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dduane · 9 months ago

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The first part of that last message got me curious -- given how long-running of a series YW is, how do you keep track of All That when writing a new entry? Copious amounts of notes? Re-reading the entire series backlog? Keeping a fully-functioning simulation of the entire YW universe running in your head with perfect accuracy? (only mostly joking with that last one)

And somewhat-relatedly, did you have any plan or idea when you started for how long YW would run? Or was it more of a "I'll keep writing about this universe until it stops churning out ideas," type of thing and that point just (very thankfully!) hasn't happened yet? I know for per-book purposes you're a proponent of outlining (I swear I'll try writing to one one day Q_Q) but do you also apply that to a series as a whole?

Let me take this backwards, as it may make more sense that way.

Particularly when doing series work, outlining is more vital than usual for me. (Which is saying a lot.) Some of the most basic reasons for this are laid out over here.

The simplest one, though, for series outlining, is logistical. Without having achieved a sense well in advance of what events (or effects of events) are going to be most formative or important (or both) for the characters in a series, you won't have allowed yourself time to think about them enough. And to fail to spend enough time on this is to cheat both yourself and the books in the series. (And your readership.)

If you're smart, you learn very early on that attempting to save time by shortchanging or omitting the planning stages is potentially profoundly destructive. You need to have a plan... and you need not to let anyone make you ashamed of needing one. Putting off your detailed character-interaction and event planning in the name of some magically occurring fit of inspiration, or theoretical bid toward creative spontaneity, will serve neither you nor your creation. You can throw "Hail Mary" passes all you like... but you'd better be damn sure there'll be someone in the end zone to receive. ...If not Herself.

...And just in case you're worried, your initial plans can be really loose! They don't have to jump out of your head full-formed like some local war goddess after somebody hits her dad in the head with an axe. The plan for the Middle Kingdoms books—after The Door Into Fire dumped me gasping by the side of the road and left me a few minutes to breathe—was nothing more than "Now that his boyfriend's finally upped the ante beyond all expectations, Freelorn finally gets off his feckless Would-Be Robin Hood shit and gets to work becoming king." I then spent the next decade thinking purposefully about how that was going to happen, and writing the second book in the series—while sufficiently working out the fine details of the climax (and beyond) to then be able to get busy executing the third book. Even though there was a change of publishers between the beginning of that series and the end of it, the basic dead-simple MK plan from a very early stage quickly became detailed and robust enough (because the series was short enough) to withstand the change. Not least because I'd been thinking about it in a general way since the early 1970s... and continue to do so, pretty much daily. The Door Into Starlight is still hanging fire...

YW has been a different story—quite literally—because the only plan extant at the start of things was, "Everybody slowly gets older (and slowly closer)." I always knew there were going to be more than the original three: there was way too much interesting ground to cover to just stop with those. (I've never yet succeeded in finding out who started the rumor that there were only going to be three books. Over time it's become one of those things you just shrug at and move on.)

(Adding a break here, because this does go on a bit. Caution: contains publishing skullduggery, plans ganging aft agley, approximate word counts, software recommendations, and value judgments.)

("Now wait just one minute. 'Feckless would-be Robin Hood shit'? Can she just say that??")

The circumstances surrounding the writing of Deep Wizardry and High Wizardry, though, made it plain to me that I was not going to be at the then-publisher (Dell) all that much longer. By the time HW came out, they were already starting to pull away from midlist books and authors in order to spend that part of the budget on best-sellers... so it became plain to me that attempting to construct a long arc with/at that publisher would have been folly. Because who could be sure what was going to happen next, and blow everything I'd built to smithereens?

Sure enough, when I finished A Wizard Abroad, Dell declined to pick it up (even though the books had been selling steadily and increasingly strongly in paperback). This annoying validation of my concerns—and my shiny new agent's—made it plain to me that further books in the series were going to need to be thematically driven, rather than mostly character-event-driven, and almost entirely capable of being taken as standalones. Any long arc was going to have to be one that could be suspended, or reworked, with little warning. Because what happens to you once, in publishing, doesn't at all mean you're immune to it after that.

It wasn't until the YW books were picked up by Harcourt in the mid-90s, with a strong editorial team behind them, that I felt confident enough to start building longer-arc material into the books, beginning with the arc that kicks off in The Wizard's Dilemma and more or less completes in Wizard's Holiday and Wizards At War. There is a secondary (and I assume, generally less obvious) arc that picks up material still unhandled in the "War Arc," and deals with it in A Wizard of Mars and Games Wizards Play. But plans for those stories' management were already nailed down in electrons as soon as 2001, because I had made some early choices about where I was going with the characters and their situations; and as new books came out, my editors agreed with me that the choices had been sound, and should remain.

I'll say this only because I've said it before: there is one piece of business planted in So You Want To Be A Wizard that has never been explicitly dealt with/followed up on in any of the books, and is at the core of YW #11. For the moment, it's safest merely to say that I do not willingly leave loose ends hanging. Beyond that, I'll leave you all to your own deductions.

...Now. How do I keep track of all this stuff? (The urge to mutter "With great difficulty" and run off into the wings is strong. But never mind.) :)

The question's fair, as there's a million-plus words' worth of it in the series at the moment. ...Mostly my guide remains the books themselves, in ebook form (in their NME versions. If I need to, I refer back to the traditionally published versions as necessary). I normally have a general memory of where a given event happens or where a given issue comes up for handling. I then pull that copy of the ebook(s) in question, and do a search on various useful target phrases until I find what I'm after, and where it leads.

For new work, or stuff not yet committed to what passes for canon, I do have lots of notes. Some of them are actually out in public, at the currently-being-revised Errantry Concordance (though they're not in any form that anyone but me will recognize). Others are tucked away in the notes sections of pertinent Scrivener files—this being one of the most valuable things about Scrivener, as far as I'm concerned: the ability to store project notes in the project itself as opposed to "all over the damn place." Others yet are in my iPad, as either typing or dictation, and get transferred to other files/formats as necessary.

But the very first thing that happens, when a new work comes into train, is an outline. Sometimes a hilariously simple one, sometimes one with more detail in the middle than at the beginning or the end. Doesn't matter what shape it starts in. All notes, scraps, prose chunks, random thoughts, and midnight cogitations, get slotted into place in this until it's ready to be organized and sent off to an editor. And this outline—no matter how fragmentary or how polished—remains ready to hand at all times until I've finished with correcting the book's ARC and am looking at the release date.

And then I zip it up and put it away where I can find it later if I need to... because some other plan, still in the building stages, may need something in that one that never happened, but now has its chance. Because in YW, as everywhere else in my work, it's so often about the things that have always almost happened... until they do.

...Anyway: HTH!

#writing #process #you've got to have a plan #Young Wizards meta

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momo-minomo · 4 months ago

Text

Fic Fairy Friday: Tim and Damian Brotherhood

It's time for Tim and Damian! Man these two have had a rocky relationship. Most of the Tim fandom seems stuck on Damian's first appearance when he was homicidal and scathing to everyone and completely ignore his significant character growth. And Damian fans seem to either ignore Tim altogether or make him Bruce's most straight-laced soldier always playing by the rules which, have they even met Tim?! It can be really hard to find fics with these two either improving their relationship or just plain being brothers. So that said, here's ten of my favorite fics featuring these two!

The Fic Fairy Friday Masterpost

Trust fall by Ididloveyou_once

Summary:

‘Drake?’ Tim felt like he was choking. His throat was tight. He couldn’t swallow. ‘Damian?’ He managed. Damian was… here. At Kent Farm. Dressed in the too-big Batman pajamas that Dick had bought him last Christmas as a joke. And- And- Tim was wearing Kon’s t-shirt and his hair was messy and his lips were swollen and- He wasn’t ready for this- He wasn’t- He couldn’t- How had he been so stupid? Or: Tim comes out to Damian and prepares for the entire family to know by morning. It just so happens that Damian can keep a secret. Multiple, actually.

Momo's Notes: Spicy scene warning on this one between Tim and Kon! Tim is kinda traumatized from when his bio dad's reaction to him liking boys so seeing Damian at the Kent farm in the middle of the night while he's covered in hickeys nearly gave him a heart attack. But all that panic over is family finding out he's bi leads to some honestly really sweet moments of brotherly bonding between Tim and Damian.

an unplanned detour straight down by CarrionCarnival

Summary:

No one here has the right wing type for the sheer dive it would take to reach Damian before he hits the water like it’s concrete. No one here except Tim. - the Bats learn the hard way not to bring an unfledged vigilante to a midair battle

Momo's Notes: I've read this one dozens of times at this point. It's pretty short (under 5k words) but the way the author world builds so effortlessly with so few words is amazing. It's an AU where nearly all non-powered people have wings. On a mid-air mission to stop an alien invasions Damian (who's downy baby wings can't fly yet) falls. Tim is the only person there with the wing shape to maybe survive that kind of high speed dive. Tim and Damian awkwardly bonding at the end is perfection.

Yummy (I'll eat you right up) by iquirms

Summary:

Tim is very busy when the phone rings at work. He's been struggling to take care of Wayne Enterprises and going from Robin to something, it's a working process, and he's swamped in the backlog of work Bruce never did before he... Before. It's the Headmistress at Gotham Academy. A trip to his old school isn't what he wanted, but Damian's done something as as the only legal Wayne, he's got to go get him. Wonderful. or how one phone call changes the direction Tim and Damian are heading, and the aftershocks that come with it.

Momo's Notes: Please don't be thrown off by the title of this one like I was at first. I passed this gem up so many times (like an idiot) because the title made me think it would end up shipping them. It's actually a really good Canon Divergence AU where Lucius tagged Tim into the CEO role of WE before Tim took off to find Bruce. The extra responsibility delays his leaving so he and Damian actually get the chance to get to know each other and bond as brothers during the time Dick and Damian were doing the same as Batman and Robin. Bonus points for the amazing Janet Drake lore in there. I love it when writers make her a cold badass bitch that struggled with human emotions but honestly loved her son.

Hot Dog, French Fries by eggmacguffin

Summary:

Damian was not the sort of boy to mince words; perhaps he could get back to the Manor without alerting Drake to his compromised condition. It would be an exercise in espionage, he decided. or Truth Serum ft. Damian Wayne

Momo's Notes: This is a great one for Tim and Damian having the most normal brotherly relationship in the family even while living the weirdest of lives. Tim is so annoyed by Damian's very existence interrupting his patrol that he misses important signs that all is not right with his little brother. Damian stupidly suffers in silence rather than trust that his older brother won't use all this against him later.

Exit Strategy by smilebackwards

Summary:

Batman needs a Robin and Batman has a Robin. Tim is just extraneous now, vestigial. He’s a bandage over a healed wound. He doesn’t know what he’s hanging on to. Or: Tim didn’t expect his exit strategy from the Batfamily to involve quite so much bonding time with Damian over Wayne Enterprises bureaucracy.

Momo's Notes: Tim is convinced he's unnecessary and unwanted in the Batfamily but in his usual endearingly control freak way he can't stand the idea of leaving a mess behind for the family to clean up (or make worse) when he goes. Along the way he accidentally bonds with Damian (and also Jason). I wish there more fics like this one and Yummy where Tim takes Damian under his wing as a business and high society predator. They're the only two members of the Batfam who were raised to be wealthy princes with family legacies to inherit and I need more authors to explore that!

You'll Change Your Name or Change Your Mind by Samsamiam

Summary:

Tim Drake's journey to setting boundaries, learning to heal, and untangling the trauma Gotham gave him.

Momo's Notes: You wouldn't know it by the summary, but this whole series is full of Tim and Damian bonding. After another blow up with Bruce, and some badly timed commentary from Dick and Jason, Tim decides he needs some space from the family and his very dysfunctional place in it. He leaves Gotham to stay with the Titans but had no real intentions of bucking the status quo forever until it becomes painfully clear that with Tim's absence the role of emotional support/emotional punching bag Robin is falling onto Damian's shoulders. For the first time Tim plants himself in front of Bruce and FORCES him to back off and do better or else. He's determined to be a safe space for Damian to just be a 10 year old for once.

Gossamer Bonds by Solemini

Summary:

Tim hates spiders. Most children of Athena do, and with good reason. Given his druthers, Tim would have been content to simply avoid the little monsters for the rest of his life. Too bad fate – and Damian – had other plans. Or, in which weaving is Serious Business.

Momo's Notes: A Percy Jackson Demigod Au where Bruce is the favorite baby daddy for a lot of Greek gods and thus all of his kids except Damian is a demigod. This particular fic in the series focuses on Tim (child of Athena) and Damian (a human magic user). 10 year old Damian is doing what he did in canon, trying to oust a 14 year old Tim from Robin to take his place because his messed up assassin upbringing makes him believe that's the only way he'll have a place in the family. The fact that Tim is legitimately a blood son of Batman and was raised by him since infancy just adds to Damian's resentment and insecurity. The two end up alone against the homicidal bitterness of the monster Arachne and have to rely on each other to survive. Don't worry if you don't know the Percy Jackson series, it's not really necessary to follow this story. It's mostly just borrowing some of the lore of Demigods and a bit of the characterizations of the gods from it. As long as you know the Batfam and the basics of Greek mythology you're good to go.

The Wound Begins to Bleed by bowditch

Summary:

Now that Tim’s moved back to the manor, he just wants a few afternoons a week without Damian around. Funny how getting that was the catalyst for him becoming a better big brother.

Momo's Notes: Here's another example of Tim and Damian having the most normal sibling relationship of the family. Tim backs Damian's plea to volunteer at an animal shelter just to get rid of him for a few extra hours of peace and quiet. He's forced to step up and be a better big brother when he eventually realizes something is very wrong with Damian.

Into the Brighter Night by shoalsea

Summary:

When an unknown enemy threatens Robin, Gotham's vigilantes come together to keep him safe. Unfortunately, they're protecting the wrong Robin. Or: Tim Drake plans his own rescue. Things get complicated.

Momo's Notes: Finally a fic that's almost entirely in Damian's pov! A dangerous alien force threatens to obliterate anyone standing between them and Robin so the Batfamily (minus Bruce and Alfred who are out of town) scramble to keep their youngest safe. They failed to realize until it's too late that the case the enemy is referencing was before Damian's time in uniform. Damian is forced to deal with the fallout of Tim protecting him and the family slowly crumbling at the loss as they wait to see if Tim's insane plan will bring him back to them. Damian's slow realization of Tim's importance to the family, and to him, is handled really well. Bonus points for the sheer chaos and fun that the Young Justice crew bring to this. It's not often a fic is able to capture the unhinged badassery of YJ98!

I’d Mistaken the Truth for a Lie, but You Cared and You Saved Me by Chemical_Processes

Summary:

Tim's been fixing Bruce's mistakes since he became Robin. It only makes sense that he'd step in when it comes to Damian as well.

Momo's Notes: Short but so satisfying! Damian POV of an AU where he and Tim's first meeting goes VERY differently. Damian is new to his father's household and is half indignant and half terrified at how Bruce is treating him (not abusive, just emotionally incompetent as usual). Tim is full swing in his "manage Bruce/Batman to ensure his failure at being human/grief-fueled crashout doesn't destroy anything or anyone" era and isn't going to sit by while Bruce speedruns burning down another father-son relationship.

#Fic Fairy Friday #tim drake #damian wayne #tim and damian #batfamily #batfam #red robin dc #robin dc #dc robin #dc red robin #fic recs #ao3 fanfic #batfamily fics #batbros #batsiblings #ficfairyfriday #fic fairy friday

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suzukiblu · 2 months ago

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How did you spread your Ko-fi/ comms? I've had a Ko-fi of my own set up for a little over a month now but I'm struggling to get any commissioners. Do you have any tips?

disclaimer: This is what worked for specifically me and my specific situation/style/etc and I don't know your specific audience or how you typically interact with them, so take or leave what I say in terms of what seems like useful or helpful information to your own situation. I do have some more specific advice for you in the back half, just I'm gonna be starting out with the "this worked for me" stuff.

Anyway actual answer/info behind the cut, hah. God, this is so long and only mostly organized, I apologize, I just get INTO it sometimes when I get asked this kind of thing.

First and foremost, for clarity's purpose and all: I have been on the internet for literally twenty-five years and am WELL established in fandom, as well as someone who has been reasonably popular and/or well-known in multiple fandoms on multiple sites at multiple times. There are literally people following me who were reading my stuff ten or fifteen or even the full twenty-five years ago. Given your profile says you're in your twenties I may have LITERALLY been online longer than you have been alive, haha.

So like, I've been at this a minute and have a LOT of experience in engaging and maintaining an active audience because that's a thing I value having and therefore do my best to encourage; it just works best for my process. So if you're feeling a little vexed with the response you're getting, know that this is all coming from a much-experienced Old(tm) who has had issues getting commissions and attention several times themselves and just currently has a decent chunk of followers and a very communicative "yes and" writing style and is, as a writer, WILDLY prolific. Like. WILDLY prolific. Genuinely, I am not trying to brag or talk myself up here or anything, I just straight-up feel like I haven't written at all if I don't break 2k in a day ( and even 2k feels kinda low to me at this point ), and I write EVERY day.

Literally. Literally every day. Like I missed two days after I got COVID and solo-drove four hours and needed to sleep for a week to recover, and I missed one day at the beginning of this month because I was real burned out from writing 32k more than usual last month and just needed to veg for a day. That's it, that is it all. Those are literally the only days that I have not written in like, the past SEVERAL months. Like, the high end of "several", to be clear. Occasionally I have a lighter day and only write a few hundred words, but typically I do somewhere in the range of 2.5-3.5k, and on my more productive days I can break 5 or 6k easy. That is the kind of person that you have asked for advice here, haha. 😅 So like . . . I'm low-key a freak, productivity-wise. Like I am the living embodiment of that one interview where George R.R. Martin is staring at Stephen King with visible fear in his eyes as the dude describes how many billions of pages he writes a day like it's no big.

tl;dr: I write SO. SO. MUCH. So much, and ALSO I have a backlog of something like two million words on AO3 and definitely hundreds of thousands more words under my tags list on here on top of that. People get a LOT of content when they get into me, I am MADE of content. I have built up a lot of momentum over time, that's just what's worked for me personally.

Also I'm cheap, ngl. I'm just--I'm very affordable, Ko-fi-wise. So I am sure that helps, considering!

ANYWAY. Some of this advice is not going to sound relevant to Ko-fi, but it is relevant to how I personally use Ko-fi, so yeah, here we go:

Always remember: everyone on the internet has social anxiety. Yes, even the people who don't actually have social anxiety. Just go into everything assuming most people you meet on here are gonna be shy or nervous or just feel awkward striking up a conversation with you out of the blue, especially if they've never really spoken to you before. It doesn't matter if they don't actually have social anxiety, thinking that way just puts you in a mindframe to be mindful when you're talking to them and being mindful in your communication makes people more comfortable with things like messaging you with questions and the prospect of going through the commission process with you.

Generally just assume the best of people's intentions whenever possible, and when their intentions are clearly not the best, just move on and don't engage. It is a lose-lose situation; you are not gonna convince them of anything and you're just gonna look like a dick to people who don't have the context and leave a sour taste in their mouths. Which, long story short, people are just way more likely to enjoy your stuff and WAY more likely to commission you if you're putting your best foot forward whenever possible. I definitely try not to get too negative on here myself; like I'm not doing any toxic positivity or anything, just I am here to vent some feelings and make some friends and enjoy the process, and I wanna cultivate a setup where other people can benefit from that too.

Link. Link link link. How easy is it to find your Ko-fi link? Make it easier than that. Keep it in your pinned post and on the front page of your actual blog and in your back pocket and stapled to your sleeve. When you post a commission, link your commission info in the description. When you talk about your art in general, link your commission info in the body of the text--like for example, "I'm trying to use my Ko-fi more" or "I finished up my last commission, I have some slots open again". ( used my own Ko-fi links for reference here, obviously, hah, but specifically linking to your main page OR just straight to your actual commissions page are both useful options. linking your main page introduces you as a person more effectively, while linking straight to your commissions page removes a step for people and makes it easier for them to find the info they're looking for. )

Communicate! Remind people that your Ko-fi/your commissions exist every now and then. Like, definitely not daily or weekly, but depending on how often you update your blog in general, maybe once every month or couple of months give people a heads up if you've got commission slots open/available. That way they're not awkwardly peering at the pinned post you put up months ago wondering if you're still actively open or just forgot it was in your pinned, and also it gives a heads up to people who might've been thinking about or meaning to commission you that you're available for work.

Post consistently in general; not just about commissions or Ko-fi, obviously, just like making yourself available and open to people and hanging out WITH people. Answer as many asks as you have the spoons to. Talk about stuff you like and stuff you're excited by and into. Like obviously not everyone can do this but I personally post a lot on here and I definitely UPDATE a lot on here; generally speaking if someone swings by my blog once or twice a week, there's gonna be at least a few hundred to a few thousand words of new stuff for them to read ( or SEVERAL thousand, even ). Or to look at, when I'm feeling arty.

Answers asks and make personal posts. Like I'm not saying trauma-dump on your followers or use Tumblr like a diary, definitely, but it's a good idea to give people a bit of an idea about yourself in terms of things like talking about your dog being cute or if you're going to be out of town on vacation or how your process works or just new or different things that you're trying out/experimenting with/interested in. Bluntly put, you want people to remember you are a person who wants to hang out with them and not just a Content Generator to be "liked" and then scrolled on past, and you want to engage with them and try to talk to them when they talk to you and generally be, like, approachable. In my case I just do my best to assume the best of every interaction and try to notice who's regularly popping up in my notifs and remember what I can about them. This does not always work for me because my memory is swiss cheese, but I do what I can there because I very much appreciate people engaging with my stuff ( and also my me, haha ) and I think communicating that kind of thing to people usually makes them feel good, and in turn you feel better about what you're doing and how people are responding to your work, and then you're more motivated TO work and maybe they catch some mistakes for you or have good ideas that vastly, VASTLY improve what you had in mind. The circle of fandom! The life cycle of a WIP!!

Which leads us into: you need to be doing things that are very recognizably You(tm) and cannot just be picked up for free just any random anywhere. Which like, that can be an issue with fanart, obviously, because the internet is FULL of free fanart, so what you probably want is to be looking to court people who are looking for art of their fics/AUs or their own original characters. Like your style is very distinctive for sure, that's definitely a good thing, so leaning into your personal interpretations of characters is a good idea, and it does look like you're doing that with the stuff of yours I've seen. I would just say lean into your own designs and own little quirks of styling and stuff you really love to draw and go hard on all of it. Once you really feel it out, the stuff you are REALLY vibing with is the stuff that is gonna resonate with people the most significantly in the long run, in my experience. Even if it doesn't always get the same level of response as less niche stuff does, it'll very likely get a more DEVOTED response, and people who'll come back for more of it. I did not write so dang much of Darcy Lewis in my MCU days because her fans were uninvested in seeing new content for her, put it that way.

Also, I AM in fact cheap; I have a few different price options on my Ko-fi and two-thirds of them are five bucks or under. The nature of how I personally do Ko-fi means I'm adding words to already-established stories, though, so people are coming in invested and more willing to donate so they can find out what happens next. Which, like, is obviously not something that works with art commissions, unless you're doing something like "when I hit this donation goal I will draw the next page of this comic script I have written in thanks for hitting the goal". But honestly, sometimes doing a limited amount of projects and getting people interested/invested in said projects is more cost-effective in terms of your time and energy and less overwhelming than doing a million different things all at once. Plus it gets your audience more story to chew on in the long run and I have NEVER met anyone who complained about a fuller narrative happening to them.

Mind, I don't actually know if you're the comic-making type, comics are just the first example I thought of, but also you do have to make sure you're giving people enough content to be invested in to begin with. Sticking with the comic example, people aren't gonna donate to see more of a comic if they don't know they LIKE your comics, so doing some shorter ones and posting a nice selection of those first and THEN doing a donation goal is more respectful of your audience because you're clearly actively interested in them and want to make things you can share with them, not just, like, collect their Ko-fi donos, and at the same time it's also just better advertisement for you. Ethical marketing, basically; there's plenty of content you shared freely, and you're also posting the things that get crowdfunded for everyone to see and not paywalling anything, and ideally building some community and making some friends along the way. Which, like, obviously substitute whatever works for you for "comic" here; I personally just find having overarching narratives/stories/settings helps people get invested and enjoy themselves more with your stuff, and also be likelier to REMEMBER your stuff. Come up with an AU, do some little comics or illustrations in it or some design work for it. Just make a thing that is very specifically YOU and what you like.

On that note: get niche. Get weird. You REALLY don't wanna be making stuff that is not as You(tm) as possible and can just be picked up anywhere. You wanna make the kind of stuff where people go "I wanna see more like this, fuck, who else is even MAKING this, alright OP please do me a solid and have more of this on your blog--fuck YEAH you do, look at all this, okay I live here now". In fandom terms: yes, everyone loves Timkon, Timkon'll get likes, it'll probably even get comments, but if you really want to find the diehards who are gonna lock in and ENGAGE, you wanna make sure you also do the niche shit that you're telling yourself everyone else is gonna think is too weird or just not be interested in. Shut up, imposter syndrome, people LOVE weird! People WANT weird, this is fandom, we're a largely queer subculture that's reclaiming our modern mythologies from capitalism, we're not here for the normie shit! We'd be rereading canon again if we just wanted the normie shit!

Seriously, being openly weird and leaning into said weird is a VERY definite reason that people recognize and remember my writing as opposed to, like, just consuming it and moving on without even noticing there was an author involved. If people vibe real hard with the themes you get really into working with or really like the unique parts of your style/voice or appreciate the way you handle certain subjects/characters/weird niche shit, they're a lot likelier to remember you and either come back or just stick around from the start. Like attracts like and your "like" will be delighted to have found you, and you will get to enjoy the benefits of BEING found by your fellow niche weirdos and all be thriving together! Everyone wins!

Also, I have some more specifically tailored practical advice/critique that is based off my immediate reactions to what I saw when I clicked over to your blog/Ko-fi, which definitely take with a grain of salt because I am giving it without being familiar with your process/situation/audience and from a different position. I'm just trying to be less general and offer some stuff that might be more specifically useful to you. So like, please feel free to hit me up in DMs or asks if you wanna talk about any of this in more detail or get some clarification on anything I'm saying here, this is just what I've got from my initial impressions and off the dome.

Also-also, again, this is all based on what's worked for me personally, so I'm sure there's some stuff that might not be applicable to or just not vibe with you because of that. So like please don't take this as me trying to smack down what you've been doing so far or anything, I'm just trying to be thorough in building on it and also, like, my graphic design experience definitely slipped into some of this, hah.

So to start I took a quick look at your blog to see how easy it was to find your Ko-fi and then a quick peek at your Ko-fi itself to see how it was set up. I found your Ko-fi immediately, which was good! Having it in both your bio and your pinned is definitely the right idea. I did have to expand your bio to find the link that was listed in there, which not everyone will do while scrolling past, but that's just like, nitpicking on my part since you do have the pinned post directly beneath it. I just am very much "make literally everything as easy as possible for everyone ever in every possible way".

It'd probably be helpful to mention that you're open for commissions in the "about" on your Ko-fi's front page so people don't have to scroll too far or click any links to find that out/have that confirmed. You may also wanna either slim down the descriptions in your commissions listings or break them up into paragraphs; you wanna do your best to avoid big solid blocks of text because people are likelier to only skim those and therefore less likely to absorb the information.

Skimming is also bad because it means people are less likely to notice that something you're describing appeals to them, and are way MORE likely to end up confused. "Confused" ups the chances that they just decide they don't wanna bother you by asking for clarification, given they might feel stressed by asking or pressured to buy or just like they're bothering you.

Avoiding text blocks is also just gonna make your descriptions wayyyyy easier to read for people who are dyslexic or have vision problems or possibly didn't learn English as their first language ( depending on their fluency for that last one, obviously, but you never know so yeah ). Basically you wanna make the commission process as quick and effortless and A-to-B as possible for people; your goal is "how can I make this process as close to one-click shopping for people?" Your goal is to become the Occam's Razor of commissions.

Your promo sheet on Tumblr I'd say could be an issue in the sense that it's a little difficult to read; you want people to not have to think about it to clock it as what it is. I only immediately knew it was a commissions sheet because I went in looking for one, and you want people to INSTANTLY know it is a commissions sheet. Like, before they even process anything about it, they should have the instinctive recognition of "this is a commissions sheet" and be primed to read a commissions sheet.

The main issue I see is that the sheet's layout is pretty dense and lacks visual flow in its composition; the prices are scattered and the font on the header is hard to read at a glance; my reflexive assumption from the moment it took to recognize it as text and the overall layout of the graphic was that it was a border, not a header. And like, I figured it out like half a second later, yeah, but that first couple of seconds can disorient or confuse people or just make them just scroll by without stopping to read, because it's not a tall image and the image is ALWAYS your best chance to catch somebody's eye, especially when deliberately going for art commissions.

The first thing I actually read off the sheet was "X no NSFW GORE", which I was initially unclear on the meaning of and had to reread to realize what you meant, but either way is not the first thing you want me to read; it should definitely be on the sheet and very visible, but not positioned to be the first thing someone's eye goes to. It belongs off to the side in a lower corner or just over on the right-hand side. Right now it's too high and too emphasized in comparison to the actual header, which is very much what you WANT people reading first.

There's almost no negative space on the sheet and some of the example art you've included is shrunk down so small that it's REALLY hard to read unless you've seen the larger pieces before, so I think considering doing two or three complementing slides so you can spread out your offerings/pricing and make your examples bigger would really be helpful there. I think it's a really good idea to include multiple pieces as examples, it shows your range and makes it clear what people are gonna be getting for their money; that's definitely the way to go imo. You just also wanna be sure that people can see the details and get the full vibe of your art and the work you put into it. Like, I REALLY love that pic of Match you have down at the bottom, full disclosure I realize we have like never spoken but it is literally my phone background and has been since the day I first saw it ( my lock screen being the complementing Kon pic, natch ), but you can't see any of the cool little details I know are in it with it shrunk down that small. I wanna see his eyes and the detail in his hair and the phone cord wrapped around his throat and the heart freckles, I LOVE those dang heart freckles! And like, those are also interesting little quirks and creative things that will make people think, "oh, I like how that looks, if I commission this person I'll get a cool pose or creative styling or fun details out of it!", so they are definitely the kind of thing you should make sure to show off when you are showing off your work.

I personally tend to go for vertical posts over horizontal ones, given Tumblr is meant to be scrolled and it's more important that people's eyes get caught by something in the scrolling process than that your graphic expands across the screen in the best fit; a lot of people won't even click on the image to expand it anyway. You do want to make sure it'll stay readable if they DO click, of course, so I'd personally recommend stacking two or three horizontally-composed sheets on top of each other to make the POST'S composition vertical. Scrolling down is how people traverse this site; you want to lean into presentations that read well when they're being scrolled down.

The accompanying text below the actual sheet is also not as neatly balanced/formatted as it could be, so it looks less . . . hm, less INTENTIONAL, maybe? Less thought-out than it could be, at least. It makes it harder to read at first glance and doesn't give off a professional vibe. Using bullet points or indents or headers can help with that kind of thing and just make it easier for the eye to follow along and for people to read/focus on what you're saying. ESPECIALLY when you're doing promos/price lists you want to have the most stripped-down and functional version of the text you can manage. You wanna get your point across as clear and succinct as you can and make sure there's negative space around your text so the words can be read quickly and the text itself can breathe, visually-speaking. Negative space is your friend.

Yes I realize talking about the VISUALS of text is a little weird but listen man, you're an artist, you get what I'm saying here. You wanna make the actual first-glance look of your text aesthetically appealing and easy to follow through at the pace and in the order you want it followed. Which like, takes some practice, obviously, but again, I have been here for twenty-five years, haha. Just this is a very visual site and very scroll-oriented, so you wanna do your best to be eye-catching! That's why I frequently post my finished fics with a little accompanying image, just to make sure they stick out to people in the tags.

uhhhhh okay this was a lot, lol, sorry for dumping a ton of info all at once there, but hopefully some of it will be helpful to you! Even if some of it probably sounds weird and way too concerned with curb appeal, haha. Sometimes you just gotta put in some grind and build your momentum, sometimes it's really just that; in the meantime, just try to be approachable and enjoy yourself! If you build it, they will come.

#artisicallya-rambo #rinquiry

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lightningant · 7 months ago

Note

well if you don’t have anything against the author of “what he grows to be” because of the incestuous nature of this specific fic, i think “and the living will envy the dead” might work better since it’s a time travel fix it and they’re both the same age. the writing really is great and harry isn’t a wet rag without an ounce of personality or intelligence — which i hate with a burning passion. i actually find their version of both harry and tom to be pretty true to their canonical versions.

also, speaking of fanfiction and recommendations, do you have a list of tomarry fanfics you really like? specifically with a good characterization of harry? i really enjoy your writing, so i think anything you’d recommend would be up my alley as well.

Oh fuck YEAAAAAAH baby thanks for the rec! I'm tolerant of shivering foal Harry but only if it has narration establishing why his character is so different, so I can take "AU where Harry is different" as a facet of the pitch. Generally they don't inspire much passion but I still flip through them so I can look at blorbo some more

I only have two Tomarry fics I actually got into:

Lover's Spit, where Tom is a slur-regurgitating autistic edgelord who was accidentally groomed into being a goreposting stalker at 10 years old, which I love for personal reasons. I think it remasters the concept of forgiveness by rooting it in this really recognizable and horrific empathy-barren environment Tom was basically forged in. The shock content and proximity to known quantities of depravity make it extremely dark for a modern reader. But some of the best prose I've ever read in fanfiction period and funny as fuck

Consumption which is a pseudo-hanahaki I finished this morning and seamlessly merges the lightning generation and its story beats into the Grindelwald time period, with a non-linear dance between their childhood friends dynamic (which is incredible) and Harry trying to unravel what's going on with Tom in the now. I gasped multiple times

I'm generally more hesitant about ongoing fics. If one of these end up in a weird place feel free to blow my brains out:

Hole in the Wall is a prison sex smutfic, and one of the kinks is that Harry is turned into a braindead wet rag specifically because he's being kept stable from nonstop dementor attacks by being put into 24/7 subspace, which is really putting elbow grease into applying the setting. Warning for rape between the couple; it's shocking but warned for appropriately.

Strings of Fate is same age time travel. Has the singular most deranged flanderized Tom Riddle ever and I am absolutely eating up. I was just skimming until Tom decides on what's going on and what's WRONG WITH HIMMMMM WHAT THE FUCK IS HIS PROBLEMMMM

VII is a whump/recovery story and one of those trope button-pushers so not stringently IC or even that serious but ohhhh gooddddd my buttons they're being pushed my buttons my buttons

The Pleasure, The Privilege is a haunting horror story. Literally just "what if Voldemort gets dosed with amortentia and is exactly as evil". Very very Hannibalcore (gore included).

Leaving out fics I'm in the middle of reading or have in my backlog or haven't hit the premise so I don't know if it'll stick.

#asks #recs

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inbabylontheywept · 9 months ago

Text

So. So. I have a horrific backlog in my inbox, and past attempts at answering it have generated more asks. Generally at a higher rate than I could answer the asks. Exceeding escape velocity. And I've been mulling over how to solve this, and my idea was to create a super-bus answer post. It'll be a little lengthy, so, you know. Click read more at your own risk. Roll them dice.

Well, you clicked it. God speed and god bless.

--- @meowserita says

I feel obligated to tell you i stayed up till four am reading a bunch of you stories, because they're incredible. Also feel like saying that the only other times ive stayed up this late in recent memory is when i was binge reading one piece so take that as you will. We'll see how much i regret this but odds are i wont like i didnt regret staying up reading one piece

Hahaha! Ha! Oof. I am extremely flattered and awed and impressed but also, my stories are going to be there tomorrow, and the next day, and maybe forever depending on how this whole "civilization" thing pans out. So. Sleep more. But also thank you for being a mega fan.

I had like, a week long binge of Naruto in middleschool that was awful. I didn't even like the show that much. People recommend anime to me now, and I feel like a former alcoholic turning down drinks at a party. No thank you, there's a 99% that will simply help be relax after work one day and a 1% chance that will ruin my life and I'll catch myself unironically saying "believe it!" years later, and I just can't take that chance. I have too many people depending on me.

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Anonymous says

i see you are also from Utah. do you have a favorite swig menu item

No. I've never actually been into a Swig. There were a few soda shops back in AZ, but I never really got them either - I'm still not sure how a gummy shark in a blue soda is supposed to make it taste better.

My poison is generally gas station stuff. Slurpees are amazing, and I also like their little pickled sausage snack things. Probably literal poison, but they call to me.

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Anonymous says

four more messages in my head. four more tests of sanity.

hm. troubling. hope you pass.

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Anonymous says

yooo “fireflies infinity mirror room” mention!!! i lived in Tempe for a few years…one time i was making my way down the escalator from the PHX skytrain and there was a group of like 20-30 Mormons (?) at the base of the escalator waiting there to welcome out-of-state Mormons to some sort of Mormon convention in…well, Mesa, presumably? google is now telling me it may have been for the Easter pageant.

That does sound likely. My grandpa was actually in charge of the easter pageant for a few years down there - I actually broke my arm on the little pony Mary rides to Bethlehem. I was trying to keep my little brother and sister on it by using my arms as a seatbelt, but when they fell off anyway, I just had to kids land on my arm from 6 foot drop and got blessed me with a third elbow. I had some crazy ideas on how to become a professional baseball player with it, but my dad insisted we go to the hospital to do drugs, and when I woke up they fixed the damn thing. Could've gone pro.

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@synapticwanderer says

hello! just wanted to say I'm a big fan, your stories make me laugh and sometimes cry and sometimes both, sometimes at once. when my partner asks me what I'm laughing so hard at I read them to them, and sometimes I just go read them to them anyway. thank you for sharing your delightful way with words with us, and I hope you don't mind that I've got notifications on for your posts (you and I think three other writers at the moment) anyway, have a great day!

I don't mind! I hope I haven't ruined that privilege, actually, I shitpost more than most people think. I like mixing happy and sad as well as silly and earnest. But. Yes. A lot of shitposts.

Anyway, thank you for the comment! Happy trails.

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@funnynamedottxt says

I kept hearing about your wrestling post, and then I saw the word “bisexual” when you were talking about it, so, needless to say, I sought it out immediately.

And, while this isn’t technically part of the actual post, in that reblog where you were talking to that one dude about sexism and societal issues and shit, you made some pussy joke about Lake Michigan and that may just be the best thing I’ve read all week.

Sorry about the run on sentence btw, I know it probably deeply hurts the writer in you, but I find it funny and am too lazy to self-censor sooooo

I'm glad you had a good time reading it. I don't know which gender I'd imagine the great lakes as to be honest. I just know that their thing with Michigan is beautiful and would be very distracting should I ever become an astronaut. I don't want to make fun of people for wanting a better world, and I would actually say I did a botch job on my response. Didn't realize it until several hundred people got mad at me. I know I write well, and the catch .22 of that is that people assume that my ability to read the room is probably higher than it is.

Anyway. I don't fault them for getting mad. Not my finest hour.

And I'm not a snob about run on sentences by the way. English teachers want to make rules about how you write and rules to follow, but that's because they need to grade by rubrics for it to be fair. It turns an art form into something mechanical though. Just make it natural and the rest comes after.

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@00x7 says

Hi. I hope you're doing well.

I had read your wrestling story. I had not laughed so hard in a great many years. I thank you for this, though I am also sympathetic to your misfortunes.

There was enough going on that I was naturally curious if you were or are Mormon, a curiosity born from being someone who grew up as such myself (something that being queer doesn't really bump up nicely against, though you hardly would need to hear such a thing from me), and which visiting your blog quickly answered for me.

Of course, scrolling down for two seconds immediately had me realize that you were also the kid with the grandpa and the worms. I had read the worm story before, but visiting somewhere and realizing it was you was a nearly transcendent experience. My third eye was rather forcibly opened. What a storied life you have had.

Anyway, as an amateur writer, I'm very happy to have found your blog. We don't know eachother, but your words resonate with me.

Whenever you read this, I hope you have a good one. Thank you.

Oh! That's my favorite thing - when people like two different stories with very different tones. It's kind of a would you love me if I wasn't beautiful sort of question - would you like my writing if it wasn't purely silly? And it makes me happy when the answer is yes.

I actually wandered through your blog to try and find your writing, but I didn't have much luck. I'd love to see some, if you're willing. Send me a link if you keep it on another platform. I couldn't do a critique if I wanted to - all my writing knowledge is just gut level stuff that I don't know how to share - but it's just a fun way to know people. And sometimes, I see a style and I go ah, I can pick a few shiny bits off this and wear them around.

---

@turtletotem says Your bio says to tell you if we write, so, new follower here, and i write! Lots of fanfic (links in bio) and also original fiction under Shelly Greene and Elizabeth Belyeu (both on Amazon). Feel free to check it out, but I won’t take it personal if you don’t, lol.

I checked your pages on AO3 for this, and alas - No snippets for me first. You write books and novels, which is something I've always aspired towards, and never really suceeded at. I had this view when I started writing short stories that I'd eventually writer longer stories and serials and in fact I just got better at writing short stories. Which isn't much of a tragedy, actually, but it's a road I haven't really moved forward on yet. Writer to writer.

As a reader, I already have several books I've promised to read people. If you have any shorter works (less than 5k words?) lob them my way though! c

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Anonymous says

Just read your post about Atlas Shrugged (my condolences, comrade) and I must, simply MUST ask if you've ever heard of The Cobra Commander Dialogues? It asks the very important question "what if Cobra Commander was there and found this all at best inane and stupid, and at worst it offended his villainous sensibilities?" As someone who hasn't read the book OR watched the cartoon I found it very entertaining!

I just took a peeksies at those - they're beautiful. Dialogue is a great weakness of mine, and it is hard not to be a little envious of this writer. Thanks for sharing this with me.

For the curious

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Anonymous says

Your story about the breakup and the olives and the Slim Jim's and your dad made me cry -- not like, tear up, but an actual good cry for a couple minutes. I don't totally know why I reacted like that but I definitely felt better in some way afterwards. So, thanks. I think I'm gonna remember that story for the rest of my life.

The story stuck with me both because everyone involved was good. My ex's dad, the neighbor, my dad - everyone was doing their best. And it was true, wasn't it? Brains are good at remembering bad things. It's a breakup. And it hurt like hell. But the pain of that memory carries with it this feeling well, even when things suck, people don't. I also liked this view of my dad parenting so consciously. It wasn't a background thing to him. He thought a lot about what he was doing, and what he was saying, and how he was treating me. I owe him big for that.

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Anonymous says

What did you do with the left shoes after your date?

So, I think teenagers like being able to convey fuck you, I do what I want through their clothes. There are punk scenes for that, and goth, and other things. My way of doing that was just dressing aggressively badly. Mismatched plaids and sports jackets meant for people half my height and twice my width, purchased from goodwill, and basketball shorts mixed with knee high socks and on and on. That was part of my teenage rebellion.

Anyway, I added the shoes in and just wore mismatching shoes to make the outfit worse, both because it was a fashion crime, and because it was a litltle inside joke with my friends who knew the story. I wound up losing them over the years because I would use the left sets as makeshift projectiles.

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@galapagos-spinch says

I just wanted to compliment you on your story about wrestling a girl in middle school, you're a fantastic writer

Thanks. I have some regrets about that story, but it was fun to write, and it from a craft standpoint, i am proud of it. I appreciate the comment. :)

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Anonymous says

equality is when young boys aren't allowed physical boundaries i guess

Eesh. We're getting to wrestling asks. Look, when we all signed up for wrestling, we signed up to wrestle girls. It's part of the sport. If your boundary is to not wrestle girls, the way you maintain it is by not signing up for wrestling. The point of my response, which I did not convey clearly enough, was to ask for forgiveness for failure. A middle school boy falling short of the right thing is different from a middle school boy seeking to do the wrong thing, and as a bar, it's...

It's the kind of thing I'd hope people would go, Well, they're shits, but I can't hate them over it. Don't defend us as having done the right thing - we did not. Just, have some grace for the weakness of teens. They're still growing, and if you put too much pressure on them, they'll crumble. And we crumbled.

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Anonymous says

Hey there! Sorry, not actually a question, just wanted to say I've seen posts of yours reblogged before on occasion and I finally started following you because you're a gifted storyteller and your stories are hilarious, poignant, or both!

Oh! A relief. This is so nice. Thank you. Hopefully you read this. Maybe I should turn anonymous asks off or something going forward if I set myself on doing more of these super-bus replies.

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Anonymous says

i am crying with laughter at your stories. the way you tell them is perfect, please never stop

I'll try. I had a several month period of no writing after burning out on HFY. Wasn't sure how to make a genre change. I'll probably have more periods of quiet like that, but to be honest, my writing is probably my favorite thing that I do. I like engineering, and I'm pretty good at it, but I love this, and I am very good at it, and in periods where I don't write it feels almost painful.

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@auronlu says

just sending you some gentle love from an older queer person.

My parents moved to Utah after I went to grad school. I am eternally grateful that my dad turned down that promotion the first time, when I was about to enter high school, because I didn't want to lose my friends and move to Utah and go to school there in the 80s.

So I escaped, but I've seen a little bit of what you had to go through and I've heard from some of my mom's friends that she's made there how hard it is when you don't conform. I'm glad you were able to escape and that you have your own life now.

I bet that girl remembers you and that when these topics come up, she's not as willing to throw people like us under the bus without question.

you did the best you could in a very difficult situation, and by being you, you helped some of the next generation realize the lines they're told about queer people may not be true.

There may have been a closeted or questioning kid in that class, reassured by your example or simple refusal to show prejudice. you don't know what positive impact you had on those kids, but you went in with the best intentions you could and I have a feeling you did more good than you know.

take care and have a good life

( note: my main blog is actuslly @sepdet )

This is actually one of the earliest asks that I didn't want to answer because I didn't want to lose it. For anyone else looking, they're talking about a story I told about teaching primary as a Mormon.

I hope she does. I don't think anyone in the ward ever actually knew I was bi - I kept that very close to my chest. Even after I left. The kids certainly didn't. But they knew that I loved them very much, and they apparently felt strongly that I was a good person. I think the lesson I gave them was that a person can leave the church and still be good. I hope that serves them well.

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@karmaajr says

UR A FUNNY GUY 🫵

aw yissssss

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@abisexualfrog says

Hello, I just wanted to say that I really like your stories and the way you write, your style

Sometimes I’m in a bad mood and then I go read a few of your stories -I especially like the ones at your work- and it cheers me up because of how funny it is. (The fridge story? So good)(oh and the water balloon and and and… endless)

Im not super good at compliment because well English isn’t my first language and all that but I figured I could still tell you, can’t hurt.

So yeah I really really enjoy your writing!! It’s so good!

And not just the stories of things that happened to you, the other ones too, they are also very good

This is another one of the ones I kept because I didn't want to lose it.

Thank you for reading my stories. Your english is fantastic. And it is rare to get comments on my old fictional sci-fi pieces - those were kind of my baby's-first-steps. If you read those you are in deep, and I am incredibly touched.

I'd hug you if I could.

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@rockinhand says

the red bun on those burgers was actually dyed via Beets. i tried it when it was around and it was unremarkable

I know what this is referring to. Surprisingly. But I will leave it be and just enjoy have this remain esoteric bordering on arcane.

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@newkittypoom says

i saw your reblog on that falin fanart and i was like "wait. this is the 28 eggs snake guy?" and i came from the post about your wrasslin days and i saw you answer an ask about being ex-mormon and well. im definitely following the blog for your writing. thanks for sharing these stories!

thanks for commenting! It's flattering to get recognized online. Means my writing voice is distinct. Got a little niche and I'm thrivin' in it.

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Anonymous says

I'm sure someone must have pointed this out by now, but you weren't dating just because she thought you were dating. If that wasn't the kind of relationship you thought you were in, you weren't dating. She was just being presumptuous. You didn't "accidentally date" someone. You can't. Dating is a mutual, consensual thing.

Yeah. Yeah. Phrasing and all.

@nbspacegay says

(1)

Hi I read your dating stories they are hilarious. I am spiritually holding hands with you because I too am terrible at dating. I accidentally pterodactyl screamed at my boyfriend when he told me he loved me once. I did also love him. I just panicked, screamed and then quite literally sprinted away. I also did not have the excuse of being in high school because I was in university.

(2)

if you so choose you can publish that last ask, i sent it becuase i thought you and your followers might find it funny

(3)

also sorry for sending you three messages like a lunatic, but also feel free to ignore it

I haven't been ignoring this, it just got buried and then I panicked and it has been crushing me like an ancient marsh, squeezing out all my peaty-bits until all that was left was an ultra-flamable bed of hydrocarbons.

Pterodactyl screaming at your boyfriend is a power move. You should do it more often. I am going to answer more questions that way. I had a customer with a masters in geology ask me why I could not provide their specified sample rate, sample times, and sample counts, and I had to explain to them that you can actually only pick two of those numbers, and the third just happens, and that the numbers they gave me did not work that way. It's like saying "I need to drive 50 miles, and I want to drive at 15 mph for two hours." I'm like, yo, go faster, or drive longer, but you have given me a multiplication problem that does not work. And they kept arguing with me, despite the actuall oscilloscope screen telling them, hey, bozo, that math does not math, and I kept trying to reason with them, when in fact I should have just pterodactyl screamed.

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Anonymous says

When I saw your blog title my first thought was that it's a reference to psalm 137 (it's on my mind since it was just tisha b'av) and was wondering why a nonjew would do that, but then I realized you're a fan of Babylon so it's probably a reference to that. And then I googled it and apparently its also a song. So which one/which combination are you referencing?

Also your blind date story was a fascinating read, it made me laugh. Very impressed by your chutzpah

Oh nvm, saw that you answered the above in another ask, feel free to ignore

No, I totally get it. Mormonism robbed and scrambled the iconography of a lot of religions, but the two it yoinked the most from are the Masons and the Jews. Like, it is my culture now, but I will acknowledge that my culture is what would happen if you asked a 14 year old conman from NY to skin your culture and wear it. I can't imagine how weird it must be to hear us talk.

Glad to have you approval on the blind date story though. That was a nightmare.

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@conkreetmonkey says

Personally I think you should do the egg thing again just for the hell of it. I honestly would because you made it sound fun, but eggs be expensive around these parts

My budget is a liiiiittle bit tight for the next month because my wife is doing occupational therapy, but there's a grocery store nearby that sells quail eggs, and to celebrate her finishing that, I am going to be a dozen and shotgun those bad boys. Hell yeah.

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Anonymous says

bulking must be so easy if you can effortlessly consume 15 raw eggs

No, for two reasons.

The first is that it was not effortless. It was effortful. I had to sweat to get them down. I had to fight them into me. I have a very vivid memory of finishing the eggs, and then leaning over to tie my shoe, and feel the eggs start to actually tip out of me, not even as like, puking, but like emptying water out of a boot. I actually had to sit for a half hour after that for the eggs to actually stay.

The second reason is that eating is easy for me, but gaining muscle mass is not. If I work out like crazy and lift weights, I get very wirey, but I never actually get big. I tried bulking one time, and my muscles stayed the same size while the 20 pounds I gained just went right to my belly and I looked like a grape on a toothpick. Very wild experience. Made my peace with being a skinny nerd.

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Anonymous says

just letting you know that you can sterilise raw eggs by keeping them at 130°F for a few hours, you can do this with a sous vide and eat them with no salmonella concerns

I love tumblr so much but all the people that read a story about some idiot eating 15 raw eggs on an impulse and then went ah, yes, this man clearly owns a sous vide machine and is willing to use it are crazier than I am. Get some realistic expecations of the world. Know your audience. You are setting your bar too high, and will find yourself endlessly disappointed. Stop it. This is why left leaning people are so fucking sad. They read the egg story and think they can solve my life with a sous vide, instead of reading the egg story and realizing that there is nothing in this world that could possibly save my from myself. I am not a stupid person. I am a highly motivated clever person who enjoys doing stupid things. There's no stopping that.

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@brambledboneyards says

Hey OP I just wanted to let you know I was informed when I was younger that farm fresh eggs will not give you salmonella. I would recommend fact checking this, but if it does remain true I hope you can date the cravings once more

This is actually good advice. I know several people who own chickens down here. Bless you.

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@queerdo-mcjewface

Some stores sell pasteurized eggs for recipes that require raw or undercooked eggs

Alas, they only sell egg whites down here, which are flavorless. I want the whole egg experience. The slime, the yolk, the cracking open - I appreciate the advice, but no, it's just not visceral enough.

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@decentmonster says

you'd probably love quail shooters tbh, you can get them at most sushi restaurants and theyre served raw and are really good (also safe to eat)

Also farm-fresh eggs are less likely to have salmonella!!

Two months time, I will eat a dozen raw quail eggs.

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Anonymous says

I want you to know the egg story is literally one of the funniest things I've ever read in my life. I laughed so hard I woke up my husband

I think that was the first little life-short-story thing I posted. Maybe? I'm glad you had fun reading it.

#babylon-lore #there are like 40 asks in this #it took me three hours to answer all of them #BUT I DID #and i love you all #and if you are tagged in this and dont want to read the whole thing just control-f search your username and you'll be fine

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hawkfurze · 3 months ago

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Happy April Fools Day! I ended up getting another April Fools update idea and couldn't help myself going through with it XD

I know its been a while since I updated NQSE and don't worry, it's not going anywhere. I've just been in my last semester of university and the workload this semester has been extra demanding, I've been having to push some stuff to the backburner. Unfortunately NQSE has been one of those things, but only temporarily (I actually had a rare moment the other night where I was able to justify working on the next update for a bit). Unlike In Harmony which currently has a backlog that reaches the end of the semester, NQSE does not have that as I always got updates out shortly after I finished them. I hope this silly April Fools update makes up for that, I drew most of it while on a plane XD I hope to be back to this soon!

And if you like NQSE and wanna read my original story, you can find updates to my OTHER webcomic, In Harmony, on @inharmony-comic

#sum doodles #fan art #the magnus archives #tma #the magnus protocol #tmagp #infinity train #not quite somewhere else #not quite somewhere else au #nqse #amelia hughes #one one #samama khalid #sam khalid #the archivist

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alonelystargazer · 3 months ago

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Take This Lonely Heart 💞

Relationship(s): Fushiguro Megumi/Itadori Yuuji, other minor/background relationships

Rating: Mature

Tags: Alternate Universe - No Curses, Alternate Universe - Modern/College, Coming of Age, Slow Burn, Aged Up Characters, Love Letters, Alternating POV, Fluff, Heavy Angst, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Alcohol Abuse, Childhood Trauma, Suggestive, more tags will be added

Word count: 8.4k, Chapter 1/?

Summary:

Two lonely hearts make a connection at a Christmas Eve party but lose it in the same night. A series of cards and letters brings them closer than they could have ever imagined.

Read it on AO3 here.

Hi everyone! The fic I've been hyping up for months now is finally here, and I hope that you'll follow along on the journey! It's been a wild ride trying to brainstorm, outline, and most of all, WRITE this story, especially after the many times I rewrote this first chapter. I just wanted to make sure I got my vision right, and I think I finally have, so I'm ready to share it!

One thing I want to mention is that I'll be exploring some mature/adult themes in this story and I'll provide any appropriate warnings. That being said, I hope no one comes at me for so-and-so thing that I made sure to tag! Don't read it if it's something that makes you uncomfortable or just aren't interested in, and to my mutuals, no hard feelings if you don't wanna read it for whatever reason!

I'll try to keep a consistent schedule by posting a new chapter every month, and then once I've built a backlog of chapters, my goal will be to post every two weeks. If anyone is interested in asking me things about the story, I'm glad to answer them, but I also have a tag on my blog that you can look through.

Anyway, thanks to everyone who have been showing support for my fic and for waiting so patiently! I hope you all like it!

#itafushi #fushiita #yuuji x megumi #megumi x yuuji #fanfic #my writing #itfs postcards au #please excuse my basic photo editing skills I'm rusty

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nights-at-crystarium · 1 year ago

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June 18 is my birthday, and here's how you can make it a happy one~

There are several ways to support me, with the most vital being:

Patreon! You get a big fat backlog of comic episodes and random art that's yet to go public, exclusive wips, and an exclusive discord channel. Even $1 will do! I honestly prefer $1-5 subs, so that unsubs don't rock the boat too much. The word crowdfunding exists for a reason, 300+ people already believe in it and make my work on Fragments possible.

Patreon pays for my living, but it's still in a spot that sometimes makes me feel anxious, I really need to feel more secure about it. Can't overstate how important this's to me.

Good old kofi! Leave me a tip, get my digital artbook, free emotes, pdf of public Fragments episodes, or early access to new ones. There's also a patreon-like monthly sub, but you only get the rewards via discord, since I don't crosspost patreon stuff directly on kofi.

Fancy an art print? I've got some here!

Broke but still want to support me? Read Fragments here on tumblr, on webtoon or ao3, share it around (via links please, not reposts), reblog anything from me as usual! I encourage and appreciate it when people scroll down to older posts, or binge-interact.

#obligatory disclaimer: there's no expiry date on supporting me #even if you see this post later or become able to sub to patreon later etc i'll always appreciate it

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genericpuff · 4 months ago

Note

The FAQ link sent me straight to the inbox. Do you have a Patreon? (Sorry if you've answered this before.)

Oops, that's not supposed to happen!! I'm at the shop rn but once I'm home I'll take a look at it, I recently changed my site theme so the link might have just broke 🤣

I do have a Patreon, and a Ko-Fi now too as well!! (just recently started a secondary page for Ko-Fi, I haven't finished sprucing it up yet but it's at least setup enough to function lmao) Both are setup for monthly subs, but Ko-Fi is frankly my favorite as it also allows for one-time donations, it supports community goals (which Patreon got rid of, bleh) and its fees are WAY lower, meaning more of what people send me actually gets to me!

That said, I do want to include a disclaimer for anyone finding out for the first time:

Obviously with the nature of Rekindled being fanfiction, I can't directly profit off it, so I'm limited in what I can offer in terms of tier rewards. I'm not exactly keen on running the risk of offering stuff like early access pages or sellable digital downloads of the comic itself, that sort of thing, as it could be held against me as selling Rachel's characters / story / etc. for my own profit. While Patreon overall does offer the "legal grey area" of operating as more of an optional tip jar than a commercial storefront, I would still rather mitigate the risk of legal consequences before they've happened, rather than push my luck and get screwed for it later LMAO

Aa such, most of what I post rn are backlog Twitch VODs from past streams (which includes live footage and commentary of me making "new" episodes) and time lapses of completed episodes ! Stuff that contains Rekindled goodies without it being a direct sales item ;p

Aside from balancing on legal tightropes, I've also just... learned the hard way from past experiences that I'm not the best at maintaining a robust and regular tier reward system 🫣 (thanks ADHD) If I were able to do this as my full-time job, maybe, but ultimately I prefer keeping my crowdfunding platforms simple so I can focus on making what people are really paying for - the continued production of more episodes!

Sooooo with that big disclaimer / explanation aside , if you do decide to check it out, just keep in mind that both platforms are operating more like optional tip jars, with the odd piece of bonus content every now and then from what I can feasibly (and legally) provide !! I try my best to upload regularly enough for the monthly subscription to be "worth it", but that's why I also have a Ko-Fi setup now too, for people who would rather just make one time donations or don't want to deal with another monthly subscription cost (mood)

Regardless, all the money that I earn from Patreon, Ko-Fi, and Twitch goes back into Rekindled in some way or another! Whether it's helping cover costs for my drawing software or paying for new brushes / assets, or even just helping with our Internet bill so that I can keep posting LMAO I'm super grateful to those who have or are currently tucking some extra change into my pocket to help support my work and get me by, every little bit counts 🤗💖

(and ofc for those who don't have the means to support with money - reading my work, commenting on it, reblogging it, etc. is super helpful too!!! All your kind words and fun discussions and theories in the tags and fanart and everything in between are their own form of compensation, because it brings me immense amounts of joy and constantly reminds me why I do what I do 🥺💖)

#lore rekindled ama #anon ama #ask me anything #ama #anon ask me anything #patreon #ko-fi #self post

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ladykailitha · 1 year ago

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Icarus Part 12

I've decided that since I have a fair amount of backlog on the three I've been doing WIP Wednesday for, that I'd post some of them to give me time to work on the rom-com AU more.

I recommend going back and re-reading part 11 at least before reading this one to be on the safe side.

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11

The Fallen boys need a break and Robin and Chrissy meet up with Nancy.

****

Things were going really well in the studio now that they had Bob Newby as their producer and their studio was closer to home so they could live their normal lives and still be in the studio recording.

It was the happiest the band had been in awhile. Which was why Steve should have seen it coming. The dark cloud on the horizon.

Shane was late.

That wasn’t to say that it was out of the ordinary or whatever, but it was now two hours late and Spence was pissed.

“When I get my hands on his scrawny neck,” he hissed. “I’m going to kill him.”

Simon rolled his eyes. “You’re just upset because it’s means you’ll be late for your date or whatever with Nadia. He’ll be here.”

“That’s not true and you know it, Asmodeus,” Spence bit out. “This is the third time this week and yeah, so what if I have a life outside of this, but that’s not why.”

Just then Shane stumbled in. He looked like absolute shit. His clothes were disheveled, his hair was a mess, and he wore dark sunglasses. Clutched to his chest was a large coffee.

“Fuck...” he mumbled as he shambled over to the sofa. He lowered himself gently onto the thing with a stream of curses. “Sorry I’m late, but my hookup last night turned off my alarm.”

He took a long sip of his coffee and rubbed his temple. He had finished most of the coffee when he realized that no one had said a word since he arrived.

The door opened and Bob and Robin entered the room looking more than a little cross.

Shane flashed them a smile. “Uh oh, it looks like I upset both mom and dad. So I was a little late. It happens.”

“But it shouldn’t be happening,” Spence said with a scowl. “This isn’t the first time. Hell, it’s not even the first time this week.”

Shane frowned, setting his coffee on the floor between his feet. He rubbed his temples as he struggled to think back. “That can’t be right, it’s only Monday, right?”

Everyone shared concerned glances.

“Astraeus,” Steve said slowly, “it’s Thursday.”

Bob crossed his arms in front of his chest. “You were late on Sunday, Monday and today, Astraeus.”

Shane stared up at them in open shock and disbelief. “There’s no way!” He pulled out his phone and looked at the date.

“Shit.”

“What’s been going on, man?” Simon asked, concerned for the first time. He hadn’t realized how often it had been and was giving Spence shit for wanting to be with his girlfriend.

Shane shook his head. “I have money for the first time in my life. I mean proper money. My parents always had enough to make sure we got into the things we wanted; sports, drama, music, you name it, but there wasn’t a lot of money to go around after, you know? I had to pay for my college education myself and I just wanted to live a little. Spread the money around, even if I couldn’t tell them what I did for a living, they don’t really care.”

“I can see that,” Robin said. “I think we all breathing easier, regardless of our backgrounds because the money we’re getting has pretty much set us up for life if it all went to shit tomorrow, which I really wouldn’t recommend, by the way.”

Shane let out a huff of breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. “I really didn’t mean to go off like that, I’ll cut back to just the weekends. I promise.”

Robin and Bob shared a glance.

“That’s strike one, Astraeus,” Bob said, “I don’t take slackers lightly. You want me to continue to work for you guys, you’ve got to step it up.”

Shane nodded empathically. “Can we have a day off a week though? It doesn’t have to be on the weekend, but this seven days a week is really hard.”

Robin blinked at him a moment. “You guys have been coming every day?”

The band looked around at each and all gave a collective shrug.

She turned to Bob. “Is that your schedule?”

Bob’s jaw dropped and he shook his head. “I only do that if there’s a rush to get the album out, which I understood there wasn’t. I don’t how we got on working every day, but Astraeus is correct they need a day off.”

“What works best for everyone?”

The band worked out a better schedule that worked for everyone with it ending with Bob giving everyone the rest of the week off, giving them strict instructions to talk to him about those sort of things before it got to this point.

Robin clapped her hands once. “Right, now that we’ve got that settled, we’re still meeting up at Abbadon’s for dinner to discuss my meeting with Nancy. My meeting is at three and dinner is at six, so don’t be late.” She glared at Shane and he raised his hands in surrender.

“See you all then!”

****

Robin straightened her wig in her rearview mirror and added more lipstick. She wore special contacts that changed her bright blue eyes to a more common brown color. She was dressed in slim fitting white slacks with a bright pink silk blouse and a black leather aviator’s jacket. She hated wearing these clothes, they just weren’t her. At least she didn’t have to wear high heels to this thing. She would have broken an ankle for sure.

But she would sell her soul to the devil if it meant that Steve got to do what he loved. And it wasn’t as though she didn’t love her job either. But Eddie was right, she was on her last frayed nerve and that wouldn’t do her boys any good.

She slid out of her Maserati MC20 and walked up to the restaurant. The Corroded Coffin’s manager, Chrissy Cunningham was going to be there as a mediator.

Robin hadn’t told Steve this, but Chrissy knew who she was. Not the band, she didn’t know that, but she knew that Celeste Baptiste was Robin Buckley. It was just something Robin felt she needed to know before going in there with Nancy. That she personally had a stake in the game, even if it was just as Steve’s best friend.

Chrissy loved the idea of even their manager having an alter ego and it made Robin feel better about her choice to be someone else.

Robin and Chrissy kissed each other’s cheeks in greeting and Robin sat down.

“She’s not here yet?” she asked, looking at her matching watch.

Chrissy shook her head. “She’s running a little behind. One of her clients blew up the internet last night and she’s been having to play hard ball to keep it from destroying their career.”

Robin leaned in close. “Ooh, do you know who it was?”

“That’s for me to know,” Nancy said from above them, “and for you to never find out.”

Robin looked up at her and was struck on how good she looked. It was almost unfair how good she looked.

She was wearing a grey plaid blazer with the sleeves rolled up over a white button shirt and a black pencil skirt. She wore grey boots and matching sunglasses, glasses she took off with a shake of her dark curls.

Robin gulped. Nancy had been intimidating enough in high school, but now she could stare down a raging bull and come away unscathed.

“Hello, ladies,” Nancy said with a smile. “I’m sorry I was late, but I think I managed a god damn miracle and could eat an entire salad bar.”

Nancy sat down and put her phone in her purse.

“Oh are you vegan?” Chrissy asked as the waiter came up with a pitcher of water. Nancy waved him off and ordered a rosé.

“Just vegetarian,” she said with a shake of her head. “I love cheese too much. Plus, I knew a militant vegan and they scare me.”

Robin laughed. “Couldn’t be me, I went full vegan last year and haven’t looked back.”

Nancy and Chrissy both winced, but for different reasons, Nancy for her comment about militant vegans and Chrissy, well...

“I picked this place because it has the best rib eye steak on the planet,” she said with a grimace. “That’s not going to bother either of you if I order that, right?”

Nancy and Robin shared a glance and then shook their heads.

“My best friend loves steak,” Robin said, “It’s his choice to eat it, I just a have a problem with the ethical consumption of meat and other animal products.”

“Most of my clients eat meat,” Nancy agreed. “I’m not about to piss them off because I don’t like the taste.”

Chrissy relaxed and let out a long sigh. “Great!”

She picked up her menu to hide her embarrassment. A few minutes later, their waiter came back and they placed their orders.

Nancy had ordered a pasta with roasted sun dried tomatoes and mushrooms and Robin ordered a simple salad with a vinaigrette.

As they waited for their food, Nancy got down to business. “So as I understand it, the band The Fallen is looking for an agent to help with the legal and PR aspect of their brand, correct?”

Robin nodded, twisting her napkin nervously. Normally as Celeste, she was cooler under pressure but Nancy scared her. Not because of anything she could do to her specifically, but because what she could do to her boys.

Chrissy reached out and laid her hand over Robin’s fidgeting ones. Robin let out a shuddered breath.

“Normally bands like theirs have teams and teams of people doing all the work,” Robin said, “but with the secrecy surrounding their identities the more people that know the easier it is for a leak.”

Nancy nodded. “It’s certainly not the usual thing. But I’ve got a few clients that are strict about their identities and it wouldn’t be a problem, but as I told Chrissy, I would have know everything about them so that I can do my upmost to protect them.”

“Did you sign the NDA?” Robin asked, straightening her spine. This was something she was good at. Protecting her boys and she would do it with the fierceness of a mother bear and her cubs.

Nancy picked up her briefcase and opened it up. She took out a folder and handed it to Robin. Robin looked it over and then nodded.

She stuck it in her purse and pulled out a hard portfolio and slid it across to Nancy. Chrissy squeezed her hand as Nancy read through the documents. Their food arrived in the interim and she set it aside. She steepled her hands and planted her elbows on the table.

“How much of this do you know?” she asked Chrissy.

“Only what I needed to which is who Celeste is,” she replied, “and that both her and Abbadon have a history with you that could be trouble for a lot of people, not just the band.”

Nancy nodded and took a bite of her food before saying anything else. Chrissy and Robin exchanged glances but started eating as well. More for something to do in the intervening silence than because they were actually interested in food at that moment.

After a few moments Nancy blotted her lips with her napkin and set it next to her plate. “This is not what I was expecting when I heard that you had concerns about my professionalism and in all honesty, this is easier to understand then a manager thinking they don’t need the help of an agent when they really do.”

Chrissy and Robin shared a glance.

“Is that something that’s common?” Chrissy asked. Corroded Coffin had already had Nancy as their agent when she became their manager five years ago. They had outgrown their former manager Murray Bauman and was looking for someone younger to manage them so they hired her.

Nancy nodded. “It is.” She turned to Robin. “You’re his best friend, right? The quirky band chick who was always working with him?”

Robin was impressed with her way of asking the question without revealing anything significant about their identity. She brought her finger up to her contact and moved it aside to show the blue underneath before sliding it back into place.

“I’m assuming I’m the last resort?” Nancy asked after taking another bite of food.

Robin and Chrissy shared another glance.

“Not in the way you mean,” Chrissy explained. “I gave her a list of agents that might be able to have them on as clients and we’ve met with a couple of them but decided even before they got to what’s in the folder that they weren’t suitable for their needs.”

“The double lives aspect, I suspect.”

“Both of them wanted to push them into revealing themselves,” Robin said, nodding. “Which was completely off the table.”

Nancy licked her bottom lip and her eyes narrowed. “Is that off the table indefinitely or will we circle back to that sometime in the future?”

Robin rolled her eyes. “There’s no way to predict if they’re going to change their mind five-six years down the line.”

“I’m going to be frank,” she said, “I do not have a problem repping them. Not even Abbadon. But I understand there will be some awkwardness on both sides at first. I will even apologize in person. Because the fact of the matter is, I did hurt him. I strung him along until something better came along and then didn’t even have the decency to break up with him before moving on. I was young and stupid and even worse, I’m not even with that guy anymore. Like with me and Abbadon, we wanted different things.”

“Apologize first,” Chrissy said with a wicked gleam in her eye, “then we’ll see about hiring you for The Fallen.”

Nancy reached out to shake Robin’s hand. “Deal?”

Robin nodded curtly. “Deal.”

They moved onto the more tedious aspects of what they wanted out of Nancy as they finished their meals.

But as Robin was heading back to her car she had a small satisfied smile on her face. Yes, this really was the best option for the band.

****

Because of canon-Chrissy's unhealthy relationship with food, I wanted her to go hard into eating all things that her mom most likely forbade her from eating growing up. Hence the steak and the wine. Nancy I figured would be at least vegetarian with personality (just the vibes I get from her *shrug*) and Robin would absolutely be vegan. Just not a militant one.

Tag List: 10 slots remaining

Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25

1- @mira-jadeamethyst @rozzieroos @itsall-taken @redfreckledwolf @zerokrox-blog

2- @gregre369 @a-little-unsteddie @chaosgremlinmunson @messrs-weasley @val-from-lawrence

3- @goodolefashionedloverboi @carlyv @wonderland-girl143-blog @irregular-child @blondie1006

4- @yikes-a-bee @bookworm0690 @anne-bennett-cosplayer @awkwardgravity1 @littlewildflowerkitten

5- @genderless-spoon @y4r3luv @dragonmama76 @ellietheasexylibrarian @thedragonsaunt

@useless-nb-bisexual

6- @disrespectedgoatman @eyehartart @dawners @thespaceantwhowrites @tinyplanet95

7- @iamthehybrid @croatoan-like-its-hot @papergrenade @cryptid-system @counting-dollars-counting-stars

8- @ravenfrog @w1ll0wtr33 @child-of-cthulhu @kultiras @dreamercec

#my writing #stranger things #steddie #ladykailitha writes #rockstar eddie munson #rockstar steve harrington #rockstar au

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thirstkanaphan · 2 months ago

Note

How much time do you invest in ateez? You seem very knowledgeable

Thank you!

I'm a relatively new atiny! I got into Ateez last June and my first comeback was Golden Hour Part 2. I'm a historian by training and trade, so it's in my nature to try to learn as much about a subject as possible. I really enjoy that process!

My level of investment in something is directly proportional to the quality of the fandom. If a fandom is fun, then I'm likely to spend more time with the thing I like. This is my first kpop fandom and it's been a fascinating experience to see how this fandom organizes itself. It's really segmented, and the quality of experience seems to vary based on where you hang out. For example, I don't even touch tiktok because I get bad vibes from that app. I mostly lurk on atiny twt, but there seems to be a new conflict/discourse/fanwar every other day and it seems exhausting to fully engage with fandom in that way. I've watched as long-time ateez fanbases closed their doors because they got hate for every little thing, even from their own followers. It's honestly a joyless place to be, and every hit tweet or funny joke curdles within hours. That seems to be the case for most kpop fandoms though, and not specific to atiny.

Tumblr has always been my primary site for engaging with fandom and I wanted to help make it a space where people could discuss and enjoy Ateez without any of the drama. Every day I open up this app and it’s filled with wonderful meta, beautiful gifsets and fanart, playful shipping, funny edits and clips, cool commentary, and (of course) simping over eight beautiful men. Being able to curate your experience here is why it remains one of my favorite apps.

If I were to describe the time I invest in Ateez, here's a rough sketch:

I follow most of the update accounts on twt, so I usually wake up to about 2-3 announcements, instagram posts, etc... I do my best to share those things to the Ateez Community, especially IG posts.

I probably check twitter several times a day and bookmark things that I want to share here, whether it be clips, memes, or images. As I see things on the timeline, I'll think about fun ways to curate them here or I'll be inspired to write some meta.

I listen to Ateez's music pretty frequently. When I'm at work I sometimes connect to the stationhead app and let the admin curate a playlist for me. It's like Ateez radio.

I try to keep up with their logbooks and promotional content as they come out, as it's easy to fall behind. I still have quite the backlog to get through, so sometimes in the evenings I'll put on something new-to-me and post about it here. The content masterlist is a great archive to browse through.

I read fic! I guess that counts as an investment too.

I also spend time on collecting apps, as the fandom will be voting on things like music show awards during the next cb.

I like to spend a couple of hours in the evening going through tumblr, liking, reblogging, and posting.

Hope that answers your question!

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msnihilist · 7 days ago

Note

Hello! I used to watch Ben 10 Classic/ a bit of AF since I was little and was obsessed. Life happened and I completely forgot about it, but for some reason now that I’m an adult I suddenly remembered my old hyperfixation and decided to revisit the franchise. I just finished Omniverse recently and that’s all I can think about these days! To be honest I think this is my favourite out of all installments; the artstyle and chemistry between Rook/Ben is just super cute. I like Ben in this version the most. A lot of people say Ben acts rather immaturely in OV, and while some of it I can chalk up to writing inconsistencies, I just read your analyses on “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad Ben World”. I can’t help but agree. Also, I enjoyed the post. That was one of my favourite episodes.

I started to dig up fan content all over the internet after finishing OV and found your fics. I first encounter your Ben No Watch fic. It’s one of your older ones, but I absolutely fell in love with it (I love No Watch and 23 a LOT and there isn’t much content I can find about them) and decided to check your whole repertoire out.

Needless to say I was surprised by the sheer amount of content there are…Your fics are going to be a giant buffet for me to consume for a few months to come. This isn’t much of an ask — I just want to express my thanks! Also, your Tumblr episode analyses are interesting to read. It’s all a treat.

Thank you for taking the time to leave this message!

I've always been a Ben 10 fan. (Well, I shouldn't say always — I was born before the show aired.) For as long as Ben 10 has been running, I've been a fan! Though, it definitely didn't get intense until after Omniverse finished airing.

I personally don't have a favorite version of the show — I like Classic, UAF, and OV equally, though for different reasons. I will say that OV Ben is my favorite to pick apart, though! For me, he's got that perfect balance of his silly/self-absorbed mask, and the serious/traumatized side that he buries deep, deep down. (It also helps that OV Ben is the prettiest, I love looking at him and the way he's animated 🥺)

I have other posts like that about Ben 10 — try my #ben 10 discussion tag to dig some of them up.

I saw you comment on that fic! Sorry, I still do intend to reply but I've been really behind with my inbox... (I've got 60 or so unread comments, whoops.)

I have SO MANY Ben 10 fics, yeah, haha! I really don't know how that happened. I remember saying that after Cross Your Heart, I was done writing for Ben 10. That was back in March of 2022 and, well. You can see how well that went :p

I love having a backlog of fics to offer new/returning fans, though!!

Here's some of my personal favorite Ben 10 fics:

Meteor Shower

With the aftermath of Captain Nemesis’ escape from prison and Jennifer Nocturne’s alleged kidnapping, Kevin realized that he had some mending to do with his teammates.

all before us lie deserts of vast eternity.

Before the Time War even officially starts, Ben 10,000 knows how it's going to end — with Maltruant scattered in pieces and himself standing triumphant at the dawn of the universe. It’s the hardest victory that he’s ever achieved, but that doesn’t mean that the next twenty years are much easier.

(In which growing up is hard, but learning to deal with it is even harder.)

Diamonds Are Forever

A year after Petropia’s re-creation, Ben and Rook are assigned a deceivingly simple job on the planet — overseeing an "official yearly Plumber check" to ensure that societal development and reassimilation with the galaxy is going smoothly.

With Tetrax acting as their guide, it soon becomes clear that not all is as it seems. Digging through conspiracies and figuring out who can be trusted, they find that the glittering surface of the planet is covering a horrible plot against the Petrosapiens, which may hide roots closer to home than any of them realized.

Cross Your Heart (and Hope to Die)

By some cruel twist of fate, it was a freak accident that killed Ben Tennyson. When Rook received a cosmic second chance at undoing the disaster that he blamed himself for, he first thought of it as a blessing. Until the same day repeated again. And again and again and again.

In All The World...

Rook reminisces about pushing himself to leave the farm, adjusting to life away from Revonnah, and green eyes that he studied at a distance. An introspective piece on Ben and Rook’s partnership — before they were partners.

The World Grows Green Again

When Ben's life is saved by a masked stranger, it offers Ben and Rook a glimpse into a horrible future.

the first fish to climb onto land ceased to be a fish.

Ben 23 meets Vilgax.

There's way more fics of mine depending on what you're into (I love Three's Company and Lysis so much!! And I have plenty more multichapter and long oneshot fics with friendship focus—) but I feel like these are a good start, given what you said you liked in your ask!

If you want recs that aren't written by me, go into my bookmarks on AO3 and sort by Ben 10. I keep them public for a reason!

I'm so glad you like Ben 10, and my writing 🥺 Enjoy!

#ask #ben 10 #neosolaris14 #fanfic rec #my writing #fan mail

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sflow-er · 2 months ago

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Writing tag game

Thank you so much for the tag @starvalisedham!

I'm going to follow your example and put a cut here...

How many works do you have on AO3? Nine. -

What’s your total AO3 word count? 356,524... Sounds like a lot, but the number is skewed by one 238k longfic. -

What fandoms do you write for? Only Young Royals since I started again. I'm not going to name the fandoms for which I wrote before my 14-year hiatus, but most of them were anime. -

What are your top 5 fics by kudos? Other people's secrets (1,245) Matters of adjustment (198) The real deal (186) Like you better (161) Last chance (138) I write (mostly ace) fic about background characters in a fandom that leans heavily towards the juggernaut ship, so with that in mind, I'm very proud of these numbers! -

Do you respond to comments? I always respond to comments on my WIPs! Those mainly come from a handful of regulars, and the comment section is a lovely little community for discussing each chapter. I also used to respond to every comment on my finished works, but I've had too much on my plate in the last year or so to keep it up. Lately, I have actually been so low on "spoons" that even a couple of comments from readers who had related to the story in meaningful ways have been left hanging... I don't think I'll ever clear the backlog but I will get to those particular comments eventually! ETA: This game gave me the kick I needed to reply to one of them! Yay! -

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? My August character study/background fic Årnäs, February 2016. It depicts him as an isolated and impressionable twelve-year-old who idolises his manipulative and emotionally abusive father and has difficult feelings about/for his absent mother, and it does not end on a cheerful note. -

What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? All my finished Walty fics end happily! It was a conscious choice I made when I started writing them as an ace/allo pairing. As to which is the happiest, I guess it's a matter of opinion. Maybe Other people's secrets, as the long time spent with the characters and their struggles adds to the payoff, but you could also argue for the shorter fics which are fluffier throughout. -

Do you get hate on fics? I have received some anon hate here on tumblr for posting the same kinds of takes that I write in my fics, but the response to my actual fics has always been lovely. Some of my regular readers may occasionally question something, but they are always nice about it. We have great discussions! Oh, and I do have one rude public bookmark on OPS. It upset me a bit but I wouldn't necessarily count it as hate. -

Do you write smut? Not at present, no. I did write some before my long hiatus, but back then, I was just emulating what I had read. Somehow, it was easier to take the scenes and the characters' supposed experiences at face value when I had no personal frame of reference. I mean, smut is always exaggerated fantasy, and there are plenty of ace writers who excel at it! But to me personally, as a grey ace who struggled for years with my very bland experience of sexual attraction, anything I write just feels disingenuous and takes me to a really weird head space. I don't want to write a story or scene where I can't buy into the characters' thoughts and emotions at all, and I just can't seem to manage that with smut. Still, a day may come when I feel differently. You never know! -

Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? Nah, I'm not really creative enough to combine storyverses. -

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I know of! Although everyone who's got unlocked works on ao3 has probably had their works scraped into the CommonCrawl dataset (and potentially others) used to train AI, and I only started locking mine halfway through 2023 so... -

Have you ever had a fic translated? Nope. -

Have you ever co-written a fic before? Not co-written, I don't think that would work for me as even the thought of a beta reader stresses me out. But I did ask my spouse (who has extremely relevant professional experience) to help me get August and Carl Johan right in ÅFeb16! It was a really great experience. -

What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I've got two languishing WIPs on ao3 at the moment, but I fully intend to finish both of those. I also have some unpublished ones: a one-shot of August and Rousseau at Årnäs, and a multi-POV Walty + Stedrika + Madisander fic. I still have some hope of finishing the one-shot someday, but the multi-POV one is probably doomed. -

What are your writing strengths? I've been told my dialogue is good and the more straightforward style I use for it contrasts nicely with my frillier style of prose. Also, people have said they like my characterisations and the way I write (romantic and other) relationships. I'm good at research and worldbuilding, and I like to think the overall quality of my writing is okay when I'm not too stressed. -

What are your writing weaknesses? I'm too wordy and write my teenage characters too mature, but those weaknesses pale in comparison to my problems with compulsive editing, perfectionism, and excessive self-criticism. I get stuck in rewriting loops and easily spiral into writer's block. Oh, and I'm terrible at maintaining a healthy life/writing balance. I neglect my wellbeing and burn myself out when I feel creative, and when real life gets stressful, the quality of my writing declines or I can't write at all. -

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I do not mean to criticise anyone who likes to use it, everyone can do whatever they like in their own stories! But as a professional translator, my work is all about conveying a message written in one language in another language, as fluently as possible. I can't just turn that mindset off for writing. If I write a story about Swedish-speaking characters in English, I'm going to approach it the same way I'd approach the translation of a Swedish story into English. The English dialogue is already understood to be in Swedish, so to me personally, it makes no sense to render random bits of it in Swedish. (Of course, a character suddenly speaking a language other than Swedish is a totally different matter, but I assume the question isn't about that.) Not to mention that languages work differently, from word choice and connotations to grammar and from communicative conventions to thought patterns. My focus is on making the dialogue flow in English, and I'm too much of a perfectionist to mix in phrases or sentences that a native Swedish speaker might not even say in that context. (That goes both ways as I also try my best not to use fully English-based word plays etc., but sometimes they slip by me.) Again, that's just my opinion and the logic I apply to my own fics. Everyone who disagrees with me is just as valid! -

First fandom you wrote for? I wrote a fix-it fic for Final Fantasy X in my English notebook back in seventh grade. Never posted it anywhere, but it still counts! -

Favourite fic you’ve written? Other people's secrets. It was the first fic I wrote after all those years of thinking I'd never write again, and considering how massive a project it was, I'm enormously proud of myself for having finished it. It's one of the best stories I've ever written, and one of the most meaningful (to me personally, and I guess also to some of the people I've heard from). That being said, I am also extremely proud of ÅFeb16, which is my most mature writing so far - and of my outlined version of The Windsor! I've only managed to post one chapter of the latter, but if and when I eventually finish it, I think it will be my third favourite. It's an aged-up retrospective and explores some themes I've actually wanted to write since outlining OPS back in 2021.

Phew, that was the last question! Thanks for reading all this way! <3 No-pressure tags: I feel like most of my writing mutuals have been tagged already, but maybe @silvagrey @sunnyelfs @crownedwille would like to join...?

#young royals #young royals fic #yr fic #tag game #fic writing #writing ask #thanks again for the tag! <3

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