yank. “caleb!! you did it!!” his childhood best friend squeals– his pipsqueak, dragging him down, her lips connecting with his cheeks and her arms snake around his neck and shoulders, dragging him down. you take notice of that, your eyes not breaking contact with each other, and you watch as he drops his hat on the ground from the sudden motion he’d experience. 

‘oh well of course the hot one has a fucking girlfriend’ you think, finally breaking eye contact. you were definitely not going to look at a man who was taken. not even one bit. another vent to add to the group chat later. 

[dashcon-two]

Volunteering, Virtual Dash, and Various Other Happenings!

Hey y’all!

Buckle up, we’ve got a bit of everything in this one.

Volunteer Applications!

We’re excited to say that volunteer applications for DashCon 2 are now open! You can apply to our form here (https://forms.gle/aaBjd9eSGZBsARBE7), or find out more on our website (https://www.dashcontwo.com/volunteering/). Our convention relies on volunteer staff to keep everything running smoothly, and there’s plenty of work to go around. We’re really glad to have received interest from so many of y’all, so applications will be open until we’ve filled all of our positions.

All regular volunteers will be assigned to at least one 4-hour shift between 7 AM and 11:30 PM on July 5th, 2025. Volunteers who complete their shift, or otherwise work 4 or more hours, will get free access to the con for the rest of the day.

Successful applicants will be required to sign a waiver to volunteer for the convention. Applicants who are under 18 years old must have a parent or guardian sign their waiver.

What about Virtual DashCon?

We appreciate all of the feedback we got after our announcement post last week! We’re happy to say that we’re going ahead with our plans for a virtual convention! However, considering how many of you were enthusiastic about the concept of virtual dash, we’d like to address a common question!

Why would a virtual con cost money? Because it costs money to run! We’re partnering with Live Media to ensure that the live-streamed panels, pit, and duel will run smoothly. We want to make our convention as accessible as possible, we’ve received hundreds of messages from people who couldn’t get a ticket, but we just don’t have the resources or expertise to run a virtual event with volunteers alone. Even with a professional live-streaming team, we’ll need to organize moderators for the official server, vet digital panellists, and all the other administrative work that comes with a virtual event. DashCon 2 is going down in history one way or another, but we’ll be damned if we don’t get good footage for the next generation of documentarians.

We’ll also donate 15% of every ticket to the Canadian Cancer Society! That’s 15% of the total price of the tickets, not the profits. You can learn more about our fundraiser here, and donate directly to our campaign on the Canadian Cancer Society’s website.

Drag at DashCon 2!

DashCon 2 is excited to announce that we’ll be featuring a spectacular showcase of talented drag performers! Performers will be lipsyncing, dancing, and generally serving, to the tune of such classics as How Bad Can I Be? We’re happy to say that we have two confirmed drag artists: Heaven/Hellish Lee (@heaven_lee_court.hellish_lee) and Pandora’s Box Muncher (@pandorasboxmuncher), both on Instagram! They are both incredibly talented - please check out their work and give them some love :)

We hope to announce a few additional performers before the day of the con, so stay tuned!

If you’re an interested local performer: please feel free to reach out to us directly at activities@dashcontwo.com with a link to your website/social(s), a few example photos, and what sort of performance you’d like to give. Portfolios may contain 18+ content, but performances at DashCon 2 must be appropriate for ages 13+.

LVLUP Board Game Room

We’re happy to remind you all that DashCon 2 will have a board game room, kindly sponsored by LVLUP Games! A quick FYI: while they will be providing board games of all sorts, they will not be providing TTRPG materials, dice, or DMs, so you’ll have to BYOD (Bring Your Own Dice). There must be at least a few dice goblins in our audience who have collections to show off.

As always, you can find more information on our website or follow us on Substack!

[moonastro]

MAHADASHAS in Vedic astrology

So I have wanted to make this post for a very long time and since so many of you wanted it, here it issss😊😊

So in this post I am going to be going through what each mahadasha may bring you in terms of life occurrences. I am also going to be including example of specific placements that can be correlated to life events according to your natal chart also, because the mahadasha that you’re in now, looking at its placement in your natal chart influences it also.

**i am also going to include my own examples of my own mahadashas for referencing purposes

How to calculate your mahadashas?? A very handy website is farfaraway or another one would be astrosage.

what is a mahadasha?? Mahadashas are an integral concept in Vedic astrology, referring to extended periods in a person's life dominated by the influence of a specific planet. Each Mahadasha spans a fixed number of years, with its duration determined by the Vimshottari Dasha system, which assigns a total cycle of 120 years among the nine planets (Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, Rahu, and Ketu). These periods are believed to shape significant events and themes in a person's life based on the nature, strength, and placement of the ruling planet in their natal chart. Within a Mahadasha, there are sub-periods, or antardashas, which further refine its effects.

sun mahadasha: lasts 6 years

being in the sun mahadahsa typically brings success in government related opportunities;

ego related conflicts or transformations

potential heart related illnesses or scares

12H sun linked to prison/ mental health institution/ travelling, 11H sun linked to joining groups/ finding your niche/ finding yourself, natal sun in 10H may mean career opportunities/public recognition/ relationship with father is improved if natal sun is placed well/ increased physical health/ having alignment with your purpose, 9H may be related to charities and being involved in government funded charities, 8H sun may mean related themes to banking/ financial problems/ injuries and hospital visits, 7H sun can be linked to marriage/law assortments, 6H suns linked to hospital visits/dental work/pet adoption, 5H sun linked to planning/ weddings/ hobby success, 4H sun linked to real estate/ moving house/ house decorating/ mother linked illness, 3H sun linked to transport/ car accidents/ document sorting/ government publicism/ expression of freedom, 2H sun linked to financial growth / recognition for financial gains/ can cause financial fluctuation is sun is afflicted in chart, 1H sun linked to increased confidence/ opportunities to take on leadership roles/ improved health if sun is not afflicted/ increased focus in life.

your antardasha with your sun mahadasha:

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡ sun antardasha- leadership events and opportunities, success in hobbies and success in general, life may feel very bright and like its going your way, increased self confidence and socialisation.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡ moon antardasha- emotional fulfilment, emotional excitement, feeling more excitement and feeling more in general,

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡ mars antardasha- career progress and change, sudden courage to do stuff you have been putting off, potential for conflicts and arguments with those around you.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡ mercury antardasha- intellectual growth and progress, potential studying success, communicative accomplishments and feeling like you get to express yourself truly with words, business advice and gains.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡ jupiter antardasha- spiritual growth and gain, financial growth and having luck with money, lots of opportunities with learning and teaching.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡ venus antardasha- romantic flings and developments, luxury acquisitions, artistic success.

𓍯��𓏧♡ saturn antardasha- set backs and challenges, stability in career through hard work, something that was postponed being completed.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡ rahu antardahsa- sudden changes, ambition changes and views, instability and irregular outcomes in life.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡ ketu antardasha- sudden detachments, spiritual exploration, unexpected shifts in life and events.

moon mahadasha: lasts 10 years

strengthening of family bonds

marriage

childbirth

emotional outbursts

mental health challenges

12H moon events linked to emotional transformation/heightened sensitivity/ strong inclines to meditation and yoga/ opportunities for foreign travel/ time spend in tranquil places like the sea and such/ increased spendings on charities/ hidden expenses/ opportunities to address mental health problems/ seeking therapy and counselling/ a need for emotional support/ potential sleep disturbances/ health problems related to fluids stress and the lymphatic system, 11H moon events linked to experiencing financial improvements/ Opportunities to fulfil long-standing desires or achieve significant milestones in personal or professional life/ you might form meaningful connections with influential people/Possible involvement in large organizations /Strong emotional connections with friends and elder siblings/ dealing with groups/ You may feel emotionally attuned to the needs of your social circle/ This period could involve creative or artistic ventures that gain recognition/ Opportunities to participate in charitable or humanitarian activities might emerge, 10H moon events linked to Significant progress in the professional domain/Enhanced creativity and decision-making abilities in the workplace/ Periods of uncertainty or emotional dissatisfaction in the workplace/ Challenges in maintaining focus due to emotional instability or over-sensitivity/Situations where emotions or personal matters become public knowledge, potentially leading to stress/ leading to anxiety about public image/Establishing strong relationships with colleagues/Growth in popularity or admiration due to a nurturing and understanding nature, 9H moon events linked to increased interest in spirituality, religion, or philosophical studies/Pursuit of higher education or academic achievements, especially in fields related to literature, philosophy, psychology, or theology/ Long-distance travel, especially to spiritually significant or foreign locations/ Strengthening of bonds with father figures or teachers/ Events such as marriage, childbirth, or nurturing family ties may occur, 8H moon events linked to Interest in emotional healing or therapy to address past traumas/ gains through inheritance/ Possible focus on health, particularly related to reproductive organs, digestion, or mental well-being/ Interest in alternative healing methods or psychological therapies/ Periods of emotional isolation or intense self-reflection may occur/ Increased curiosity or involvement in spirituality, astrology,7H moon events linked to bringing recognition, popularity, or opportunities for interaction with the public/ An afflicted Moon could lead to mood swings, misunderstandings, or conflicts in relationships/ managing expectations and criticism could be stressful/could indicate issues with hormonal imbalances, digestion, or stress-related problems.

6H moon events linked to Increased focus on health, nutrition, and emotional well-being/Potential for minor health issues related to stress, digestion, or mental health, depending on the Moon's condition (afflicted or strong)/If afflicted, work-related stress or dissatisfaction might arise/ Efforts to clear debts or financial obligations/ If the Moon is unstable, there may be inconsistency or struggle to maintain balance, 5H moon events linked to New romantic connections might form, often with an emotionally fulfilling and nurturing partner/Focus on children becomes prominent- could mean having children, increased involvement in their lives, or emotional fulfilment through parenting/ Opportunities for higher education, especially in creative fields like art, music, or literature/ Potential issues with digestion or hormonal imbalances if the Moon is under affliction,4H moon events linked to deep connections with family and roots, particularly the mother or maternal figures/ Renovation, relocation, or acquisition of property, a home, or land/ The health or well-being of the mother may require attention, depending on the Moon's strength, 3H moon linked to Strengthening bonds with siblings, cousins, or close relatives/ Resolving past conflicts or offering emotional support to siblings/ Frequent short-distance travels, possibly related to work or leisure, 2H moon events linked to If the Moon is well-placed (e.g., in Taurus, Cancer, or Pisces), there could be a significant boost in income, wealth accumulation, or investments/ If the Moon is weak there could be instability in finances or unexpected expenses/ Overreaction to minor family or financial issues, leading to mental stress or decision-making driven by emotions rather than logic, 1H moon events linked to shifting towards improving physical health or appearance/emphasize self-awareness, self-expression.

your antardasha with your moon mahadasha:

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡ Sun Antardasha-Recognition, improved confidence, leadership roles.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡ Moon Antardasha- Emotional well-being, focus on relationships and family.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡ Mars Antardasha- Energy surge, possible emotional volatility.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡ Mercury Antardasha-Enhanced communication, creativity, and social interactions.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡ Jupiter Antardasha- Peaceful family life, spiritual growth, prosperity.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡ Venus Antardasha-Romantic harmony, material pleasures, aesthetic pursuits.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡ Saturn Antardasha- Responsibility, emotional resilience, challenges.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡ Rahu Antardasha- Disruptions, unexpected gains, emotional confusion.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡ Ketu Antardasha- Spiritual insights, detachment from worldly matters.

mars mahadasha: lasts 7 years

pursuit of goals

conflicts

injuries

career advancements in dynamic fields eg, engineering

property acquisition

12H mars events linked to Career opportunities in foreign locations or industries with global outreach/ Confrontations with hidden enemies, rivals, or legal issues/Possible health issues related to inflammation, accidents, or surgeries, 11H mars events linked to Increased financial gains, especially if Mars aspects the 2nd or 5th house/Potential career shifts involving real estate, technology, engineering, or entrepreneurship/ Surge in energy, drive, and physical stamina, 10H mars events linked to Opportunities for leadership roles/ Motivation to take bold actions that bring recognition and authority/ Potential disputes or challenges with authority figures or colleagues/ Acquisition of land, property, or vehicles may occur, 9H mars events linked to risk-taking, and embarking on exciting new projects, especially in areas related to travel, publishing, or exploration/ may face legal disputes or conflicts regarding ethical or moral decisions/ disagreements or confrontations with teachers, mentors, or father figures, 8H mars events linked to facing legal issues, conflicts/ there could be involvement in scandals/ Increased inclination toward bold decisions, possibly involving investments or entrepreneurial ventures/ might bring separations or endings to relationships, 7H events linked to disagreements or power struggles with a spouse or partner if not managed carefully/ might bring opportunities for relocation, especially related to career or a partner/ public disputes or criticism, 6H mars events linked to success in fields related to law enforcement, defence, healthcare, or litigation is likely/ adopting a disciplined fitness routine or overcoming chronic health issues/ involve paying off loans or managing financial liabilities, 5H mars events linked to focus toward education or creative fields, especially in areas requiring strategy, boldness, or physical activity/ Intense romantic relationships or passionate love affairs/ Risk-taking in speculative ventures like the stock market or gambling, 4H mars events linked to involvement in real estate matters such as buying, selling, or constructing property/Sudden changes in the living situation, such as relocating to a new home/ Purchase of new vehicles or upgrades to existing ones, 3H mars events linked to learning new skills, particularly those involving hands-on or physical effort/Care may be needed to avoid accidents or injuries involving the hands, shoulders, or during short travels/ Frequent short trips, either for work or personal growth, 2H mars events linked to heightened activity or conflicts within the family/Miscommunication or arguments could arise/A shift in personal values, 1H mars events linked to increased energy and focus on physical fitness/Potential for health issues related to injuries, fevers, or head-related problems/ may need to guard against rash decisions or confrontations.

your antardasha with your mars mahadasha:

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡ Sun Antardasha- Assertiveness, leadership, potential conflicts.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Moon Antardasha- Emotional highs and lows, focus on family.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Mars Antardasha- High energy, bold decisions, possible aggression.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Mercury Antardasha- Sharp intellect, communication successes, potential disputes.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Jupiter Antardasha- Growth, wisdom, and spiritual aspirations.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Venus Antardasha- Romantic encounters, creative endeavors, indulgence.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Saturn Antardasha- Hard work, career stability, delays.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Rahu Antardasha- Ambition-driven changes, risks, and gains.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Ketu Antardasha- Withdrawal, spiritual focus, endings of cycles.

mercury mahadasha: lasts 17 years

success in education

growth in writing

teaching others something new

enhanced social events

nervous system illnesses and health issues eg, anxiety, panic attacks etc.

12H mercury events linked to opportunities for relocating to or working in foreign lands/ Interest in learning mystical or abstract subjects like philosophy, psychology, or spirituality/Dealing with issues related to immigration, foreign investments, or disputes, 11H mercury events linked to misunderstandings in friendships or social circles/ Miscommunications or conflicts in professional or personal setting/ Success in educational or intellectual pursuits,10H mercury events linked to public speaking, writing, or intellectual discussions/Pursuit of higher education or specialized training to enhance career prospects/gain popularity through effective communication or innovative ideas, 9H mercury events linked to higher education opportunities/ Success in exams, certifications, or research/ Opportunities to learn new languages or skills/Relocation to a foreign country for studies or career advancements, 8H mercury events linked to trust issues or conflicts over shared resources/Periods of emotional intensity or fear of the unknown/New beginnings after endings, such as starting a fresh career or personal chapter, 7H mercury events linked to signing important contracts or forming alliances in business/Improved communication in relationships/marriage or significant relationship developments could occur, 6H mercury events linked to bringing opportunities to resolve karmic issues related to work, health, or service/ There may be a desire or need to pursue further education, certifications/ may face challenges in communication with co-workers, 5H mercury events linked to pursuit of higher education or specialized knowledge/New romantic relationships that are mentally stimulating or based on shared intellectual interests/ Success in childbirth and a focus on the intellectual development of children, 4H mercury events linked to changes in your living situation, possibly related to intellectual or family matters/Potential mental stress or emotional conflicts needing resolution/may also start to address any unresolved emotional issues that affect your communication and intellectual growth, 3H mercury events linked to focusing on connecting with a wide range of people, whether through social media, professional networks, or educational pursuits/Learning could become a central theme, and they may be drawn to acquire practical or specialized knowledge/short journeys and travel can become more frequent or significant, 2H mercury events linked to bringing health-related events concerning speech or the vocal cords/dealing with inheritance, family-owned businesses/ focus on earning money through communication-related fields,1H mercury events linked to opportunities for self-improvement, refinement of personal identity/Possible challenges with overthinking, stress, or scattered focus/Health concerns related to the nervous system or respiratory issues.

your antardasha with your mercury mahadasha:

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Sun Antardasha-Success in communication, leadership in intellectual endeavors.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Moon Antardasha-Emotional expression, creative focus.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Mars Antardasha- Dynamic decision-making, intellectual arguments.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Mercury Antardasha- Peak communication skills, learning, social growth.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Jupiter Antardasha- Wisdom, financial gains, spiritual focus.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Venus Antardasha- Creativity, romantic developments, luxury gains.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Saturn Antardasha- Patience in work, career consolidation, focus on responsibilities.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Rahu Antardasha- Innovation, unconventional ideas, potential instability.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Ketu Antardasha- Detachment, reflection, unique insights.

examples- during a mercury mahadasha (which is placed in the 8th house- linked to death and transformational events- my grandmother passed. it was during a saturn antardahsa that is placed in the 10th house which can often represents publicity. it was during a moon period also which links to the mother/ maternal side of family- she was in fact a mother figure.

jupiter mahadasha: lasts 16 years

marriage

childbirth

spiritual awakening

financial stability

opportunities for higher learning

overindulges and financial risks

12H jupiter events linked to resolving past karmic debts/focus on mental health, working through any subconscious issues that may affect their well-being/ undergo psychological transformation or healing, 11H jupiter events linked to increased communication with friends and colleagues/heightened public profile/ online education, social media, or content creation,10H jupiter events linked to significant career growth/make you overly confident in your career decisions, leading to overextension or unrealistic expectations/increase in income, 9H jupiter events linked to bringing opportunities for advanced studies, traveling abroad for education/pursue higher education or specialized studies, possibly abroad, with a focus on philosophy, religion, law, or foreign cultures/ expansion opportunities, 8H jupiter events linked to be drawn to the study of occult sciences, psychology, or metaphysical subjects, expanding your understanding of life's mysteries/may experience events that force you to adapt intellectually or communicate in ways that encourage deep self-exploration/may communicate in a way that deepens intimacy or resolves hidden issues in relationships. You might also explore subjects related to sexuality, psychology, or shared emotional experiences with a partner, leading to profound growth, 7H jupiter events linked to overindulgence or unrealistic expectations/involve entering a marriage or partnership with someone who shares intellectual interests/experience favorable outcomes in legal matters or business agreements,6H jupiter events linked to improvement in health or the ability to manage ongoing health issues/ focus on mental health, stress management, and using intellect to improve physical well-being/new job opportunities,5H jupiter events linked to heightened artistic output/enter into a fulfilling and expansive love affair/highly auspicious for having children,4H jupiter events linked to opportunities to learn about your ancestral lineage/ undergo significant emotional healing/ nurturing and supportive influence from your mother, 3H jupiter events linked to forming connections that broaden your influence, especially with people from different backgrounds or cultures/experience meaningful travels/bring opportunities for higher education,2H jupiter events linked to improvements in your family’s financial situation/could bring issues related to overindulgence or weight gain/brings wealth through various links, 1H jupiter events linked to leading to long-distance travel, cultural exchanges, or experiences that broaden your understanding of the world/can bring new people and opportunities into your life/engage in new health practices, adopt a healthier lifestyle, or embark on an exercise routine that enhances your overall vitality.

your antardasha with your jupiter mahadasha:

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Sun Antardasha-Growth in leadership, success, and wisdom.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Moon Antardasha- Emotional fulfillment, peaceful family life.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Mars Antardasha- Ambitious pursuits, bold decisions, leadership.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Mercury Antardasha-Learning, communication skills, teaching opportunities.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Jupiter Antardasha-Spiritual growth, wealth accumulation, opportunities.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Venus Antardasha-Harmony, luxury, and artistic endeavors.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Saturn Antardasha-Structured growth, disciplined success, challenges.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Rahu Antardasha-Unexpected opportunities, material focus.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Ketu Antardasha-Spiritual detachment, profound insights.

venus mahadasha: lasts 20 years

romantic relationships

financial prosperity

career growth in arts and aesthetics

acquisition of wealth and luxury

health concerns related to sugar and reproductive organs

12H venus events linked to luxury and comfort in foreign lands/ Spiritual growth and harmony through creative expression/Emotional struggles in relationships, secrecy, or isolation in love life, 11H venus events linked to increase in income streams/Fulfillment of long-held desires, such as purchasing a dream home, car, or luxury items/Living a comfortable and aesthetically pleasing lifestyle, 10H venus events linked to formation of significant romantic relationships, often with someone influential or from a professional setting/Opportunities to acquire property, vehicles, or luxurious items/A tendency toward excessive luxury or attachment to material comforts might create financial strain, 9H venus events linked to meeting a romantic partner during travel, education, or spiritual journeys/Pursuit of higher studies in creative or artistic fields such as literature, fine arts, music, or philosophy/ Significant foreign travel, possibly for higher education, career, or spiritual exploration,8H venus events linked to emotional turbulence, possessiveness, or issues of secrecy and trust in romantic relationships/ Periods of emotional vulnerability, including facing fears or hidden insecurities/Exploration of healing practices, such as alternative medicine or therapy,7H venus events linked to a strong likelihood of marriage/Acquisition of material comforts like a new home, luxury items, or vehicles/Enjoyable leisure trips or honeymoons,6H venus events linked to improvements in health routines/Support from professionals like dietitians, therapists, or wellness coaches/Debts, expenses on luxury items, or legal battles involving finances, 5H venus events linked to strong focus on romantic relationships/childbirth and receiving good new about children/having success with hobbies or falling in love with a certain hobby, 4H venus events linked to childbirth/ new addition to the family whether its a new sibling or cousin and such/moving house,3H venus events linked to lots of meaningful roadtrips/ successful communications with siblings and online/ online fame, 2H venus events linked to eating lots of good food/ gaining weight because of it/ eating too much sweet food/ cooking more often,1H venus events linked to self confidence/ regaining self care/ taking care of your beauty routine and hygiene.

your antardasha with your venus mahadasha:

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Sun Antardasha- Recognition in creative fields, leadership in arts.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Moon Antardasha- Romantic fulfillment, emotional depth.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Mars Antardasha- Energy-driven success, bold decisions.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Mercury Antardasha- Creative communication, intellectual success.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Jupiter Antardasha- Wealth, harmony, spiritual pursuits.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Venus Antardasha-Peak luxury, artistic recognition, romantic harmony.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Saturn Antardasha- Focus on stability, discipline, and practical pleasures.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Rahu Antardasha- Ambitions in luxury, unconventional partnerships.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Ketu Antardasha- Spiritual creativity, detachment from indulgence.

saturn mahadasha: lasts 19 years

challenges and delays

heightened focus on responsibilities

financial struggles followed by eventual rewards

periods of isolation

12H saturn events linked to depressed episodes/ isolation/ feeling suicidal, 11H saturn events linked to goals being achieved/ a new beginning of some sort, 10H saturn events linked to isolation/ having panic attacks/ being more self aware and reacting to other reactions towards what you do, 9H saturn events linked to opportunities for pursuing advanced studies/Significant journeys, especially for work, education, or spiritual purposes/Strained relationships with father, teachers, or authority figures, 8H saturn events linked to deep karmic lessons/suicidal thoughts or wanting to unalive oneself/ death in the family or just death/ major mental health issues, 7H saturn events linked to divorce- whether it be of parents, your own, or someone you know having a divorce that impacts you in a way/ legal problems to do with tax, document delay such as passport arriving or license being postponed, 6H saturn events linked to health problems/ getting severely sick and being impacted by it for potentially life long/ restricting diet or perhaps having a very poor diet, 5H saturn events linked to sparks dying/ interests falling apart or not working out/ finding an interest that you have been searching for a long time/final success in entertainment enjoyment, 4H saturn events linked to family disassociation/ leaving family home/ traveliing far awaty from home/ having conflict with family members, 3H saturn events linked to staying nonchalant/ reading more perhaps/posponed travel/ draining education, 2H saturn events linked to poor diet/ postponed finance opportunities which means bonus in job that is being postponed and so forth/ losing valuable items in home, 1H saturn events linked to un looked after appearance/ being depressed/ having a very isolative response to people.

your antardasha with your saturn mahadasha:

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Sun Antardasha-Career responsibility, leadership challenges.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Moon Antardasha- Emotional endurance, focus on home and stability.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Mars Antardasha-Determined action, potential for conflicts.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Mercury Antardasha- Strategic communication, intellectual growth.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Jupiter Antardasha- Structured spiritual growth, gradual prosperity.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Venus Antardasha- Balance between work and pleasures, creativity.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Saturn Antardasha- Discipline, karmic lessons, steady achievements.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Rahu Antardasha- Unexpected career twists, ambition.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Ketu Antardasha- Inner reflection, reduced material focus.

rahu mahadasha: lasts 18 years

Sudden gains or losses

travel

unconventional path

fame or infamy

challenges related to addiction or deceit

spiritual evolution if well-placed

12H rahu events linked to development in spirituality/ spiritual awakening/ travel to foreign land and having success, 11H rahu events linked to positive changes to social circle/ meeting someone destined or fateful/ turning passion into something real and organic/ achieving destined goals, 10H rahu events linked to destined career opportunities/having a successful career debut/ being recognised with your talents and being praised by it,9H rahu events linked to destined travel/ studying abroad/ having destined education education/ being inclined to teach their knowledge to the full of your potential, 8H rahu events linked to destined to destined transformational events happening in life/ major changes in life happening that changes your future/ big money opportunities, 7H rahu events linked to meeting someone karmic/ meeting a life long partner that most likely is destined or fate involved/ getting married, 6H rahu events linked to changes to the body and your health in a life changing way/ may give illness or heal illness that makes you take your health seriously and look after your health more carefully, 5H rahu events linked to transferring hobbies into something more entertaining/ learning a hobby that may give you opportunities that you have never thought of before/ experiencing destined flings and love interests, 4H rahu events linked to creating a family of own/ a new addition to immediate family whether its you getting pregnant or having a child/ destined events linked to family cycles that hopefully change for the better, 3H rahu events linked to destined education success/enhanced communicative skills including enhanced verbal skills/ learning how to be more confident/ destined local travel also/ relations with siblings taking a turn, 2H rahu events linked to destined money making opportunities/ reliving a finance mistake you've had before but learning from it/ experiencing some major finance transformations, 1H rahu events linked to destined appearance changes/ changes to style, fashion and beauty routine/ beauty transformation for the better.

your antardasha with your rahu mahadasha:

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Sun Antardasha-Unconventional leadership roles, challenges to ego.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Moon Antardasha- Emotional instability, focus on unorthodox relationships.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Mars Antardasha- Risk-taking, dynamic actions, possible aggression.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Mercury Antardasha- Unconventional communication, sudden opportunities.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Jupiter Antardasha-Spiritual growth amidst material changes.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Venus Antardasha- Intense romantic or material desires.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Saturn Antardasha-Grounding amidst chaos, slow but steady gains.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Rahu Antardasha- Amplified ambition, unorthodox successes or risks.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Ketu Antardasha- Spiritual liberation, detachment from chaos.

🤍🤍examples- a celebrity i studied debuted under a rahu mahadasha while their rahu is placed in the 10th house in their natal chart- symbolise career, opportunities, fame- they were under a sun mahadasha that the sun symbolises fame, and the time to shine which even more specifically their sun is placed in the 6th house- attached to labour, work and being overworked, physical appearance.

ketu mahadasha: lasts 7 years

Periods of introspection

spiritual growth

detachment from material pursuits

health issues

possibly abrupt changes in life circumstances

12H ketu events linked to changes of environment-which can be moving home/job/ hobby/ anything related to a shift in your atmosphere/ change in mentality, 11H ketu events linked to getting pushed to a new environment too quickly/ sudden changes in social groups/ forced to change occupation or how you make money,10H ketu events linked to change in job/ change in how you are viewd publically/ having a change of how you feel towards strangers,9H ketu events linked to being distant with your faith/ being put off from education and maybe not wanting to continue studying/ having no intentions to travel and having no passion for things that you used to,8H ketu events linked to death/ dept/ changes in spending habits, 7H ketu events linked to feeling lonely even if in relationship/ feeling no urge to be in a relationship, 6H ketu events linked physical illnesses occurring/ being more prone to unexpected illnesses and diseases- can occur in pets as well/ being strict with dieting, 5H ketu events linked to no interest in going out/ feeling more in tune with music or entertainment/ if in relationship losing attraction to partner, 4H ketu events linked to move in home/ family member fights/ old cycles occurring with family issues, 3H ketu events linked to unnecessary drama occurring/vehicle crashes/ poor communication/ staying more silent than usual/ sibling isolation, 2H ketu events linked to poor diet/ no interest in fulfilling basic hygiene/ not spending money or not recognising the amount of money that is being spent, 1H ketu events linked to going through a transformation/ appearance wise aswell.

your antardasha with your ketu mahadasha:

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Sun Antardasha- Inner transformation, potential challenges to ego.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Moon Antardasha-Emotional detachment, spiritual insights.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Mars Antardasha- Energy directed toward spiritual or bold pursuits.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Mercury Antardasha- Intellectual detachment, spiritual communication.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Jupiter Antardasha- Profound wisdom, spiritual awakening.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Venus Antardasha- Romantic detachment, artistic focus.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Saturn Antardasha-Karmic resolutions, disciplined detachment.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Rahu Antardasha-Confusion, spiritual redirection from materialism.

𓍯𓂃𓏧♡Ketu Antardasha-Deep spiritual evolution, endings of cycles.

🤍🤍examples- as soon as i entered my ketu mahadasha, i felt so disconnected with the world its crazy. i felt almost nothing, but felt everything at the same time- jokes on me, my ketu is placed in my 12th house- lots of mental health issues especially feeling numb about most things. i used to vivid dream like every day until i entered this mahadasha so weird.

but anyway if you made it this FARRRR, you're a real one fr 🤭but no i hope you enjoyed this post, and feel free to ask any questions 👀🌼😊