#and the entire meme was a spur of the moment thing

[lenaellsi]

it's honestly a bit odd to me that so many people have jumped on the 'aziraphale will be pulling all the strings and playing politics in heaven' train. like I think it's true that the metatron is underestimating aziraphale's intelligence and ability to disrupt the second coming even while separated from crowley, but I also think the idea that aziraphale is going up to heaven with a clear idea of how he's just been lied to, an understanding of how much danger he's in, and a plan to stop it is a huge reach.

frankly, aziraphale is very vulnerable to manipulation. I'm thinking now of neil’s post with the diary entry from before the edinburgh minisode where he was duped by two humans, the whole thing with the nazis in 1941, and his sponsorship of shadwell's various obviously fake agents (sergeant milkbottle, etc.). he's not nearly as savvy as fanon tends to portray him. he takes people at face value, especially people he thinks of as Good. (that's not a dunk, btw--I find these things endearing, and a sign of aziraphale's innate wish to see the best in people. I just think that sometimes the BAMF protective aziraphale of fanon overshadows the slightly more naive aziraphale of canon. and honestly, I also think TV aziraphale is just a bit softer than book aziraphale, though he is capable of stepping up when it counts.)

and he's a bad liar! I know it's a meme in the fandom that aziraphale lies all the time, but he doesn't like it, and he's bad at it. he gets nervous and comes up with terrible excuses and the only reason he ever gets away with it is because the people he's lying to are idiots (gabriel), have their own agendas (god, the other archangels), or trust him to be honest (crowley).

aziraphale's real strength is his ability to take sudden, completely unexpected action. that's one of the things that crowley admires most about him. "he's unpredictable," is what he says to nina, and it's true! aziraphale's greatest moments of rebellion have always come from spur of the moment decisions, not intricate plans. (if anything, crowley is the planner--the arrangement and the thwarting of the apocalypse, their two longest cons, were both his idea.)

aziraphale gives the sword away because when he is forced to make a decision under pressure, he tends to land on the side of rebellious kindness. shielding crowley from the rain in eden, lying to gabriel to protect job's family, defying the quartermaster and returning to earth via possession during the apocalypse, blowing up his halo--he does these things because he's following that same impulse. when aziraphale has time to over think, he frets and fusses and is paralyzed by indecision. (or worse, he falls back on what heaven has taught him.)

TL;DR: I don't think aziraphale has any sort of grand plan other than a generalized "make things better," and I certainly don't think he is planning to betray heaven. he might try to come up with a plan once he figures out how bad things are going to get, but my bet is that what will actually disrupt the second coming is an absolutely bonkers off the wall decision that no one, crowley included, could ever predict. and I think it’ll happen, as it usually does with aziraphale, just after he accepts a difficult truth that fundamentally shifts his worldview—in this case, his final rejection of the idea of “good” and “bad” people, and of the entire morality system of heaven and hell.

[rivetgoth]

Over on Twitter there was a meme that was like “Post 10 bands you've obsessed about at some point in your life,” so I decided to list the first 10 that came to mind 🤔🤔 Note that this isn’t my current or all-time top 10 bands ever, but 10 that I can remember being obsessed with at some significant point in my life.

1. Skinny Puppy — Duh.

2. Culture Club — A landmark band for me, Culture Club was my entry into 80s pop which would evolve into developing my adoration for the New Romantics, 80s alternative, and eventually industrial and goth music. Also the second band I ever actively went to see live!

3. IAMX — One of my favorite bands of all time since around 9th grade, over a decade now!! One of the only bands I have a tattoo for. I could fill an entire post (or two, or three, or…) on just my adoration for IAMX alone, but I’ll leave it at that for now.

4. Ministry — Inescapable, isn’t it? Regardless of the eternal love-hate relationship I have with this band there’s no denying the incredibly significant effect they’ve had on my life unfortunately. The first industrial band I got into post-Skinny Puppy.

5. The Velvet Underground — TVU (along with TBP, below) was arguably the band that got me into music. Period. I’ll never forget hearing “Venus In Furs” and “The Black Angel’s Death Song” for the first time and just thinking it was like nothing else I’d ever heard before. It was everything to me as a teen.

6. Severed Heads — Another one of my favorites to this day, though I’ve had obsessive periods in phases. They kinda baffle and excite me like literally no other band. Like a puzzle I’m always trying to solve. Love love love them.

7. The Birthday Party — Ditto with TVU. “Mutiny In Heaven” shaped me into the music lover I am today, it gave me a taste for something that was like nothing I’d ever heard before and “like nothing else” has been a significant staple of the most evocative songs/bands for me ever since.

8. Joy Division — Community college circa 2017 I had Joy Division on constant rotation, they really got me through it lol. One of the first GOTH bands that I dove really deep into. I was already listening to goth music at that point but at that point in time Joy Division really resonated. I wore my Unknown Pleasures shirt everywhere seconds before it was cool. I still voted for The Cure on the recent “best goth band” poll tho LMAO.

9. Magazine — A more recent addition, Magazine fucking saved my life when I got COVID in 2021 and subsequent relatively severe psychotic symptoms shortly after. Literally just spent every quiet moment listening to ‘em to fight off some of the worst thought patterns I’ve ever had in my life, for months.

10. Steam Powered Giraffe — My middle school heartthrobs 🖤🖤🖤 A bit dated now but man, SPG was everythinggggg to me for a short moment and I think this secret part of my past explains some of my music taste to this day tbh lol 😭 They were thee FIRST band I ever actively saw live, and the most significant connection is that Bunny Bennett’s coming out was genuinely the thing that spurred me to soul search and realize I was trans within the same year :’)

What are yours??

[airlockfailure]

Hi Airlock! :D Are there any scenes or ideas for any of your fics that you LOVED, but they just didn't fit with the feel or current direction of the story, so you couldn't use them? Would you be able to share any with us? And what do you do with those cut scenes and ideas that didn't fit?

AND/OR... Have you ever ADDED a spur-of-the-moment scene that surprised you or wasn't originally planned? If so, could you please share?

Thank you so much!!!!

There aren't really any specific scenes that come to mind that had to be cut that didn't work. Usually when I cut something from a fic it's because the flow is wrong and the scene ends up being reused later; sometimes exactly the same as it was, sometimes with different characters, sometimes the dialogue gets slightly changed if the plot points have changed.

As for adding things...

While I start writing fics with a general idea and outline, the bulk of the story is written on the fly. I then have to keep notes for myself and reread fics a lot to make sure all the details are straight. (We joke about my notes being the tack and string board like the meme, but it's more like a series of spread sheets and word docs that I rifle through whenever my brain forgets something.)

Sometimes I table entire fics, such as Infragilis Et Tenera (Riyo centric fic) because I'm not sure about the idea yet.

But, if I've posted a chapter of a fic, I intend to finish it, it's just I have brain worms for another project instead. The Wooley fic I have is fully outlined, but I haven't worked on it because I'm scared of writing Obi-wan LOL. Et Cum Sola isn't finished because I'm rotating it around like a rotisserie chicken in my mind, but it refuses to stop running pink when I poke it with a fork. :/

lsghskghdk Loses train of thought.

Ahem. Yeah, stuff that gets cut ends up somewhere else. Stuff that gets added is most stuff, actually, because an outline is only a guide. Even super detailed ones. :D There's so much I want to write, but there's just not enough time!!! (This week I'm working 8 days in a row ;-; I've written one sentence of fic this week.)

[cryptic-underground]

Red Son - Sitcom AU

Finally able to think about someone other than Sun Wukong or Macaque in this au, props to me!

Humor aside- I've been thinking of nothing but Red boyo so y'all get spur of the moment things about him for sitcom, though I can't promise it to be angst free- enjoy!

Is either high honors or principal's list in terms of grades (somewhere between 85-95 is his average)

He is so stressed all the time, my guy needs to chill

Gives himself his more homework in hopes of becoming better

Puts most of his self worth into getting good grades similarly to how he does in the show with schemes

Rich boy/girl, not necessarily the spoiled kind but definitely was a little entitled at the beginning

Has a curfew

Parents are the type to blow up her phone when their even just a few minutes late to coming home

Mk and Mei add him instantly to a group chat when they first meet

Says it's to communicate about their project without needing to be in first but it's mostly used to send memes, much to Reds dismay

They grow to find comfort in the group chat when she's having trouble with his parents

Gender fluid because ofc

Has a lot of books comprising of many different genres

Textbooks through the years, books they got to use for projects, a lot of ones on mechanics and engineering as well as just general science stuff

Is a big science nerd!

Mostly a big fan of chemistry and physics

Swk is still his uncle like in jttw but the ties between the bull family and wukong are complicated (talk about it in another post since it isn't red related)

Pif and dbk are still not good parents in this(at least until what would s3 of the au), I don't want to completely rewrite them since I want this to be close to lmk canon

I'm just going to have them be a tiny bit different

They are very strict to red and belittles him when he gets even a bit lower grade than expected

Red is very uncomfortable being touched by them like in the show

Mac is also kinda his uncle but they only briefly met when she was really young

Sucks at most art things, when they have to do an art project they tend to do something with mechanics

After she started hanging out with Mei and mk more frequently, and not just for school projects, he would try to find ways to show they were worthy of being their friend

Doing a lot of favors whenever they needed help with something, asking if they needed something fixed, using his allowance to buy them gifts or food as a way to convince em to let her stay

Is a stickler for rules and regulations

Will call someone out if they cheat at monopoly, will have them restart an entire game because someone broke a rule

Comes over to mks house whenever they hang out, the trio rarely go to red's or meis house

Mei and him confide in each other about their strict parents

Is one of the few people in the group to have a fashion sense

They got the pretty genes your honor

Gets acne breakouts from being overly stressed

Has multiple pairs of glasses in her bag incase they forget their usual pair at home

Is the type to go to sleep at seven or eight at night and wake up at like five in the morning

Is solely a tea drinker and refuses to drink coffee

Believed for the longest time that coffee stunts your growth

Has a full skin care routine

Puts hot sauce or something spicy in pretty much everything

Hates most cold foods

Literally heater

High pain tolerance

Very picky and tends to stays to a lot of their safe foods

Has MK and Mei's favorite and least favorite food memorized

Has said foods ready at her house when they're planned to visit

Will comment on how childish a show is, watches ironically to make fun of it in more detail, them finds them self hyper fixating on the show

The one that brings the shopping list to the store

Once mac gets redeemed, is thankful to have another person with a brain cell to converse with

Tutors mk sometimes

Struggles with basic money math but is able to do complex calculus in her sleep

Has given their two friends a scare because they went on a book reading binge and was too hyperfocused to answer their texts for a week

Phone background and home screen remains whatever the default was when he got the phone, doesn't see the importance of changing it

Until Mei stole their phone and changed everything, it was something he liked but still

Has one thing from every hyper fixation she's had in a box in their closet

Even though he's a heater, puts on thicker/warmer clothes at the briefest sign of fall or winter

She needs to set an example for the rest

Sandy's pets love them in the colder months, especially the cats

Owns both the girl's and boy's uniform for his school

Somehow extremely hated and liked at the school

Is far sighted(can see things that are far away) and has astigmatism

Can only sleep when their body is a plank and doesn't move in her sleep

Can cook since he gets left alone at home quite a bit

Is oldest out of the trio

Tw for the next few///

Hits self when frustrated or really angry

Picks at skin until they bleed

Has forgotten to eat or sleep for days because they were trying to perfect a project

[reginrokkr]

Anonymous asked: What is your writing process like when you tackle a reply? Do you just start writing? Do you do an outline? Do you look at the other person's reply a lot?

Granted that this is referred to threads, I will limit my answer to that and not include memes as that would warrant an entirely different response. One of the reasons why I adore threads and I'm so heavily thread-driven as opposed to meme-reliant is because I base my answers on the feelings the reply in question transmits me and how I tie it in a cohesive way to Dain.

Sometimes when I have a line of dialogue that comes in the spur of the moment after reading the reply for the first time I'll type it in the tags, or if there is a small description or words I want to use that will serve me as a guideline later and I find too good to go to waste if some time passes until the next time I read the reply again to answer. Because yes, reading the same thing in different moments can stem different replies, too.

What's the norm for the majority of times for me is that I simply read the reply, draft it and as soon as I get back to it (fairly quick unless time restrictions, but threads are always the go-to first for me), I read my RP partner's reply again and then I get to write. I don't need more than that and threads come really easily to me because of the context given and, as I mentioned earlier, because they transmit to me more than lines of dialogue or actions without context can.

[borreloadsavagedragon]

Maybe 10, 49, and 50 for the fic ask meme!

10. How do you decide what to write?

Oh boy

Half of my wips are decided on either stray ideas I have to satisfy my needs only

Anything else that pops into place is spur of the moment, so a lot of what I start won’t even see the light of day because it’s a writing itch to get a scene or some dialogue stuck in my head down rather than writing to finish a piece, sometimes it translates to longer projects but yeah, I don’t really decide based on anything except stray pieces of dialogue or scenes

49. What are you currently working on? Share a few lines if you’re up for it!

AHHH TOO MANY THINGS, I’ve got a long 3+1 fic project for an upcoming shipweek in August, a MizaKai drabble bc I refuse to have my only work for them be nsfw rn lmao, there’s other pairs or post canon concepts

But also there’s this massive brainchild I have rn that’s very GOT/HOTD inspired, mostly in terms of the politics, warring kings, and the dragons parts

It’s a post canon/canon divergent au that’s kinda hard to explain and it’s told through present time in post canon and in past life memories back to the time of Nasch, so know there’s an entire past life of lore full of warring kings, dragons, politics, plus secret card lore, a way for me to write duels with decks I love, and an OC who I’ve been trying to design for months LOL

Without having to over explain anything specifically crazy like names, terms, etc, here are a few lines of just a little of what to expect-

—-

“You’re difficult as always, can’t give a straight answer even when your dragon could depend on it. There could be a presence calling out to him somewhere, perhaps where his roots are. Tell me,” Mizael turns his attention back to Kaito.

“How did you two meet? Because there is no chance your dragon was created by your father, not with how it reacted to me. To Tachyon.”

A difficult question. Because it wasn’t very… special. Kaito has a shallow memory of that day. At most, he remembers that his body felt numb from recovering from the operation that changed his life and he had been greeted by his father with cards to bolster his deck at that time.

Photons, Faker had called them. A fitting umbrella term to use when he finally saw their designs. His father and Heartland designed the archetype as a calling card for the Heartland government officials. Only those who passed Heartland’s inhumane training programs and high standards were given them.

And with Kaito’s own special place, naturally he’d passed. Not only would they be powerful tools for special, chosen duelists, this meant they would be strong enough to handle the Numbers he’d be collecting at the time.

It was at the top of the little card pile that had been his Galaxy-Eyes. Although… The dragon’s card admittedly had been a touch more worn out compared to the soldiers, machines, and spellcasters that followed it. So had the cards with the word ‘Galaxy’ in their name. As though those ones were older relics, maybe references used to finish the Photon archetype.

“… He was a gift from my Father.”

Mizael immediately makes a face.

“Humans. Dragons aren’t mere gifts you’d give to a person. They’re partners, their love and loyalty cannot be pawned off under the guise of a present.”

Kaito mirrors his frown right back.

“You’ve met the man. Not exactly the most respectful person in the world. I don’t know the rest or where he came from. At first I did think he was created solely for me and my deck, but that was until I met Yuma and Astral, then I knew for certain that couldn’t be the case once I met you.”

—-

50. Answer any question of your choice, or talk about anything you want to talk about!

I don’t have a question I wanna pick at but I do wanna talk about HOW UNDERRATED FANFICTION IS!!! GAH

I saw a take earlier that was like “don’t commission fanfic writers” and their reasoning was literally “just because” and like???????????

Fanfiction is SO taken advantage of in fandom space, writers and writing in general is taken advantage of outside of fandom even, look at the Strike rn, and it’s infuriating, writing like every other hobby and creative outlet takes a lot of time and not everyone can do it, AIs and machines can’t do it

LEAVE KUDOS AND COMMENTS, SHARE YOUR APPRECIATION FOR WORK

REBLOG WRITER’S LINKS TO THEIR WORK

COMMISSION WRITERS WHO HAVE AND OFFER COMMISSIONS

I’m good now

[henarten]

Gay ramblings of someone who is very used to having a character limit

This is kinda very much trauma dumping in real but also idk figured its good for my mental health if I get it out in writing and maybe someone else will get a kick out of it who knows my most popular posts are just my sona. I don’t know why I’ve felt digitally illiterate my entire life. I mean, it *might* have had something to do with growing up in the middle of the woods and having actual dial up internet until I was 17 (4 and a half years ago damn). Or maybe not having a proper working phone until high school and no free time to figure out what I was doing. My parents always said I was the “tech wiz kid” of the family but what this really meant is I knew how to use google and had a history binging wikipedia on the computer. My first real introduction to social media that I actually bothered using was discord in 2017 and even then the most it was used for was the occasional meme browsing on a friend’s server or meeting up irl with said friends... and later on, finding out what RP stood for. I used discord rp to cope with my gender dysphoria at the time, initially joining a random big rp server (I think it was RP World or something I cant recall) to finding friends and enemies both figurative and literal in much smaller servers, to somehow running one of my own and watching it build up into something good and then burn to the ground. Twice. But that’s sorta different from the social media experience you get from Tumblr, Twitter, Mastodon, etc. You get these short little snippets that can be targeted towards a larger audience. It could be towards just yourself, or no one at all. The act of existing is such an open ended question that can barely be considered as such. I am staring at a white box. All the potential in the world, with little splashes of color and text, images, videos, songs. Struggling to find out what I can contribute. What is my niche? Do people like me for how I talk? I’m not a comedian, I’m just neurodivergent with a LOT of trauma. Do people like me for my fighting games clips? Am I really that good? Maybe they just like me for my sona? Do people like me at all, or is it just this online persona I’ve made for myself? I’d like to think people like me, but this nagging feeling has always existed in the back of my head telling me I’m not. It’s hard to ignore but it doesn’t mean I don’t try. Above all, Tumblr is from what I’ve seen a site that lets people be people. To find or even make their own niche, regardless of the popularity. A post could have a thousand notes or just ten but still mean something to someone and have an impact on their life far greater than the silly little image of a cartoon animal dancing was ever intending on. A random stranger turned me into a furry simply for having a pfp of their sona and look at me now. I’m so much more accepting of myself than I was in 2017 and its still gonna get better from here. So yeah, maybe I’ll make a post once in a while about my very ADHD spur of the moment interests like the time I made a wooden travel version of a board game or a paint program for the TRS-80 Color Computer or how I’ve accidentally transed at least 3 other people’s genders. Just silly things idk.

[m00dybluesy]

even considering that Twitter hasn't actually imploded (yet,) i still think i'm gonna keep this app. Twitter beats Tumblr in in terms of quantity of stuff on my feed, but I'm finding that following just a few friends and artists on here means that the content here is shorter and sweeter, quality over quantity.

another thing is the lack of character limitations. I consider myself to have a dormant author somewhere within me, one that I've never really tapped into, mostly due to not having much attention span for it. Twitter obviously isn't conducive to that at all, and very arguably is harmful in that regard, with another 280 characters or stupid meme always within reach. of course Tumblr is guilty of the same, as is the entire rest of the internet, but at least Tumblr seems to be overall a bit more thoughtful.

when making a Tumblr, I thought that it being more blog site than social media would be a detriment– I love keeping up with my friends– but it seems that Tumblr's format is having the opposite effect than what I believed, cutting out the noise and letting me get a clearer look at what's going on in my friend's heads. this does make a good case for deleting Twitter and migrating to here entirely. Part of me does want to use this website as a chance to purify my internet diet— but I am still very much a base creature driven by social media dopamine hits, and Twitter's digital junk food satisfies that unfortunate craving, and so I'll keep them both around for the time being. perhaps I'll use Tumblr more for long-form posts like this, and Twitter for spur-of-the-moment thought blurbs— which is pretty much what each respective site was designed for.

[tocontinue]

𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞. Viola!

𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐬. She/her

𝐩𝐫𝐞𝐟𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐮𝐧𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧. Discord; I’ve always got it open. Mutuals should add me even though I’m absolute garbage at interacting with people

𝐧𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐞(𝐬). Rock’s the only guy I write on Tumblr so uh. Probably him AKSJBCJKASBJCKSXA. Answer’s probably different on Discord but I don’t talk about my OCs here

𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞/𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠 (𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐡𝐬/𝐲𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬?). I passed 8 years of experience RPing a few months ago. Technically been writing for about a year longer than that. I feel old and I’m only 22.

𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮’𝐯𝐞 𝐮𝐬𝐞𝐝. Tumblr and Discord have been the main two. I think I’ve fucked around on other platforms occasionally? But those were the only two that ever stuck. And even then, Discord only barely stuck in the long run.

𝐛𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞. There was a big Mega Man RPC event eons ago called the Sigma Saga (that, in hindsight, was ripped DIRECTLY from the comics AKSCBJKASX) that, as the sole Rock writer on Tumblr, I got a bunch of attention for. It was a lot of fun, even got to meet some blogs I wouldn’t have met otherwise at the time. I’m positive that if I went back to read it now, it would read really poorly on my part, but I had so much fun that I can’t bring myself to care even a little. I’d do it again in a heartbeat.

𝐫𝐩 𝐩𝐞𝐭 𝐩𝐞𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐬 / 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐛𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐫𝐬. I’ve had a surprisingly smooth trip through Tumblr RP, surprisingly, and most of the problems I ran into were early on and also entirely my fault, so I can’t say for sure what my dealbreaker is. If I had to pinpoint one thing, it’s people who can’t talk through their problems if they encounter one. Message people, sort your problems out like adults, that sort of thing. People seem good about it, though.

𝐟𝐥𝐮𝐟𝐟, 𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐬𝐭, 𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐦𝐮𝐭. I never feel like I have a super strong preference one way or the other. Obviously the last one’s a very strict no-go here, but other than that? It just depends on how I’m feeling any given day. Unless, between these three, we categorize fluff as strictly romantic stuff, in which case I’m going for the angst option. I’m confusing myself trying to answer this one AKSBCKASX

𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐭𝐬 𝐨𝐫 𝐦𝐞𝐦𝐞𝐬. As I’ve learned once again recently (sorry Neg), I’m really bad at plotting. Something I should work on. But I think I definitely work better with memes, or just spur of the moment threads.

𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐫 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐫𝐞𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐞𝐬. I tend to only manage short/medium replies most of the time, but MAN, does a long reply feel the best to pull off. They’re my favorite, definitely, even if I have trouble doing them consistently. Not that it’s an issue that I don’t, obviously, but I’d love if I could hit that dopamine receptor more often.

𝐛𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐰𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐞. Nighttime. Not sure why. Lately it’s because my girlfriend’s sitting in bed coding and so it’s quieter at night, but even on my own, the creative juices flow better when the sun goes down. Shrug emoji.

𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐥𝐢𝐤𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐞(𝐬). I never have a good answer for this. I’d sure like to think so, though! Rock’s a good kid with a good heart, and I like to try to see the world with as much love as he does.

tagged by: I borrowed this from Aaron. I’ll return it when I get the chance tho I promise

tagging: pointing at you

[tonkihk]

Missinglettr postbox

#Missinglettr postbox series#

Our culture has been formed predominantly by the Analog City. Much of the stress under which our body politic now labors, much of the strangeness of our moment, much of our apparent inability to move productively forward as a society, may be attributed in part to the emergence of the Digital City and its dramatic growth over the past two decades. The Analog City and the Digital City: How online life breaks the old political orderĢ5 minute read | The New Atlantis We might say that our public sphere is now inhabited by the citizens of two “cities,” the Digital City and the Analog City. When relaying some emotionally-charged story, it is worth relaying first how this kind of story makes you feel in general, and the sort of things you might be missing. The notion we all suffer from confirmation bias needs to be normalized, and discussed. At its simplest, a little mental hygiene might be helpful. For the first time in history, we actually have to find a way to manage our impulse toward meme-induced hysteria. The information will almost certainly, by the very nature of new information, be incomplete or inaccurate. All it takes is a large number of people acting rapidly and emotionally on information they just received. There is potential for personal and national-scale disasters. There is only one question that should be consuming us today: An idea is now capable of almost immediately crippling the world. But it was also a global information disaster.

#Missinglettr postbox series#

A series of memes - stories, photos, random pieces of incomplete data - coursed the entire world, one after another, spurring immediate action. When governments shut the world down because of COVID-19 they were motivated, as we all were, by what we read on social media. We have all had noticeably less to say about the military dictatorship now in control of that country. When a series of political uprisings swept the Arab world, the American press and the tech sector characterized it as a revolution for freedom. In 2011, we were all very optimist about the power of the Internet-driven societal change. Bullying morphed into mobbing, and an important question emerged: what is the difference between a mob and a righteous movement? Since the early days of social media, one of the main problems has been bullying. This binds our sense of truth to tribal identity, and that is a powerful, fundamentally emotional connection. We learn about the world from people we care about. We no longer learn about the world from institutions, or even the illusion of them. Ubiquitous mobile internet dramatically increased our immersion in media, but ubiquitous social media dramatically increased the speed at which ideas travel and, perhaps more significantly, deeply socialized the dynamic. They were places where we talked to our friends. These were not publishers or centralized aggregators. By the late 2010s we were consuming most of our news from Twitter and Facebook. The way we access “news,” or live information about the world, has radically changed. Today, almost half the global population (3.5 billion people) is connected to the internet by the supercomputing smartphones in our pocket. Jump: why meme-induced hysteria represents the biggest danger of our time The next two articles are among the most thought-provoking pieces about our relationship with media I've been reading in a long time. Creative work from UNICEF, Jack Daniel's, Heinz, and Oreo.How Netflix reinvented its marketing on social media.How online life is breaking the old order and reshaping human experience.Why meme-induced hysteria represents the biggest danger of our time.Here's what you will find in this week's issue: Will Facebook now fact-check every story by every legacy media company? Will Twitter suppress stories based on leaks to journalists from the Trump administration? I'd love to know what you think - if you have any thoughts about this, hit reply and let me know. By picking a side, Facebook and Twitter re-wrote expectations of their platforms. Personally, I think this was a mistake that can lead to serious consequences. As you might have heard, Facebook and Twitter limited the distribution of a breaking story on Joe and Hunter Biden from the New York Post, both citing different reasons (for Facebook, the story needed to be fact-checked first, while for Twitter the problem was that the content was obtained without authorization). I've been trying to make sense of the current debate about technology and censorship. I'm not too scared of the disease per se, but I will admit that I find the prospect of not being able to smell/taste my pasta absolutely terrifying. Among other things, I had to get tested for COVID after someone I work with resulted positive. Sorry for not making it to your inbox last week.

[boarcide]

I wish less Jason's fans discounted comic canon to built up their fanon ideas of his and Dick's relationship in Jason's Robin's days, then spread their ideas to the fandom as if it were the truth. Or that less Jason's fans took this has The Truth without fact checking first. Dick being mean to Robin!Jason didn't even last one issue, and Jason wasn't a saint either then. They were both in good terms afterwards. There's even some evidence that they would go on vacation together sometimes.

Man is this about the meme I made about the "Dick with Robin! Jason vs Dick with everyone else" meme? Ffs.

That meme is as canonical as Tim being a coffee addict or Bruce being a good dad.

I kinda realized,,,that people didn't actually take it as a meme? Like idk what to tell you, i didn't make that meme because it reflected Canon, and I don't know what I wrote in there that made anyone else believe I believe it's Canon. I never said it was. The tags literally say, "for legal reasons this is a joke" because I knew some mfs were gonna find a reason to get angry, but it's in the tags please read them sometime.

And this isn't directed towards you, anon. Your message is actually pretty tame compared to the others I've gotten, but like,,,?? Yeah. I've already said it that it is a literal meme.

Idk what to tell you

[yarpell]

I'm deeply in love with Visvar, have been ever since I saw your first art of him. May I pick your brains for more about him? Background? What sort of person he is? Have you ever written a fic for him? Any crumbs you feed me and I'll be like

Omg thank you so much I'm happy you like him 🥺 I love that you made a meme for this 😭

Background is, uh, a wip, I'm truly abysmal at creating backstories. I'm sure majority of it wouldn't even be something extraordinary; he was taken to the order at a young age and has grown up on Tython and probably was a total brat to many a frustrated master... I can talk some about what he is like though!

I like calling him a himbo, but that is not entirely true, since himbos are known for being nice. While Visvar is not unkind, he can be quite rash, ridiculously stubborn and blunt, and often comes across as a rude person.

He's also quite ruthless, in a sense that he sees a clear path to a goal and is able to make sacrifaces and be merciless if that’s what it takes. But such a goal is always some greater good and he considers protecting innocent people his most important and probably only duty and calling.

He can pretend he got rid of emotions around other jedi well but the truth is he is quite passionate, quick to anger or laugh, considers all emotions a natural part of life and same goes for desires. He’s just deeply at peace with being a living being with all the flaws that come with it and he is able to draw strength from that inner peace, whereas other jedi could fall if not seeking peace in rejecting passion. He has “rip to those mentally weaker jedi but I’m different” vibes 😭

All in all, he isn't a very good representant of the order. Really, with his passion and pride he’s very very far from a perfect embodiment of the code (and he sure is quick to disagree with some of the code's points).

Yet he would never fall to the dark side due to his natural empathy, desire to protect, incredible mental strength and stubborness. Like, he can't become a sith because he is literally that stubborn to not fall and hates those dramatic bitches 😂  His mental strength surely is partly a result of being quite dumb, like, literally. He doesn't overthink, philosophize, and is annoyingly sure of himself and his path. He doesn’t weep at sacrifaces made on the way to “greater good”, always looks forward. Do you know the theory that dumb people are always happier? "Ignorance is bliss"? Well, yeah, he's an example lol.

Even though he doesn’t reject his feelings, when he fights, there is no passion in that and he never draws power from emotions like a sith would do. During a battle there is literally only the force in his mind and he is at complete harmony with it, it’s almost like a weird state of meditation. Being a miraluka the force was his guide all his life and he is deeply attuned to it.

Couple completely random facts: drives speeders like a maniac, loves listening to music, is 179cm/5′9″, has a weakness for sith purebloods (or just intense and passionate people) 🍅, can’t cook and would live on ready-made meals if left alone, isn’t very good at math (an understatement)

As for fics I only wrote a very small piece with him and Scourge once 👉👈 Real spur of the moment thing from me, I can’t fucking write. have this older sketch to distract you from that fact

"average jedi has sex once a year" factoid is actually just statistical error. average jedi has sex 0 times a year. Jedi Master Visvar, who has sex 400 times a year, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

[thegrandimago]

This time last April, on the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, the world was coming to grips with the isolation of quarantine and the economic and travel slowdowns that defined the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. Even now, with the rollout of vaccines, the virus continues to affect our daily lives. And the toll keeps growing: 3 million dead and more than 140 million cases worldwide.

If anything, the worst public health crisis in a century has brought our understanding of our planet, and our place in the fragile yet resilient web of life throughout it, into stark relief.

Amid so much grief and loss and uncertainty, the biodiversity crisis paced ahead over the past year, becoming a much bigger theme on the world stage. The climate crisis worsened, too. Wildfires blazed. Ecosystems became even more fouled up than they already were.

At the same time, the marked reduction in human activity spurred by the pandemic — what some experts have dubbed the “Anthropause” — has afforded scientists and researchers opportunities to observe the natural world like never before. Coinciding with these unique observational windows has been an increase in attention on Indigenous knowledge and land stewardship as a way forward in combating ecological catastrophe.

In true Vox tradition, here are the 10 most concerning, intriguing, and — dare we say — hopeful things we learned about our planet since the last Earth Day.

1) We saw just how quickly ocean noise pollution can drop, and how much that can help marine life

For a moment last spring, things got very quiet in the oceans.

The drop in human activity that came with the pandemic resulted in drastic and voluntary sound reductions that ran the underwater gamut: from a drop in shipping noise, the predominant source of man-made ocean noise pollution, to decreases in recreation and tourism. All of it suddenly ceased.

In Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Park, the foraging grounds of humpback whales, the loudest underwater sounds last May were less than half as loud as those in May 2018, according to a Cornell University analysis. A May 2020 paper in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America found that underwater noise off the Vancouver coast was half as loud in April as the loudest sounds recorded in the months preceding the shipping traffic slowdown.

Chronic underwater ocean noise had been rising over the past few decades, to the detriment of marine life that have evolved to use sound to navigate their world. “There is clear evidence that noise compromises hearing ability and induces physiological and behavioral changes in marine animals,” reads an assessment of marine noise pollution research published in the journal Science in February.

The majority of ocean noise pollution is a byproduct of economic activity. But compared with massively complex issues like climate change, noise is relatively easy to turn down, at least a little. Silencing it at its source has an immediate positive impact: Famously, researchers studying right whales on the East Coast measured a drop in the animals’ stress hormones in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, after shipping traffic abruptly dropped. Even tiny fish larvae are better able to locate the coral reefs where they were born, which themselves emit sound, when the oceans get quiet.

Man-made ocean noise has since ramped back up and is now stabilized near pre-pandemic levels. But it fell silent for long enough last March, April, and May that a global team of scientists is actively scrubbing through audio recordings gathered by around 230 non-military hydrophones — underwater microphones — that monitor ocean noise around the world. They aim to study the “year of the quiet ocean” in the context of ocean sounds before, during, and after the pandemic.

2) A new study found that the Amazon is likely warming — not cooling — the planet

The world’s largest and most species-rich tropical forest, the Amazon, is home to billions of trees that not only provide refuge to a diverse assemblage of organisms but also store and absorb a huge amount of carbon dioxide.

That’s what makes the conclusion of a study published this spring so alarming: Due to human activity, the Amazon is likely contributing to — not offsetting, as one might expect— global warming. “The current net biogeochemical effect of the Amazon Basin is most likely to warm the atmosphere,” the researchers wrote in the paper.

While the Amazon is still absorbing loads of CO2, human activities in the basin, such as deforestation, are driving up emissions of CO2 and other more potent greenhouse gases like methane and nitrous oxide across the basin.

Deforestation, for one, deals a double punch: It both releases gases into the atmosphere and removes CO2-absorbing trees from the equation. That equation now sees the Amazon generating more greenhouse gases than it emits, the study suggests. (It’s worth noting, though, this is all really complicated. For more, check out Craig Welch’s story in National Geographic or read the full study here.)

3) We discovered a bunch of new species

While humans have made a mark on all corners of Earth, we’ve only discovered a small fraction of the species that occupy it. In fact, that fraction could be smaller than 1 percent. And remarkably, not all of those species are tiny microbes and insects. They’re also fish, lizards, bats, and even whales. That’s right: Even giant mammals can elude scientists.

In January, researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said they discovered a new species of baleen whale in the Gulf of Mexico. (You can find the paper describing the discovery here.) Other teams of scientists are also on the trail of what could be yet another new whale species.

Last year, researchers documented scores of new plants and animals, from geckos and sea slugs to flowering plants and sand dollars, as Vox’s Brian Resnick reported. Our favorite? Brookesia nana, a thumbnail-sized chameleon native to northern Madagascar. It may be the smallest reptile on Earth; it’s certainly the cutest.

4) We got a much clearer picture of just how much wildlife we’re losing

The numbers aren’t good.

In September, the World Wildlife Fund published a report showing that the global populations of several major animal groups, including mammals and birds, have declined by almost 70 percent in the last 50 years due to human activity.

A separate report, published in Nature this year, found that populations of ocean sharks and rays have plummeted by more than 70 percent in roughly the same period. And one-third of freshwater fish have been found to be at risk of extinction.

A number of species were also declared extinct over the last year. Those include the smooth handfish, a bottom-dweller that rests atop human-like appendages on the seafloor. It was the first marine fish species to be declared extinct in modern history. (Environmental journalist John Platt has a list of recent extinctions in 2020 at Scientific American.)

5) Protecting plants and animals hinges on a thriving ecotourism industry

In the early days of the pandemic, the popular “Nature is healing” meme overshadowed a darker reality in many parts of the world: As travel ground to a halt, so did revenue from wildlife tourism, putting some wildlife conservation efforts at risk.

The fallout was most severe in Africa. According to a new collection of research from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), a government and civil society group, more than half of the continent’s protected areas had to pause or limit field patrols and other operations to stop poachers in the wake of the pandemic.

“Parks have emptied out to a large extent and there’s no money coming in,” Nigel Dudley, a co-author of one of the IUCN papers, told Reuters last month.

Some communities are deeply reliant on wildlife tourism. Late last year, Vox’s Brian Resnick spoke to veterinarian Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, who is working to keep coronavirus-susceptible gorillas alive in Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park.

When tourism dropped, “everybody was struggling,” she said. “The local economy suffered and poaching went up.” (You can read more of Resnick’s conversation with her here.)

6) Researchers uncovered more proof that a key system of ocean currents is weakening

Graphics that show changes in ocean temperature over time generally reveal one trend: The ocean is heating up. But there’s one critical exception. Just below Greenland lies a large patch of water that’s cooling off. And that patch has scientists concerned that we could be nearing a tipping point for the climate.

The cold patch, scientists say, signals that a network of currents that bring warm water to the North Atlantic — known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, or AMOC — is slowing down, and the melting of ice on Greenland is likely a culprit. One paper, published in the journal Nature in March, suggests that the current AMOC slowdown is “unprecedented in over a thousand years.”

The AMOC shapes weather across multiple continents, so any major slowdown will carry major consequences that could include faster sea-level rise in some regions, stronger hurricanes, and other changes in weather, to say nothing of the impacts to marine ecosystems.

But to be clear, the science on this is new and complex. For a great run-down, check out this recent visual feature in the New York Times.

7) The asteroid that killed the dinosaurs gave rise to the Amazon rainforest

The massive asteroid that struck Earth 66 million years ago may be best known for driving non-avian dinosaurs to extinction, but it also transformed entire ecosystems.

It may have even given rise to the Amazon rainforest, according to a study published in Science earlier this month. The finding is based on an analysis of about 50,000 fossil pollen records and 6,000 fossil leaf records in Colombia from before and after the asteroid crashed into what is now Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.

The data reveals two vastly different forests. Before the event, the forests were stocked with conifers and ferns, and the trees were spread out, with plenty of room for light to stream through the canopy. After the asteroid event, however, flowering plants started to dominate the landscape and the canopy became much more tightly packed, resembling the forest we know today.

“If you returned to the day before the meteorite fall, the forest would have an open canopy with a lot of ferns, many conifers, and dinosaurs,” study co-author Carlos Jaramillo of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama told New Scientist. “The forest we have today is the product of one event 66 million years ago.”

The idea here is that the asteroid impact somehow triggered a series of events that led to the modern Amazon rainforest. What were those events? One theory the researchers offer is that, before the asteroid, herbivorous dinosaurs prevented the forest from becoming dense by eating and trampling plants.

8) A review of more than 300 studies showed that the rate of deforestation is lower on Indigenous lands

The global conservation movement is pushing forward a plan to conserve 30 percent of the Earth by 2030 — an initiative known as 30 by 30 — and increasingly calling for Indigenous communities to be central to that effort.

These groups have historically been uprooted from land in the name of wildlife conservation. There is also greater evidence that forests fare better when they are governed by Indigenous and tribal territories.

A recent UN review of more than 300 studies found that forests within tribal territories in Latin America and the Caribbean have significantly lower rates of deforestation where land rights are formally recognized.

“In just about every country in the region Indigenous and tribal territories have lower deforestation rates than other forest areas,” wrote the authors of the report, which was published by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization and the Fund for the Development of Indigenous Peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean. “Many Indigenous territories prevent deforestation as effectively as non-Indigenous protected areas, and some even more effectively.”

9) Wildfire smoke can turn the sky an apocalyptic orange

If there was one day in 2020 that defined the climate emergency, it could have been September 9, when the sky above San Francisco turned completely orange.

Strong winds had carried smoke from fires burning across California to the atmosphere above the city. Particles of soot absorbed or reflected blue light from the sun, letting only orange-ish light through. (Wired has the details.)

But what made the image go viral wasn’t so much the science but what it symbolized: a growing climate catastrophe.

Climate change is making wildfires more frequent and severe, and 2020 provided more devastating evidence. Last year was California’s worst wildfire season on record. By the end of the year, nearly 10,000 fires had burned over 4 million acres — an astonishing 4 percent of California’s total land, according to the state.

10) Scientists finally solved the mystery of why wombats poop cubes

Sure, it may not have kept you up at night, but the mystery of the bare-nosed wombat’s poop puzzled scientists for decades. Why do these adorable, chunky marsupials, native to Australia and Tasmania, leave behind feces with six sides?

Thanks to a new study — published in the journal Soft Matter — we now have the answer.

Building on research published a few years earlier, a team of scientists found that wombat intestines have regions of varying thickness and elasticity that contract at different speeds: The stiffer regions contract relatively quickly, while softer sections squeeze more slowly, together forming a cube-like shape.

But there’s still a bit of mystery left: Why is their poop shaped like this? The jury’s still out, but some researchers believe it’s because wombats climb up on rocks and logs, and the cube-like shape prevents the feces from rolling away. This is key for wombats because they use piles of feces to communicate with other wombats.

What a difference a year makes, truly.

[agustdiv1ne]

thank you + milestone!!

damn, never thought we'd get here, did we?

in all honesty, it's been a pretty shit year. march 'til now has felt like the same month on repeat with tiny tweaks to make it all so much worse. but i'm not here to complain about the worst parts of this year, i'm here to celebrate the best ones.

this was the year that i finally started writing, that i was finally spurred to open a google doc and just type away until a tiny work of fiction stared back at me. my first one was 1k words, a rant to get all of my emotions off of my chest with an idol as my muse. it felt...great, though it also felt a bit odd writing after being an avid reader for years. i always did prefer essays to creative writing, but this year definitely changed that perspective.

i wrote that first blurb along with another fic in late july, and in early august, i asked my friends if i should post them. om august 3rd, i changed this blog from a fic rec to a fic writing blog just like that. i regret none of it.

it's been nearly five months since i revamped this blog and i couldn't be more grateful for the support i have gotten from all of you, whether it be a kind comment, a like, a reblog, all of it. i never thought anyone would like my content, but i've been proven severely wrong by this community. from my irls that are on here, to my lovely mutuals and followers, to those i've talked to a lil bit on this hellsite, to the writers whose fics i absolutely adore, to those who have left a like or a comment on one of my fics, i want to say thank you from the very bottom of my heart ♡

have a happy and healthy new year! i love and appreciate every single one of you!!

though i'm painfully bad at writing letters and getting all sappy, i wanted to write them anyways hahaha let's goooo

to @hwaddict:

my irl best friend!! my partner in crime!!!! i love you sm carly, and there are not enough words in this world for me to describe the extent of my love. you have been there for me during my lowest moments, you've seen me cry, and i don't cry in front of many ppl. i trust you with my life and i'm so glad that we became friends back in middle school bc you are one reasons that spur me to keep going. i can't wait to see where life takes us and know that while i might not always be able to be there physically (especially with college right around the corner), i will always be there for you in any way i can be. again i love you and i can't wait to conquer next year with you ♡♡

to @hopejanaee:

hope!! hobi!!! one of my irls! though we just became friends earlier this year, it feels like we've been friends for ages. it's crazy how close we grew so quickly but i am so grateful to have you in my life. you never fail to make me laugh whenever we're together and you're so chaotic but in such a good way hahaha. you were the one who got me into writing with your own wonderful fics so thank yoi for that. i'm so happy that we became friends because you're so kind and caring and ahhhhhh i love u sm ♡

to @oikawasmilkbread:

we talked for like 0.2 seconds but you are so kind and hella cool!! it was nice having random conversations with you and i'm so glad you randomly dmed me bc i am shy and i have 0 idea how to start conversations with anyone lmao. i always smile when i see you in my notifs! i hope you have a happy new year!!! ♡

to @luthenia:

i know you're on hiatus but seeing you in my notifs always excites me hahaha. we never talk but you are so supportive of everyone in this community and i just wanted to shout you out for that! your memes are top tier LMAO and i can't wait for when you come back, happy new year ♡

to @starsforten:

we also talked for approximately 1 second but it was so fun talking to you about astrology stuff (virgo sun libra rising gang hahahaha) and those teuta matoshi dresses! you are so nice and easy to talk to and i hope your new year is happy and fruitful! ♡

i recommend every single one of these blogs for their amazing content!! i added some of my favorite fics as i'm a whore for great writing hahaaaa

@kinktae

waterloo — a masterpiece! taehyung is so bitter at the beginning and it's adorable seeing how y/n breaks his tough shell. loved this from beginning to the end ♡

hot rod — the 50s slang, the dynamic between hoseok and y/n...*chef's kiss*

@untaemedqueen

welcome to seoul land — werewolf!namjoon really got me going, 100/10 would recommend

graceful gods — this is one of my all-time favorites, greek god!jungkook has my brain going brrrr

@shadowsremedy + @therealmintedmango

support system — adorable!! this is a hybrid!yoongi fic i really enjoy, and the series isn't over yet! check it out~

@bratkook

tear you apart — demon!taehyung...holy shit. i was speechless

@tatertotthethot

the doms next door — THIS SERIES OMG, i've read each part at least five times already. taekook got me acting UP

scream (posted to @yandere-society) — a really cool take on the movie scream with jungkook, yandere fics don't always appeal to me but this one absolutely did

@ateezmakemeweep

broken — the immense ache i felt in my chest while reading this, but i loved both parts with a burning passion. san is so sweet in this :')

@atinybrew

dirty free for all — the ULTIMATE demon!san fic. the writing is absolutely immaculate and this is the first fic that had me blushing down my mf ARMS

rice milk lattes and bryophytes roads — another san fic admittedly because i'm whipped for san lol. anyways, this was cute and hot at the same time and best friend!yunho made my double biasing ass that much happier

@seacottons

pan — an adorable peter pan!hongjoong fic, it had my heart going achhfhsjfjsjf

sir kiss me — circus au with san holy hell i loved every twist and turn of this

@actuallythatwaspromise

bad romance — one of my favorite yunho fics ever, punk rock!yunho x nerd!reader has my entire heart

aurora garden center and desire ink — florist!mingi had me uwuing for the entire fic, this was adorable and i loved it sm

@yeonjuncore

every single fic on this blog is an absolute masterpiece, i swear

the devil's little angel — THIS IS ONE OF MY ULTIMATE FAVORITES, demon!yeonjun had me screaming and it was just so fun to read and i loved every single second of it so much that i've read it nearly ten times now. so go read it, you won't regret it!

the boy with the horns — another of my ultimate favorites (i told you, their writing is just that amazing), woodland fey!soobin just had me going so soft :(( i literally sobbed at one point, that's how invested i was

bleeding heart — the tension between vampire!yeonjun and vampire slayer!reader had me screeching

curtain call — i have a sad crush vampire!soobin

i love you, always — this felt so..bittersweet? taehyun loves y/n so much, i lowkey cried while reading this

@angelfic

the art of (mis)communication — i am a whore for both reconciliation and yeonjun, 100000/10 pls read this i beg of you

@angelictaehyun

growing pains — ahhh once again a yeonjun fic, my chest hurt a lil bit at some points but it was so sweet!!

@neovisioned

bed of spiderwebs — spiderman!mark has my heart screeching, i loved every second of it ♡

eddie ate dynamite — johnny suh coming for my throat yet again

cupid victorious — cupid!jaehyun :'))) definitely one of my favorites!!

@domjaehyun

quarantine chronicles — ok if you haven't read this or the part two yet then you're missing out big time!! the tension, the buildup, every single part of this fic was just *chef's kiss* but multiply thay by a million

all these years — every single moment of this felt so nostalgic and the ending was so sweet :')

@caiuscassiuss

muse — i keep going back to this one constantly, the angst in this phenomenal and i love artist!taeyong sm here

@neoct-zen

loverboy — HOT, AMAZING, I SCREAMED. the blurbs that accompany this are also top-tier i recommend reading each and every one!!

@moondustis

pink + white — i'm so soft for mark i stg, this was the cutest thing ever

@loviejaehyun

can't avoid this feeling — hockey player!mark is the best thing ever

all tied up — i just- screamed as i read this bc professor!jaehyun is too hot goodbye

@hopejanaee

incapable — this is one of the best yoongi fics i've ever read ngl, it's not completed quite yet but the parts that have been posted are top tier!!

breathless — THIS. I LOVED THIS. yuta is just so hfjshhfhshfnsn and i love this sm

@hwaddict

melting point — big boy mingiiii, 100/10 would recommend

@okayau

house next to mine — frat boy!yeonjun rly got me going, cute and hot at the same time ahhhhbfnsnnf

youth — ADORABLE, yeonjun's confession is peak i love it here

run away — how many yeonjun fics can i fit in this post? (answer: a lot) definitely one of my favorite harry potter aus!! it was awesome seeing how their relationship changed throughout the years and perhaps i teared up a little at the end :'))

@starrychannies

baby steps — ONE OF ALL-TIME MY FAVORITE FICS ON THIS SITE, every single part is so well-written and ahhhhhfhdhhf chan makes me feel some type of way

my stupid — another yeonjun fic! angsty but v cute at the end :')

@baekhvuns

this youth of craziness — 40k words of pure gold, this fic is absolutely one of my favorite san fics ever!!

replacement — prince!ten makes my brain go brrrr, i love how the y/n just speaks her mind here

@masterninjacow

untitled project — i saw soulmate au with mark and i knew would already love it, and i did! pizza boy!mark at that, amazing and i adored it

more amazing blogs!!: @galaxteez, @poutybinz, @lustjoong, @bloominghigh

these are just a few of the fics and blogs i found this year, find more on my fic rec blog @agustdiv1ne-recs!! (my thumbs are starting to hurt i'm so sorry bfjshfhsh)

wrapping up each month since august since that's when i actually started posting LMAO

☆ august

03: good enough — chan

03: bloodsucker — seonghwa

04: cutie — san

09: veloxrotaphobia — mingi

19: want — changbin

21: numb — yunho

100 follower special — i reached 100 followers towards the end of august, my first ever milestone :') also my first ever time taking requests, 'twas very fun ♡

☆ september

03: on camera — jungkook

☆ october

27: oh, worm? — namjoon

31: demon days — san

☆ november

10: a letter to my love — xiaojun

23: bad for u — jaehyun

27: home sweet home — yeonjun

☆ december

christmas bash 2020 — my brain went hey what if you did this- and i listened so here's 17 holiday fics hahahaa (not all of them are out yet but i'm working on it!!)

things i plan to release in 2021!!

☆ sunflower — jimin

☆ cross — yeonjun

☆ landslide — seonghwa

☆ nice save — san

☆ red — hyunjin

☆ a secret series (that will be revealed once i plan everything) — ateez

☆ 4 unrelated secret fics oOoOoo — will i reveal them? you'll just have to wait and see ;)

there will definitely be more posted! these are the ones that are going to be my priority at first, but my imagination is always churning so expect a lot more :)) check out all of non-secret wips here!

i hit 500 followers a couple days ago! i nearly screamed when i saw that LMAO. thank you so much for liking my content because i work hella hard on it :') sometimes i feel like i don't deserve y'all really, but @hwaddict will yell at me if i say that so ig i take it back hfhshhdhg

a post for celebrating this milestone will come as soon as i finish up the rest of my christmas fics!! sorry that i'm so slow :( (hint: my requests will be open, so look out for it!)

so yeah!! that's it, sorry for the painfully long post (i'm sorry to my thumbs for typing this whole thing out </3). thank you to everyone who read this far!! i hope everyone has a happy and healthy new year, and in the words of txt's cover, fuck 2020. may 2021 be a much better year for all of us!!!

much love,

ashlee ♡

[dazais-guardian-angel]

2021 Fanfic Tag Meme

@sixtyfourk tagged me to do this about a week ago; am I only now scrambling to do it in the last few hours of 2021? yes. does that basically sum up my work ethic/productivity in general? unfortunately also yes.

Word Count: 19,423

Words on ao3: 7 oneshots

Pairings written for: none lol

Fandoms written for: Professor Layton, Dai Gyakuten Saiban, and Genshin Impact

Most popular story: So You Never Lie Again, the sole and first Genshin fanfic I wrote this year, which.... well, it’s not at all surprising that one was going to be vastly more popular lol, with such a massive fanbase compared to the other two I wrote for this year. It was a rather spur of the moment story considering that for the most part I’m not invested enough in Genshin to write for it (a lot of what I want to read for that fandom already exists, honestly, and its universe also kinda intimidates the hell out of me), but some of the most recent updates changed that and I do have a few more ideas I want to write for the game in the future.

Funniest story: I.... I don’t think any of these are funny.... I barely write funny things :’D

Story I’m most proud of: Probably Happiness Is..., which is a short, introspective piece about Rupert Chrogray/Ashley Graydon from DGS, my favorite character in the game (duh :P). It’s rather short for me, but I think I did quite a good job at summing up and capturing the beautiful tragedy and complexities of his amazing character in only a few words, and I’m very satisfied with the flow of it and said word choices... With all my stories about him, I want to make people who may have glossed over him before understand what makes him so compelling and sympathetic, and I think I was able to accomplish that perfectly here.

Saddest story: ...probably the aforementioned “Happiness Is”... lol, I mean it does end with me killing Rupert off when he has nothing but regrets, the one time I’ve decided I will ever do that :’)

Least popular story: The Light of Ashen Dreams, but I literally just wrote it on Christmas eve and posted it, and it’s extremely short and hardly my best work, so I’m not surprised lol

Most cringeworthy story: yeah, let’s be honest, it’s the aforementioned “Light of Ashen Dreams” lol (god do I cringe at all my titles in general-) I wrote it on a whim on my phone for about 3 hours Christmas night, having never written a fic on my phone before, and spent a few hours editing it Christmas day before posting it, just because I was frustrated with how long I’d gone without writing anything and wanted to put something up before the end of the year, so... yeah. It was based on an image I’ve had in my head for a long time, so it didn’t come COMPLETELY out of nowhere, but it was still probably rushed, and definitely cheesy smh

Favorite Opening Line(s): The opening of, again, “Happiness Is...”, the first line of which was my basis for the entire fic (along with a doujin on pixiv):

 “I simply do what I can. And well, to me, there are some things in life that cannot be bought with money.”

His father had said this, once, when he had asked him how he could go on. Could continue to bear such a miserable existence under such miserable burdens, without even putting up a fight. He had answered without judgement, without patronizing, without a single ounce of naivete; simply stared directly into his eyes with that ever-present, quiet hopefulness, framed by that same, tired smile.

Favorite Closing Lines(s): The ending to my DGS/PL crossover, Like a Flame to a Cold Heart, because something something symbolism about reverting back to your old name something something feels :’)

“…Rupert.”

A hand throws off his hood, sending misty white flying, the other moving to his chest, as he dips into a graceful bow.

“Rupert Milverton.”

Top Scenes from Anywhere You Would Choose to Have Illustrated: The scene that is the main bulk of While You and I, Keep Ourselves Warm... more specifically the hug I guess... I just love Rupert and his dad so so much, I’m dying for more art of them :’) i want to see them happy and soft together... *cries*

Stories I haven’t yet written, but intend to: God, so fucking much. Most ideally, my DGS Gina and Rupert enemies-to-siblings/friends slowburn WIP, that I started earlier this year and already have about 6k of, but then paused in order to wait to play DGS2 in July and then ignored cause of health shit. Something about the Inazuma story arc in Genshin I wanna write, as well as something about the most recent Albedo story developments. Two ideas I have for - god I hate that I’m even saying this - Demon Slayer, focused on Rengoku cause the demon slayer movie is and forever will be the only part of demon slayer i give a shit about. Two ideas I have related to the most recent and now premature final :’) chapter of Tales of Crestoria, and I wanna write more for Crestoria in general. And overall just a lot of vague wanting to write more for DGS and PL in general, cause those are what I focused on the most last year and I definitely have so much more I need to get out about those games.

Fic-writing goals for 2022: write. more. god fuckign damn just write more. My mental health has been so bad this year, due to my physical health sucking and mega anxiety (not just mental anxiety but anxiety affecting my body! which makes my mental health even worse!) and shit with parents, but there was still so much time that I was fine and could have been writing and just. didn’t. because hahahaaa untreated adhd I most certainly do have amiright 👉👉 :’) And I honestly don’t know how to improve on that front, without meds, which I really don’t want because I already take enough freaking meds as it is (and I’m not even officially diagnosed, at any rate), but.... I just... gotta try harder to hold myself accountable and write more.... haaaahhhh.... and also not rely so much on comments to motivate me. My stuff is so niche that it’s never going to get many comments, and I just need to accept that, and not let the lack of them affect me...

Thanks for tagging me, K! I’m not gonna tag anyone cause it’s already basically 2022 fkdls;lkdfglf, but if anyone wants to do, this feel free...!

[evverest]

my partner and i playing civ6 together is really a gem because he is so fucking meticulous, micromanaging every city, spending time on even the smallest of decisions while i blaze through every turn with blind confidence that everything will turn out okay eventually. i misclick constantly, i forget things, i click things off spur of the moment appeal, i refuse to check any menu or plan or think about decisions for longer than 10 seconds tops. most civs i make are memeing the entire time. i think every click i make pains him physically. he constantly tries to coax me into learning more abt the game, thinking criticially, understanding mechanics, and i am obstinate and unwilling at every turn. we could not play the game any differently and we have played So Much of it