#I’ve been wanting to draw them as this meme for ages

[guccigarantine]

bruccet

[deathbydarkelves]

why has no one asked about Ylrith yet??? please tell us more about Ylrith

:3c

In all fairness, I don’t post about her that much. Mostly because I’m not currently working on any stories that directly involve her so she’s not in my brain as much. I LOVE her, I’m just more focused on the characters I work with more often lol

But basically: poly lesbian mob boss with a snake obsession

She’s the head honcho of a centuries-old crime syndicate called The Gray Order. Ylrith (il-rith) herself usually goes by “The Gray Matron”, but her enemies have given her a plethora of other, similarly sinister names. By now, the Order has connections all across Azeroth, in most any faction worth a damn. The opening up of Kalimdor to the rest of the world was one of the best things to happen to her.

The Order specializes in smuggling drugs, weapons, and other illicit items, but Ylrith will ferry war refugees to safer lands too, and other such things. All she wants is money and more people under her thumb — if you have the money, or are willing to do a favor for her, she’ll help you do what it is you want done. Her trademark phrase isn’t “A favor for a favor, darling” for nothing. Of course, she’s a master of wordcraft, and often gets people to promise more than they think. She’s also got informants everywhere — brothels in the big cities, innkeepers, compromised city guards, and so on — and thus is master of blackmail. You go to her to discuss a deal, you say something she doesn’t like, and she’ll drop a detail about your life you thought no one else knew.

She also has an EXTENSIVE snake collection of species from all over Azeroth and even beyond. If we’re being realistic a lot of the money she makes goes into caring for them lmao she just really loves snakes <3 In fact I was leaning so hard into the snake thing I decided to just say she’s (the elf equivalent of) autistic because no neurotypical person could possibly be that into snakes KSBXBJD Which makes her my second autistic night elf, the first being Cathala 💜 Yet another win for lesbians.

The third key thing about her is the upper crust of the Order are all in a sapphic polycule. They use their powers of polyamory for evil (affectionate). Ylrith is also kind of(?) a “lesbian femme fatale type”. One of her favorite activities is fucking with the royalty of patriarchal cultures like humans by seducing the wives of powerful men and then helping them kill their husbands, the end result being Ylrith now has control over that piece of land at best, and that rich woman’s loyalty at worst. It’s enrichment for her.

Now for more art. This first one is her and her spymaster/favorite assassin/girlfriend Delphine Kaltel, a.k.a. The Serpent’s Fang. Originally Delphine had actually been hired to kill Ylrith but it was an enemies-to-lovers thing <3

This one’s her and her blue dragon girlfriend Tyalagosa, who’s sort of her “court” mage, I suppose:

(She has more gfs/people in the Order’s upper crust, those are just the only two I’ve named, designed, and drawn. One I have yet to draw is Evelyn Torvannas, another Nightborne. She’s the head of a fairly powerful merchant family in Suramar.]

One showing off her other tattoo:

And her voice claim :) (Morrigan from Dragon Age: Inquisition)

Plus this dumb meme that sums her up perfectly imo:

I also like to imagine she has the stupidest most cartoonish rivalry with Shaw lmao. She doesn’t see him as a threat whatsoever and loves toying with the funny little human man, while he fucking HATES her because she’s got her tendrils all up in the Alliance but always worms her way out of repercussions. WLW and MLM hostility.

[chemicallyyourss]

Hey guys,

I’m new here and sort of wanted to introduce myself and ask for some advice/suggestions.

I’m somewhat new to tumblr- I’ve had accounts before, but never really fully understood how to work all the features, and still don’t, lol. So if there’s maybe a guide or something somewhere that would be uber helpful and appreciated for me!

I used to write quite a lot- both fanfiction-sorts and original works- mainly on Wattpad, Fanfiction.net, and AO3 (yes I know the distrust that comes with Wattpad users lol, but I was 14). I have always mainly written for The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer- my absolute favorite book series of all time and my comfort series as well- as well as some other fandoms like funny enough BBC Sherlock and Hamilton, and I had quite a lot that I wrote for The Lunar Chronicles. I’m really wanting to get back into the flow of writing and see about reposting my old works onto here in a master list and also working on some new ones, again both fanfiction and original. I’m also wanting to get more into drawing and such- fan art and other things. I never drew that much of fanart other than some sketches and designs and bookmarks that I mostly kept to myself, but I’d love to start making my own so that I can work more towards drawing specifically what I want to see, as I’m such a perfectionist and there’s not that much The Lunar Chronicles fanart especially for my favorite couple. I do do several forms of arts and crafts like crocheting, knitting, pottery, art, etc, and I especially did good with photography and realistic drawings and charcoal drawings, and I’d love to incorporate that and also get better at other types.

So I was looking into devices that could help me out and make it easier to do these things. I don’t really like writing on my phone, as the keyboard is so small and I like a wider view and such. I used to write on an iPad, but that was waaaay back in 2014 or so. It didn’t give me all the features I’d liked, but it was enough to do my main bit of writing. I’m not that informed about technology and such so I’ve been trying to look into what products may be best for what I want, like an iPad and keyboard, a MacBook, etc. I’m not that well off so I can’t necessarily just drop a thousand or so dollars on stuff, especially if it doesn’t work best for me. If anyone can respond or even message me with some ideas and resources and information as to what would be most beneficial all around for this sort of project, I would be so appreciative. Thank you so much!

**you can skip down to the other two asterisks if you don’t want to read all about me or get bored lol, please read below the bottom asterisks at the end though**

I guess I’d like to say a bit about myself as well. I know I don’t have my page strictly shown as a “The Lunar Chronicles” fan account, but that’s pretty much what it is, plus some poetry, quotes, landscapes, art, Adventure Time stuff, cats, and memes. You pretty much might as well view me as a Lunar Chronicles fan account lol. It sucks because I figure I may have a hard time getting seen and interacted with since I’m not broadly showing that I’m absolutely obsessed with the series, but I really want to get the word out while still maintaining my individuality on my page.

I started reading The Lunar Chronicles when Cress was coming out, I think right after Scarlet had been released. I was preeeetty young back then, which is a little embarrassing because back then most of the fans were in their 20’s and I was a teenager, but hopefully more people my age have found the series now. I won’t say how old I was back then, but I will say I’m 21 now lol. You can do the math yourself if you want.

My OTP is Kaider, Kai and Cinder. I legitimately adore them, like ridiculously so. They make me so giddy honestly lol. I wrote mainly for their ship, but rereading the series for maybe the 20th time, I am starting to adore Jacin and Winter as well. I just think Kai and Cinder are so underrated and overlooked a lot of the time. I loved writing for them and I’m an absolute sucker for their fanfictions, so if you find any or write any I haven’t already checked out, hit me up and I’ll devour it lol. And Id love to share my current works and hopefully future works! I was relatively young when I wrote them all, but I’ve always written quite a bit and been more talented at that more than anything else- not to brag, it’s just I’m mostly a one trick pony and that’s the trick lol.

So, I’m a 21 year old female from the USA, and have lived in a very small town for all of my life so far, but I’m trying to move to a midsize city with my husband soon. I’ve been married since May 2023, and I’ve been with my husband since 2019. We’ve known each other vaguely since middle school, but really started speaking maybe 2 months before we started dating lol. I have 3 pet cats, 2 calicos and a male tuxedo, all food names. I absolutely adore them lol. I used to take care of a feral colony, and got them all spayed and neutered and most rehomed to good families. I’m very passionate about TNR and animal rescue, and the fight against cat overpopulation. I’m a huge cat person. I do have a dog that I’m currently long term taking care of for a relative for the last year and a half, but none of my own.

I grew up a huge book nerd and was a gifted kid until about highschool, when I sort of burnt out and also started coming under some heavy struggles with mental health, stress, and issues at home. I grew up with a father suffering multiple issues including vascular dementia, which he’s now in the late stages of and is mostly bedridden. He’s a huge sensitive subject for me. I took care of him a bit growing up and my life was pretty much anything but ordinary and it was very stressful. I had to do a lot of things kids shouldn’t have to. We also struggled a lot with 2 disabled parents, so as soon as I was old enough, I got a job and started relying solely on my own income. I mostly worked 2 jobs in highschool.

My childhood is a whole wild story I could go on forever about and I’d be more than happy to if ever asked, but I’ll pretty well leave it at that for now.

I ended up joining a college program while still in high school to practice and study Culinary Arts. I then entered college with a major in Culinary Arts with a focus in Baking and Pastry Arts, and I also studied business and was working for a degree in Home Science Education. I wanted to teach culinary classes, probably in a highschool, and maybe have a cafe of some sort. Eventually I did drop out of college with no degree so far but quite a few certifications. I started to struggle with my mental health and physical health a lot, and I was very stressed and my father had declined drastically and I just couldn’t take it at the moment.

I worked in several fiends, including Food Service, Healthcare, Opticianry, Management, etcetera. I currently work in a hospital as part of Registration, but I really want to work towards a career in Human Resources, and maybe finishing my Culinary education.

Like I said above, I’m very passionate about cats and TNR, and I have supported tons of TNR programs and tried my best to help people out with resources and such so they can spay/neuter their pets and keep animals and stray/feral animals safe. I’m very against kill shelters and euthanasia. I’d love to either open a rescue or Cat Cafe of sorts maybe, or at least volunteer/work at one, and I’m currently trying to get involved in CASA work, as the struggle with my goddaughter and the rough custody battle against one absent parent was a lot and I really want to help out more kids like that.

I was actually raised Amish/Mennonite and converted out, which is funny. I always get tons of questions about that so feel free if you’re wondering. I speak English obviously, but I’m also semi-fluent in Spanish and I know just a little of Pennsylvania dutch, which is my areas dialect of Amish/Mennonite language (I’m not in/from Pennsylvania but we call it that). My husband and I are not Amish/Mennonite, and my husband has never been.

I identify as a cisgender queer woman, and I am diagnosed with OCD, PTSD, and MDD, and have always struggled with eating disorders. I’m very big on mental health advocating, as well as general welfare and health. I grew up without much healthcare and it’s been hard working to cover my bases, and I finally was diagnosed in 2021, the same year I was able to start taking care of myself without being held back. I also have some physical illness issues, including heart issues and kidney issues. The kidney issues were furthered from my mental health issues and consequences of long episodes and dark, sick times. I was extremely sick for a very long time but I’ve gotten a lot better, even though I do still have flare ups and occasional issues. I’m a pescatarian, for many reasons, including my eating issues, my love for animals, and namely my sister showing me a slaughter documentary when I was a toddler. I never really liked the taste anyways so it’s easy for me. I eat any seafood, eggs, and dairy, although dairy does make me bloat so I avoid it usually. I’m a coffee and caffeine snob and used to be a barista so I’m properly addicted and have a drink bar at my house for coffee, energy drink refreshers, and mixed alcoholic drinks. I support 3rd party politics, namely the Green Party.

I guess I’ll sort of wrap this up but going into what I like- my favorite color is black- haha- my favorite book series is The Lunar Chronicles as I said and my OTP is Kaider from that series, I like some other series like the Unwind series by Neal Shusterman, the original Sherlock Holmes series, and others, I love The Walking Dead series and I love Rich and Michonnes relationship from the tv show and Daryl and Carols relationship as well, I haven’t gotten to read all the comics but I’m working on it, and I’ve working through all the sister shows and spinoffs, my favorite movie/show genre is horror especially psychological horror. I love all of Jordan Peele’s movies and a lot of A24 horror movies. I never got to watch many classic or cult favorite movies and shows so I’ve been trying to work through them all. I watched Orange Is The New Black and adored it. I’d say my favorite shows so far are tied between BBC Sherlock (my comfort show) The Walking Dead and Adventure Time, which are both very personal to me. I don’t exactly have a favorite book genre, but I guess it would have to be dystopian/romance and comedy. Comedy anything is always good lol. I like quite a lot of music, mainly Classic Rock, Grunge, Rap, Trap Metal, Pop Rock, Underground, Alternative, Indie, and others. I was a semi theatre kid- semi because my school didn’t have drama or theatre and I couldn’t afford to go see many plays lol. I loved Hamilton, Heathers, Falsettos, Dear Evan Hanson, and others. I was a part of choir but I’m not too confident in my voice lol. I used to write a lot of fanfiction and original stuff as I said, and I also wrote and read poetry. My favorite poets were Charles Bukowski, Emily Dickinson, Robert M Drake, and Sylvia Plath. My favorite authors would probably be Marissa Meyer (though I haven’t read her other works other than TLC yet) and Neal Shusterman. Their writing style really appeals to me and I write somewhat similarly. I’d say my favorite bands are Queen, The Beatles, Hozier, SuicideBoys, and Rainbow Kitten Surprise. My favorite song of all time is Hey Jude.

I do have a tattoo, currently only one, but I’m planning more, one to commemorate my father and one to reference Adventure Time, and some for my cats. I currently have a geometrical and floral pattern on my sternum. I want more floral pieces as well besides the specific pieces I mentioned. I have several ear and cartilage piercings and I’m not planning on any body piercings besides my nose.

I am generally a big advocate for peace, equality, kindness, etcetera, and I mean that wholeheartedly. It takes a whole lot to get me messy and/or violent or mean. I’m very supportive and understanding and accepting of all things- besides legitimately morally wrong things that I don’t even want to name here. I’ll just say I’m lgbt+ supporting (and a member), BLM supporting, race issue awareness supporter, accepting and understanding of all genders sexualities religions backgrounds disabilities mental health issues etc, sexual assault and abuse awareness supporter and a victim, a mental and physical health advocate, against euthanasia and for TNR, am working towards HR work to better help the workforce and also working towards child advocacy and animal rights.

**

Aaaalllrighty, I think that’s more than enough. Thank you if you read much of any of that, feel free to inbox me or ask me anything, and please PLEASE if you have advice about the products I would need for writing and drawing please let me know!! I really want to get back into it and share my works.

Thank you!

Cat gif for tax (jammin)

[missparker]

Hiiii, I haven't seen you on the birdsite in ages, so in lieu of, like, conversation, here are ask meme questions!

14 how do you write emotional scenes? Do you ever feel what the characters feel? Do you draw from personal experiences?

17 What do you do when writing becomes difficult? (maybe a lack of inspiration or writers block)

66 How do you deal with writing pressure (ie. pressure to update, negative comments, deadlines, etc.)?

74 You’ve posted a fic anonymously. How would someone be able to guess that you’d written it?

Hiiii, the bird app and I are having moral and philosophical disagreements right now but you can always find me on threads, FB, and insta. 

14. how do you write emotional scenes? Do you ever feel what the characters feel? Do you draw from personal experiences?

I am always surprised when people tell me they laughed out loud or cried or had any sort of big emotional response to something I’ve written. And while I know that’s like the goal, there’s no guarantee that what you connect to emotionally is going to hit the same note for another person. Which is to say, I think I do tend to get into the head of a character, or I let them into my head. Is that different? Who knows. I think you have to feel it a little for it to ring true. 

I draw a ton from personal experience, be it conversations I’ve had, situations I’ve been in, things that I’ve felt. I always say that if you’ve read my fic, you probably know me better than anyone I know casually in my real life. Also, it’s real terrifying when someone you know in real life wants to read your fic! Stop perceiving me!

17.  What do you do when writing becomes difficult? (maybe a lack of inspiration or writers block)

This is so tricky, because there’s no good way that works a) every time and b) for every person. For me, sometimes I have to write through the block and just unclog it with some trash before the good words start flowing again, but also sometimes I need the break and pushing through it only causes more harm. It’s really a matter of knowing yourself and checking in with what you need to keep making good art. Sometimes when I get stuck on a particular story, I know that I need to delete a big chunk of it but I’m stubborn and don’t want to and I spend too much time trying to fix it before ultimately doing what I knew I needed to do all along and just delete it. I think you have to be willing to admit you’ve made a wrong turn somewhere. And sometimes what needs to be deleted doesn’t need to be thrown away forever, but it’s just not right for THIS story. 

66. How do you deal with writing pressure (ie. pressure to update, negative comments, deadlines, etc.)?

When it comes to fic, most of the pressure I put onto myself. I’ve learned to just ignore the comments that ask for more, demand updates etc because those don’t serve me in any positive way. I always appreciate when people read and comment, but fic is a gift we give of our time and effort and talent and it’s kind of a “you get what you get when you get it” situation. When I wrote greener grasses, I put myself on a weekly update schedule and I could do it but it was TOUGH. For my latest WIP, it’s months between updates and that’s okay too because it just has to be. 

Now, for writing that gets published, it’s sort of a different can of worms. Deadlines do matter, because you’re just one author working with editors who have their own deadlines and you’re part of a big schedule of authors and editors and if you’re late, it impacts a lot of people. I get a lot more strict with myself about achieving a certain word count every day, setting aside blocks of time to revise, etc. It takes priority over other things for sure. But I treat it like any other job - triage tasks, give it the time it deserves, do my best.

74. You’ve posted a fic anonymously. How would someone be able to guess that you’d written it? 

This is so funny because I think I do kind of have a distinctive style, at least people have said as such to me. One time another fic got posted and someone said it was written in a missparker style and I was like… am I so predictable?! But no, I think it was a compliment. Anyway, my style is domestic and character focused and probably someone is gonna drink coffee and probably someone is gonna go pee and probably it’s gonna start with song lyrics.

Thanks, @sarking!

Get to know your fic writer! | ask box

[oryoucouldhavemine]

Request Guidelines:

(This list is mainly based for TOH since that is the main fandom I’m writing for atm)

To differentiate between an art and fic request, simply write [Art] or [Fic] before your prompt to make it easier for me to understand what you’re requesting!

Please check out my ao3 below and see if your prompt (or smth similar) has already been done! I have been getting a lot of repeats/fics insanely similar to ones I’ve already written!

The Blights and Hunter are autistic in the Dad!rius AU (if you want ND them please specify you want the request OUTSIDE of the Dad!rius AU)

Hunter is AroAce in the Dad!rius AU (if you want a ship fic with him please specify OUTSIDE of the Dad!rius AU [Adding onto this: I feel uncomfortable with Edric/Hunter for personal reasons, please respect this. I also won’t write any ship that goes against sexuality canon, mainly, I’ll write Huntlow, I don’t think there’s much else ships for him])

All TOH fics default to the Dad!rius AU (meaning certain requests may be slightly altered to fit that storyline better) if you want it outside of said AU please clarify in your ask/prompt! (ex: “Not dad!rius au!” “not a dad!rius au prompt” etc)

Alador and Darius are together with the Dad!rius AU so if you send a different ship for either of them it will be its own separate fic (for example, Darius/Raine)

Ships I will NOT write (for personal or moral reasons): Any illegal ship (This means minors/adults, siblings/siblings, sibling coded/sibling coded [Aka, to me, Hunter and Luz], etc), Hunter/Edric, Hunter/Emira, Willow/Boscha, Amity/Boscha, Eda/Odalia, Eberwolf with anyone, Belos with anyone, Kikimora with anyone, Collector with anyone, King with anyone, Hooty with anyone (i see you random Lillith/Hooty people who haunt my nightmares)

Ships I like the MOST [and will probably work on faster!] (but not limited to these): Lumity, Viney/Emira, Darius/Alador, Darius/Raine, Raine/Eda, and Gus/Mattholomew

Platonic Pairings I’ll write: Anything :3 except Belos being a good person, sorry but no. You will get my undying appreciation if you want Kiki to be friends with anyone. (Also can request QPR fics!)

I WON’T write smut/sex no matter what pairing it is, I’m ace and that’s awkward to write for me n.n’ 

I WILL write angst, fluff, humor, etc. Don’t limit yourself either! If you think it would be really funny to give me a VERY sad prompt, do it (:< Any ideas for humor fics are also encouraged. 

For art:

I will draw any of the ships I mentioned that I do like before!

I will draw any AUs of any character! 

I’ll do incorrect quotes/mini comics/memes! 

I will do NSFW but it will ONLY be available on my Patreon (7$) so you wil have to join it if you want to see it lmao (AND ILL ONLY DO NSFW OF LEGAL AGE CHARACTERS, NO AGING UP EITHER)

This is me encouraging you guys to please give me art prompts too lmao

I will add on anything I think of later.

REMEMBER: Requests are REQUESTS, I am at no obligation to write/draw your idea, if you REALLY want smth written that bad, you can commission me! Art commission prices will be up at some point (probably reblogged) and I may do writing commissions? Idk only if people want it lol

Ao3: Im_Basically_Shakespeare

[ffffawn]

FFFFAWN.

I have no clue how to introduce this new project I’m working on nor how to feel but hello! My name is Puff and I want to introduce a project that I’m in very early progress with: FFFFAWN!

“What is FFFFAWN?”

- FFFFAWN is a visual novel project that has three routes that leads you into a side of Cervus, a cult permanent residence for the chosen, and how the routed characters and MC end up saving or embracing the cult life themselves from Cervus’ grasp!

- FFFFAWN has dark and mature topics, influenced by the games that inspired FFFFAWN into creation. Age rating is 18+ so minors, do not interact.

“Why the name FFFFAWN?”

- As someone who adores psychology and is a psych student, I named FFFFAWN over the instinctive trauma responses; fight, flight, freeze, and fawn. I’ve always found it interesting, especially when I realized a certain character does use the fawning response a lot.

- I love psychology.

“What can we expect from this blog?”

- I want to track my progress and let some people see it! This is my first time ever doing this things and as someone who is very inexperienced and doing this all solo. The writing, the art, the UI, I’m not sure about the programming/sound design (maybe?) as of now, but..! I’m doing my best as a solo developer (for now! I know it’ll be difficult doing this solo!) until I can determine what I want without being super ambitious about it.

- I also forget a ton, keeping this blog helps me not forget the things I want to remember.

- I also want to do silly little Q&A things! Little silly memes before landing the finished product.

“What medias inspired the development of FFFFAWN?”

- Definitely a lot of games/visual novels. Mystic Messenger and Boyfriend to Death (Two sides of the same spectrum of dark topics, haha!) being the primary inspirations.

- Crywolf’s music as well! Been listening to his amazing music since I was in middle school.

“Who are the characters?”

- I’ll introduce them trying to not reveal their backstory and how they know each other.

Hyejin

To those into typology, she is an INTX, 2w3.

A very, very nice maid to Cervus!

Also a pushover…

A fine specimen to look under a microscope!

Salem

He’s… interesting! (ENTJ, 3w2)

Something feels off about him though.

Is it the fact that he’s ginger or is it the fact that he’s self-proclaiming himself as an “entrepreneur”?

(It’s the fact that he’s ginger.)

Paris

The stench of 2019 TikTok e-boys reeks from this guy!

He is definitely… something.

“I’m not other guys!” He says, telling everyone his typography (INTJ, 8w7) and his astrology big three.

He smells like a red flag, but does he act like one? (You’ll see.)

As of now, I’m keeping their designs a little hushed secret!

Alrighty. I think that’s enough for an information post, is it? Hopefully it is.

Oh! Almost forgot!

If you want to keep track of what I’m doing (Besides having silly hyperfixations over a sickly Victorian puppet and a feral fox-boy, and doing this project.), I have socials where I draw silly those and sometimes these characters.

@starsbirb on Tumblr and Twitter

starsbird on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok

[josiebelladonna]

talking about work is genuinely triggering for me.

i have a very distinct memory of my parents telling me, point-blank, that art is not a viable choice of career, that i need to make money. when i think about my art, i think about how it’s just meant for its own sake, not because i feel a need to market it or whatever. i make art out from the heart. i draw my crushes, what i love, what i like, what fancies me. it’s always for myself. i actually don’t like making art for other people because it puts pressure on me to live up to what they want. and the other thing is i live in a society that is far too obsessed with money for its own good. people look at my art and they don’t see dollar signs here.

and then i think about that memory. the memory that elicited a “the hell it is!” out of me. i realize that i failed the expectation, not of my parents but my own. i failed 13-year-old me. i already hate being asked about working (”when are you going to find work? what are going to do?”) because it’s obnoxious and frankly, nobody’s business, but for me to look at my body of work and only see someone who just lived in her own world this whole time... it makes me wonder if it really does count at all.

thus, my anger. my frustration. my erraticism. my desire to destroy my own art and bury my so-called career. how fucking dare i do things for pleasure when i could have been making a legit career out of this and when i promised to make a legit career out of this. i can’t even get people to share it and i have to scream about it to make it happen. what is wrong with me? and that’s not even getting into the whole stigma surrounding artists, either: the deer in the headlights reaction from people when you tell them that you make art for a living. “don’t you want a nice house?!” no? i live in a house right now and it kind of sucks. the look of “oh, yeah?” from people when you tell them that you make art. “oh, yeah? how ‘bout you draw something right now, picasso?” the look of disgust, like “artists are dirty, gross, weird, and neurotic.”

and yes: this whole entire thing gave me the worst migraine i had ever experienced before in my life. and i know i’ve said this before, but they weren’t of this magnitude, though. i threw up. i went into my bedroom, bawled my eyes out until i couldn’t breathe and then i raged on here because i’m so tired, and then... as my head was utterly pounding, i felt my stomach churning. i went into the bathroom and BLEGH! right in the toilet. brushed my teeth, took some aspirin, and took a nap.

where does the connection with my body come in, you ask? well... ^that, for one thing. dealing with such intense trauma which i had unintentionally unearthed that the result is a psychosomatic reach of the breaking point. but i’ve always tied my art to my appearance. my sexuality is at the root of all my art, even if it’s like slice of life kind of stuff. i made it based on how i feel at the moment. i was body-shamed and shamed for being sexual from a young age, given childhood experiences shape who you are as an adult. no one ever built me up in that department... ever. i’ve always been very self-conscious of the way i look (it’s why i don’t really share selfies, not because i’m shy but because i’ve never believed that i’m all attractive or, heaven forbid, sexy. no, i don’t believe for one second that i’m beautiful, because it just leads to always needing to look beautiful, like i’m not allowed to have ugly days or something. plus, i get really upset when i’m not tagged in that stupid “post 6 selfies” meme on here because it just confirms that to me, it confirms that i’m not attractive for you people, you people and your stupid fucking posts about ~mutuals~ and it only makes me hate myself, and it’s a vicious cycle after that).

i’ve had to hide my true desires from my family because they showed me, time and time again while i was growing up, that they don’t care about them. they don’t care about what i want to do in life: i would share my dreams with my dad and he would always - ALWAYS, he always does this - be like “and how are you going to do that?” i don’t know, i’m just telling you what i think about, god. i often worried about finding out that i was lesbian or bisexual because they disowned my cousin when he came out as gay and furthermore when he identified as transgender; i hate my sexuality mainly because of them. i hate how i’m pansexual, i hate it, and i hate that i hate it. i don’t want to feel gross or predatory. and i mean, jesus christ, when they shove “get a job once you’re out of school” down my throat for years and then they get bent out of shape when i say i want some time to myself and they wonder why i don’t like them, yeah, there is major disrespect there.

plus, i grew up just feeling unsafe in the world, because i was told from a young age that every guy on earth wants to get in my pants (and i’m still seeing that, too, thanks for that, feminists), and whenever i was in trouble, or my parents and i were in trouble, our so-called family and friends would tell us off. no better example of this than when my parents split, and rather than give me sympathy or tell me that i didn’t have to go to school right away or what have you, i basically heard “well. hitch up your bootstraps. suck it up. go to work. get out, now.” my brother, his wife at the time, my grandmother, my uncle, all of them, completely resented the fact that my dad and i were almost living out of our car at one point, and in fact, the former two actually got up in arms with me because i was 18 and therefore, “should have some experience at that point.” prior to then, whenever i did ask for help, it was always done in a rush (read: half-assedly), or with a scoff, like “ugh, seriously?”

i grew up feeling like people just... don’t want to help me or be vulnerable with me or truly connect with me god for-fucking-bid, that i should stand on my own. what’s the response i get when i say i haven’t been built up in the attractiveness department, or that i’ve dealt with anxiety, or that i hate my sexuality, or that i hate my art and want to stop, or what have you? “go to therapy.” “go to therapy.” “go to therapy.” “get help.” it’s always “go to therapy” or that “i need help” - yes, i need help, why do you think i’m reaching out to you? i’m making a cry for help. but it’s like everyone’s afraid i’m gonna shove a knife down their throats or something, it’s actually insulting. and - i’m going to tell you all this right now - therapy is not for everyone. i say this because i actually have done therapy and if anything, it actually made me feel worse about myself. and of course, there’s... you know. the whole thing about me having anorexia. hearing how i should keep my weight down because i need the perfect body at all times OH GOD!!!! i need the perfect body at all times. i need to be marketable, pre-shrunk and packaged. i need to be straight. i need to be just the right amount of raunchy to say that loving you is like loving the dead.

and, because of all of this (and because attractiveness and confidence go hand-in-hand), i just feel like my body is completely broken and useless. people who’ve grown up with abuse know this, too: it’s the whole thing where you think there’s actually something wrong with you because of how they’re treating you. you think you did something to warrant this reaction from them. plus, we live in a world that tells you you’re unlovable “until you love yourself”, so it’s so unbelievably easy to believe that you are the problem. i am the problem. leave me to waste, let me rot, it’s not like you’re going to help me anyways.

my large bones that only recently started to feel comfortable with the amount of flesh on them, and i’m constantly being told to lose weight. my eyes that burn like cigarettes into you. my small lips, both on my face and between my legs. the fact my hands and my feet are tiny are comparison to the rest of me. leave me to waste. you don’t want it. in fact, you hate it. it’s not good. it’s not good enough and it never will be...

but... i apologize for my behavior as of late. i dug up some rather extensive trauma, some unhealed wounds and i don’t know if they ever will heal, completely on accident, too. there’s no denying how i feel about anything, especially pertaining to myself. i cried my eyes out, suffered a bad headache, and even barfed because of it. i have an awful, unattractive body that i genuinely hate and find repulsive and a broken heart that i hate even more, and i wish it was that easy to overcome the pain i feel. contrary to what people who say bullshit like “just stop comparing yourself” or “just go to therapy” believe, if it were really that easy, i wouldn’t be going through any of this, now would i?

[jaywings]

OC askmeme: 7, 11, 14, 21, 25, 30, 32, 39, 49? (Oh gosh that's a lot I'm sorry)

Did you guys know I've got OCs? I got OCs

7. Are your OCs part of any story or stories?

Yes! I do have a scattering of OCs that aren't part of a major story I'm working on, but for the most part my OCs are part of a handful of stories I've got. Particularly these two guys at the moment!

11. Is there any OC of yours you could describe as a “sunshine”?

I was trying to think about this and honestly I can't think of anyone, really. Clearly I need happier characters?? I'll have to work on that and see if I can find a place for a sunshiney character.

14. Introduce an OC with a tragic backstory

Both of these kids have tragic backstories (it comes with being a vampire), but I'll introduce Vincent there on the right. If you've read Dracula then you know that he comes to England on board a ship and, over the course of the voyage, he kills the entire crew. Vincent's story was a few years after that time, but not many. He boarded a boat along with his older brother to come to America but he never made it alive. Unbeknownst to everyone, there was a vampire hiding on board...

When other passengers saw the strange bite marks on him, they bound his hands and feet and threw him overboard to prevent others from being infected. The ship sailed on without him. His brother started a life in his new country; he found a job, married, and had kids of his own, always trying to forget what had happened to his sibling.

Vincent did make it to shore, eventually, but he was already dead. Or rather, Un-dead.

21. Your most artistic OC

That might be Mollie Hawkins (aged 13). She illustrates her own entries in her field journals about the fantastical creatures she comes across or rescues.

25. The OC that resembles you the most (same hobby, height, shared like/dislike for something etc?)

Ilich, the third kid in my vampire trio, was created in middle school to be a lot like me. Shy, few friends, loves animals, loves to read, etc. I've ended up struggling a lot over the years to make her more interesting.

30. Which one of your OCs would most likely have a secret stuffed animal collection?

Terry, probably. He'd find them comforting and huggable when he doesn't want touch from anyone else.

32. Which one of your OCs would be the most suitable horror game protagonist and why?

Ethel Sullivan is the closest I have, I think. She can communicate with ghosts, but sometimes it's very taxing and leaves white streaks in her hair. She gave up on trying to get ghosts to leave her alone and now helps them move on, or figures out how to defeat them if they're dangerous.

39. Introduce any character you want

Some of my OCs are from dreams I've had. Though unnamed in the original dream, Morra is a short, motherly creature living in a cursed house. She's aligned with the earth element and loves cleaning, collecting colorful gemstones, and griping about fairies.

49. Which one of your OCs would most likely enjoy memes

Vue, the "cat." If a meme is clever, he'd love it.

[silvanoir]

the body horror of my body

I don’t need a Halloween costume this year I can go as 1/4 Freddy Kruger

Did you know even though most people think of “shingles” as a rash that happens on the backs of people over 60 it can happen to anyone at any age anywhere on their skin if they had chicken pox as a kid and now have an f’ed up immune system and go through a long period of intense stress (as 2020 to present has been for me) ?  Because that pox virus is in your body forever just waiting till you’ve been knocked down hard enough to pop back up.

It hurts.  And it burns.  Went a week with my left eye swollen up.  Had to spend 3 days in the hospital on an IV most of which was curled up in a little ball in private room, then isolating for a week and taking anti viral pills that looked exactly like those big blue pills from the “hard to swallow pills” meme.

And I can’t take the medicine for Chrons until the rash goes away so I’ll I’ve been able to eat, all I want to eat, is the same meal everyday: plain grilled (in olive oil) chicken slices with lemon rice, plain hummus, and dollops of plain greek yogurt.  Sometimes accompanied by a cup of vegetable soup.  Water or iced green tea.  With vitamins and painkillers.

I’m not contagious anymore so I can go out and I’m torn whether to cover that part of my face up with some taped-on gauze or just let it be, either way people recoil from me.  Ugh.

On the upside I was able to get some art done, finally.  Comic pages (out of order but they were the section of story I felt like drawing).  Art looks good, words balloons and words in them shaky as heck (doing that with one eye).  Heard a lady on the radio say (while I was drawing one night) she wasn’t interested in romance fiction unless the couple is escaping/fighting a killer.  I think she’d like my “DrawBlood”.

Speaking of romance and fighting killers, I rewatched seasons 1-3 of Buffy (because those are the only seasons I had on DVD, just ordered seasons 4-6).  Thoughts in a bit.

[kozukenkitten]

Howdy, I'd like a matchup for the arcana if you're doing those :)

I’m Callie, a pansexual 5’5 Cis female with dirty blonde hair, freckles, and blue green eyes. I’m an INFP-T, gemini, and Hufflepuff. I have Aspberger’s syndrome and adhd which causes me to be somewhat socially awkward even though I like attention and act confident. I’m easily distracted and tend to start projects I easily lose motivation for. I also hyperfixate on a different topic every week (especially entomology, mythology, and zoology) and all I want to do is analyze everything about said topic, this past week was moths. I absolutely adore animals and bugs (especially the creepy crawlies) and I have a tendency to hoard pets, everything from dogs and cats to snakes and tarantulas. Also might be getting a wildlife rehabbing permit soon, fingers crossed. I practice suomenusko which combines Finnish tradition and culture with pagan beliefs. My patron god is Loki and I’m hoping to start working with Hecate soon. My hobbies include writing, drawing, crocheting, and electric guitar. When I become overstimulated, I stim, and I have two types of stimming: happy stimming which includes flapping my hands and running around and angry stimming which includes biting my hands and pulling my hair out. I’m a bit chaotic and impulsive and I love making people laugh. I have a very odd sense of humor which is utterly destroyed by modern day memes (I couldn’t stop laughing over a bass boosted picture of a toothbrush once). I also procrastinate. Like a lot. And occasionally I have depressive episodes where I lose motivation to do literally anything. My clothing style consists of a mixture between traditional Celtic and cottagecore; I like dresses and braids. I am not afraid to call anybody out on their bullshit, which gets me in trouble sometimes lol. A witch! It all started when I began collecting crystals :). I can be loud and excitable but I usually only show this side of me to people I know won’t judge me for it. My love language is definitely physical touch and gifts. I love making stuff for people and I’m touch starved lol. I’m definitely a hoarder, I’ve got so much stuff, blame it on my goblin tendencies. I love collecting stuff from nature such as bones, feathers, rocks, bugs, and plants. I’m also a bit of a forager, chicken of the woods is my favorite mushroom! I… don’t particularly enjoy children. They just have no boundaries :/. I probably will never be able to fully deal with children because of my disorders, but I have four nephews and being a cool aunt is enough for me. Besides, my animals are basically my kids anyways, I absolutely dote on them and they’re my pride and joy.

Hello lovely! I'm so sorry I'm just now getting to this! Life has been wild, and I just opened tumblr up for the first time in AGES. T.T

My first immediate instinct is to say I'd match you with Julian! I can picture you two together, earning a reputation as an insanely charismatic gremlin duo. You and he would get along so well, and I can see him keeping up with your boundless thoughts very well, and vice versa. You both tend to shy away at first from others, but when given the time to blossom and come out of your shell (if you'll pardon the mixed plant and animal metaphors, lol), you'll find so many mutual interests that you won't know where to start!

If you don't think this man's gonna be right there with you, foraging mushrooms and collecting interesting rocks, feathers, bones, etc. you're wrong. And I think he's relatively ambivalent about whether he wants kids, like, he's open to it, but absolutely doesn't need them, and to some extent, genuinely believes it'd be better if he never had any at all, so he wouldn't be bothered if he never had any. He would 100% adore doting on your nieces and nephews, though, and would be the best proud uncle!

This man's like a crow, and he will court you like one: he will bring you all of the shinies, and surprise you by leaving little trinkets and rocks, crystals, feathers, all sorts of goodies, around the house for you to discover. He will also happily listen to you talk about your hyperfixations for hours, especially if you're willing to return the favor.

[galactic-pirates]

Are there any fandoms/ships that you support in general but don't really consume or create fanworks for? Any particular reason why? What, if anything, might inspire you to start?

Hey! Did you mean to send this to me? I’ve not reblogged an ask meme in ages. It’s no matter as I love questions and I love rambling heh, so I am going to answer anyway. So thanks for sending it even if it was accidental ❤️

The question confuses me a little bit as I support fandom as a general concept. Go forth, be happy with what you love, you know? I have watched and read lots of things, so so many, and I have produced fanworks for comparatively few. But when it comes to support… as I said I don’t really understand. There are things I like obviously that I am not drawn to create for. But support feels like it implies more interaction than just “I like the thing”. But if I interact then that’s creation?

I get a feeling I am misunderstanding this.

I have a handful of NoTPs but even with those I respect that people like them. I don’t want to see it because it is the opposite of sparking joy. But if it sparks joy for someone else then good for them. So that goes back to my general support for fandom.

To be honest these days I’m not consuming many fanworks at all. I have a stack of fanfics I need to read and I haven’t got round to it. I want to shower love on them but I have been so tired and stressed. I reblog art on tumblr, and try and say nice things, but that’s about it right now.

As for what inspires me to create. Love is always at its core. Some spark that is just magnetic. I wasn’t initially drawn to creating for The Librarians because I was happy with it but then I discovered prompt month. The more I thought about it, the more questions I had, and then I wanted to fill in some missing pieces. Frustration and spite is a good motivator, a need to fix things. Most of my ships aren’t canon so I give them the happy ending that doesn’t otherwise exist. The final piece is whatever idea I want to make manifest, the desire to draw/write in itself. Sometimes I want to make art, I want to get my markers or pencils or paint out etc. I want the image in my head to be realised.

I’m not sure if that answers your question or not. If you wanted to know about support for a specific fandom or ship please say :) or if you wondered if I would create for something specific.

[somegrayvyperson]

If there’s anything I’ll say about tumblr that I much appreciate over Twitter is that the format this site has is LOADS better for people who actually read.

I get that due to the past this website has had a lot of flack, but considering how I mainly stuck to my own crew here years ago i think there’s an odd sense of nostalgia with it. Like I could type up whatever without restraint and be as expresive with words as I want. So to some of the people who might be wondering where I’ve been with Twitter and you didn’t go there because of whatever... Ho boy twitter has been something.

So one thing that twitter initally gave me that I was first off happy with was being around people I actively talked to more. These people that stemed from Discord, Skype (at the time) and irl places and there was finally a place to talk to them and express myself...

...Only to be limited to 200 characters per post. Now this wasn’t horrible for sure as I could make up for this with follow up posts but good gravy it’s hard to really fit in the ways I like to type out and word things.

And I honestly believe that limitation is what also gets people set ablaze, even without an ability to edit.

Generally speaking things were pretty smooth for the first 2 years. Retweeted fan arts and memes, gave likes to a lot of things, alas I could never crack twitter as much as when I cracked Tumblr here years ago. Granted I never cared about numbers but for a social media platform all about being social, twitter sure tends to leave you feeling more lonely.

What probably made this exceed ridiculous levels is with how cancel culture is handled there. Now you thought tumblrs cases of this were bad (and they are still bad, never forget the Steven Universe fan art thing) Twitter with how it’s structured tends to be 10x worse especially if you’re not a thriving account.

If you remember back in the day, I was pretty big with Smash Bros. I loved that series to my core and adored almost every aspect of it... I think given some obvious incidents that happened in 2020 my respect has since gone down the toilet. Even further was with how a local I went to eventually treated me. Now for those who have heard the story before I’ll at least outline it so you can skip over it but good gravy whenever I think about it, I just have to vent in some form.

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

I’ve told this story on repeat through the Discords I regular and even the rare instance on Twitter after it happened. People that attended the local made up a lie about the ages of myself and my ex-girlfriend to make it seem as if I was a pedo. Without even asking her consent about it no less and they still had that story be believed over my own pleas of defense.

It lead to a pretty big downward spiral for myself mentally and emotionally. Honestly I don’t think I’ve fully recovered after that and I honestly feel my relations with my ex are all the more damaged by it and the deterioration we both took from it.

You’re probably wondering how old my ex was. It was a 4 year gap between us. I understand the age gap of 21 to 17 isn’t appealing in most countries but that was when we showed feelings (which I thought would generally be fine in Australia but again, I get it isn’t socially exceptable even within law here now) with actual proper dating not even beginning until she was 19. We broke up as soon as Febuary of 2020 began so... Yeah that Smash thing really put me through the god damn wringer.

Worst defense I tried giving myself was a by word description of a drawing she did when she was 18, which they took that and rode out the lie with it.

Now considering a month and a half after that the whole community was covering up a whole bunch of creeps, around a year ago one of those predators (Nairo) was unbanned because of some unknown document and cut to now where practically most of the bans from a google doc titled the “Global Ban Database” were merely suggestions and not full bans... It’s left me pretty damn sour on Smash as a whole.

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

So unless it’s a fan game, mod or inspired game; I got nothing positive left to say about Smash. Screw that game and screw the nepotism that drives the community.

Honestly with that local also gas lighting me on my take of Pokemon Sword and Shield of all things also, that also just inadvetently tainted my appreciation for Pokemon also, so Pokemon’s gonna be lacking in terms of retweet and what not.

I guess generally speaking though, I think I’ve had more falling outs on Twitter than I ever had here. Least here I can type as long as I want to and be more clear about my intentions. Honestly the only thing holding back a permanent return is how NSFW is treated on this website.

I mean look; as a 26 year old man (going on 27 soon) I have DEFINITELY found myself more enamered by things that are basically rated as porn. If anything I’d definitely become a more borderline porn blog if it weren’t for the supposed ban on the content still on this site. I get nudity is allowed by some extent but good gravy some of the stuff I’d love to share about can be a LOT more detailed.

I suppose even if that ain’t the case I hope to at least be back as a guy who loves to enjoy stuff. I’d love to talk about various Touhou fan games on here for example. And OH BOY there’s definitely some write ups I’d love to do on some pretty obscure stuff.

That being said, I guess the shut down scare on Twitter at least reminded me why I use to like this site in the first place. Despite the particular people that made this site infamous in the first place I honestly dunno how else I’d properly socialize and find out about myself due to it.

Hope I can see some old faces again and meet some new ones!

[leafsprompts]

a very potter musical: sentence meme.

“ hufflepuffs are particularly good finders.” “ what the hell is a hufflepuff ?” “ [name], you little shit !” “ what the devil is going on in here ?” “ it’s gonna be totally awesome.” “ i'm the boy who lived. not died. god.” “ it was left to me by my dad, my dad that's dead. my father is dead. i have a dead father." “ oh my god, i have to fight a goat ? i don't think i can do that morally... ” “ oh my god i have to fight a dragon ? i can't do that i'm just a little kid ! " “ i don't know, [name], someone punched me in the face and my sense of direction got a little goofed up ! " “ you're like this guy, that's just-- around, all the time, when i don't need a guy around. you're this spare guy, all the time, this spare dude. ” " oh my wizard god ! " " i don't know [name], you're a hufflepuff why don't you FIND out. " i don't want my life to be like spiderman 3, i hated that movie. " “ maybe you'll just have to fight like mushu from mulan or something... " " well, the medallion says that's dumb, so we're not going to do that. " " it's just every time i look at her i get pains in my chest, and i just know it's her fault .. that bitch ! " “ if i had an invisibility cloak i'd use it so i'd never have to face my own reflection in the mirror. " " c'mon, let's go watch wizards of waverly place. " " how did you idiots get captured ? you were invisible ! " “ i can't believe i couldn't figure out the countercurse was just 'unjellify.' " “ so basically, i’ve being putting everyone who looks like a good guy into gryffindor, a bad guy into slytherin and the others can go wherever the hell they want. ” “ and remember, a portkey can be a seemingly harmless object, like... a football, or... a dolphin. " " i'll be in the drawing room, painting a picture of the stupid looks on your faces." " shut your ungodly, lopsided mouth and quit interrupting. ”  “ for the cleverest witch of your age you really can be a dumbass sometimes. ” “ what would zac efron say at a time like this ? ” " are you kids ready to fight a dragon ? of course you aren't, you're just children - what the hell am i thinking ? " " i would feed myself to aragog's children for that cup ! " " come on, i'm tired. can't we just be death eaters ? " " you know, i used to think looks weren't important and now i think they're more important than anything. " “ am i bleeding ? ” " actually I have heard those things, about a thousand times, but never have they been told to me with so much sass. ” “ drop the attitude, [name]. you’re acting like garfield on a monday. " " that is a boss zefron poster. " “ ou guys, go get snacks. ” “ oh shit, we barricaded the door. " " ah shit. " " it's because he's dead you dumb motherfucker. ” “ well, i believe everything has its place. ”  “ muggles have their place. mudbloods have their place. and so do your clothes. " " yes, i know, [name] ! i hear everything you hear ! " " when i rule the world, i'll have... snakes ! ” " we are going to get you laid. " " when i had a body, i had mad game with the bitches. ” "' usually i just kill people who try to get me to open up. ” " it's like that movie 'she's all that'. ” " ughh...now two people are mad at me ! "  " what do you want with a rocketship ? ” " no, i called you a squirrel. ” " hey, you. " " you think killing people will make them like you, but it doesn't ... it just makes them dead. " " so you came back ? ” “ i came home. ” “ aren't we an odd couple ? " " when i rule the world i'll plant flowers ! " “ oh my god. [name], shut up. " there's only one thing to do: i have to die.”  “ i love you all... except you, [name]. i can't fucking stand you." " i can’t sleep on my tummy. ”

[callivich]

this is probably an awkward question lmao but how do you get involved in the fandom? like i’ve been lurking around for almost a year and i’m not sure how to interact with people? don’t want to feel like im being annoying yk 💙

Hi! That’s not an awkward question at all! 💖💖

I had to think about this because I’ve been in various fandoms on different platforms over the years so I tend to just get involved now without thinking. (That is, after a period of lurking just to see if I like the fandom - because sometimes the canon is great but the fandom is….not so great, am I right? 😅)

Anyway, I don’t think there are any particular rules but here are some things I think can help people get involved:

Reblogging and liking. This will get people noticing you in their notes, especially if they are reblogs and especially if you write in the tags. I think most people enjoy reading peoples comments and musings in the tags. I know I do.

Sending asks - either on anon or off anon. Is someone taking part in an ask meme? Send them a question. Is someone bored and wanting to chat? Say hello and tell them what you like about their blog or what you like about their recent posts. Did you agree with someone else’s tags on a post? Send an ask and tell them. Start making conversation - even if it’s just “I love that too!” The more asks you send, the more people get to know you.

I know some people don’t like people reblogging and adding to their posts. But I love it and I think it’s pretty easy to tell who does like it and who doesn’t (basically take a look at people’s blogs, if they’ve got back and forth posts, then they probably don’t mind) Writing in the tags is great but sometimes someone will write something interesting and it’s so much easier to be able to reblog a post and add to it.

Commenting on fics on ao3 is also a great way to interact with people (and your comments don’t have to be anything long or detailed if you don’t want to, writers still love people just saying how much they enjoyed something!) and there’s a “share” button on ao3 works that links straight to tumblr if you want to recommend something.

Have a go at creating! I know there’s a lot of incredible talent in this fandom and that can be intimidating. But everyone started somewhere - everyone tried writing a ficlet or sketching a drawing or making an edit or creating something and then got nervous to share it. But then they did and they tried creating more and more and sharing more and more work and the more you practice and create the easier it gets. You don’t have to be incredible talented right off the bat, although you may well find you have a natural talent, you just have to start making something and then keep making things. Also, everyone is very supportive and kind in this fandom, so that will help!

Tag any posts - could be silly headcanon ideas or random thoughts or sharing links to fics you’ve enjoyed, if it’s on the Gallavich tag people will see it and start to interact with you.

Don’t be shy! I know that’s easy to say but it’s really true when it comes to fandom. I’m quite shy in real life but something I realised ages ago is that you can be involved and ‘known’ in fandom while still being anonymous (for example, you can come up with a nickname - Calli is not my real name), if that’s something that you want.

This is genuinely the nicest fandom I’ve ever been in. I don’t know what the Gallavich fandom is like on Twitter or on Instagram but here on tumblr it’s full of friendly people. I found that once I stopped lurking it was very easy to get involved with talking to people and sharing ideas. Trust me when I say you will not be annoying people if you start to talk/interact with them. 💖

And don’t forget, the more people who are active in a fandom, the more it thrives. So, if you have the time and the inclination to involved, go for it!

I’m probably missing some obvious tips so if anyone else wants to reblog/reply and add ideas or share how they got involved, please do!

[kuiperblog]

The first 1% is always the hardest

Usually, the hardest part of acquiring a new skill is starting it for the first time.

When you’re at an intermediate level of progression, you can usually just increase your skill level by incrementing up the difficulty linearly.  If you’re a novice weightlifter and your best overhead press is 125 lbs, try adding 5 lbs to the bar and see if you can overhead press 130 lbs. (If not, keep lifting 125 lbs every few days until that becomes “easy,” then challenge yourself with 130 lbs again.)  If you can do 10 push-ups, you will probably reach the point where you can do 11 push-ups, and 12 push-ups, and 15 push-ups, and 25 push-ups, and so on.  The hardest part of lifting is day 1, when you might be performing certain motions for the first time in your life, and challenging your body to work muscles that you didn’t even realize existed.

I imagine the same is true of other fitness regimens: once you’re able to run a 9 minute mile, you probably have what it takes to run a 8:30 mile, or a 8 minute mile, if you keep at it.  Eventually you’ll hit a plateau and the limits of human performance, but the first day in the gym is always the hardest.

This is sort of how the trajectory of my writing career went.  And having talked to artist friends, and musicians, it seems like all of them followed a similar trend: they found a thing, they stuck with it, and over time found themselves advancing along that path bit by bit.  It became a hobby or a routine such that over time, by  by investing a bit more time, or a bit more effort, or challenging themselves a tiny bit more, they got better at it.  And over years, the compounding returns of that meant that the girl who got a drawing tablet at age 14 found that by the time she was 22 years old, she had enough artistic skill to make enough money from her art to make a living.

I think that in a lot of cases, people were able to start down that path of gradual self-improvement in part because they were able to somehow bypass the hardest part of it -- they blazed right through the initial difficulty without even realizing it.  They couldn’t even really answer the question of “When did you start drawing,” because they’ve always been drawing since the days that they were just doodling with pencil in paper at school. Maybe they just really enjoyed playing outdoors as a kid, and played soccer because it was fun, and made the seamless transition to being a high school athlete. In my case, I spent a lot of time writing long-winded forum posts explaining the finer points of topics I was passionate about (which, at age 13, was mostly Pokemon and Final Fantasy), and somehow by my 20′s I had enough of a penchant for explaining things that I was able to parley that into a writing career (so I can get paid for my long-winded explanations of Pokemon-related topics).

The early days of learning to write kind of sucked and were difficult.  (For starters, remember how unintuitive that QWERTY keyboard was the first time that you learned to type? Remember how painful it was to hunt-and-peck your way through sentences at an effective rate of <10 words per minute?)  But my desire to talk about Pokemon on message boards overwhelmed any difficulty or “suckiness” involved with learning to express my ideas through text, and so the suckiness of those early days wasn’t really much of an obstacle.

More and more, I’ve come to believe that the most important part of learning a new skill is finding a way to get over that initial difficulty hump -- of finding a way to survive the first day, and then the first week, and then the first month, and eventually reach a point where inertia carries you forward on a gradual upward slope of self-improvement where you’re not even consciously thinking too hard about improvement; you just randomly muse to yourself one day, “Oh yeah, this barbell I’m picking up weighs about 100 lbs more than the barbell I was lifting a year ago. Fancy that.” The longer you keep at it, the easier it is to stick with it.

In many corners of the internet, there’s an oft-repeated adage that “Watching anime won’t teach you to speak or understand Japanese.”  And sure, that’s obviously true on some level. If someone is thinking they’re going to spend a thousand hours watching subtitled anime, and then one day flip off the subtitles and be able to follow everything without missing a beat, they’re probably a bit delusional. If you want to actually achieve anything approaching Japanese fluency, you’re probably going to have to take a Japanese learning course, and engaged in spaced repetition to pick up and retain vocabulary, and all of the other stuff that goes into learning any language.

But I think that watching anime does provide you with one big advantage: it goes a long way toward helping you cross that “day 1″ hump. Because the first day is always the hardest. Going from 0 to 1 is harder than increasing your vocabulary by a few new words every week.  Before you can get the compounding returns from incrementally improving at a skill, you have to have a starting principle.  And I think that watching anime is actually quite good for that, because only knowing “weeaboo Japanese” will give you 20-30% of the vocabulary that’s included in your first couple Japanese lessons.

I’m speaking from personal experience: it’s incredibly heartening to go through a lesson and encounter words that I’m already familiar with.  Even if my fluency in “weeaboo Japanese” only covers 10% of what’s introduced in a given lesson, having a head start gives me an intangible confidence boost which makes it easier for me to focus on and retain the other 90%.

I don’t want to understate the importance of that intangible confidence boost: a lot of language acquisition is getting comfortable with a language, and repeating something so much that you do it without even thinking about it. For example, in English, sometimes sometimes someone might ask you “how’s it going?” and you might answer “fine” before your brain has even consciously registered the meaning of what you were hearing, or saying. And I’m enough of a weeb that I can hear i tenki desu ne and immediately reflexively respond with sou desu ne, before my brain has even consciously registered the question being asked (sometimes taking several seconds to mentally backtrack and realize, “Oh right, the “i tenki” part means “nice weather.”).  But years and years of listening and pattern recognition have taught me that when someone ends a sentence in desu ne? with the sort of inflection that says “I’m asking you a rhetorical question,” the proper response is probably sou desu ne, and my brain produces that response just as reflexively as it spits out “I’m doing fine, how about you?” any time someone asks “How’s it going?”)

One thing I’ve come to notice is that every lesson begins with some of some amount of review, giving you that spaced repetition, and providing context for the new words and concepts that the lesson is about to introduce, and generally provide a foundation for the new material.  Day 1 is, by necessity, the exception -- how can you “review” material that you’ve never covered before?  But for me, the day 1 lessons on how to say nihongo and arigato and watashi and anata were already “review” of topics that I picked up through years of being a weeb.

Besides that, there’s the fact that the structural elements of Japanese are something that my brain was naturally able to grok in a way that is intuitive to me after spending years listening to spoken Japanese even though most of it is contextual. (Like, I’m not sure when this happened, but at a certain point I think my brain just kind of learned, when listening to Japanese sentences, to approximate which parts were the verb and where certain clauses landed in the sentence, if only because when watching anime with subtitles you become consciously aware of when a character’s name appears in the dialog.) I’m not really consciously thinking about it, which kind of feels like the “natural” way to learn a language.  (After all, it’s not as if native English speakers, as toddlers, consciously think to themselves, “Ah, it seems as though English typically follows a subject-verb-object grammar structure.” Kids just listen to adults speaking English and form sentences that way without really having to be formally taught.)

It’s highly likely that at some point in my internet career that I have at one point been the cynical message board poster telling someone that, contrary to their fantasies, watching anime isn’t going to help them learn Japanese in any real or material way, and if I’ve ever suggested that, it’s time for me to eat crow.  Because while the advantage that “weeaboo-level Japanese” gives you might be small, and only help you on the first few days of Japanese class, those are the most important days, because the first 1% is always the hardest.

My familiarity with “weeaboo-level Japanese” has only given me one disadvantage, and that is that years of memes have poisoned my brain to the point where the first I was prompted with “say ‘excuse me’ in Japanese,” my brain (and mouth) immediately spat out “sorrymasen,” and I wish I could say it only happened once, but it wasn’t until around day 3 that I managed to fully train this habit out of myself.

[blaithnne]

Lauren Master Post

EDIT - this post has now reached the 100 links limit so I can’t update it anymore 😭 I will be creating an off site link portal at some point, but for now this list is incomple, still - enjoy what’s here!

Hello! So realised that if anyone wanted to learn about Lauren then they had to venture out on a scavenger hunt across my blog - so I made a Masterpost! This contains every single Lauren Post I’ve ever made, each sorted into their own categories! This post will be continuously updated as more content is made, so if you are viewing this on a reblog please check the original post to ensure it hasn’t been updated since that person reblogged it!

Some basic context, for anyone who’s completely new - Lauren is a Hilda OC of mine, she is Hilda’s older sister who ran away from home at the age of 13. Not all information about her has been ‘released’ yet, but I have plans for the future :)

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Canon

Everything in this section is 100% canon information, generally being at least somewhat important to her character and story

Updated Reference Sheet

Cream Design

Cream Naming

Jason Origin Post

Lauren Smokes

Bi Lauren

Lauren’s Time Away Info

Ages

Birth!

Lauren loves plants, amongst other hobbies

Pianist Lauren + What she wants most

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AU

Self Explanatory :)

Runaway Hilda*

Miraculous

Miraculous 2

Mumswap*

Mumswap Ref

More Mumswap

Harry Potter

My Little Pony

Sketchbook Fake Dating AU

*The Runaway Hilda AU is owned by the lovley @cinnamon-sparrow-scout!

*The Mumswap AU is owned by the wonderful @calebs-hangout-corner!

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Misc

Contains Asks, Shitposts, and Vaguely Canon Content. Posts being here doesn’t mean they aren’t canon, but they may be subject to change

Original Lauren Post/Reference

Jason and Lauren

Hilda and Lauren (Martial Arts)

April Fools 2020

Lauren Joins The God Damn Mafia??

Incorrect Quotes Generator

Poly Mum Content

Sadie Being An Accidental Genius

Hilda and Lauren 2

Lauren Breaks The Timeline lol

Misc Fact

Amogus

Name Origin and Fears

Safest Place

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Misc Art

I draw Lauren a LOT - so here’s all my drawings of her, in order of their creation

Outfit Meme

👉👈 🥺

Just Go To Bed

Mirror Selfie

Jason and Lauren Meet

Little and Broken

Self Confidence!

Title Card

Painting

Woah

Frank

Brainrot

Lauren With Her Hair Down

Traditional Sketches

Lauren Listens To Tøp lol

Lauren is Currently Listening To Tøp

Smoking Sketch

Reaction Image - Free To Use!

Happy Father’s Day?

Lesbian Lauren (no longer canon)

Premiering Never

Librarian Lauren

Outfit Meme 2, Suit Edition

She’s Just Sitting There

Wear Heelies To Escape Your Feelies

Catgirl Lauren Lmao

Like a Fun Alt Outfit Thing

Lauren But In MY CLOTHES!!

Freedom

Good Hair

Misc Sketches

She’s a deer now lol

Lauren vs An Ostrich

Phone Wallpaper

Mario?!

Tag ya spoilers

Happy One Year!

Moss Tik Tok (vids will get their own category if I make more :))

Lauren and Baba

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Concept Art

Not all of these concepts are true to the final designs, but some of them are!

Older Lauren

How The Hell Does Lauren’s Hair Work

Kid Lauren

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Screenshot Edits

Self Explanatory :)

Edit 1

Edit 2

Edit 3

Edit 4

Edit 5

Edit 6

Edit 7 (The Tide Mice!)

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Fan(?) stuff!

I feel weird calling this ‘fan’ stuff but I literally don’t know what else to call it lol. Anyways - this section contains content not made by me! I absolutely adore everything here and I’m so grateful that people like Lauren enough to make their own content for her!! I included everything here, from finished artworks, doodles, and a few incorrect quotes - bc I cry tears of joy whenever anyone makes anything abt her LMAO

Incorrect Quote 1

Incorrect Quote 2

I Think This Was The First Lauren Drawing Not Done By Me 😭😭

MERMAID LAUREN

B e h o l d

Beautiful Full Body Piece!

The Greatest Animatic Of All Time

Beautiful Drawing of Lauren and Hope!

TEAM BIG SISTER

Adorable sketch

Cool As Hell Mario Kart Chase

More Mario Kart >:)

Pokémon!

Insanely Cool Anime Esque Screenshot Art!

Incorrect Quote 3

Incorrect Quote 4