#btw studying sucks less with Harry

[callmewhateverhonestly]

OKAYYY so Harry's House review time because I've been listening to it all day long and I'm obsessed now.

First of all, let me say that I thoroughly ENJOYED it, in every sense of that word. It's got that pop vibe which will make you get up and dance no matter what you were feeling before.

Secondly, Daylight made me giggle for some reason??

Not my favourite artists having the same song nameanywayyy

Lastly, I admit that every song is a masterpiece but for some reason the lines - "You're just in time, make your tea and your toast / You framed all your posters and dyed your clothes" - make me feel so warm and fuzzy. And it just feels like no matter what you're going through in life, the mundane moments would always be there to your rescue.

So yeah.

*sighs softly*

[lxngbottom]

Bookshelves. | N.L. (Chapter Seven)

in which the reader helps out in the library, and she catches the eye of neville.

warnings: swearing, & i think that’s all?

CLICK HERE FOR CHARACTER INFO, SERIES INFO, PLAYLIST, AND MORE CHAPTERS!

feedback is always appreciated! (btw thank you for all the love on this story so far, and for 500 fucking followers that’s insane!!!)

—

the wind rushed through the atmosphere, making the students on the quidditch field shiver as they flew through the air. practice was always miserable, especially with harry coaching, but the snow just made it unbearable. but y/n, she was quite enjoying herself as she held a book in her hand, lifting her head up every now and then to watch ginny.

she cheered as she saw ginny rushing through the air. ginny seemed to notice this, and she looked back at her best friend and shot her an appreciative smile. y/n chuckled and shook her head as she looked back down at the book to continue reading, studying for herbology being her top priority at the moment. she mindlessly then reached into her beg, and pulled out a piece of gum. she unwrapped it, then popped it into her mouth. she put the wrapper into her pocket, as she hated when people just threw their trash anywhere.

y/n continued to retain the words on the worn down pages of the book, until she heard a familiar voice ring out.

“oh, fuck me, just shut the fuck up!”

y/n swiftly looked up, noticing neville with an aggravated look on his face, and a girl treading right behind him.

“you are a dick, longbottom! you know what? actually… you’re not! i shouldn’t even give you that much credit beings that you have the smallest dick i’ve ever seen!”

“oh, that’s fucking clever! listen, i made it very fucking clear that i don’t date! i told you that right before we fucked, and you know that! you’re acting so desperate! it’s honestly the most pathetic thing i’ve ever seen!”

“oh, fuck you, longbottom! you couldn’t even stay hard while i was sucking you off!”

y/n covered her mouth chuckled at the argument, as she could most likely collect what it was about. she saw the girl turn around to leave the stands, neville’s fists balled up.

“well, you know what?! maybe you should use less teeth next time! you won’t get that far in your sex life if you keep treating penises like they’re food!”

the girl huffed and left the stands, and neville threw his hands up in the air as he watched her. he rolled his eyes, and turned around, only to lock eyes with a nosy y/n. he instantly marched towards her, which made y/n sigh i’m defeat to herself, and she quickly looked back down at her book, hoping to escape neville longbottom for just once.

“oh, don’t even try to hide the fact you were being nosy, y/l/n.” he stated with a small chuckle, “i could practically feel your eyes burning into the back of my skull!”

y/n looked over at him as he unfortunately took the empty spot next to her, “well… it’s funny to see a fellow female shoot you down. i love seeing your pride parade get shot down!”

neville scoffed, and put a hand on his chest, “are you insinuating that i’m a narcissist, y/l/n?”

y/n cocked her eyebrows at the boy who somehow still managed to keep that smirk on his face, even when he was trying to act all offended.

“i mean… that’s not necessarily what i was trying to say… but sure! you’re not too far from it!” neville shot her an even bigger smirk at her attempt to be all big and bad, “besides, it doesn’t matter what i think! you said it yourself, so i suppose you can just brush it off and prey on the next poor girl you’re going to manipulate into giving you a hand job!”

manipulate? how low did y/n consider neville to be?

“merlin, y/l/n… who pissed in your pumpkin juice today? you don’t even know what happened with that girl and you’re still taking her side.”

y/n shook her head and looked back down at her book to continue reading,

“maybe it’s because i know how you are, neville. i mean sure, everything you do you only do it when you have consent, but you “sweet talk” girls into pleasuring you. that’s almost the dictionary definition of what manipulation is, in case you didn’t know.”

neville went to respond, maybe shoot her claim down, but for some reason… he couldn’t. it wasn’t like she was right, but, deep down he felt some sort of odd defeat.

he decided to turn his attention to her lips during their momentarily silence, and he noticed that she was chewing gum.

“can i have a piece of gum?”

she narrowed her eyes at him as she slowly turned her head,

“if i give you one, will you leave me alone?”

he shrugged,

“guess we’ll just have to find out, yeah?”

she huffed, and swiftly obliged to his request. and when she passed him the wrapped up piece of gum, the feeling of his fingers brushing hers, the coldness from the single ring on his finger, it caused slight goosebumps to form on her barely warmed up arms.

“thanks, y/l/n…” he told her, that smirk still on his face.

y/n chewed on her bottom lip as she forced herself to break eye contact, and decided to look back at ginny on the field.

“you got a pen?”

y/n let out an exaggerated groan, and didn’t even give him a response before mindlessly handing him one from her bag,

“this is how i remember shit, you know? an old… friend told me it’s the best way to remember things that you don’t want to remember!”

“like actually doing your homework?” she spat back, trying to ignore the reluctancy before he said the word, “friend”.

he chuckled as she looked back over at ginny, noticing her and dean taking to each other as they flew in the air,

“you always hit the nail on the head, don’t you, y/l/n?”

y/n didn’t give him a response, just continued on with reading. neville did his own thing as she did so, peaking over her shoulder, taking in the familiar words. because obviously, he had read that same herbology book countless times.

“having trouble with herbology, huh?” he asked, “that would shock me. aren’t you like—top of the class in your year?”

she clenched her jaw and snapped her head to look over at him… again. “number one… no, i’m not top of the class. and number two… i’m not having trouble… just—brushing up. i have a te—“

“boring! don’t care!”

for some reason, that was y/n’s last straw for today. she clenched her fists as they stared at each other,

“why are you—“

“such an asshole? are you really going to ask me that again?”

she sighed and shut the book,

“no. why are you so… mean? i never did anything to you.”

neville took jokes a little too far sometimes, and he knew that. but, the look on y/n’s face shot a bolt of guilt through the boy’s veins. he opened his mouth to respond, but once again, y/n y/l/n shut him down.

he had no idea why he let her get to him like that.

“i’m finding somewhere else to sit. have a good day, longbottom.”

she really did sound hurt, but neville couldn’t understand why. sure, the girl was sensitive, but what was it about what he said, or didn’t say that had gotten to her so much?

neville sighed as she stood up, bracing himself for something that he would usually never do.

“y/l/n…” he quietly called out to her, and if she would’ve been just a little bit farther, she wouldn’t have been able to hear him. but, she did, so she looked back at him, and he walked up to her. he reached his hand out to hand her the gum wrapper that he had been holding since he put the gifted gum into his mouth,

“here.” he grabbed her hand, and put the neatly folded wrapper into her palm, “i know how much you hate when people litter.”

she furrowed her eyebrows as she held the wrapper in her hand, and she looked up at him.

“sorry.”

and with that, he walked away. she watched as she did so, bewildered at his… “apology”. when he finally disappeared from her vision, she looked back down at the wrapper. some odd feeling inside of her was pestering her to unwrap it, and she took a quick glance at her chipped, red nail polish before she did.

she unwrapped it slowly, and she furrowed her eyebrows,

‘red looks good on you. — neville’

-

taglist: @bratty-longbottom @uselesssapphickitten @p40l44 @vayeya11 @pink-hufflepuff @princesslaiahg @de4d-s0up @josierosie2 @lilulo-12 @mr-palpa-the-sith-lord @jossy-xoxo

(lmk if you would like to be added to the taglist!)

[yakocchi]

Becoming a Family With Him, Part 3 // Shuichi, Hikaru, Rhion, Luke, Eisuke

so this came out, as further celebration for the anni. VERY GOOD, much more appreciated than the prior story set lol that one was kind of boring but i get it

they made the kids for all the... kid-less ones, and the eisuke one that used to be VIP-exclusive is now here for everyone to buy (rip those ppl who gacha for it)

my rambling behind the cut (spoilers!!)

shuichi // as ud expect, shuichi has a literal hime ass looking girl (kikyo) for a daughter. she’s only 6, but is pretty calm and ladylike. She even calls her parents with –sama so... ok luckily shuichi does not strip down all the way in the presence of her daughter and only takes off his suit coat. thanks dad

anyway since shuichi has a break coming up, he wants to have a family trip how nice. but then the dang girl wants to go over to see eisuke WHAT when soryu exists and lives a block away? unrelatable, im closing the app anyway eisuke is her first love, which wtf he’s like 20 yrs older than u. even worse, mc says she’s been in love since she was like 3.

shuichi is reconsidering the benefits of democracy in his mind but eventually relents. but then they’re still following the fucc-days rule they set years ago. well, as he says in the story, RULES ARE RULES

blah blah i don’t want to go over everything bc then it’ll be boring reading the story when it comes out in engl right? also im tired bc it’s 1 am and i just want to play toontown in bed but nothing really bad happens. they are a v cute family bc shuichi is a pleasant and mature dad. kikyo and mc even do a little surprise for him at the end and it is very sweet. i feel like out of all the families, this is the most ideal

mad hatter // so they have twin sons named Rui and Kai. Rui is the childlike one that resembles Rhion in personality, Kai is the more mature one that resembles Al. man i forget that boy’s name but u get me i know they only can use stock bgs but it’s killing me that these dang kids get to sleep in what looks like separate king sized beds.

even though rhion is now a father of two, he still acts like... 10. i mean he still horni but it makes me feel weird

later it’s revealed that Ota teaches them both as an art tutor bc they both showed an interest in art. this is cute bc ota is bad with kids in this universe LOL

the ending on this one was weird cuz the kids didn’t show up in the entirety of the last ep bc it was about WORK. so uh... interesting

hikaru // so their son is named akari. haha get it because it means light. like how hikaru also means light. can mc name her kids unrelated to their father or is that against the Geneva convention

this kid actually acts like an actual little boy. like what hikaru would’ve probably turned into if not for the whole sad backstory. the story starts with akari just bringing a dog randomly home one day. he actually saved the dog (it is very cute bc he did not want the dog to cry), and then after a talk they decide to keep the dog as long as akari knows the responsibility of taking care of an animal.

so next day, the bidders come over to their house and everyone’s like woaw a dog. lol they come into their house as guests and eisuke and mamo still demand for beverages, they all suck

akari names the dog... “Light” (Raito) and i want out of this nightmare. Naturally bc Light is an abandoned dog it’s still kind of bad with interacting with things. But then Light suddenly be giving the ( ╹ਊ╹) to soryu bc remember, animals love him. everyone clowns on soryu for being an unintentional dog whisperer and then akari is like “soryu san pls make me ur apprentice” and he gives some advice like approaching it slowly, and talking to it from the front instead of back.

blah blah there’s a situation where Light goes YEET after a Doberman gets all angry and then hides bc then another dog is scaring it. hikaru swoops in to the save the day as the Real Dog Whisperer. ok it’s cute when hikaru actually gets to look cool  for once LOL

luke // luke is cute on the bc “pre-story” scene he’s actually pretty open to the idea of having kids; he actually goes “well imo we should think abt it pretty soon, but i wanted to hear ur opinion on it” but then he gets horni. and then he’s like “our kids are going to have your collarbones. awesomeee im looking forward to that” ....ok

ok cut to the actual story and they’re in Japan. Luke’s kid looks... strange versus the others. why are his eyes so big? omg voltage his eyes arent going to be saucers just cuz he half white also the kid’s name is Yuri (Or Urey). They couldn’t think of any other Brit-styled names? Like Harry? Henry? William? Wilfred? hey stan be my princess btw he’s pretty cute, though he gives serious “timid kid that gets bullied in the children’s movie” vibes. He calls Luke “daddy” and mc “mammy/mommy”.

so luke talks about his relationship w/ soryu and eisuke and then yuri is like “i want friends like that” wow cute but also find less ethically-complicated friends

so luke lets yuri meet a young patient of his (haru) so they can be friends. they get along so it’s good. haru gets in critical condition later so luke zooms outta there to do the operation.

LOL but at the end yuri is like, “i want to make more friends. (...) can i go to the bidder’s room from now on?” this boy works fast

And then he’s like “Eisuke-san... please be my friend.” HIS POWER. even eisuke was like :O so then eisuke orders a whole bunch of food and books up to the penthouse. But then yuri’s like “...i like eisuke’s eyes” and everyone’s like oh man that’s gonna be his fetish

Baba: why have u started to have an interest in eyes Yuri: I read it from one of daddy’s medical books Hikaru: wtf u can read that at 4??? (...) Soryu: wat Yuri: um... i want soryu to be my friend too Yuri: bc soryu’s eyes are also powerfully cool...

eisuke // ok this gets an extended ramble bc the more annoying the story the longer i must complain

so you might be thinking, “oh so this is gonna be a flashback in some in media res styled story with your 2 kids, u know in the style of the others” and well, no you just go straight to white screen into the flashback, back when eito was smaller and thus a little more cute. well it’s not really false advertising bc they did say “reminisce” in the description. but i wanted to see eito be a good big brother for a moment! or... less good? man i wanted to see kaito go waaaah like a baby idk i wanted to see him exist

so back to the story they cut to small eito. even as a smaller punk he does fight with his dad a little, just w/ a more narrow vocabulary to work with. tho at this point he’s still pretty sweet so clearly eisuke clowning him day and night was a negative effect on his development. (doesn’t treat his child like a child) (child grows up to a punk that doesn’t respect him) (surprised pikachu) being the son of a billionaire means that this child has to go study at a very young age and listen to MOZART. no child of eisuke ichinomiya will be listening to degenerate bops like lee taemin’s criminal next day they all go to the very fancy school that eito will be attending. eisuke does a speech, but then eito is all like “why is papa over there all the time” in reference to how all the other parents in attendance are having fun with their children, but eisuke is busy talking to other people for business and connections etc. etc. mc kind of has a hard time trying to explain it to eito bc... it’s honestly poor parenting... eiji shows up after arriving late, and he’s like “gramps is gonna be with ya today! instead of papa” which is cute but then she’s like psst thanks for coming and im like oh... so grandpa just didn’t randomly come to the open house for fun he’s just gonna be surrogate dad while real dad is busy... aw... and then at the end eito’s like FUC THIS KINDERGARTEN. eisuke is like “(smh) don’t yell in public. (despite everything) you are still the eldest son of the Ichinomiya family”

and so afterwards it’s clear that eito does not want anything to do with this school. he just sits in the classroom until mc is there to pick him up instead of playing in the courtyard or w/e, wanting nothing to do with the other kids.

so later there’s a hiking trip for the students and both of their parents, and mc asks eisuke if he’ll be available for it. eisuke is like, “i have a business trip that day, so I’ll have to adjust my schedule” and he’s been very busy in the opening of a new business or w/e. mc tells him to not do so much for something like that and that it’s ok if she goes alone with eito on the trip.

it’s the day of the trip, and mc goes alone with eito. she notes that a lot of dads did indeed come along for the trip. she apologizes to eito and says that she did talk to eisuke about the trip before, but he’s simply busy for this day. and im like... but girl, you were the one who told him not to change his schedule for the trip. yes a trip may seem less important than business ventures, but don’t make it sound like you weren’t the one who stopped him. lol. idk why im pressed abt this single line of dialogue bc later she does realize she fucced up there well eito is just like w/e about it and has pretty much accepted that sort of thing

anyway eito goes missing later and one of the kids said that he told eito that his dad (eisuke) didn’t come bc his dad thinks that his work is more important than his son. so eito got mad and ran off somewhere

and then mc finally gets the lightbulb moment that eito... wants to see his dad!! he ran off to go try to see him somehow??? !! wow so sweet

it’s raining like a mf but then in her search for eito eisuke randomly pops out of nowhere. He’s like “ho i did not remember saying that i wasn’t coming” and she’s like “im sorrryyy” and both me and him are like “just find the dang kid”

ok yea they find eito, he starts being a good student, and u start to see where he starts being antagonistic towards his dad LOL etc. etc. lol this story annoyed me so i don’t feel like doing the rest of the play by play orz

anyway thanks for reading my garbage LOL

[slythraco]

Hey I just read your sfw Tom ABC’s and I gotta ask any chance we can get a NSFW ABC’s for Tom? 🙊🙈😍 obsessed with your writing and just discovered you!!

Author's note: Here it is ! I hope you’ll like it ! I’m all very new to writing smut so i really think i could’ve done better but i guess it’s with practice that i’ll get better ! Anyway, have fun ! Also, I took the alphabet from @malfycs you can find it here (Btw, her NSFW alphabet about Draco is crazy ! I recommend reading it if you haven’t already and you like spice !

Warnings: 🔴+18🔴, This thing is all about sex so if you're under 18 please don't read it !

Words count: 1,5K

Masterlist

______________

A = Aftercare (What they're like after sex)

Tom loves to cuddle you after such an intimate moment. He always covers you in kisses and caresses to make you feel loved. He also tells you a bunch of cute words in your ear, never falling to make you fall a little more in love with him.

B = Body part (Their favourite body part of theirs and also their partner's)

His eyes, for sure. It's the first thing people see in him, and it's normal because they are incredibly beautiful. He knows the power he holds when he looks right into your eyes and loves to see you get lost in them.

And for you, It's hard for him to choose one favourite part of your body since he likes every single inch of you but you would bet that he particularly likes your belly, at night we're your cuddling on the bed or in the couch, he always lay his head on your tummy while you play with his blond hair. He also always leaves kisses all over it, which never fail to tickles you and he loves hearing your laughter when he does this.

C = Cum (Anything to do with cum basically... I'm a disgusting person)

Tom biggest fear is that you'll feel degraded during sec so when he feels the need to cum he'll completely refuse to cum on your face on in your mouth if you don't give your consent to it. Otherwise, he'll cum in you or on your belly.

D = Dirty Secret (Pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

Tom secretly the biggest dream is to go around the world with you and have sex in the most beautiful places. He already imagines himself eating you up on a beach of Hawaii or Bahamas, making you love in a bedroom with view of the Eiffel Tower, pounding in and out of you while your moaning resonate in the lanes of Berlin.

He'll propose the idea to you soon enough.

E = Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they're doing?)

It might not seem like it, but, Tom knows what he's doing. At least after making a few times, your first time together was really banal and clumsy because of the level of stress Tom was enduring, but he was already so much better the second time.

Why ? You may ask, because he remembers EVE-RY-THING. He studies all your reactions and notes in a small corner of his head all of yours weak spots and things that makes you go crazy. Trust me, after a few times, Tom is completely able to make you come in a matter of seconds if he wants to.

And the more you have sex the more it gets better since he's always searching for a new spot to exploit to make you come for him.

F = Favourite Position (This goes without saying. Will probably include a visual)

Tom's favourite position probably the missionary, he finds it perfect. As a shy and romantic guy in bed he loves the intimacy and the proximity of it. He can easily kiss you while he makes love to you, or kiss your neck to make you even more crazy. He can also look at your beautiful face screaming his name, which drives him insane.

G = Goofy (Are they more serious in the moment, or are they humorous, etc)

Tom is globally serious with you're having sex, but he can crack a joke once in a while to take the pressure off. Especially before it actually begin. He'll bring a bad pick-up line often inspired by Harry Potter like "Would you let me Slyther-in tonight ?" Is his favourite one so far, he used it a lot, but he always tries to find new ones.

H = Hot Spots (Places that drive them crazy)

Definitely his thighs or his neck, every time your hands touch his thighs he can't help but jump a bit and looking at your hand to make sure you don't move it too far in front of people because this shit can turn him on in a matter of seconds.

And his neck because when you're starting to kiss it or bite on it, he can turn into a totally different person. You can say bye to the pure and cute Tom to leave room for a dominant and nasty version of him which can be surprising at first.

I = Intimacy (How are they during the moment, romantic aspects)

Well, there is two Toms. The really romantic and gentle Tom and the dominant and rough Tom it really depends in his and your mood on the moment.

He'll either be really loving, covering you with kisses and caresses for you to fell like the most precious thing in his eyes which you are. He'll do everything to make you feel all the power of his love, and he loves to hold your hands while making it.

Or, he'll turn into the unknown version of him. If he's mad at something, nervous or you two have been away for a long time, he'll become rough and dominant. Shocking, slaps (on your butt) and even love marks to remind you who you belong to.

J = Jack Off (Masturbation headcanon)

He only does it when he's away from you for a film otherwise when you're around him there is no need to do it.

K = Kink (One or more of their kinks)

Something Tom loves to do is to take ice between his lips and trace a line on your body. Seeing the block of ice melting on your warm skin drives him crazy. And you, you love the contrast of the cold feeling on your body, it makes you even more turned on.

L = Location (Favourite places to do the do)

Simple but your bed, you both like to be comfortable and the bed is the best place to be.

M = Motivation (What turns them on, gets them going)

Something that can go crazy in less than a second is when you clearly ask him to fuck you. With that, Tom wouldn't a second to get you undressed to satisfy your wishes. When you kiss him languorously too, which can be a problem sometimes when you are in public and your kisses give him an erection.

N = NO (Something they wouldn't do, turn-offs)

Don't you ever think of having him touching your feet. He hates it. And like mention before he doesn't like a situation where you could feel degraded, so you can cross out BDSM, he doesn't like the idea of being violent (more than just give you a slap on your ass), he doesn't find anything exciting about it.

O = Oral (Preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc) He likes both to be honest, he doesn't really have a preference, he loves when you suck his cock it always makes him feel extremely good and make you realise it with his moans. But he also loves to hear you moans his name as he eats you up, and you just taste so good he could do it all day.

P = Pace (Are they fast and rough? Slow and sensual? Etc.)

Like mentioned before, it depends on Tom's mood.

Q = Quickie (Their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc.)

It's not his favourite way of having sex, but he doesn't mind it if you don't have much time, and he's really horny. Quickies happen a lot when he's promoting a new film, since during these period he doesn't have a lot of free time you two manage to have quick sex between two interviews.

R = Risk (Are they game to experiment, do they take risks, etc.)

Yes ! A lot of Tom's first time were with you, he's always up to try new things with you.

S = Stamina (How many rounds can they go for, how long do they last...)

Tom can honestly last really long, he knows how to keep himself from cumming

T = Toy (Do they own toys? Do they use them? On a partner or themselves?)

The only toy Tom own is a connected vibrator. One he asked you to put it in, and you went to a dinner together. Let me tell you, he had so much fun making it vibrate at the most random moments to see you keep yourself from moaning in front of everyone, and he found it so fucking sexy. You probably had the best sex night after that.

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

He does it all the time, he would slip some nasty words in the crook of your ear to make you shiver before disappearing. Or something else he loves to do is to snog with you until you almost do it but then get up and do something completely different, he finds it so funny when you get mad but also so hot, so he never teases for a long time before he actually fuck you mercilessly.

V = Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make)

Tom definitively makes some sounds in the sheets, he likes you to know how good you make him feel. He's also really vocal at the moment, telling all kinds of dirty things in your ears. "Just like that." ; "You make me feel so good darling." ; "You're so tight." ; "You're so beautiful." ; "Continu like that." And that's only a little part of what he can tell you.

W = Wild Card (Get a random headcanon for the character of your choice)

Tom doesn't stop after you had an orgasm, actually, it makes him even more horny and will continue to fuck you until you have a few more. Otherwise, he doesn't feel like he did a good job.

X = X-Ray (What they look like under clothes)

Tom is a grower, I'd say about 6 inches at rest and almost 9 when he's hard. Also, his cock is long and thin, so he's definitely big enough to satisfy you.

Y = Yearning (How high is their sex drive?)

He never says no to a good romp, especially with you. He just can't contain himself when he's around you, you're just too damn desirable. He always feels the need to feel his naked body against yours.

Z = ZZZ (... how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

Not that quickly actually, he likes to cuddle and talk with after a such intimate moment. And he usually waits for you to be asleep before him before he can allow himself to do so.

[jeannereames]

Hi Dr Reames, I hope you're well! I think I might have asked this before, so sorry if I'm being obnoxious, but do you think there is very much studying left to be done in regards to Alexander/Macedonia? Looking at the field from the outside, it seems a little bit like all that can be said, has been. Would you recommend studying Alexander specifically as a prospective academic path, or would you advocate pursuing other areas of classics?

The problem with studying ANYthing in the ancient world is always a problem of the sources. Unless there’s new material, then we’re all just doing ring-around-the-rosie with what we have. That doesn’t mean new things can’t be said. I’d point to my own work on Hephaistion, or for that matter, Alexander’s bereavement. I wasn’t looking at anything new, just looking differently at what we already had. As someone who’d done bereavement counseling, Alexander’s mourning of Hephaistion didn’t strike me as particular unusual, except in the amount of money he had and power to have his desires put into practice.

Also, scholarship tends to go through “fads,” like anything else. That is, someone makes a splash with a new approach, one that can be applied more broadly, and suddenly, a lot of people jump on board. That’s not necessarily bad, but it can result in oversaturation. Right now, one of the big fads is “reception studies.” So the rise of new directions in the study of old fields can offer alternative approaches to familiar material.

Another thing that can happen is for old fields to give birth to new ones. E.g, Charles Edson, Harry Dell, and then Nick Hammond all started asking questions about the country that produced Philip and Alexander, instead of writing just about them. Edson’s 1939 dissertation at Harvard, “Five Studies in Macedonian History” widened the lens but things really began to churn in the 60s and 70s. In 1972, Nick Hammond published the first volume in that massive A History of Macedonia, after having done Epiros earlier. He got Griffith to work with him on vol. 2, Griffith writing much of the material on Philip (which is still, btw, a pretty damn good summary of Philip’s reign, if you allow for material discovered since), then Walbank, already well-known as a scholar of Philip V, worked with Hammond on Vol. 3, which is the Hellenistic period.

Macedonian Studies was born, and by 1990, 3 different histories had appeared: a short version by Hammond on Macedonian Institutions called The Macedonian State, Gene Borza’s (still) excellent In the Shadow of Olympus, that goes up to Philip II, and Malcolm Errington’s A History of Macedonia that included ATG and the Hellenistic period. What followed (and was in between) involved numerous articles, then companions and conference proceedings. Alexander (and Philip) were still hot property, but many articles had nothing to do with them. New direction had been found.

Yet notice most of those early scholars were English-speakers. Partly, that owed to where it got started: Edson and Dell were Americans. They trained students who were also Americans. So Bill Greenwalt (Dell’s student) would go into Argead Macedonia with an interest in Illyria (and Thrace) because Dell had the same. There were some Greek scholars, such as Miltiades Hatzopoulos and Argyro Tataki doing a lot with epigraphy, and Manolis Andronikos himself, but the field was dominated by English-speakers for a while.

One of the bigger shifts in the last 20-25 years has been an expansion into other languages, plus the Greeks dominating the archaeology. When you take up high-level scholarship, there’s an assumption that you will read material in languages besides your own. When I got my PhD, aside from the ancient languages, common wisdom dictated I learn German and French.

BUT my NUMBER ONE piece of advice to anybody who wants to do ancient Macedonia today is LEARN MODERN GREEK.

Why? Because, as I said, the Greeks have taken back their own archaeology and most of their reports are in Greek. They’re talking to each other, and most (non-Greek) scholars don’t read modern Greek [that well]. That’s not entirely accidental, and some payback for the colonial dominance of the late 1800s and 1900s. (Elgin Marbles anybody?) The best way to keep out “interference” is to write mostly in a language few other scholars read well. That keeps Macedonian history in Greek hands. I would now advise young scholars that modern Greek is more important than French. Just as, if you really want to do Thracian history, learning Bulgarian and/or Russian might be a good idea.

It’s getting increasingly hard, as scholarship expands, to keep up with all the languages one needs. Current work is being done on Macedonia, as well as Alexander and the Hellenistic world in English, Spanish, Italian, German, modern Greek, and even Russian, and that doesn’t look at the wider world outside Europe (and colonial states). We’ve got a ton of talented young scholars on the continent, while jobs are lacking in many English-speaking countries, meaning students just aren’t going into it. English still remains a major language, largely because Americans and Canadians suck at learning other languages while the Europeans might speak 4-5. But English is becoming less relevant. As a grad student, I couldn’t have guessed I’d need Spanish and Italian more than French.

But LEARN MODERN GREEK, as that’s where the NEW stuff is. I doubt we’ll get much (if anything) new in textual evidence. By contrast, archaeology is rewriting what we thought we knew about north Greece. E.g., Methone now vies with Pithokousai for the earliest Greek script. Think about that a minute. Euboian Greeks and Phoenicians weren’t just hanging around off the coast of Cumai in the late 8th century, they were poking about the Thermaic Gulf, too, interacting with whoever the hell was at Pella before the Macedonians moved in (Bottaians, Paionians, somebody else…?). Who [what people] were buried at Archontiko between 650-450 BCE?? What was happening tradewise between Aiani in Elimeia and Corinth? That, to my mind, is where scholarship is going: or it should be. The Early Iron and Archaic Ages…periods before Macedonia even shows up in the written record with Herodotos.

Sure, I love Alexander, and I write about him a lot here, or Hephaistion, but I’m really an Argead specialist. I’m just as curious about how Alexander I used Persian power, then Persian absence to consolidate his own power and create Macedonia as we know it. When I first got to UNO, the Hellenistic Era was the “happenin’” place, but there are now a number of Macedoniasts doing that. Pat Wheatley (Brian Bosworth’s student) and Charlotte Dunn just (2020) published a new (probably definitive) book on Demetrios Poliorketes for instance (I’ve been waiting to see that for years). And there will always be Yet Another book on Alexander or Philip, but the place that is WIDE OPEN for research is the archaeology of Archaic and Early Iron Age Macedonia. That shit is interesting.

Go to Macedonia. Drive around and visit the museums (not just the big ones in Athens and Thessaloniki, or even Vergina). Go to Veroia, go to Pella, go to Aiani, go to Ioannina, go to Florina. See what’s up there. It’s COOL.

[olderthannetfic]

Hey, sorry to ask this, but a few days ago I saw a post/discussion about the history of original work on ao3 (i.e. how and when it was allowed). I thought it was in my likes, but it's not, and I thought you had reblogged it recently, but I didn't find it. I was wondering if you have seen this discussion around? Or where I can find more about it? This specific post talked abt how who defended original work on ao3 were not the BNFs, if that helps.

That was me running my mouth in the reblogs of something or other. It’s just the one comment.

But what’s that you say? Some tl;dr about a pet topic? Don’t mind if I do! ;) (To be honest, most of this debate happened years ago, and a lot of the long meta was by me back then too, so…)

Okay, so, the situation with Original Works is actually super interesting and a microcosm of early years OTW wank.

This is going to be even more tl;dr than my usual. To try to summarize very briefly:

There were two big cultural factions. One thought “original” was the opposite of “fan”. That one was in charge of OTW. It was hard to get voices from the other side into the debate because they already felt excluded from OTW.

This divide broke down more or less into Ye Olde Slash Fandom on the “it’s the opposite” side and anime fandom on the “WTF?” side. Americans on one side and a lot of non-US, non-English language fandom on the other.

I. Media Fandom, Anime Fandom, and Early OTW

I went to that first fundraising party that astolat threw in New York City back in… god… 2007? 2008? I wasn’t on the Board or any official position until the committees got started later, but I was around right from the very beginning.

Whether you’re looking at volunteers or at people who commented on astolat’s original post, there were always a variety of fans from a variety of fannish backgrounds. People aren’t absolutely in one camp or another, and fannish interests change over time. If you go dig through Dreamwidth posts to find who was actually participating in this debate at the time, half of them are probably in the other camp now.

If you think like that sounds like a preamble to me making a bunch of offensively sweeping generalizations and divvying fans up into little groups, you’d be right! Haha.

I.a. Ye Olde Media Fandom

There are a lot of camps of people who like fanfic. One of the biggest divisions has been Ye Olde Media Fandom vs. anime fandom. Astolat’s social circle–my LJ social circle–was filled with people with decades of fannish experience and a deep knowledge of the Media Fandom side of things.

Those fandom history treatises that start with K/S zines in Star Trek fandom in the 70s and move on through the mainstream buddy cops like Starsky & Hutch to the more niche, sff buddy cops like Fraser and Ray or Jim and Blair are talking about Media Fandom. I try to always capitalize it because the name is lulzy and bizarre to me unless it’s a proper noun for a specific historical thing. It was coined as a rude term for “mass media” fandom aka dumb people who like, ughhhh, Star Trek, ughhh, instead of books. This is a very ancient slapfight from the type of fandom you find at Worldcon, often called “SF fandom” or plain “fandom”.

(Yes, this leads to mega confusion on the part of some old dudes when they find Fanlore and fail to understand that “fandom” there refers to what these people would call “Media Fandom”. They think only they get the unmarked form. But I digress…)

Media Fandom is a specific flavor of fandom. It’s where the slash zines were. It’s where the fans of live action US TV shows were. It’s the history that acafans have laid out well and that tends to get used to defend the idea of a female subculture writing transgressive and transformative fanfic. On the video side, Media Fandom is where Kandy Fong invented vidding by making Star Trek slideshows.

(Kandy’s still around, BTW. She’s usually at Escapade in L.A. Ask her to tell you about the dancing penises sketch in person. She’s hilarious.)

Astolat and friends had been going to slash cons for years. They founded Vividcon. And Yuletide. That meant that when astolat said “Hey kids, let’s put on a show!” we all jumped to help. This is a lady who gets things done.

From a Worldcon perspective, or even from an older Media Fandom perspective, this group was comparatively young, hip, and welcoming. Their fandom interests were comparatively broad. Just look at Yuletide!

In fact, yes, let us look at Yuletide… [ominous music]

I.b. Yuletide sucks at anime

From the very first year (2003), Yuletide mods have asked for help with anime fandoms, been confused about anime fandoms, or made bad judgment calls about anime fandoms. They’ve fucked up on Superhero comics and plenty of other things over the years, but anime has been the most consistent (well, and JRPGs, but there’s so much overlap in those fic fandoms).

There was already bad feeling about this. There were years of bad feeling about this.

I.c. Where are the historians?

Academic study of fanficcy things pretty much got started with Textual Poachers and Enterprising Women. Other acafans who are well known to LJ and later Tumblr are people like Francesca Coppa who wrote a very nice summary of the history of Media Fandom. These are not the only academics who exist, these academics themselves have written about many other things, and by now, OTW’s own journal has covered a lot of other territory, but to this day I see complaints on Tumblr that “acafans” only care about K/S and oldschool slash fandom.

There were years of bad feeling about this as well.

I.d. What kind of fan was I?

Now, by the time OTW got started, I’d moseyed over to not only a lot of live action US TV but a lot of old-as-fuck US TV that is squarely in the Media Fandom camp. But once upon a time, I was a weeaboo hanging out with my weeaboo friends in college. I learned Japanese (sort of). I moved to Japan. Livin’ the weeaboo dream!

More importantly, I used to be a member of a lot of anime mailing lists back in the Yahoo Groups days. I didn’t realize what a cultural gap that would cause until the original works issue came up on AO3.

I.e. Anime Fandom, German-language Fandom, Original M/M

Once upon a time–namely in that Yahoo Groups era–there was an archive called Boys in Chains. It was where you found The Good Stuff™. Heavy kink and power exchange galore! It was extremely well known in the parts of fandom I was in, even if you weren’t on the associated mailing list. It contained lots of fic, but it also had lots of original work.

Around that same era, I was on a critique list called Crimson Ink, which was mixed fic and original. The “original slash” and “original yaoi” crowds mixed freely and were in fanfic spaces. Remember, this is like 2003. You’re never going to get your gay fantasy novel published in English in the US. A couple of fangirl presses started around then, but they died an ignominious death after their first print run.

Fanfiction.net used to allow original work before it spun that off into FictionPress. We forget this today, but if you were an early FFN person, the separation wasn’t so great either.

Meanwhile, German-language fandom was hanging out on sites like Animexx.de, a big-ass fic archive that prominently mentions also including original work. I have the impression that Spanish-language fandom was similar too.

Shousetsu Bang*Bang was founded in 2005. It was a webzine for original m/m, but it was entirely populated by fanfic fandom types.

In all of those kinds of spaces, there was a lot of “original” work that was kind of slash or BL-ish and seen as fannish if it was posted in the fannish space. These weren’t anime-only spaces. They were multifandom spaces where it was seen as obvious and normal that a couple of huge fandoms like Harry Potter would dominate but that everything else big would naturally be anime.

While fans from every background are everywhere, I found that the concentration of EFL fans living in Continental Europe, South America, and Asia was much higher in this kind of space, even the exclusively English language part of it, than in my US TV fandoms.

II. AO3 Early Adopters

AO3 went into closed beta in 2009. In 2010, it was open to the general public (albeit with the invitation queue it still has). But not everyone was interested yet. Just like fandom is loath to leave the dying, shambling mess of Tumblr, fandom was loath to leave dwindling LJ/DW circles or was happy enough on Fanfiction.net. I used to see a lot of posts like “Why are you guys trying to STEAL fanfic from the original! FFN is enough!”

I literally could not give away the invitations I had. No one wanted them.

So who was on AO3? Obviously enough, it was all of us who built it and our friends. So that means a bunch of oldschool Livejournal slashers coming from fandoms like Due South or Stargate Atlantis.

The queue was open. Anyone could make an account. Everyone was welcome. In theory…

But more and more, there started to be these posts about how “AO3 Hates Anime Fandom” and “FFN is for anime. AO3 is for Western fandoms.” and “If you guys actually wanted anime fandom on there, you’d invite us better and make us more welcome.”

At the time, I found these posts obnoxious. People aren’t purely in one sort of fandom or the other. No one was stopping anime fandom from making accounts. No one was banning anime fandom. If there wasn’t much from old fandoms, that was because old fandoms seldom move.

Things began to change. Trolls on FFN forced the Twilight porn writers out, creating enough fuss and brouhaha to mobilize people who would rather have stayed put. AO3 got big enough that randos found it by accident. Original work started to pop up, posted by people who’d never looked at the rules and had no idea it was not allowed.

III. History of AO3’s Policy

I had argued for allowing “original work” during the initial discussions about the ToS. On one side of this issue was me. On the other, everyone else on the committee.

I was overruled.

Open Door started importing old archives to save them. Boys in Chains was hugely important to fandom history from my point of view. It was slated to be imported… maybe. Except that Boys in Chains is half original. AO3 was happy to grandfather in those stories, but the final archive owner felt, quite rightly, that it would be unfair to tell half of the authors they were welcome in the new space while spitting on the other half.

I was pissed. I had been pissed since being overruled the first time. To me, the fact that it should be allowed was so blatantly obvious that it was hard to even explain why.

(To be honest, this difficulty in explaining why and the even greater difficulty in figuring out the source of that difficulty is what held the discussion back for so long. When every assumption on either side is completely opposite, it’s hard to communicate.)

I felt betrayed. It would be like if you helped build something, and everyone was suddenly like “Well, obviously, we can’t allow m/m. It’s not normal fanfic.”

So we discussed it again and, again, it was me vs. literally everyone else. And still the “AO3 is only for Western slash fandom” bitching rose in volume and more and more people complained of feeling excluded from the new fandom hub. Finally, the committee agreed to open the issue up for public comment and get some more input. I was a fool and neither wrote nor proofread the post. It went out phrasing the question as allowing “non fannish” work or something of that sort.

I was furious. The entire point of the whole debate was that I saw some original work, the original work that belongs on AO3, as inherently fannish. And now this had been presented to the AO3 audience as something completely different. Think pieces were popping up in the journals of everyone I knew about diluting AO3’s mission and how we needed to save AO3 from encroachment. Public opinion was very negative. That’s both because of how the post was phrased and because OTW die hards at the time were mostly from the same fannish background. This tidal wave of negativity meant that there was virtually no chance of changing this poisonous rule. And if the rule didn’t change, the people who wanted the rule change were never going to show up to explain why it mattered.

If you’ve been reading my tumblr, I think you can guess what happened next.

I posted a long post to my Dreamwidth. It was a masterwork of passive aggression. In it, I wrung my hands about how simply tragic it would be if AO3 had to delete all of the original work… like anthropomorfic.

Now, I think anthropomorfic counts as fanfic as much as anything else, but I also knew that it fails most rigorous “based on a canon” type definitions of fic and, more importantly, it’s a favorite Yuletide fandom of many of the people on the side that wanted to ban original work.

That’s a nice fandom of yours. It would be a pity if something happened to it. 

Yup. Passive aggressive blackmail. Go me. Suddenly, there was a lot of awkward backtracking and confused running in circles in various journals. The committee agreed to table the idea for a while but not rule out the idea of allowing original works in the future. We agreed to halt all deletions of original work. If a fan posted it, the Abuse Committee (which I was also head of at the time) would not delete that work even though it was technically against the rules.

Time passed. The people on the negative side got tired. I wanted off that committee and had wanted off for ages, but I was damned if I was going to leave before ramming through this piece of policy. Grudgematch till I die! (Look, I never said I wasn’t a wanker.)

After a while, some other fans came forward with more types of “original work” as evidence that it should be allowed. These were from parts of fandom none of us on the committee knew a damn thing about.

This new evidence combined with the gradual accretion of original stuff on AO3 without the sky falling eventually led us to quietly rule Original Work a valid fandom. There was never even a big announcement post. I slipped a word to the Boys in Chains mod myself.

IV. What Were They So Afraid Of Anyway?

So why were people so resistant? Seems like a dick move, right?

Not exactly.

I mean, I was enraged and waged a one-woman war to change the rules, but the other side wasn’t nuts. The objections were usually the following:

I just don’t get why it would be allowed. It never was in my fannish spaces.

Most of our members don’t want this.

Most of the examples of things that ought to be included are m/m. We are privileging m/m if we allow it, and AO3 already has a m/m-centric reputation that can feel exclusionary to some fans.

AO3 is a young, shaky platform that can barely handle the load and content we already have. If we open to original work, we’ll be opening the floodgates. The volume of posting will be so high, it will drown out the fic we’re actually here to protect.

Protecting stuff that doesn’t need protection because it’s not an IP issue would dilute OTW’s mission.

If we allow it, idiots will try to turn AO3 into advertising space, posting only the first chapter and a link to where you can pay to read the rest.

If we add another category of text before we add fan art, that’s a slap in the face of the fan artists we are already failing.

These arguments all make perfect sense in context.

Obvously, the issue with the first two is that different fannish communities have different norms. I knew that a very large community disagreed with the then current AO3 policy, but since so few of them were around to comment, it seemed like a tiny fringe minority.

The m/m thing is… complex. M/M content with zero IP issues is at risk. It is always at risk in a way that even f/f is not (though f/f is also always at risk). Asking for m/m to be exactly equivalent to f/f or m/f in numbers, tropes, whatever is ignoring the historical realities. In our current moment of queer activism in the West, we treat all types of queerness as part of one community with one set of goals, but once you get to culture and art or even more specific activism, this forced homogenization is neither useful nor healthy.

OTOH, AO3 really did have PR problems related to the perception that we gave m/m fandom the kid glove treatment. That objection wasn’t coming from nowhere.

AO3 was shaky. It was tiny when I first brought up this argument. Hell, it wasn’t even in closed beta the first time we discussed this. Part of what made the quiet rules change possible was AO3 organically getting much bigger and OTW having to buy many more servers for unrelated reasons.

The “floodgates” thing was put to rest by tacitly allowing original work before the rules change. We had a period to study how fans actually behaved, and as I predicted, only a small amount of original work got posted. It was indeed mostly things like original BL-ish stories or original work that had been part of a mixed original/fic fest, exchange, zine, etc. Currently, the “Original Work” fandom on AO3 only has 76,348 works. That’s pretty big compared to individual fandoms but tiny compared to AO3’s current size.

The commercial argument was spurious because commercial spam had been against the rules from the very beginning. OH THE IRONY that nowadays AO3 has all these idiots trying to post the first chapter of their fanfic and then direct you to where you can buy the rest.

AO3 has plenty of fanfic of public domain works. One of the problems with gatekeeping original work is that any way you try to distinguish it (not based on a specific canon, not an IP issue, etc.) will apply to some set of obviously allowable fandoms.

As for fan art… OTW has failed fan artists. They needed protection as much as or even more than fic writers. Just look at Tumblr! If we had succeeded at making DeviantArt but allowing boners, fan art fandom could have been safe all these years. Or when Tumblr inevitably shat the bed, we could have scooped up all those people instead of them scattering to twitter and god knows where.

OTW has failed vidders too, at least in terms of preservation. I know I’m not the only one who thinks this. Other major people from like the first Board and shit have discussed this with me offline. Doing some kind of vidding project, possibly outside of OTW is on a lot of our to-do lists. But at least one of OTW’s biggest victories has been that copyright exemption. OTW has demonstrably done really positive things for vidders that other organizations and sites have not. As a vidder, I never expected to see good hosting for the actual video files, and I’m quite content.

But fan artists… yeah. That argument makes sense at least from a place of frustration.

BTW, for the love of god, if you’re a n00b to OTW stuff, please do not reblog this post excitedly telling me that hosting fan art is on OTW’s road map, so yay, good news. Someone always does that, and it’s so irritating. I haven’t been involved in OTW in years, but I used to be, and I know what is on the roadmap. The couple of you who do heavy lifting on sysadmin and coding and policy things are welcome to weigh in as usual. I know none of us like that we can’t host fan art. It’s not what we intended.

Nonetheless, I found this argument to be the perfect being the enemy of the good. If we can save more text now without losing much of anything, we should do it. The fact that we’re fucking up on the fan art front is not a reason to spread the misery around.

V. Is “Original” the Opposite of “Fanfic”?

Okay, so that tl;dr above is why “BNFs” were on one side and “nobodies” were on the other. BNFs from one cultural background founded OTW. BNFs from the other cultural background weren’t even aware that the debate was going on.

But what was the underlying philosophical problem in even having the conversation?

It took me a long time, but I finally worked it out: We had two completely different ways of categorizing writing, and they were so baked into how we phrased questions that everything ended up being unanswerable to the other side. Here is what I came up with:

Schema 1

Fanfic - based on someone else’s IP

Original Work - the opposite

Schema 2

Non-Fannish Work - School essays, stories you are writing to try to sell to a mainstream publisher

Fannish Work Type 1 - based on other people’s characters directly (i.e. fanfic) Type 2 - based on tropes or whatever (“original slash” and the like)

Now, in the current moment when half of Tumblr just got into Chinese webnovels and the m/m ebook industry is thriving in English, original, tropey, BL-ish work is no longer different from “things I am trying to sell”. But this is how the divide was circa 2005 on fannish websites, and it’s the divide that was driving this internal OTW debate.

VI. Let’s Summarize the Camps One More Time

So, again, the debate makes perfect sense if you understand who was involved.

On the mainstream “But that’s not fanfic? I’m confused?” side:

Big US TV fandoms in English

Fandom historians of K/S–>buddy cop slash–>SGA, etc.

Americans

On the other side:

Anime fandom

“Original slash” fandom that had already been chased off of everywhere

People upset that AO3 wasn’t farther on translating the interface and supporting non-English language fandom.

People upset about US-centrism in fandom

Yes, I am very white, very American, and by now very into old buddy cop shows, but this was basically how the breakdown worked. It meant that something that looked like a minor quibble to one side was really, really not.

[crowsent]

👶,⭐,💘, and💻. Love you!!

thank you for ask anon! writer ask game is here if yall wanna send in something. still taking asks for these btw

👶- advice for new writers =

yall this is hella fucking generic but PRACTISE. theres a reason almost literally every writer on tumblr gives the advise of “practise practise practise” and that reason is it works. practise doesnt mean ‘oh just write bc youll automatically get better over time’ it means ‘write bc if you dont, you wont figure out what you need to improve.’ did yall know that i literally had no sentence variation in the past? i started every sentence with [character name] or [character pronoun] and i didnt realise until i was 15/16 and i only realised bc i started writing a lot.

i think there’s a fear of failure with new writers. there’s this lingering doubt of  “what if its not good?” and boy howdy i will answer that question right fucking now. it wont be good. when i compare my current work to my earlier work, my earlier work sucked fucking shit. i spelled soldier with a fucking ‘j’ and i had no idea what the hell a point of view was. and thats okay. whoever tells you that youre going to perfect writing is a fucking liar. there is no perfecting writing. 20 years from now, imma look at the writing from today and im gonna think it sucks shit. writing is a process. its a craft. you get better and better over time and the way you get better is by experimenting w different styles, different genres, different ways of writing.

and the only way you can experiment and improve is through practise. in video games, especially rpgs (which are my favourite kind of video games), you struggle in the early game. youre at a low level, you dont have good equipment, you have a hard time moving to the next area. but the only way you progress is by grinding, gaining levels, and getting stronger. same w writing. if youre a level 1 writer, just starting out, no idea what to do, just experiment. fuck around a bit. write crackships, write rarepairs, write niche self-indulgent reader/character fics. at the end of the day, you should write for yourself. its good and cool if other people like your stuff and validate all your hard work, but at the end of the day, the one who should enjoy your writing the most is yourself.

you WILL mess up and you WILL struggle, but thats the only way you can improve. i struggle with pacing the most. still do. but others might have pacing down pat and struggle instead with word choice or pov or something else. cant figure out where you need to improve if you dont write, so just practise and worry about all the fine print later

⭐️- how do you get your inspiration? =

this is definitely not universal, but i just sit on my bed, close my eyes, and meditate. cycle through all my emotions and thoughts and filter them out. then i just toss everything out the damn window. like. id just meditate for a while, focus on breathing, on experiencing the present, picture a field and a tree and myself and breathe. thoughts fly by and i let them happen but dont focus on it.

meditating gives me some semblance of emotional control bc i normally have none, and it gives me kind of this space. this safe space that only exists for me and me alone. so i use that space to let the world drift away. just me and my thoughts and sometimes, those thoughts end up being good writing ideas. but i usually meditate for a set amount of time. like 15 minutes or 30 minutes so i dont write until i finish meditating.

then when i get out of my headspace, i open up my laptop and see what i remember. thinking too hard about something causes it to muddy up. same with art. in digital art, artists flip the canvas to refresh their eyes, see if there’s anything weird or wonky about the illustration that they normally dont see bc theyve gotten used to it. flipping the canvas is like giving our eyes a jumpstart and lets us see what we could do better. in traditional art, its turning the canvas this way and that or repositioning yourself. meditating is like that. a break. a cleanse. a kind of pause where you dont think about anything and just try to process what you already have. you relax and kind of let yourself float down a river of thoughts and sometimes, a fish would jump out of that river and youd go “hey, thats a good idea. i should try that” so when you get out of the river, youre refreshed and ready to go.

same principle with showers. more ideas come to you in the shower when you dont have anything to write with bc youre not thinking about it. youre not focusing on finding inspiration or motivation so ideas naturally flow through you. you know that feeling when you want to do x then someone comes along and says “hey you should do x” and suddenly all motivation to do x leaves? same w your brain. focus too much on “i should be writing” or “i want inspiration” and its never gonna come. just let things happen. at least, thats how i do it. some people might get inspiration by reading or watching tv. everyones different so if thats not what works out for you, dont feel pressured to try my method

💘- what’s your favorite AU? Least favorite? =

magic au. specifically fantasy au set in like a pre-modern era. shows like avatar where theres all this magic and fantastical beasts and so on and so forth. semi-modern like six of crows and nevernight are great too. i want that magic to be woven into people’s lives. harry potter is okay but there’s like this separation between magic and muggle. there’s this feeling of “magic” but like as a tool. like a spoon or a gun or a shovel. i want magic au’s that are INTEGRATED with the world its set in.

like in atla, earth kingdom people have trains they move with bending while fire nation people have machines powered by heat and steam. both correspond to their bending and makes sense for the world they live in. but if your plot is like harry potter and its less worldbuilding and more action, then there’s this book series called seasons rising (read it. so good) where there’s a bunch of spells but the spells have character. the people using the spells GIVE it character and it feels much more intimate. pokemon does the whole fantasy mixed w reality better. give two trainers the exact same pokemon and by the time that pokemon reaches lvl 50, its gonna have a different moveset, different fight style, etc bc it was shaped by the world and people around it. i like harry potter but tbh it could have been so much better

for the least favourite au, it’s A/B/O i dont like the whole “omegas are only good for breeding hurr durr” and “alphas are violent and aggressive and cant control themselves around omegas” thing and it squicks me out. major squick. i read the original harry potter squick (THAT one. yeah. you know the one) and i still hate a/b/o more. i get why people like it, and there are one or two fics set in a/b/o au that i enjoy reading, but as a whole, i severely dislike a/b/o fics.

the themes are squick, the character dynamics get so messed up, and shipping dynamics (bc a/b/o fics usually have shipping) just get so blown out of proportion. there are so many a/b/o fics that turn ooc or the character interpretations radically change or something else. no hate against a/b/o fans bc yall are amazing for writing/drawing yalls au. there are things that you can only do in this setting and exploring those things can be incredibly fun for people, but for me personally, its not an au i like to visit.

💻- three works of yours that are must reads =

i. dont know what fandom youre in anon or your genre preferences. so ill just rec you one fic for a different fandom each with kind of different genres. ts masterlist is on my side @hufflepuff-deceit and regular fanfic masterlist is on my writing blog @crownonymous 

(BNHA) Viper. its my first serious attempt at fanfic in YEARS and its my baby. currently has 7 chapters, i havent updated it in a while bc im hyperfocused on ts rn, but i love it to bits. its just all of my fav bnha fics crammed into one fic. quirkless kind of villain izuku with stain as a mentor as they work together to bring light to the injustices of hero society and where bakugos bullying has visible and long-lasting repercussions? sign me the fuck up. you can read it on ao3 HERE bc its not on tumblr. kind of fast-paced, has a lot more action scenes than anything else ive written. heavy plot-wise but has a lot of humour and comedy to break things up

(Kimetsu no Yaiba) I Pray To God He Hears You. not related to my other kny fic oleander which is a multichap retelling au. iptghhy is a standalone one-shot and kind of a character study on one giyuu tomioka. i love him so much. giyuu is my baby and i adore him. so of course i wrote a sad fic focusing on him. well technically, the fic focuses on giyuu AND his relationships.  SPOILERS for chapters 130 and 131 of the manga. focuses mostly on giyuu and sabito, but there’s a fair bit of giyuu and tanjiro and urokodaki.  you can read it HERE bc this is also not on tumblr. also deals with heavy things but more emotion-wise since it doesnt have that much of a plot. loss. grief. moving on. survivors guilt. that kind of stuff.  very sad. hurt but with comfort, especially at the end.

(Sanders Sides) Logan’s Birthday Fic: Logicality. just what the title says. i wrote 5 different fics and published them all on logans bday but the logicality one received the most feedback and honestly? the cutest of the bunch. its gonna be crossposted onto ao3 but for now, you can read it HERE on my ts sideblog. theres no plot since its literally just domestic and relationship fluff. and puns. patton is in the fic, theres gonna be puns. nothing but good things and warm feelings bc logan deserves it.

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thank you so much for such interesting asks anon! i enjoyed answering these. have a lovely day!

[neptunecreek]

Happy, Focused, and Productive: There Is An App for That!

Image by Ayyamsyria

One of my colleagues, Nada Hamzeh, a nonprofit capacity building consultant from Lebanon, tagged me when sharing this striking image that depicts how can easily develop a behavior addiction to our mobile phones. As Aliza Sherman and I wrote in the Happy Healthy Nonprofit  the apps on our mobile phones can be agents of distraction, but they can also be agents of calm.

When researching the book, we came up with a curated a list of our favorite technology wellness apps.   But last week, I was honored to do a webinar for Whole Whale where George Weiner and I discussed apps. I learned about a few more amazing apps. So, I thought I would take the opportunity share a few more.

(BTW, Third Plateau is offering a chance to win FREE copy of the book, if you email them your favorite wellbeing app.)

Productivity

Sanebox – Email causes a lot of stress for everyone with a never ending dump of 24/7 messages.    Sanebox can help you clean up your email and make it manageable so it isn’t a time suck.

InBox When Ready –  This a chrome plugin for gmail that maximizes the time you spend in email.  My colleague, Meico Whitlock (aka “Mindful Techie“) has more suggestions as does this recent post.

Moment –  If you are trying to break your addiction to your mobile phone, the first step is to become aware of how often you pick up and how many hours per week you spend on your phone.  This app will give you a regular report as well as what apps you are using.

GTimeReport –  We often feel time starved, too many tasks, too little time.  And that causes stress unless we reflect and analyze how we are actually using our time.  This tool, which works with Google Calendar, let’s you export your calendar information to a spreadsheet.

FocusBooster – Are you putting off more important tasks and doing less important tasks or simply avoiding them all together?  That  is procrastination and is one symptom of being distracted.   The Pomodoro method and app is one way to avoid the productivity loss of procrastination.

Idonethis – A simple app that helps you and your team track what’s been done.   Most people write “to do lists” that are never ending.  As soon as you tick off completed tasks, you add new ones.    Tracking what you have done allows you to track what you have accomplished and reflect on it, not bury myself in busyness.       Here’s a guide to this useful productivity habit.

Wellness

SuperBetter – This app helps you increase resilience or ability to stay strong, motivated and optimistic even in the face of obstacles. Created by gaming expert Jane McGonigal when she needed to recover from a concussion, it gamifies the process of creating good wellbeing habits.

StretchClock – Sitting is the new smoking.  And being sedentary for too many hours can lead to poor health outcomes.   This useful app gives a regular reminder to stretch.

CharityMiles –  This app tracks your steps and converts them into donations for a charity of your choosing.  You can also do a mini-competition using the leaderboard feature.

Flux –  Staring at your computer screen in the evening can disrupt your sleep because the bright blue light tricks your mind into thinking it is morning and time to wake up.  This app can help reduce the amount of blue light on your screen.  If you use an iPhone, you can do the same thing with the Night Shift feature.

Happiness

10% Happier  There are many apps that can help you practice meditation. This one is based on the book, 10 Percent Happier by Dan Harris and makes it easy.

Instacart –  Instacart lets you order groceries online and have them delivered.  Why include this app?  A recent study about happiness found spending money on time-saving purchases promotes daily happiness and reduces negative mood, because it protects us from the time stress that we feel in our daily lives.

Moodnotes – With this app, you can track your emotions in different work situations and it prompts you to reflect on the situation and how to manage it.    Having this self-awareness lays the groundwork to help you effectively manage your stress triggers at work and make you happier.  There are many Mood Trackers, apps that let you you chart your emotions and thoughts and test different self-management techniques.

What’s your favorite app for productivity, wellness, or happiness?

from Beth’s Blog http://ift.tt/2v2SlIv